Tri2Cook

Somewhere out there, there's a thief kicking himself in the rear end because he was sure that was the meat truck.

Speaking as a person who, as you already know, is not a big fan of the raisin... never apologize for your raisins!

Thanks! That's exactly the information I was looking (and hoping) for. For the small volume I'm going to do, if I haven't used it by 8 months, I deserve to have it go bad.

Most of the banana liqueur recipes I've seen that broach the subject at all are recommending storing it in the fridge and/or using it within 2 months. If I keep the alcohol content somewhere in the 35% - 40% range is there any other reason why those recommendations might apply? I'm hoping to be able to do unrefrigerated and a longer shelf life than 2 months. I'm thinking the W&N 63% allows me plenty of room to get the desired sweetness level while still keeping the alcohol content in the range I mentioned.

I haven't tried the overnight oats thing but I do have some experience with ground flax seeds. I'm picturing one gummy bowl of oats after the ground flax spends a night in a container of milk.

Thanks! I have the Wray & Nephew and the Smith & Cross. I also have a bottle of Lemon Hart 151. The reason I only asked about the W&N is because it is semi-easy for me to replace when it runs out. The S&C is easier to get than when I initially got it now that the LCBO is doing the online ordering thing so that's an option for this project I hadn't considered. The Lemon Hart involved some risky business and trusting someone I didn't know at all from the Tiki Central forums to acquire (at that time they couldn't get S&C in their province so we did a swap) and may very well be irreplaceable unless the LCBO picks it up someday. So I'm not willing to use it for something like this. I'm not often willing to use it at all.

I'm going to take a stab at making my own banana liqueur. The LCBO carries two, one of the low end candy-in-a-bottle variety and one that has good reviews online but is expensive (~$48 bottle) and for some strange reason, they only sell it in cases of six bottles. I'm not sure I'm willing to spend $48 on crème de banane, I'm definitely not willing to spend close to $300 on it. So I perused some recipes that turned up via google and settled on going basic. I just want banana, no spices or supporting cast members. So I'm going to soak sliced ripe bananas in rum for a few days, strain it, add sugar syrup and call it done. My question is, should I use one of my 80 proof rums or the Wray & Nephew overproof? I know the recommendation is generally to use higher proof spirits for projects like this, just wondering if the W&N funkiness will work with the banana.

As much as I love peanut butter, it'd be tough to pick the cake over lemon curd and, I'm guessing, shortbread.

I've never tried scrapple but I'm a fan of goetta. I was going to ask if they're similar but the above leads me to believe they are not. There's no organ meats in the goetta I make.

Hopefully Kerry Beal will see this in time for it to help you. I think she does that sort of thing fairly often so I'm sure she has tons of ideas.

Me too.

I'm posting again because I don't want anybody else reading this thread to be steered away from Qualifirst based on what I posted above. As it turns out, I overlooked that one of the items in my cart required refrigerated shipping and that was the reason for the high shipping cost. I noticed the little notification on a return trip to my shopping cart and removed that item. Shipping options then became available that lowered the shipping cost by almost 2/3 from the original quote. So my passion fruit puree is on the way. Thanks again Kerry for offering to help but this one was my mistake.

While true that it probably should taste the way you want it to, I was leaning more towards wanting to know how it would be expected to taste to the people who created all of those tiki drinks that use it. I've always just used what I make and not thought about how close it is (or isn't) to what it should be but recently I've started wondering if it actually tastes like what the people who created the drinks intended. Velvet Falernum isn't an option from the LCBO but I've read others tasting notes on it and based on that, I think mine may be a little lacking in the lime and almond departments. Maybe I'll order a bottle of the BG Reynolds just to have something to compare to.

One of my life goals has always been to someday be a grouchy old fart. There are a few who might argue that I've already accomplished that goal...

Opened a bottle of falernum I made just over a year ago. I finish my homemade falernum and allspice dram with a higher alcohol content than standard just to be safe with the shelf life thing. Very possibly unnecessary, I'm not an expert, but it's what I do. There was a lot of sediment at the bottom of the bottle so I siphoned everything out of the bottle down to just above the sediment and re-bottled. The aging seems to have done some good things and some possibly less good things. It's lost it's rough edges, it's silky smooth. But the lime has faded to the background, comes in more behind the spice than forward on the sip. And the almond has become more of a vague nuttiness. I've never tasted a commercial falernum and this is the first time I've made a large enough amount in one batch that I could keep some around for a while. When I use it fresh fairly soon after making it, the lime is more up front but the spice is much more harsh. I actually like this aged stuff better but I'm not sure if it will do what falernum is supposed to do in drinks that call for it with the subtle lime. I guess my question is... what exactly should my falernum taste like?

What an evil sign that is... doesn't really leave you with as many choices as it pretends to.

Deal. Abominations and brownies sounds like a good way to help a cup of coffee or glass of milk down.

They can become a bit much easily. Rich and sweet. Smallish pieces and a cold glass of milk on the side for me... but I do like them.

If the raisins are a requirement for it to be a butter tart, I'll stick with whatever you call them when they contain pecans or walnuts instead. I've done them with cashews too. Anything to displace the raisins...

Fudgy, moist, chewy chocolate cake... doesn't leave much room for complaint.

The Qualifirst shipping probably becomes more reasonable as the order gets larger. It starts at a high base rate but it doesn't seem to go up in large leaps as you add more to the cart. So it may not be so bad if I get to a point where I need larger amounts. Right now, I just need to get my hands on some passion fruit puree and I was going to give the banana a try just to see how it compares to fresh and the frozen I've used in the past.

I appreciate that Kerry but there's no point in you having to do all of that extra footwork over $25. I just thought it might be worth asking in case there was a source I overlooked. If I start using purees again as much as I'm hoping, I'm going to have to suck it up at some point anyway. Might as well get used to it.

Does Chef's Warehouse have more than one site? The site I was sent to when I tried to get to the Qzina site said they're not shipping in Canada at this time. Qualifirst prices for the shelf stable pouches aren't too far outside of what I was paying for the frozen at Qzina with the added benefit of not being temperature sensitive for shipping but the $52 shipping charge for 4 pouches of puree seemed extreme to me. Maybe I've just become spoiled by Qzina and Vanilla Food Company with their very reasonable flat rate shipping and that's not actually as out of line as I think.

Anybody have a Canadian online source for fruit purees? The shelf stable (not frozen, usually in 1 kg pouches) type are the best option for where I live. Getting frozen shipped here is usually costly and rarely results in the product still being frozen when it arrives. I used to get my purees from Qzina but since they became part of the Chef's Warehouse group, they no longer have a Canadian online store. Qualifirst has them and that may be what I end up having to do but they have them at much higher than average prices with very high shipping charges so I'm hoping somebody has a source I haven't been able to find.

My personal policy with my recipes is I don't mind sharing as long as it's not with direct, local competition. And even then, I'm not always as strict with it as I probably should be. Or rather, that was my policy. Since I no longer do catering and most of the recipes we use at work are not mine it's not currently an issue. If I manage to get the chocolates thing off the ground well enough to actually call it a business at some point, I'll have to give it more thought. Right now, there is no local direct competition in that area but I wouldn't want to contribute too heavily to competition being created.