andiesenji

To tell the truth, the best ones I have ever made were baked on a stove-top iron that was given to me by an Italian lady about 45 years ago and it was old then. It had been so well seasoned for so many years that nothing ever stuck to it. I still have it but haven't used it for many years because it had to be constantly watched and I had to stand at the stove. Now I sit at the table with my electric irons in a semi-circle in front of me and as I finish adding batter to the last one, it is time to remove the cookie from the first. It's sort of like slow-motion juggling.

I have several and generally use the single irons as I always have overrun with the two and three segment irons. I have one that produces three oval pizzelle and it is very difficult to get right. Fortunately the mistakes are entirely edible! I have two of the CucinaPro non-stick irons and they work okay. However my favorite is actually the Krumkake Express (non-stick) made by Chef's Choice. I got mine from another vendor but it is available at Amazon. I find the temp control on it is superior to that on the CucinaPro, but that is just my personal preference.

I don't boil it, it would take too long with using mature ginger. I steam it until it is tender then put it into the syrup and cook it until it is translucent all the way through.

I too am planning on gifting friends and family with my homemade goodies, including: my "famous" candied ginger, plus the vanilla extract that has been "cooking" all year and also the red wine vinegar that I think is pretty good. Also some candied citrus peel and glacé fruits, smoky fig jam, the "smoke" flavor provided by Lapsang Souchong tea. If I have time, I will jar up some other fruity jams that are now done and in the freezer until I have time to process them. My laurel nobilis bushes are going to be the source of some sweet bay wreaths and fans for both decor and culinary use. They dry nicely while hanging. I am currently drying several batches of herbs. Lemon verbena for tea, anise hyssop, ditto. And I am drying a big batch of shallot slices. They crisp up nicely and retain much of their flavor for later use. To each gift basket I am going to add some purchased items that I have discovered at Pepper-Passion.com I bookmarked the site a year or so ago when another eG member posted something about the site and just noticed in my list and found they have increased the number of "exotic" peppers they carry. Not to mention the gorgeous mills they hand-craft. (Naturally, I am buying a prezzie for me too.) One of my friends is going to be using my kitchen (hers is miniscule) to make some fancy soaps from goat milk and in exchange for the use of the kitchen, she is going to supply me with some for my gift baskets. I have a few other ideas and am doing some baking, but don't want to overcommit myself and run out of time.

The pot is a Bodum I bought several years ago. I did not have the infuser in it but it is essentially the same size and shape as the pot itself so it lends itself well to full leaf teas and herbs, especially nice for some of the fresh herbs that infuse prettily, such as lemon verbena, fresh picked. It was called the Tea Bowl and is no longer available. Bodum does offer a "Tea Bowl" but it is stainless steel and fairly expensive. Here is a bigger Bodum. I don't think it is still available. and this is one of the simple glass teapots I bought at the following site. Enjoying Tea.com

I just prepared Adagio's Red Bloom black tea. In addition to being a very pleasant cup of tea, it is also a treat for the eyes.

Andie, you must try the mustards from Kozliks ( Canadian Company). He makes over 60 varieties and they rock!! ← Thank you! I have the site in another window, going there to place an order post haste!

It may seem odd and go against all the rules, however some of the spiced tea blends taste better to me after they have "aged" a bit. Perhaps because my taste buds are super-sensitive, I get a lot of harsh tones in the newly acquired spiced teas but these mellow after they have been stored for a few months, sometimes a year or so. Friends often gift me with "holiday" blends from some companies and I will try them immediately but some are put aside and tried again months later when I find they are much more pleasant and no one spice is overpowering the others or the tea. The same is found in some floral blends - the lychee flower teas in particular. I purchased one that was simply too "perfume-y" on first brewing but after about six months it was just lovely. One of my most interesting storage mistakes was when I mistakenly place a bag of bulk Lapsang Souchong in a sealed jar with a bag of one of the "Russian" blends that contained spices. Both took on some of the characteristics of the other but retained some of their distinct flavors. It was a happy accident that I have repeated because I like the result.

I often mix mustard (home made and commercial - I have a "thing" for mustard) with the SE Asian sweet chili sauce. Mae Ploy is my favorite brand. I just received an order of international mustards (6) from The Mustard Museum, plus a sweatshirt hoodie and a T-shirt. I really do love mustard. I also mix Indonesian sambals with mayo, mustard and often add a tiny bit (it is rather spicy!) to various commercial salad dressings that need a little something to perk them up.

I have both the large and small Oxo stainless steel salad spinners. Fairly expensive but after having "several" of the plastic ones become deformed and inoperable after going through the dishwasher, I opted for these almost indestructible units. I use them all the time, the small is ideal for de-seeding sprouts (I do a lot of sprouting) and for herbs (I grow my own) and other small batch tasks. The large one holds a lot of greens and I find it extremely useful for removing sand from coarsely chopped leeks. (A task that seems to take forever when rinsing by hand.) Admittedly, not everyone needs something as heavy duty as these but they work for me. I have tried, in the past, the string pull, the crank type (broke the crank the third time I used it) an interesting model with the plunger that spun the thing on the bottom of the doughnut-shaped bowl. (It was a disaster from day one) and the various ones with the pump mechanism center top. I have to say that the plastic Oxo ones worked just fine for a few times until they suffered from being placed in my old dishwasher. They would probably have survived had they been washed by hand or in a regular dishwasher. (I had a Hobart commercial unit for quite a few years - too hot for most plastics.)

I too have used just about every type of tea storage vessel that has been on the market during the past 50+ years. I have a small collection of tea caddies that range from very practical to extremely whimsical and the latter of limited use. However I must say that I seldom buy teas in quantity that requires they be stored for very long periods because oxidation occurs over a period of months unless one uses a vacuum-sealed container. On the few occasions that I do buy teas in bulk - or receive a gift of tea in a quantity that is more than I can use in a few weeks, I divide it into smaller quantities and vacuum seal it and store it in an opaque container (an ancient stoneware bean pot) in the coolest and darkest part of my pantry. I use many of the Republic of Tea teas and like their canisters because the lids fit tightly and as far as I have been able to determine, maintain the quality of the tea nicely. The same with the very nice containers in which Adagio Teas are sold. (Even the samples are in very nice little tins.) I don't care for the tins that have a round lid inside a flat top because it takes some kind of tool to pry the lids out, often deforming the tin. The stainless steel canisters with the hinged, snap-lock plastic lids are okay if one puts an opaque liner in the lid to keep out the light. One of my friends uses these and buys black blotting paper at an art store and cuts out rounds that fit inside the lids. She says the blotting paper absorbs any residual moisture and is 100% rag paper so there are no insidious chemicals to affect the flavor of the tea. (She is much more of a tea fan(atic) than I and tends to get rather emotional about the quality of rare teas. - Recently she paid $148. for ONE OUNCE of a rare tea.) I can understand anyone wanting to guarantee that an expensive tea retains all of its quality but am not sure there is much advantage in paying a lot of money for a container in which one will store a relatively inexpensive tea that is easily replaced. Another friend stores teas in pint or half-pint Mason jars that are then placed inside cardboard shipping cylinders (for mailing posters) that have been cut to fit the height of the jars and covered with decorative paper - I think some were cut from inexpensive posters that pictured teas. Quite cheap and very decorative.

I notice the absence of Chado Tea Room, Los Angeles and Pasadena on the list and wonder if there is some reason it was omitted. Certainly James Norwood Pratt had spoken highly of Chado even before he became associated with Devan Shah with the Nilgiri Tea Society.

← ← I don't know of any other name for teff. I buy teff flour at my local health food store. There are numerous places online that sell it. I often make flat breads with a combination of "healthy" flours, combining amaranth, teff, quinoa and oat flours. These won't rise using yeast because of the lack of gluten but work great for flatbreads and in flapjacks, waffles, and etc., using other leaveners. I have used similar combos with wheat flour in sourdough breads too. Bob's Red Mill teff flour

I agree with Dougal. I also loooove the timer which allows me to set the machine for kneading dough and go off and do something else knowing it will stop the process when I set it. The company is coming out with a newer, more powerful mixer (more expensive though) in a month and I am seriously considering getting one. In the past I have written extensively about the Electrolux, aka (AEG, Magic Mill DLX 2000, Assistant, etc.) both here and on the Bread-Bakers email forum. In my 50 years of baking, I have owned both Hobart KAs and bigger Hobart mixers and never had a problem with them. Only after KA was no longer Hobart, did I have problems, burning out the motors on two of the 5-qt bowl lifts and have the replacement but never use it for dough. I have the 6-qt Pro and can do "light" or slack dough small batches in it but the bigger batches go into the Electrolux (8 quart) and I seldom use the dough hook for kneading - the roller/scraper combo does a good job for my purposes. I do use the dough hook for mixing the ground fruit and nut mixtures I make up for "candies" as it is easier than doing it by hand. I can't speak for other vendors but I depend on Pleasant Hill Grain and if you have any specific questions, you can call them toll-free and they will answer all your questions. A few years ago King Arthur Flour sold the Electrolux but I think the machines were too big for many of their pre-packaged bread mixes and they discontinued it, however, I understand from people who have visited their store, that they still use them in their test kitchen. Interestingly, America's Test Kitchen tested the Electrolux and didn't like it because it was "too big to be practical." Several readers, including me, wrote into say that they didn't give it a fair test.

My first experience with the Berkey system purifiers was when I had a motorhome and found that the inline filters at the filler valve simply did not provide me with water that was up to my standards. Berkey info. At that time the unit that was installed in my rig was called British Berkefeld Water Filtration System and it was essentially the same as the presently available "Royal" Berkey but used 8 of the filters which have been developed to be more efficient at transferring the water through the system. That system was also capable of taking water from lakes, streams or questionable water supply pipes in camping areas and producing a pure, safe water that always tasted great. It was fairly expensive at the time but I have always been willing to pay for what I feel is necessary. There are accessory filters that attach to the black filters and remove fluoride and arsenic from suspect water. I have friends who live in the high Sierras (on the Nevada side) and operate a B&B where the ground water from their well contains rather insignificant amounts of arsenic and they have been using Berkeys for several years, both to protect their guests and avoid any possibility of litigation. They also provide their guests with the "Sport" Berkeys when they go out hiking. They have told me that many of their guests have requested information about the units and some of their repeat guests have purchased them. I have tried the Brita, Pur and another "portable" filer system and none worked well for me.

Here are a few of the tea "appliances" I have. The first two are Teasmade, made by Goblin in the UK and I have had them converted to US electric current. I have three more but no photos right now. They are interesting items. The Teasmade web site. Lots of people collect them. The Phillips was only available in the US for a very short time in the mid '80s. The last appliance has multiple holders for "herbal" tea blends or for blending regular teas. I also have some other tea brewing appliances. A TeaMate that was marketed in the US by Chefs Choice for a couple of years about 8 years ago. One of the Sunbeam tea brewers that has never been out of the box. And a weird "machine" that looks like it was invented by Rube Goldberg. It packed away now but has components that resemble the glass coffee siphon machines but with a laboratory timer wired into the works. I do have some photos someplace but apparently have never scanned them into the computer.

I haven't used the copper pot for several years because it needs to be re-tinned and I am afraid to let it out of my sight as it is a fairly rare item. (It also could do with a bit of polish but I rather like the patina it has developed.)

Anyone with a tea kettle can determine the difference in water by looking at the solids that accumulate on the inside of the kettle. My well water has excellent taste when cold and straight from the well. It contains a significant amount of various minerals that contribute to the taste. My well is tested by the state every year and ranks in the top 1/10th of one percent of privately owned wells in the state. However, these same minerals, calcium is quite high, precipitate out of the water when it is boiled along with other minerals and some go through a change at particular temperatures. These minerals affect how the tea reacts as the various components are infused into the hot water. Sometimes, in clear glass brewing vessels, one can see particulates clumping and dropping to the bottom. These do not form when filtered water is the brewing medium so something is different. I have filtered these things through coffee filters and the feel of the stuff is gritty, not soft as the tea residue should be. I had a 3-stage filter system installed where the water line enters my home after the '94 earthquake. I also have access to city water via a line from the main that was installed in 2001, just in case something happens to the well. I for sure want that water filtered before using it. If anyone has ever sampled the water around Santa Maria/Lompoc, one can understand why people there use more bottled water, per capita, than anywhere except Beverly Hills. The water stinks, is at best cloudy and at worst, murky. It is impossible to make any type of beverage and have it drinkable with the local water. I have several friends who live in the area and all have installed various systems to clean up the water. Even bathing it is objectionable to me. At present I have an ongoing argument with certain Calif. state officials because the Berkey SS water purifiers, which are very efficient, can't be sold in the state, except for the little travel Berkey. Brita just does not do it for me, I want something stronger.

Have you considered peeling, coring and cutting some into rings and drying them. Almost any type of apple can be dried and later reconstituted and used in many types of pastry or other recipes. It is not difficult, much easier than drying soft or stone fruits and the results are surprisingly tasty as the flavors and the sugars concentrate as the slices dry. You need to slice them thicker than for immediate cooking - at least 1/4 inch thick and sliced evenly - not in wedges. If you can get one of the peeler/corer/slicers it makes the job much easier but you can do it by hand and do half-rings. Peel the apple, cut it in half, core it, lay it cut side down on a board and make parallel cuts from end to end. There is another thread that discussed drying times and etc. I'll look for it and add a link later. I prepare dried apples especially for "fried" pies - similar to pasties - although mine are baked, not actually fried. Linkk to drying fruit.

Interesting that you should bump up this subject just now. A few weeks ago I came across the Black Beluga Lentils at Trader Joe's and bought a package which notes the lentils are (fully cooked). It also states the caveat that they are prepared (packaged, I think) in or on machinery that has been exposed to nuts, seafood, and etc. The instructions are to vent the package and microwave on high for 75 seconds or boil in water on the stovetop. "Great in soups and salads." And so they are. They are somewhat bland so one can add one's preferred seasonings to taste without being locked into the processor's choice. They can be dressed with different sauces for whatever flavor one likes. I'm not usually a fan of microwaveable items such as this but this product is very handy if one has a last minute guest and wants to stretch a meal so it won't appear skimpy. I added the lentils to a cooked rice medley served with mock chicken cutlets (for vegetarian friends) and tossed them with yam noodles for a salad for lunch one day. They are very versatile for something so easy to keep on hand for quick prep.

As I live alone, and am able to please myself, I have perfected the technique of carving off all the crust on an artisan loaf, first cutting off each end then with a long serrated knife, I can make a cylindrical cut to remove the crust in one piece. The bare "crumb" is sliced and cubed, allowed to dry and frozen as is or converted into bread crumbs. Buttered and toasted, with a judicial application of grated cheese, usually sharp, this makes a meal for me when combined with a salad or vegetables.

yeah... some of that Verpooten story seems questionable, but avocados made the trip from Central America (and Mexico) to the Caribbean right around the same time as the Dutch were colonizing there (and in Suriname and Brazil) in the early 17th century. they most definitely would have come in contact with the fruit by 1654. i'll do a little more research and see what i can find (i'm taking a graduate seminar on peasant rebellion in Latin America right now). still no credible sources that say there was a avocado drink, alcoholic or not. ← I don't know how far back the "recipe" goes, but I checked with a friend who tended bar on cruise ships for decades and he says that in Trinidad and Tobago they make one of the eggnog type drinks, but for people that are allergic to eggs they do use avocado to thicken it. Two types of rum, cream or a combination of evaporated milk and sweetened condensed milk, Angostura bitters, sugar (if using fresh cream) eggs with extra egg yolks, lime zest topped with grated nutmeg. The eggs are cooked in the cream and/or canned milks, chilled and beaten into the rum and served in a punch bowl. Ponche de Creme. If they have patrons who can't or won't consume eggs, they use very ripe avocado, scraping off most of the green part, mashing it through a sieve and beating it into the milk or cream It is usually served during holidays and he says it does indeed pack a punch. In the Yucatan he has sampled several drinks made with avocado combined with other fruits and coconut and usually the liquor was pulque or mezcal. Perhaps someone should write to Rick Bayless and see if he knows anything on the subject.

I have been collecting teapots for fifty years so have more than a few. Here, Richard, are some that were easiest for me to reach. I don't do stepladders so the others will have to wait until I have help. This first batch range from the old to the modern. The oldest here is the copper with rosewood handle, made by Gorham in 1881, inherited from my grandmother. The white pot with the chrome jacket laying beside the pot is one made by Hall China in 1940. The one with fruit is a Royal Wocester "Evesham" pattern, late 40s. The maroon pot is also by Hall China, made for the Lipton Tea company. The SS one reminded me of the Hall china Aladdin teapot so I bought it last year. Most of my teapots have the perforations between the vessel and the spout - very efficient! The cobalt blue Aladdin by Hall, I have this pot in several colors. It doesn't have the perforations but has an internal china infuser - not in the pot right now, wrapped and put away because they chip easily. And some little pots along with a newer Bodum and the figural teapot that is my kitchen mascot. It is pre-war. (WWII) Also a Yixing as well as a couple of tiny odd things I picked up in San Francisco in the late 50s. The inside of the Hall china metal "jacket" - Not bad for a pot that is almost as old as me! And one of the "Tea for One" sets aptly named "Andrea" - a gift from a friend who says I am "impossible" to buy for.

Well, it was a whole two weeks. Too long to be without my faves! As I mentioned on another thread, I like my Senseo coffee first thing in the morning, however I then transition to tea and drink various types until late in the evening. Thus the caffeine-free teas - although caffeine does not keep me awake, I had promised my doctor to avoid it in the evening so it wouldn't affect my blood pressure. I do try to be good - as much as possible. I also can't stand the way some "foreign" waters affect teas. Thus the purifier. I have a purifying system for water at home, even though I am on a well and the water is excellent - there are some minerals that do make a difference.

I had a brainstorm and went next door to ask my neighbors, who are from Mexico. Celia gave me this bottle of Rompope a product of Mexico. I found this Wiki article which also mentions Advocaat. Rompope article The article notes several other related products.