MelissaH

This semester, my husband the chemistry professor is teaching a science class for honors students who are not necessarily science majors, and he's using food as the focus of the class. Yesterday he brought the Instant Pot to work, along with carnaroli rice, diced onion, shredded cheese, carrot juice, and other ingredients, and made a vegetarian risotto, which the class devoured. Did I mention this was an 8 AM class?

Are you ready yet to hire a herd of minions to drop in white and drag a clay tool through it?

And I'm in for both Friday and Saturday night dinners!

No master class for me.

In for Morato, Friday dinner, Saturday dinner...am I missing anything?

I have a ticket for Morato as well. And if there's still an IR thermometer, I'd like one please.

@Anna N, your story of only being saved prep time reminds me of a story I read (and can't remember where, or I'd give them credit): when cake mixes were first being developed, those in charge made a conscious choice to have bakers add their own eggs, because they found that it made people feel more like they were really cooking (and, presumably, less guilty about using a mix in the first place). I suspect this was also a conscious decision to have you grate your own sweet potato, and those things can be a bugger to grate. For one thing, the whole sweet potato probably keeps better than grated sweet potato. And this way, you get to do more of the work yourself, so it's more like you really cooked your own dinner and had to make some decisions (such as whether to grate the potato on a box grater or in the food processor). One thing I'd like to find out is, in six months or a year or two years, do people who started cooking with these meal kits generally go on to do their own shopping and cooking? Are they better able to choose and follow a recipe? If not, I'd say that the only goal accomplished is that of the manufacturers of these meal kits: making their pockets heavier.

That. And I would argue that if they feel the need for a cooking school with a separate charge and an upcharge for instructors on top of that, maybe their writers and editors aren't doing their jobs all that well.

How is there a school without instructors?

Ohhh, man, that looks awesome, but not like something you could eat a lot of or eat often. Would the flavors work on, say, the scale of a grilled cheese sandwich?

Last year, our Aldi was closed for a couple of months while they renovated. It still looks like an Aldi, but it's now a bit brighter and it's still a little cleaner than I remember. And I still have a very specific list of things I buy there, just like I do at Trader Joe's and other specialty stores.

Wegmans in Syracuse had them yesterday, $4 for a 2 lb bag, which is the pretty normal rate around here.

Will I get pinged for being off-topic if I post here about the return of Hydrox?

It would make a very different dish, but looking at the other ingredients, I wonder if perhaps feta might be a better match than the gorgonzola.

Not I.

(psst, @curls: for me the Seder is all about friends and food, and I don't hang out with a very observant crowd. We go for spirit, not letter, of the law. I don't think I've ever served a meal that's completely kosher for Passover, depending on whose rules you follow. For us, the fact that there's no leavening in the crackers themselves is good enough! Given that the taste of these is so much better than the cardboard usually served, I'm seriously considering it.)

The rosemary Italian style crackers remind me of matzah with flavor, something I don't mind eating. Think anyone would notice if I swapped them in for the officially sanctioned version at my Seder? (Ingredients: unbleached enriched flour, expeller pressed canola oil and extra virgin olive oil, sea salt and dried rosemary)

@Anna N, that looks both impressive and lovely. But I'm curious: what did you order that they had to improvise? Any guesses how what you got differed from what was on the menu?

I often freeze crumble topping. Makes it easy when fruit needs to be used up.

Two questions: First, have you tried just cleaning the crabapples, boiling them, and then pushing them through a food mill? When I make applesauce, I basically don't do much to the apples; I let the food mill do all the work for me. And second, what about using a slow cooker for the cooking? I recall people ( @andiesenji, maybe?) using a slow cooker to make apple butter, without much risk of burning and much less need for stirring.

I tried the TJ's maple leaf cookies side by side with the Dare brand (a box I purchased in Canada) and found them substantially sweeter and less mapley than the "real thing." They weren't bad enough to bring back, but they weren't good enough for me to buy again either.

Here's a question for those of you familiar with traffic in Toronto. I live diagonally across Lake Ontario from Toronto. When I checked Google Maps from my house to Humber College, the time difference between driving via Buffalo (without using the expensive 407 ETR) and driving via Kingston was negligible. Which route is likely to be easier, or at least less frustrating driving? Will the time of day make a difference?

Anymore, we use the pressure cooker.

Happy for you, but sad for us. I thought we might get to finally meet in person! Best of luck with your move.

Let me check with my husband, who all of a sudden last week said he might be able and interested in joining me for the weekend. Stay tuned.... I'm in! I'll message you my email address so we can work out details.