chromedome

Ah, yes...I remember "those" weeks perfectly. "But wait, there's more! Order now and you'll also receive one dumbass mistake ABSOLUTELY FREE with every meal!"

I love that site. I first tripped across it years ago when I lived in Edmonton, and wound up spending four of my only six potential sleeping hours there that night (never a good idea to "poke around on the internet while I wind down"). The related fashion and decor pages are equally fun -- I remember some of those ghastly combinations from my 70s childhood -- but the funniest of all was his tribute to The Gobbler, "the grooviest hotel in Wisconsin."

1) Make tea. 2) Put steel-cut oats on to simmer. 3) Come browse eGullet while sipping my tea. 4) Think "Mmmm, smells like oatmeal cookies!" 5) (penny drops)

I like that CI explains the thought process behind their recommendations, because often it tells me where we parted company. I think if you live in an area where beans are not widely used perhaps you might get old and stale ones at the supermarket, but it's a long stretch to go from there to a blanket condemnation of dried beans in general. I've bought 'em in 6 of Canada's 10 provinces, and only occasionally found myself with a batch of elderly and "cookproof" beans...usually when I was desperate and picked them up at a convenience store, or something like that. (Disclosure: Freshness is a complete non-issue for me now, because my parents grow and dry their own and share 'em with me.)

That's a strange anomaly...it's almost as if they calculated the exchange rate backwards on the Canadian price, and marked it down instead of up.

I have a Kobo, which gives even better control over the typeface. Way more fonts to choose from, and I can adjust the font weight, spacing, line spacing, etc. Mind you, I have a lot more books in dead-tree format and buy "real" books more often than ebooks, so reading glasses will be my constant companion for the foreseeable future.

FWIW, my half-sized batch makes eight. I seldom bother to make a half-sized batch.

The ones I bought were reasonably decorative, with pretty printed patterns. Basically they were comparable to most dollar-store gift bags or gift wrap, which is what they otherwise would have gone into.

That's genius.

I bought up a bunch at a consignment store (not nearly as comprehensive as Andiesenji's collection, but still decent) specifically for gifting. Honestly, anybody I give a loaf to in one of those will generate more paper waste in two trips to Tim's, with or without my cake...it seems pretty minor as environmental impacts go.

It depends how you define "hard." Is it brain-surgery hard? Rocket-scientist hard? No. It's grinding, numbing, joint-pain, dogged perseverance no-sleep hard. It's work-all-the-time-for-minimal-pay hard. If you aspire to be a chef and own your own place (never mind Michelin-starred, as in the article you linked) you'll need to learn how to run a business, which is something culinary schools in general do a poor job of emphasizing. To be a really notable chef, you'll need to combine an industrial engineer's meticulous attention to detail* with an artist's flair and creativity. Also you'll need to manage people capably, which is often the hardest part of the job and the most difficult to learn. That being said, have at it. I graduated culinary school at 40, because cooking was something I was passionate about. I opened and closed a couple of restaurants (see my earlier comment about running a business) and eventually wound up out of the industry, but what I learned provided the basis for my current career as a freelance writer. Organization, focus, cleanliness -- and of course cooking chops -- are all highly portable and useful skills, regardless of whether you ultimately end up employing them in a commercial kitchen. * Not a random analogy...the chef I worked for when I was going to school was an industrial engineer by training. Her partner, the trained chef, wound up managing the front of the house while she ran the kitchen.

File me under "love" as well. I'll cheerfully eat them at any time of day, any time of year.

It's not that big a deal, really. You know the added flours have no gluten (with the exception of rye, but we can ignore it when it's a small part of the mixture), so you just add a spoonful or two of gluten to make up the difference. If it comes out dense, you add more the next time. Easy-peasey. Rye and buckwheat add deep, dark flavors; millet, oats and corn add sweetness; and with corn or millet you get a nice golden hue as well. It's a fun way to play, once you've got the basic recipe to behave for you.

I usually advise against making abrupt, radical changes anyway, so don't feel like you need to go all-in right from day one. Instead, I'd recommend trying out one of more of these sites/apps and simply use it to monitor what you *currently* eat. That exercise has a number of benefits in and of itself. To begin with, it establishes a useful baseline to compare/contrast with your future eating habits. It also gives you time and opportunity to get accustomed to the site and its features, and to enter recipes for a number of dishes you make regularly. As you settle into the groove of tracking/monitoring your food, you'll become more mindful of what you eat and that in turn will inform your meal choices. Over time, you'll find that you begin to gravitate to healthier options by default, simply because you are monitoring your eating (just as scrutinizing your finances leads to fewer impulse purchases and better spending habits). When you splurge on high-calorie meals or foods -- and there's no reason not to -- you'll do so deliberately, and on foods that give you maximum pleasure (around my house, it's often Hollandaise or creme brulee). You'd get the same calories from munching absently on potato chips during a Netflix binge, but with much less joy. I'm not one for penitential eating, as my sig will attest, but even modest tweaks yield good long-term results if you're conscious of your choices.

Ah, gotcha. Makes perfect sense.

"Cooked but just..." is ideal, no?

It's possible the whole-wheat flour here in Canada is higher in gluten than what you're using. My usual loaf is a sandwich bread, so it's enriched with egg, milk, butter and honey; sometimes (depending on my flour and how it behaves) I'll add a dash of vital wheat gluten and a spoonful of lecithin granules. I often replace up to a third of the whole-wheat flour with a random mixture of other flours out of my cupboard (rye, buckwheat, corn flour, oat flour, kamut flour etc), in which case I definitely add gluten. Have you tried using the basic setting, instead of the ww setting? It's possible your bread might be over-proofing and then losing volume (the ww cycle usually extends the rising time). Your nose will usually tell you if it's over-fermented, the dough will develop a sour and faintly alcoholic smell and the finished loaf will be dense and coarse.

The recipe I mostly bake for our daily sandwich bread is 100% whole wheat. It was a favorite of my late wife's, and I believe it came from the old DAK breadmaker bread book. She was an early adopter of bread machines, and although she didn't own a DAK she swore by their recipe book. There are still used copies out there, if you look for 'em. How are the loaves falling short? We could perhaps brainstorm a bit.

Mangoes and bananas both have a hint of bitterness/astringency under the sweetness, which is exaggerated when they're frozen. I found it wasn't a big deal with just the bananas, but when I put them together it was overpowering. "Like vomit" seems a bit harsh, though.

I've been making the frozen-banana "ice cream" all summer. It's pretty straightforward...buzz the bananas, you get soft serve. Done. Once you freeze it it gets harder and icier, so you might want to add some sugar or something to soften it. Or not...it's not that big a deal. To make chocolate, just add a bit of cocoa powder. I've tried adding mango and I find that it's not all that good with the banana...I'd suggest using mangoes separately, because they're just as high in fiber and pectin as the bananas. They'd probably work pretty well as a base in their own right. I can't vouch for that, because I haven't tried it (yet). Mangoes are a bit pricier in Atlantic Canada than in Kerala, I'd guess. Most other fruits and berries I've tried in the banana mix have worked pretty well, so I think you'd be hard-pressed to really go wrong.

It's a perfectly valid perspective, Huiray. In gluten-free cooking classes, I've often steered people toward innately wheat-free foods from various cultures as opposed to gf analogs of familiar wheat-based foods. You're right about not being the demographic I was looking for, but that's fine. All opinions are welcome.

I should clarify, I'm not referring to the already-existing prepared veggie hot dogs, sausages, etc (veggy manufacturer Yves makes a faux-lamb product called "Lack of Ram," which cracks me up). I'm canvassing for reactions to a) realistic simulations of natural, raw meat form plant sources, or b) actual "meat" produced by an animal-free process.

@MelissaH I guess what I'm really wishing for is a CSO that has the same dimensions as the countertop Oster mentioned in the Breville vs. Oster thread. That, I'd have in a heartbeat.

I've just finished reading an interesting article about a startup, Impossible Foods, which is working on a plant-based burger that will be indistinguishable from beef to the casual diner (you'll find it here: https://psmag.com/the-biography-of-a-plant-based-burger-31acbecb0dcc#.nfqtah12r). For a while now I've been following the efforts of other researchers to create lab-grown meats (aka "beef in a bottle") from various sources. I've informally polled most of my omnivorous acquaintances about this, and the consensus seems to be that as long as it's 1) a good substitute, 2) price-competitive, and 3) comparable in nutrition, they'd probably give it a try (I live in a frugal part of the world, and price would play a large role here). I'm curious to have the same kind of feedback from any vegetarians and vegans who participate here on the boards. Would you eat a meat substitute that was produced in the laboratory, all things being equal? Would it matter to you that it be all plant-based, or would you be willing to entertain the notion of a "genuine" artificial meat that was created without animals?

I find a recipe with 3 to 3 1/2 cups of flour fills a 2-pound machine pretty completely, if that's any help. For day-to-day sandwich bread for the household, I buy used ones at the thrift store and use them on the dough cycle to mix up my dough unattended, while I work. Then I pan and bake conventionally, which neatly sidesteps the "baking-quality" issues involved in random bread machines.