blue_dolphin

Yes, the amount of thyme was almost comical. The thyme went into the cream/milk/glucose/stabilizer mix after it was simmered but while still warm and sat for a while as it cooled. The volume of dairy mix was not large so I could barely get it all submerged and practically had to squeegee off the stems to afterwards 🤣. The recipe said to infuse at least 15 min, possibly longer. I tasted periodically and left them together for ~ 30 min. I'm sure there are better ways! Two sorbets from fall fruits. Creamy persimmon sorbet from Serious Eats and a pomegranate cava sorbet found on Food52. Both were spun on the sorbet setting. I thought this would be a nice contrast between the warm, honey-like flavor of persimmon and the bright, tart flavor of pomegranat and the two brilliant colors. The textures were also a bit of a contrast with the persimmon super creamy, the pomegranate a bit icy. I think I can improve that icy texture (less sparkling wine, for sure) but since I was going for a contrast, I'm ok with it for now. These next two are my stab at a cheese & fruit dessert plate. They have almost zero contrast in color but the flavors couldn't be more different. On the left is the Parmesan ice cream from Hello, My Name is Ice Cream and on the right is the Riesling-poached pear sorbet from Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home served on a Parmesan frico. I used the ice cream and sorbet settings respectively. No need to re-spin either. These are really fun to eat together. Could have added crystalized ginger to the pear or maybe break up some of that frico in the Parm but for this round, I just wanted to compare these 2 flavors. Both are smooth and creamy with the ice cream being very rich and the sorbet smooth as silk.

Thanks! I've not experienced the rapid molding or low quality issues with TJ's cheeses but I will admit to being selective in what I buy there so I don't have an across the board experience as you do. I don't like that the cheeses at TJs tend to be offered in pre-cut pieces rather than cut-to-order as in a good cheese shop and sometimes the chunks end up sitting in the case for quite a while. I always check dates carefully. Neither of those factors come into play with the small whole cheeses like the ones @rotutsposted about so I figured I'd ask why you deemed them barely passable.

I find that Langres quite nice. I can get it at an import shop in my area for a higher price than TJ's but it’s the same cheese. What makes it barely passable for you?

Not sure if this would be picked up by 23 & Me or the like but both sides of my genetic inheritance are staunch lines of ricers so I've never had need of a masher. Aside from preventing one from opening drawers, what else do you use them for?

Which sieve size(s) did you get? How would you think they compare to a nylon mesh nut milk bag (eG-friendly Amazon.com link)?

Yep, a brisky sando of some sort has been what I've been doing, too. I've been chopping the meat very roughly, just for easier eating, and warming gently on steam-bake in the CSO with any juices that have collected. Max Halley would mix the juices into the mayo for a gravy-mayo situation. Mmmmm! I need to deep fry some of those sweet potato starch noodles so I can riff on this one: Braised Beef and Kimchi Sandwich Recipe

I’d love to know your favorite uses for leftover brisky. I get some on occasion from ZEF but I don’t think I’ve made the best of the leftovers. Might be some still in the freezer. I hadn’t thought of Mexican but tacos sound good, as do quesadillas. Any other faves?

And there's a Black Friday special price of $4.90 each!

@Anna N's poached eggs are killing me! Bacon jam & sharp Cheddar cheese toastie

I'm a novice, so my 2 cents is worth about that much but here you go.... First, you don't need any speciality ingredients to get started. Plenty of normal kitchen ingredients function in those roles in conventional recipes for frozen desserts. If you have specific dietary aims (you need to avoid eggs or dairy or make vegan desserts or replace sugar with other sweeteners) you might call out that out here for specific recommendations. I recommend reading @paulraphael's excellent articles on stabilizers, emulsifiers and sugars. I see you've gotten good advice above by the more experienced @andrewk512. I agree with his recommendation of Dana Cree's book. Excellent background information and each recipe generally offers the option of using a commercial stabilizer blend, specific gums or pantry ingredients like tapioca starch or cornstarch. Also agree with his recommendation on ingredients and a little drug scale for weighing. If decide you want to invest in some of these speciality ingredients, Modernist Pantry has a 17% off sale running through this Monday, 29 Nov and they're a decent one-stop-shop for this kind of stuff, offering reasonable quantities, generally at premium prices. They also offer their own stabilizer blends for ice cream, gelato and sorbet.

About fifty cents? OK, I was kidding. But here's a small hint as to the difference between Maryland & Philadelphia styles. From the article, Fear the Turtle or Eat the Turtle:

Spotted on Twitter today. An amazingly extensive Thanksgiving menu from the Plaza Hotel, 1899:

That's was kinda my first thought but the surface of every electric hot plate I've seen is made of exactly the kind of stuff you don't want in a candy pot, meaning they're usually a thick slab of something designed to retain heat and would prohibit one from making rapid adjustments, other than by removing the pan for a quick cool. Or were you thinking of a gas burner? Many of the high power types I'm familiar with are outdoor-only. Or is there a whole category of high power indoor gas burners that I've been oblivious to?

Looks like long fusili, aka fusilli lunghi. I can read Fusilli Napoletani Lunghi pretty clearly. Is there there another name you know it by?

Speaking of Mr. Parsons his writing for the Irish Times, here's a nice read from earlier this month, Russ Parsons: Thanksgiving foods at the centre of the table for American traditions

For my next trick, I made honey thyme frozen yogurt. The result was a bit sweeter than I'd prefer. I suppose that's partly the nature of a honey-flavored mix and thyme helped balance out the sweetness so I'll call this successful, if not at all perfect. This was a modification of the Honey Chai Frozen Yogurt in Hello, My Name is Ice Cream. Instead of infusing the milk & cream with chai spices, I used thyme. Almost all the thyme ice cream recipes unhelpfully give the amount of thyme in "sprigs" but this one calls for 30-40g for what's probably ~ a 1 qt batch. Thyme varies a lot by variety, age, etc. but at least this gave me a starting point. I used 20g for a half batch, ~ 1 pt. When I tasted the mix before freezing, I thought it was both too sweet and too much thyme. If I'd had more yogurt, I'd have mixed up some neutral base to mix in but I was out so I just froze it as it was. As mentioned, the end result was still quite sweet but the thyme seemed more mild and overall helped balance the sweetness. I wouldn't mind trying this again with different sorts of honey. I used orange blossom honey here. I've got cherry blossom honey that's lovely but delicate and avocado honey that's very dark in color and has a much stronger flavor that might work.

My copy of Joshua McFadden's Grains for Every Season (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) just arrived so I’m settling in for a good read.

@Smithy, your bringing up this potato salad cook-off again made me want some so I made a batch from a recipe in Julia Turshen's book, Simply Julia. I've made it often enough that I think it's now my go-to. I think the method, if not the exact ingredients, would lend itself to your situation as the mayo is added last so it would be easy enough to use mayo and the dreaded MW on separate portions. All the rest of the ingredients, save for a sprinkle of parsley, are added to the potatoes while they are warm so they get seasoned thoroughly. The mustard and vinegar also seem to temper the onion. I can't find the recipe online so I'll paraphrase the recipe in case you'd like to add it to your collection or just try the general idea. Boil 1.5 lbs baby yellow potatoes in salted water, drain and let sit a few min until you can handle them. While they're cooking, whisk together 3 T Dijon mustard, 1.5 T apple cider vinegar, 1 t salt and 1/2 t black pepper in a large bowl. Chop a large stalk of celery and finely dice half a small red onion and add to the dressing mix. As soon as you can handle the potatoes, cut them as you like, toss with the dressing and allow it all cool to room temp. Then stir in 3T mayo and a sprinkle of parsley. Season as needed. Serve immediately at room temp or refrigerate. Depending on my mood, I've added additional veg like red or green bell peppers, more celery, green beans. Yesterday's batch got a bunch of sugar snap peas.

I'll take "interesting" as a compliment, thank you! I've been having a lot of fun playing around with this gadget. As mentioned, I'm an ice cream-making novice but the small batch sizes are perfect for playing around. So far, the only downside is my own personal consumption of these treats! I ate the rest of the fresh ginger frozen yogurt yesterday. Here's a photo that better shows the incorporation of the crystalized ginger bits: The lemon ice cream with lemon curd is gone, too. I'm going to try making a honey & thyme frozen yogurt mix today.

I adore the combination of Chartreuse and dark chocolate. The Verte Chaud (hot chocolate + Chartreuse) might be better for the upcoming season but the ice cream was good, too. So's just sipping Chartreuse and nibbling dark chocolate!

Saw a recipe online for a double dark chocolate ice cream. It called for 1 c milk, 2 c whipping cream, 1/2 c dark cocoa and 10 oz dark chocolate, among other ingredients. Sounded to me like a brick so I decided to approximate @paulraphael's very well thought out chocolate ice cream. I had to make a lot of ingredient substitutions so it's probably better to say that I've used his method rather than his recipe. For ~ a pint sized batch, I used: 235g whole milk 35g Cacao Barry Extra Brute cocoa powder (instead of the excellent quality cocoa specified) 52g sugar (replacing the recipe's mix of dextrose & fructose which would have much better freezing point depression) 0.6g salt 3/4t Avacream (replacing a blend of locust bean gum, guar gum and carrageenan) 45g Trader Joe's 72% cacao dark chocolate (replacing the high quality bittersweet chocolate specified) 120g heavy cream 5g vanilla I omitted the soy lecithin in the recipe as I don't have it. Considered trying to add some egg white but decided to just skip it. I followed his method, scraping the mix into 2 Ninja Creami containers (~ 1/2 pint each) and freezing overnight. One container got a tablespoon of Chartreuse mixed in before freezing. The straight chocolate was likely too hard due to my sugar subs and maybe the stabilizers, too. It looked very powdery after the first spin on the ice cream cycle. Even after a re-spin, this is what it looked like: The one with added Chartreuse was perfect. I elected to thaw the straight chocolate mix, stir in a tablespoon of the unsweetened "creme de cacao" that I'd made by infusing cacao nibs in vodka for several weeks (or months? can't remember), then refreeze and respin. It came out perfectly. I think the cacao nib alcohol rounded out the flavor as well as lowering the freezing point. This was just what I wanted. Dark chocolate flavor, kind of like a rich ganache that melts almost instantly in your mouth. The Chartreuse version was also very good, although in a side-by side taste test, I preferred the straight chocolate with a small glass of Chartreuse to sip in between bites! I'll make this again.

The Ninja Creami is already an odd duck in that it appeals to those who've wished for a Pacojet for their well-stocked home laboratories as well as folks quite happy to make desserts from artificially sweetened and flavored non-dairy coffee creamers. You can get your Micellar Casein, Maltodextrin, Carrageenan. Sucralose, and Acesulfame from speciality supply houses or in a bottle of Coffee Mate from the grocery store 🤣 I'm a rank beginner when it comes to ice cream so there's much for me to learn from both grocery store and speciality ingredients. I'm here for all of it!

This is yesterday's breakfast. Crispy fingerling potatoes & crispy fried eggs with capers, olives & bread crumbs from David Kinch's At Home in the Kitchen. It was very good so I'm making it again today.

I agree on the price. $170 would make it more palatable. I have also avoided setting up a composting area because of concerns about attracting animals and insects. We are provided with green bins for yard waste but but food scraps are prohibited. Starting Jan 1 we have a new trash hauler and will be required to put food waste including paper with food on it in with the yard waste for composting. I’m looking forward to seeing how it will work.

Ha, ha, ha! I use Greens all the time. Making the black bean chili this weekend and the white turnip soup soon. The Silver Palate has gone back and forth. It was on the chopping block for quite a while. Went back on the shelf yesterday. The tomes may stay or go.