Kerry Beal

I'll start a new thread on it tonight if I can get this damn computer to cooperate - or head back into one of the old threads where I know we've discussed it before. This is my first attempt - I'll link you to the Chef Steps post that prompted my attempt using this method.

It gets better and better - thanks guys!

Good idea - garlic doesn't freeze dry well in cloves but in thin slices it would work. I'll have to get someone who is willing to risk their fingers with the mandoline for me.

I'm still debating the chocolate covered candied garlic cloves - not sure I want to go there - but I do have them made so perhaps I should try. They'll need a number of days of sitting out to get sufficiently tacky.

@alleguede has been invited to make a product for the upcoming Toronto Garlic Festival this fall - the creator of the festival came to the shop the other day with a small sample of black garlic and we discussed some ideas we might like to try. So I've been playing with various forms of garlic - I've candied some roasted garlic cloves, confited some cloves in duck fat in the pressure cooker, and I'm making some black garlic sous vide in the garage (smells to strongly for the kitchen and has to go for about 20 days). So these are caramels that contain a rather astounding amount of confit garlic - used the EZtemper to temper up a bit of milk and dark to enrobe some to see what is the best fit. Some simply twisted in cello (it's just so much easier to enrobe).

A couple of years ago at the winter Fancy Food Show in SFO I tasted a 'cheese' they were calling baked lemon ricotta. I found it online here. But my search for a recipe with the same ingredient list led nowhere. I got a bee in my bonnet recently and started thinking about finding a recipe again. An email to @franci clarified things - she gave it a name and linked me to a Thermomix recipe in Italian that she translated for me. First trial used commercial ricotta - a soft version - didn't puff much - made a nice consistency but a bit overcooked and dry. So for my second trial I used home made ricotta - let it drain overnight - was quite dry and required the addition of some cream to work with it. These ones baked up a little puffier than I hoped but texture is nice. We've been eating slices with fresh raspberries today.

We had elderberries on the property growing up - I recall making elderberry wine - I too recall the reference in Arsenic and Old Lace.

Of course I will be taking you all along! Right now I'm starting my lists of all the things we need to take - we learned a bit about what was extraneous when we went to Lancaster and hope to be more efficient this trip. Our first stop will be Buffalo for breakfast with @patris - a number of goodies have been shipped to her - including a big container of Gold Medal Vanilla, some sorbtol - and a pair of pliers that can theoretically power through the heaviest fish hook with minimal strength required on my end. Hope the drive down allows some time for thrift shopping - @alleguede is remarkably tolerant of those sort of stops. The other issue I have to work around - getting back Thursday and heading out to NYC on Friday for the Fine Chocolate Industry Association meeting.

@alleguede and I are heading off to Indianapolis next week to attend the RCI (Retail Confectioners International) Expo. We will be staying at the same hotel where the Expo is being held - and my assumption is that lunch will be probably be candy at the show. We will arrive later in the day on Monday and leave early on the Thursday morning. We would welcome suggestions for likely 3 dinners while we are in town. And perhaps a good breakfast for the morning that we leave. Doesn't need to be fancy - just good! Extra points for good and within walking distance of the Westin if we feel the need for a stiff drink after a hard day of flogging EZtempers. We'd love to meet up with any one local while we are there.

"When all you have is a hammer, everything begins to look like a nail" - Anna N to me every time I get a new kitchen toy.

It seems to be a combination of the height of it and the sides which brings the ganache back towards the middle. I've had some very small ones made at my machine shop - but they weren't wide enough or tall enough to do a good job. And also if you look at the JB Prince picture carefully you'll notice that the back is just a bit higher than the sides - so it's not scraping even with the frame - it's a few millimeters higher.

yup - that's the one

The roller was to spread a foot on a piece of acetate - and it was just a piece of PVC pipe. For ganache a raplette is great if you can find one - an adjustable one is handy.

Go slow, heavy pot!

What Tri2Cook said! Several people asked at the eggfest this year 'what do you get out of cooking at the eggfest?' - that's the first time that I've ever been asked there. It's really all about bragging rights - proving that you can do things on the egg that nobody else is doing. It's not about the money for sure! Anna and I spend time planning, coming up with ideas - if we see a recipe that looks intriguing throughout the year we add it to the eggfest list. And then in the weeks leading up to it we determine which can be done with the minimum of difficulty - we've learned a lot over the years about what is such a colossal pain in the ass that it isn't worth trying and how to efficiently cut up the servings with a minimum of aggravation for the cutters. We spend time thinking about how best to assemble what we are making to overcome previous year's issues. Anna has talent with that - I'd happily go off half cocked and discover I hadn't thought it through!

Our little location at the beginning of the day. The Garlic Monkey bread - made with no knead dough - a big tough - I'd use a less lean dough next time around. Mac and cheese - very popular as always - made for the kids - eaten by the adults! @alleguede's baguette Anna N's Mezgaldi Onions The rib cap - sous vide for a couple of hours and browned quickly on the egg. Assembled baguette, a bit of juice from the onions, a smattering of onions, a piece of rib cap. Roasted cauliflower and gruyere frittata. Served with kimchi cream. Sausage rolls. Meanwhile - Marc (a friend who is the producer of Cluck and Squeal rubs - knows how to build anticipation - lineups happened at his booth overtime something was approaching done. There's always someone doing porchetta.

Dickson's Eggfest in Toronto yesterday. It was held at a new venue - the Evergreen Brickworks. It is an old brick factory that has a roof high enough that you can BBQ indoors! It was a treat not to lose napkins to the wind. I kept forgetting to take pictures - I have some taken with my cell phone (not one single one taken before the dish was invaded however). I am waiting for a few more pictures taken by Anna N's son - perhaps he caught a few pre serving. We shared our space with a lovely family - their 6 year old daughter was making their sign when we arrived - and I quickly recruited her into making ours as my penmanship leaves something to be desired! Told her the first dish was PB&J rolls - all day long people kept asking what PBNJ rolls were! So our PBNJ rolls - basically cinnamon bun dough with crunchy PB and strawberry jam. Will I make them again - NO! They didn't do anything for me - but of course they got eaten. A lone egg burned away untended - a memorial to our very own @Mr Holloway who died last year.

I did Aw testing on some commercial curds for curls a while back - don't recall results but she might.

I love my magic spoons - brought them home from France years back.

Tomric has a puck mold but it's 85 grams

How many do you need to make and will they be solid? Cause I've seen packaging that has moulded pieces like that you could use in a pinch.

How about this one?

Anova just had an offer in Canada - WiFi anova for $169.95 CAD, I think the bluetooth was about $30 more.

Looking at those numbers 190 g of puree, 50 grams of sugar - there isn't a whole lot of particles to sequester water. Most regular PDF recipes use almost equal amounts of puree and sugar and then boil it to remove a whole lot of water.

Hey - if I put pop rocks in the filling I could make snap dragons!