Tri2Cook

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.

If you don't want to share your recipes, I would just politely explain that to them. You're paying rent, you don't owe them anything beyond that. If you choose to share an occasional recipe, that still doesn't obligate you to share every recipe they request. If you're interested in selling or bartering space for recipes, I'd just discuss that idea with them. It's a business relationship, they shouldn't be offended by you doing things in a business-like manner. They didn't just give you use of the kitchen because you wanted to use it, they worked out something that makes it beneficial to both parties. Nothing wrong with you doing the same.

I am the breaker of deals... no carrot cake I make shall contain raisins. If I'm served carrot cake and it contains raisins, I eat it. But I never add them myself. Raisins are an on-the-fence thing for me, don't actually hate them but don't particularly love them either. I will eat them in moderation but things heavily raisin-saturated like raisin pie or raisin butter tarts, I'll pass.

Which leaves me very tempted to give the recipe a try. I prefer the more dense and moist cakes over the light, fluffy cakes.

Those are all beautiful. But being the reptile and amphibian fan I am, I really love those frogs.

Depending on one's level of output of course. Not everybody is doing it as a business or doing business at a serious level. I only have one or two of all of the molds I currently own other than the dome molds. I have three of those. I will be increasing that number for the domes but I'm not so sure about any of the others. I've decided to go the one shape, various decoration route at least at this point. One thing I've learned is that time spent looking at molds can get expensive very quickly.

I'm very happy with the salt levels of the finished product using the 5% brine. Without the need for the preservative aspect of a heavier brine and since I won't likely be going back to the boil it in a big pot of water method of cooking corned beef, I don't see a situation where I'd ever use the 10% again.

I'm thinking the same thing. But now that the corned beef has been done, I'm thinking about making the base 5% brine (water, salt, sugar, curing salt) and playing around with other flavors besides the traditional pickling spice. I already have some flavors in mind for both beef and pork.

Yep, I've cooked corned beef at 132F sous vide, 225F in the oven and with the traditional ol' boil the crap out of it in pot of water method and have yet to encounter grey meat. I don't have enough experience with this to know what happens if you use too little nitrate, could that be a culprit? I remember reading somewhere that 40 parts per million was the lower limit if the pink color is the goal but I couldn't attest to the accuracy of that.

I understood what Anna meant. Most people in North America not posting in the eGullet breakfast discussion tend to think in terms of certain items/types of food when it comes to breakfast. I know I do, and I am on eGullet and have participated in the breakfast discussion. I initially viewed that discussion as everybody wanting to be the hip, cool kid trying to raise the bar on eating something strange for breakfast but I quickly caught on to the idea that that wasn't the case at all. It was just my preconceived ideas of what constitutes breakfast influencing me. That said, the original post did mention that her mom isn't generally open to exploring new things so it might make her job easier if we try to stay somewhere in the vicinity of what most would recognize as breakfast food in the area where she lives. I wish I could offer something helpful but steering away from eggs and pork while staying within the realm of commonly accepted North American breakfast foods (especially breakfast in the southern U.S. which tends to be almost entirely about eggs and pork) while allowing for her being diabetic falls outside of my area of experience.

Finally quit waffling and decided to go the sous vide route for everything. I tossed it all in the tank last night at 56C. Pulled the top sirloin after 12 hrs. The tougher stuff will stay in until tomorrow evening. Took a small taste of the stuff I pulled out this morning, I'm happy. Tasty, tender and juicy. Should make some nice sandwiches. I got less than 3/4 cup of liquid total from those 2 bags. I'll use it and whatever I get from the stuff still cooking to cook the veggies tomorrow night.

Looks good! I don't mind softer veggies in stuff like this. I always cook my potatoes and carrots in the roasting pan when I have a roast in the oven. They get softer than some would approve of but they taste so good when they've spent all that time in that meaty environment that I consider it more than worth any textural trade-off.

to both of you. I got mine today for $1.69/lb... which is still $1.26/lb converted to U.S. Edit: Should have quoted Jo and rotuts regarding their cabbage purchases. That's what I was replying to.

Kept my fingers crossed that the replacement heating element for my oven that died earlier in the week would arrive before the weekend. It didn't. So the corned beef that wasn't going in the sous vide tank that I hoped to toss in a low oven with cabbage, potatoes and carrots is indeed going to have to be done stove top or slow cooker. At this point, I'd consider just doing it all sous vide but I won't be able to get it in the tank in time to do a 48 hr cook before Sunday dinner... and I was really hoping for it to be Saturday dinner. The lean stuff will be going in a 55C tank tonight for 12 hrs or so and I'll pilfer the juices from the bags for cooking the other stuff if I end up doing it stove top.

The brats I purchased do not contain filler (I'm not calling it requisite because I don't know that it is). To be honest, I wasn't really trying to pass them off as a banger substitute. I was just being silly because my purchase of said brats happened to coincide with this discussion taking place. But I don't see why they couldn't fill the job. Most brats I've had were somewhat mildly seasoned and any nice, porky sausage is going to be good with mashed potatoes and onion gravy regardless of their country of origin.

That is disappointing. A good pickle sounds perfect with the rest of the menu. You may... but I'm not peeling the fava beans.