andiesenji

Those ducks are hung in a sort of smoker and are laquered with a sauce that firms on the surface and actually seals it. They are delicious. Last summer there was a segment on Food TV with Ming Tsai and his home kitchen. He showed the duck smoker he has right in the kitchen and described the process.

There is a mention on this site Toddy brewed coffee of brewing a special coffee in the Toddy that includes cinnamon and vanilla syrup. The filter appears to be made from felt. Here is one story about the development of it.toddy coffee filter And here is a different story: Toddy coffee filter system The first time I saw one of these contraptions was in Solvang (Danish tourist trap near Buellton, California, north of Santa Barbara). The nice lady, in traditional Danish dress, gave the sales pitch and told me the idea came from high in the Andes where water boils at a lower temperature and full coffee flavor couldn't be extracted except with the long, cold brewing method. I believe she said the filters were made from dense felt made from Llama wool. Who knows for sure, only the guy who thought it up.

I just learned that there are some espresso "pods" that will fit the Senseo. However I am not sure how well they will do. One reviewed complained that even with one Senseo pod and a double dose of water the coffee was too bitter for him and in fact he liked it better on the second extraction. I tried it this way and got mostly colored water that had practically no coffee taste at all. There were two new ones at the office yesterday and everyone had to "play" with them. The doc even brought one of his patients back to see it and have a small cup. I think it is the "gimmick" effect. Something different that looks cool and that works the first time with no difficulty. Not everything is so fool-proof, I guess it is fun to have something work the way it should right out of the box. I know when I got my first espresso machine (back in the dark ages) I must have made 20 or 30 (or more) really bad pulls before I learned the correct tamping method and got a half-way decent cup. It took a lot longer to get proficient at it so it worked every time.

My favorite brand also. I buy it by the case from my local Phillipine market,(picked up a case this morning). I use a fair amount in the mustard I make and in the various ketchups, chutneys and other home made condiments. Jonny's regular price for the 25 fl. oz (32 oz by weight) bottle is $1.99 but when I buy a case I get it for $1.29 which is cheaper than it would cost me to make from scratch. Of course I buy a lot of other stuff too, I am a good customer. This time it was a new bottle of fish sauce, (Patis brand), sweet soy sauce, mushroom flavored soy sauce, a jug of rice vinegar, hot and spicy banana ketchup, a can of jack fruit, four bags of frozen coconut juice/pulp, a stack of banana leaves and a bag each of sweet red rice and sweet white rice. Then went next door to the Phillipine bakery and bought a couple of pork buns. (Guess what they will be dipped in?) and 4 empanadas (chicken) for my lunch. I also bought a jar of a new item Jonny showed me, a Korean BBQ sauce - Bulgogi Marinade, Korean Pear, 15.8%. Product of So. Korea. Anyone tried this one yet?

besides my favorite sandwich "spread", i.e. crumbled crisp bacon mashed into ripe avocado with a little onion, I make Avocado Ice Cream: Thusly 1 can evaporated milk very cold. (14 1/2 oz) NOT sweetened condensed milk. 1/2 cup Orange juice, strained to remove pulp 1/2 cup Lemon juice, ditto! 1 cup Mashed ripe Haas avocados - use the others if you must but they have to be very ripe and free of any fibers. 1 1/2 cup Sugar or Splenda. pinch of salt. The best way to do this is to pour the evap. milk in a metal bowl (chills faster) and put in in the coldest part of the fridge or even in the freezer for a few minutes. Meanwhile assemble the rest of the ingredients. Using a wire whip or wire beater on mixer, beat the milk until it looks sort of like whipped cream and has doubled in bulk, approximately... Add the juices and the avocado, continue beating until creamy then add the sugar and salt while continuing to beat. Be sure it is well blended, no lumps of avocado. You can freeze this in an ice cream freezer OR you can treat it like a granita, put in a container in the freezer and take it out every half hour to stir and rake it to break up any ice crystals. An ice cream freezer is easier.

And for that pesky goose - Cumberland sauce.....

With gifts like that, you're welcome to come to my house or share in major celebratory events at any time. I have always believed in the "Bread cast upon the waters" philosophy!

This is where I buy the glassware I need that I don't already have on hand. The volumetric flasks are very nice to give as gifts when they contain something colorful. lab glassware Scroll down - - -

I just got a call from Jalloun, the guy who makes the spiced coffee. He has come across with his "secret" spice mixture. No black pepper, he uses what he calls malaguette pepper, also known as grains of paradise, a little sumac (I was right), cardamom green or white, cinnamon and allspice. Sounds good, doesn't it?

You might consider visiting a laboratory glassware supplier and check out the very inexpensive flasks, filtering flasks, filters and funnels that work beautifully for filtering all kinds of liquids. There is a type of flask with a top opening and a tube connection on one side that is great for your type of application. As long as the plug is on the side tube of the bottom flask, the liquid in the top section (the filtering flask) can't move into the lower flask. Many years ago we often made coffee or tea in the (totally sterilized) lab glassware at work. When we stopped doing lab work in the office, about 18 years ago, I brought all the glassware home. I have carboys in which my vinegar is working, volumetric flasks that hold the various flavorings I make, and etc. There is a decorater on Melrose, in Los Angeles, who uses lab glass a great deal when he is "doing up" a kitchen. I am sure he charges a bundle for these interesting items but they are really very, very cheap. The borosilacate glass is tough, heat proof and you can do a lot with it. You can even set up a small still, it is easy to do, if you want to make pure coffee essence.

No one has ever turned down a bottle of Chateau d Ychem, I gave a bottle of the '83 as a wedding present last year. Even though I do not drink, I do buy some wines when they are at a good price and hold onto them to give as gifts.

I found Leilah's phone number and called and asked about the vessel I mentioned in my last post. It is an ibrik and it was ordered from this site which is also where he orders the green coffee berries he uses in his spiced coffee. He prefers one from Yemen. Check out the coffee roasters they have on this site. Who knew??

Duxelles, which may not be a sauce in the true meaning of the word but I use it as such, is my runaway favorite. Green peppercorn sauce and Hunter sauce are my next favorites in the classic lines. and of course the Thai sweet chile sauce of which I have waxed rhapsodic on other threads.

I have visited a couple (along with a friend who knows them quite well) who are from Morocco but he lived for many years in Madagasgar where his father was a spice merchant. He prepares a spiced coffee which is a "secret" even his wife says she does not know. He has a rather odd vessel in which he roasts the coffee beans, and I suppose the spices too. It is brass and shaped sort of like an hourglass but the bottom is slightly rounded and sets into a ring over a small charcoal brazier. The "waist" of the thing has a cork collar around it so it can be grasped without burning the hands and the top is open. Actually it looks sort of like one of the old Chemex coffee makers except for the rounded bottom. He swirls the thing around and around as the beans and spices are roasting and then dumps everything into a brass mortar when it smells right. I know it includes pepper becaue I can taste it and cinnamon as I think those two are traditional in Moroccan spiced coffee. However I believe I could taste a hint of cloves and possibly mace but I am not sure what else. There is a faint lemony note that might be from sumac, but he really was not at all forthcoming about his recipe. He puts the pounded coffee/spice mixture in a tin-lined copper vessel, sort of like an ibrik but different than any others I have seen, pours in hot water and continues to heat it over the brazier until it boils. Unlike Turkish coffee, he doesn't wait for the grounds to settle, he simply strains the coffee into another of the ibrik-styled vessels and serves it immediately in what I would call tea glasses, with silver holders. Neat little things that hold about 4 ounces. It is delicious as is but is even better with a bit of sugar. His wife offered it and says she can't drink the coffee without some sweetener. If it had been available, I would probably have added a tiny bit of cream. I am not a purist and I love the taste of cream in coffee.

That is my problem. I can't decide on a "favorite" because I have different favorites depending on the day of the week, my mood, the weather, what food is in the house, who is visiting, how much my feet hurt and whether or not there is a full moon......

One could simply pick some vine leaves, steam them and taste. That is what I did when I first began using mine. I also get some from a neighbor (who has huge old vines (planted more than 30 years ago) that cover a very large arbor. One is a red grape that is full of seeds but very sweet, one is a white grape, also full of seeds and one is the tiny grapes often sold in the stores as "champagne" grapes. A younger vine that he planted to replace one that died about 10 years ago is a very large black grape that has only a couple of seeds in each grape. Carmine makes what he calls vino tavolo from a combination of these grapes. I don't drink anything with alcohol so can't say how it tastes but I have used it in cooking and have made vinegar from it. The black grape has huge leaves, some are 8 or 9 inches across. The mature leaves have three large ribs in each leaf that have to be trimmed out because they do not soften in steaming. They taste good though.

When I bought the Oxiria, the Gelato Chef was not yet available, or I didn't see it and I looked at just about every vendor that carried these appliances. They do look exactly alike except for the color. The only other one I considered was the Lussino 4080 but the 45 pound weight put me off. I wanted something I could take with me when I went to visit (and cook) at the homes of my friends, or to the office when we have a party. Both the little Gelato II and the Oxiria are transportable. (On the other hand, my old Simac weighed almost 80 pounds and it was NEVER moved except when a service man had to pick it up to take it in to be recharged.) These new units are wonderful.

This is a better machine, for less money. Makes 1 1/2 quarts see it here And this is a 1 quart machine for even less money and it works very nicely. I have one as it is easier to carry around than the bigger machines.

How can I decide. I love salsa and I certainly am extroverted. . . However I also love mustard and haven't been considered shy since grade school. Also love barbecue sauce and we are back to extroverted again.. Horseradish, ditto... What about another favorite, in fact maybe most favorite of all, the Thai or SE Asian sweet chile sauce (which I buy by the case 'cause I don't want to run out). Where does it fit, I wonder. Steak sauce is not mentioned but there are so many restaurants where it has a place of honor on every table - right next to the Tabasco. Commercial mayonnaise is probably my least favorite. I do like some salad dressings, but they are not the regular commercial variety. We have a local company that makes and bottles, in small production runs, a limited selection of interesting and very flavorful salad dressing/marinades. All natural ingredients, no preservatives or unknown chemicals. Vidalia onion, poppy seed, papaya and lime with a hint of chile is my favorite, makes a great dip for vegetables as well as a salad dressing and a marinade for chicken. Honey, roasted sesame, garlic and lemon is another. Mostly, I appreciate the link to The Association for Dressings and Sauces web site. This is one I had not come across prior to reading this article. It is great! Thanks so much for posting it, GG.

Ketchup tied for FAVORITE with salsa!

The main problem with these ice cream/sorbet makers with the jacket that has to be kept in the freezer is that it can't get any colder than the temperature of your freezer and that is not cold enough to make really good ice cream. The old-fashioned ice cream makers, in which you had a metal cylinder that turned insize a bigger container that held ice and salt, worked so well because once the rock salt is mixed with the ice it will drop the temperature to minus-5 degrees and it will maintain that temperature steadily with no fluxation up or down for at least an hour. The jackets may be close to zero when they come out of the freezer but within a few minutes that temperature will have risen (you can check it yourself by putting cold water in the thing and using an instant-read thermometer) and while you can achieve a soft-serve consistancy, you will never get the consistancy that you would have gotten in one of the White Mountain-type freezers. By the time you have been running the machine for the 25 or 30 minutes it takes to reach a semi-frozen states, it will have become too warm to maintain it. You can, of course, transfer it to another jacket, newly removed from the freezer, but that is assuming you have a second one. Otherwise you have to put the mixture in the freezer to let it firm up and really should take it out and mix it before it gets completely hard to make sure it is the right consistency.

I have one of these however I paid full price. Now it is on sale so I am going to buy another. I have a 70 mile trip to work (140 mi round trip) and this is the only thing that keeps my tea hot for the entire trip. I ration my sips so as to not have to make any "relief" stops. The 16 oz size is just perfect for the distance.

Actually I like it better than Starbucks and it is a heck of a lot cheaper. I took it in to the office yesterday and between the two doctors and their 5 employees who drink coffee, they went through 3 bags (18 each, a total of 54) of the pods, two dark, one medium. They would have used more but I only took three bags with me. One of the docs was going to stop at Target on the way home and buy one for the office. At least one of the "girls" is also buying one. She wants something that is foolproof and turns itself off automatically so this fills the bill. She said she was tired of brewing a pot of coffee, drinking half a cup and throwing out the rest. She said that for what she has been spending at Starbucks, she will have the unit paid for in three or four weeks! It doesn't pretend to be espresso, in the brochures that come in the box it states it is coffee, just an easier way to prepare it almost instantly and have a fresh-brewed cup every time. Actually it is faster than instant coffee unless you already have hot water prepared.

This is way OT but since you asked - - I will try to be a brief as possible. I work for an orthopedic surgeon but only work two or three days a week, we do med-legal evaluations on work comp injuries. He hasn't done surgery for several years. I manage the office of which we sublease most of to three other doctors. (It takes up most of one floor in a 6-story medical building). I help manage their staff and handle their computer problems. I do all the transcription for my boss but since I type well over 100 wpm it doesn't take me long. I also do all the bookkeeping, for both the business and his personal stuff, much of which I can do from home. I live 70 miles from work so he doesn't care if I work from home as long as I get all the work done. I live on slightly less than two acres in a semi-rural area in Lancaster, Ca. This is the "high" desert, over 2000 ft altitude so we do not get as hot as down around Palm Springs in the summer and get a lot colder in winter, well below freezing. I was born and raised on a farm (65 years ago) and love to do all the traditional cooking, canning, drying, preserving, bread-baking, cheesemaking and so on. I like to experiment with doing things in a non-traditional way to make it easier and faster, i.e., preserves in the microwave, candied peel in the microwave, etc. I have a very large garden and a smaller kitchen garden next to the house in addition to a fairly large greenhouse. I can no longer handle all the gardening myself but have a great gardener who works three days a week and several very kind neighbors who are more than happy to help out in return for produce and various things I make. In my immediate area people have horses, cows, goats, sheep, llamas, ostrich, emu, gineau fowl, chickens and wildfowl. The only animals not allowed are pigs (except for pets). I "rent" sheep to keep the front lawn "mowed" and gineau fowl to "work" the big garden for bugs. New acquaintances are always surprised that I cook so much when I live alone but after they have experienced one of our neighborhood gatherings, they understand. I have a vast array of friends with whom I exchange various items I produce and I test recipes for friends who are chefs, bakers, etc. It saves them time and it is fun for me. (I worked as a personal chef in my "free" time for many years.) I started a thread on making condiments in the home. I grow my own mustard and prepare a basic one that can have all kinds of additions to suit just about every taste. I grow a lot of different kinds of hot peppers and make all kinds of salsas and sauces in addition to collecting commercial ones.

I have a lot of friends who are amateur cooks and I aim the gift at what they like to cook. If they have no need for the things I make myself, (canned fruits, preserves, dried fruits, and so on) I usually take them a slab of very good chocolate and package it with some recipes I have printed on heavy paper and laminated along with one or more tools for working with chocolate. The point of giving a very fine chocolate such as this, is that they can either use it for cooking or it can be broken up and eaten as-is. A few months back I took a 5 kilo block of Callebaut semi-sweet and a chocolate breaker as a hostess gift to a cocktail / dinner party since I knew that my friends had recently become interested in working with chocolate. They immediately unwrapped the slab, put in on a tray and used the breaker to carve off chunks from one end. They set it out for their guests to try if they wanted a sweet instead of canapés with their drinks. There are smaller "Home Chef" chocolate bars offered by Scharffen Berger, Guittard, Valrhona, Schokinag, etc., so you could take a selection of different types.