blue_dolphin

I am not a winner of things either but I won one of the EYB cookbook give aways last week so there is hope for us!

There is a give away for this book, Sous Vide at Home, over on Eat Your Books. Also an author interview. To enter the give away, you need to be an Eat Your Books member but it's easy to signup for a free membership.

One more comment on the homework problems. I appreciate the challenge of using common recipes to illustrate these principles but the problems seem so contrived. In what scientific realm would I ever measure out 1/3 teaspoon, convert that to milliliters and then use the density to convert to grams in order to calculate the final amount or concentration of a frigging powder (baking soda or baking powder)? Even including this sort of calculation in the materials rather implies that it's an appropriate means to an accurate value vs simply weighing the dang stuff. That is all.

@rotuts, you could up your point total and bring yourself into compliance with guidelines by adding some extra Pepperoni to that Pizza of yours !

With respect to the problems being child's play - well, I suppose. It was more like uncomfortable flashbacks to adolescence for me . I remember doing those same sorts of problems in junior high but it's been a while. I missed my trusty HP-15 calculator with RPN which made working with exponents absolutely brainless. I got up more than once to look for it even though I'm sure the batteries are long dead even if I find it. Instead, I had to use my iPhone calculator and my brain! I agree with you on the ratio of interesting, kitchen-relevant material to the dry boring stuff but I hope that either the reality or my perception of it will improve as we go on and my brain gets more comfortable with retrieving information last used in the '70s and '80s. After going through the first week, I don't think a listing of the video length would help me gauge progress. I found the length of time I spend on the text pages, practice questions and homework questions to be highly variable. Some I skimmed quickly and others took me a while. Then there were the aforementioned and fruitless calculator searches, setting my iPad up next to me to use my cool Elements interactive periodic table and becoming mesmerized by the pretty rotating objects and interesting information and my own inability to properly read the questions - sheesh! Over in the other thread, @Alex asked: My take after 1 lesson: The textbook contains the same information presented in the videos and course text. The advantages, to me, are that it's a bit more coherent to go through without being broken up with practice problems, etc. and it's much easier to go back and review an equation or piece of information in the ebook than to rewind or fast forward a video looking for something. Cons are that it's 10 bucks and doesn't really add anything that you can't get from the online materials. If the online stuff is doing the job for you, adding the ebook could feel redundant. I think that if I read the ebook chapter before watching the videos, I would find the videos boringly repetitive but I haven't tried it that way yet.

You don't even need to use French for that - it's all poultry, n'est pas?

Beets are still good if you go with B for bird

It's not the cracked pepper that would give me pause about diving into that bag!

I dunno. I've been using Cascade Complete powdered detergent and it seems to do OK, although I absolutely have to use Jet Dry or one of the other rinse agents. I have one of those 2-drawer dishwashers so the pods don't work for me.

After confessing that I often add some slivered red bell pepper to a dish of broccoli, cauliflower, sugar snap peas, etc. to "dress it up" a bit, I will step away from the peppers for a moment. There are a few (not many) frozen veg that I keep on hand: spinach, artichoke hearts, corn, pearl onions. What I've noticed when shopping for them is the grocery store freezer space for plain ole frozen veg has drastically decreased while the significantly more expensive frozen veg side dishes (veg coated with salt-, fat-, and often sugar-laden sauces) have proliferated grandly.

I'm pretty sure I saw some French Morbier at Whole Foods a couple of weeks ago. I was actually looking for some Mobay, the Morbier-inspired goat and sheep cheese from Wisconsin, but didn't find it !

Hey! Look at all the space I just cleared out... Before & After: From my pantry, I chose to warm up some Fleur de Sel caramel sauce to go with the French Vanilla Ice Cream

Beautiful meal, @sartoric! I am ever so impressed with my Indian friends' ability to neatly dine without utensils as compared with my own tendency to get everything all over my fingers. Thankfully, my friends avert their eyes but I would be appalled to be observed by 4 waiters

I may cringe on a mid-week morning when the doorbell rings at 9:30 and I'm still padding around in slippers, etc. but when it comes to PJs on Sunday AM, there's no judging! It's been raining since midnight and forecast to change to very heavy rain from 9 AM to 5 PM so my first thought in getting dressed was to choose a nice fresh set of PJs. Oh, and breakfast? Another slice of the spinach and artichoke quiche from yesterday.

Spinach, artichoke and onion quiche, lightly toasted ciabatta The cheese was the same mix of Swiss and a Spanish Buenalba with paprika that I used upthread on some toasties.

Feeling very sad that I'm not Moe but making due on a rainy morning here. Smoked tuna on toasted ciabatta and a mug of tomato soup: Best to start off with a sturdy breakfast since the day's events are sure to call for wine and whining !

There are some good savory apple ideas over in the Apple Cook-off thread, including chutney and a recipe from @David Ross for litchi plum applesauce with pork

Just a reminder, if you're a member of Eat Your Books, do check their regular cookbook giveaways. I recently won a copy of Carolyn Phillips' book All Under Heaven. I got a notification email on Saturday and received the book today - nice!

The sheet of equations gave me flashbacks to those awful 8 AM PChem lectures - 2 semesters worth !

I must say I like the name: Crowd Cow

Over the holidays, I made the homemade Irish cream recipe from Smitten Kitchen and found it quite nice. I would think you could do something similar, substituting coffee and chocolate, maybe some caramel for the whiskey. Not sure that helps you as sweetened condensed milk is key for the texture and may not be easy for you to find.

I agree with you. I cooked up the veg the other day for the spinach artichoke grilled cheese from Serious Eats but found the toastie variation quicker and more appealing. It also got me thinking in your direction of using something like my warm mushroom-artichoke dip on a toastie - decadent indeed!

Spinach-artichoke toasties: Cheese was a mix of Swiss and this Buenalba cheese with paprika from TJ's which has been sitting in my cheese drawer for a while, its orange color putting me off for some reason.

Love that plate, @robirdstx! It makes even a leftover burrito appropriate for the upcoming Chinese Year of the Rooster !

In case anyone's been on the fence about this course, now would be a good time to sign up as it starts this week. You can also join later but will have to play catch up.