andiesenji

I am not sure which Rival water heater you are writing about. As far as coffee is concerned. I have purchased 6 of the Senseo coffee machines at Costco as they had a 20.00 rebate - and these have the extra large water resevoir. I am giving them to friends who are single and have less than great success with brewing small batches of coffee in a regular coffee maker. And one is for a college student who has been moaning about the awful coffee in the coin-operated coffee machine in his dorm. Since this brews one cup at a time and turns itself off after a period of non-use, it should fit in quite well in a dorm room. I have been told that it is becoming very popular on campus where many of the students practially live on coffee.

Another note about Fantes.Fantes.com If you are assembling a stocking or gift box for a baker, do check out the parchment circles sized from 8 to 12 inches and the tube pan bottom liner. This saves a lot of time cutting these from a roll of parchment and the price is reasonable. I guarantee the giftee will bless you for them. They also have the liner cups for both mini and jumbo muffins, a hard-to-find item.

I have a bunch of Kuhn-Rikon implements and have yet to find one that is not superior to other makers. The various peelers are very well designed. I have their small, hand-held slicer (they call it a mandoline) which works better than the specialty chocolate shaver for shaving curls of chocolate off the edge of a block of chocolate. I use it for getting extremely thin slices of fruits and vegetables when I need just a little, not enough to warrant using the big mandoline. The heart-shaped sauce whisk is also very easy to use and gets right into the corners of straight-sided pans. The head swivels on the end of the handle so it will lay flat on the bottom of the pan. I have several of these types of whisk and some work better for thick sauces or gravies and others work better with the thinner types. This one is excellent for the thinner types and when reducing coulis. I also have a pressure cooker and the pressure fry pan made by this company and they are much easier to use than the old style pressure cookers.

Speaking of Amco. This place seems to carry a very large selection of their products so this might be the place to get info about the company..... chef's resource And this place has a bunch of silicone pastry or basting brushes from the small ones to a super large one. Anything you might desire. They also have the wood, mushroom-shaped garlic smasher.

I've ordered a few things from this place. after someone sent me one of the Bodum garlic slicers. (tried it once, it works fine but I keep forgetting about it.) I did get a couple of the salt pigs, cute and handy, keeps stuff from falling into the salt in the open dish. I also bought several of the salt & condiment servers as I am giving them as gifts along with some of my homemade mustard and/or other condiments. I also got a couple of sets of the Amco measuring spoons. here One advantage of these is that they set level on a flat surface so if you happen to have a tremor in one hand (my left) which makes it difficult to hold a spoon and pour a liquid into it, the spoon can rest on a counter and I can pour with my right hand then pick up the spoon and dump the liquid with my right hand. No shaking drips of stuff all over the place. Also the shape allows the spoon to fit into skinny jars. They also have a silicone pastry brush.

How stiff are the wires? I bought a similar one but the wires were too flimsy to hold onto anything with any weight to it. I tossed them out in the trash.

As soon as I can get back into the kitchen I am going to lay out my collection of whisks and take a photo. I have been banished from the kitchen for a while as my housekeeper and three of her friends from school are making some kind of Austrian or Hungarian pastry that involves a lot of stretching to get the dough paper-thin. And this is all I know about it so far. I have been told to keep myself out from underfoot - supposed to be "resting" after a busy few days. I could hear a lot of giggling a while back so whatever they are doing must be a lot of fun. She doesn't bother with my collection of vegetable peelers, she can peel a potato faster with a paring knife, very thin peel, as rapidly as I can with a peeler. She likes some of the gadgets but others get just a shake of her head. Like me she began cooking at about age 9 or 10 - she has 1 older brother and 7 younger ones and the small town in which she lived did not have stores with a lot of gadgets. She does approve of the whisks and can beat egg whites or whipped cream by hand in a copper bowl as rapidly as I can with the mixer. She also has an incredible grip. I certainly won't need one of those Black & Decker Lids Off appliances as long as she is around. I can't imagine having one of those taking up space on my counters, I do have arthritis in my hands but the old V-shaped thingy with the toothy jaws, on the underside of one of the cabinets, has done a good job of opening just about everything except bottles with caps less than 5/8 inch in diameter and for those I use an old-fashioned metal nutcracker.

I've had one of the serrated peelers for several years. Mine just says ACME China on it. It has a fat white handle that is very easy to hold, with a grainy surface that doesn't slip in wet hands. By the way, while trying to find the peeler, I found the SS mushroom. here. However it seems to have been discontinued at several vendors listed. Amazon will take an order to search for one. here. People keep giving me gadgets to deal with garlic - I have some odd ones which I should get out and at least try. Most are still in their original boxes or bags. This is a neat gadget that my housekeeper bought for me to join my collection of whisks for every purpose and I used it with great success in my T-Day gravy. whisk. I have several that are supposed to be perfect for gravy, including my old favorite, one that is at least 30 years old, and this one is better.......

The top-rated cocoa for both hot chocolate and baking was Van Leer 120 Cocoa, available by mail from New York Cake, 1-800-942-2539 ← The Chocolate Source, used to carry Van Leer but dropped it at least a year ago. Chocolate Source. Cake Decorators still had it last month - check here.

For my "black" cocoa cookies, I used King Arthur's black cocoa and the "Double Dutch Dark" half and half. I also use this same mixture in my cocoa fruit cake which turns out very dark and has an intense cocoa flavor, which, combined with the dried and plumped cherries and other fruits, has almost the taste and mouth feel of a bonbon. Lighter, regular cocoa products will produce a very nice cake, but not the same texture or mouth feel and flavor as these. I also use the Scharffen Berger cocoa and the Valrhona cocoa for other applications. from this vendor. When I get down to Surfas I usually pick up some of the Barry's Extra Brute cocoa powder Surfas.

Long before the "Ove Glove" was available in the U.S., I was using these Coolskins from England. Sold by the pair they cost a little more than the Ove Glove and, in my opinion are much better quality, certainly enough to justify the additional cost. When it comes to protecting my hands, I don't skimp. I have them in all three size, extras in the long length as well as the mitts. I have given them as gifts to friends who are bakers and like me, have to reach into a deep oven (My oven holds full-size sheet pans lengthwise) to move something such as a large bain-marie and before getting the long gloves, often burned the back of my wrists or forearm on the rails at the sides of the oven. The sizes are generous and fit even the largest hands, something you don't get with the one-size-fits-all Ove glove. If you have to handle things that are wet as well as hot, the coolskins are large enough that you can wear a heavy rubber glove under them to protect from steam.

This is another favorite place for gadgets. I just ordered 3 of the automatic soap dispensers on page 1 A set of the shaped ice cream scoops on page 2 and 6 of the "cool touch" oven guards on page 3. Brylane. Not exactly a gadget, but I just ordered one of the tree wreath Bundt cake pans from Sur la Table. I have a collection of Bundt pans and this one is particularly attractive. Tree wreath pan.

Speaking of microplanes....

The stainless steel mushroom-shaped garlic smasher was sold by Williams-Sonoma. I have one somewhere around here in a drawer. I also have a wooden mushroom-shaped garlic smasher and various rubber sleeves, little mallets, and other things, mostly received as gifts. I can't seem to remember to use them until it is too late - the side of my knife works so well............

Speaking of gadgets. Are you folks familiar with this site? One of my favorite places to browse.

I noticed a mention of using a microplane on ginger. I have just about every kind of ginger grater known to man because I use a lot of ginger in various condiments as well as all kinds of marinade and dishes both savory and sweet. I also have just about every type of microplane made, from the extra tiny to the largest. However, for grating ginger, and catching every bit of ginger juice, I would like to recommend a suribachi. This Japanese mortar and pestle is truly a multi-tasking tool but it does a bang-up job on ginger. Just peel a section (or don't peel it if you like) and scrub crosswise to the grain of the ginger on the ridges inside the bowl. You can grate more ginger much quicker than with any other implement. Then if you need garlic, you simply dump out the ginger, throw in the garlic and mash that with the pestle - you can even scrub the skin of a lemon or lime around the inside, however a microplane is a bit neater for zesting. Joyce Chen also sells this one. listed as a Chinese suribachi.

After reading your post, I called my friend and she thinks the place where we tried the chocolate made with this machine was in Costa Mesa. She is going to check in her yellow pages and call around to a few places to see if she can locate it. She recalls that the place was very busy, in fact, we had to wait in line for quite a while to have our order taken, then wait for it to be prepared. She does recall that she had visited the store prior to the time I was there, but never noticed the chocolate machine, she is a straight coffee drinker, doesn't care all that much for liquid chocolate - too sweet. However she does buy a lot of different kinds of coffee beans, always on the search for "the perfect cup" - one chain, Java Central - had a particular variety that she thought was wonderful but they went out of business a couple of years ago. Every time she sees a new store that carries coffee, she has to try it. I don't recall if we were looking for coffee or something else that day, or perhaps we were just going to a movie, when we stumbled onto the store. In any event, I agree that is a lot of money for a machine just for chocolate but depending on the location, it might bring in more business. I mentioned to a friend who lives up at Mammoth Lake and she said it would pay for itself in a month up there. She caters parties and has 4 of the 80 cup electri urns. 2 for coffee (caf & decaf) 1 hot water and one just for cocoa. The cocoa refills 3 times for every time she refills the regular coffee.

Don, I have tried a lot of recipes and experimented with many over the years. However, by far the best one I have ever made (and received rave reviews from my guests) was the one based on the stock recipe on the web site of my friend Melinda Lee. Turkey soup, the only recipe you will ever need. You can modify it with different add-ins, vegetables, pasta, even turkey meat and dumplings, but basically, this is an excellent soup base.

I make a layered casserole, layer of dressing layer of chunked turkey ladle on some gravy layer of cranberry sauce repeat bake at 300 degrees for 35 minutes

I proof much of my baking (and I do a lot) in my Excalibur dehydrators because I happen to have them. However, a very inexpensive proofing chamber can be assembled by using a heating pad, two sheet pans or trays and one of the inexpensive translucent or clear storage bins available at Wal-Mart, Target, Staples, etc. (They were 4.85 at my Wal-Mart a couple of days ago.) First drill a couple of small holes in the bottom of the bin. This prevents condensation. Place the heating pad on a flat surface that won't be harmed by heat - the top of a washer or dryer is a good place. Then place a metal tray or sheet pan upside down over the heating pad. Place the tray or sheet pan or bowl, or whatever you have your dough or loaves or rolls on or in, on top of the upside down tray. place the upside-down bin over the top and turn the heating pad on to medium. An inexpensive room thermometer (not a cooking one, $1.99 at Wal-Mart) taped to the inside of the bin so you can see it through the side works fine to tell you what the temp is inside the thing. If it gets too warm with the heating pad on medium, turn it to low. If your house is really cold or there is a cold draft, you may have to put it on high, but that is not usual. When not in use, store the heating pad, trays and whatever else inside the bin with the lid on to keep it from getting dusty.

I puree them and add to turkey soup. Love the different flavor.

I baked two of these pumpkin/pecan "pies" yesterday. One was consumed completely, one about 1/4 consumed. I didn't use a regular pie crust as we prefer something a bit different. I simply mixed up a batch of scone dough (poppyseed/ginger), pressed it into the pan (deep dish pizza pan) pre-baked it for 12 minutes at 275, just enough to give it some body and dry it a bit. Then allowed it to cool slightly, pressed the sides back up then filled it and baked it, (again at 275 so the surface would not develop a tough skin) for 70 minutes.

Some of my neighbors and I had a communal dinner yesterday and all of my immersion blenders were used at one time or another. I made fresh cranberry sauce in an electric Dutch oven as the cooktop and both induction cookers were in use. All three of the Cuisinarts were also being used (I usually process the sauce in one of these) so I broke out the KA blender that was new in the box, to work on the sauce right in the pan. It worked pefectly, certainly as good as the 400 watt Braun, and since it is shorter, was a little easier to manipulate. One of the neighbors also brought hers as she was making a couple of things that needed it. She has a Thunderstick Pro which she says she bought at the "As Seen On TV" store in the mall. She had seen it on Amazon and was going to order it but saw it in the window at the mall store and figured no shipping this way. I looked it up and it seems to be a pretty good buy with all the attachments for 34.95. I didn't check the price on Amazon. She used it to grate hard cheese and it worked very nicely, then she used to make guacamole.

The cookie molds are for shaping the dough into a decorative pattern. This site has some information. The molds (or moulds) may be made of wood, ceramic, metal and even plastic nowadays. They are not very satisfactory for baking because the porous material draws moisture from the dough and will cause it to be very fragile. There are some made for baking which are glazed on the inside but they are rather uncommon. Springerle are the German cookies made with a rolling mold or pressed into larger wooden molds. Speculas are the Dutch version.

One of my greatest joys is preparing food for people who really appreciate it. Nothing bothers me more than seeing something I have put part of my soul into, being pushed around a plate by a person who seems to have a permanent kink in their upper lip, as if they are just beginning to sneer. Or make little comments, sotto voice, about the food. This happened to me once when the son of a friend brought his girlfriend to dinner when he came with his parents. I know he loves my food as he has been eating it for many years. They broke up not too long after than. I think that dinner showed him just how self-centered and selfish the girl was.