Tri2Cook

I won't say I prefer other methods over sous vide for chuck roast because I haven't tried it sous vide yet, but a chuck low and slow in the smoker is a thing of beauty that I have a difficult time imagining would be surpassed in a water bath.

That's interesting. Here in North of Nowhere, where I can't get a lot of things that are common in most areas, the grocery store almost always has liver, heart, tongue and tripe. All of which, I steadfastly avoid purchasing. I've tried them all and I was okay with the tongue and heart but didn't love either enough that I want to bother on a regular basis. The liver and tripe I wouldn't take home if they were giving them away for free.

I don't worry about healthy when it comes to candy and desserts... but that just doesn't sound good. Seems like it would defeat the point of making them yourself. You can get cheap, not-so-tasty chocolates made with cheap, not-so-tasty ingredients anywhere without going to all the trouble of making them.

Aww... come on. Look the hoity-toity folks right in the eye and say it with a big smile on your face as you serve them. Seriously though, that's not my name for them. As far as I know, that's what they're actually called. The same thing made with jalapenos is Atomic Buffalo Turds.

Atomic Dragon Turds! Habaneros stuffed with cheese and/or meat, wrapped in bacon and grilled or smoked. Not nearly as deadly as it sounds. By the time you scoop out the innards, fill it with cheese and/or meat, baconate it and cook it, it's fire tames down quite a bit.

I'm a fan of molasses... but I've always wondered what they do with the rest of the mole.

That sounds more like you didn't want ice cream due to the tonsil removal association. I bet if you'd shoveled a bite or two in against your wishes, you still would have liked it. I know people, myself included, who don't care for specific flavors of ice cream... but I don't know anybody who just plain ol' doesn't like it. But somebody will turn up. Even if there is nobody who actually dislikes it, it's the internet and the forums don't have a contrarian filter.

Anything can happen, can't rule out the possibility. But one or two cases of something severe happening out of the thousands who eat this sort of thing all the time with no troubles doesn't incite me to worry. Thousands of people ride bikes every day but the news articles only talk about the one or two that get hit by a car or something. I keep riding. I've been eating superhot peppers, purees and sauces for years with no troubles worse than fearing the next day's morning constitutional when the plumbing starts moving. The thing about the superhot varieties is, if you can handle the fire, some of them have a really nice, fruity flavor that I haven't found in any of the more tame varieties.

I actually should have left out the "kugel" part. It's not kugel specific. I haven't been able to sell myself on the idea of noodles in a dessert. Not sure why, I've used a lot of things in desserts that would seem much farther removed from the sweet world than a noodle. I'm going to have to think about it and decide why I drew the line at noodles.

I don't doubt anybody's word that noodle kugel is tasty stuff... but I just haven't been able to sell myself on the idea. So I still haven't tried it.

The goat cheeses and goat milk sound nice but I think the goat meat is what would have been of most interest to me.

This one went too fast but it was fun and you two are probably happy to be getting back to your homes. Safe trip.

I'm having a hard time coming up with more ideas. I only do large quantity cookie baking once a year, for Christmas, and by the time I need to start doing it, it's cold enough that I can just seal them in buckets and toss them in the not-heated sunroom. It's generally only a couple degrees or so warmer in there than outside and outside is generally staying below freezing by that point. So worrying about shelf life/storage has never been an issue I had to consider.

I've never had that be a problem with the springerle. I thought having them soften a bit during storage was the goal and main reason most recipes suggest doing them weeks before you actually need them.

Since I seem to be going on and on with this, I'm going to add before you set your mind on making them that springerle are long lasting and nice looking but not everybody loves them for eating purposes. The anise isn't always popular and even after aging, they're not many of the things most people tend to think of when you say cookie. They tend to be dry and crunchy at best and hard and practically unbreakable at worst. I like them but to be completely honest, I mainly do them just to use the molds. There are less traditional recipes that include small amounts of butter and/or leavening that don't always work as well for intricate molds but are more pleasant to munch on.

I have the Beranbaum book and a couple of Maida Heatter's cookie books (I've had them for years and every time I pick one of them up, the first thing my mind sees is "Mad Hatter's Cookie Book"... just can't seem to get past that.). I don't have the first Great Cookies book though, just the second one. I'm pretty sure the springerle recipe I use is in the Beranbaum book but I'll have to dig it out to be sure. I have another recipe that came with a mold that listed the option of replacing the anise with citrus zest. I don't generally use that recipe but I grabbed the idea of using citrus zest in springerle from it. I don't think there's any great secret or mystery to them though, they've been around for a long time and recipes should be pretty easy to track down. Finding enough safe places to have them sitting around for the pre-bake drying period is the main annoyance involved with making them. I try to mold them in the evening and bake in the morning. That way they're taking up all the space and pans while I'm sleeping and not trying to bake anything else.

Absolutely do not need a mold. They can be any shape you want. I don't actually have a lot of molds, they tend to be a bit pricey, but there was a time when I wanted a lot of molds. I got over it. They're just popular for molding because they hold the design. They don't puff or spread. Some recipes are actually hard as a rock when they're freshly baked and cooled. I don't think there's anything particularly special about the recipes I use, I think they're pretty standard, but I'll figure out which box they're in and get them to you. Probably won't be until the weekend though. I've been doing some major house reorganizing recently so nothing is easy access right now. In the meantime, maybe someone who knows more about them than I do will jump in. I don't consider myself an expert, I just like using the molds.

Springerle! They'll actually get better. And if you're not a fan of anise, they're good with citrus zest replacing it. The only warning I might give would be that the molds for making the fancy-looking ones can become addictive.

An assistant I can delegate it to.

Or not.

Hopefully I didn't derail this into a Canadian thanksgiving discussion though. I just mentioned it here because the steak posts had me really wanting steak and it's something my, extremely picky when it comes to food, kid will always eat. Now I'm looking forward to that steak sandwich...

I took inspiration from your steak. Just me and the kid for thanksgiving. She won't eat turkey and I didn't really want to do all of that for just me so we started our own new tradition. We did our dinner today instead of tomorrow and it was steak (just grocery store striploins but they we're tasty), sautéed mushrooms, caesar salad, baked sweet potato and homemade bread. And I cooked an extra steak because Anna's leftover steak meals looked too damn good to not make sure I had extra.

I haven't done the oil caviar thing in a while but I seem to remember settling on a point somewhere between getting nice looking drops and not having it take all effing day to get them done.

Now I want steak... and there isn't going to be anything even remotely as nice as that to be found around here. But it will still be better than no steak I suppose.

Yeah, I've thought about that one many times. I wonder sometimes when you see people seek out things eaten in different cultures (which I realize was not the case in this situation) and make a big fuss over it, if sometimes the culture it came from is looking at the trend and thinking "why on earth would they want to eat that if they don't have to... we were just hungry and there was a lot of it laying about".