Dinner recipes

You re on your European tour and you ve brought some fabric samples to make curtains for your hostess and a recipe so you can cook up a thank-you dinner. Now you have the challenge of converting some of your measures into the measures of the country you re visiting. 

This cake was a hit at my early Brooklyn dinner parties, especially since I used to be pretty heavy-handed with the rum. Now that I serve the cake at dinners where there are kids, I tend not to include the booze. I addpureedpineapple to the batter, so it s super-moist and tartgy. Fresh pineapple gives this cake amazjrtgflavor, andjou can use the excess jruit for other delicious recipes such as the Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese—Lemon Zest Frosting... 

While I ve listed these recipes as breakfast suggestions, they are wonderful at any time of day. Some of them make excellent stand-ins for dinner others make nutritious desserts. 

For dinner, Louisa is making stuffed green peppers for her guests. She plans to serve herself and each of her 5 guests 2 green peppers each. The recipe calls for 1 cup of rice for 3 green peppers. How many cups of rice will Louisa need ... 

If our system were a mixture, the situation would be different. If we double, for example, the quantities of aU the ingredients in a cake mixture, we would expect to obtain a cake only twice as large, but with the same fiavor, texture and color, because the properties of a mixture are determined by the proportions of their ingredients, not by their absolute values. This explains why cooks can, within reasonable limits, always double or halve recipes to cater for the niunber of expected dinner guests. 

My recipe tells me how much of each ingredient I need and how many FATs 1 can make. I can even use my recipe to calculate how much of each ingredient 1 need for a particular number of FATs. For example, suppose that I m giving a big dinner party, and I need 250 FATs. I can use my recipe to calculate the amount of apples, sugar, flour, and spices I need. Here, for example, is how I calculate how much sugar I need ... 

Of course, we are not in a position to question our grandmother s recipe, which for years has resulted in excellent turkeys that we have been sharing at family dinners on both Thanksgiving and Christmas. But Table 10.3 has called to our attention that when the turkey s weight doubles from 14... 

Now that you know the ropes, here s a foolproof recipe for a rich, fluffy mash that elevates any dinner to special-occasion status. 

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