Kerry Beal

It's usually steady during the day - at times I've had a few hours to put my feet up. Next shift is Boxing Day - traditionally a crazy day. Picked up two nice pork blade chops - boneless - wonder what would work well for them. Picture to follow.

Indeed - figured I could also use it to heat things up and to boil water for noodles as needed.

I was wondering about ribs - too bad I don't have a CSO there to finish them off!

Picked up an Instant Pot at a good price with the thought that it might prove useful at work when I have some of my 24 hours shifts in the ER. We have a call room that's set up like a little hotel room - with a microwave, kettle and small fridge. I keep a tea pot and cosy there as well as a cutting board, paring knife, 8 cup pyrex measure, noodle bowl, tea mug... There will be a spot I can leave the Instant Pot up there tucked away in a cupboard. So I'm hoping for some suggestions - I'm eating low carbish these days and would love some ideas of what meals I could easily make myself that use the Instant Pot. I guess looking for things I can just bung in the pot, turn on, go see patients then return to eat when the time comes. I'll use this thread to report what I make too!

Pretty sure they will ship to residences - I think you still need to contact them about setting up an account of some sort though. Ask for Lois - she's very helpful.

Funny you should mention that - I was down at Tomric the other day - they had just sent theirs back having discovered the same thing!

http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?an=wybauw&sts=t&tn=fine+chocolates+2

Linking to an old post when I last tried to make the pieces similar to gap's gingerbread ones above - mine turned out no where near as well as his did - https://forums.egullet.org/topic/89489-confections-2006-2012/?do=findComment&comment=1385306 A bunch of us learned this one at the Wybauw course at the French Pastry School in 2007 - his of course were all perfect unlike ours!

Wonder if the kale stalk has a 'marrow' like the brussels sprout stalk discussed elsewhere.

I guess more properly called Cat's Ear Canal Noodles then!

Feel bad I didn't get in touch with you - but only decided to come down the day before and hadn't heard back from Patty yet. Figured it would cause too much stress! K

Squash.

Scooted down to Buffalo today - hadn't planned to but the schedule opened up to allow it at the last minute. Met up with patris for a leisurely lunch at Betty's - a quirky Buffalo institution. They seem to do everything well - so deciding what to have was a challenge. I went for the grilled pork tenderloin salad - southwestern flavours. Patty opted for the breakfast burrito. Keeping in mind this is December 16th in Buffalo NY - this is NOT normal!

Toothpick down into the corners - I've given up on some molds like these because I'm too lazy to work that hard to prevent bubbles.

Ok - now you've got me thinking about where I get cheap and where I don't. Butter is one of those things - if have some 'good' butter around that I've paid a lot more for, better quality, less water in it, stays firmer at room temperature - and some cheap butter - tend to use the cheap butter for the baking and the 'good' butter for putting on bread and such. But bonbons get the good butter no matter who's getting them. I have a reputation after all! You've opened a whole can of worms Chris - I find I'm a contradiction in where I get thrifty and where I spend way too much! Get's me thinking about how I'm my mother's daughter.

A loaded question! Depends how much I like someone I guess. If it's obligatory baking for someone to whom I have no real emotional attachment and I don't feel I have to impress or I know has not got a discriminating palate - I'll use up the crap. For the people I care about - the good stuff! When I'm making chocolate for sale I use the best in the price range I'm prepared to pay - don't make a lot with Valrhona for example - but I never use the cheap stuff for bonbons or moulded Santas. Cheap chocolate seems to work ok in cookies - I often use up samples I have around for that.

So this morning I went over to help a fellow who has a chocolate business that mainly does children's parties. He's branching out into some team building projects and tomorrow has some sort of deal where the folks from the newspaper will be coming over to watch him work. So we were brainstorming building a bridge - he'll give the participants the guidelines and the materials and they then work in teams to build a bridge. Here's what a couple of hours of work and a crap load of rice krispie squares got us. Great potential I think when some talented teams apply themselves to it.

I'm in!

So lost in the upgrade was my post of a few days ago - I got a non instant pot pot - a Fagor Lux - essentially the same but with an 8 quart pot. One of the first things I played with after mashed potatoes was caramelizing white chocolate - 3 good sized bottles of white chocolate - let them go for 99 minutes (the max) - they didn't need that long. I will experiment a bit with times around an hour on high. Decided I wanted to make some stew - with the sky high prices on beef these days I found blade (chuck to the americans) to be too dear. Found 4 nice veal shank cuts for a very good price so used them - a tiny bit of flour on the shanks, salt, pepper - browned off in the pot, removed, added some leeks and wedges of onions, browned a bit. Some Knorr 'stock pot', sherry (the sweet cause I didn't have any dry) and some tomato slices rescued from the freezer. 30 minutes on high pressure, added in some carrots and parsnips that I'd cooked in the microwave. Some gravy that was in the fridge to thicken things up a bit. A day in the fridge will meld the flavours nicely. One of the bonuses - I pulled out the bones from the shanks, rescued the marrow and ate it on a couple of baguette slices with a sprinkle of salt.

When chocolate is rapidly crystallizing it gives off heat (the latent heat of crystallization) - and it can throw itself out of temper - some molds worse than others. I wait until I see the chocolate just starting to crystallize then I bung it in the fridge for somewhere between 10 and 30 minutes depending on the mold.

Are you cooling in fridge when it is rapidly crystallizing?

Made, I think, by the same company that makes the oreo knockoffs for Whole Foods and used to make them for Wegmans. Nice to be able to go to the factory outlet and buy them inexpensively.

I think paraphrased here would be fair game.

It was a personal hard drive crash - so others will still have the recipe. I did e-mail dhardy123 to see if he still has it around.