Tri2Cook

Logical guess but you may want to read through the other replies. The mystery was solved and... it definitely wasn't blueberries.

While it is no doubt true that the best fried rice can be made from fresh ingredients, some really good fried rice can result from using leftovers. I made Mongolian Beef Saturday night and served it with rice. On Sunday, I used the leftover rice and leftover Mongolian Beef to make fried rice for lunch and it was very tasty. In my personal opinion, it suffered not at all from being made from leftovers.

More food goes to waste at my house than I'm happy to admit... and in all honesty, I'm not really making any great efforts to change that. It's not that it's a large amount of food going to waste, it's just me and my teenage daughter so I don't really buy a lot of food, but the percentage of what I do buy that ends up in the trash is higher than it probably should be.

Yeah, I'm kinda ashamed that it never crossed my mind.

Well that would certainly alter my initial response. I was not aware of those predilections.

I'm more picturing his head exploding because somebody is spending 5 minutes cutting out a perfectly sized circle with a perfect little center vent in his busy kitchen when they could be just doing as mentioned above and getting on with their work. Or maybe that's just me...

So pretty. Still not sure what to guess they are. I was going to say rum banana raisin but I couldn't make that work with the "L" in "blaisin'".

Habanero rum raisin? I feel like I'm probably taking the name too literally with that guess.

Everything we eat, drink and breath may, and probably does, contain something we'd rather it didn't. The dirty fingerprints of the planet's dominant species are pretty much everywhere and on everything. That's not to say it's wrong to be concerned regarding what we put into our bodies, it's just that there's no realistic way around it at this point. Since eating, drinking and breathing are pretty much non-optional conventions, I don't let it worry me too much unless it's a major thing. Things like specific warnings and recalls due to health-endangering problems.

Personally, I like figs better than dates anyway. So I would have been fine with the discovery.

The bottom line is, you're not getting the result you want using what you "know" to be true. It doesn't matter that you get the result you want on the stovetop with the rice:water ratio you use. You're not getting the result you want using it in a slow cooker. That means you have a couple options... quit worrying about what you know and the google reassurances and try something different or stick with the stove top cooking. The rice cooker was used as an example that you may need to adjust your ratios using different methods. That 1:1 or even 1.5:1 ratio mentioned for the rice cooker might still not be what you need to get the result you want in a slow cooker. It's a different cooking method. Regardless of whether or not the 2:1 worked for the people who's articles you read, it's not working for you. You need to figure out what does work for you and the people here were giving you suggestions for starting points to help you figure that out.

@Bentley I think the red on those looks awesome. I realize that doesn't count for much if it's not what you want but it really does look nice.

Cookie dough made with part butter and part cream cheese is tasty.

My only experience with sea cucumber was at a Korean restaurant (actually a restaurant divided down the middle by a wall that served Korean on one side and Chinese on the other) when I was a teenager. Went with my parents and we were encouraged to try the sea cucumber by the server. I don't remember much about flavor but I never forgot the texture which was something akin to what I would imagine it would be like to eat a cut up used tire that had been warmed in a sauce. I'm not claiming this was a fair representative of what sea cucumber can be but it was enough that I haven't been too curious about it since.

Benedictine I can do but it's not really a major concern, more just curiosity. I have a whole list of drinks that are going to take me quite a while to work my way through that don't ask for Licor 43 so I'll just toss those that do on the back burner for a while. Yeah, none of that at the LCBO either. But like I said above, I'm not broken-hearted over not having it. Just figured it wouldn't hurt to ask about the Galliano Vanilla since it's easy to get. Even my local store stocks that one.

Thanks. Thought it might be worth a try since the only Galliano the LCBO stocks is the vanilla but it sounds like it won't work. It's primary use for me would be in tiki drinks from the Smuggler's Cove book.

Would Galliano Vanilla be a workable substitute for Licor 43 in drinks? Even if not perfect, would it leave the drink in the general ballpark of what it should be? The LCBO used to stock Licor 43 but I didn't grab it and they no longer have it. They still list it so I can hope it will return at some point but for now...

Yeah, I didn't make a ton either. I think I have just under 500 ml. It was just a test run to see if I liked the result. I'm gonna try it in a drink soon and see how it holds up.

Nice! I wonder if it was the rum choice or the ultrasonic buzz or a combo of both that made the difference. "Not too bad" is not what I would have used to describe the initial taste of mine.

I stumbled across a post on the Cocktail Chronicles blog while looking at a drink recipe where somebody said they had very good results with their homemade banana liqueur using dried bananas. I may give that a shot at another time either alone or in combination with fresh bananas. Thought I'd mention it in case it sounds interesting and you aren't already past that point with yours.

Happy accident indeed... that sounds really tasty to me.

You should be considering the tools you like to use when you cook and then search for the least expensive versions of those items you can get if you're just going to leave them behind. You're wanting to buy throwaway tools just so you can cook for a few days while on a trip. I'm thinking someone that dedicated to cooking would have a pretty good idea of the kitchen basics they like to work with.

With absolutely no disrespect towards you or your question, the day I go looking at knives and see one labeled "pie slicing knife" just may be the day I pack it all in and become a full-fledged hermit. The best knife for slicing a pie is the one closest to hand when you want a piece of pie. I've sliced pie with a butter knife with no difficulties.

I've never tried adding chocolate to oatmeal cookies but it sounds good to me. I usually just add walnuts if I'm going to add anything... which I quite often do not.

My "cooking while traveling", which I haven't done in a few years, was limited to what would fit in the back of a whitewater kayak. That was the only traveling I did much of where I had any interest (actually, more a need) in cooking while on the trip. When we traveled to paddle a river, our poorly-appointed kitchen was whatever we managed to fit in the boats (for the uninitiated, were talking about 7' or smaller whitewater boats, so there's not much room in there) and a campfire. So I'm guessing I don't have much to suggest that would be of interest to your travel situation. But we usually wound up with some pretty good meals despite the handicaps.