andiesenji

Yes, I love to try anything "different." I ordered some of the ground vanilla beans from Boston Vanilla Bean co. https://www.bostonvanillabeans.com/shop/index.php?l=product_detail&p=594 It was okay - I tried mixing it with various sugars, with salt and it worked well for me in certain applications - I also mixed it into the dry ingredients when using it in some baked goods, but didn't like the results as much as with regular extract or the paste. I had the most success in mixing the powder with soft butter, then melting it. I mixed it with warm/hot syrup - otherwise it sort of floated on top of the liquid. I think the best application was when mixed (sparingly) with coarse or sanding sugar, sprinkled on top of custard and then caramelized.

I order far more herb seeds than vegetable seeds because I now do very little vegetable gardening. I have had excellent results with the seeds from OVM seeds, http://www.ovm-seeds.com/storefrontprofiles/deluxeSFshop.aspx?Herb%20Seeds&sfid=136776&c=116864 For some varieties, ten seeds is enough, for other herbs, I may want more and the way they package and sell the various herbs is a boon for someone who has a very small garden or wants to grow many types of herb rather than a large patch of one kind. This year's "crop."

I use a genrous rounded teaspoon (not a measuring spoon, a regular teaspoon) I just compared it to a measuring teaspoon and it holds 1 + 1/8 liquid so I would estimate that the rounded measure I end up with, dragging the spoon on the inside of the jar, would be close to 2 teaspoons. That amount seems to work well for me in recipes that specify one teaspoon of vanilla extract - I usually add more of the latter because I like a stronger vanilla flavor, especially in the egg-based dishes. I also used it in a caramel sauce and used two full teaspoons for 3 1/2 cups of sauce. (kept notes that time) I also have some homemade vanilla paste that I made last fall and I think it is stronger than the commercial ones I got from KAF and Beanilla.

Thank you ! The curd/milk tip came from my mom Apparently I didn't make my statement clear. The procedure I recommended was the "recipe" for making ghee that is in an online cookbook (not mine, I don't have one). I saw the buttermilk/melted butter procedure on a Cook's Illustrated show in 2005 and happened to tape it.

Scroll down and read the reviews at KAF. Some good ideas there. http://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop/items/vanilla-bean-paste-4-oz And here is a blogger who found it very useful. http://bakeat350.blogspot.com/2009/04/vanilla-bean-paste.html I use it in custards, especially one I make with a sweet sherry and I start by thinning the paste with the sherry before adding it to the egg mixture. I use this particular custard mixture to make a special bread pudding.

Mexican cinnamon is canela or Cinnamomum verum and is not cassia. It is the "true" cinnamon from Ceylon or Sri Lanka. Our very own Rancho Gordo sells it. http://www.ranchogordo.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=RG&Product_Code=CANH01 Notes about it here: http://www.zarela.com/?tag=canela-mexican-cinnamon I rarely buy ground cinnamon because there is really no way to be sure of the type you are getting unless you can see and feel the whole product. There is no way you can confuse the two types because they look and feel different. The true cinnamon is in smaller "quills" and can easily be broken with your fingers and smushed in a mortar. You need a grinder for cassia. Also the true cinnamon easily infuses flavor into warm liquids, such as milk. Good luck trying this with cassia - it needs alcohol or boiling.

The rice in commercial rice cakes is puffed or popped right in the mold and there is no way to produce them in a home kitchen that is any way like the commercial version which is made only with rice (sticky or short-grain) and water - flavors added later. Here is a description of how the product is made: http://www.enotes.com/how-products-encyclopedia/rice-cake All rice, wheat or other puffed cereal "cakes" made at home require the use of a sticky agent, sugar, honey, syrup, with butter, which is cooked and then mixed with the cereal which is then pressed into a slab and cut into portions. These are not low calorie in any sense of the word.

You can trim as much as 1/4 of the leaves, starting at the bottom of the plant and remove just a few, wait a couple of days and remove some more. I have used this method to form a "standard" or a single bare stem with a round "head" at the top. When starting with a newly potted scion which has leaves from top to bottom, I would spend a couple of weeks doing the gradual pruning and these were done in the greenhouse so would be essentially the same as your indoor plants. It is generally the leaves that are about a year old that have the most flavor. When harvesting, without taking the whole stem or branch, I take the leaves nearest the trunk and leave the younger leaves nearer the tip.

I've tried various liquids in which to infuse saffron, including warm honey (a medieval method) diluted verjus, different oils, even glycerin, and they all work well. I have found that warming it a bit does help the saffron to "bloom" a bit faster.

I've been asking this same question for years and I get the same answer, "If I don't sell them," etc., etc., etc. I have some journals of an ancestor who was an eyewitness to the extermination of the passenger pigeon and he bemoaned the practice of netting and shooting tens of thousands of birds in a single hunt, feeling that no good could come of it. Probably the rationale of the "hunters" was the same then as it is now.

The true bay when fresh has a sweet, aromatic scent with none of the "linseed" aroma. The California bay leaves have a distinct aroma more like eucalyptus. The shape is usually different, the true bay being broader, the California longer and narrower. The best way to check the scent is to scratch the underside of a leaf with your fingernail. The cells containing the essential oil are on the underside.

My neighbor tells me it looks like the dried and ground "chufas" that is sold to make a horchata drink and the way she describes it, it is nothing like the rice-based horchata, which is sold here. She says it isn't common in the area where she is from (Durango) but her sister lives in Chiapas and the stuff is sold in bulk in the markets there and the street vendors and many restaurants sell the finished product as orxata de xufes. However, I like Jaymes idea better. I'm always on the prowl for stuff to put on fruit. The various types of pico de gallo available in the Mexican markets here are much finer ground and very hot, have lots of ground chile in them.

I've been ordering the Mexican canela - whole sticks - from one importer who gets the product from Chiapas. It is soft and crumbly and is the best "cinnamon" for use in fresh drinks or other dishes that are not cooked or baked for longer periods. I like the Vietnamese for baking but occasionally order some of the Ceylon cinnamon. The sticks I got from this vendor were superior to others I have tried. http://www.druera.com/shopping/product_info.php?cPath=62_72&products_id=69

I have some very expensive knives but when it comes to breaking a chicken or a duck and cutting bones, I reach for the 10 inch Forschner with the fibrox handle that doesn't get slippery when wet or greasy. Check Smart & Final. I know there is one on Boulder Highway just off the 515. The store here carries the Forschner and the price is around $30.00. It's inexpensive but not cheap. The blade is stiff and while it doesn't have a whole lot of heft, it has enough to do the job very well.

I had a RoT gift cert. to use so ordered their two new oolongs, Peach Blossom and Dragon. Today I brewed a pot of of the Peach Blossom and the aroma is indeed very peachy. I brewed the first time for 3 minutes and the liquor was almost winey with a very long, smooth finish. Repeat brewings at 7 minutes and 12 minutes produced excellent cups - a total of 9 cups (10 ounce) from three generous measures of the full-leaf tea. Tomorrow I will try the Dragon.

I also use the "pinch" method but I use my spice pick-ups because my thumb and fingers don't fit into the container I use and this way I don't have to dump some out and return it to the container - the stuff blows away if you breathe anywhere near it and I hate losing even a couple of threads. The amount shown is what I use for 3 cups (rice cooker measure) of raw rice. This saffron was purchased from Vanilla Saffron Imports in San Francisco. The quality is excellent, great flavor, all threads, no dust at all.

Yes. You can use both ascorbic acid and citric acid together and in fact many food manufacturers do because ascorbic acid is bitter and the citric acid masks this bitterness. Use just a tiny amount - an eighth of a teaspoon total. Split your dough after the initial mixing and add the stuff to one part so you will have a control to see and taste the difference. Ascorbic acid is much more effective at stopping the browning of fruits and vegetables but I don't like the bitter flavor that my type of processing simply can't remove so I use the citric acid, just a stronger solution.

It's a lemon squeezer - looks to be Victorian but could be Edwardian. Note that this is not to squeeze half a lemon but the lemon wedges served with raw oysters and placed on the table with the oyster plate. The Victorians had a table utensil for everything. A place setting could consist of many pieces but not all were placed on the table at the beginning of the meal. The "rule of three" was followed, six flatware pieces for the first two or three courses, with three pieces on each side of the charger or plate. The used flatware was removed with each course and then new pieces were placed prior to the next two or three courses.

In my earlier post I included a link to a site that had recipes using various spirits as well as sherry for milk punch drinks. After a chat with one of my aunts, who is even more elderly than me, she reminded me of my great-grandmother's other favorite sherry drink, a sherry flip, made with cream sherry (always Savory & James), so I did a search and found a recipe. The writer notes the precursor to eggnog was Dry Sack Posset and I had always read that a posset was milk curdled with wine - sounded awful to me. http://www.artofdrink.com/2007/11/cream-sherry-flip.php The most interesting bit to me about these alcoholic drinks was that my grandfather's farm, where I was born and raised, was located in a "dry" county, where the sale of any alcoholic beverage was illegal. And of course there were the folk who believed in free enterprise and made their own.

I have a lot of spoons of different shapes and many sizes from the standard tablespoon to the very large sauce spoon. I recently got one of these: http://www.cheftools.com/RSVP-Endurance-Drizzle-Spoon/productinfo/06-2530/ And I love it. I ordered two more, one for a spare and one to send to my daughter. Far too often, when I find something like this that becomes a necessary part of my kitchen tool collection, it is discontinued and I lose the original. Thus a spare! I am considering placing an order for a few more to use as gifts. I saw it being used in one of the YouTube videos for drizzling a fruit syrup in the spiral formed on top of whipped cream in a parfait glass at the table. I know it is easy to do the same thing with squeeze bottles in the kitchen, but you don't want an unattractive utility item like a plastic bottle at an elegantly appointed table.

I'm reading "Cheesemonger A Life on the Wedge" by Gordon Edgar. So far I have read about two-thirds of the book and I have found it to be extremely entertaining It is well written and grabs the interest of the reader from the very first paragraph, something I have not found to always be present in books by other authors writing about similar subjects. His workplace is the Rainbow Grocery Cooperative in San Francisco, "the Bay Area's largest independent natural foods store and the country's largest retail worker-owned cooperative." The way he describes the store makes me want to load my van and drive up to the city ASAP. He also describes cheeses that I have not tried and am looking to order. I also plan to revisit a few old "friends" that I haven't purchased for some time, simply because his writing has reminded me how much I like them. One senses early on that the author knows and loves his subject. He explains that he had to learn to enjoy cheese because he had grown up with the mundane supermarket American cheeses readily available to the homemaker. His background as a punk rocker does seem a bit odd for someone venturing into the food business but he explains the rationale and it is easily believable. And admirable. I've recommended this book to my daughter, who lives in the Bay Area and gets into San Francisco to shop fairly often. She is planning to visit the store and is also going to read the book. I have no hesitation in recommending it

I don't drink myself, but I am familiar with the Kentucky version of Bourbon milk punch. This site has three versions with Bourbon http://www.drinksmixer.com/drink1546.html and with other spirits. The Bourbon milk punch was a mainstay of the "Ladies Menu" at the Irvin S. Cobb Hotel in Paducah, KY, back when I was a child in the 1940s. Considered a "genteel" ladies drink it was carried to the table on a silver tray and placed on a lace doily. (Ladies did not enter the bar.) I never got to taste it but my grandmother and one of my aunts certainly appeared to enjoy it. My great-grandmother preferred the one made with sherry.

I don't remember any specific adages from the brief times I worked in a restaurant kitchen. However, I worked for a few years in a professional bakery (owned by my mom) and the head baker, who had many years of experience, had one very important adage which we were ordered to follow. "Bake when the DOUGH is ready, not the clock." I still follow this today in my own baking at home. I don't rely completely on timers because there are many things that can influence how dough behaves and it's not always the weather - sometimes I think it must be the gods of baking.

Do you mean mix them with citric acid? I woke up with another idea this morning, using them to dust homemade marshmallows - obviously not the ones intended to go into cocoa - but ones intended for other applications - I like to make them but their uses are limited. I have some little duck molds and thought I might try making some for Easter and mixing a little citric acid with some of the colored sugars I got from Kitchen Krafts and coating them with this. Just a thought........

Last night I made a batch of lemon/orange/grapefruit lakhoum or Turkish delighthttp://forums.egullet.org/index.php?/topic/128498-turkish-delight-or-lakhoum/page__p__1697130__fromsearch__1entry1697130 I didn't want to use cornstarch to coat the outside because my daughter and grandchildren have an allergy to corn. I blitzed 1/4 cup of granulated sugar with a scant 1/4 teaspoon of citric acid and the result was a powdered coating that had a bit of "pucker-power" and was a complement to that flavor of lakhoum. It reminded me of the coating on the old-fashioned lemon drops that had a rather rough coating - abraded the roof of the mouth if too many were consumed quickly. More possibilities are ranging about in my brain - I have a few packages of Jello which need to be used up...........