Capitol Hill Blue Forums Misc. Topics Food, Drink and Cooking Another "general" food thread

Anyone ever have French onion soup where they bake the bread on it in the oven? Also, no chicken broth, but beef stock. Ever try to get beef marrow bones lately? Years ago I used to make my own beef stock by browning some of the beef bones in the oven and then boiling about 10 lbs of them in a large stock pot all day on the oven. The product was worth the effort.

I'll throw out a "salad" query - and salad is in quotes for a reason.

My grandmother used to make a semi-sort-of Waldorf salad - apples, celery, nuts - with maybe some additional fruit. I've never been able to reproduce it because every Waldorf salad recipe I have seen has a mayo-based dressing, and Gran's was pure whipped cream. Sigh. Those days are gone.

These days a salad like that would be served as a dessert, but I'd like to revise it, take out the marshmallows (I forgot to mention the marshmallows), and make it a semi-healthy lunch salad. I'm guessing at a low/nofat vanilla yogurt as part or all of the dressing, but that seems kind of dull. I often throw a little cinnamon into the yogurt when I'm eating it on fruit salad - but can anyone recommend anything else that might liven it up a bit?

I'm thinking a salad I loved as a child is probably far too sweet for my taste now, but I'd still like to keep the dressing on the creamy-and-sweet side rather than creamy-and-tart.

I don't want to use any, um, dairy-substitute-lo-fat-chemical-whipped-dessert-toppying. In this part of the country, Cool Whip is secondary only to cream of mushroom soup as a standard ingredient!

Pickup either 1/2 or a pint of heavy cream, add a little vanilla, and get a blender, and you can recreate those days at least in part! A salad for me was a large bowl filled with lettuce, tomatoes, sometimes cucumbers, maybe onions, and olive oil and vinegar, and a loaf of seeded rye bread from the bakery. My mother would also toss in a clove of garlic for flavor, which I always somehow always forgot about until I bit into it. Now, no problemo, but tastes change.

Getting Rid of Your Grocer An idea whose time has come again? From the article: However, this certainly isn't for everyone and no guarantee of success, but I believe that we'll see more emphasis on the local community to solve problems. I remember stereoman talking about his activism and participation in local groups. I think that Steve may be a little ahead of his time.

Mellow, I'm going to suggest a dressing made with Major Grey's Chutney. Blend it with whatever you'd like, equal parts of softened Cream Cheese and Cream would be my choice. If Major Greys isn't your cup of tea perhaps a different Chutney.
Not quite savory but also not "just" sweet.


Just as I submitted this I had another thought about the white stuff, Creme Fraiche would be ideal but it's hard to get your hands on. Mexican Table Cream is also a matured cream yet without the "sour" of sour cream.

Meat Markets have gotten very proud of their bones these day and it costs an arm and a leg to make Brown Stock . They seldom get the carcasses anymore so they don't cut anything from the bones themselves and there are no bones going to waste.
Joe, the bread for that onion soup must be mounded with Gruyere Cheese and slowly slowly baked rather than toasted, that way it wont immediately turn to mush on the soup. Then when the bread is floated on the soup another handfull of Gruyere goes on top and is quickly melted under the Salamander and gotten to table while the bread is still crispy. As you know there is nothing finer than prying the bread and cheese aside to get that first taste of the soup.

I can get creme fraiche at my local grocer, Greger. And I should have been more clear that it was the artery-clogging fat of the cream that I'd like to get away from...I love real cream, heavy cream, table cream, whatever - but at my age and weight it has to be reserved for special occasions.

Julia, fat free plain yogurt is the answer then. The white stuff really isn't as important as the flavor. Does yogurt whip like cream? Let me run off to the test kitchen and see.

First I googled, not much there but here is an interesting link: Hot Whipped Yogurt

What on earth makes people think of this stuff? Hot, whipped yogurt???

But from the looks of Google, you can whip yogurt - you can even buy it whipped...Hmmm.

Most Indian recipes call for yogurt so hot yogurt isn't such a stretch. A small container of fat free plain yogurt did not whip up in the blender. I added a dash of 2% milk to loosen it up but still no luck. Then a teaspoon of olive oil. Nada. I removed it to a small mixing bowl and added 2 tablespoons of reduced fat Cream Cheese and used a hand blender on high, a definite improvement in texture but it didn't whip like like cream at all. Then I blended in a few chopped olives and sun dried tomatoes and served it on a wedge of Iceberg lettuce. Nice.