andiesenji

I have had similar problems with European appliances used with a step-down transformer (not one of the simple converters). Toasters take longer to toast bread, a rather simple procedure. Mixers don't work at the "posted" speed. The Thermomix works fine but it was "reengineered" for the Canadian market. Ones that come straight from Europe and have to be used with a step-down transformer also behave oddly. I have a "Vintage" Teasmade from England that has not been converted to 110 and while it works, the water does not get as hot as another one that was rewired for use in America. The light is also dimmer than it should be.

I get the boneless thin chops, pound them a bit thinner, roll them around long wedges of sweet potato (or sometimes russets) put them in the oven and bake, topped with maple mustard sauce. I serve them on wide, homemade fresh noodles.

My friend Ben has a "secret" way of decorating his macarons. He claims he "paints" the tops with "his secret meringue recipe" and then dips them in edible glitter. He has also applied the stuff in number and letter shapes to which he applies edible gold and silver leaf. He has brought me a few but he is very cagy about his "recipe" for the meringue. He says he found it in a very old book, described as a "adhesive" to hold cakes and pastry together.

The Ateco pans are distinctive in that the square and rectangular pans have the wide 'lip" on the top edge. I used to have a bunch of their pans but I gave most of them to a friend who owns a bakery/café when I was no longer baking. Most were 3" deep and I had one 12 x 18 x 3 that I used for baking fruitcake - that I would cut into 12 x 3 individual cakes and some of those into 6 x 3. This is a photo of the 12 x 8 x 3 so you will know what to look for.

I have a 12 x 8 x 3 cake pan(acutally 2). I got them a few years ago for baking some specialty thing and I only used them a couple of times. I thought they were made by Fat Daddio(I have one of their "stax" pans) but it seems the two pans are Ateco. The Fat Daddio's is pricy but if you need odd sized pans, it is a gem. I use it to make Battenberg cakes.

Would it be to BE SURE AND DRESS PRIOR TO OPENING THE OVEN?

I have vigorously "discarded" a few cookbooks, including throwing one into the fireplace in my old house. A few years ago I weeded out quite a few cookbooks that I considered less than useable. In one, the title of a recipe that involved POTATOES as the main ingredient, omitted potatoes in the list of ingredients so one had not even a hit of how many or what kind. The instructions reminded me of someone wandering around in a fog and stumbling over objects unseen. In another book I liked the sound of a recipe and the ingredients were intriguing and the list was quite long. I turned the page only to find the instructions for A TOTALLY DIFFERENT RECIPE - which did not appear to be anywhere in the book. The feeling I got was that two cookbooks were adjacent to each other at the printers and they decided to switch pages. There were also numerous misspellings of ingredients, occasional phrases in FRENCH with no translation or explanation and not seeming to relate to any of the instructions for creating the recipe. I think that the final straw was reading a recipe for "Marengo Lame Chicken Cutelits" - I nearly fell out of my chair laughing. I tell you, you can't make things like this up. I ripped up the book before throwing it in the trash. A few weeks later I was in Borders and saw that the book was on the "remaindered" table and priced at 50¢. And that was about 4 months after publication.

I will warn you that you may get hooked on Odlums flours once you start using them. I was skeptical about them when my friend first recommended them - I figured she is from Ireland and is partial to Irish brands. It's been about 9 years since I first began using them and I order regularly because in my opinion, there is no substitute. We used to have good "soft wheat" flours here in the U.S. but once the big conglomerates bought White Lily, Martha Washington and Red Band, the quality deteriorated. I am also very partial to the Irish bacon Food Ireland sells and I just ordered a 4-pound value pack.

I have a couple of recipes that call for the malted brown flour and I used to order the Hovis Malted Brown Granary Flour from England - the shipping costs were brutal. And it had to be kept in the freezer because it goes rancid rapidly. Then a friend, who used to own a tea shop in Dingle, Ireland suggested that I get some Odlums Wholemeal flour and add "malt syrup" to the recipe. However, once I got it from Food Ireland, I tried adding some Diastatic Malt Powder (half a tablespoon per cup of flour) and my recipes turned out lovely. Had that malty-sweet with a tiny hint of bitter aftertaste one associates with burnt sugar. I had already been using Odlums Self-Raising flour and Odlums Cream flour (absolutely perfect for cakes or scones or pie pastry or anything that you want to remain tender and not develop gluten. Since the wholemeal is rather coarse, I take HALF the flour, after measuring and process it in a food processor or blender (or my Thermomix) until it is fine and then mix the two together. This approximates the consistency of the Hovis product.

I would also skip the icing. I'm Type II Diabetic and I can cut the sugar content in many cakes and breads but icing is almost pure sugar. I have made an espresso syrup - with agave syrup - and perhaps a drizzle of that would be nice. I have printed out the recipe.

I have a report on "Coffee Flour" a fairly new product made from the coffee "cherries" that are usually discarded. I've been reading about it for a few months and noted that some people were very enthusiastic about it. It does not have even a hint of "coffee flavor" but tastes a bit like some dried fruits - which is what it actually is. I was ordering from Nuts.com and noticed that they had coffee flour and ordered some. I used some in oatmeal cookies, substituting just 1/4 cup for regular flour which called for 2 cups. They turned out quite nice - I had to add a bit more liquid because this stuff soaks it up and retains it. I then used a bit more 1/2 a cup this time - plus 1 1/2 cups Odlum's cream flour - in banana bread - because of how much moisture it soaks up, I used an extra egg and the liquid from the bananas - I use America's test kitchen "trick" of microwaving the bananas for 5 minutes and then draining off the liquid to be added back in later. No dairy in this recipe. The texture is excellent, the bread is tender and moist. There are not many recipes online so far but this may be the "next big thing" in baking. About Coffee Flour

Why don't you use parchment lining. I use parchment in all my pans - except for the disposable ones - which I use almost exclusively now. I do have a couple of odd-shaped and sized pans that I still line with parchment. I have a long, deep loaf pan that I use to bake fruited yeast breads and I line it with parchment.

Could you pile bread on it? Manchet rolls "the size of two fists" for the lord's table. - that term always made me chuckle when I was in baking school and we had a lecture on the history of bread.

That's odd because I thought that they preferred Cochin ginger - there used to be an online Moroccan vendor who sold tagines - I bought several from them - and they sold a few spices, including Cochin ginger because of its "special attributes" - and I bought some, which is when I became extremely picky about ginger. They went out of business a few years ago and I switched to another vendor, not at all happy with that ginger or another that I tried. Then I found this one that has that distinct lemony flavor with a lot of "bite" and strong ginger flavor. Healthworks does not claim that their product is 100% Cochin but enough of it is that it does have that distinct flavor.

Why Jamaican in particular? I have been using Healthworks Ginger Root Powder - Organic, grown and processed in India - for a few years. I use a lot of ginger and I have tried just about every brand on the market and have yet to find anything as potent and full of flavor as this. It is extremely fine and not at all "grainy" like some gingers. It is VERY POTENT I use less of this than other ground gingers. A pound may seem like a lot but I make drinks, both hot and cold with it, paired with fruits. I use it in marinades and in ice cream - my ice cream uses both powder and fresh and with this product I use a third less than I used with the former product. I usually split it into thirds and put 2/3 into a tightly sealed freezer container and store it in the freezer until I use up the first batch. I used to use another brand which I liked but they switched production to China and I am reluctant to use any food products sources from there. If you do order it, I have a WARNING! When you open the bag, don't have your face too close to it. Some of the powder will puff out and your will have a SINUS-CLEARING experience that is downright painful. I speak from experience!

In about 2005 or so - a couple of years before I retired in 2007 - I had a bottle of pineapple vinegar with the mother. I had some pineapple juiced drained from a couple of large cans of slices and I combined it with a can of coconut water and a small bottle of coconut syrup that had been gathering dust in my pantry for years. I left it to "work" for about 4-5 months and it turned out remarkably tasty. I used it on fruit salads, to marinate chicken and also pork when I was experimenting with Caribbean cookery. Unfortunately I had a kitchen helper at the time who dumped out the jar with the mother and ran it through the dishwasher before I noticed it. I had forgotten all about it until I read your post today.

I've had one for years. I got it at Costco as a "premium" when I bought a Cuisinart slow cooker.

The rectangle and oval dishes are part of a Glasbake Our Betty Jane child's baking set, introduced in the late 1930s, they resumed production in 1946 and ended in 1948. The early ones had ridges on all pieces, the postwar ones did not. Pyrex also introduced a child's set of bakeware and McKee always hit the market with similar items to compete. I have several pieces in my collection. This the the full set.

I wonder that no one has mentioned what my wine fanatic friends do. They blend very sweet wines with very dry wines of the same varietal, always have a decanter of that in their wine fridge because they know people who don't like either very dry or very sweet and are not very picky, as long as it tastes good to them. They never "throw away" wine. Some that they consider "undrinkable" after a day or so, they save for me and I make vinegar from it. And from time to time give them a bottle of my very good vinegar which I have been "cultivating" for 20+ years.

Thanks, but I'll stick to my $2.99 Dexter-Russell spreader that works just fine with a quick dip in hot water. It is about 20 years old so I believe I have more than gotten the value out of it. And with the textured handle, it is easy for arthritic hands to grasp.

And that's my favorite thing about butcher block counters. The occasional scorch marks from an extremely hot cast iron skillet are easy to remove, as are the marks from knives. And if a glass tips over, it does not shatter.

It was a Kohler sink and I think it was introduced in 2008, though I can't be certain. They had the three-compartment sink, not the one shown in the link Paul Fink posted. There was a home show at the Long Beach convention center and it was the ONE TIME that Sandy let Fred go alone. He only had a year or so to enjoy it before he died suddenly - aortic aneurism. Sandra did sell the house a couple of years ago and apparently the people who bought it did not object to the sink, although according to Sandy they were rather weird in that they did not like the COLOR of the very expensive Thermofloors that had been installed in the three bathrooms at the same time as the kitchen remo. It was a completely neutral gray-beige that I thought was quite pleasant to look at but they kept asking for an "allowance" to have the floors replaced. Sandy said no, she wasn't going to reduce the price for anything like that. And refused the first three offers they made. Another party made an offer so they upped theirs and it finally sold for more than the original asking price. I have driven past the place a couple of times since then and can seen no changes to the outside. They have two Teslas and a Range Rover so they don't seem to be hurting for money. Sandy moved to Scottsdale to be near her son and is happy in a condo half the size of the house and it does not have a weird sink that cooks in it!

I've been making soda bread almost my entire life. I knead it a bit, the same way I do my scone dough - not too much or it will get tough. I form it into a round, slap it onto a baking sheet and cut straight down first one way, then the other all the way to the pan - so it is in 4 quarters but still together. I use a bench knife. It looks like this. Usually like the one on the left but sometimes like the one on the right. I've never seen it done any differently.

Great description and explanation. To your last question, the answer is that it varies greatly with each person. What is great to me may be something quite different to another. However, I am extremely fussy about my coffee and/or espresso. There is a local independent café that produces an exceptional cup - in pre-heated porcelain cups and saucers. I'm a supertaster (I was part of one of the clinical studies at UCLA because the neurologist who share our office in the '80s was involved in the study, which was interesting and at times confusing.) I can sense flavors in liquids that many others can't - one of the reasons I have used a Berkey water purifier for decades and rarely drink water at restaurants. To me "great" coffee is when I take a sip and a burst of flavors hit me. I'm using a coffee now, Koffee Kult Dark Roast #2, which is very much to my taste. They say: cupping notes; heavy body, smooth, cinnamon, bright with a long finish. This is my review, posted to Amazon. Koffee Kult DARK ROAST COFFEE BEANS (2 Pounds Whole Bean) Highest Quality Delicious Organically Sourced Fair Trade - Whole Bean Coffee - Fresh Coffee Beans (Grocery) I tried it, brewed with my Senseo. It is not as dark as some dark roasts but is robust with plenty of body. There are obvious chocolate notes, more so than cinnamon and definite hint of citrus. If you have ever tasted the dark chocolate "orange sticks" (orange jelly coated with simi-sweet chocolate) - the aftertaste of that is what I sense. Great for starting the day, carry on into the afternoon. It does have a long finish, crisp and bright and is also ideal for an after dinner cup. I use a Senseo, make my own pods. I ground it medium-fine, filled a double pod with a full measure plus 3/4. This morning I brewed 4 cups in a vacuum brewer, using 4 standard coffee measures and 4.5 cups of filtered water. Excellent flavor, body and nicely robust. I am very pleased. With the first couple of sips, I tasted dark chocolate with orange - which, since I became allergic to chocolate, I have not tasted for 30+ years but it was distinct and quite pleasant. I also like that it is organic and fair trade. To me it is quite inexpensive at two pounds for 25.99 - I have paid more than that for a pound OR LESS of many coffees. One was 38.00 for 12 ounces it was good but this is much better FOR ME! I have found that selecting coffee is very much personal preference. And I can't stand "stale" coffee and for me, it begins to stale within half an hour of brewing so I brew small amounts unless several people are going to be drinking it.

In the late '60s, through the '70s, I lived next door to an Italian family - actually their extended family owned three houses on my block. They had moka pots on every stovetop and this was consumed throughout the day. Mama and Papa did have an espresso machine, one of the elaborate, copper and brass monsters that hissed and bubbled and was reserved for SPECIAL evenings. When I first met them, there were hand cranked grinders but about 1970 Mama got a KitchenAid mixer (she had admired the one I had) and saw the KA coffee grinder and insisted on getting that also. They taught me how to use a moka pot and then how to operate the espresso machine. I never really got very adept at "dosing" and "tamping" the portafilter, but I tried. Later I bought a much smaller and more modern espresso machine. I practiced a lot but I was simply not skilled enough to be truly successful. I still bought coffee brewers, both vintage and modern and I tried every way of brewing coffee that I could find. In about 2004 I got a "superautomatic" espresso machine and it was wonderful. It did all the hard work. And I used it for several years but less and less and finally gave it away to friends who entertain a lot and they truly appreciate it. If I were starting out today, I would not spend money on one of the simpler machines, I would save until I had enough for one of the superautomatics. Friends have them and they love them and they produce a great espresso cup every time. And you don't have that STEEP LEARNING CURVE of how to dose and tamp the right grind of coffee in a portafilter.