andiesenji

@thirtyoneknots: If you want this more Mexican in flavor, add some cilantro (unless you're a hater) and maybe a drizzle of achiote oil. [@andisenji: that sounds GOOD! Are the onions fried in butter or lard or do you use the canned french fried onions? She fries them in bacon fat - more flavor and also includes some very finely crumbled crisp bacon - I forgot when I first posted. I also forgot that she stirs in a tablespoon of freshly mixed (hot) Colmans mustard, to give it a bit of tangyness. Can also use hot Chinese mustard or in a pinch, a lesser amount of wasabi. It is somewhat sweet, slightly smoky, oniony and with a hint of bacon. I don't really taste the diced (canned) green chiles but there is a difference if they are not included. But if you never have tasted it, you probably would not know the difference. She told me that it was a spur of the moment replacement for a black bean dip because she forgot to buy a can of black beans when she shopped and the only canned beans she had on hand was one of the tall cans of B & M baked beans so she tried it and everyone liked it so well she never went back to the black bean dip.

A famous topping from Johnnybird it's in several topics on this forum but it's become well know elsewhere.

My neighbor makes a dip from a can of B & M Baked Beans (mashed) and adds green chiles and finely chopped, fried onions. She serves them with whole wheat pita chips.

Gorgeous, Anna.

Terrific blog ladies. Thanks for revealing your days and nights to us.

But it's such fun to play with. I did use mine when I was still catering to make "candyfloss" cone tops for cupcakes for parties for children. Very popular, especially as I made them at the party so the kids could see what I was doing.

Have you ever tried using it for sous vide? No. I've been served a few sous vide dishes and really didn't care for any of them. Perhaps it was the texture or something in my head that just didn't equate the food with my preferences.

I have an automatic electric pasteurizer (2 gallon) which I used when I was able to buy raw milk. It raised the temp of the milk to 145°F. and held it at that temp for 35 minutes. It has an "agitator" that slowly stirs the milk. The whole process took fifty minutes. The heating coils are around the sides as well as in the bottom so the milk is heated evenly but the agitator is to make doubly sure. I bought mine many years ago from Sears "farm supply" catalog. Lehman's sold the same one until just a few years ago but I haven't seen one for ages, except occasionally on ebay and they are pretty beat up.

In various regions these muffins have different names. As a child I knew them as "stuffed muffins" and a friend from Montana calls them "sinkers" but most of the recipes I have seen simply call them "filled" muffins. In my experience the batter seems a bit thicker than with plain muffins. - Here's a recipe that is simple and very good and works with any kind of preserves and the batter can be flavored to complement the filling - such as almond flavoring with apricot preserves. (3 tablespoons of sugar is more than enough - in my opinion most recipes use too much) Cooks.Com has a bunch. And here's a recipe with cream cheese added to the filling. Many years ago I was visiting in Charleston, So. Carolina and was taken to a restaurant/bakery where a specialty of the house was a peach and cream cheese filled muffin that was enormous. Two of us split one. That was long before "jumbo" muffins or muffin tins were available ready-made. That particular muffin had an interesting, slightly chewy texture so I asked and was told it was made with "flaked wheat" not wheat flakes but no other information about the recipe was forthcoming.

Looks good to me.

Excellent presentation! Congratulations on your (very expensive) but satisfying result. I found some of my notes and I used Trader Joe's milk for a couple of batches.

I mentioned in the "Cookbooks, How Many" topic about this book: "A couple of weeks ago I got and am now reading Cheese and Culture - A History of Cheese and Its Place in Western Civilization, by Paul S. Kindstedt. I've read almost halfway through it and while some of it is heavy going, it is fascinating. Cheese was not merely food. It had religious significance in many cultures and had a distinct effect on the spread of civilization, allowing people who were lactose intolerant (yes, even back then) to derive nutrition from milk in its secondary form, cheese. This is not a book for someone who wants a quick read but if you are interested in how and why cheese (generic) and the various regional cheeses were developed and contributed to trade and the enrichment of societies, this is an excellent book. "Cheese and Culture tells the story of how cheese history intersects with some of the pivotal periods in human history and in many cases shaped the lives of cheesemakers and the diverse cheeses they developed." The more I read, I have so far reached the middle of the 18th century, the more fascinating I found it. The amount of research that went into this must have been staggering. I've read a lot of books about the history of cheese but this delves into monastic records that details how cheese became so diverse and how trading between countries contributed to treaties and alliances that might otherwise not have happened. As I said above, this is not light reading but it is extremely interesting for anyone who is interested in learning more details of how cheese got from the "Cradle of Civilization" to the present.

I love that Denby teapot. The backstamp is the one used 1950 to 1975 and as it is in Imperial measurement instead of metric, it was probably made prior to 1972. The Clementine puree looks lovely, can almost taste it. The ginger Rice Crispy treats sound interesting. I've never used just ginger but have made them with peach/ginger, cooking peach puree / fresh ginger with sugar to make a fairly thick syrupy mass - I think it was originally a recipe for popcorn balls - and it worked quite well. I pressed the mixture into the muffin-tops pans so I had flat round "cakes" and then cut them into quarters. They have to be consumed within a few hours or they do tend to get soggy.

Here is a You Tube demo of the in '09.And in 2010There are many more... At one time I had the bigger Bosch "Universal" but gave it to a friend who needed a mixer on short notice and as I didn't really need it, told her to keep it. I already had a KA and a DLX 2000 (Electrolux, AEG, Magic Mill, etc.) as well as bread machines so was really overstocked with mixers.

The Bosch compact is very popular with folks on the Bread-Bakers digest. They like it because it is smaller than the regular Bosch and still has the "oomph" to handle many bread doughs as well as any other thing that needs a mixer. Here is a review on The Fresh Loaf My friend in Niagara got one from the Kitchen Help store when they had it on sale two or three years ago for 180.00 She has the larger Bosch but wanted a smaller one they could take to their lake cottage for the summer.

I use it when I saute foods with delicate flavors. Trout is a favorite, catfish, etc. But I also use it in salad dressings - although I also like olive oil, the avocado oils is excellent in bread salads, with tomatoes and sweet onions - I usually toss in some sugar snap pea pods too.

Kerry, have you ever seen the sugars from this site? I've ordered several (and some other stuff) - the berry and citrus "collections" and the "fragrant" collection - the rose sugar is just lovely. I've also ordered two or three individual sugars but have used them up and don't recall which. They do ship to other countries - a friend who has relocated from here to Grand Cayman orders from them.

I've got a cotton candy machine - I think it is like the "Nostalgia" one but has a different name as I recall. It is in my storage building. I only used it a couple of times when we had neighborhood block parties. It was very inexpensive and worked just fine. It came with colored sugars, red, yellow and blue.

I'm pretty sure their "natural" cocoa is not "Dutched" - The Dutching process changes the character of the cocoa, enhancing the flavor, in my opinion. I don't use anything except Dutch process cocoa for regular baking and cooking. I do keep some on hand for "flouring" pans in which I will bake chocolate cakes and for coating truffles as I want less flavor in those applications.

I just got Charleston Receipts Repeats. Charleston Receipts has been a favorite cookbook of mine for fifty years. This one was first published in 1986 and is now in its 11th printing. I got this one on the recommendation of a friend who assured me that it was not a rehash of the "receipts" in the original book but new ones and some modernized ones from the earlier book with ingredients now available in "modern" measurements. A couple of weeks ago I got and am now reading Cheese and Culture - A History of Cheese and Its Place in Western Civilization, by Paul S. Kindstedt. I've read almost halfway through it and while some of it is heavy going, it is fascinating. Cheese was not merely food. It had religious significance in many cultures and had a distinct effect on the spread of civilization, allowing people who were lactose intolerant (yes, even back then) to derive nutrition from milk in its secondary form, cheese. This is not a book for someone who wants a quick read but if you are interested in how and why cheese (generic) and the various regional cheeses were developed and contributed to trade and the enrichment of societies, this is an excellent book. "Cheese and Culture tells the story of how cheese history intersects with some of the pivotal periods in human history and in many cases shaped the lives of cheesemakers and the diverse cheeses they developed."

Chef Tools just added these to their site and I ordered them - supposed to ship by the 28th. Tovolo Sphere Ice Molds. (I also ordered the Charles Viancin "Water Drop Steamer" - also to be shipped late May)

Eggs go bad? I'm wondering about that also. I have some jumbo eggs in my fridge from late February, still good, used some this morning.

Terrific photos. I'm really looking forward to this week. Those eggs are lovely.

Depending on how "pure" the hog fat is, I expect to get almost a quart of lard from three pounds of fat.

It looks like one of the bridges in the Sacramento Delta. I've driven over a goodly number of them - and have waited while boats sailed through. I don't know how many swing bridges are in the Delta and on the surrounding navigable rivers, but there are a significant number. I remember one swing bridge that looked a lot like the one in the photo, over a river in Wisconsin when I was a teen but the last year I lived there, it was lifted and broken by an enormous ice pack. At the time there was talk of replacing it with a higher bridge that would not have to swing. It's an interesting photo.