jsmeeker

oops.. I meant to say I bought the Capel. I guess I misread the earlier post about Barsol. Oh well. I thought it made a decent Pisco Sour. But I guess I should use it all up before picking up a bottle of the Barsol.

If you are going to be in Grapevine, I will direct you WEST, to Ft. Worth, and Lanny's Alta Cocina Mexicana.

I was in my local liquor store today and decided to put a bottle of Pisco in my basket. The on;y had two brands. Barsol and Capel. I recalled someone here saying the Barsol wasn't so great, so I picked up the Barsol. First up later tonight will be a Pisco Sour. I'll be checking out the other recipes here, too. Hopefully, I can make some with what I have on hand.

I use unbleached AP flour. Usually, that is King Arthur. I just don't have enough space to stock two types of AP flour along with bread flour and cake flour. To be honest, I've never done a side by side comparison of cookies made with KA AP flour and some other AP flour that has a slightly lower protein content.

I love making gougeres and have had some good luck with them using the Cook's Illustrated recipe. But I am bringing this topic back up because I want to tackle sweet ones now. I have used recipes for that where there was equal parts water and milk. These never setup right and hold their shape for me. This topic gives me lots of ideas as to WHY, but I'm still not totally sure what I am doing wrong. As mentioned, I get great results using the CI recipe to make gougeres. Here is their ingredient list with measures 5 Tablespoons butter 2 Tablespoons milk 6 Tablespoons water some sugar ( I omit this when making gougeres) pinch of salt 1/2 cup (2.5 oz) AP flour 2 large eggs + 1 large egg white. These work well. I am wondering if I should even fool around with the water/mil ratio to get it to 50/50? I suppose I could bake some up (and include the sugar) and taste them to see what they are like sweet. I really DO love them savory with the cheese. I would probably make profiteroles out of them. But I am also interested in making cream puffs. How exactly do I fill them with the pastry cream. I know the answer is "pipe in come pastry cream", but how exactly? do it from the bottom? the side? should I use a specific tip to do it?

I drank it occasionally when I was going back to New Jersey to visit relatives. I liked it, even if it was a really odd concoction. It doesn't seem to popular in Texas, but I do see it places. Maybe I'll remember to pick some up next time I am in the store.

nope. Don't wear one or own one. I don't even own an apron. However, I have given thought to buying cooks shirts and pairing that with an apron. And getting a pair of Crocs, too. But only to wear in the house. Never ever ever out in public!

here are the doughnuts I made with pate a choux. I think they turned out really well.

I am finishing up the last of my Darjeeling Castleton. I'm going to try to work through my remaining collection of various sample before next weekend so I can head down to the Cultured Cup and pickup maybe 2 different every day teas

Did you ever find any BBQ? I didn't do the tent this year, but as you probably found out, Charleston is awash in food entrepreneurship. They made for great partners for our wedding years ago, to get some local business and flavors involved. ← Nope. No good BBQ or any restaurants, save the pizza place. Just didn't work out for me with the travel situation, relying on other people to give me rides, those people needing to pick up other people from the airport, etc. etc.. But I am really glad I was in town for the food and wine fest. Good stuff.

Does anyone make doughnuts using pate a choux piped directly into the hot oil? are these even considered doughnuts? I want to try this out. I think it would be fairly easy since I have made pate a choux several times and it avoids the need to roll out dough. I've got a recipe I want to try (from the Eggbeater blog), but am certainly open to looking at others as well.

You are very correct. When looking at the teas in bulk at my local fancy pants grocery store (Central Market), the prices on the jars seems REALLY high. But I can scoop out a small bit. When I weigh it, the lable prints up $1.50. That little bag will brew me a couple of pots. The pot I use brews 3-4 cups of tea. Really, it's not all that bad. Heck. that $1.50 is about ONE cup of drip coffee at Starbucks cost. What a single espresso based drink costs me ($4) would buy many many many cups of tea. (of course, I'll still buy those coffee drinks now and then)

Thanks Richard and Yajna. One of the teas I picked up on my first visit to the Cultrued Cup was a Ceylon. I rather enjoyed it, too. I think I'll try out an Assam next time. Those prices you quote for 4 ounces sound pretty reasonable to me.

I need to find myself a good, but relatively affordable, every day tea. I want a black tea. Something pretty "bold" and full flavored. This would essentially be something to drink instead of coffee. Not that I am giving up coffee, but I have found that brewing a pot of tea to be a bit more convenient than coffee (when starting with whoel beans) As far as sources of tea, I don't really think I need to mail order it. I have several sources to obtain teas that should be "good enough" for this. I can get brands like "Republic of Tea" at a local grocery store. Sold there in both bulk and also tins. Same store also carries another brand in bulk as well. I also have access to Teavana stores. And of course, I can visit The Cultured Cup (probably the place I would prefer to source this tea from) So, are there speciific types of tea that tend to be both bold and full flavored AND relatively speaking, price friendly? I certainly understand that I'll be spending far more than what it would cost to buy Lipton tea bags or even tins of Twinnings. But what I am looking for is suggestions for affordable "gourmet" type teas.

has there been any change to Diamond Crystal salt recenty? It takes me a while to go through a box if it. So, I don't buy it regularly, even if it's the salt I use for all my cooking. (baking usually is done with Morton's table salt). I bought a box the other week. This stuff seems smaller grained that what I had in the previous box. Am I nuts? Or has anyone else noticed anything.

maybe they are using in-shell pasteurized eggs?

I let my sub lapse a while ago.. But I still subscribe to the website. I feel it's a great resource when I want to make "classic" American type cooking.. And really, that's not a bad thing. Most of the stuff I cook and bake at home IS that type of food. but yes, it's a bit odd they keep re-doing the same stuff over and over again.. I mean, don't they always declare the recipes to be "perfect"?

thanks for that tip, toby. I am used to removing that part when separating the eggs to use a yolk in a custard or something. Typically, it tends to actually stick to that. But I'll make sure to just remove it all together so it doesn't get into the white part either.

brewed a pot of my Darjeeling Castelton (2nd flush). Still trying to use up all the various tea samples I have kicking around before I go out and try to find a good "everyday tea" and stock up on it. I do like this Darjeeling. But it's pretty spendy to be an everyday tea.

Glad you liked it, Jeff. LS is known as a tea that's good with meat rich meals, so I would be interested in reading about it if you try a LS some time with or after a steak or barbecue dinner. ← yeah.. I should give that a try. I am also wondering how well I could use this tea as ingredient in cooking. I have a method that basically braises baby back pork ribs. Wondering if I could do it with some tea as a way to get some smoke flavor in to the ribs without actually using a smoker/BBQ

I thought the passion fruit flavor had a strange aftertaste. Almost medicinal. Also the texture is oddly smooth. You'll see what I mean. ← I noticed no odd after taste in the coffee flavor. It was smooth. Not sure if it was odd, though. Really, I thought the ice cream was pretty tasty. I should by a container of the standard coffee and compare it side by side.

Who has tried the Häagen Dazs 5 flavors? There are a few flavors in this line. The claim is that they have 5 ingredients in them I picked up a container of the Coffee over the weekend. Milk, Cream, Sugar, Eggs, Coffee. Those are the ingredients. Not sure how it compares to their normal coffee ice cream when it comes to ingredients. I still have not tapped into it, but will later tonight (yes, its 14 ounces)

Thanks for the heads up on this. I've always wanted one. Now, I just need to decide which color I want.

The frozen PB&J sandwiches have the crusts cut off, too!! Does anyone else find it odd that Whole Foods sells Batter Blaster?

I do the spring thing with my dry shakes with egg white. Can't recall exactly where I picked it up. Probably some where here or from some place linked to from here. But it seems to help out. I whipped up a tweaked Amarreto sour a few weeks ago and added in egg white. It came out nice and creamy with a good thick, stable head. But I don't make enough drinks with egg whites to know what the secret is. I guess this is worth exploring. I know I can make a custard or pudding with the egg yolks.