Shel_B

Right now W-S is having a sale on the All-Clad 8-Quart D5 stockpot. The usual price for this item is more than $400.00, but W-S is offering it for $199.00, and are throwing in an All-Clad pasta fork. An even better price, and free shipping, can be had by using this code at checkout: 4M7S-4VSH-R8SH http://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/all-clad-d5-stainless-steel-stock-pot-pasta-fork/?pkey=cstock-soup-multi-pots&cm_src=stock-soup-multi-pots||NoFacet-_-NoFacet-_- I couldn't help myself ... I bought one.

That's very interesting. Moving away from cutting boards for a moment, but sticking with the glue used for joining pieces of bamboo, I've noticed a number of bamboo utensils, like mixing spoons, salad forks, etc., made with strips of bamboo that have been glued together. I wonder how safe that glue is and if it's the same type of glue used in flooring and to join together cutting boards. Certainly something to look into, if one is concerned about health and environmental issues.

If I'm off on these descriptions, please feel free to correct me. This is how I understand the differences to be. Preserves and jam are similar, and often the terms are used interchangeably. However, jam often, if not always, uses mashed fruit, and the fruit pieces are frequently smaller than the pieces in preserves. Preserves use larger pieces of fruit, and no mashing is involved. Jelly is made by using the juice of fruit, and is jelled with the use of pectin. Preserves and jam can be made without pectin. Marmalade is made using citrus, such as orange, and includes the peels. My preference is for preserves, with ample sized pieces of fruit, and my preference is for preserves made with stone fruit, especially apricots, peaches, or cherries. Sometimes a nice marmalade will float my boat.

I was at TJ's yesterday, and looked at their preserves. Didn't care too much for the ingredients and went next door and bought the Bonne Maman.

Until tasting Toots' preserves, I was used to commercial products, and really didn't know what good - what great - homemade preserves could taste like. This year, Toots has promised to teach me the secret of her apricot preserves. I believe that she uses less sugar than most recipes call for, and she does something with the pectin, too, but I don't know just what. The other thing is that she uses great, organic apricots. She's very fussy about just how ripe they are. And she gets cranky if her lemons aren't just so. I never enjoyed, or even had, apricot preserves until I met Toots. I always bought stuff like Smuckers strawberry preserves, and I didn't know what I was missing. Had I tried Bonne Maman before tasting Toots' apricot preserves, I'd have been very happy. But now there's a new standard by which I judge preserves. That you have addressed the issue of overly sweet preserves suggests that we may have somewhat similar tastes, so the Trappist preserves may be worth a try. I found them on line, but haven't read much about them yet. Thanks for the suggestion.

I've been working on this one for a while, and went through three different cocoa powders and three different chocolates. I settled on Peet's Dutch processed cocoa because it is good quality, not too expensive, and easy to come by. Peet's has been discontinued and now I'm using Cacao Barry Extra Brute. Valrhona 71% chocolate from the 3.5-oz bars worked best for me, although the 85% was good, too, but I wanted a less "bitter" taste and didn't want to use more sugar to sweeten or soften the flavor. If you like a more intense chocolate taste, the 85% will work, and you may not need more sugar. I weighed the chocolate and found that three squares of the bar equals 1.25-oz. Using more chocolate may result in a slightly thicker pudding, and therefore less cornstarch may be advisable. 2/29/2024: I now use 1.75oz chocolate, about 1/2 bar. I prefer to use 2% milk for this, but whole milk will be fine if that's your preference. My goal was to come up with a nice, rich flavor but keep the fat and sugar down as much as possible. 1% milk is not recommended, but it will work, sort of ... 1 teaspoon of espresso powder will be fine, but I preferred a little more kick in this pudding. I used Medaglia D'oro because it is easy to come by, not too expensive, and it seems to work just fine. I tried another brand at one point and, frankly, couldn't tell the difference. ETA 0n 7/19/2016: I now use Trader Joe's 100% Colombian Instant Coffee. It's less expensive than Medaglia D'oro and I prefer the flavor both in this pudding and for other uses. Let me know how you like it ... Shel’s Simple Old Fashioned Low Fat Chocolate Pudding 2 cups low fat (2%) milk - whole milk is OK 2 Tbs cornstarch 3 Tbs sugar ¼ tsp Diamond Crystal kosher salt 2 Tbs good quality Dutch process cocoa (1.25 1.75-oz 71% Valrhona Chocolate, chopped in small pieces) 1.5 tsp vanilla extract 2 tsp instant espresso powder Heat 2 cups of milk in the microwave for about two-three minutes depending on the power level. Pour ½ cup milk into a small bowl and add the cornstarch, sugar, salt, espresso powder, and cocoa, and stir until well mixed. Put the remaining 1½ cups milk into a non-reactive saucepan, add the cocoa-milk mixture and the chopped chocolate, and heat on medium stirring frequently, almost constantly, until the chocolate is dissolved and the mixture thickens. It should get to be almost lava-like, with an occasional bursting bubble. Remove from heat and let cool for a few minutes, then add the vanilla extract and stir to incorporate well. Pour into an appropriately sized bowl, or two to four serving dishes, let cool further, and then cover and refrigerate. If you don't like a skin on your pudding, cover the pudding with plastic wrap or parchment paper cut to fit the bowl before covering and refrigerating. Before serving, stir or whisk the pudding.

So what makes a bread bag a bread bag? I always use the various bags that come from the loaves of bread we buy at various bakeries or markets.

Price is always a consideration. The borneconfections are quite spendy, especially when adding shipping, but Linns seems acceptable. I sent Linns a question and hope to hear from them soon. Their products seem like they may be a good choice. Thanks!

Thanks, FauxPas ... I never thought about making my own from dried fruit, but the idea seems to have some merit. Getting good quality dried apricots shouldn't be too difficult, I'm sure, but from the article you linked, it seems that timing is critical, especially if unsulfured are the choice. It would be a nice challenge to learn to make conserves ... thanks!

The way I understand it, conserves are made with dried fruit, and, that being the case, I've never tried them. I suspect they'd be quite different than preserves, but they could be something worth trying and enjoying. June Taylor (The Still Room) is but a short distance from my place, and it seems the conserves are sold at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market. They may well be worth a try - I like what I read about the product. Thank you for the tip.

I like the idea of adding some gelatin ... Thyme with boar meat? I wouldn't have thunk it <LOL>

I don't know how old the jar is, but the expiration date is December, 2015. Turns out that Toots, independently of me, bought a jar as well. Her feelings are quite similar to mine. She says that the preserves are the same dark color, too. She gave her jar to the neighbor ...

I bought a jar of the Bonne Maman apricot preserves a while ago, and just had a couple of tastes. The stuff is terrible. There's very little apricot taste - mostly what I taste is sugar - and there are hardly any apricot pieces in the jar. The pieces I found were more like skin in terms of texture and density. The color is dark and looks like the fruit was overcooked - that's the only way I can describe it. The consistency of the preserves is gummy and, IMO, excessively thick. If this is "one of the best of the commercial products," I don't want to even imagine what a "lesser" product might taste like. Perhaps I've been spoiled by Toots' preserves, which tastes of apricots, not of fruit having been drowned in sugar, and which has a nice, bright color and a texture more akin to real fruit. I'll have to try one of the other preserves mentioned here. One plus is that I now have another jar to use when making my own later in the year.

Never heard of that one, but maybe it's available around here .... thanks! Hmmm ... I noticed that it contains 55% fruit whereas the Bonne Maman claims to contain 70% fruit. I'd think more fruit would be better, yes? Or do other factors enter into the taste of preserves. I'm sure the quality of the fruit plays a big role ... Oh, wait, I see that the double fruit contains "up to" 70% fruit.

I didn't want to leave this hanging, as I mentioned that it looked like a perfect solution to my problem. As it turned out, 23-inches is just a scosh too narrow - I really need the 24-inches. Bed, Bath and Beyond has one with the requisite dimensions, and I'll check it out in the next day or so.

Thanks to you both ... I know where I can get the product and will try to grab a jar tomorrow. Will let you know what I think.

Does the Bonne Maman have a strong apricot taste?

Toots makes incredible apricot preserves, and there's usually enough to last us a year. This past year, however, she didn't make enough for us and for the amount she ended up giving away as gifts, so sadly, there are no apricot preserves until, once again, it's apricot season. I'd like to find an excellent, not-too-sweet, preferably organic, apricot preserve to get me through this dry spell. It would be great if I could find some that are available in the local markets, but I'd be happy to order on line as well. Any help would be appreciated.

It's already frozen.

A friend just gave me a couple of pounds of ground wild boar, and I'd like to make a meatloaf with it next week. My thoughts were to mix the boar with some ground pork, something that would add a little fat to the mix, as the boar looks awfully lean. sauté some mirepoix, perhaps use leeks instead of onions, some roasted garlic, grind up some mushrooms to add to the mixture, maybe some ground, dried porcini 'shrooms, and add some finely diced herbs (but not sure which herbs would work well with boar), an egg or two, mix well by hand, and bake free-form. Any thoughts on the herb-mirepoix mixture - perhaps some other additions? What internal temp should I be looking at? Thanks! This'll be my first boar loaf.

Last night I discovered that the microwave does a great job of softening (ripening?) hard pears. Many of us, I'm sure, have grabbed some pears at the market that were hard as rocks with the thought of letting them ripen at home for a few days. Well, Toots brought home some of those rock pears, and I wanted an edible pear for dessert last night. So, on a whim, I put one of those sukkas into the microwave and zapped it on high for a total of one minute - two 30 second bursts. Bingo! one nice, tender, "ripe" pear. YMMV wrt time ... but give it a try. BTW, I tried a second pear this afternoon, and 90 seconds proved to be too much.

Thanks ... and I can plan that far ahead. I often set things out in the morning to warm up and then come back after noon or so to use the ingredients. Not a problem.

I tried softening the butter, but from comments here, maybe it wasn't soft enough, or I used too much ... I will pay attention to that and see if the results are any better. Thanks!

Further investigating brought up a recipe for lemon curd by Alice Waters that used a small amount of milk. And I vaguely remember a recipe that called for the addition of cream, but I'm not at my computer now, so I can't verify that from my recipe collection. ETA: I remember now - Cook's Illustrated has a lemon curd recipe that uses heavy cream. I'll be "generous" and go along with your supposition ...

Are you suggesting that I can use my blender to mix the zest and butter with the sugar?