MMM BAKING. Basic cooking questions.

[cjsmith]

I came home last night to discover that Rob, when tidying up to leave for the weekend, had tossed three perfectly good squishy brown bananas into the trash. Those are now in a big loaf of banana bread. (It turns out they weren't quite squishy enough yet, but they were fine after sufficient violence from me.)

Then I pulled out the Northern beans I was soaking for soup [original typo: soap] and tried to figure out what to do with them given that the local grocery store didn't have a ham bone. Seriously. They had ham hocks... SMOKED ones. Last time I substituted meat-that-had-had-something-done-to-it for meat in a recipe I was very sorry. So I turned that into a sort of Tuscan white bean and sausage soup. Do you have any idea how hard it is to concentrate on chopping up stuff for soup when the aroma of banana bread is taking over your brain?

Now I could start a yeast bread dough rising, and I should, soon, if I want fondue tonight, but I'm restin' my feet for a bit.

Time for a poll:

[Poll #1143214]

Comments

[tiger-spot.livejournal.com]

I said 3-5 on herbs and spices, but really it's going to vary depending on what you've got there. They lose a lot within the first year, but you can make up for it by using more; I don't know that they ever really get completely worthless, but there's definitely a point where new spices would be way lots better.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I guess "completely worthless" is a nonuseful way to ask the question. Of course, "worth replacing" depends a lot on one's budget, how one feels about waste, how important that spice is to the recipe at hand... eh. Oh well. I guess I got the general gist from the pattern of answers and from a few comments: they just sort of taper off into cardboardness over the span of a decade or so.

[inflectionpoint.livejournal.com]

Go to an Indian Grocery.

They have every spice in creation there, whole, ground, squooshed, and in forms I can't recognise.

And... you may buy as much or as little as you need. Want two bay leaves? Cool. Need six ounces of paprika? Fine. Want one tablespoon of onion seeds? You got it.

Buying them in this way prevents the waste of the grocery store where everything comes in the same size bottle whether you want the same amount of it or not. I love the Indian Grocery Stores.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Ooo, I want to do that... for chipotle peppers. I couldn't find those at the grocery, so I didn't do the chipotle pork recipe takhisis gave me last weekend. I'm going to try a run to a couple other (probably not better but different) grocery places tomorrow, if I have feet left for it.

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

Are you looking for chipotle in adobo? Because Safeway carries them, canned, in the Mexican section.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Yes I was, and my Safeway doesn't, grump!! Boy did I look, too!

There's another Safeway on my way to work, and I might pop in there for a look. I have another opportunity to spend time in the kitchen in two weeks.

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

If you don't find it, let me know. I'll get it for you!!!

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

You are awesome! I'll probably find some, but now you're offering this AND ham hocks bones... ;-) I can't imagine you'd want to drive over here with a can of chipotle peppers in adobo, but if we had a free day at the same time, I'd so make you fondue in return for that kind of thing.

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

You aren't *that* far away :). If it included lunch together, I'd think that was totally worth the drive :).

[labrat2.livejournal.com]

Are you in the Bay Area? I found there were a lot of good little stores in San Bruno (downtown). That's where I found inexpensive cardamom. Not sure I'm gonna find things like that here in Missoula. Maybe I should open a store :D

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm in the Bay Area, about forty minutes from San Bruno. There are also quite a few Indian grocery stores in southern Sunnyvale, along El Camino by Lawrence.

Wonder if it'd be worth *mailing* you some inexpensive cardamom!

[labrat2.livejournal.com]

LOL! Actually, I think I have enough to last me until the next century. I'm not using it very fast right now. Thanks for the offer though.

Ack! I used to live down there. I actually grew up in Los Altos but spent some time living in an apartment on El Camino by Lawrence. That was when I was working for a biotech company in Sunnyvale by the Central Expwy. Are you going to San Jose State? Or SCU? Or somewhere else? I can't remember.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Currently working at a startup right by Wolfe and Central. Not going to school anywhere yet, but looking to get a big pile of chem and bio any place that will let me in their classes. :)