Happy St. Paddy's DayFollow

The river is green(er than usual), the beer is green(er than usual), and all the young lasses are out in their finest green halter tops.

Slainte!

That's what the beer is for!

Yeah, Paddy's is next week yo.

Edited, Mar 13th 2017 11:25am by lolgaxe

Where's beer?

As a Catholic, I wish to register a complaint with the Irish. I thought we were cool, bros. But somehow Corned Beef and Cabbage Day got dropped on Fish-only Friday.

Yeah. Same here (I'm assuming the same everywhere that it's celebrated). You just don't mess with St. Patrick's day!

For the record, I went to my sister's in-laws and had corned beef and cabbage on Friday (and soda bread, and beer, and beer with whiskey, and coffee with whiskey, and... well, maybe some more whiskey). Then made my own corned beef and cabbage on Saturday (I also attempted to make soda bread, but the combination of me being used to yeast breads with rise times, and literally using the bake feature on my new oven for the first time lead to less than successful results). Then went to my Sunday game night where the host prepared... corned beef and cabbage (and my contribution of a much more successful second attempt at soda bread). Yum....

I'd also like to file a complaint with stores that apparently hide buttermilk in some random (tiny) spot in the midst of a frankly insane number of variations of milk. Seriously? Reduced fat half and half? Why? Just... why? Just enjoy the full flavor of stuff like this and consume it in moderation. I just don't get the idea of eating something that has an inherent amount of fat/flavor, and then removing some portion of fat/flavor to make you feel better about eating it. And then the same people who do this also jump up and down about chemically altered foods, or GMO, or what have you. Um... You know what they had to do to that milk to make it reduced fat, right? Oh no. You don't. Cause you're just following really dumb food fads. You probably love kale too!

/rant off

I... have no idea. I've never seen such a thing. Why not just use... milk?

I think buttermilk is hard to find (in CA, at least) because a lot of people don't bake their own biscuits anymore. I use it for corn bread, mostly.

Yeah. I've got nothing. What makes it half and half is that it's an even mixture of milk and heavy cream. So... yeah. For bonus points, what's the difference between heavy cream and milk? The fat content. A bit of research reveals that how they make "reduced fat" half and half is that they use less cream, and instead add corn syrup. I can only assume they're banking on people reading just the big words on the front and not the little words on the back.



Yeah. My brief bit of research suggests that you want to use buttermilk in breads that use baking soda as part (or all) of the leavening. Half of the chemical process for the rise comes from heat, but the other half comes from introducing an acid. If you fail to use acid, you'll get an off flavor from the soda not fully reacting (and it may not rise as well either, I suppose).

Corn bread is pretty much the only thing I've used it for in the past as well (might have been baking powder though, or maybe a combination?). Ah. More research shows that baking powder has cream of tartar, which is an acid, so you can use it instead and then maybe not have to use buttermilk? Hmmm... See? Research is fun!

Yeah, if you don't want to go to the store you can use a teaspoon of cream of tartar in a cup of milk, same effect. Slightly different flavor.

Don't forget to pack some water.

And a "I love Dean Spanos" bumper sticker.

On the milk issue:

A good friend of mine has an uncle who will only drink goat's milk. I was all "where the hell does he get that?".

Safeway. Safeway carries goat's milk.

/headassplode

"From goats" would be my answer.