Lisa Shock

They look very good, really. These are just one of those things you have to practice for a while to perfect. But, you are clearly going down the right path.

But aren't non-TCS foods those that don't require time/temperature control for safety - ie - not potentially hazardous? It's my understanding that non-TCS foods, the page 23 description of which includes raw meats, are not recommended for packaging and some types of storage. In terms of numbers, some years it's 37 people dead, others 22 dead and in others 11 or 5, so yes, it varies and the numbers are far less than they were before electric refrigeration was commonplace. " I started with this recipe and over the years I've gotten way more casual about quantities and steeping times. It works." The steeping time referred to here is at room temperature. With garlic oil, once you exceed two hours you enter the danger zone.

Page 23 of the 2013 food code does a pretty good job of explaining untreated garlic-in-oil concoctions; the pH and Aw scores place it squarely on the chart as a non-TCS food. Storing garlic oil at all is a bad idea; refrigeration slows the botulism spores but does nothing to kill them. Even sites recommending refrigerated storage specifically mention 3 days as the maximum time it can be kept. About 145 people die each year from botulism, about 15% of them from foodborne toxins. When there's an outbreak, meaning multiple people being poisoned, it's usually from poorly home-canned goods. But, the high number of garlic oil related deaths was the impetus for the FDA to add mention of it specificallly to the 1998 food code.

Annie Sommerville's linked recipe uses just raw garlic and oil, no salt, no acid. It recommends allowing 30 minutes 'steeping' at room temperature. It also recommends storing garlic oil in the refrigerator indefinitely. Even older sanitation references that mention refrigeration give a three day maximum for holding the oil. I have never seen any reliable source recommending indefinite storage under refrigeration. Most guides also note that freezing will not kill the spores, just slow them. And, of course, any toxins produced are deadly at any temperature. Of course, best recommendation is to eat garlic oil immediately. Even two hours at room temperature can result in significant amounts of toxin. Botulism isn't one organism. It's a group of them and each type has a different ideal temperature for spore growth. Some types are slowed by refrigeration (if the refrigerator in question is reliably under 41°F -if the fridge gets to 50° most botulism will thrive) some types not so much. With a 30 minute room temperature steeping followed by months or possibly years of refrigeration, people are bound to culture a significant amount of spores and their toxin.

I think at Cook's Illustrated/America's Test Kitchen/Cook's Country they test by weight then convert. Yes, flour has a lot of variation. At the beginning of a semester of basic pastry class, on day one, I have every student scoop out a cup of flour, then weigh it. Then, I have them do it again. If they like, I let them go for a third and fourth round. I let them do it however they like. No two people in a class get the same result, and, no one ever gets the same number twice themselves. It's the one part of day one that never changes, no matter who I am teaching. Sites that give a number of ounces for flour conversion tend to give different numbers from each other, too. King Arthur Flour says 4.25 ounces. Rose Levy Berenbaum and Julia Child say 5 ounces. There are lots of answers all over the web, and, it's no better in metric -I see 110g, 120g, 150g and lots of numbers in between.

I looked at that garlic oil recipe, it's also a fine recipe for culturing botulism. Removing the crushed garlic with a strainer doesn't remove the spores, and refrigeration temperatures are the zone they thrive the best in. About 20 people a year in the US die each year from botulism, most of them from garlic oil. Serving house-made, non-acidulated, garlic oil is an offense that requires the health department to immediately close a restaurant in virtually every county in the US. Check out this eG thread on garlic, botulism and garlic oil recipes online.

I like pine nuts in polvoron, that was the traditional way to make polvorones when I lived in Santa Fe. Make sure to make them very small, you get a better yield for your money. It's funny, though, when I first moved to Santa Fe, pine nuts were cheap because there were almost no outside markets to export them to. They'd be piled high, in their shells, in the produce section of the grocery store, alongside onions and potatoes.

Rose Levy Berenbaum uses weight-based measurement in her 'Bible' books on pastry topics. I don't have her earlier books, so, I cannot comment on them.

Cook's Illustrated added weight-based measurement in 2003, they have a huge collection of recipes although they are behind a paywall. All of the current professional books used by culinary schools use weight based measurement. They are perhaps a bit basic, but very comprehensive, and include: Professional Baking, Professional Cooking, The Professional Chef, Garde Manger, Baking and Pastry, The Professional Pastry Chef, and, The Advanced Professional Pastry Chef. MC doesn't cover pastry really much at all. I think that's a separate future project. I don't have a link off the top of my head, but, I have visited two big recipe sites hosted in India by large newspapers. They were just recipes submitted by readers, but, they all used weight-based measure for dry ingredients. Of course, it was all metric, but, I prefer metric and have my home kitchen set up with metric equipment.

I recently had a treat called snow ice at a Vietnamese coffee shop. Apparently a base of milk and flavor with some stabilizers is frozen into a block then used in a shave-ice machine. The end product has an interesting appearance and texture. Of course, you'd have to own a shave-ice machine.... (they aren't hard to find and can be gotten for about $40, I love mine) I have not been able to find a formula for snow-ice yet.

In terms of getting a machine, I got mine years ago at a big box retailer sometime in the Fall during a clearance sale of summer items. It's just a simple type that uses ice, but has an electric motor. I see them almost every Fall at the hardware store, Target, etc. for about $20-$25. So, it doesn't have to cost a lot.... That said, you can sort of fake it by putting the base in the freezer and pulling it out and scraping the container every half hour. This was how it was done a couple hundred years ago. You will have larger crystal development, but, you can call it a granita. Another option would be to hunt down some liquid nitrogen and use a stand mixer. You'll have great ice cream in seconds. That said, before handling LN2, you should read THIS primer on safety. Essentially, have plenty of ventilation (like having a window or door wide open) and use a properly vented container to transport the LN2. The standard base recipe is close to custard, but has a lot more cream/milk and I don't think it will set up. If you want a custard, just use a real pot de creme formula.

You can mix minced herbs and veggies with cream cheese, if you buy the big 3lb block at Costco or Smart & Final, you'll save some money. You can do a lot with cream cheese, like add olives or salsa or pickles, etc. You could make hummus in a variety of ways, that's very economical. Pesto is good, but pricey.

When I managed a wine bar and took classes for the first time in the 80s, I was taught to distrust any wine seller who offered, or worse insisted, that we sample cheese with their wine. It's an ages-old trick: customer visits a winery and has a wine and cheese tasting then buys their wine and has it shipped home where the wine, when tasted without cheese, is completely different -often bitter, overly tannic, and/or overly acidic. Serious wine events don't feature cheese, and that's been the case for a very long time. The original 2006 research referenced is behind a paywall, only the first paragraph is visible.

Research has shown that cheese masks almost all flavor (except buttery notes) in wines. (it isn't generally served at serious wine events) One is usually suspicious that a seller is passing off an inferior wine if they insist that it be tasted with cheese.

Well when I make it I drink the beer first, which I thought was the point, so unless I'm doing it wrong there's no flavour imparted to the chicken... There's no flavor imparted, the beer doesn't even come to a boil. (assuming you cook your bird to 165°) HERE's an article debunking the myths surrounding beer can chicken. The main advantage is that the can props up the bird, maximizing the surface area for crispy skin. But, there are a lot of down sides. IMO, you'd be better off grilling a spatchcocked bird, or using a rotisserie. Anyway, since the beer doesn't flavor the bird, I don't think this would really be suitable for the OP's needs.

One small point, what type of scraper are you using? If they have any flex to them, they are more likely to dip into the cavities. Try using a less flexible scraper.

Welsh rarebit is a classic, the sauce can (IMO should) contain ale. I believe that it predates beer based fondues and beer & cheddar soups by a couple hundred years. As for foods to sample with beer, I personally think that beer (in particular lager) is the perfect drink to pair with pizza. I know that red wine would be far more traditional, and I am a wine enthusiast, I just think that a good lager cuts through the fat in the pizza and creates a pleasing contrast in flavors. Of course, it doesn't hurt that beer and bread are related to each other and have harmonious relationship flavor-wise. You may wish to explore the bread-beer connection a bit if you can get or make good artisan bread.

Amoretti sells both a high quality bergamot oil and a bergamot compound.

I don't have an exact recipe, but, several years ago I had some ice cream that was made by fooling around with a classic French full cream and egg ice cream base and adding Corona and a little lime juice. It was really good, and on my list of things to work on perfecting a formula for. Shouldn't be too hard to make, just cook the base first, cool, then add beer and lime to taste and spin.

3 1/8" is the most common small board, available from a lot of vendors in gold or silver and sometimes white. You could make the fit a bit better by pipping a border around the base of each cake.

I have made mini cheesecakes in cupcake pans, the silicone ones work really well for this. I have never used liners, they pop out really easily from the silicone. (I'd recommend putting them in liners after baking, but, the product is wet, so, I'd recommend the foil liners.) I have always wound up standing by the oven when I make these, to ensure they don't overcook. My recollection is that they took about 20 minutes in a convection oven at 300°F with an already-hot water bath. I don't really think you need the water bath. Traditional wisdom is that you'll get side browning without the bath, but, with silicone being such a good insulator I don't think that will occur if you choose the silicone route. Can't say I have thought too much about toppings. Me personally, I'd top with fruit and glaze, like a fruit tart -work out some sort of pattern that looks like flowers or something. Or maybe, some sort of molded chocolate to perch on top. Or, fruit and chocolate. Nothing too sweet. Nothing that would get soggy, like a cookie. (I cannot imagine icing here...) If you bake a cheesecake with a (delicious) sour cream layer on top, you get a softer, pure white top to anchor things like fruit.

Ak Maks and Finn Crisps. I used to get some crackers that came as an enormous wheel, but, I haven't seen those in a while. I haven't put out crackers for entertaining in a while, back when I did there was a Trader's Joe's cracked wheat kind that I liked. (IIRC, the box art showed them sparkling?) I think I would have put out Ak Maks more, but, never remembered to buy multiple boxes. Also, Ak Maks and Finn Crisps are really pretty large. Smaller crackers seem neater for parties. I think I thought about breaking some in half and dressing them in advance but never actually did it.

Agreed, you can freeze in canning jars in addition to traditional canning and vacuum sealing.

Depending on the cracker, I use them as I would breadcrumbs. If they have wheat, and therefore gluten, in them, I use them as a binder in falafel, tofu balls, etc., a gratin topping, or as a breading for fried foods.

If you have time, you might want to look into making a punch with similar ingredients. It will hold longer, I think. And, components of it can be made in advance.