elion_84

Do you find butternut squash too sweet? Twice in the last couple of weeks I bought very nice butternut squash at the farmers market. The first time I made ravioli, the second time pasta (Mario Batali's recipe from last F&W). Both time my wife complained that the dish was too sweet. The second squash looked not quite ripe, but sauteeing seemed to bring out a lot of sugar. Is the a way to make it less sweet? Should I try different kind of squash? If so, what kind?

I was looking for a watermelon sorbet recipe and found this one on RecipeGullet. I had a piece of a nice watermelon from the farmers market, so I made it last night. Well, the resulting sorbet is way too sweet. It got a little better after sitting in the freezer overnight, but still the cloying sweet aftertaste is these. Is it supposed to be very sweet? Can I un-sweeten the sorbet I have by adding more water and/or watermelon pure?

Wow, this is hard core! Did you have problems with the motor getting wet from condensation? I have the ICE20 machine and haven't had problems with ice cream or sorbet not freezing. I usually chill the mixture overnight before processing in the machine. I think this also helps develop flavor. I keep the bowl in the freezer between uses. After making the sorbet last night, I had trouble drying the bowl after washing it because the water would freeze in seconds.

I think European-style butters use a slightly different process - it's made from cultured cream (creme-fraiche). We've switch to Central Market European Style butter about 6 months ago. It's so much more flavorful than Land-o-lakes.

Elie, did you add the coffee bean? Could you tell if it added anything to the flavor of the gelato?

Here's Michael Chiarello's recipe - Basil Ice Cream. It's not a savory sorbet, more icecream mixed with basil. However, his idea for using ascorbic acid (vitamin C) powder to preserve bright green color of basil really works. I used it in pesto and basil butter with good success. Here's a recipe for basil sorbet that includes tomatoes in the base. I suspect you can replace them with more water and a bit more simple syrup. I think you'll have to experiment to get it right

I remember Alton Brown doing a show on salt crusted tenderloin that was very similar to your method. Also, the latest issue of Cook's Illustrated has an article on making grill-roasted tenderloin that involves salting the whole thing and letting it sit for about an hour on the counter. According to the article it makes for very tender and perfectly seasoned roast.

Sorry to disappoint all the peanut lovers, but peanuts are not really nuts. In fact, they have more in common with peas, then nuts. Did anyone catch Good Eats last Wednesday? It was a show on nuts. Alton Brown did some interesting stuff - like cashew butter that I've never seen before.

I believe it's fine to sample grapes or cherries to see if you're getting the good stuff. I've never been confronted by store employees about this. If it happens, I will never shop for said item in this store again. Luckily, most places I shop offer samples. On the other hand, taking a snack for the child and not paying for it is plain theft. Occasionally we've had to give our son a snack in the store to get him to seat in the cart, but we always pay for it. This is why I like palces where you can weigh your own produce. We'll get some bananas, weigh them, put the sticker on the bag, then give one to the child.

I've often seen sweet red onions at our local farmer's market. They are similar to Vidalia or 1015 sweet onions, just red in color. I bought a small basket that had white, yellow, and red sweet onion a couple of weeks back. I haven't compared them side by side, but all seem to have very mild, sweet flavor.

Wow, those ducks look nice. Inspired by this thread I decided to grill-roast a duck, too. I got one at the local oriental market for about $10. (Quick aside: I'm still amazed how they manage to charge less than half what other stores charge for duck) I marinated the duck overnight in a mixture of soy sauce, ginger, miso, honey, and coffee, along with orange, lime, and lemon -- a recipe my wife saw on Food 911. I cooked it on the grill using charcoal briquets for about 1 1/2 hour. I think the temperature at the leg was in 140s, and breast a bit higher. It was the most moist and tender duck I've ever had. Better than what I've had at very authentic chineese restaurants. I was surprised that the duck wasn't greasy at all. A lot of recipes recommend steaming it for 30-50 min to render the fat. My only quibble with the result was that the skin wasn't crispy like a nice roast chicken. I will definitely do this again.

I think you're drawing wrong conclusion from the list of snacks people bring to the class. There's a big difference between stuff people eat at home and what they bring to the class. I think the "chips and soda" menu is more a result of not wanting to spend much time on making the snacks or money on buying the better stuff. It doesn't take much thought or effort to buy chips or soda. I, for one, hate to be "asked" to bring in snacks for a meeting or an event at my son's day care. I'm sure most people feel that way too, because chips and soda are always the first choices on the sign up sheet. This doesn't mean that we don't eat healthy at home, filling up on chips and soda. In fact, we rarely have either in the house.

I have another question on the subject of cutting board maintenance. My wood board seems to pick up the smell of the aromatics that I'm chopping, especially the very smelly ones, like onions and garlic. This smell gets worse when the board is wet. Is there a way to get the smell out? What should I do to prevent the smell from sticking around?

Great blog! As the bumper sticker says - "I wasn't born in Texas, but I got here as fast as I could." People who come to visit us are always amazed how seriously Texans take their home state. Central Market (or as we call it "Central Markup") is an awesome store. I haven't seen any other store with so much variety of so many types of products. I live in Austin and go to the central location almost every week even though it's a bit out of the way for me. Whole Foods is similar, but they focus too much on the organic/natural products rather than greate selection of gourmet (for lack of other word) products. It's interesting that both stores got started in Austin.

At very rainy Austin Farmer's Market: - mixed baby lettuces - beets - green garlic - leeks - fennel - asparagus - baby lettuce - new potatoes - eggs - duck - 6 small tarts - blackberries - peaches - first peaches for the season from Fredericksburg, TX Malawry, how much is asparagus in DC area? Here in Austin it's outrageously expensive at the farmer's market $2.50 for a bunch of 10 spears. I can't imagine buying 10lbs at these prices.

One word: Spamarama

We grow: basil - it grows almost wild, reseeding itself thyme sage parsley oregano 3 kinds of rosemary, just because it looks pretty mint - for a while it took over the whole herb garden so now we grow it only in a pot. There are still little sprigs that come out here and there that we pluck out. In the past we've grown chives and dill, but not this year.

I buy my coffee beans either from a local roaster or from a gourmet shop that sells private branded pre-packaged beans. The beans from the local coffee roaster shop are very oily. Once I'm done with the 1/2 lb batch, the container where I store them is slick and oily on the inside. When grinding these beans, my grinder has oil streaks, and the ground coffee tends to stick to the sides a bit. I find that I need to use much coarser grind with this coffee or my machine (Capress EspressoPRO Model #112) can't push water through. On the other hand, the coffee from the gourmet shop is not nearly as oily compared to the other beans. I can use fine grind (1.5/2 setting on my grinder) and get somewhat better crema. How oily should the coffee bean be? Does this vary with bean variety or freshness of the roast? Does it make a difference?

At Austin Farmer's Market at Republic Square: Golden beets Turnips Green garlic Garlic Scalions Leeks Asparagus Baby spinach Radishes Rosemary Eggs Rabbit Sticky Toffee Pudding

I'm amazed at the variety, quality, and low prices of produce at the farmers market considering the weather. Down here in TX in the 70s (sorry to rub it in), but the farmers market selection is much more limited and prices are much higher. Although, I suspect that the latter has more to do with demand than supply.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I suspected that my problem was that the sauce is too shallow. I wanted to avoid using yet another container, alas it seems that it's not possible. My stick blender (Braun) came with a tall measuring cup-like thing. I'll try using that next time to puree the sauce.

A couple of months ago a bought a stick blender because I've heard many people rave about them. I mainly wanted to use it to puree sauces, not soups. I always shy away from making dishes that suggest pereeing the sauce at the end because of the hassle of cleaning up the blender. The stick blender looked like it would be easy to clean up - more like cleaning a spatule spatula - rinse and stick in the dishwasher. Well, so far I've been very disappointed in using the stick blender. When pureeing small amount of sauce (1 - 1 1/2 inch deep) it just sends splatter all over the kitchen. This really dashed my "easy cleanup" hopes :). I've tried tilting the pan but then I can't get into the corner, plus keeping a large cast iron pan tilted is a pain. Is there a better way to use the stick blender?

A roasting method for large chunks of meat that I picked up from Alton Brown is to roast at a low temp (200-225) until the meat is about 10deg below desired doneness, rest about 20 minutes tented with foil, then stick into really hot over for a few minutes to create a crust. For steaks grilled or fried medium-rare, resting for 5 minutes seems to be enough. I've noticed that same cut of meat from different places or different quality will have different amounts of "blood." I suspect this is a matter of dry aging it so there's less moisture to spill.

Talking about restaurant lighting - my wife and I noticed that many places seem to dim the lights after you're seated. Do they do it on purpose or is it an illusion? Can they really control it per table?

Interesting article in Slate magazine about Ferran Adria and the avant-garde cuisine: Make it new Their main point is that Adria's food is not that far from "hypermanipulated" mass processed foods on supermarket shelves and fast food chains. When I saw "Into the Fire" show about Trio I was really bother by the concept of separating the flavor form the food. This article helped me put my concerns into words.