Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with cooking

How to store homemade chocolates

MeghanC — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:36:35 -0800

How can I tell what sort of homemade chocolates are safe to store at room temperature? Every year at the holidays, I make a bunch of assorted chocolates to give away as gifts. Previously this has been mostly limited to chocolate bars, chocolate-covered things, and things like coconut haystacks--things where all of the ingredients are safe to store at room temperature.

This year I'm looking to expand, but I'm having a hard time figuring out how to safely store things.

I'm hoping to make an assortment of truffles--the sort where you mix cream and chocolate, and then dip the ganache center into chocolate to coat it. Looking at recipes, I've seen everything from "store in the refrigerator" to "store at a cool room temperature". My house is kept at about 55--is that sufficiently cool? Does it change things that most of the recipes I've found are for uncoated truffles?

I'd also love to venture into things like bacon chocolate--would this need to be stored in the fridge? Cold storage isn't really great for chocolates (I'd rather they not bloom) and this would make them difficult to ship. Bacon chocolate bars aren't unheard of and are sold in supermarkets, so clearly there's a way to make them that leaves the chocolate shelf-stable, but is it something that can be accomplished at home, or does it only happen through the magic of factories and industrial equipment?

Obviously things like caramels (made with cream) can be kept out, but what about things like buttercreams?

Googling is getting me a lot of recipes and information from various chocolatiers about how to store their chocolates, but not a lot about storage of home production. Any tips, links, or opinions would be greatly appreciated.

Must have luxury kitchen item suggestions please.

MaryDellamorte — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 16:07:58 -0800

What is a good/luxury cooking item for around $50? I'm looking to get something for my brother for Christmas and he loves to cook. He isn't a baker though. I know an obvious answer would be a good knife, and though suggestions in that area are appreciated, I think I want to step out of that box a little bit. I don't do a whole lot of cooking, just basic stuff so I don't really know what's good and useful to have and what's not. Thanks!

Alternative to tomato for vegetarian stew base.

piratebowling — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 09:23:40 -0800

I have a loose vegetarian stew recipe that I have made up that is wonderful in the sense that it is flexible and quick. It does have one constant, in that it has a tomato base. What can I sub the tomato content with? The recipe usually involves sauteing up some garlic or onions, throwing in a can of chopped or crushed tomatoes (pre-seasoned, or unseasoned) adding in a couple cups of legumes (chickpeas or lentils usually) then whatever veggies I feel like (squash, broccoli, mushrooms, kale, spinach, whatever I have around or feel like). I then serve it over cous-cous or some other starch. I find it fairly no-fuss and filling. I also like that I can play around with veggie and spice combos. However, the constant of the tomato base is beginning to bore me. What else could I put in there to sauce it up a bit and tie all the veggies and legumes together into a nice stew goodness?

Yet another "should I eat this?": black beans

k. — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 10:33:13 -0800

Should I Eat This? Filter: cooked black beans left in a pot overnight. Yesterday I was waiting for the pot to cool before putting it in the fridge, then forgot about it, leaving it there (with the cover on) until this morning when I put it in the fridge. There are no meat ingredients.

Wanted: Madhur Jaffrey's Ultimate Curry Bible

lioness — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 03:11:31 -0800

Do you have Madhur Jaffrey's Ultimate Curry Bible on your bookshelf? Could you flip through in search of a pork recipe with mustard seeds? I'm hosting a small informal dinner tonight and was planning on making one of my favourite recipes from Madhur Jaffrey's Curry bible. Alas, I can't find my book and I need to start prepping!

The recipe was on the top of a left page and the title was in the vein of 'pork with mustard spices'. It entailed making your own spice mix with the usual suspects. Frying mustard seeds, adding pork strips, the spices, curry leaves and bean sprouts. Maybe some diced tomatoes were added, I'm not sure.

Could you find it for me?

As a last resort I will head to my library, but I'm hoping on a faster response here.

Catfish Tikka Death

sully75 — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:02:00 -0800

I may be my own personal typhoid Mary. Food safety questions inside. 1) If I make a big pot of soup, lately this is Mark Bittman's African Chicken Peanut soup (which is friggin awesome), sometimes I make about 1.5 gallons of soup in a big pot. So, when it's done, it's usually hot (duh) and it's at night. So rather than decant it into tupperware things, I leave it in the pot on the stove to cool. In the morning I pour it into tupperware and put it into the fridge.

So question: is it ok that it's sitting out at night, probably after it's cooled down, for a couple of hours? If that's not ok, what should I do differently?

And how long can I eat this tasty soup for? Last time I froze half. After I unfreeze it, how long would it still be good for?

2) I'm going to try to do a chicken-tikka-masala recipe but using catfish instead of the chicken. Again, I will be making several portions, maybe 3-4 meals worth. Can I store this in the fridge or freezer? What's my best practice for not poisoning myself or my friends?

Greener cookware recommendations?

cadge — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:56:17 -0800

Can you recommend greener cookware (preferably not cast iron)? My small set of cookware (one frying pan and two saucepans) is getting really old and worn out, and it's time to replace it all.

I've read up on safer and more environmentally-friendly cookware, but I'm having trouble figuring out what would be the best type to buy. It's a bit overwhelming.

In every writeup (and previous Ask MeFi post), dozens of people recommend cast iron. But I've looked at cast iron cookware in my local shops (a cookware shop and a camping shop) and it's just too heavy for me! It was effort just to pick the smallest pan off the shelf! I'd really like to avoid buying cast iron cookware if I can.

My cooking needs aren't much. Mostly I use the frying pan for simple stir fries, tofu, grilled cheese sandwiches, and browning ground meat. I don't fry eggs. I use the saucepans for vegetables and pasta sauces. I'd like to cook more, but I doubt it'll be anything elaborate. That said, I don't mind investing in higher-quality/higher-price cookware that I can use for years to come.

Tell me how to make a simple widget to post on my website.

markcmyers — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 14:38:20 -0800

Tell me how to make a simple widget to post on my website. A home cook will enter how many cups of an ingredient are called for by a recipe and she'll choose from a list the type of ingredient (e.g. bread flour or baker's sugar) and the widget will convert the volume amount to grams so she can use her food scale to weigh out the ingredient. Can you recommend a widget generator for a nonprogrammer?

recipes for a non-vegetable/fruit eater

Busy Old Fool — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 06:30:20 -0800

Friends are coming to dinner and I'm relishing the challenge of finding a recipe that will satisfy the picky eater who doesn't like any vegetables. Can you help? I'm not vegetarian, but I love vegetables and, when cooking for myself, frequently go weeks without meat.

However, among the friends who will be coming to dinner soon is one who detests vegetables and legumes of any sort. If they're minced up and unrecognizable (like onions in a sauce), it's OK. He likes meat, cheese, bread, potatoes, rice, pasta.

I have a mental block, because almost everything I can think of has some sort of vegetable component. Bobotie, curry, Thai dishes, moussaka... I'm sure there are loads of things that will suit him without just defaulting to meat with veg on the side which he can't have. (That's what has been served at other dinners he's attended and I'd like to do something a bit different.)

Any ideas?

lazy cook and lazy math

Jason and Laszlo — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 12:49:16 -0800

dried beans --> canned beans conversion my recipe calls for 1/2 lb of dried white beans. I will be using canned beans. How many cans/ounces of canned beans do i need? thanks!

How do I remove the fat from chicken broth?

esprit de l'escalier — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:19:08 -0800

How do I remove the fat from chicken broth? I boiled 5 pounds of chicken backs and necks for 3 hours. The last couple times I did this, I put the broth in the fridge, and was able to remove a thick layer of fat. This time I made a lot more broth than usual, so maybe it cooled more slowly in the fridge? The result is that the broth is very fatty, but so homogenized that I can't skim any fat off of it.

I tried reheating some of the broth and putting it in the freezer, but I couldn't figure out if I was skimming fat or gelatin.

Snickerdoodle Emergency!

padraigin — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:29:06 -0800

Quick! Help me continue my snickerdoodle baking extravaganza now that I'm out of cream of tartar! I am making about a million cookies for Halloween festivities at my kids' school tomorrow.

I ran out of cream of tartar and need to make one more batch of dough.

My snickerdoodle recipe calls for one teaspoon of baking soda and 2 teaspoons of cream of tartar.

I have baking powder. My cookbook (America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook, where the snickerdoodle recipe I'm using is found) indicates that one teaspoon of baking powder can be replaced with 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda plus 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar.

I don't get how 1/4 teaspoon of anything plus 1/2 teaspoon of anything equals a teaspoon of something else, but I need to know if I can substitute baking powder for the baking soda/cream of tartar combo in this recipe without totally jacking it up, and if so, in what proportion?

Vegetarian cookbook recommendations sought!

Phire — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 22:22:19 -0800

Give me your favourite vegetarian cookbook that has illustrations of simple but delicious meals, and offers the nutritional information for each meal. I'm starting to cook by recipe, rather than throwing anything I have in the kitchen into a pot and improvising. At the same time, I'm trying to decrease on the amount of meat I have on my diet. Though there are lots of awesome websites with an abundance of information on cooking veggies, I find the wealth of information makes it hard to find one starting point. So I'm asking for your recommendations for a vegetarian cookbook with the following criteria:

Simple meals: I really like the concept of the Vegetarian 5-Ingredient Gourment, which restricts each meal to 5 ingredients or less. I'm not terribly fussy about an absolute limitation on number of ingredients, but simple to make would be good - I'm pretty pressed for time. Michael Smith's Best of Chef at Home is a good standard for how simple I'd like the instructions and prep to be.

Nutritional information: Rather than laboriously looking up every ingredient online myself and then calculating the portions, I would prefer if the book listed these for me. This is totally essential.

Illustrations: These are more or less optional, but pretty pictures totally motivate me to cook.

Optional: This is totally nitpicky, but if that book only focused on cooking actual meals rather than desserts/drinks, that'd be great, too. I drink water and eat fruit, and having a book that spends 1/5 of its real estate on smoothies and cakes that I won't be making seems like a bit of a waste.

Does my dream cookbook exist? Thanks in advance for any help!

Momma always told me food tastes better when someone else makes it...

coppermoss — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:25:46 -0800

Help me get my head straight about cooking! It's not that I don't like it, per se... I'm not exactly wild about it, though. I have a very few recipes I'm comfortable making, because I know they're going to turn out well. These include spaghetti sauce (for real, not from a jar), macaroni and cheese (again, for real, not from a box), salade nicoise, roast chicken, bean burritos, pasta carbonara, and risotto. I don't like trying new recipes because I don't know if they're going to be good, and it seems like a waste to spend all that time cooking only to discover that your efforts have been in vain. I'm afraid to cook without a recipe, because I totally lack creativity when it comes to food. I don't know what tastes go well together, for example.

My roommate is a total foodie, and he does most to all of our cooking. On nights that I cook, he usually comes up with the meal plan. Most days, he'll ask me what I want for dinner, and I can't even begin to think of anything.

In the next couple of years, I'm planning on moving in with my boyfriend, who also likes to cook but isn't as fond of it as my current roommate is. I want to expand my repertoire and boost my cooking confidence by the time we move in together, so the labor is more equally divided. (Yes, I know I'm thinking about this waaaay far in advance, but it's also not the sort of thing that resolves itself overnight, is it?)

How do I become more creative in the kitchen? Since I think a large part of my mental block about cooking is a confidence issue ("But what if it's gross?"), how do I become more confident about cooking? For you people who know by 2 PM what you want to eat in 6 or 7 hours, how do you know? What's the thought process that accompanies that realization? Most of all, how do I get over this enormous reluctance to cook anything more complicated than a fried egg for dinner?

Thanks, guys.

Turkish Coffee: Where's the Foam?

k. — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:08:52 -0800

I tried to make Turkish coffee, but it doesn't foam up like it's supposed to. What am I doing wrong? This is my understanding of how to make Turkish coffee: grind coffee to a really fine powder, put it in a pot with water, and don't stir (so the coffee stays at the top and forms a layer over the surface of the water). Heat until the surface foams up, then remove the pot from heat. Put it back on the stove and do the same thing two more times, then pour it into cups.

When I try to do this, the coffee doesn't foam very much the first time, and it hardly foams at all after that; it just boils. I tried using more coffee than I was supposed to, but that didn't help much. I'm using a small saucepan, since I don't have a real Turkish coffee pot (cezve/ibrik/briki)--I wonder if the problem is that, unlike a cezve, a saucepan has a wide surface area at the top, which thins out the coffee layer. Still, some recipes say it's fine to make Turkish coffee with just a regular pot. Any ideas of what the problem might be?

Hoots mon, I'm awa tae hunt the meatless haggis.

anadem — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 11:18:54 -0800

I'm planning a haggis-centric party and will make semi-traditional haggis from this recipe. I also need to make a vegetarian version, so what would be a tasty veggie substitute for the meat (preferably using the same recipe)? The meats to replace are "chopped cooked liver and chopped cooked heart (Or stew beef, or filet mignon)" and ground lamb. I'm in California, in case that makes a difference about ingredient availability. Full recipe below, in case Geocities has closed. Here's Lloyd Bogart's West Mosby Volunteers' Haggis. I hope Mr Bogart won't mind me copying it out, but the Geocities web is due to disappear tomorrow.

WEST MOSBY VOLUNTEERS' HAGGIS - Courtesy of Lloyd Bogart .

Haggis "is typically served on Burns Night,January 25, when Scotland celebrates the birth of its greatest poet, Robert Burns, who was born in Ayrshire on that date in 1759. During the celebration, Burns poems are read, and the haggis is addressed by a member of the party, ceremonially, in the form of verses from Burns' poem, 'Address to a Haggis.' A typical meal for Burns Night would include Cock-a-Leekie, Haggis with Tattie-an'-neeps, Roastit Beef, Tipsy Laird, and Dunlop Cheese."

Oh, and did I mention that whisky is also served?

Disclaimer: If you jam 5 dowels into a haggis it kinda resembles a bagpipe, but only if you jam 5 single malts into yourself first. There, that makes this article "bagpipe related".

Here's a tried-and-true recipe for haggis -- entered in the international competition a few years back. It sounds more complex than it is -- it's really no more than equal amounts of meat mixture, oats, onions, and stock, with appropriate spices. Good Eating!

The following recipe is for a traditional sized (3-lb?) haggis. We prepare up to 12 times this amount, in double recipe batches, for our Annual Regimental Mess and Robert Burns Supper. It freezes well, and can be "revived" in a microwave.

1. Advanced preparation.

Find a source of ONLY Steel cut oats OR (if available) Scottish pin oats. Rolled oats will NOT provide the traditional texture, which is something like that of rice. Steel cut oats can be had, or can be ordered, from food stores specializing in organic foods, etc. You'll need 2 Cups of Oats, but if you have to order them, get extra "for next time".

Once you've found proper oats, you're ready to proceed. You'll need:

1 Cup of chopped cooked liver
1 Cup of chopped cooked heart (Or stew beef, or filet mignon)
2-3 Cups stock
Use Lamb if available, otherwise beef will work fine.

Cover the raw meat with salted COLD water, bring to a boil (gently, and covered) for about 1 hour. Drain, (keep the stock) Cool the meat, and remove any gristle, membranes, large vessels, then chop or grind the meat (coarse, as for hash). Refrigerate the stock, and discard any fat later, after it chills.

Mix the ground up heart and liver in equal proportions. You'll need about 2 cups of this meat mixture for each haggis, but it can be prepared in larger quantities, then refrigerated or frozen for later use. For final assembly, the haggis can be completed when convenient.

2. Additional Ingredients:

1 Lb. ground lamb (for "authentic" flavor -- replaces "other stuff")
2 Cups medium to coarse-chopped onions
1 Cup vegetable oil (replaces suet)
3 Tbsp. lemon juice
2 Oz. single malt whisky (Balvenie is quite acceptable)
2 tsp. salt or beef bouillon powder
2 Tbsp. ground black pepper
1 tsp. grated nutmeg

Optional: (but recommended for a "special occasion" haggis)
1 tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. ground coriander
1 tsp. ground mace
2 Tbsp. Parsley Flakes
1/4 Cup currants

Casing: Reynold's Oven Cooking Bag. These are Nylon roasting bags that are available in most any grocery store. The traditional sheep's stomach or a large sausage casing may be used for a "show" haggis, but they are "old-tech". Boiling in oven cooking bags is far more convenient, if you're preparing large quantities, especially, and this process "reassures" your dinner guests.

3. Preparation

Put 2 cups of the thawed meat mixture in the oven cooking bag. Add 2 cups of (coarse) chopped onions, 2 cups of oats, and the other dry ingredients and mix well. Set the mixture aside until it is at room temperature.

In a covered saucepan or skillet, warm 2 Cups or so of the stock (Be sure any fat has been removed. -- If more liquid is needed, here or later, use bouillon or beef stock.)

Break up the ground lamb into the warmed stock; bring to a slow boil (covered) for 5 minutes or so. Remove from heat, allow to cool briefly, and be sure the lamb is in small pieces.

Add the lemon juice and vegetable oil to the lamb & stock mixture. Then combine the lamb/liquid mixture with the other ingredients in the cooking bag, and mix well.

This should produce a moist, soft mixture that will still hold together when pinched. (If it's too dry, add a small amount of stock or bouillon.)

Boil the mixture IN the cooking bag:

Close off the bag using a nylon tie, but allow room below the tie for expansion during boiling. Trim off the bag 3" above the tie, and pierce the top of the bag, below the tie, but well above the mixture, to allow steam to escape.

Use a 4 Qt. (or larger) pot with a rack at the bottom. The water around the haggis should nearly cover the bag of mixture. Periodically adjust the heat to maintain a slow boil for at least 1 1/2 hours. Add HOT water to the pot if needed.

Add 2 Oz. single malt whisky to the cook. (He/She deserves it!)

The cooking bag can be placed on a shallow pan and transferred to a preheated oven

(325 degrees F) for the last half-hour. This doesn't affect the flavor, but does add a bit of color, if desired.

The proof:

This recipe has gotten rave reviews from visiting Scots. Talk about a tough room -- Whew! I hope you'll enjoy it.

The strategy for preparing rather largish amounts is just a bit different; if you need advice on this, please contact me personally. Today I purchased 10 pounds of oats, if you catch my drift....

Cheers
Lloyd Bogart

(If anyone wants the email address which is included on Mr Bogart's web page, please mefi-mail me, though it could be inactive.)

Chinese food ingredients in DC?

inara — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 20:13:20 -0800

Does anyone know of anywhere in Bethesda or the DC Metro area in general where one could get Chinese food ingredients? I'm specifically looking for wonton wrappers. Also, preferably someplace Metro accessible. Thanks.

Sprung oven door

goofyfoot — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 23:25:41 -0800

Our oven door springs are sprung. It's an old O'Keefe and Merritt stove - the kind with lots of space on top; we love it. But the oven door can't stay shut. Help! We've used sponges as shims, but they no longer work well. It's a gas stove. I can't manage a way to whittle a wooden shim down to the perfect wedge. A previous question here yielded this; has anyone tried one for this purpose? What other ways of securing a sprung spring door have you tried?

Our landlords aren't interested in helping us here unless it is to replace this big stove with a rickety tiny one, and we can't really afford to get a repairman out.

Are short culinary schools worth it?

Netzapper — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 03:03:11 -0800

Is a short-course culinary school worth it? Does it offer any cred toward haute cuisine sous-chef and chef positions, or is it for suckers who'll work at Applebees forever? In my eternal optimism that I can find something more satisfying and stable than software development, it's dawned on me that I love cooking and would probably love to cook in a restaurant. I intend to find a no-experience-necessary kitchen job (prep cook, line cook, etc.) in the near future to see if I can stand the environment, but I'm thinking longer term for the moment.

Is there value in attending one of the several 6- to 18-month culinary schools I've found? As an example, the JNA Institute of Culinary Arts in Philly.

When I see a sous-chef job that says "culinary school background preferred", would that sort of a course qualify? Or are they specifically looking for somebody who's done a complete associate's or BFA degree in the culinary arts?

Putting aside the industry view on such programs, are they likely to teach me the numerous skills I'd need to attempt a career in chefery?

I've been grating a le~mon~, all the live long day~

wiretap — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:48:05 -0800

Fresh Lemon Zest - so yummy yet so annoying to grate. There must be an easier solution! My first experience with using fresh lemon zest is in a lemon sugar cookie recipe which asks for 2T of it, in a doubled recipe (4T total. egads). After carefully grating away the skin of a couple lemons and having my hands become tender and sore from the lemon oils and still not having enough lemon zest, I'm starting to feel like avoiding dessert recipes that include lemon zest at all.

Googling "lemon zest substitute" suggests a spice aisle product known as "dried lemon peel" which is similar but apparently is not as good as fresh lemon zest (I'm guessing it is less flavorful?).

My questions:

1. Is there a *better* lemon zest substitute that I can easily purchase at a grocery store?

2. If not, and dried lemon peel is the only close choice, should I add a little lemon flavoring to the reconstituted peel? And how much flavoring per t/T of peel should I include?

3. Could I just use lemon flavoring and fake the color in the recipe with yellow food dye? And again, how much flavoring would equal 1t or 1T of fresh lemon zest?

Bone with a juicy center?

tasty — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 17:20:12 -0800

I purchased some expensive beef bones by accident $3/lb, and was planning to make stock with them. However, after a quick roast, I saw the inner circle became something soft and edible, while the outer circle remained bone. What did I get, and should I still make stock with these?

language/culturally-specific cribsheets explaining the basics of foreign foods.

jjjjjjjijjjjjjj — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 09:26:45 -0800

The folks over at Evil Mad Scientist Labs made a pretty comprehensive wallet-sized cheat sheet to help the uninitiated navigate Southern Indian menu items. I think it's well done, useful, and quite clever. I'd like to have something similar for all the world's cuisines. I got no idea where to start with this; I'm quite inept with names for foods--which is precisely why this concept appeals to me as much as it does. I have a forgiving palate, so it's not like I'm needing to avoid anything, but I'd like to be more savvy with what I pick.

I'm not joking about the remedial nature of where I'm starting from, here... f'real. If my momma didn't make it, I don't know the name of it. I almost always love the taste of it, though, so it's time I figured it out.

Can someone point me to other quick, index-card-able summaries that are designed to act as this one is--that is to say, streamlined but reasonably comprehensive, well-arranged, and specific? I feel like I should stress that this is what I feel would be the most useful. A bunch of people giving single factoids (eg. " 'boeuf' is a beef dish in a French restaurant") is probably not the best way to compile this sort of thing.

Western/Eastern Europe, Southern Asian, East Asian, African, North African, Middle Eastern, South American... I want a cheat sheet for every cuisine I might reasonably find in a restaurant in a large U.S. city. Please point me to where this information lives. Many thanks.

What are the most immensely satisfying things you do in the kitchen?

ORthey — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 17:12:20 -0800

Punching down risen dough (and slicing it with a dough scraper). Cooking garlic in sizzling hot butter. Putting potatoes through a ricer. Help me find more incredibly satisfying things to do in the kitchen! I cook/bake a lot, and realized that I derive great happiness from certain aspects of food preparation that are immensely satisfying and fun, and want to learn more of these so that I can have even more fun in the kitchen.

I know it's subjective, but what are some of the most wonderfully fulfilling tricks/techniques/recipes that you use and love in the kitchen? Sights, sounds, smells, sensations... it's all fair game. It doesn't even have to be anything extraordinarily delicious, just really really satisfying.

Thanks!

Where to find a good weight chart for the kitchen?

The corpse in the library — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 13:55:15 -0800

I'm looking for a poster showing the weights of various commonly used ingredients. I like to use my kitchen scale when cooking because it makes cleanup so much easier, but most of my recipes are American and show measurements in cups, not ounces. I'd like to have a poster in my kitchen that showed things like:

1 CUP SUGAR = 8 OZ
1 CUP WHITE FLOUR = 4 1/4 OZ
etc.

Basically this, but pretty enough to put on the wall. Either ounces or grams is fine. Anybody seen an attractive chart like this?

What's a good cookbook for braising with something other than alcohol?

boombot — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 10:27:17 -0800

I love cooking with my new dutch oven, but have never liked the taste of alcohol in food. I know I can always substitute, but is there a good braising cookbook that minimizes alcohol use in the recipes?