Tri2Cook

That cake's a beauty. Your posts about the concrete cake pushed me to do a little google searching and the sail seems to be a common theme with the cake. Would anybody be willing to educate the not-so-artsy guy and explain the concept of a sail protruding from a chunk of concrete? That's not a criticism at all, it works and it looks really nice, I'm just wondering if there's an art-related concept behind it or if the person who created the design just decided it'd be nice to have something decorative on it.

I don't chime in on these welcomes as often as I should but when somebody comes in with a user name that makes that obscure a reference, I pretty much have to. So howdy... and J.P. Gottrockets is still looking for you.

It's getting way too microwave scientific for me to be able to add anything else that would be helpful. It wasn't all that much more expensive than a decent regular microwave among what was available where I live and the little control freak that lives in my head liked the idea of having actual control over the power level so I went with it.

I have an inverter microwave and to be honest, for what I do with it, the only real benefit for me is when using it for chocolate work. None of the blasts of full power broken up by periods of no power to approximate running at less power, it just runs at less power. Once you know the chocolate you're working with, you can just set X power for Y time and walk away without worrying about overheating or serious hot spots. I'd think that flexibility with the power could be beneficial for cooking but I honestly don't ever cook in the microwave so I can't help with that.

I'm about 95% convinced I'm gonna just go ahead and do it your way this time. Skip the whole "live and learn" step.

There was a time when my Christmas baking list was similar in length. In recent years, I tend more towards making the list, taking a good look at it, saying "fork that"... and then I start crossing things off to get it back down to something I really want to do. I like the variety but I've learned that, for me, with the really long list, the joy begins to run out before the list does.

I didn't make the sausage rolls last weekend. The kid requested tacos and that sounded good to me so I went with it. I'm doing them this weekend, gonna be a long day of college football with all of the conference championship games. Not being a sausage roll expert, is there any reason leaving out the egg and bread in the recipe Anna N linked would be a bad idea? I know what the egg and bread does texturally but I like the texture of my homemade sausage (which is mixed and ready to go) so that's not an issue. Binding won't be an issue either, I've never had it be a problem no matter how large I make patties with the mixture (sometimes a big cheeseburger using the sausage instead of beef is nice). So is there any other sausage roll related reason I shouldn't leave those items out? I'd prefer not to add anything that's just going to mute the flavor of the sausage. And no, kayb, I'm not making crow rolls.

Unlike JohnT, I am very much a cookie guy and I'm a big fan of peanut butter... so thanks!

I wouldn't go so far as "Hey, no worries..." but I also don't like the idea of saying nobody can have something because some might use it incorrectly or irresponsibly. I've made use of cherry pits, peach pits and tonka beans without the slightest worry. I read the precautions, did my research and made my personal decision on the matter. I would never tell someone else they should make use of those things... but I would never tell them they shouldn't either. I would just tell them to gather the information and make their own informed choice. As a somewhat unrelated side-note, cherry pit ice cream is a thing of beauty.

A 4 year old is the personal responsibility of the parent. Protecting them from potentially dangerous things is part of their job. If the parent reads the warning and still leaves the bag where the kid can get it, while that would be sad if there was a bad result, that still falls under personal responsibility. The personal responsibility of the parent. I'm not sure how to address the "can't read English" thing. You can't put everything in every language on everything so I feel warnings and instructions in the predominant language of the area something is being sold is about all you can reasonably be expected to do. The product is available because there is a responsible way to make use of it... but they can't force people to use it responsibly.

Very nice! I'm getting geared up for it. I've been busy with household stuff and haven't been doing large amounts of chocolate work recently but I loaded the EZtemper with cocoa butter and fired it up this morning. I'm going to dig out those sleigh/reindeer molds and play around with those a bit to start with. Most other than that will be fairly generic, I haven't really started investing in holiday-specific molds yet.

I disagree entirely. All companies can do is provide instructions and warnings, they can't force people to read or heed them. "Nobody pays attention to them" does not shift the burden of personal responsibility away from the person. I realize personal responsibility is being litigated out of today's society with a vengeance but I'll never be convinced it's the right way to go.

Well that saved me some disappointment. It's not really a good time of year for me to spend the money on those but I went to the site anyway just to have a look and be sad that I can't do it right now. It lets you go through the entire checkout process selecting Canada as a shipping destination then, when you get to the final page, it tells you "warning: their are no shipping options available for that location". Seems like it would be much simpler just to leave Canada out of the drop down box that only contains Canada and the United States if Canada isn't really an option.

To be fair, the article does say there was a warning on the bag to not eat more than 2 - 3 per day. At some point, personal responsibility has to come into it. And I don't think things like "who reads labels?" negate that personal responsibility. There are many things that carry risk that I wouldn't want to be told I can't have or do just because someone else failed to follow instructions and had something bad happen as a result.

I think that on a regular basis. But I've already spent the money on the compressor, airbrush and an assortment of colored cocoa butter so I waited too long to have my epiphany... might as well keep at it now.

No ma'am, Roll Tide! Hmmm... War Chicken sausage rolls? I'm actually leaning towards mixing up a batch of my breakfast sausage and using that. I make it fairly spicy and somewhat sage forward, would just need to add egg and breadcrumbs for this use.

I skipped the sausage rolls this week but only because the plan is sausage rolls for the Iron Bowl next weekend.

You ladies are not helping things at all. I was trying to convince myself something on the more healthy side for Saturday's football food would be a good idea... now all I can think about is sausage rolls.

There's some really good food to be found on food trucks and it's not really conducive to fine china and antique silver utensils. But I suppose one must have one's standards regarding what they're willing to shovel the food into their mouth with.

I get mice when winter sets in some years. They usually don't last long. We have cats and the mice can't seem to resist going after the crunchy cat food in the bowls in the kitchen so they rarely last long once the cats notice the activity. We have 2 ball pythons that would probably be happy to assist but I don't let them free roam and don't feed them live animals so they don't get to help with the mice. I have some regular old fashioned snap traps just in case the cats go on strike but so far I haven't needed to use them.

Me too. I like Brussels sprouts but I made a roasted Brussels sprouts lasagna that I'd stumbled across a recipe for a couple years ago and the resulting cruciferous vegetable induced suffering was so bad the next day that I haven't eaten them since. I spent the first part of the next day at work standing bent at about a 45ish degree angle because it was too painful to stand up straight then I (and probably my coworkers, as well) spent the rest of the day happy that exhaust hood is right where I spend most of my time at work.

That's what I want to see on dessert plates! None of that "dice-sized cube of cake topped with 3 grains of rice pudding and a passing illusion of whipped cream scented air" one-bite stuff. That's fine for the savory courses in a tasting menu but desserts should be full of sugar and morning-after regret...

The processor works if you're using the dates in a recipe that allows you to toss some of the sugar in with the dates while processing. I actually discovered that while trying to use the processor with dried figs but that led to trying it with dates and with candied ginger and it worked great for all of them.

There was a time, longer ago than I like to think about, when that would have been very tempting. Me and my best friend were renting a house that was the popular weekend gathering place for our friends. If that pizza had existed in the area where I lived at that time, I'm 100% sure it would have wound up at our house. Probably more than once. Any initial price-based hesitation would have been erased at some point in the evening by beer consumption.

I really wish I'd asked the question that answer pertains to a long time ago. I've been way too paranoid and conservative with my silk canister rotation. Chocolate life just got a little bit easier!