Semi On Topic - for all the copyright "fans"

It is kind of hard to laugh and wince at the same time, you know. LOL

~Connie~

I meant to add made me cringe but there is still not enough caffeine in my system yet!

Cheryl

Me too--but it made me giggle while my mouth was watering. They are my favorite cookie. As far as copyright laws, I only know what I read on a certain newsgroup that's very concerned with that matter.

Lucille

My favorite parts were the "to do list" and the little heart. Ironic.

Cheryl

Did you react as I did to the imitation vanilla substitute for the real thing. Has anyone but me gasped at the price of vanilla nowadays. It's almost as expensive to bake a cookie as to fill the gas tank on the car.

Lucille

Lucille,

I too had sticker shock that last few times I bought vanilla. The last time I bought vanilla it was the only thing I was purchasing. I bought the 8 oz. bottle. $22.00!?!?!?!?! Even the cashier was shocked. I told her I thought that ounce for ounce vanilla was probably the most expensive thing they sold. And I can abide the imitation stuff. If I am going to go to the trouble to make something from scratch I am going to use the best ingredients I can.

I make a lot of Toll House cookies. I organize a group of volunteers once a month to cook dinner at a local homeless shelter. We feed about 30 people (most of them young children). As a treat we generally make cookies for dessert. They get lots of grocery store bakery donations, but nothing beats homemade cookies. I am truly amazed at the number of people who, when given a choice of food prep jobs, volunteer to make the cookies and then cannot follow the very simple recipe on the bag of chocolate chips. We have not had a batch turn out the same way twice yet and we have been doing this for over a year.

Anne (>

Lucille wrote: > Did you react as I did to the imitation vanilla substitute for the real

Good baking with real ingredients is expensive! But still cheaper, on the whole, than the prepackaged goods. (Not to mention better tasting). I'm amazed that the Pepperidge Farm cookie packages that sell for $2.50 usually have fewer than a dozen cookies in them.

As for imitation vanilla, I can't stand the stuff. I can spot the aftertaste. I'm lucky that a neighbor brought me a HUGE bottle of VERY intense vanilla from Jamaica, and 1/4 tsp. is all most recipes need. It's almost a lifetime supply! (well, not quite).

If anyone here does lots of baking and has access to a Trader Joe's, note that their prices on nuts beats any supermarket. I've saved lots of money by loading up at Trader Joe's and just storing the nuts in the freezer.

Sue

-- Brenda

I have had some really awful Toll House cookies . . . made from the recipe on the bag. Other "regular" cookies as well.

I think it has to do with creaming the sugar/fat together as one problem. And how you add/beat in the eggs. The reason I say this is that I have made cookies with a mixer and cookies by hand and there's a huge difference. I prefer cookies mixed by hand.

The other factor is getting them out of the oven on time. :-)

Now, if I could just learn to make caramel . . .

Dianne

Lucille

Well, I don't make caramel, but I do make (if I do say so myself and all my friends rave) some pretty darn good caramel popcorn. It is a very simple recipe that I have never changed, but I have, over the last 20 years, developed certain techniques to make the measuring and mixing easier. I quit giving the recipe out when three women from a former office all tried to make it but ignored all my suggestions on cooking pot size and then complained about having caramel sauce all over their stove. I will make it for just about anyone that asks, but do start refusing after my 20th batch during the Thanksgiving/Christmas season.

Anne (> Anne Tuchscherer wrote:

Lucille,

Contact me off line - I have great source for REAL vanilla and it is reasonable and delish!

Cheryl

I love Trader Joe's! Bobbie V bought some of their vanilla which is wonderful stuff!

Cheryl

Absolutely. Even when I was a poor starving student, I'd use butter for baking because things didn't turn out right with margarine.

And Seanette can tell you about my oven's eccentricities. I've had the thermostat replaced three times, at least, and still, if you set it for anything over 300, odds are better-than-even that the oven will heat to

I'd only been in the house about a week, put chicken in, went to take a bath, and the smoke alarm went off as I was stepping into the tub. In order for chicken to be burned to a crisp at 350 at the time showing on my clock, I would have had to put it in the oven an hour before I left the office, and I knew that on that particular day, I'd filled out an overtime slip, so I was positive to-the-minute what time I left work. This was not a case of I was confused about how long the chicken had been in the oven.

Eventually, when the home-buyers' insurance company objected to yet another replacement, my boss wrote them a letter on his attorney letterhead pointing out that he had known me for many years, I have a reputation as a good cook, and if everything I'm putting into the oven is coming out burned, he would stake his reputation on it that the problem is the oven and not the cook. They authorized once more, but if that didn't work I'd have to live with it. We have our suspicions that the problem is that the gas-flow valve isn't shutting off when it should, and that none of the repairmen wanted to take the time to completely disassemble the stove to check that, so they did the easiest repair and relied on women knowing nothing about mechanics to insist that there are no moving parts in ovens, the only thing that could be at fault was the thermostat.

One of these days, when I'm feeling flush, I'm buying a new stove. Would've been cheaper to do that in the first place than pay all those co-pays for repeated non-productive repairs.

Ok. I'm confused. You must be making caramel if you're making caramel popcorn!

I asked about making caramel here at RCTN quite some time ago and nobody could help me. I called the county extension agent and they had no clue. I called the agent in the next county and they had no clue. All I get is: Yes, caramel is hard to make. :-)

I do everything the recipe says and it has only turned out once in at least 25 tries. It's one of those things I keep trying because I'm durned determined to get it.

Dianne

Anne Tuchscherer wrote:

You need to find a friend going to Mexico or the Dominican Republic, real vanilla is dirt cheap there. I am still working on the large bottle, 1 litre, I bought there four years ago.

"Dianne Lewandowski" wrote.

I think you are right. From observations in our church kitchen, I also think some cooks think fats are more interchangeable than they actually are. Margarine, butter, and shortening do not have the same result, either for taste or for texture, and old recipes I have that use lard turn out quite differently without. Add to that the confusion about soft margarines, low calorie margarines...... Dawne

There's a cooking show called "Good Eats" on the Food Network that has a really good detailed episode on making chocolate chip cookies and how each fat used effects the final cookie produced. The show is hosted by Alton Brown, who is a self admitted geek and is one of the only cooking shows I will watch as he *explains* how/why you should do something when cooking and how changing it will effect the outcome. I love the show! (especially the remote controlled rolling pin storage...) Heather WIP: Noah's Sub working through AB's baking book... the fun way!

"Good Eats" with Alton Brown is probably my favorite cooking show. He really is out to teach you something. I like that he cooks normal, everyday food (the kind of thing the vast majority of people, at least in the "western world" cook and eat). He uses lots of goofy fun to teach the science of cooking. He teaches how to cook things that so many of the younger generation never learned to cook "at our mother's knees". I loved his macaroni and cheese show! I have a couple of his cookbooks also. They are fascinating reading and truly produce "good eats".

Anne (> There's a cooking show called "Good Eats" on the Food Network that has