blue_dolphin

Well, there aren't any decent deals on the CSO at the moment so it you can continue to mull that over for a while. That said, the CSO replaced my toaster on the countertop, with a little shifting here and there to make sure the steam vents wouldn't be under the cupboards while that function is used. Stuff-on-toast is one of my major food groups and I can't imagine the CSO controls posing any sort of barrier to an 11 year old in search of toast. A 90+ year old technophobe might need a bit of coaching to get comfortable with it but the average 11 year old will have it down pat in no time!

Is there much craft brewery activitiy in your area, @quiet1? They often provide small tasters or the option of ordering flights so you can taste multiple offerings. In many areas, there's good, friendly cooperation within that small brewery. community with a larger brew pub that serves food showcasing the beers of a smaller neighboring brewery from time to time.

Good point. I should give some thought about how I want this to work. I was envisioning searching for an ingredient (or maybe two....like dang, wasn't there something that used blueberries and cucumbers????) that looked especially enticing at the market and specifying that the results show only those recipes with my "To Try" bookmark. I was hoping that this might also help me identify recipes that I've wanted to try but was missing buttermilk or mint or something.

Nice! I was pleased with how they well they handled being frozen and thawed. I should make another one or two to keep on hand. Edited to add that today's NYT on-line food section has an article on cheese balls that mentions this recipe and includes one that is rather similar.

Trader Joe's also has a Ugly Christmas Sweater cookie kit. Ten already baked cookies (2 each of 5 shapes) for $5.99, plus 3 colors of icing. Not exactly a deal, but could be a quick fun activity for kids.

Yep, looks like this one: Kuhn Rikon Corn Zipper

Thanks, @Okanagancook, for resurrecting this thread. It's given me some good food for thought. I'd always followed a regular routine of planning around the farmers market or my CSA box, doing most cooking on weekends, focused on dishes that I'd freeze in individual servings for at-work lunches, and occasional mid-week pasta or soup/bread/salad dinners. I kept a mental nutrition checklist of foods that I wanted to include on a regular basis (beans, tofu, cruciferous veg, dark green leafies, fresh fruit, etc) that provided some guidance. I haven't been working for a while so I have more flexibility to try new things but I need a better way to keep track of recipes or ideas that I want to try. I have tried this at the farmers market and had trouble reading my tiny phone screen in the brilliant mid-afternoon sunshine but I need to give it another shot. I'm going to try using the bookmark feature in Eat Your Books to keep track of recipes that I want to try. I like that I can enter my own recipes or add recipes from un-indexed sources. I recently borrowed 2 cookbooks from my library. In order to get the most from my 2 weeks with them, I've been going through them carefully, taking notes, marking recipes or ideas that I'd like to explore. I usually do that to some extent with a new cookbook, but knowing it's going to be handy on my shelf, I don't take such careful notes. I need to set myself a goal to do this with some of the books I own from time to time. I'm hoping that by marking things in EYB as I think of them, with occasional deep-dives into selected cookbooks, I can build a "To-Try" list in EYB that should help me actually use more new ideas and recipes. Time will tell if I can make it work.

I am no expert, but someone posted in the comments about reducing fruit juice and using that in place of the water. It would be your call whether the reduced juice is sweet enough to sub for the sugar and glucose. Knox powdered gelatin is 225. A couple of commenters reported using it successfully. I think this article has enough info to calculate the amount to substitute for the platinum, 250 bloom sheets.

The recipe over on ChefSteps says that sorbitol is key to the texture.

I don't know, but I have one! It's been hanging on the wall in an artistic arrangement of baskets. Sounds like I may need to move it to the kitchen!

I saw that the other day and was wondering about it. Yes to your sandwich idea! I'd say smear a thin layer on some nice crusty bread (maybe toasted lightly first), top with some parmesan or romano cheese and give it a run under the broiler for a nice onion toastie! I bet a smear would be good on sandwiches, like a grilled cheese or roast pork or beef....

I spied this new-to-me Baked Lemon Ricotta Cheese on a recent TJ's visit. A while back, I made some homemade baked lemon ricotta cheese and was curious to compare the results so I picked some up. My homemade stuff was just flavored with lemon zest so it was fairly savory and paired well with crusty bread and salty olives. This stuff on the other hand, is really quite sweet, almost like a cheesecake. In fact, I also made a lemon ricotta cheesecake but this is even sweeter. I can see it on breakfast waffles with fresh fruit or maybe on some extra spicy gingerbread. The blurb about it in the TJ's flyer suggests stirring it into pasta to make a creamy lemon sauce. I really can't imagine pasta with cheesecake sauce . I'm debating between trying it because it sounds so weird or taking it back now while there's only a little sliver missing.

I haven't met a duck confit sandwich I didn't like....duck confit grilled cheese with brie, gruyere and caramelized onions...mmmmm. Or duck confit quesadillas with the same ingredients plus maybe some arugula or spinach. Duck confit banh mi.

Since you mentioned the price, I will add that the prices quoted for the bottles I'm most familiar with struck be as being on the high side. I'm curious what others think. I compared them with my local Total Wine store and to Hi-Time, where I place the occasional order. Below is the top 10 listing from that NYT article. The first price is the one quoted in the article, followed by the prices at my local Total Wine (TW) and on Hi-Time's (HT) website as of today. Some of the Hi-Times prices were marked as "sale" prices. ★★★ KNOB CREEK STRAIGHT RYE WHISKEY 100 PROOF, $38 TW = $30.49 HT = $26.99 ★★★ JIM BEAM PRE-PROHIBITION STYLE RYE 90 PROOF, $30 TW = $16.99 HT = $15.99 ★★★ WOODFORD RESERVE DISTILLER’S SELECT RYE 90.4 PROOF, $45 TW = $35.49 HT = $26.99 ★★★ NEW YORK DISTILLING COMPANY RAGTIME RYE 90.4 PROOF, $45 TW = N/A HT = N/A ★★½ MICHTER’S U.S. 1 STRAIGHT RYE 84.8 PROOF, $44 TW = $39.99 HT = $36.99 ★★½ BULLEIT 95 RYE FRONTIER WHISKEY 90 PROOF, $44 TW = $19.49 HT = $21.99 ★★½ FEW RYE WHISKEY 93 PROOF, $60 TW = N/A HT = $59.99 ★★½ (RI)1 STRAIGHT RYE WHISKEY 92 PROOF, $32 TW = $49.99 HT = $47.99 ★★ CATOCTIN CREEK ROUNDSTONE RYE SINGLE BARREL 80 PROOF, $45 TW - N/A HT = $45.99 ★★ RITTENHOUSE STRAIGHT RYE 100 PROOF, $25 TW = $24.99 HT = $21.99 The (rī)1 was the outlier, being significantly more expensive at my local outlets. Edited to add that the star ratings are from the NYT article

I didn't even think to look it up - I thought it was @sartoric's own made-up word, and a very good one!

I watched The Mind of a Chef Potluck Music Special last night and enjoyed it. I can't determine if this will be aired as part of the series or not but it's available on Youtube. The footage of Iñaki Aizpitarte (WSJ link: Iñaki Aizpitarte: The Chef Behind Le Chateaubriand) skateboarding through the streets with his young son made me smile.

Excellent! I'd very much like to invite you to the Hollywood Bowl next season - we can discuss your musical preferences so as to choose the best fit!

It was @FrogPrincesse. I followed the link that she posted to the course info and they do offer gift certificates, so that may work well for you. Edited to add - and she beat me to it!

I just finished watching. I thought that dividing them up for that first quickfire challenge was a good move as one only needed to focus on 8 at a time, which is about my limit in terms of keeping people straight. I was really worrying about Jim - he got a good bit of early camera time, which foreshadows elimination almost more often than it does a win! I was also rooting for his chicken liver dish as I just recently made a fried chicken liver with balsamic marinated fig dish from Deep Run Roots and I loved the idea of his combination of flavors as well. I'm glad he went ahead with that dish vs the others he planned and that he didn't get eliminated so we can watch at least a little more Jim. I totally agree. A pressure cooker would make nice stone ground grits fairly quickly but even that wouldn't allow enough time to do anything very creative with them.

It would be even more magical if it were to happen at my house ! A number of years ago (more than 10), I made a New Year's resolution to bake all my bread and not purchase any. I kept the resolution and baked a couple of loaves, on average, every week. It was usually edible, rarely what I had in mind, but I stuck with my resolution. On the following New Year's eve, I breathed a sigh of relief and went back to buying bread. Aaah! Perhaps less rewarding but ever so nice to get ciabatta when I want ciabatta and whole wheat sandwich bread and sourdough....etc. I follow this thread and am envious of the loaves I see here. I occasionally buy a packet of yeast but then discard it after a few years. I haven't baked a loaf of bread since so pulling a homemade loaf from my oven would be magical indeed!

Not sure what I love more - Chum having her own observation chair , the guys documenting her use of it with photos or you for sharing it with us !

For the polenta balls, I used 425F for both steam bake and convection. For the risotto balls, I used 375F, and just convection. I may try using steam bake with the frozen ones as it seems to speed things up.

I also have relatively little experience in selecting or cooking meat and most often cook meatless meals but I am branching out. I'd be interested to hear which meat cookbooks you have short-listed. I think a broad "meat" cookbook could be as overwhelming as the general reference type books and for starters, I might recommend choosing a technique-centric approach (grilling, sous vide, roasts, braising or stews) that could be applied to a range of animal proteins. As far as videos, the ChefSteps recipes and classes are very good. There's a premium fee for full access but there is a lot of free content as well. A general cookbook to consider, that includes a good bit of how and why info is Kenji Lopez-Alt's Food Lab. It's not strictly meat but it doesn't have the Joy of Cooking problem of many, many recipes for almost the same thing, he generally hones in on one or two methods that he deems "best."

I wasn't sure where to put this but it's savory and baked so I'm going with this thread for these baked risotto balls and polenta balls. I wanted to try making some little appetizer items that I could make ahead, freeze and reheat as needed over the holidays rather than resorting to similar overpriced items from Trader Joe's so I played around with risotto and polenta appetizer balls. The risotto was leftover lemon, artichoke and shrimp risotto and I cooked up a fresh batch of polenta for the purpose. First, the risotto balls. I scooped out balls of leftover risotto, dipped them in flour, then egg, then panko. I sprayed them with a bit of olive oil and baked them. This risotto was pretty flavorful so I just went with plain balls rather than trying to make cheese-stuffed, molten-center arancini. I thought they were very good - crispy exterior and creamy risotto inside. I'm not a huge fan of leftover risotto as I think the texture suffers from reheating but these are a fine reason to have leftover risotto. Next are the polenta balls. The polenta had a little grated parmesan mixed in at the end but no other flavorings. I made plain (on the top row), stuffed with sharp cheddar (black pepper) or blue cheese (black sesame seeds) and with a bit olive tapenade stirred in (bottom row). They all got a spray of olive oil before going into the oven. The cheddar cheese pretty much melted away but you can still see the blue cheese inside: Flavor-wise, cheddar went better with crispy browned exterior than the blue cheese did. These were cooked on convection for 20 min, turned and baked 15 min more. Here are the olive tapenade and plain balls. Here, I cooked them on steam bake for the first 20 min, flipped them over and used convection for 15 min. Still a nice crisp exterior but the interior is much moister and creamier. The tapenade version is my favorite, I wouldn't bother with stuffing them with the little cheese cubes. The stuffing process compacts the polenta and smooths the surface while the unstuffed ones have a shaggy outer crust and looser interior. I par-baked and froze some of each of these as I'd like something I can heat up quickly. I'll continue with my research when cocktail hour comes around

I hope you enjoy it. I thought it was a good piece. It's longer than the average book flogging circuit interview and touched on some topics I hadn't heard her talk about before. The interviewer had clearly read the book and was familiar with "A Chef's Life" and Vivian's background.