MelissaH

The series of peanut sauce posts is one reason why I love to read threads here: constructive criticism with results! I'm going to put that peanut sauce on our agenda for later this week. MelissaH

I love the photo of the two giant skillets holding sausages and potatoes. And three loud cheers for IKEA kitchens! Blog on, MelissaH

RobertM, I remember that from the very first workshop. I ask because I'm about a three-hour drive away, and wondered whether I'd be able to sleep in my own bed Thursday night. MelissaH

I'm definitely planning on being there. Do you have any idea how early will things get going on Friday? Will I have time to drive in that morning and not miss anything, or do I need to book a room for Thursday night as well? (I could be persuaded to share a room, if someone's interested.) MelissaH

Definately. Just last week I was making a huckleberry pie and many of the recipes called for quick-cooking tapioca. I couldn't get over the vision of little eyeball gels staring out of a slice of my huckleberry pie. Tapioca is definately a product that turns into gel--and it gels other foods. (Just not in my pies). You mean you can't get powdered tapioca up there (almidon de yuca)? That solves the whole "wonky eyeballs" thing, and very easily too. I don't remember seeing "powdered tapioca" in the store, although I think I've seen "tapioca flour" in a package from Bob's Red Mill. As far as pies, the Cook's Illustrated cherry pie recipe calls for taking the pearls and whizzing them in a spice grinder until they turn into powder. That solves the texture issue for my husband, at least.

I've made a few different marshmallow formulas over the years, and have come to the conclusion that I strongly prefer the recipes without egg whites. (This didn't come as a huge surprise to me, as generally speaking, I'm not a huge fan of anything with uncooked egg whites, meringue pie toppings or meringue cookies included.) Without looking through all 35 pages, does anyone know what the egg white does, that so many recipes include it? MelissaH

We love that Indian slow cooker cookbook. The saag paneer recipe is a winner; the only tough part was getting all the spinach to fit into the cooker. I finally wound up wilting most of it on the stovetop, at which point the rest of the recipe was—er—cake. The author also has an Indian vegan slow cooker cookbook out now. We don't have that one, but I have taken a quick peek through it, and think that if you don't have an issue with dairy and do have a source of paneer, you could pretty readily swap out the tofu in many of the recipes for a different take. Deborah Schneider has a Mexican slow cooker cookbook that doesn't look wimpy. My chief complaint about so many of the slow cooker cookbooks is that they're "dumbed down", especially with respect to spicy foods and overtly ethnic ingredients. MelissaH

The last batch of muffins I did was a King Arthur Flour recipe, for baked pumpkin "doughnuts". I don't have a doughnut pan, so I baked mine in papers inside muffin tins, and removed them from the pan hot (as I always do when I use papers). I was also careful about being neat when I portioned the batter with a small disher into the paper-lined wells. I got 24 mini-muffins and six regular size muffins from one recipe of batter. I wasn't overly impressed with the muffins themselves—I found them to be heavy—but they did, in fact, release cleanly from the papers this time, and had a reasonable crust inside the paper. Time to move on to another kind of muffin, and see what happens, I guess. MelissaH

I floored my parents a few years ago when I was dogsitting for them. The morning of the day they got home, I unearthed the crock pot from deep in the garage and put a thawed mass-market turkey breast (not so easy to find in early fall!) on top of some halved onions, peeled carrots, celery stalks that I'd snapped in half, a few whole peppercorns, probably a bay leaf or two, and a small splash of water to get it all started. I turned it on, and the dog and I drove the 2 hours to the airport to pick them up. They wanted to go shopping for a few things they can't get in their small town as long as they were out, so it was another couple of hours before we even started to drive home. But when we did get back, finally, they were most impressed by the way the house smelled. The turkey generates lots of juice, which is easy to thicken up for gravy. All I had to do was boil some potatoes and make a salad, and dinner was ready. The downside of crockpot turkey breast is that the skin is flabby and pretty much inedible. Lucky for me, my parents won't admit to being skin-eaters. MelissaH

Is there any reason you can't drastically reduce the volume of the stock, and then you'd have less to deal with at the end (and less to store in your freezer)? Then when you use it, you could just add water to replace what you boiled off. MelissaH

I would use double foil pans, and squares cut from cartons to support the bottom. Of additional concern would be covering; plastic wrap or foil. When you do your test bake, try it with a double foil pan...and maybe a cookie sheet underneath. Instructions should state that oven is preheated. Also, acknowledge that oven temperatures will vary, and give a variety of indicators of doneness (color, aroma, other appearance, etc.) Recommendation to support the foil pans with a baking sheet or other pan (even a skillet!) during baking. Have you considered using just a bottom crust with a strusel topping? Or deepdish style pie with only a top crust? For this, the prototypical American apple pie, I would not do a deep dish, top crust only pie. I think even the streusel topping option might be pushing it a bit. You might want to mention that if the top is browning but the filing isn't bubbling in the middle yet, cover it with some foil. And include instructions that the pie needs to cool and rest before you try to cut it. One of the cheap Chinese places around here has started folding canned apple filling into wonton wrappers, tossing them in the deep fryer, and sprinkling the product with powdered sugar! MelissaH

OK, this is getting interesting: some people say take them out hot, others say wait till they cool. Any logic, to one or the other? And what about those of you who use papers: do you have issues with the paper taking a good layer of muffin off? MelissaH

It seems that every muffin or cupcake I bake sticks. I've used both normal size and mini-muffin pans, and find no difference. I've tried greasing the pan, and I wind up with muffin tops that pull off, leaving the body firmly glued to the pan. I've used paper liners, and while the muffins come out of the pan perfectly, I peel off the paper and a good half inch of muffin comes off with the paper. (Obviously, this is a more dire circumstance for a mini-muffin than a normal-sized one.) Am I doing something wrong? Is it (all) my recipes that are problematic? I should note that I don't generally have any nonstick spray in the house. I wrecked many a pan with brown sticky residue. The couple of times I've tried brands that supposedly don't leave residue behind, I've never used much of the content before the propellant is gone and the aerosol no longer sprays. When I grease a pan, it's generally with Crisco and my fingers, and I usually follow it up with a light coating of flour, knocked around the pan to give a thin even layer. What do you do to get your muffins to release cleanly? MelissaH

I think Emily_R has the right idea. Make something that follows the concept but that you trust, and when she tells you how much she enjoyed it, you can tell her the story. MelissaH

This is the way cilantro regularly comes to many of the Wegmans near me. I'm posting it simply to make Kerry and Matt jealous. MelissaH

Got a recipe or technique to share? MelissaH

I'd be less worried about making sure that coupon can be used on everything you buy, than about making sure you get the stuff that will work for you (even if it can't be coupon-discounted). If you're thinking about knives, before you make a decision on what brand, make a point of actually holding each one, and seeing if you like the way it feels in your hand. (As it turns out, I personally can't stand the Global handles and find them unbearably slick, especially if my hands are the least bit wet.) Sometimes, what works in a paring knife does not work as well in a larger knife, so you may prefer different brands for different purposes. And, if it turns out that the knife you really like is in a coupon-restricted brand, so what? It's gift-money anyway, and it sounds like you have a lot of that to play with. Better to get something that you really like than stress over saving a few bucks, especially for something as critical as a knife. If I were trying to spend money at BB&B and regularly cooked for just two people, I'd get a Breville Smart Oven (heck, I did just that about 9 months ago!) and use at least some of the rest on cookware that will fit inside it, such as a metal 9" square pan, maybe a quarter sheet pan and rack and Silpat to fit it, a Pyrex deep dish pie plate. To that, I'd add things like a good-but-cheap nonstick frying pan (because they never last too long anyway), a pasta pot with perforated insert if you like to make pasta, more utensils like pancake flippers and spatulas that won't scratch nonstick surfaces than you think you'll need, silicone spatulas, a good vegetable peeler, several cutting boards to help save your good knives, glasses and serving plates if you can find ones you like there, maybe a coffee maker if you're a coffee drinker, and storage containers for leftovers. Just my $0.02. MelissaH

I haven't tried it, but I wonder if either directly on the oven rack, or on a rack placed on a sheet pan, would be the way to go. I'd try it small scale first. MelissaH

We saw caffeine-free Coke Zero in Rome (Italy) last summer. I emailed the company to ask why they couldn't bring it to this side of the pond, and got a non-answer answer to the effect of, "We do different things in different markets." Bah! MelissaH

Send them to me. If you've canned the jam, won't it keep for quite a while, so you don't need to use it all immediately? Then you can wait till winter, and revisit all your ideas. MelissaH

You're teasing. The closest Slurpee to me is an hour and a half drive away! MelissaH

I haven't tried SV meatballs, but I'd be worried about them getting squished out of ball form when I vacuum-sealed them. MelissaH

You may be. My principal experience with Sbarro's has been at JFK Airport when I'm not flying JetBlue, and the pizza has invariably been tasteless and greasy according to everyone who's eaten it. MelissaH

I know what NY-style pizzas are. But please enlighten me: what's an Uruguayan-style pizza? How does it differ from other deep dish pizza? MelissaH

Ugh. Just found a moldy orange with my nose, and then my eyes. At least this time, it wasn't so far gone that I got a poof of spores. I'm hoping this isn't related to the previous moldy citrus. I've washed all the others, as well as the container, and hope that this is the end of it! MelissaH