On 8/16/2012 10:39 PM, Julie Bove wrote:
> I thought I did once as a kid. I used a very old cookbook and made a recipe
> for some corn tortillas that I now know were anything but authentic. They
> involved using canned hominy and grinding it in a meat grinder. The
> tortillas were formed between sheets of waxed paper. They were then chilled
> for a while between boards (I used cutting boards) before frying them. It
> was a very time consuming process which was just the sort of cooking that I
> liked to do as a child.
>
> I made a layered dish out of them. I can't remember what all was involved
> but I do remember using canned kidney beans. I would have used dried beans
> had any been available to me. I just remember stacking the tortillas on
> each plate and putting a layer of filling between. Sort of like those flat
> enchiladas (Sonora style) except that I didn't soften the tortillas and I
> don't recall putting any sauce over them. Actually more like some weird
> stacked tostadas that a place like Taco Bell would be likely to come up
> with.
>
> At the time, I thought I had invented something new. I even submitted the
> recipe to a magazine and hoped I would win their contest. I did not and I
> never made those tortillas again, even though they did taste good. I did
> make some others that involved Bisquick. Yep! Not sure where I got that
> recipe from.
>
> But more recently... Any time I try to think up something new to make, I
> look it up and find that there is already a recipe out there that if not
> exactly like what I'm going to make is very similar. I guess it's kind of
> hard to come up with a new dish.

There's not much new under the sun. I'm baking some bread in my rice
cooker but there's other people that have already done that. It's a
liquid yeast dough with cheese and dehydrated onions. I'm cooking it on
the warm setting of my cheap rice cooker. Unfortunately, I'm not at home
to watch it so it's gonna have to heat up for quite a few hours. I'm
thinking that one could make a pretty good cornbread in a rice cooker.
I'll try that next.

>
> My FIL thought I invented something when I fried pasta. Nope. I read about
> it somewhere. Dry the leftover pasta off fully. If something like
> spaghetti, form it in little mounds before drying. Pan fry it and either
> salt it and maybe sprinkle with cheese for a savory snack or use powdered
> sugar for a sweet. That's really good, but I didn't invent it.
>
>