I have a question: can someone explain to me what's the deal with high fructose corn syrup? I have tried to research it but all the sites I find seem to be either too scientific (i.e. difficult to understand) or too...untrustworthy.

@spossberg: I would recommend reading "Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan. He spends a great deal of the book talking about corn and corn syrup and has a great way of putting into plain English.

The Kitchn just did a post on frying at home. I finally went out and bought a little electric fryer to use outside on my balcony and was happy with the results. Crispy fries and no cooking odors inside! Hopefully others will be inspired to do the same if you can get electricity outside of your apartment. I'm thinking begneits, homemade jalapeno poppers, whole huachinango and fries of course.

http://www.vimeo.com/1436423

I have a craving for a bowl of Vietnamese pho.

@L1bby: Me too, even if it is 90 degrees outside! I'll have to have a cafe sua da to cool down =P

When I'm feeling lazy (which is pretty often) I'll take a dry rub and use it on some meat (usually chicken or pork) and grill it up. I used to spend a decent bit of time grabbing the individual spice bottles and adding all the ingredients until I got tired of that and made several bottles of dry rub mixes that I use pretty often. One is a very basic salt, black pepper, and garlic mix that seems to work for everything. The other is nearly the same but with much more garlic and a ton of rosemary. This I will also use with lemon juice, white wine, or balsamic vinegar if I want to make a wet marinade.

I'd love to hear about what other easy dry rubs people are making, and what's been done with them.

Is there a recipe to make yogurt on this site or does anyone have one?

Pixie, there's no real recipe, you just take as much milk as you need, warm it up until bubbles start to appear around the edge, cool until it's lukewarm (you dip a finger in and it doesn't burn), then put in a few tablespoons of plain yogurt with active cultures, wrap it in a towel and put it in a warm place for a few hours. I usually warm up the oven to about 200 degrees, then turn it off and put my wrapped up container in it. You can buy yogurt starter in powder form, too, but it's kind of pricey.

I saw this useful tip here, I think: buy a large container of yogurt and freeze it in ice cube trays, then put those cubes into a ziplock bag. The bag lives in the freezer and when I need yogurt I just pop a few of those cubes into the milk.

Thanks bubble! It sounds like that would be cheaper than buying yogurt, which would be my aim. I guess you can use low fat milk to make low fat yogurt?

I used to make yogurt with a method that used powdered milk, but I wanted to see what else was out there.

Oh yeah, Pixie, you can use whatever sort of milk you like, from fat-free to full cream. And if you like your yogurt Greek style, or extra thick, just strain it through a cheesecloth until it reaches the desired thickness.

thanks bubble. I'll be trying it soon. I used to make all my own yogurt, but it's been years since I've made it.