USCHO Cooks: Open Your Mystery Basket.

[dxmnkd316]

Re: USCHO Cooks: Open Your Mystery Basket.

Holy crap. I have just found out my mom is not only familiar with grape salad but has had a couple different preparations.

I feel like I'm seeing an ivory billed woodpecker. People swear they've seen them, people have pictures of them, but you just can't believe them until you see one for yourself.

[jen]

Re: USCHO Cooks: Open Your Mystery Basket.

What the **** is grape salad?

the whole article, for reference. A lot of the choices are very strange. Minnesota gets grape salad because one person had it? They're trying a bit too hard to be on trend with some of these. Also there's mention of corn pudding (sorry, it belongs to Virginia).

Wisconsin got wild rice and mushrooms. I'd link wild rice more to Minnesota than Wisconsin.

[Timothy A]

Re: USCHO Cooks: Open Your Mystery Basket.

What the **** is grape salad?

Sour cream and cream cheese are the dressing. You can google the standard recipe and I recommend it, it tastes awesome. My nephew makes it and he adds more crunch than the recipe calls for.

[MissThundercat]

Re: USCHO Cooks: Open Your Mystery Basket.

One restaurant is doing away with tipping

[St. Clown]

Re: USCHO Cooks: Open Your Mystery Basket.

Mint is Christmas for me. And I'm the one making the cookies. Candy canes are mint, and my grandmother always made grasshoppers at Christmas.

Mint is most definitely Christmas, like you said with the candy canes. Those fruity ones are only new within the last couple decades, and they don't hold up to the peppermint ones. You go into any coffee shop, order their Christmas themed mocha, it's got peppermint syrup or crushed peppermint candies mixed in. Mint is a Christmas flavor all the way, right up there with gingerbread.

[jen]

Re: USCHO Cooks: Open Your Mystery Basket.

Mint is not Christmas.
The only thing at all that I can think of that is mint flavored that has an association with Christmas are candy canes, and they suck something fierce. I don't want my cookies to taste like toothpaste.

Mint is Christmas for me. And I'm the one making the cookies. Candy canes are mint, and my grandmother always made grasshoppers at Christmas.

[bigblue_dl]

Re: USCHO Cooks: Open Your Mystery Basket.

Mint is not Christmas.
The only thing at all that I can think of that is mint flavored that has an association with Christmas are candy canes, and they suck something fierce. I don't want my cookies to taste like toothpaste.

[JF_Gophers]

Re: USCHO Cooks: Open Your Mystery Basket.

Acceptable xmas add ins are: nutmeg, vanilla, eggnog, gingerbread and if you're a coffee shop, caramel.

Also good old fashioned frosted sugar cookies.

[jen]

Re: USCHO Cooks: Open Your Mystery Basket.

Stop ruining food with peppermint!

I'm not sure what kind of cookies I'll make yet. But I only make a couple batches, unlIke Jen who could feed small villages.

mint = Christmas. I try to limit cookies to seasonally appropriate varieties (some exceptions, like PB Maple, which, have I mentioned, is the greatest cookie ever?). Mint, gingerbread, rum, seasonal shapes, etc. I'm pretty heavy on the mint this year, though. But I think there's enough different kinds so the mint haters will find something they like.

It's hard to think of other Christmas flavors. Anything eggnog I've tried has not been eggnogg-y enough for my taste. Almond extract reminds of me Christmas, but I absolutely detest it and refuse to use it.

and I only feed maybe half a village.

[melmac]

Re: USCHO Cooks: Open Your Mystery Basket.

What the **** is grape salad?

If I had to guess, it is either Cool Whip based or a Jello based. Probably standard church basement fare.

[dxmnkd316]

Re: USCHO Cooks: Open Your Mystery Basket.

What the **** is grape salad?

[jen]

Re: USCHO Cooks: Open Your Mystery Basket.

Try a cleaned out tin can, or a wide-mouth mason jar.

They don't seem sharp enough to cut the edges without compacting the dough, so the biscuits still puff up evenly.

[MadTownSioux]

Re: USCHO Cooks: Open Your Mystery Basket.

Made buttermilk biscuits and sweet potato biscuits for Thanksgiving. I need a bigger biscuit cutter, because I got pretty small biscuits (they puffed up OK.. they're just small).

Try a cleaned out tin can, or a wide-mouth mason jar.

[JF_Gophers]

Re: USCHO Cooks: Open Your Mystery Basket.

Stop ruining food with peppermint!

I'm not sure what kind of cookies I'll make yet. But I only make a couple batches, unlIke Jen who could feed small villages.

[jen]

Re: USCHO Cooks: Open Your Mystery Basket.

Started the Christmas cookies last night and made chocolate peppermint pinwheels. Bittersweet. After 4 years of making pinwheels, I think my shaping has gotten very good..... so I didn't have any malformed ones to taste test.

And I already had to run to the store in the middle of baking because I ran out of something, and it's only the first cookie. But, in my defense, I hadn't originally planned on starting last night.

Some yellow cake porn from Gesine Bullock-Prado. She used Nestle Delightfulls (those little filled chocolate chips). I was hesitant to use them, since I assumed they'd have that "fake" flavor that's in a lot of non-chocolate chips, but apparently they're good. Or they're paying her.