Rhea_S

Happy Birthday! MsMelkor made some very nice pancakes. Maybe that's what I'll have for dinner tonight.

Apple Tart for this weekend, but I may skip the foccaccia because I want to make the flaky-looking foccacia in RLB's Bread Bible. I like the idea of sweet one week and something savoury or less sweet the next week. P.S. Thanks Ellen_C!

Finally baked my brioche after the dough sat in the fridge for two days. I made 8 mini loaves and one double-mini loaf. The double-mini was for me to eat immediately and the rest were for twice-baked brioche. This is an excellent recipe although I would probably go back to the Sherry Yard one I tried last week: same results but I found the Yard recipe to be easier. Both produce very long strands of fluffy crumb(?) or whatever the inside of a loaf is called and lots of flavour. Both can be eaten without any sort of accompaniment although that didn't stop me from topping my freshly-baked brioche with some leftover chocolate mousse. I made the twice-baked brioche this morning to bring to work and they were well-received. I liked them, but I prefer my brioche to be plain, savoury or with chocolate. I split each mini loaf down the middle then soaked and topped each half with the almond cream. Sliced in half diagonally and ready for work

Tonight will be the last few teaspoons of a Kahlua Chocolate Mousse that I made the other night. Plus some fresh-baked brioche if I get around to baking the dough in my fridge.

This blog is making me crave a cappucino and I'm not a coffee drinker. The hearts are definitely becoming more defined.

Can't you rent a pig cooker if you wanted to cook a larger pig? I googled for Chicago and came up with this link: http://www.azrental.com/party1.htm. If you scroll down, there's a "Rotiserrie Grill, Pig Propane Tow Behind" for $85 ($65 for charcoal grill). The little picture beside it looks like a pig cooker.

I second the chicken and figs. I don't get many fresh figs in my part of the U.S., but that recipe was worth the sacrifice. Another recipe I liked is the simple lentil soup with red peppers -- quick yet hearty weeknight supper.

I should pass this info to my local library. They have at least two copies of Four Star Desserts and I'm the most frequent borrower of this title. They could auction one off and buy a few more new cookbooks!

That's exactly what I wish I had for breakfast, but I doubt two filled crepes would suffice. My aussies and I had banana smoothies with a sprinkling of oat bran -- so not exciting.

Made the Boston Baked Beans with Pork from last week's NY Times. Very good recipe although I cooked it much longer and at a lower temperature than the posted recipe. I also like a bit of heat and added some chipotle chile powder. Didn't watch the game except for the cute commercial with the donkey, half-time show and the winning field goal. P.S. Jon Lurie is correct about Janet Jackson's body jewelry. It looks like a silver Aztec-style sunburst that's clipped tightly around the nipple. There's a very tight shot in today's Chicago Sun Times. Are they allowed to show a bare nipple in a regular newspaper?

Toast two slices of bread, spread cream cheese on one slice, top with leftover canned corned beef sauteed with garlic and onions and other slice of toast. Microwave 15 seconds and eat. I used to eat that back when I was in high school. Or maybe it was mozarella rather than cream cheese because there was definitely something white and stringy.

There's an Earl Grey that comes in a cylindrical silver tin that I thought was fab. I went through the tin very quickly. Unfortunately, I don't remember what kind and didn't save the tin. There's also a Taylor's of Harrogate Assam that I liked very much. I drink lots of the cheap jasmine tea that comes loose in a yellow/gold tin. I've been enjoying Tazo teas lately. I was reluctant to try them because I associated them with Starbucks and figured they were just some hyped up, mass produced product. I bought a box last week because it was on sale at a local health food store and was pleasantly surprised. Every flavour I've tried (Wild Sweet Orange, Awake, Tazo Chai, Passion) have had strong clean flavours. I much prefer these to others I've tried from Republic of Tea, Harney & Sons and other tea purveyors.

My brioche dough is still in the fridge for it's second rise. I'll try to bake tonight, or else I'll have to freeze the dough until next weekend. I wasn't able to find dried cherries -- all the local stores were sold out and the last of my TJ's Montmorency was used up in a lamb dish a couple of weeks ago. I'm going to sub unsweetened dried cranberries. I think the Sherry Yard brioche recipe I used last week was easier and less stressful on my mixer.

I'm still in and I'm going to try to time it so that I can bring the twice-baked brioche to work on Monday.

The comment on its mucilaginous quality made me suspect that melokheya=saluyot in the Philippines. After a little googling, it does appear to be one and the same and is sometimes labelled as jute leaves. I've had it in a few soupy Filipino dishes, but it's not something that I grew up eating. It's more popular in a different region from my parents. I liked it in soup made with green mung beans and pork, but not so much in pinakbet. The latter is a melange of vegetables cooked with a little pork and lots of shrimp paste. One of the other vegetables always has to be okra and the two together is just a little too slimey for me. I'll have to try the Claudia Roden recipe. Kristin's version looks very appetizing.

Sorry for jumping to conclusions. It looks like you picked a hot topic. I've never really had problems with roommates except that a couple of my three roommates in university always let veggies rot in the fridge and wouldn't let me or the other roommate throw them out. They both claimed that the veggies were still good and were going to be used for some dish. They were slimy and stinky! I just remembered another thing that bothered me about one of those veggie-rotters. She would bake bread, freeze the loaves, use up valuable freezer space and bake/freeze more before finishing the frozen ones. Other than that, we all got along quite well while I lived there. The three remaining plus my replacement had major problems the following year and were split up to maintain the residential advisor's sanity.

This was the first time I've sprinkled salt on challah and I decided that I won't be doing that again. I like to be able to savour the flavour of bread and this was prevented by the salt. I got too much of a salt after-taste even though I had sprinkled the salt sparingly.

I think Soba just needs a new roommate. Isn't this the same one who is inadvertently breeding mice in their apartment? Labeling works only if the other person cares enough to read the labels. I highly doubt this is the case with soba's roommate. If there's a slice of key lime pie that you obviously did not buy, would you eat this if you had any respect for your roommate? Dogs are much easier as roommates even if they don't help with the rent :D

I can tell already that this is going to be an exciting week. The pictures are terrific. Your veranda is beautiful. This is probably very naive, but are those fresh flowers in the baskets? If so, how often do you have to replace each arrangement?

ChzHead: Your rolls look very similar to the ones I made this weekend using brioche dough. I filled mine with gouda cheese, slathered butter once baked, rolled tops in sugar and added more cheese on top. I ate two right away. Heaven! I brought most of the rest to a friend's house for dinner. I think the Sherry Yard recipe is better than the one in BWJ: softer texture, richer flavour. However, that could be attributed to the very slow rise. Seth: I think my kitchen was just too chilly. I put the dough in my bedroom, close to the radiator and went to work for a few hours yesterday. When I got home, the dough had doubled very nicely. Proofing the rolls was also taking a long time, so I put the baking sheets right on the radiators.

Brioche is fine for me although I've made it several times before. I do want to try the twice-baked brioche. I'm in the process of making the brioche from Sherry Yard's Secrets of Baking, but it's taking forever to rise. My house is cold, but I put it in the still warm dishwasher and it was still sluggish. Oh well, if it ever rises, at least it should have lots of flavour from that long, slow rise. I bought and used a new bag of SAF instant yeast yesterday, but I'm now wondering how long it's been on the store shelf.

Does anyone have Village Baker's Wife? It's been on my list for some time, but I wanted to browse through a copy before purchase. (Sorry if this is a thread hijack)

Crab

Tiger Williams was and forever will be a beloved Vancouver Canuck. He has the best toothless grin. So are all the recipes in his cookbook for mushy food? (He was also a Leaf but not when I watched hockey and had hockey cards.)

The pistachio puff pastry recipe is one of the ones that caught my eye and made me decide that the Yard book is a must-have. I'm going to start with her plain puff pastry or the danish dough this weekend.