chromedome

Muffin-pan tartlets are the default for home bakers. Individual shells in foil tartlet pans is the commonest "take" commercially, from what I've seen.

I saw that this morning. Personally I'm in the pro-raisin camp, but have had to reconcile myself to barren, raisin-deprived butter tarts for the sake of peace in the family.

The meal-in-a-box thing strikes me as the culinary equivalent of smartwatches...there's a market there, to be sure, but it's not as big as its boosters think it is. Not in this format, at any rate.

Agreed, those came out spectacularly well for a first attempt. The lamination is beautiful, you were clearly meticulous in your layering. Re: first batch vs. second batch...were they in the same bag, or did you separate them by batch and freeze them that way? I've noticed in the past that when I have a quantity in one large bag, and take from them as needed, the later ones aren't usually as good. I don't know whether that's because of air/moisture (I'm in a coastal climate) getting into the bag, or just because they're older. If they're bagged separately, I suppose one bag might potentially have been sealed better than the other. Unless your yeast was brand new, that might have been the issue as well. Less-vigorous yeast might fade more quickly in the freezer, performing well enough initially but then dying away. Lots of variables at play is the bottom line. You'll probably need to repeat the experiment a few times to know for sure. As for the size of the triangles, did you cut a nock into the middle of the flat end before you began rolling? Most recipes mention this, and it helps them stretch. As you roll up the croissant you gently stretch it by easing your hands apart, as if rolling a breadstick (though not quite as vigorously). Once you get the knack of it, you can make the finished croissant quite significantly wider and thinner, giving it a prettier shape once proofed and baked.

Authentic recipes use bones, I understand.

I dunno...half price on racks of lamb is reason enough to backslide, IMO.

It could always be worse. My ex-wife once mistook her contact lens protein-remover solution for her decongestant nasal spray, and snorted a significant quantity into her sinuses. Apparently, this is not a good place for protein-digesting enzymes. She was very emphatic about that, afterwards.

Yeah, prices are pretty variable. I took a photo of the LCD advertising on a gas pump a couple of years ago to make my US colleagues jealous: One of the three door-crasher prices they advertised was live lobsters at $5.99/lb. One colleague commented that she didn't know which was more shocking...the crazy-low price of the lobsters, or the crazy-high price of the milk and bread. I didn't have the heart to tell her that those were lower-than-supermarket prices.

I consider that to be an oxymoron. There are really only two quantities of butter...not enough, and as much as a given piece of food will hold.

I do that, too. Also if the recipe calls for sugar, I put at least half of it into the egg whites to make the foam more durable.

I pulled a few packages of cut-up rabbit from my mom's freezer for stew, and found that one of them had the livers and hearts in with it. So I went ahead with the stew, but ate the livers and hearts on toast for my lunch. I just sauteed them and topped them with caramelized onions, though. I was hungry.

Double scallops? Oh, the humanity.... Good of you to be so sporting about taking one for the team.

I cook them on one side only, like a crepe. When the side you're looking at reaches the doneness you want in the middle of a normal chop, flip them onto a plate. If you're serving someone who'd be aghast at not "cooking" the second side, flip it in the pan and let it sizzle for a nominal few seconds before sliding it out.

It turns out that getting a shout-out from Justin Trudeau at the United Nations is pretty good for business. Who knew? http://www.saveur.com/peace-by-chocolate-syrian-refugee-chocolate-company-canada

I think I had that allium on vinyl...

It looks wonderful. I have about five bags of red currants from my parents' bushes in my freezer at home...gonna have to do something with those one day soon, I think.

Me too, but not for the same reason. My bowl is cracked and I have no discs with mine, and when I poke around on eBay I find there are whole packages with bowl, discs, base unit etc. for not much more (or sometimes less) than the two parts I actually need. I'm totally down with the idea of getting a "parts machine" for when my original one finally craps out.

Mine arrived today. IIRC I put in my order around the third week of January (Canadian site).

My father was the cook in the family, so Mom hasn't prepared very many dinners for herself in the last...oh, 40 years or so. She has Parkinson's now, so the tremors won't make it easier for her to re-adjust. She's hardly helpless in the kitchen, and routinely makes her own breakfasts and lunches, but dinners are a bit more work. It'll be a great convenience for her to have them ready-made in the freezer.

The transition of my mother's freezer from ingredients to ready-to-eat meals continues apace. It now contains several individual packages of scalloped potatoes with ham (one of her favorites), bean soup, venison soup, venison pot roast/veg/gravy, and a quantity of small onions form their garden that I simmered in a marinade and then roasted. Those are for garnish on future roasts, chops, etc. My father passed peacefully on Friday, so filling the freezer must now alternate with many legalities and practicalities (my aunt and I are executors).

I believe the quote is "divided by a common language," isn't it? I've most often heard the Southern-ism described as a behind-the-back verbal knife, but will cheerfully and whole-heartedly defer to first-hand knowledge. I had no intention of my comment being a reflection on anyone specific, I was (in my own mind) simply contributing to a digression on the subject of regional colloquialisms. If I've inadvertently slighted anyone, please accept my apologies.

I had one, but only used it twice. It was almost impossible to extricate the meatballs from the meatballer, which I felt rather defeated the purpose. I literally threw it out the window, and went back to using a disher. It's fast and yields uniform meatballs, albeit with one flat side. Yours is probably better designed/made, or we wouldn't be having this discussion.

In my neck of the woods, "God love him/her" is often used as a gentle slight, an expression of amused tolerance over someone's just-can't-help-it foolishness. I think it probably parallels the Southern "bless his/her heart" in that respect.

We had a similar thing this past summer with earwigs. We'd gotten plenty of snow, but only briefly and without any real cold (by local standards) to kill off the wee critters. I don't anticipate a repeat this year.

When people attempted to haggle, a former retail colleague of mine would lean forward (at 6' 3" and nearly 300 lbs, he could really loom over people), make a sweeping gesture to the walls, and ask rhetorically "Do you see chickens hanging here? You're in North America now..." He was eventually fired tor that and similar failures of tact. Some retailers will bargain in a limited way, but I was never interested in playing the game and mostly worked for retailers who shared that perspective. I guess it's something of a life skill, but I lack the patience.