Kerry Beal

I cook dinner for my family almost every night and rarely use Souse Vide or smoking or pickling. I do not bother to post photographs if I do not feel that the finished dish is attractive enough to share.

Pure shit luck - nothing more!

Arrived a little early at work yesterday so took a couple of minutes to drop in to the Grimsby Benevolent Association thrift store - they were having a bag sale - all the clothes you can stuff in a bag for $8 so it was a bit busy. But did manage to lay my hands on this baby - It's a Siemens - but they were bought out by Bosch - so the parts from my Bosch compact mixer fit on it including the stainless bowl. The warranty card inside the manual says it was purchased in 1983 from Robinsons in Hamilton - a department store that no longer exists. It has a grinder attachment as well. Cost me $8.

Actually I think it had that yogurt sauce with it that you can see in the picture. Had the leftovers for dinner tonight at work - tasty - and smelled so good!

I like the idea of a cocktail theme - a variety of different cocktail flavours in white chocolate. A negroni, campari and grapefruit, marguerita...

Ah I see - if you were to bake the debris first - I could use it for bark.

They would make excellent bark in this condition!

Today's polishing - Combination of Warhead sour candies and tropical sour candies. Dark chocolate with Portuguese salt cream - the pockmarks are from the salt. The little Hot Kid ball cakes - which had been engrossed in milk chocolate with freeze dried dulce de leche - finished with a combination of the freeze dried DDL and cocoa powder. Didn't like them last week - now they are kind of tasty - the weird powdery centre goes with the powdery outside.

I'm with you on the aluminum. So is Ambai a brand you are looking for?

I bought something once from Rakuten - was a colossal pain in the ass as I recall.

Here's one but not seeing a lid.

I think standard freezer temperatures - I see it sold frozen in the markets here.

Today we have calamansi puree, raspberries and mashed potatoes.

My wish list would include a scroll vacuum pump - no more oil changes!

So I was successfully able to freeze dry whole strawberries. I put 3 packages of frozen berries spread over two trays - 9 hours of freezing and 12 hours drying stage. The other items in the dryer at the same time were fairly low water.

Link still needs fixing as it doesn't link to the egg molds - but I know the kind of mold you are referring to. I think even if you get the pegs off you'll find that lip challenging if you decide to fill. I tend to do those kind of molds as hollow eggs - putting some chocolate in one half, putting them together and then turning them over and over until they are evenly coated. Of course I have a crapload of egg molds of all kinds so I'm not dependant on those for filled eggs.

I'm confused - is this thread just for info - or are we supposed to be posting results here?

Might just be that the silicone in the hearts is insulating really well - so as the chocolate crystallizes and the latent heat of crystallization is given off that it's throwing the chocolate next to the silicone out of temper.

I also find Massaman to be sweet - there is something in the combination of peanut and coconut that gives it a honey like flavour to my taste.

Today Alleguede and I worked on the some of the finer points of polishing. Started with some almonds that I had engrossed with milk chocolate and toasted coconut. Then we have the butt ugly strawberries in white chocolate - going to have to figure out some way to get a much thinner layer of chocolate on these. Picked these little things up in the asian grocery store a couple of weeks back - was quite taken by how round there were - figured they might be useful for panning. Of course it turned out they were a little flat on one side so wanted to stick together. Interesting that because of the flat side - almost every one had a little pit. We also polished a batch of sugar coated peanuts - I seem to have failed to take a picture.

There are a couple of online sources I found. Not too promising for stores - it appears that Canada has only 3 of the mixes in standard stores. Here's one source. Another.

I'm heading to Valhrona to escort the Ecole Chocolate Master's course in April. I'll happily take along any questions.

Katie - thanks for letting us know. i believe we met her with her husband at the Heartland Gathering.

Make a batch - see how they are the next day - if they are fine - then make them the night before as you planned. If they aren't - then it's time to panic!

Alysa, Have you tried making the rice krispie treats with your marshmallows yet - or just reading about it?