Kerry Beal

So true that though - I'd rather sew myself up a home with a needle and thread than head in to the ER and admit what an idiot I am!

I'd be in the WC (as in water closet) - I'm self employed so not able to get comp.

I've just seen it called mastic or mastica or mastic. Yellowish usually. I seem to recall I ground it up for whatever I was using it for - it was quite a while back. here's one cheaper one

Fruit Crumble Bars by Smitten Kitchen for Wiki tomorrow.

You mean when I drop the citrus press on my hand?

I know that I get these nut filled treats at the same places I buy good quality nuts. Mastic is a piney tasting addition (think retsina - another acquired taste) - it is a resin from a gum tree of some sort in the middle east. I buy it at the Punjab market in little cello packages - looks kind of crystalline. It's a variation of Turkish delight - still a starch candy - but not quite as sweet I find and when it is fresh the nuts make it!

2 flan - the sweet spot for this size in the CSO seems to be 190, steam, for 40-60 minutes.

Picture if you will two cocktails on the counter - a bottle of gin, a bottle of St Germaine, simple syrup and the citrus press behind. You will also note a couple of custards on the counter. You may hear the sound of the press coming down on the back of my hand and the accompanying foul language that ensued! You will have to picture this because apparently I forgot to take the damn picture!

Anna made some kitchen sink soup in the IP for lunch.

Working in the Manor and in the clinic today. Was asked to make the monthly birthday cake for the clinic (everyone's July birthdays get celebrated together). So for the manor I made a summer torte with some of the apricots that a friend brought up for us from the Niagara Peninsula when she came to stay out at Freer Point. For the birthday cake I made Ina Garten's Mocha chocolate icebox cake. Instead of the cookies she called for I used an old Newfoundland favourite - Purity Lemon Creams. These should soften up and make an excellent cake layer and add that bit of lemony flavour that I like with my tiramsu (which is pretty much what this recipe is). I realized this morning that I needed some sort of chocolate shavings/curls for the cake so I tempered some chocolate and formed it into a bar in the top of a polycarbonate box that something we bought came in. I had a choice of 3 tools to make curls - the ceramic peeler worked perfectly.

Some mornings you find pectin people in your sink.

Scallops and corn!

Hoity-toity

We heard a rumour that Loco Beans - the local coffee shop was making panini and they were rather good. They apparently make one like Christmas dinner with stuffing, cranberry salsa, slices of turkey and cheese to hold together.

Hit the Flee Market again this am - found but didn't buy this DIY sauerkraut kit. I love the granite boulder as a piece of the kit. There is a lid as well. Then headed off to Sunsite Estates down island a ways to get some eggs from nurse Leslie. Stopped to get some pictures of the bay at Manitowaning at the end of her road.

Yup!

Tasted pretty damn good with the Miracle Whip and siracha - Anna's wasn't as good because she used Mayo and couldn't find the siracha!

Not ready yet!

I wonder if one of those flan pans with the lid that seals.

Over on the IP thread there is discussion of cooking cornmeal for polenta. The website they are pointing to even shows a way to clean the crap welded to the bottom of the pot later. Being essentially lazy I decided to try cooking it more cleanly. I took 120 grams of cornmeal, some salt and 750 ml of cold water, put them in a casserole dish inside the IP with some water under and cooked under high pressure for 45 minutes. There must have been some boiling over as you can see the water in the bottom of the IP is cloudy with cornmeal - but the cornmeal cooked perfectly.

Naught more serious than a sprained ankle that insisted on being seen by me personally before she went home - perhaps thought that she might get better drugs! Prawn and tomato curry inspired by @Tere Cucumber raita inspired by the leftover cuke in the fridge. Naan bread - reheated in the CSO - eaten before picture taken.

Here's mine! Notice the carefully placed Miracle Whip underneath the cucumbers.

Caramel that forms from the sugar and butter.

I had to google it too - knew it existed - certainly didn't know it chapter and verse.