andiesenji

Also, you do have to consider the properties of cornstarch. It will thicken when heated to a certain point. However, if you continue heating it, hold it at simmer for too long, it will thin out again. That is why it is used for quick cooking dishes that are served immediately and also for puddings that are cooked, then cooled. Acid also affects cornstarch, will keep it from thickening or will thin it out if an acid is added to a cornstarch mix. (Note, this is the reason it isn't used for lemon curd.) I would not use cornstarch in a soup. I use only flour in a roux, for stew, etc., The best thickener for soup is some kind of cereal or potato starch - (the only reason I buy the small packets of potato flakes is to thicken soups, works nicely without adding any noticeable flavor.) Another excellent thickener is couscous - whirl it in the blender to grind it to a fine powder - a little goes a long way. To thicken a fine cream soup, use egg yolks,(one yolk for each 8 oz of soup) well beaten and whisk constantly until the soup has reached the desired consistency then immediately remove from heat and strain through a wire mesh strainer to remove any lumps. The best thickener for chili is masa, AKA corn flour. Arrowroot is an excellent thickener and will thicken liquids at a lower temperature than either flour or cornstarch.

I have some non-stick tube and cone-tube pans but have never used them for angel-food, chiffon or any other type of sponge cake. I use the non-stick ones for fruit cakes and seed cakes, etc. I have old ones that have the three "legs" to make it easy to stand the pans upside-down. I also have some extra long loaf pans with "legs" at the corners, also to rest the pans upside-down. They are available from this vendor. and from this vendor in two round sizes as well as the long loaf pan. NexTag also carries a few of this type. I recommend them as being much easier to use than the ones that need to be balanced on a bottle. I do have some very old ones that have the central cone 1 1/2 inch longer than the sides and unless the cake itself is lopsided, it will balance on the center cone.

Also, there are some states in which the plants are banned because they are an invasive pest plant.

I buy barberries in the local middle-eastern market. I use them in my tea mixtures and in a mincemeat recipe - made with meat - to cut some of the sweetness from the other dried fruits. I have also used the dried berries in pemmican and also cooked them with rice. Barberry recipes and some more about barberries

Vendome liquor stores used to carry those fat little pretzels stuffed with sharp cheddar. (They also had the ones stuffed with peanut butter but I really liked the cheddar. They were in an unmarked cello bag with just the ingredients and nutritional information, no brand name. However, regarding the discontinuation of many of the very popular snacks (and other foods) of yesteryear one just has to look at who actually owns those companies. As the old saying goes, "Follow The Money" and you can see where the ultimate power to cut the "deadwood" in these companies. Far too often, it is not a pretty picture. Who really calls the shots. I haven't been able to find Nabisco Twigs in any market for the past couple of years. It may be a regional thing but I have asked other people, who live in different regions, and they don't see them either. You can ask Phillip Morris why they discontinued lime Kool-Aid.

During the past several months I have added several cookbooks to my collection. The Cat Who... Cookbook by Julie Murphy & Sally Abney Stempinski (Updated version) The Summer Cookbook and Casserole Magic by Lousene Rousseau Brunner The Dlectable Past by Esther B. Aresty History of Bread by John Ashton (1st ed - 1904) Here's How-a Journey Through Good Food by Helen Pendelton Rockwell Puddings and Dainty Desserts by Thomas Murrey The Sebastiani Family Cookbook by Sylvia Sebastiani Grandma Rose's Book of Sinfully Delicious Cakes, Cookies, Pies, Cheese Cakes, Cake Rolls and Pastries by Rose Naftalin Retro Desserts by Dennis Gottlieve and Wayne Brachman Theatre In The Kitchen - A Cookboox by Nesta Morriss and the Committee of Bastion Theatre and New Wrinkles in Thyme, A Basenji Fanciers' Cookbook (Prepared by the Bay State Basenji Club as a fundraising project for Basenji Health Research and the BCOA National Specialty Fund. Not a cookbook but I did buy and just finished Anthony Bourdain's "Bone In The Throat" a murder mystery.

Take the pieces outside, place them on something that is not flamable, steadying them between two bricks works quite well, and using your kitchen blowtorch, bring the flame close to the cut edge and move it along the edge as it melts. That should seal the cut edges just fine. P.S. It helps to have a steady hand or rest the hand holding the torch on something firm.

The book is available through Amazon. for 29.95 and through ABE books for 22.50

I bought Peter Reinhart's book Brother Juniper's Bread Book back when it was first published, because I was interested in the "slow-rise" method of developing more flavor in rustic breads. (1993) I bought Ed Wood's World Sourdoughs From Antiquity (1996) after reading the National Geographic article about the re-creation of an ancient Egyptian bakery. I also purchased a culture from sourdo.com. When Crust & Crumb was published I bought it and found that it further explained and refined these techniques that improved my baking exponentially. (1998) And, of course, I bought Classic Sourdoughs when it was published in 2001. (also bought two more cultures, which I kept completely isolated from each other and maintained them for more than two years). These particular books changed many of my ideas about what constitutes the "perfect" loaf and I did far more experimenting than I had done in the many prior years I had been baking bread. In November 2004 I got the book by Jeffrey Hamelman and I recall spending much of the Thanksgiving weekend reading it and trying out a couple of the recipes. I still love Peter Reinhart's Struan bread, in fact, I bought the Electrolux mixer especially for working this dough because I learned the hard way that it is much too stiff for a Kitchenaid. The recipe, or a close relative, is posted here: Struan bread recipe. One book I will not recommend is The Taste of Bread - there are a number of errors in the translation and some statements that do not make sense. For the price, one would think they would have had someone knowledgeable checking the translation prior to publication. Unfortunately I don't read French.

You can blend sap sago into softened butter and/or cream cheese, to make a lovely spread with a distinctive taste. 1 teaspoon to 4 oz. (Blending salted butter and cream cheese half and half makes a much nicer spread than either alone.) Grate some into biscuit dough. It adds a piquant flavor to mild-flavored dried beans, such as canniliini or flageolets, butter beans (large dried limas). Use canned or cook them yourself. Grated over salads or - - blended with butter in which you saute croutons. Combines nicely with mushrooms. Try it grated over baked winter squash or sauteed summer squash. I only refrigerate sap sago during the hottest days of summer, otherwise it lives in a cheese box in the pantry.

Visit Rose's web siteThe Cake Bible.com Read her blog, it is interesting. I like her book which is going into a new printing with some corrections. I also like Nick Malgiere's Perfect Cakes

I just counted the bread baking books in one bookcase as I try to keep my cookbooks grouped in categories, as much as possible - however there are more that are scattered here and there in stacks because I have been looking for some obscure recipes. That one bookcase holds 181 books just on bread baking. I have to admit that there are more than a few from which I have never used a recipe. Some have been used a lot. Such as, Maggie Glezer's Artisan Baking across America which contains some favorites. Also Beth Hensberger's book, as you mentioned, I think I have all of her bread books. Christine Ingram's "Bread Bible" (seems this is a favorite title) breads from around the world. Several of the books are on bread machine baking. Elizabeth David's book is interesting to read and I have baked a few recipes from it, but not recently. Some are collectibles only, odd titles, such as the following. "The English Bread Book For Domestic Use, adapted to Families of Every Grade, containing the Plainest and Most Minute Instructions to the Learner; Practical Receipts for Many Varieties of Bread with Notices of the present System of Adulteration and its Consequences; and of the Improved Baking Processes and Institutions Established Abroad." by ACTON, Eliza as you can probably guess, this one is a 1986 reprint of a book originally published in 1857. They liked long, explanatory book titles back in those days!!! Also, you might want to take at look at the bread books listed on the Bread Bakers Guild web site. BBGA They also have some recipes on the site that are excellent, I love the English Muffin recipe. links and etc. Perhaps your guy (or you) would like to join the Bread-Baker's mailing list. He can get it as a digest instead of individual emails which makes it easy to read through the titles at the beginning of the digest to see if there is a topic of interest in it. There are quite a few professional bakers who post on the list. Rose Levy Beranbaum, Maggie Glezer and Peter Reinhart, Lora Brody are all frequent posters. Bread-Baker's Mailing list

YES!

I came across a mention of Chicken Paprikash with Caraway Schnitzel recently and it reminded me that it has been years since I prepared this or Chicken Marengo or one of my old favorites for entertaining, Wiener Schnitzel, the latter because veal fell out of fashion some years ago. Fortunately we have a local butcher who sells real "milk-fed" veal and this thread has inspired me to run over to his store and buy some for tomorrow. I recently received a gift of Thoughts For Food "A Menu Book and a cook book for those who like exceptional cooking." Published in 1946. Some forgotten recipes here.

Cuisinart makes this one. I don't know how powerful it is or how long it will hold a charge. I find that manufacturers often inflate the estimates of time the charge will hold. Cooking.com is selling it for $39.95 Cuisinart cordless. I thought Black and Decker made one but haven't been able to find it. There is this information.

I don't know about serving flatbread with steak. Perhaps an "artisanal" or rustic bread would be my choice. However for serving with hummus, I have a very easy recipe for pita that turns of well, can be doubled or tripled and is very tasty. I posted it originally in the Carnitas thread a couple of years ago and I know some egulleteers made them. It uses the instant years, doesn't require a starter and if you are working in a fairly warm commercial kitchen, it may take as little as 45 minutes to rise. As posted in the Carnitas thread. Once you find out how easy it is to make them you won't go back to the commercial ones. Here is my recipe: Pita Bread 2-1/2 cups unbleached bread flour 1 cup whole wheat flour 1 teaspoon kosher salt 2 teaspoons rapid-rise or "instant" yeast 2 tablespoons oil, olive or canola or grape seed. 1-1/4 cups water room temp. Measure the flour (unsifted) into a large bowl. add the salt, yeast and oil. Make a "well" in the center of the flour and pour in the water. Using your hands, bring the flour into the water and continue mixing until a ball of dough is formed. Turn out onto a floured board and knead for about 15 minutes. (If you have a mixer that has a dough hook you can place all ingredients into the mixing bowl, blend until ingredients form a ball then continue mixing for about 10 minutes with the mixer set on lowest speed.) The dough should feel silky and soft but not flabby, when a thumb is pressed into the dough it should fill in quickly. Spray the inside of a large Zip-lok bag with Pam or similar oil spray. Place the dough ball into the bag and seal. Set aside to rise until it has doubled in size. At normal room temp this should be about an hour to an hour and a half. Turn the dough out onto the floured board, knead 3 or 4 times then stretch into a fat cylinder. Cut in half, then cut the halves in half, and so on, so that you end up with 8 pieces of dough. Roll the pieces into balls and press flat into a disk. Spray a sheet of plastic wrap with oil, place disks on it then cover with another sheet of plastic wrap. Set aside to rest for about 20 minutes. Meanwhile preheat oven to 475 degrees, F. Using a rolling pin, flatten the disks on a lightly floured board and roll into about a 6-inch circle. They should be about 1/4 inch thick or slightly less. If you have a baking stone you can bake the pita directly on it, mist the stone with water before placing the pita on the hot stone then mist the pita. Otherwise, place the pita on a lightly oiled baking sheet and place on center shelf in oven. Mist the pita and close the oven door. Watch closely. In about 3-4 minutes the pita will have blown up like a baloon and are done. They should not brown, but might show a little color around the edges. Immediately remove them from the oven and transfer to a rack to cool. Depending on the size of your oven you should be able to bake 3 or 4 at a time. You have to leave room above the pita for them to expand. To reheat, fold into a kitchen towel and heat in microwave for 30 seconds.

I have all of Peter Reinhart's books (The Bread Baker's Apprentice, et al) and I have the rest of the books you listed as well as many, many more. However, the book to which I have been turning more often of late is Jeffrey Hamelman's book Bread "A Baker's Book of Technique and Recipes" I like the format and even though I truly love Peter Reinhart's books, I find that the charts and detailed instructions are very helpful, particularly when I am teaching another person, because the explanations as to WHY are so informative. Read the reviews, I bought the book a year ago after reading the reviews on Amazon. The following are the particular reviews I found most important in choosing this book. As one reviewed noted it is handy to make a copy of the technique sections - I scanned and printed out the specific pages and laminated them with the recipes themselves and stuck them into the book as place markers at the particular recipes I have made. When I am ready to prepare one, I pull the laminated sheets out of the book and stick them up on the front of a cabinet over my baking prep area. "Still learning, March 20, 2005 Reviewer: mb_quilts (upstate NY) - See all my reviews I'm a home-baker and found this book to be an amazing education. Although I've been baking bread on and off for years, I felt like I was starting over again and learning correct techniques and principles. At first I often felt like I was juggling as I tried to put new techniques in action, but as the new ways became more practiced the awkward feelings subsided and the bread improved! I now have two starters going and make bread on a more regular basis with predictable results. For those interested in learning more about how bread making works this is a great book. Dense in places and different from most cookbooks which give you complete info for each recipe. Hamelman discusses the general concepts and techniques first and then provides formulas which rely on those ideas. Expect to do a lot of flipping back and forth at first or make a copy of the technique or recipe so you can see both at once. I'm still sampling the recipes but I've tried rye bread, basic sourdough, challah, bialys - all with good result. If you want to know why something makes a difference and want to learn so that you can bake bread with confidence and understanding, this is a wonderful book to have. My recommendation is to get a good scale too, so you can weigh all your ingredients for best results. Was this review helpful to you? (Report this) 10 of 10 people found the following review helpful: Best of the Bunch, March 12, 2005 Reviewer: DANIEL T. DIMUZIO "Dough Dude" (Birmingham, Alabama) - See all my reviews I'm a bread baking instructor at a culinary school located in the Southeast U.S. I've probably read every bread baking book aimed at the artisan bread movement, and there are quite a few that are worth owning. Hamelman's book is simply the best of them. I have to take issue with one of the previous reviewers who suggested that the book is intended mostly for professionals. It is true that many of the recipes feature small quantities expressed as weights, but I believe this is done on purpose -- to encourage the beginner as well as the pro to rely upon precise scaling as the best starting point for a successful baking job. Digital scales are now inexpensive to own, and any serious baker -- whether amateur or professional -- should have one. I use his book as the primary text for my class. Most of my students are not experienced bakers, and they appreciate his ability to write for both amateurs and professionals in a clear, concise style that assumes no serious experience with bread while resisting the urge to "dumb-down" the material covered. Was this review helpful to you? (Report this) 13 of 14 people found the following review helpful: The most advanced bread book I own, December 15, 2004 Reviewer: Robert M. Halperin (Champaign, IL USA) - See all my reviews "Bread" is, by far, the best book on the subject that I own. It has large sections on breads made with yeasted preferments, sourdoughs and ryes. I made one of the ryes last week and it was superb. This book is really written for the professional baker. The home baker is really an afterthought in this book. Each recipe is given in metric and U.S. wieghts for about 40 loaves. The last column of each recipe is for the home baker, but most of the weights are in fractions of an ounce. If you have a digital scale that will weigh out (say) 6.4 ounces of whole wheat flour, that is great. If not, you'll need to buy one. You can use the volume approximations in the "Home baker" column, but Hamelman highly recommends that you weigh. All recipes are also given in "baker's percentages" which, once you master the idea, should allow you to make any size batch of dough. The recipe I tried called for 1 teaspoon of rye sourdough culture. Can you imagine making rye starter for this small amount? I used my white sourdough starter and the recipe came out fine. There is a lot of arithmetic taught in this book. For example, it teaches the reader how to use baker's percentages. It also teaches the reader how kneading the dough affects the dough's temperature. The book also uses terms such as "bulk fermentation" and "folding" which are probably not familiar to many home bakers. Why did I five this book 5 stars? It is because I have been a serious home baker for over 30 years and this book is the next step in my enjoyment of this hobby. I feel ready for all of the technical material it throws my way. It is, however, NOT for the person who is just starting to bake bread at home. Was this review helpful to you? (Report this) 19 of 19 people found the following review helpful: Best bread book I own so far, November 8, 2004 Reviewer: agardenchair (Germany) - See all my reviews There are numerous things that put this bread book above the other books about home-bread-baking that I own. Apart from the fact that the breads turned out exceptionally well from loaf No. 1. I have to insist that it is very clearly written and well structured. Side remarks are even in a different color, so you will not get distracted from the recipes. The book discusses these methods for making bread: - Breads made with pre-fermented dough using either a saltless starter, also known as "poolish" or "Biga" (or "Anstellgut" in german) or a starter made with a little salled called "Pte fermente" - Breads made with levain (i.e. white sourdough) - Rye sourdough breads - Straight doughs (using no pre-fermented doughs) (- Other assorted breads or baking goods, that didn't fit into the aforementioned categories) Tthe author does a very good job of teaching how you can make a lot of breads out of small amounts of the starter. I finally got around to maintaining a levain and a rye sourdough culture! I didn't know it was that easy. And you only need to take up to two table spoons of any of those starters to have a great bread within 36 hours. The rye sourdoughs may not be as acidic as some of the breads you can buy here in Germany, but they still make very good mild rye sourdough breads. The quality of the breads that I was able to make is astounding. I witnessed oven spring that didn't know was possible in a home oven. I find it very amusing that I had to buy an american baking book in order to learn how to make a genuine "Vollkornbrot" or a good sunflower seed bread - both traditional german breads. And I wished german baking professionals were a bit more forthcoming when it comes to sharing their secrets. To be honest, I don't know one single german bread book that is even remotely as good this one."

Easy Pita bread This recipe does not require a starter, it is quick and easy to prepare and the taste is far superior to the commercial varieties. Once you find out how easy it is to make them you won't go back to the commercial ones. Here is my recipe: Pita Bread 2-1/2 cups unbleached bread flour 1 cup whole wheat flour 1 teaspoon kosher salt 2 teaspoons rapid-rise or "instant" yeast 2 tablespoons oil, olive or canola or grape seed. 1-1/4 cups water room temp. Measure the flour (unsifted) into a large bowl. add the salt, yeast and oil. Make a "well" in the center of the flour and pour in the water. Using your hands, bring the flour into the water and continue mixing until a ball of dough is formed. Turn out onto a floured board and knead for about 15 minutes. (If you have a mixer that has a dough hook you can place all ingredients into the mixing bowl, blend until ingredients form a ball then continue mixing for about 10 minutes with the mixer set on lowest speed.) The dough should feel silky and soft but not flabby, when a thumb is pressed into the dough it should fill in quickly. Spray the inside of a large Zip-lok bag with Pam or similar oil spray. Place the dough ball into the bag and seal. Set aside to rise until it has doubled in size. At normal room temp this should be about an hour to an hour and a half. Turn the dough out onto the floured board, knead 3 or 4 times then stretch into a fat cylinder. Cut in half, then cut the halves in half, and so on, so that you end up with 8 pieces of dough. Roll the pieces into balls and press flat into a disk. Spray a sheet of plastic wrap with oil, place disks on it then cover with another sheet of plastic wrap. Set aside to rest for about 20 minutes. Meanwhile preheat oven to 475 degrees, F. Using a rolling pin, flatten the disks on a lightly floured board and roll into about a 6-inch circle. They should be about 1/4 inch thick or slightly less. If you have a baking stone you can bake the pita directly on it, mist the stone with water before placing the pita on the hot stone then mist the pita. Otherwise, place the pita on a lightly oiled baking sheet and place on center shelf in oven. Mist the pita and close the oven door. Watch closely. In about 3-4 minutes the pita will have blown up like a baloon and are done. They should not brown, but might show a little color around the edges. Immediately remove them from the oven and transfer to a rack to cool. Depending on the size of your oven you should be able to bake 3 or 4 at a time. You have to leave room above the pita for them to expand. To reheat, fold into a kitchen towel and heat in microwave for 30 seconds. ( RG1792 )

Well, you can always check at Classic Candies if Hometown Favorites doesn't have what you want. I know what you mean about the Hydrox cookies. It has been closed for several years now, but at one time there was a Sunshine Cookie baking plant on Roscoe Blvd. and the aroma would permeate the entire area. They sold 5-pound bags of "broken and misshaped" cookies for a dollar in the late 50s, later the price went up a bit but they were still a super bargain. You could tell what type of cookies were baking by the aroma and the chocolate wafers were very distinctive.

It does look like it and that price is excellent. However, I no longer purchase appliances from HSN, having had two separate unfortunate experiences with items that were damaged and one, on close inspection, had been used and was missing some parts. It took me nearly a year to get the charge reversed after shipping the item back and cancelling the order within 11 days of receiving it. I prefer to deal with companies who have superior customer service and am willing to pay more to save headaches in the future. I will post a report on my evaluation of the IB after I have had a chance to put it through its paces.

Sounds like what we had at home when I was a kid-- flat on one side of the plates, and you could flip them for waffles on the other side. We found it easier though to just do grilled cheese sandwiches in a pan. Clean-up was much easier as this was before non-stick came around..... ← Oh yes! I am very familiar with these appliances, there were several designs that allowed the plates to remain parallel while pressing a sandwich. In fact they were known as "Sandwich Press" or "Sandwich Iron" and the early ones did not have reverseable plates. You had a separate appliance that was a waffle iron and often they were made to match, with identical handles, decorative elements and size. (Have you guessed that I have collected some of these?) I am at my office and do not have access to my own photos. Here is an example of one of the vintage sandwich grills which were very popular in the 30s and 40s. Note: This one is less commong than many you see on ebay because it has the white or "ivory" bakelite handles. Most were black or brown because the white tended to discolor over time. Very rare are the ones with red or green bakelite handles - often these colors turned black after years of use.

-----when you absolutely have to find a Wi-Fi spot at the Anaheim Convention Center, while attending LA WorldCon, to check on what is going on at eG, and, turn down an invitation to join a discussion group with two authors because catching up on some interesting eG discussions seems more important at the moment. and............ when you are able to give several people reports on restaurants in L.A. by pulling up chrisamirault's thread on L.A. (and Anaheim) restaurants, including the fantastic Mayflower Seafood place. As they read the reviews, there were "Wows" and "Look at This One!" exclamations and finally the flip of a coin to decide. The convention lasted 5 days and most people came for a week since both the Hilton and the Marriott had offered Disneyland packages in addition to reduced rates for convention attendees. I also sent two couple to Mi Ama in Hawthorne, recallling Chris Cognac's recommendations and the notes on the group dinner in July '04. I pulled up the Culinary Detective website and it too was carefully perused and many notes taken.

I am bumping this topic up because I came across this immersion blender in the new Frontgate catalog. Wolfgang Puck immersion blender The 5-cup chopper bowl is larger than most others, the stem is longer and detaches for cleaning. At $69.50 it is more expensive than some but it does have more power 550 watt, than the less expensive ones and the comparable (without the accessories) Bamix is $99.00. This appears to be a good buy. I have ordered one of these to replace one of mine that suffered an accident. It was left on the counter next to the barbecue hood and now has a rather free-form or abstract shape. I thought it best not to plug it in......

I am happy with the panini grill I have, however when I saw this I wondered if the results would make it worth the expense. I do collect "vintage" toasters and some modern ones of unusual design, but I am not really sure this would fall into the category of pure toaster. A Panini toaster Has anyone had any experience with this particular appliance, or seen one used?

The Frontgate Catalog that arrived in today's mail has the Aerogarden for 149.00 and additional seed packets for 19.50. Aerogarden at Frontgate However, I think that this tabletop system or these rolling plant stands. are a better buy. One of the docs in my office has one of these in his condo. Topys-Turvy tomato grower I just have one of the hanging fixtures over the tub in a spare bathroom that I use to start some seedlings. I have a greenhouse but I hate working out there late at night in the winter when it gets dark so early.