Kerry Beal

Cooking in - but it's going to be rather pathetic I think. I hit both grocery stores after work with the idea that I'd pick up a nice piece of meat to cook on the BBQ before I tuck it away. Not one single piece of anything cut thick enough to make it worth my while cooking! So I've got some leftover bits of cauliflower roasting - and perhaps some pumpkin pie.

Thanks all for the birthday wishes - I got to have my picture taken with the silly ass hat (thank god they lost the pink feather boa)! They baked me a really nice apple topped cheese cake - and there was fudge! Here's the pie now that it's settled. Ran home at lunch to make a bowl of ramen with the remaining pork belly - now back to work!

Pie crust I'd put in the freezer when I made them last weekend, remains of the pumpkin puree - another of the Idea's in Food pies.

Lovely sky this am Kitchen not so lovely this am - but I did remember to get the garbage out which is a first this trip! Leftover apples, thawed puff pastry - apple galette! So I have another sheet of puff thawed - will have to figure out what to make with it. Hmmm... what other leftover stuff could be put in it. Managed to offload the rest of my caldo verde to the PA student who brought her hubby in to have his ankle xrayed after the bull took exception to his attempts to dissuade him from locking heads with another bull on the other side of the fence. He's apparently spent too much time fixing fences this year! I had them in for a chat and a drink for hubby - then sent them home with the soup and and mixmaster that I've replaced with the little Siemans mixer I found in a thrift store this year.

There is a group visiting from Finnmark - they are setting up a medical program that has a lot in common with the Northern Ontario School of Medicine program up here. A gang of us went out last night with them to the Anchor for dinner (have I mentioned how much I miss the dinners that we used to have at the Shaftsbury Inn?). Can't go too wrong with the fajitas. They do whitefish well - one of the Norwegian folks ordered the whitefish taco app thinking it would be a couple of bites. Wasn't she surprised two bites in when they brought her burger! They had noticed the prevalent obesity!

Certainly looks like something in the macintosh family to me.

Couple of skies that I just had to share Yesterday afternoon looked out and saw this kind of spooky sky. This morning I caught the tail end of this red sky So this afternoon I saw the results of 'red sky at morning...'

It's for one of the nurses who likes coconut rum - so I'm not as worried about the cloudiness.

For sure - but it's in the lab and I know some of the samples that have been in there!

Attempt to make some coconut rum. Something akin to Wray and Nephew - added at about 55% ABV to coconut and a piece of vanilla pod. Microwaved for about 50 seconds to get to about 60º C three separate times then closed into mason jar to cool. Strained, ultrasounded for 10 minutes or so then filtered. Doesn't look like it's going to be clear no matter what.

Tempered up some dark chocolate last night - dipped some TJ's candied ginger and Tj's crystallized ginger. Then with the remains chopped up a bit of the crystallized ginger and some TJ's toasted coconut for bark. As you can see I've been sampling a bit!

It is from my end - hopefully we don't run in to issues and have to have it at my house!

The water all seems to stay with the cocoa mass - I used the cocoa butter I made to temper chocolate today - worked perfectly.

Tomato Soup 11 quarts tomatoes 1 head celery rib or just leaves 4 med onions 1 bunch parsley 2 bay leaves 4 cloves Later ½ cup flour ½ cup butter ⅔ cup sugar salt Cook 2-3 hours then put through fine blade of food mill. Meanwhile cook together butter, flour, sugar and salt. Add to strained soup and boil a few minutes.

Not terribly photogenic - but tasty. Caldo verde.

"Everything" eggs - chorizo, pork belly, mushrooms, green onions, cheese and hoisin on the side.

As requested by the ultrasound tech - Butterscotch squares for tomorrow.

Apparently I forgot to post my dinner - ramen - had a little chunk of pork belly that I dry brined as per Momofuku then cooked in the pressure cooker. It's Sun Brand Miso Ramen.

Living dangerously!

A Manhattan to keep me company while I work on the plans for the Luxury Chocolate Show.

The Wegman's oreos still exist - just being made by another company!

Actually purchased very inexpensively from the factory that makes them for Whole Paycheck! Wanted the Wegman's brand but they aren't making them anymore.

When I am forced to chop nuts I use a serrated knife (big cake knife) - prevents them from skipping off the board - or put them through a nut chopper like this.

Comparing a recipe for caramel with both lecithin and with sorbitol paste - it looks like about 5X as much sorbitol paste is used vs lecithin. From my reading it appears that "To substitute powdered sorbitol for liquid sorbitol, use 70% powder sorbitol and 30% water."

I've dipped a couple of hundred of Whole Paycheck's brand of Oreo cookies since yesterday - in preparation for the upcoming Luxury Chocolate Show in November. With my leftovers - I made some maple walnut bark - a couple of drops of Loranne Maple flavour for chocolate, some maple sugar flakes and some nice Costco brand walnuts.