lperry

^ Lots of Middle Eastern food includes mint, although right now all I can think of is tabbouleh. There are some really good mint threads that talk about what to do with a garden surplus of the stuff, and there's one on cocktails somewhere around here.

Just make yourself a cup of peppermint tea. No sugar needed, and very nice in the evening since it has no caffeine.

Silestone is quartz. And it's very attractive, although quartz, like any rock, is quarried.

I use pecorino romano cheese in my risotto all the time for my lactose intolerant dinner companion. Sheep's milk is usually OK with people who have problems with cow's milk, and it is also a hard, aged cheese, so you are doubly safe. I can also say from experience, that people with dietary restrictions don't tend to mind if you ask questions, so you could check to see if that would be OK.

Substitute them for chocolate chips in your favorite cookie recipe. Mmmmmm.

It looks like you got the same thing just made from a different color of corn. They should be interchangeable.

Several Bond fans will be descending upon us this evening for a final viewing of Casino Royale prior to a midnight screening of Quantum of Solace. Vespers all around!

^Thank you for that information - I'll do a little research on it. She also gave me some jasmine tea that is supposed to be from the same leaves, but it was packaged in a tin that she reused so I don't have a name. I do know, however, that I was right on the money to ask her to choose for me.

That flower tea is just beautiful! I followed the link to the website and learned tat the leaves are hand-stitched together. Amazing. I've been drinking a green tea that was given to me by a friend who brought it from China. She is from Beijing, and I told her I would defer to her expertise in regard to what I might like. I'm not enough of an expert to know what I should buy. The English on the tin reads, Alpine Organic Baihao Tea, Green Tea. It is just lovely, and per her directions, I have been brewing three cups from each little spoon of leaves, and thus far, the second is my favorite. A bit of honey sweetness comes out in the second brew. It is a complete mystery how this happens when the leaves stay in the cup the entire time. I guess that some flavors must come out and mask others that linger.

The Holiday All in One Bundt Cake is fantastic. I used a roasted sweet potato instead of pumpkin and probably should have cut out some of the sugar, but it is still just delicious.

Good ideas and it's nice to hear that everything comes out so well. That seems to be the underlying theme of the thread. I have five different bundt pans and I try to use them all during the holidays. Now I have more recipes to try!

I'm very late to this party - I just got a copy of the book three days ago. I've already made the bittersweet brownies with my addition of nuts, and the Lenox almond biscotti with pistachios because that's what I had on hand. Both turned out beautifully and are being packaged up this morning to send to a friend who just had both knees replaced. I can't even imagine how he is feeling, but chocolate certainly can't hurt. It was really difficult to choose what to make, and I'm eyeing the mocha swirl bundt cake for later this week. I'm almost always asked to bring desserts to events, and I see myself turning to this book throughout the holidays!

The edge pan to the rescue!

I'm delurking in the Asia forums to say thank you for that link! I'm always trying to learn from cookbooks, and it's so nice to see it done on video. Thank you!

That's it. Also called cambuci or chapéu de frade (bishop's hat). I've grown these and they had the same sweet flesh and hot veins and placenta. Here's another link.

What a fantastic idea! Now off to find that old pizza pan...

Many thanks to all the orgeat experimenters who posted here. I tasted my finished product, and it is fantastic. All I had tried before was Monin, and there is no comparison. I ran into only one problem when I couldn't find my cheesecloth, so I substituted with a potato ricer. I figured if it would smash all the water out of frozen spinach, it would work for almond bits, and I could probably get more leverage from a device that was built for crushing. A few pieces of almond made it into the first "riced" batch, but I just poured that through a tea strainer and it worked just fine.

Here's one. I don't know if it is any good - I found it while searching for drink recipes with orgeat. If nothing else, it might give you some ideas. The roasting is genius. I've got my first batch of orgeat on the stove (FX method), and I did a light roast of the almonds under the broiler. (Roasting? Toasting?) As they were heating, all the oils came to the surface and they took on an amazing fragrance. Mai Tais mañana. Edited to say that if you click on "orgeat syrup" on the site above, it will lead you to more drink recipes.

I've been following this thread, and coincidentally on Thursday a friend passed along a ten pound container of brown basmati rice to me because he doesn't like it. He said it wasn't as fragrant as the white. I cooked some of it on the stove in a regular pot using the knuckle water measuring technique, and found after about a half hour of cooking and a few minutes of resting, it fluffed up really nicely with separate grains and no gumminess. We have one of those cheapie rice cookers, but the first and last time I cooked black rice in it there was all sorts of bubbling and spitting that made a huge mess on the counter. Maybe I filled it too full? I still want some recipe ideas, and I found quite a bit of information on the Lundberg site. I can't vouch for any of the recipes because I haven't tried anything yet, but they have a pretty large range of types of dishes for all sorts of cooks. Different recipes call for using fresh shiitakes while others call for a can of condensed soup, but there are a lot of ideas here. I used to buy their mixes fairly frequently, but haven't done much with rice in a while. But now with about twenty pounds of the stuff in my pantry, I think we'll be eating more whole grain rice this fall.

Are you handy with woodworking tools? A series of stacked triangle shaped pieces with block supports could give you the same effect.

Now I'm thinking that a TV armoire with a glassware rack in the top of the big cabinet and these steps on the bottom would work really nicely. Tools and other things like napkins could fit in the lower cabinets.

I'm going to plug the lazy susans again, if not for a permanent solution, at least for a temporary fix. I used to have some cheapie ones that went off balance, but these new ones are fine full of glass jars filled with various levels of liquids. They add about a centimeter to the height of the bottles, so a couple of things don't fit in the cabinets, but most do. I agree that they do leave spaces between them. I'm not sure how much space I lose, and since figuring it out sounds like a geometry word problem in the making, and I'd rather not have unpleasant eighth grade flashbacks, I'll leave that to the math majors. I use that extra space in between the turntables to store the extra bottles of whatever might be running out or things that I don't use all that often. Because I knew it would be a while before I got a kitchen renovation, I was willing to sacrifice perfection for the convenience of getting to what I really needed quickly and easily. Plus, they are about five bucks each. So for $20 or so, you can at least find the Flor de Caña and get that daiquiri fix without moving thirty other things. Has anyone else converted furniture that was supposed to be for another task? I've been thinking about another "armoire" like I bought for storing jars of preserves. Some of the ones that were manufactured to hold those huge TVs are spot on for liquor bottles if you insert a new shelf about half way up in the area where the TV was supposed to be, and even the solid wood ones can be had for very little cash now because of the conversion to flat screens. But then again there is the shelf depth issue. Is anyone making a cabinet with stair step shelves like they have in the backs of bars?

Target has some great little lazy susans with rubberized surfaces. You can put a bunch of bottles on them and face them outwards, so that you can just turn them and grab what you want as it gets moved to the front. (Except for the inevitable bottle in the middle). I did this with my spices and vinegars and it worked great.

Has anyone else been experimenting? A deep fryer somehow made it into my basket at Costco yesterday.

I always thought that the little beans and peas were supposed to overcook to thicken the soup. Now I'm wondering.