MelissaH

Another little point where I diverge from the directions: when I use a rolling pin rather than the pasta machine, I actually roll the dough directly on a sheet of parchment, with another piece of parchment on top. I do flip it a few times and lift the parchment to be sure it isn't sticking. But I will definitely try separating the crackers. I'd thought about a lower temp, but since I seemed to have a bigger issue with the bottoms getting much darker than the tops, I first wanted to try double-panning to see if that helped any. You think the lower temp would be more useful? Or should I try both?

I'm mostly a "sweet kitchen" baker, but every so often I get a savoy baking bug. My latest obsession is with baking crackers containing cheese (so far I've done cheddar and parm) and some kind of spice (black pepper, cayenne, mustard, or whatever seems to go with the cheese in question). However, I haven't taken any questions because I've had mega issues with my crackers. I've based my batches off a recipe from King Arthur Flour (blog post with recipe link: http://www.kingarthurflour.com/blog/2013/08/21/0821-crunchy-parmesan-crackers-chee-easy/) and I apparently have yet to get it right. I've tried rolling with a rolling pin and a pasta machine, but the thickness doesn't seem to make a difference (except in how long they take before they get brown and then overbrown and then burned to a crisp). I've tried baking with and without convection. I've tried lowering the temp slightly when the convection fan is on. Again, the only difference seems to be in baking time. I've tried leaving the crackers in the oven as it cools down with the door cracked open, to dry them out even further. And no matter what I do, I wind up with crackers that aren't crunchy except for a very small window. When they're warm, they don't crunch. When they've cooled completely, they don't crunch. The only way I can get crunch with staying power is if I totally overbake the crackers, in which case the taste isn't any good. I'm thinking that the next time I try, I'm going to use doubled-up baking sheets, since my crackers always seem to cook faster (and burn faster) on the bottom than on the top. Maybe that way, I'll be able to keep them in the oven longer and get them better dried out, so they'll crunch better. I'm also wondering about whether adding a little leavening to the dough might help: perhaps a little bit of puff would make it easier for moisture to escape, since it won't have to work its way out through a thicker layer of dough? I'd definitely continue to dock the rolled-out dough very well. Has anyone had success in baking savory crackers? I'd like to make something as beautiful and tasty as Anna's tart!

I'm tremendously enjoying this thread. I grew up in a mint-free house, right down to the toothpaste, because my mom feels about mint the way I feel about bananas. I still don't do spearmint well, largely because everything my orthodontist used was spearmint-flavored, but I've come to like peppermint. Our neighbor has a large mint patch, and we have free rein to gather and use as much of it as we want (hey, it's MINT, so it'll come back!) and it's fun for me to see all the ways people use mint.

Shelby, those are the peaches we always also call Palisade peaches (or apricots, or other fruit), named after the place they're grown. Just like the sweet corn we'd get is Olathe sweet corn. I wonder if this is a Western Slope phenomenon?

Someone with more of a sweet tooth than Anna N: how sweet *is* Kerry's recipe? Oversweetness is my primary complaint about many baked goods, but I do enjoy sweets and always go for them over salty snacks.

A trick that I learned from a breadmaking class at King Arthur: a handful of flour works wonderfully to clean up goopy dough from your hands, your bowls, etc. without clogging your sink. So if I have a bowl that's got sticky dough bits, I'll dump a spoonful of flour and use my hand to rub it around and loosen the dough, then rub it between my hands to clean them, and finally brush it all into the trash. If it's dry dough, I soak in cold water for a bit, as others have recommended.

Would the judicious application of a blowtorch help with the top browning problems? Or is that anathema to this kind of event?

I'm quite envious of Anna and her loot!

This reminds me of something that happened on my first trip to Belgium. We were bicycling through the country, and stopped at a campground outside of Brugge for a few days. Our first morning there, as we walked the 3.5 km (or so) from our campground into the city, we walked past a bakery and swung inside to get some more breakfast, which we ate in the very American, un-Belgian way of munching while we walked. I don't remember what my husband got, but I got a pastry called an appelflap, which was like a turnover made with puff pastry. It was delicious, and the bit of powdered sugar dusted on the outside was as good as a scarlet A to mark my transgression, but after the first bite I nearly stood still because something didn't taste right. After my second bite, I figured it out: there was no cinnamon (or any other spice) in the pastry. The bakery had cinnamon rolls available, so that obviously wasn't the issue. But as an American, my brain has come to expect cinnamon with apple in pastry. When the cinnamon is missing, it's a bit of a surprise, based on my cultural expectations. But that doesn't mean it's wrong to do it another way, or that it won't be good. (Also see the Ritz cracker "mock apple pie" with a filling including crackers, lemon juice, and cinnamon. I bet it doesn't work to most Americans without the cinnamon!) The short story: do what you like, and what makes you happy. After all, is there a such thing as a bad apple pie, if it's well-made with love?

i bought fresh water chestnuts once. My verdict was that they were a PITA to handle. Furthermore, the taste and texture were quite reminiscent of jicama, which is easier and cheaper for me to find than fresh water chestnuts, and a lot less trouble to prep! Heresy it might be, to some of you, but for my uses it's fine.

In my college days, I'd sometimes eat them straight from the brick. No need for the seasoning packet. It was quicker and easier than cooking them, especially when it had been a long day, or if I was on the go between classes.

1:1:1 flour:butter:cream cheese, by mass?

Great advice in this thread. Thinking about what we have in our "travel" kitchen box, for when we drive somewhere that has at least a microwave or toaster oven: *Knives, one paring size and one chef's/santoku *Cutting board *Carrot peeler *Pyrex measuring cup (great for measuring liquids and also heating them in the microwave) *Silicone spatula As far as other equipment, assuming you have a burner or three to cook on, I'd get a pot large enough to boil pasta, a colander to drain stuff including the pasta you boil in your pot, a nonstick frying pan for eggs and the like, and a sheet pan. Maybe a casserole dish, if you like to eat things that get cooked in one. Maybe a smaller saucepan. The Thermomix would be useful if you know that the things you like to cook and eat would work in one, and if you think you'll really need to make them in a more hands-free process. Otherwise, put your money elsewhere.

Are there adequate pollinators in your area for the crops you're looking at, or do you also need to think about adding some bees (and collecting the honey)?

I can tell a difference between using bay leaves and not. My husband cannot.

Summer's the wrong time of year for apples, but one of my favorite after-school snacks was an apple, halved and cored, with peanut butter spread on the cut surface. Added bonus: with the peanut butter protective layer, the apple won't brown.

While I would love to participate, I suspect the timing next year won't work for me: I'll be spending a few months of my husband's sabbatical leave in Belgium next spring, doing my own chocolate research. So I'll have to wait for 2016, I think.

I love the idea: showing us all how you cook. However, I suspect for me, this would be a vicarious cookbook: I bet much of what you forage for is completely unavailable to me, on the shore of Lake Ontario. I'd enjoy seeing the process you go through, especially with more photographs like the one above, but it's unlikely that I'd be able to actually try many (any?) of the recipes unless you can tell us where to buy the ingredients you obtain by foraging. Is there any chance you can provide sources, or substitutes, for those of us who don't live in the southwest? I'd be happy to test also, but would need to work with what I have available to me.

We cook together. In fact, it was part of our wedding vows that we would share the kitchen!

But I remember kasha as being whole, and what's in the bag appears to be cut. I'm not sure how that would take to the kasha treatment, since there's so much more surface area, so many different sizes of particle, and nothing to keep the pieces separate.

We tried the bacon mac and mango salsa versions. (We didn't see wasabi ginger, and couldn't quite imagine how cappuccino would play well with potato chip so left it on the shelf.) The bacon mac didn't have much bacon in evidence, to us; we thought it was darn close to the standard sour cream and cheddar flavor of chips. As for the mango salsa, it didn't work for any of us. For me, the sweet gunk was jarring (compared to, say, the sweetness of the bbq flavoring, which I don't find offensive). My MIL is a cilantro hater, and there were enough cilantro-heavy chips to turn her off. My husband was meh about them. I'm not sure any of them is good enough to stay.

My husband's family reubens were always made with smoked sausage. The Noo Yawker in me squawked about that; but then again I typically prefer my reuben sans sauerkraut and Thousand Islands dressing. Anna, Kerry can tell you about the issues I had toasting coconut. I believe I destroyed three portions the day we prepped for the workshop she gave for the students here. And I'm not much better with other things that need to get toasted. As if the toasting issues themselves aren't bad enough, I'm also notorious for being impatient about letting nuts and spices cool before I try to grind them. So you probably really don't want me as your kitchen flunky, at least not for that particular task!

That's exactly how I clean leeks, also. I've always wondered how one is supposed to clean leeks for recipes where the leeks are left whole, or mostly whole. Unless the grit left in them is supposed to act like sandpaper and sharpen your teeth as you eat? Borek looks wonderful.

My husband needed the car, so I couldn't drive it up there. And now that the dishwasher is fixed again, you obviously don't need me. Any chance you could bring that borek here to me when (if) it's done?

Gotta say: I'm enjoying this version of Manitoulin's Test Kitchen way more than anything I've seen recently on TV on the show America's Test Kitchen. Oh, you can send some of that borek my way for commentary when (if?) it's done.