More butter than oil, add white wine and a little lemon juice.

Thanks. Any particular white wine? Cooking wine? Pinot Grigio, Chardonnay?

scampi should be all butter, garlic, white whine?

If you are looking to stray from traditional scampi use sun dried tomatoes instead of regular ones, also asparagus is a nice substitution for broccoli you can add mushrooms too or whatever other veggies you really want. If you are looking to change up the sauce I wouldn't use hot sauce, but some cayenne pepper flake works well or balsamic vinegar is a nice addition too.

I usually pour a bit of cognac in the sauce when I make scampi

I always have some chopped up chili in it too

Any dry white wine will do.

I'm going to have to run away to Spain. I will leave a note for my family that the blame lies with Cookie.

On another topic, it must be the Cooking channel that's running episodes of The French Chef, Julia Child's first cooking show:

These really are gems if you haven't seen them previously. Because it's taped live, Julia is prone to having the same little mishaps we all do in the kitchen. It makes it all very refreshing in comparison to the seeming perfection in today's more highly produced food tv.

It bugs me when the current shows do the exact opposite of this. Example: some Food channel show (the one with with a black couple) where they make some sort of casserole. They put so much in the casserole dish I was thinking; "No way that doesn't overflow in the oven and cause a huge mess and a ton of smoke." Then they pull a perfect casserole out of the oven that obv wasn't overfilled. People watch that and overfill their casseroles only to have a huge smoky mess in their oven when they could have used it as an example of what NOT to do.

How anyone who cooks couldn't be at the very least entertained by those episodes of The French Chef is beyond me. Somehow, Julia Child had such a likable personality and was so adept without being showy.

I recently watched the entire series on Netflix, and with the exception of the first four seasons of LOST, I plowed through it faster than any other series.

lol save the liver!

I have a question I am kind of embarrassed to ask. I am clueless with cooking stuff. I looked up a couple of recipes for egg salad and they said that fresh eggs don't peel easily and it is better for the eggs to be at least a week old. Does this mean that I should boil the eggs first and let them sit for a week, or buy the eggs and let them sit for a week and then boil?

Any tips for peeling eggs would be appreciated as well. I am a noob at this obv.

Sit for a week, preferably on the counter, then put into a pot of cold water then bring to a boil. As soon as the pot is boiling, turn off heat, cover and let sit about 12 minutes. Next shock the eggs by putting them in ice water.

To crack, tap gently on the counter in several places, then roll on the counter under gentle pressure under your palm until it looks shattered like, well, an eggshell.

They are deffo meaning to let sit for a week, then boil. If not im pretty sure they would go bad (although i've never kept a cooked egg for more than a day!)

Remember to leave them somewhere smell-neutral - leaving them next to any strong smells will permeate the smell and take on that smell in the egg. (Of course, sometimes you want this )

after a ****ing horrendous yesterday (pokerwise) and after losing probably every single day this month, i decided to spend the rest of the day/night de-tilt-cooking.

blueberry, macadamia nut and coconut muffins made from scratch:



and homemade margherita pizza (pics + story below).

i'd never baked anything before in my life nor made homemade dough.. come to think of it, i don't think i'd ever used flour before yesterday (except maybe 15yrs ago helping mum make stuff at home, but that doesn't count) so i was super excited the whole time.

the entire process took like 7 hours, partly because i kept taking small breaks in between and i had to constantly keep one thing or another resting, but mostly because i didn't decide to make pizza until after the muffins were done + cooling and i wasn't de-tilted enough.

they were both v. good and i was pleased, but i got the feeling something was missing. the muffins were relatively better than the pizza (v. good, i might try using different flour next time.. this time i used plain flour & buckwheat flour).

the pizza was also tasty but there was definitely the sense of something not being quite there. i wasn't able to get my hands on buffalo mozarella at 10pm at night so i went with what i could get my hands on (better than the frozen shredded stuff at least). I think the biggest downfall was the tomato sauce/base though, it just didn't quite get there. the recipe i followed said to put the ingredients in a food processor and just whiz it up, but i might try doing what i've done in the past and make the sauce in pan with some garlic then let to cool before using.

Anyone advice?

Lastly.. as it was almost 11pm at night and I was getting everything ready to go, I re-re-re-re-re-read the recipe and discovered i didn't have a pizza paddle/peel to get the pizza on and off my already ridiculously hot pizza stone. Fear not i said!

Love blueberry muffins, (also big fan of macadamias too!). How was the texture, did u get them nice & moist? I've never made them before, guess I've been too worried they would turn out too dry.

the texture is actually a lot better than i was expecting, the blueberries help counteract the dryness a lot.

Nice! Any chance of a recipe?

this was the recipe i used:
http://www.eatingwell.com/recipes/bl...a_muffins.html

but i followed a lot of the techniques used by alton brown:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/a...ipe/index.html

I have made this a couple of times, great to keep in the freezer, and it might be a good pizza base as well. It is from Mario Batali's site:

http://www.mariobatali.com/recipes_penneeggplant.cfm

* Basic Tomato Sauce
* Makes 4 Cups
*
* ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
* 2 cloves garlic, chopped
* 1 spanish onion, cut into ¼ inch dice
* 4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
* 3 tablespoons chopped fresh thyme
* ½ medium carrot, finely shredded
* Two 28 ounce cans whole tomatoes
* Salt

In a 3 quart saucepan, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and cook until soft and light golden brown, 8 to 10 minutes. Add the thyme and carrot and cook until the carrot is quite soft, about 5 minutes.

Add the tomatoes, with their juice, and bring to a boil, stirring often. Lower the heat and simmer until as thick as hot cereal, about 30 minutes. Season with salt. The sauce can be refrigerated for up to 1 week or frozen for 6 months.

Made crab cakes today from my fresh catch.

The catch:



The cakes crusted in panko, with lemon aioli. I was experimenting a bit. The lighter cake was cooked at low temp in olive oil, the darker one at high temp in veg. oil. I prefer the darker one.

I hope you made bisque too?

Roy, that pizza looks great.

One of the best things about making your own pizza is that even when you misstep a little, it's still pretty damned good.

And yes, you should make your own sauce in a pan. Look at as many recipes as you can find, take everything that sounds good, and incorporate them all.

As for the crust, there are so many options, not only flavor-wise. You can use a machine, or you can knead it by hand (different results). You can roll it out by hand or with a rolling pin (different results). You can put it on a stone, a pan, a sheet, or the rack (all different results).

Looks like you're off to a great start, though. Once you get the basics down, it's nice to know you can always whip up a pizza with almost no prep at all.

So jealous of your crab cakes. For some reason I've been craving them.

Funny, I'm not even a fan of crab, but I find I really like a good crab cake. The freshness of the crab makes all the difference in the world which makes me think yours are probably better than any I've ever had. I too would prefer the crusty one.

Roy, no baking experience and you make a great looking pizza on your first attempt. Bravo!

Pizza is fairly easy and everyone should try it, so much better than a store one.

When I make a margherita, to add a bit of flavor, I drizzle it with a little good quality extra virgin olive oil when it comes out of the oven and also add just a sprinkle of sea salt. I add the torn basil after cooking as it gives the recipe a nice freshness. Yours looked great tho, keep up the good work.

i just saw that seinfeld where kramer is doing the "make your own pie" at poppy's. poppy is such a great character.

"it's a pizza the moment you put a you fist in a the dough!"