Tri2Cook

Here in Canada, the four flavors are Jalapeno Mac & Cheese, Bacon Poutine, Tzatziki and Cinnamon Bun. I haven't tried any of them.

I can't think of a way to directly relate this question to the subject at hand but that's not going to stop me from asking anyway... what type of projects do you use that dough for that you have been happy with? I like the sound of it. I use a similar dough with sugar added for sweet purposes but it never occured to me to try it without sugar.

That's really popular with kids where I live. They open the package, dump the flavor packet in, give it a shake and it's snack time. They even sell it targeted as a snack food with the flavor powder already loose in the package so they can just give it a couple whacks on a hard surface (if they want it in pieces), shake it up a bit, open the package and start munching.

I'm not a fan of egg and bread crumbs in burgers but I'm interested in hearing what you think of it once you try it. I think the problem you're having is largely related to the bacon being cooked going in. 40% of your mix is pre-cooked and cooked meat just doesn't bind to much of anything too well. The raw meat holds things together when you make your patties but there's no real bond and everything goes it's separate way once cooked. Just for comparison, try it once with raw bacon and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised how well things hold together. Sufficient additional binders (eggs, etc.) will help but I think you'll be happier without them.

I love cheddar (or sometimes stilton) with apple pie... but when I eat it that way, most of my fellow Canadians from the area where I live look at me like I have a horn growing out of my forehead.

I grew them once quite a while back. I found them to be nice looking and not bad tasting but extremely seedy. The seed area to flesh ratio was too far off balance for me to want to continue with them. But that's with the disclaimer that I have no idea what is currently available. They may have improved or there may be varieties available that weren't at that time.

I guess that's one good thing about where I live. I already have 8 gallons of local wild blueberries in my freezer from this year and the season is really just getting started. The wild blueberries are usually smaller than most of the cultivated varieties but they're more flavorful in general and hold up well in baking and pancakes. It's just a matter of how willing a person is to spend the time out in the heat and bugs to get them. And putting blueberries in pancakes is never a waste.

I'm looking forward to it Rob. Of course I'll follow along here... but the only thing I really need to know is when and where I can get it.

That'd be a good system at my house... as long as I always got to be chef. Seriously though, I can cook with her when she's cooking something and I'm doing sous duty. It's when she tries to help when I'm cooking that it can get ugly. I have a tendency to forget that things I do every day at work may not come naturally to someone who doesn't.

Ancho worked well in the adobo-style sauces (I'm calling it that because I don't know enough about it to say definitively what constitutes and authentic adobo sauce) I've made in the past. I don't remember off the top of my head what I used in terms of recipes but I'm pretty sure I probably just searched google and went with something that sounded good to me. I like chipotles in adobo but, like you in this case, it's not always the way I want to go. They have a tendency to easily slip into the flavor-realm of a bbq sauce in some uses.

So what type of chile do you want to use? I don't claim to be an expert on the subject but to the best of my understanding, some form of chile is part of the deal in a Mexican-style adobo (which I'm assuming is the type you're referring to since you mentioned chipotle adobo).

That's me exactly. I get aggravated and start sounding nastier than I mean to. In the end, it's just easier and more peaceful for both of us if I do it myself. I've worked on doing better when cooking with the kid but even she has been known to walk out of the kitchen complaining that I'm too grouchy.

Thanks for taking us along once again. I hate to see it end but I'm sure you're both happy to get home. I know I always am.

Finally got around to looking for chanterelles yesterday afternoon. A casual, unhurried hour walking in the woods yielded about 3 lbs. Looks like a pretty good year for them. The wild blueberries are booming as well.

We get it in March. A different event of course... but the rest of it is all too familiar.

That's what I did... now if I'd just use it. I bought it, looked through it, stashed it away with the rest of my books and haven't touched it since. A sadly familiar scenario.

Liquid centered truffles can be made by freezing a liquid in sphere molds, dipping them in chocolate (then optionally rolling them in a textural element) and storing them in the fridge to allow the frozen centers to melt. But those don't sit out on shelves very well for very long.

Definitely gonna ask. Although I should probably work on using up some of the stuff I have in the freezer before I start trying to get more stuff. Went through it this evening and found the partridges along with assorted elk meat, raw elk bones, smoked elk bones and some moose loin and moose sausages that I forgot were in there. I sometimes worry that I'm becoming a food hoarder.

That reminds me... I have 6 of those vacuum packed in my freezer. I should do something with them one of these days. So I made the summer torte today with local wild blueberries. I really like the taste but I made a dumb error. I wanted to get the grass cut after work before the rain predicted for this evening hit so I mixed up the torte, tossed it in the oven, set the timer per the recipe and asked for it to be removed from the oven when the timer went off. I then went outside to start on the grass. I know better than that. I never bake a new recipe on the timer. That's strictly for recipes I've done enough to know exactly (in my oven) when to pull it. So I got a nice looking, tasty but a bit over-baked and slightly dry blueberry summer torte. Not enough to land it in the bin but not what I suspect it should be. The taste is enough for me to know I'll do it again... but I'll keep an eye on it next time. For this one, I added some grated lemon zest to the batter and sprinkled the berries with vanilla sugar instead of the cinnamon sugar.

You just have to make your own choices. There are about 1.3 things left in the world that aren't potentially bad for you... and those are still undergoing testing and should be certified dangerous sometime in the near future.

That tart keeps appearing and tempting me. I think I'm going to make one with some of this years blueberries. I also seem to remember having a bag of cranberries in the freezer that might make a nice tart as well. I generally try to minimize my dessert consumption during the warm months but sometimes exceptions have to be made.

There is a very large segment of the population in North America that are willing to pay whatever they have to pay to avoid having to cook. There is a significant percentage of that segment that are willing to pay $10+ for salads. Not even fancy, exotic salads... just salads. Chef's, Caesar, etc. If a person could open a restaurant in an area with the right population to be able to sell nothing but salads and make a go of it, their profit margins would be huge.

I'll ask the next time I'm there. I've never asked them to special order anything since the new people took over but the selection available in general has improved significantly so we'll see how it goes. If not, I'm completely surrounded by lakes full of walleye... so fish provencal is an option.

The difference being that Big Macs have slowly and gradually shrunk down to about 4 or 5 good bites so the salad may be far more filling for not many more calories. Not many people just order a Big Mac. Add a second Big Mac and/or a big order of fries and you'll be getting closer to a comparison of what most people actually eat. Calorie source matters when put in context of total food eaten per day. Most people aren't going to eat a 1000 calorie lunch and a 1000 calorie dinner and call it a day. If you think it terms of 3 meals/day plus any snacks, desserts, etc. it becomes more important to choose where the calories come from. 1000 calories of premium vanilla ice cream is less than 1 lb. of ice cream (less than 2 cups), 1000 calories of lettuce is somewhere around 14 lbs. of lettuce. You can eat lettuce all day every day until you're so full you couldn't stuff another leaf down your throat and not eat anywhere close to 1000 calories a day. You can get that in one or two bowls of ice cream. Of course all of that only matters in terms of weight loss/gain... which is not the only factor in healthy eating.

None. There's one grocery store and it's not a chain. It was an independent called "Johnny's" that was sold a few years ago and is now called "Family Fresh Foods". They have some sort of product ordering arrangement with a chain that means they stock the "Compliments" stuff as their house brand but are not directly affiliated with any chain grocery. The fresh seafood case isn't much larger than the average home chest freezer and shares part of that space with fresh sausages and bags of the fake crab. They have a somewhat decent selection of frozen fish and seafood but the only thing I've seen fresh on a regular basis that they assure me came to them that way are salmon and walleye. I'm pretty sure I've never eaten a frozen mussel, are they bad?