Tri2Cook

That's ok, I wasn't excluding myself from that "we." I have a few I could toss in the mix.

Crotchety bunch, aren't we?

My waffle iron, ice cream makers and meat grinder probably get used the least (and are probably pretty close to equal in that department) but I don't have any that get used so little that I wouldn't miss them if they were gone.

No microwaving it for me, I use a dehydrator that has a 30º C bottom temp. I keep my bottles of cocoa butter, airbrushes and the color cups in it all the time. If I'm going to be spraying, I turn it on set to 34º C the night before or early in the morning. But yes, I don't heat - cool - warm or do anything else to temper it for spraying.

I have to have eggnog and fruitcake every year during the holiday season. I'm not happy if I don't, doesn't feel right. But that's enough... doesn't matter that they're generally viewed as seasonal items because I don't even want either again until the next year.

Hmmm. Cleanliness definitely isn't the issue. Temp, I don't think so but possibly. It's rarely above 70 in my house during the winter but it's rarely below 65 so I think I should be ok there. I've never had a batch go bad, it just never really ferments. It ends up being a spicy cabbage salad. There's a point where I start to worry about spoilage and toss it in the fridge but I've gone as long as 2 weeks before panic fridging with no real signs of fermentation. I've had some very light bubble action a couple times but still never got that good kimchi funk. Anyway, don't want to steer the discussion off course but I am tempted to give the sauercorn a shot. Worst case, I just have the same success I've had with kimchi. Thanks!

I'm in the club as well, never heard of it before Rob brought it to our attention. Of course, now that he has, I want to try it but I seem to have bad luck with fermentation. I still haven't managed to get a batch of kimchi to ferment properly.

I have a bottle of Lucano but it's not the Anniversario. No Byrrh, but I have Dubonnet Rouge. So maybe I can at least kinda see the show from the cheap seats.

"Has to" might be a bit overkill... mine usually doesn't. And it could be argued that unless it comes from a box or uses one of the modernist methods, mac and cheese generally involves a béchamel base to build on as well.

I use the nacho cheese sauce from Chefsteps for my mac & cheese sauce. Sometimes with the jalapenos pureed in per the recipe, sometimes just the cheese sauce minus the peppers. I play it a little loose with the cheese, there's always cheddar but there's also frequently bits of whatever other cheese I need to use up replacing part of the cheddar. I also borrow from Serious Eats mac & cheese and mix in some additional shredded cheese after mixing the sauce and pasta. It's cooled enough at that point that the shredded cheese doesn't melt into the sauce and creates little pockets of stretchy cheesiness after baking. I'm not above eating KD if it's put in front of me but I haven't made it for myself in years. When I did, I used a lot more butter than the instructions call for and a lot less milk.

I keep thinking I want one of those but that's a lot of money when I already have two Paasches sitting here so I'm still trying to convince myself it's worth it. I found the Paasches on sale for a really good price and jumped on them before I was aware of the benefits of gravity feed, which they are not.

Fair enough but I wouldn't consider any moisture migration from the gel to be acceptable in that environment (a water soluble powder) and I would put 30°C as more like the midrange of gelatins melting point, depending on various factors. Regardless, wasn't intending what I posted to counter what you suggested. Just bringing up potential problems that may or may not arise based on my experience working with gelatin. I think it's an excellent suggestion if long term and/or room temp storage isn't a requirement. It doesn't sound like there's much chance we're gonna agree on the suitability if that is a requirement... but that doesn't mean I'm saying I'm right and you're wrong. Just tossing my experiences in the mix.

The potential issue being, you'll (and your recipients) need to be aware of storage temps and storage time. At the low levels of gelatin you'd want to use for this purpose so that it melts easily in the milk, it could potentially melt at warm room temps that aren't warm enough to melt the chocolate so you wouldn't see it happen. It will definitely slow-bleed liquid due to syneresis. Unrefrigerated shelf life would be really short and enough gelatin to counteract the stability issues probably wouldn't result in a product suited to this purpose. But I've never actually made a hot chocolate bomb with a gelatin-based gel inside so take the above for what it's worth. 😁

This sounds interesting. I'm a fan of bread and butter pickles so the sweet wouldn't be an issue for me.

So my molds are in and they're gonna make bigger spheres than I was picturing in my head but they'll fit in even my smallest coffee mugs (according to my measuring tape anyway) so they should be fine. I have a happy young'un right now, not only because she's excited about the hot chocolate bombs but also because when I ordered the dehydrated mini marshmallows, they also had the colorful Lucky Charms style version so I ordered a bag of those too and told her to have at 'em.

Maybe it'll be a refreshing change for you... at least it isn't me yet again.

I'm giving them a shot. I'd never heard of them either until someone asked me if I make them. I had to admit not knowing what they were and did some googling. I ordered 2.5" (63.5 mm) polycarbonate half sphere molds for the shells. I started ordering things before thoroughly investigating what I was doing and got a bulk supply of the dehydrated mini marshmallows like come in the packets of hot cocoa mix assuming that was the thing to use. And then every video I watched showed using regular mini marshmallows. I'm going to go with the dehydrated I already ordered initially and see what the reaction is.

Just your basic garden variety crockpot beef stew. For future reference (for myself), thou shalt not put rutabaga in thine stew. Seemed like a good idea. I like rutabaga. I now know I do not like it in my beef stew. It took over... the broth tastes like rutabaga and not in a good way. It's not that earthy sweetness of a good cooked rutabaga. It seems to have maintained that stronger taste it has when raw even after 10 hours of cooking. It's not actually offensive, just not what I expected. I guess it's possible it just wasn't a great rutabaga to begin with.

They're exactly what you want, you can use them for anything you'd use any other chocolate for. Tempered and much easier to work with than a big hefty block you have to bust up yourself. Edit: I shouldn't actually say that's exactly what you want. Nothing wrong with bars and blocks, I just like the convenience of callets. Weigh 'em and get to work, no chopping required.

For me, that'd be a bonus. Anything that makes a cake more dense (in a good way, not bricks) and moist is a plus in my cake-eating world. Nice work with the video!

I use canned diced tomatoes more often than fresh. Really good fresh tomatoes are pretty much impossible to get where I live except during a narrow window in late summer/early fall. The canned tomatoes are better pretty much 100% of the time outside of that window. Even during good tomato time, the good ones are only available at the once-a-month farmer's market. The grocery store tomatoes are no better even then.

It's Thanksgiving day in Canada today and since neither me nor my daughter are big turkey fans, our tradition now is steak. So right now there are 2 strips, 2 filets, and a bag of top sirloin cubes in the tank at 54 C. The sirloin cubes are going to be seared in hot garlic butter. The others are going to get a quick sear on the grill or in a hot pan depending if the grill gas holds up... I forgot to get the tank filled.

Mellowing it a bit and adjusting the texture a little was the original goal but the possibility of botulism is not an acceptable trade-off. If the curing salt in the sausage is a sure safeguard for that, that'd be great. The sausage will never come anywhere close to the 240 F mentioned above even for a second.

I'm still kinda leaning towards non-windowed. All of the arguments for windowed are convincing and make sense but I'm not in a retail setting where people can browse and select. It's more a casual "I made these, there are x number of boxes available" and see how it goes thing right now. The only minor hang-up is, the windowed are available in 21 colors, the non-windowed are available in brown base/gold lid only... but they look nice. Addressing what Jim D. mentioned, I have a sample of the boxes I'm looking at and the inserts work perfectly with my primary mold.

Shipping will not be an issue. I'm definitely not at that point now and honestly don't aspire to reaching that point.