Kerry Beal

Got a love a hubby who cleans it up for you!

Started another batch yesterday - have gotten into the habit of 12 hours of drying time and find that it usually means everything is done. However I must have had a brain fart yesterday - and this morning when I got up I could hear the unit beeping in the basement. Cheese - appears to be done. Milk and gummy spiders - I didn't realize I'd need to allow for gummy expansion! Grapes and some random baked stuff I picked up from the bargain bin just to try it. Some mint and melissa from the garden and 4 small containers of raspberries. So decided to put the few things that weren't dry back in. The door seal needed resetting because it had flattened. Questioned myself as to whether I had closed the valve but decided I must have. Got text from hubby asking where the vacuum oil was and where is instructions for the vacuum pump could be found! Hope there isn't too big a mess to clean up when I get home.

Cause beta crystals are still solid at 32ºC - softer but still solid.

Yeah - I'm not seeing how you could candy them - just don't think they have the texture for it. Freeze dried, chocolate dipped would work a treat! How about Blackberry Fluff from Food 52.

They were discs of cardboard that left little threads of fibre in your mouth - didn't rehydrate into anything like what they started as.

Lots of salt and pepper and onion powder from Penzeys.

Rose oil (aka rose otto) is outrageously expensive. You would dilute it about 1 in 100 in some sort of neutral oil - and add a drop or two. Shops that sell indian food and spices will often sell packages of dried rose petals. I often use the candied petals either from Fresh Origins or from Albert Uster. I'll add a couple of drops of diluted rose otto to the chocolate and sprinkle the candied petal bits on the top of a bark or the back of a bar.

Got to get some gummies! Have an order for 100 packages of bark - so decided that FD ice cream bark would go over well. Neopolitan again (chosen so I can eat a bit of it the regular way!). Meyer lemons, limes and ginger that was well beyond it's best by date. Wine sauerkraut - a success. Pickled artichoke bottoms - a failure. Binned them. Rice, peas, ground meat and onions. One of hubbies favourite meals. We'll see if it's a success rehydrated.

Tasted the yellow Chartreuse against the real thing. The smell was similar, mine was a bit cleaner and less musty tasting. Pretty close considering it has probably 20 herbs against the greater than 100 in the monk brewed version.

Lee Valley has a vase brush set that I really like.

The tofu was silky smooth and custardy. Didn't see any dancing though!

The formula suggests not colouring with plant material as it will discolour quickly. I think indigo and saffron are considered natural.

Got me - doesn't sound at all familiar.

Got some huge grapes today - we'll see how they work cut in half.

It was just standard primary blue and primary yellow from Chef Rubber - the water based colouring. Monks probably used indigo or prussian blue, and saffron or caramel for the yellow.

I have not - perhaps I should request a sample.

Here's a discussion about it before with recipe. I've been searching for the pressure cooker and sous vide experiments that I know we did - but can't seem to find them so far.

This mornings unloading. Jello for Alleguede, grapes and mushrooms. I declare the grapes a failure. I poked a little whole in each with a paring knife thinking that would be suitable for the moisture to sublimate out from - but I think the little holes got plugged by the sugar. The last of the kale and some of the strawberries I moved over cause they were a little thick. Yogurt and vanilla beans that had given their all to extract and are now going to be ground up for bark. Watermelon, strawberries and raspberries. The raspberries are also for Alleguede as the last ones he had have taken on water. Perhaps I should get that powder back and run it through Freeze Girl for him and see if that rehabilitates it?

Finally got around to finishing my green and yellow chartreuse - formulae from 'A Treatice on the Manufacture and Distillation of Alcoholic Liquors'. My green colouring is a little off - a bit too much blue! Requires some aging to round out the sharpness - but the green is pretty close to the original - don't have any yellow to compare to though.

I made it once accidentally when I put a stainless bowl of white chocolate over water in a slow cooker. It was the most fabulous thing - never duplicated it!

Oh no - worst comes to worst Ruth - I'll make you some. Matt - pretty sure Deryn's a her.

Well - it finally happened - way too long has gone by and it hasn't gone into the final drying cycle - so unloaded it this morning in order to defrost. The kale however was done. So pulled that out. Perhaps I should put a bit more back in when I put back the remaining stuff. The blanched version was clearly my favourite - tasted much meatier - not the bitter raw flavour of the unblanched - though both were quite satisfactory. Of course the advantage of the blanched is that it is much easier to get into the tray - and it still comes apart as individual leaves after it is FD'd.

Mine is the J.

Here's the FD'd jello and pop rock bark.

They are going to be gorgeous - thanks Rodney! Recycled the cones into a center today - don't think they will make the cut for the show.