Eggnog cake sounds like it would be good in theory, mm1991; sorry it didn't turn out well. I've only ever made chocolate buttercream and cream cheese frosting, as well as some experimental frosting recipes that had things like whey protein in them and probably don't deserve the term "frosting". One of these days I want to give a cooked frosting like seven minute frosting a try!

Valia, I never actually got around to making sourdough starter myself (on the Paleo diet right now; hopefully not forever because I still want to try it! ), but I've read quite a bit about it and it would be my guess that your starter is struggling because it's winter time. The temperature of your house has probably dropped a little and it's not able to ferment as easily. If you put it in a warmer place (like on top of a slightly warm stove, or maybe near a light bulb), that ought to help get it going again.

I don't post here much, but it's sure fun reading the comments, mainly because I adore food.

I wanted to go back to boiling eggs for a minute ...

So for boiled eggs, I always use store bought as my in-laws eggs are far too fresh and won't peel.
Here's the fool-proof way my mom taught me and it works every time, provided I'm paying attention.
Put your egg in a pot of room temperature water on the stove and crank up the temperature. Once it reaches a rolling boil, start a timer for 13 minutes. When your timer goes off drop your egg into ice water to cool.

True-true. It is unbelievably annoying and so time-consuming to try to peel farm-fresh eggs. Farmers say to give them 2 weeks, at least, before they are comfortably peel-able. So, if I'm doing mounds of deviled eggs for an event, I will purchase them in the grocery store, which, because they are older, peel just fine. 'Though we do prefer the taste of fresh eggs more, so I wish they could work for peeling.

And this is what my mom taught me, lol, quite similar to your family's way, fantasia: put your eggs in a pot of room temperature water on the stove and turn the dial on high. Bring to a boil. Turn OFF the dial, but keep the pot on the element. Remove after 11 minutes and put in cold water to cool. I find if I somehow forget about them and they stay cooking too long, that pretty yellow yolk begins to turn a dusty grey.

I love popping a warm freshly-hard-boiled egg into my mouth. (Not in one bite, though. ) In fact, I have some on the stove cooking now.

I've been making soups this winter and freezing them or giving some away. Boy, are they tasty: hamburger soup, veggie-beef soup, turkey-noodle soup (from the carcass of our Christmas bird), broccoli-potato soup. And the latter is especially scrumptious with croutons tossed in just before eating. Mmmmm!

Trouble is with the turkey soup, our son (who loves spice-spice-spice) threw as few too many hot peppers in the soup , so while it's a tasty dish, it is rather spicy. I'm going to add some sour cream to try and neutralize the taste a bit.

Rose, thanks! However, ummm, so the recipe I've been following has you keep the starter in the fridge, so... Am I not supposed to? Or do you think it possibly has to do with the fact that I switched from a glass bowl to a metal one?

Hurrah for the soups, Jo! Those all sound delicious. Are they simple recipes, or pretty complicated?

I like things non-complicated, so the soups are, yeah, simple. A couple of them have many ingredients, which, of course, take a fair bit of time to chop up, but as for the process, it's easy ... and with the end product being so satisfying to the tastebuds.

We're having an extended family Christmas gathering today. My dad is the best mashed potato 'chef' I know. His secret? Very simple: lots of butter and 1/2 & 1/2 cream (rather than milk). No calories whatsoever. And since he's turning 90 tomorrow, I'm bringing one of his favourite treats: Cheerio Squares—the same as Rice Krispie Squares, only with Cheerios. Obviously. Yummy! I'm off processed sugar now (my choice) and these will be mighty hard to resist.

...do you have recipes to share, Jo?
Yum for the potatoes! Butter and Half & half, my mom would love that. My grandfather made the best mashed potatoes; I took over for family gatherings after he died. Mine go up and down, but adding sour cream and/or whipping (instead of mashing) the potatoes have had some pretty good results.
And Cheerio/Rice Krispie squares are delicious.

Edit: Jo, do your Cheerio treats have peanut butter in them? Because I made some tonight that did (they were delicious).
I also made mashed potatoes; no half & half or sour cream available, but they turned out pretty well.

From what I've read, Valia, it's totally fine for less frequent bakers to store their starter in the fridge over the week, although you want to give it one to two hours at room temperature after feeding it before you refrigerate it again. Cultures for Health has a good article on various methods of feeding sourdough starter. (Scroll down to see the one for their recommendations on feeding refrigerated starter on a weekly basis.) In general, I've read that it's not a good idea for fermenting foods to come into contact with metal (short exposure to a metal utensil is okay), but I've never been able to figure out exactly why, other than the fact that it might harm the metal itself because it's acidic. I might have to do some googling and get back to you on that!

(EDIT: So I googled because I'm a compulsive googler ( ), and apparently prolonged contact with metal can kill the yeasts in the sourdough. So it's possible that transferring it to a metal bowl could have given it some trouble. A little time on your kitchen counter top and a couple of feedings ought to nurse it back to health, though!)

A very happy birthday to your father, Jo! Mmm, those Cheerio Squares sound so good. I don't think I've ever had any of those before, but I do love Rice Crispy Treats. I had an epiphany about that the other day: "You can take the Rice Crispy Treat principle and apply it to ANY kind of cereal!" I think I've seen recipes for marshmallows made with honey and gelatin, but I'm not sure how well that would work in that kind of application, and it's definitely not as easy as opening a package of Jet-Puffed.

Lately I've been making easy "taco salads" by adding taco seasoning to ground chicken and tossing it with some chopped cabbage, raw onion and whatever salsa I have on hand. (A garnish of sour cream would be nice, too, but I'm not eating dairy right now. Harrumph. ) It's really tasty and very easy, and it's nice to make ahead for the next couple of day's lunches, too. I tried a version with green tomatillo salsa today and I think that's my favorite so far.

Thanks for your compulsive googling, Rose. Your post was helpful! I'll try transferring back to a glass bowl and letting it sit out a little bit before refrigerating it again. Did you happen to find anything about why they say to put it in a tight jar? I don't have any jars large enough for starter, so I just cover the bowl with saran wrap with a few holes poked in it.

We make all sorts of variations of Rice Krispie treats depending on what cereals we have around and open. A particularly fun one is Reese's Puffs treats...

I suppose the cabbage is raw in your salad, Rose? We'll have taco salads occasionally, but it's typically all the usual taco fixings (e.g. ground venison, kidney beans, cheese, and taco chips if we have them) on a lettuce mix. I'm not sure how I feel about raw onion on the salad without something to "wilt" it a bit.

I'm not as hard-core of a Food Network fan as I used to be as I felt their political leanings were shining through but I still follow their Facebook page, and they had an article a few weeks ago on "Desserts for Two."

http://www.foodtv.com/5c800

Well the concept is fun in and of itself, but I thought the cakes they had on there were absolutely BRILLIANT! I mean seriously, what a simple idea of making one round cake, cutting it into 8 pieces, stacking and frosting them, and having two pieces of cake.
We're going to try the carrot cake tomorrow, but instead of four triangles per piece, I think we'll just do two triangles per person as there are four of us.

You're welcome, Valia! With most fermenting things, you'll want to keep them tightly covered with a cloth and a rubber band to keep bugs away (they're attracted to the gases that are released by the fermentation process), and in the refrigerator where there's no threat of curious bugs, I think it's recommended to keep it tightly covered just to prevent it from drying out. I would think that it should be all right to just cover it with saran wrap, although you may not need to poke holes in it since it's pretty dormant in the fridge. For most of my cultured adventures (fermented, not refined ), I use quart-sized, wide mouth Mason jars. They work well!

Mmm, Reese's Puff treats! I've been wondering about Trix treats, and Froot Loop treats, and Cocoa Puff treats... Just when I've sworn off grains for an indefinite period of time. Oh well; my inner kid can dream.

Lol, I only use a tiny bit of raw onion in my salads. You've really got to watch that stuff; it's potent. And yes, the cabbage is raw. I'd honestly prefer lettuce, but cabbage tends to be a lot lower with pesticide residues when you aren't buying organic, so I opt for that most of the time. It's still very good!

I love that idea, fantasia! I've done something similar. I don't know why, but it's so much more satisfying to have a multi-layer cake slice as opposed to several little flat pieces, or even a couple of cupcakes. I suppose we really do eat with our eyes. Let us know how the recipe turns out!

I discovered the next up and coming thing (I'm sure) to take America by storm and spread diabetes throughout the population.

Oh my, I can't believe that no one thought of this before. It's brilliant. And fattening. *adores raw cookie dough* But, wow, I think I'd start with a small coneful—one could feel rather wired after a large consumption.

I love making hearty meals on winter days. It's been snowing much of today, and there's just something about a simmering pot of chili, a bubbling slow cooker full of broccoli/potato soup, or a richly-laden stew baking in the oven that makes me very happy.

Rose, thank you for the reply (and sorry about my very delayed response ). I appreciate all the research you've done! I'll have to think about getting a big mason jar or two.
Unfortunately, my sourdough starter adventure has come to an abrupt halt: I pulled it out of the fridge tonight and found orange streaks in it. Google has informed me the starter has somehow got infected, so I need to toss it. I suppose the good news is that the starter was still kind of sickly, so... So now I've got to figure out when a good time to start a new sourdough starter is...maybe I'll wait until it gets a bit warmer. By the way, if you have any of your sourdough research links saved, could you send me any you found particularly useful/interesting? I should probably have a better idea of what I'm doing before I try this again.
Cocoa Puffs treats are good too. Sorry for you being off grains though!
Raw onion is potent. So the salad is maybe almost more a taco coleslaw? Glad it's still good!

Ooooh, yum, fk. How did your mini-cakes go?

Hurrah for the soups, Jo! I've been thinking about making a batch of sweet potato soup next week; we'll see if I actually pull it together.

Oh my goodness, fantasia. If that isn't a sign of the end times, I don't know what is.

Those hearty wintertime meals sound delicious, Jo! We've had a few days of freakishly warm weather the past couple of weeks, but most of the time it's still chilly, so I've been making a lot of tomato-based chicken and vegetable soup lately. It's a pretty basic recipe and it's easy to use either Italian or Mexican seasoning depending on what people are in the mood for that night.

Now it's my turn to apologize for the late reply, Valia! One of my favorite websites for information and recipes for cultured foods is Cultures for Health. A few good articles that they have on sourdough are Basic Principles for Working with Sourdough, How to Activate Sourdough Starter, and How to Feed a Sourdough Starter. One of these days I'm going to put all of this info to good use and give sourdough a try myself!

Taco coleslaw is a perfect name! Why didn't I think of that?

My mom's birthday is tomorrow and the cake she requested is this one with cream cheese icing. It's kind of a family favorite and we've taken to tweaking the recipe a little over the years... we usually double the vanilla, skip the almond extract, and use 1/2 stick of butter in the place of 1/3 cup of canola oil. I think you could use plain yogurt with any fat content and it would still turn out great.

How did your mom's cake turn out, Rose?

Valia, I hope your next sourdough attempt is a better success.

I promised my old faithful Magic Finger Jello recipe, so here it is:

2 pkgs unflavoured gelatin
2 pkgs jello, any flavour
2 & 1/2 cups water (total)

Sprinkle unflavoured gelatin (use 4 cup bowl) over 1 cup cold water.
Separately, bring 1 cup of water to a boil;
add Jello; bring to boil again.
Remove from heat and add to gelatin mixture.
Add 1/2 cup cold water.
Mix thoroughly.
Pour into lightly greased shallow baking pan. Let set in fridge until firm, about 2 hours. Cut into pieces with knife or use cookie cutters for more fun shapes.

Kids love this stuff (so do adults ). It's much firmer than regular jello and is great to bring to parties at the school or whatever. Tasty, too!

I also have a great playdoh recipe that I used every month (at the least) when our kids were young. They spent hours playing with playdoh, using any number of different utensils and kiddie tools to have fun and create.

2 cups flour
1/2 cup salt
1/4 cup cream of tartar
Mix these well in large saucepan.

Make well in dry ingredients and pour in 2 cups water, then 2 tablespoons cooking oil. Mix over medium heat. Stir until makes a ball (this part is good for the arm muscles ). Knead a packet of dry koolaid—any colour—in when still warm, and voilà. It keeps for ages in a sealed container.

No worries, Rose! Thank you for the links! I've given them a quick read-through, but will have to go back through them when I restart the starter.

Taco coleslaw is a perfect name! Why didn't I think of that?

Because it doesn't sound as nice as "taco salad"?

Thanks, Jo; I hope it works out better the next time too.

This week is kind of a weird one for meals, so I think I'll hold off on the soup for another week. I do have a couple of apples to use, so I may be making some muffins or something.