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Greek-inspired Lamb Stew with Kritharaki/Orzo - stew was cooked in the oven with cubed leg of lamb, carrots, celery, red onion, oregano, thyme, cinnamon stick, bay leaves, cumin seeds, red wine, diced tomatoes and beef broth. For the last 20 minutes you add orzo and cherry tomatoes and finish with feta.

I saw this thread about can openers and rembered this review of openers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65pLsbLToVs

I took FoosSafe years ago - it was required to do hot dog days, cupcake sales, etc., in our school district. It was a very quick course and if you already knew safe food temps, it was very easy to complete.

I’m on a very quick jaunt to Bermuda to celebrate husband’s birthday. Flying time is under two hours, and it’s warmer here than at home. We arrived yesterday, and only plans we made for this fast visit were to sit on the deck and take in the view, go down for occasional beach walks, and eat fish for dinner. We have been successful in following the itinerary so far. The view from our condo at the Reefs Looking towards the hotel from our deck and a sliver moon view from our arrival evening. The sun sets just after 5 at this time of year. There’s a new restaurant at the Reefs. Here’s the menu We ordered a special of lionfish crudo to share. I would have preferred the fish to be sliced a little thinner, but the flavors were good. Husband had the grilled lobster. He said it was delicious i had a special of coney fish, which came with carrot puree and the same asparagus sauce that was on the lobster. I really loved this Mini cannoli dessert We enjoyed our dinner so much that we cancelled another reservation elsewhere to come back tomorrow night. Today’s beach—Church Bay. The water was too cold for me to swim though other brave souls were in the water A light lunch at Coconuts Wahoo tacos. We just split this pate since we were going to dinner later. Tonight’s pre dinner deck view We went to Aurora for dinner. They have a new sushi menu, but we were not in the mood. Tuna tartare to share Husband had lobster and shrimp spaghetti. I think he orders this every time we eat here. I had a special of herb crusted turbot with potato purée, minced vegetables, and fish jus. We split a slice of coconut chocolate cake with coconut sorbet to continue the birthday theme

I’ve been absent from this community for several years, a combination of slow internet speeds and low patience levels. But, we’ve moved and I’m back ! I’m still cooking Indian food. Last nights dinner was vegetarian - cumin rice, sesame beans, potatoes with black pepper and peanuts plus dal with spinach. A blob of South Indian tomato chutney added colour and considerable heat.

I do, too. I'm required to maintain certification (its good for 5 years) because I own a bakery. I can opt to just take the test to renew my certification but I always choose to take the class and i always get the book that goes along with it so I can use it to study and have as a reference. Around here it costs $125 for the class and the book; you will get so much more out of it by just reading the book because the class is mostly just watching videos. There are practice questions you can find online just to see what the test is like (keep in mind that the questions are sometimes phrased to deliberately mislead you!) There have to be some kind of guidelines about community fridges in your area; maybe the sponsor knows if there's anything to be aware of. And if there aren't, I'm of the mind to "don't ask, don't tell" but if a Mrs Kravitz does tell, you can eliminate any fussing by showing your certificate!

I got a jar (it’s about 2 ounces of beans for anyone who want to know) and made a vanilla bean paste from it. Used it in a cake and it was delicious, but lots of flavor other than vanilla. Smells wonderful.

I have two sensor activated soap dispensers by my sink. I don't know how I managed before I got them!

"Most people" would never be curious enough to try making their own! I have a sister-in-law with a culinary degree that never took. I gifted her a bottle of homemade vanilla extract, and when I found it unopened 3 years later, I reclaimed it!

Thanks for the welcome! Those Heartland Gatherings sound great. I’ll check that out. Nice to see some Midwest food history here!

Thank you!

Welcome, Michael! I look forward to reading about your food explorations, especially the spicy ones. 🌶️

Chef Skye Gyngell, who pioneered the slow food movement, dies aged 62 | Restaurants | The Guardian

From Six Seasons of Pasta, I made the Sun-dried tomato and almond pesto p 33 a while back and stashed it in the freezer. Today, I pulled that out and used it in the pasta with Brussels sprouts with sun-dried tomato and almond pesto p 329. Excellent flavor combination, if a bit rich. I wish I’d noticed a previous recommendation on Eat Your Books to roast the Brussels sprouts instead of browning them in the skillet with the pancetta and garlic which gave them good flavor but I needed to add oil to the pan for this step even though I knew the pesto to be added later had plenty of oil in it. Still, it was delicious. I’ll add more sprouts next time - I have pasta left but all the sprouts got eaten! The sun-dried tomato and almond pesto is delicious. It calls for oil packed sun-dried tomatoes and I used some from an older jar which were quite dark. The flavor is fine but I might use some regular sun-dried tomatoes that I’ve steamed to soften for a brighter color and flavor.

Update on this item after a full year's use. We love it so much at our AZ home, we ordered another one for our MXN home. Never a problem with it. It's especially handy when both hands are greasy, dirty, stinky.....negates need to pick up a squeeze bottle or to even hit the top of a pump dispenser (which is what we are replacing at MXN home. It is also quite attractive.

I have tried using the heat gun for all chocolates and noticed no difference. I have tried it for just caramels to avoid leaking, and I wasn't sure it made a difference. I tried it with half-spheres (which often show the chocolate line), and I probably overdid it because the bonbons stuck in the mold and needed more than a little pounding on the counter (they usually pop right out). I'll give it a try with this difficult square mold. With using silk to temper, I keep the chocolate a full degree above the norm so as to get as much heat as possible to join the bottom to the rest of the shell.

I have had cocoa butter separate into plain CB and the color, but never with the CB liquid.

@Jim D. are you of the 'heat gun before capping' school of thought, or nah? Maybe try whichever method you're not doing? 🙃

I’ve spent a few hours going back to catch up on where you’re at. I’m so very sorry for your loss, but I admire your courage in embracing the solo journey. Am I right in thinking you’ll be off again soon ?

Welcome, Michael. As you can see, we're only a few hours' drive from Chicago. It's been a long, long time since we've had actively participating members from there. I think a couple of them are still active on LTH. We used to have "Heartland Gatherings" that members would host and/or coordinate. They were in Grand Rapids, Ann Arbor multiple times, Chicago/Evanston, Cleveland, and Kansas City. Please forgive me if I've forgotten any. Just to give you an idea of what they were like, here's the eG forum about the Chicago gathering. And if you're up for it, you could read all 33 pages of the planning forum.

I have some in-progress now - second batch . . . it's a fun project. I buy Grade B, use 80 proof vodka that is very smooth. slice&scrape - min 3 months soak.... shake now & then. is 'home made' any different? dunno. to me, it is 'more satisfying' . . . curiously, some reputable organization did a test moons ago . . . their taste tests 'discovered' people preferred artificial vanilla over "real" vanilla. I doubt they used 'homemade' in their testing tho . . .

I thought this was a pretty well done video on Coffee in China

Close Time Sous vide: 4 to 6 hours; active cooking time: 30 minutes Yield Serves 4 Sous Vide Temperature 191°F/88°C Ingredients 2 pounds beets, trimmed 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil 2 tablespoons sherry vinegar 8 sprigs fresh thyme Salt and pepper 2 tablespoons minced fresh chives

@lindag posted about beets in 2019 in this post saying she'd used a CI recipe. What should the volume of liquids be? (I nearly broke my vacuum sealer 🙄)