Lisa Shock

Ok, they spent the night in sealed bags. I am going to keep them there until all the salt melts away. The salt did draw moisture out of the rolls, I should have let them bake a few minutes longer. I ate one last night, it was good -pretty much what I expected from a sourdough based, three day old dough which had originally been destined to be pate fermente. (btw, everything would have been much darker if I had put sugar in the water) Right now, there is almost no visible salt in the unwaxed bag. The roll with the really large sea-salt has a couple of visible crystals which are now the size of pretzel salt. The no wax pretzel, and the medium and small sized salt rolls have no visible salt at all. The waxed examples all have clearly defined salt crystals on them. It's maybe 20% less salt than they started with, but, it's clearly visible. I will keep them bagged to see how long the hold up. In yesterdays images, it may be hard to tell but, the unwaxed kosher salt kind of melted into the crust, giving it a flaky appearance but with very few actual crystals left intact. In each bag: top left - fine/table salt, top right - med/kosher salt, lower left - big sea salt, lower right - pretzel with kosher salt.

Here is what they looked like from the oven, I just dipped the rolls and pretzels in hot water with baking soda, then egg washed, salted and baked. They didn't want to be very dark, I pulled the tray after 25 minutes, for fear of getting hard tack rolls and crunchy pretzels. Each pic is waxed and unwaxed salt of similar size. So far, the experiment is going very well. The waxed salt remained much closer to its original size and shape than plain salt. I am going to bag them and see what they look like tomorrow. (pretzels were salted with the middle sized salt, a large kosher style) I also layered some of the finer salt in ice cream, I will check on that in a week or so.

Woo-Hoo! A box of salts has arrived, and, I just happen to have some lean dough in the fridge. I will make some rolls with the waxed salt and regular salt, and a couple of pretzels, too. (I only have 438g of dough, and 3 types of salt to test against their unwaxed counterparts.) Then, I will place them in plastic bags and see if the salt vanishes. More tomorrow, hopefully with photos.

Where there's alcohol there's generally water. Even in lab settings, very little pure alcohol gets used.

Of course, since the recipe uses volume measurements instead of weights, it will be different every time you make it -with or without substitutions.

Yeah, WalMart in particular requires manufacturers to reduce their wholesale prices at least annually. At first, economies of scale (or moving the factory to China) allow for it. But, after a few years, there's nothing to do but cut the quality. Even just keeping the price the same would mean ignoring inflation's effect on the price of raw materials.

Here's hoping for the best!

You can scrape seeds from beans into it directly, and there are oil-based flavors designed for this purpose (make sure that there isn't any alcohol, since the alcohol itself often contains water), as well as powders. It's an American 'thing' to mix the two, you won't find much from European producers.

The egg whites are protein which creates a good barrier. Protein is the main reason why it's difficult to clean certain dirty pans. I also use an egg-white only egg wash on the inside of pie crust, to keep it crispy.

I have been an eBay seller since 1998. I can tell you that the most important thing to customers is getting their items quickly and in good shape. Test your local post offices to see which seems to process packages faster. (found one in my area that always gets things out a day sooner than any of the others) Do not rely services picking up your packages for you, that adds a day or two to the shipping time. Get a packaging system where the tins you are using, or whatever, don't arrive crushed. (Remember, at least here in the US, regular parcel services carry items up to 70 pounds. Imagine a 70lb box of tile being dropped from a height of 5 feet onto one of your boxes...) Make sure that your website is updated live as items sell, and reflects what is actually in stock. Nobody wants to pay for overnight shipping for their mom's birthday only to get a reply email 12 hours later informing them the item won't be in stock for 40 days. The second most important thing to customers is price. It becomes more important the less delicate an item is. No one really cares how carefully I package socks. But, they pay more for antique china from me because not only do I describe it accurately, flea bites and all, I pack very carefully. So, keeping an eye on competitors and the market in general is important. As a customer, I want the site to be fast and not require me to go through too many hoops to order. If you accept paypal, then do NOT additionally ask me to type out my shipping address or set up an account.

There are some on Ruby Lane. It's a good place to look for older items.

Yay! Now, you get to work on topping yourself for next year....

I don't eat there often, but, locally anyway, they always seem to get good health department ratings. I am a vegetarian, so I mostly just eat things like the bean burrito, tostada, and occasionally the quesadilla. Years ago, I was really disappointed to find out the rice has chicken in it. I like that they have options like adding extra vegetables. I'd patronize a local place, but, they all put lard in the beans. The one place that didn't just closed. Anyway, if I am hungry and need a quick bite, I know I can get something filling that isn't fried, and has some vegetables in it.

Could you do us a favor, the next time you are there? Grab a few packets and post the ingredients. We'd really appreciate it!

Welcome Auro! What's for dinner?

Don't freeze it, dry it.

That's one thing that doesn't scare me. As a kid, I was in 4H and one activity you can choose to do there is cooking demonstrations. These are live with a panel of judges just a few feet in front of your table. You learn pretty quickly how to keep talking and keep everything going smoothly within the allotted time.

The green sauce is not in packets or anything. It's just called 'green', like the stuff on a regular tostada or a bean burrito is 'red'. It appears to be just chopped skinless green chiles, with maybe a thickener, no mayo. It's kinda clear looking and not very spicy -definitely not jalepeno. I just order something like 'a bean burrito with green sauce please' and the cashier does: -Red +Green on the receipt. Once in a blue moon I get asked if I want the green in addition to the regular red sauce. I learned about the sauce in Santa Fe, where everywhere you eat people ask if you want 'red or green' so, I never learned a fancy name for it. No one has ever not known what it is. That said, I have mostly been living in the SouthWest. It was originally on the quesadillas, back when they were introduced around 1997 or so (?) then a couple of years later they changed to the creamy sauce. I prefer the green. It's also really good on the breakfast crunchwrap, there's a slight acidity to it that really changes the dish. (I also have less of a tendency to feel overstuffed, so I think it has less fat than the creamy sauces)

You know, they have an ok green chile sauce you can have them sub for the other sauces....

Like cocoa butter, I'd make sure to flush the system with vegetable oil afterwards to prevent clogging.

Some small businesses have done well opening an Amazon shop. At least there, your products will be shown in amazon searches for tea.

Took me a long time, but, I think I finally found a photo that conveys how small this vehicle is. The top of the van roof is less than 6 feet from the ground, meaning average size adults cannot stand up inside of it.

I've been thinking maybe it was like the original Alfredo, although that's really a process not a sauce. You can make it in a bowl without the noodles, just let the butter get to be very soft and make sure that you grate the parmesean with a very, very fine grater so that it's like powder. The pasta water is useful for thinning the sauce.

It depends on the vegetable you start with. Carrots can be kept quite a while, whereas, IMO, zucchini gets weird after a day. Same with onions. On some things, you want to try and be mindful of the pH and salt level in addition to texture when thinking of keeping them. Sometimes, I mix some rice wine vinegar, miso, and grated ginger without using a real recipe, and I get nervous about watery vegetables. That said, I like making 'salad sandwiches' for lunch -that is vegetable sandwiches, sometimes with salad dressing on them, sometimes just loaded up with the night before's pickles in addition to lettuce, tomato, sprouts, shredded carrots, thin sliced bell pepper, etc.

Many Japanese pickles are made the same day. They aren't fermented like western style pickles. They do make pickled items which are put up for months, too. But generally, some sort of sour pickle like item is served at every meal and it's sort of halfway between a western pickle and a fresh salad.