Peckish Sister's Profile

From: Central, FL USA

Joined: December 11th, 2010

About me: I have always liked to cook, particularly breads, fruits, vegetables, vegetarian, poultry and lamb dishes. After marriage we cooked together progressively more difficult dishes with him doing the meat, grilling and frying, and I did the "dough" and the same type of things I had before. After children we started cooking more simply. After discovering the cause of my frequent migraines was an evolving long list of chemicals and odd ingredients, I began getting back to cooking from basic ingredients, and found I could be well again. I also try to cooking from what I can get in season at the ever present fruit and vegetable stands.

Favorite cookbook: America's Test Kitchen / Cooks Illustrated Books


Latest review:

May 20th, 2020

Manchester Stew from Skinny Instant Pot & Slow Cooker Cookbook

I switched up the vegetables and canned beans to reflect what I had on hand. It was my very first use of the Insta pot and I was skeptical of the 3 minute cooking time since I had increased the amounts... read more >


recipe reviews (465)
book reviews (18)
useful review votes (420)

Peckish Sister's Reviews


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17 recipe(s) reviewed. Showing 1 to 17Sort by: Title | Date | Rating

The Food Of Morocco

By Paula Wolfert
Ecco - 2011

26th March 2012

"The Snake" (M'Hanncha) : page 470

The almond paste filling made up nicely. I followed the suggestion to let the almonds sit in the water for an hour so that they would be softer to grind. Removing the skins which had filled with water, dark water spurted out that stained everything it touched. The almonds too had taken on a dark hue. The next time I wouldn’t let the almonds sit in the water for more than 5 minutes. The small pieces of mastic exploded under my pestle and ground nicely. I did try one as you can chew this sap as gum and it reminded my of the all natural spruce gum that I used to buy in Maine; I think it could make a good substitute that is easier to obtain, but I checked on-line and it was not cheaper. I used half of the suggested amount of rose water. I took Zosia’s suggestion to use the filo dough. But it also was difficult to manipulate. One sheet makes such a thin covering that it would tear while rolling and also when trying to shape it into a spiral (especially in the beginning which dissuaded me from trying to make individual snakes.). You can see the tears in my picture taken before coating with powdered sugar. I worried that the heavy concentration of cinnamon in the egg yolk would overwhelm the delicate taste of the almond paste filling, but it did not. I had planned to use the chopped almonds instead of the powdered sugar, but am glad that I did not want to peel any more almonds as that would have been overkill. There were definitely enough almonds in the filling. After baking, the filling tasted a little caramelized and amazingly good in the delicate crisp pastry. I do think you could bake it to look like a rattle snake with a little manipulation and that could also be stunning.

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18th March 2012 (edited: 18th March 2012)

Barley Couscous : page 221

This was my second attempt to prepare couscous by steaming and it went much better. I liked using a double layer of cheesecloth in the steamer. I bought the barley couscous from one of the mail order companies she listed. It was the same shape as regular couscous, but look more like grains of sand with a wide range of tan to brown color – very pretty. Each time it only steamed for 10 minutes and maybe since I was working with only a pound instead of 1 ½ pounds, it seemed to be easier to manage. However, I lost couscous stuck to the cheesecloth each time. Also couscous stuck to the cloth I covered it with before the final steaming. I loved the taste, it had such a hearty whole grain taste and it went well with the topping.

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I used whole chickpeas and soaked them during the day. I had the first harvest from our local farm with fresh turnips, turnip greens and kale to use. I substituted some lamb for the beef. The chickpeas were nice and tender after only 1 ½ hours of cooking, but it took longer for the lamb to become tender. The cooking of the second half of the greens in a skillet smashed under a plate with cilantro, parsley and tomatoes seemed weird, but that was the best tasting kale I have ever eaten. I wish I had seen the need for goat’s milk, I used cow’s milk instead. This was a lot of work with 3 different parts, but I had some help and it was well worth it. It was a fantastic use of greens and I loved it with the barley couscous.

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28th March 2012

Berber Skillet Breads : page 110

A rather dense bread with a wonderful Umami smell and flavor. In addition to the pre-ferment, it only calls for ¼ tsp of yeast. Like Zosia, I did not need the pan lid to flip, but you do have to be careful, because I did crack one and it wasn’t as pretty. I used a barbequing fork both to pierce the bread and also move it around in the pan instead of shaking the skillet when cooking the second side. After each loaf I poured out the darkened semolina flour and cleaned the pan with a paper towel. My loaves look just like the ones on page 111. This was fabulous bread. I made a double batch. Once I had laid the loaves out for the 1 hour rise, I started the second one in the food processor. You may not want to stop at a double batch and you don’t have to as there is a lot of the pre-ferment.

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What a lovely showpiece for beautiful blood oranges! I used the baby greens as in the salad on the previous page. There would have been a greater color contrast if you used the recommended baby romaine lettuce, but the red greens complemented the blood oranges nicely too. I chopped my almonds instead of crushing them and I kept thinking I was biting a lemon seed. The dressing was great, but next time I would prefer it on the greens instead of over the sliced oranges. I also am finding that I am not a fan yet of orange flower water, but being in the middle of an orange grove in full flower I realized it smells how the water tastes, so I am still trying (to like it). This salad bears repeating.

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This was a moist and quite straight forward way to cook chicken. I tackled the chicken a little different than Queezle Sister; I cut off the wings and legs as directed and left the rest of the chicken in one piece. I used a large casserole dish, so I had enough room for the rest of the whole bird. It actually made it convenient to put the rest of the ingredients into the dish as there was plenty of room under the bird to pack the rest of the ingredients. I agree with Zosia that half of the prunes were plenty. I used them all, but only half were eaten. This was a nice dish, but will probably not be added to my repertoire.

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18th March 2012

Fresh Tomato and Caper Salad : page 58

A garden explosion in your mouth! This is my favorite salad from this cookbook so far. Very ripe tomatoes, Florida onion (substituted for red), celery and orange pepper (in the picture I did not see that see used the called for green pepper either) in fine dice. I had only small capers as all my other recipes call for the small ones; but now I will look for and know what to do with the larger ones. This is the first time I have like the taste of the preserved lemon. It and the capers added such great bursts of flavor.

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This was a new way to remove excess water with paper towels. I was using Bounty and so expected to end up with dried cucumber, but shouldn’t have been so worried. I should have used the lesser amount of Orange Flower water as I am still not used to this flavor, but I liked the sugar to lemon juice ratio.

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12th March 2012 (edited: 15th March 2012)

Lamb, Tomato, Cinnamon and Steamed Pasta Chorba : page 185

I had not even noticed that this was a soup until I added add the water. As someone else had mentioned in their review, the water used in the recipe is not listed with the other ingredients. This recipe seemed like it made a small amount with just 4 ounces of ground lamb. Since the only ground lamb I could find came in a 1 lb package, I quadrupled the recipe. Imagine my surprise when I needed to add 12 cups of water. Only about half of that fit in my largest pan. Of course the reduction of water increased the spiciness. Steaming the orzo turned into the second diasaster as I left it to steam for the requisite time and just had a bottom layer of partially cooked pasta and the top layer was dry. So I dumped it all into the pot and tried to break up the lumps. I love thick soups and this turned into a hearty, flavorful satisfying soup with orzo pasta and chickpeas. The orzo continued to expand and the next day the soup was even thicker.

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A very familiar tasting vegan treat – Oh My Goodness – just Like Lara bars! This was very straight forward. You do blanch a pound of almonds. Because of the fresh apple, you probably do not want to keep them for very long. The cinnamon coating can be very strong, but I found if I rotated the bowl of cinnamon, the truffle gave itself the perfect light coating of cinnamon. If I rolled it around with my fingers, the coating became too thick and strong. Just like Lara bars, you could have a lot of fun with different fruits and nuts.

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23rd February 2012

Moroccan Mint Tea : page 497

I love Moroccan mint tea, but do not care for green tea, so was surprised that was the basis for this tea. I obtained gunpowder tea and fresh spearmint. I thought that for my teapot, 1/3 cup of sugar was too much. The next time I will try ¼ cup, but add more mint. I did not mind the gunpowder tea at all. I will definitely try this again. She did specify spearmint, but I am interested in trying the chocolate mint in my garden.

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24th March 2012 (edited: 24th March 2012)

Oven-Roasted Tomatoes with Toasted Pine Nuts : page 85

I was surprised at how much I liked this intensely flavored baked tomato salad. It does take a minimum of 5 hours to make however. I only added the smallest sprinkle of rose water to the tomatoes and it did give it that mysterious something extra. It is impossible after waiting through such a long preparation period not to tear into them while still hot, but they were a little bit better chilled and also as she suggests, at room temperature. The toasted pine nuts add a very welcome complexity to the mouth feel. The extremely long time that the oven is tied up would probably keep me from making this again, as well as giving it 5 stars. What a wonderful way to utilize an overabundance of tomatoes!

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24th March 2012

Semolina Soup with Aniseed : page 190

This sounded intriguing with the Mastic and anise seed for flavoring. The directions worked beautifully. I haven’t found green anise seed yet, so used the regular kind. Grind the Mastic before you add the warm toasted anise seed, better yet, let the anise seed cool first. I had good luck grinding the mastic previously, it had just exploded under the pestle, but here perhaps because I added the hot anise seed to the pestle first, it made a very thin sheet, which just became thinner as I ground it with the salt and sugar. This is a very thin soup, and as you can see from my photo, this is one of those recipes where what you cook does not match the picture in the book. That picture is the same color as mine before adding the ground up spices. After it simmers with the spices it did turn the light beige color that she indicates in the recipe. I liked it very much once you get used to how thin it is. I preferred just a very small amount of butter on top instead of the honey. Because it is so thin, I enjoyed eating the skin that forms on top while it cools. This makes a large amount.

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Excellent, moist, rich tasting pancakes, if you can spare the extra hour to let the batter rise. I should have re-read Zosia’s review as I too did not notice the 2 cups of water and ended up pouring the batter into a larger bowl so I wouldn’t have a disaster when the batter rose. But I should not have worried; it did not look like it doubled in size. I watched my holes form and then vanish – very frustrating. I added a little more flour (the Florida humidity factor), but the solution was to use less than the 1/3 cup of batter called for. My pan was 6” across on top, but closer to 4” on the bottom where it counted and that made all of the difference. We too skipped the butter part and enjoyed orange blossom honey on our pancakes.

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22nd March 2012

Tangier Street Bread (Kalinte) : page 113

I specially ordered the chickpea flour for this recipe. The batter was so incredibly watery that I did not see the need to add any of the 2nd half of the water. My flour was also so fine and the batter so smooth I also skipped the straining step. I used a 9 X 13” pan instead of the 14” deep dish pizza pan. I was surprised after the 30 minutes of baking that this very thin batter had thickened and now looked like the dried muddy plain of the Mississippi River. The oil I brushed on was rapidly sucked into the batter and so after the second baking step while the oven was turned off I did not obtain a glazed-looking surface. We chose the ground cumin topping. This was very hard to get out of the pan as I saw the oil I had used to coat the pan rise through the batter before I even got it into the oven the first time. This was very thin and tasted OK and I could see it would be great as part of a Vegan meal to add protein and be filling. It was interesting to try once, but I much prefer breads made with yeast. No one was interested in seconds and I do not see the need to try this again.

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This monochromatic salad had a great taste. I did not serve this until the following day as it took longer than expected to grill the peppers and let them cool enough to work with. Not everyone liked how the preserved lemon stood out as it was sprinkled on top. I much prefer the tomato salad with capers for taste, but also for ease of preparation.

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28th March 2012

Two-Day Pre-Ferment with Garlic : page 112

Warning, be sure your container is big enough. I started with a large spaghetti sauce jar, which sure seemed big enough at the beginning, and it was easy to stir with a long, square chopstick. It started off slowly, but I finally found nice warm places in the kitchen and it really took off. When I fed it, it was almost up to the top of the jar. I ended up putting it in a large bowl and just letting it bubble over. I do not understand why she asks you to save ½ cup when the recipe only requires ¼. My son warned me of the blue cheese like smell emanating from the jar; and it was very strong.

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