MelissaH

I've been known to use both parchment and screens (but not at the same time). My trick for the parchment is that once the dough is on the parchment, I get out my scissors and trim the parchment to within an inch of the dough. Less loose paper means less to burn.

My husband uses a hand mixer for mashed potatoes. My dad's always used the KitchenAid with the flat beater. I've never had gluey mashed potatoes made by either man. And yes, making mashed potatoes does seem to be a strictly male endeavor in my family!

I haven't tried them, but I wish they'd done the coconut with the chocolate cookies, to get a Mounds bar–like vibe going.

I'd ordered my copy through Amazon the day it was announced. As the release date drew near, I kept checking the shipping information and getting more and more nervous when nothing had happened. The day before release, my copy still had not been shipped, and finally the day of release (AKA the day my book was supposed to arrive at my house) I got an email saying that delivery had been delayed by two more days. At that point I headed to my local indie bookstore, where they had a copy on the shelf. I bought that copy, cancelled my Amazon order, and was very happy I did.

Waaait a minute. No more Wegmans brand Oreos? Or just one specific version? (The "real" Oreos with golden cookies and chocolate creme seems to have vanished, along with those deadly Key Lime ones from this summer.)

Are they Luxury because the cookies came from Whole Paycheck?

One thing I noticed, watching Claudine and Jacques cut food side by side: Jacques uses a "pinch" grip on his knife blade, whereas Claudine prefers to make a fist around the handle of the knife and extend her index finger over the top of the blade.

Yup. With the corn, you need to cut it just barely high enough that you take off a smidge of the lowest kernels. If you do that, it practically squirts out. If you cut it too low, you can squeeze till you make the corn into juice and nothing else happens.

...drool...

Does this mean quitting your day job is on the horizon? (Oh geez, I hope not, because that would mean the end of the Up North threads!)

You're on my calendar!

A disappointment today for me: the Brownie Crisp, which claims to be "a rich, brownie taste with a crisp, cookie crunch." The editor in me insists on stating for the record that I only copied the commas as they appeared on the package! I was expecting this to be more like the Sheila G's Brownie Brittle. Instead, it's thicker squares that are not easy to bite into. The flavor is cloyingly sweet. They stick in your teeth. I won't be buying these again. (But hey, they're vegan and gluten free.)

I'm still here, and it's been a long time since I soaked red kidney beans (or any other kind of bean, for that matter) before cooking and experienced any issues. I'd bring it up to a full boil and let 'er rip, which should take care of both your issues.

Nuts are one of the things we buy almost exclusively from TJ's. They seem fresher, and are usually priced well. And my husband adores the 50% less salt cashews, which he can keep in his desk drawer to snack on for those days when a proper lunch just isn't gonna happen.

Anna, have you tried using a sous-vide setup to make yogurt? I put scalded milk in mason jars, inoculate them when they cool enough to not kill the cultures, cap the jars, and then put them in a nice warm bath for a while. What's the advantage of using an instant pot over a more (or less) traditional setup?

Not to go mixing threads here, but I wonder about using a cold-brewed coffee concentrate such as the one Trader Joe's sells to make the Vietnamese coffee popsicles.

It's very common in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. In fact, when we were in Belgium for the spring, it was impossible to find skim milk that wasn't UHT, and all the UHT milk was far less expensive than the refrigerated milk. It has a slightly cooked flavor that I don't particularly care for if (for some reason) I want to drink a glass of milk, but it's fine for cooking, baking, and hot chocolate making. I kept some around because my shoebox-sized fridge didn't give me the luxury of always having a half-gallon container in the fridge.

I found http://www.pickyourown.org/tomato_acidity.php, which talks about whether you need acid when you can tomatoes. Apparently, some varieties of tomatoes are not quite acidic enough to qualify as an "acidic" food, and that's why all the CYA instructions say to add lemon juice or vinegar. The link goes on to say that low-acid foods need temps of 240 to 250 °F to destroy botulism spores, attainable by using a pressure canner at 10 to 15 psi, and those temps need to be held "from 20 to 100 minutes" to destroy bacteria. But I would think that if you used whatever the canning directions for beans are, as that's definitely a low-acid food, that the time and pressure would be adequate to make tomatoes safe as well. A Washington Post article at https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/what-sold-me-on-pressure-canning-at-home/2015/01/26/4d365546-a2a3-11e4-9f89-561284a573f8_story.html says that for pint jars of cooked dry beans in their cooking liquid, leave an inch of headspace and process 75 minutes at 10 psi.

I would love to hear the trick, when Andie comes back and rescues us from the cliffhanger she left us with!

Mazel tov! I'm very happy for you, and I look forward to seeing what happens next. (And this copy editor hopes you get a good one from your publisher!)

I actually do have an induction burner, which I could use with my 6 qt Fagor stovetop pressure cooker. But most of the time, I just use my gas burners. We're back into hot and sticky mode for a few days. I think anything that gets cooked for the rest of the week will be cooked on the grill. I can't imagine eating short ribs right now.

Anna, I've had that recipe bookmarked for quite a while, but hadn't gotten around to trying it. However, I'm thinking that tonight might be the night, given your endorsement. I only have a stovetop pressure cooker, so that's the way I'll have to deal with it. Do you notice any difference in how hot the kitchen gets with the electric version compared to a more traditional pot?

Anna, do you think a pasta machine might be an appropriate way to roll this dough very thin?

I wouldn't have known to ask about this one, either—except that one of the bloggers I follow posted not long ago that a knitting book she'd written several years ago is out of print and the pattern rights are going to revert to her so she can revise and reformat them for sale on her website. And huiray is absolutely right, about photo rights being something else to clarify. Right about now, I'm wondering if I should have gone to law school!

At some point if the publisher decides to discontinue the book, would the rights to the recipes and essays revert to you, to use as you please?