Tri2Cook

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.

That was 40% what I was thinking. The other 60% was liking the idea of the surprise when opened. The windowed being available in a variety of color choices while the non-windowed only coming in one color kinda balanced out the scale and caused my indecision. 😆

Windowed vs. non-windowed. Which for you and why? I know which way I'm leaning but it's not proving to be as easy a decision as I feel like it should be. I'm not at a point where I'm ready to go custom or large volume but I found boxes that I'm happy with that are an upgrade from what I've been using and within the price range to work for me. It could have been simple except they're available windowed or non-windowed. A contributing factor in this case could be, the windowed are available in a variety of colors. The non-windowed is only available in one color. Anyway... thoughts?

I'll blame it on my inner child... I'd eat it. But only because it's meant to be eaten, not because you're wrong about it being beautiful.

The heat of ghost peppers is fine for me, I'd put it at the upper edge of what I consider pleasant to eat. Anything much hotter is out of my fun zone, I may eat it just to say I did but I wouldn't call it enjoyable. I do think habaneros have a better flavor than ghost peppers. The ghost peppers earn their name though. They haunt you. Long after the habanero heat has died off, the ghost pepper keeps lingering like a fart in a car*. *Feel free to insert your own metaphor if that one offends. For better or worse, it's the first one that came to mind.

Yep. Judiciously and with proper prep in some cases. One of my favorite ice creams I've ever made was the cherry pit ice cream I made about 12 years ago. Like a subtle almond ice cream with light cherry harmonics ringing through. I don't know how much cherry pit infused cream I'd have to eat for it to be considered risky and from what I've read, heat supposedly neutralizes the offending compound, but I wouldn't hesitate to eat it again.

Yeah, I know all about that. She was the queen of "don't throw that away, it may be useful for something." It was more her taking a jab at me because I was generally so picky about everything I did cooking related. I made the, possibly incorrect, assumption that that's what Chris was getting as well... but it's entirely possible his wife just takes her pickles seriously.

I've never tried those, they may be similar... I'll have to investigate. That's them. I did a little digging after my post and found them, Royal Dansk Danish butter cookies. Not all of them have the crunchy sugar on top. I like the ones with the sugar a little better but they're all good. Tasty but just boring enough to be perfect with tea or coffee.

Thanks! I was thinking more of a commercial version to stay in theme with this thread though. I honestly don't see me making my own Newtons, there are many other homemade cookies I'd rather spend the time on.

I can't think of a brand name, haven't bought them in quite a while, but they're basic butter cookies topped with the crunchy large sugar crystals. They're not as crumbly as shortbreads, not as sweet as most sugar cookies. If they're somewhat boring, made with actual butter that you can taste and have that sugar on top, that's the ones I like. I want Fig Newtons to be a favorite but unless I find a better version of the same cookie under another brand, they can't be. The cakey cookie part manages to be bland but overly sweet at the same time and the cookie as a whole is too dry. Anybody out there build a better Newton?

The sandwich looks and sounds amazing but I had to use the "laugh" emoji because of the above quoted line. My late wife was the same. Me: homemade pie and crust but made in foil pans because I was giving them away. Her: "Really? Disposable pans? Do I even know you?"

There are a lot of people here with a lot of knowledge, experience and willingness to share and help, that's one of the great things about eGullet and well worth taking advantage of. But never let that shared knowledge, experience and willingness to help stop you from trying something you're curious about. It can be difficult to find things that haven't already been tried among this crowd but it's definitely not impossible. I went through a phase where pairing unlikely suspects was an intentional focus but I can honestly say chocolate and a caramel made from the syrup used to candy mushrooms is something that's never even come close to crossing my mind. So I'm watching this with interest so I can potentially steal... err... borrow! from your curiosity.

Does mixing the sparkle dust into cocoa butter cause any problems with spraying it with an airbrush? I have a couple of the colors that I assumed I was going to have to brush in after mixing but it would be a whole lot nicer if I could spray it instead.

Me too! The closest I can get is a "choose your battles" scenario.

Yep, that's what I was talking about. Shutting it down when I'm done with it for the day. My basement is strictly utilitarian, housing the water heater, furnace, etc, not part of the living space. The only access to it is via a locked exterior door. Not really convenient for running down after some late night work when it's -30 outside. 😁

I do my chocolate work from home too but that's my eventual plan. I haven't done it yet because I haven't completely settled on exactly where everything is going permanently but once I do, I want to put my compressor in the basement and run the hose up through the floor into my work area. That's assuming I can figure out a not-too-complicated and not-too-expensive way to be able to switch it on and off without having to go to the basement every time.

Happy to share the link but I doubt you'll find much you can't already get if you have a good local source. Mexi-Market

Nice job! I made my last wedding cake when I ended my catering side-hustle several years ago. Other than maybe for very close family or friends, I will never make another wedding cake again (I reserve the right for that to be a lie on the off chance somebody offered me a ridiculous amount of money to make their cake... which isn't gonna happen).

gfweb answered that one for you. You made the choice to eat there. pay the bill, chalk it up to a learning experience and don't go back. If you really feel the food was greatly inferior and not just not to your personal taste, tell everybody you know the place sucks. But if there's nothing wrong with the food other than you just didn't like it and you tell everybody the place sucks because they wouldn't give it to you for free, then you suck. If they serve authentic Indian food made well and to tradition, it's not their responsibility to figure out if the average first time diner will like authentic Indian food or not. If you're advertising you sell authentic Indian food, you're making that food for people you assume recognize and enjoy authentic Indian food. If you dumb it down, people who enjoy authentic Indian food will be doing their own version of your rant. You said the menu may or may not have told you what was coming but it didn't adequately prepare you for what arrived. In that situation, even if it was prepared as they intended it to be, they should have taken it back. But I wouldn't say they were obligated to if the menu did describe the dish accurately, I just think it would have been the smart call in that situation. "I didn't realize seasoned with fennel was going to mean it would taste like peppermint patty filling" (which I find odd because fennel fronds taste much more like anise/licorice to me) was easily remedied with "Can we bring you something else?" and you would have left happy instead of still being angry over it for however long it's been. I'm going to say, if they served you fish on a bed of potatoes covered in confectioner's sugar and that sugar wasn't mentioned in the description, you were within reasonable right to object... health issues or not. Certainly, when you explained you are diabetic and wouldn't have ordered it if you had known it would be served that way, they should have offered a replacement. I'd classify that as badly prepared, whether it was according to their plan or not, but that aside, you made them aware that there was a valid reason you couldn't eat it. They should have done the right thing. I just said the same thing I said before, just in a much more long-winded form... can we be friends now?

This would probably be easier if I'd thought to mention what I'm up to. I need something vegan with as neutral as possible a taste to replace dry milk powder for making vegan versions of white and milk chocolates. It will go in the refiner with sugar, cocoa butter and, in the case of the milk chocolate, cocoa nibs. I held out against this idea for a long time, I'm still unwilling to venture into sugar free, but I've been convinced to take a stab at vegan. I did a white chocolate once using Better Than Milk soy milk powder and was happy with the result but that stuff's become difficult to get my hands on.

I use 1 oz agricole, 1/2 oz Smith & Cross, 1/2 oz El Dorado 12, 1 oz lime, 1/2 oz Cointreau and 1/2 oz orgeat. If I have company who aren't of the extra special variety, I use equal parts Appleton 12 and El Dorado 12. Agricole and Smith & Cross are hard to come by where I live so I'm a bit stingy with them but honestly, until I got my hands on them, the Appleton/ED version was my go to and I still really enjoy it. Edit: the reason for the S&C/ED12 blend is that's the Atomic Grog site's recommended sub for the Kohala Bay dark rum used in many original Mai Kai recipes. I realize it's not the original rum for the Trader Vic Mai Tai but I decided to give it a try and it tastes good in the drink.

Nice read, I enjoyed it. Did you read it on a phone? I'm on my laptop and I didn't run into that formatting oddness you mentioned. The article runs down the left side and ads/links to other articles down the right. Maybe the layout gets squeezed on smaller screens?