haresfur

2nd the Brave Bull. Aside from that put some peppermint schnapps in your hot chocolate.

I've used induction cooktops, and haven't found them to be any better or worse overall than a standard glass cooktop/burner. I know they're popular with people who have small children, but aside from the cool surface thing, they seem to offer nothing worth paying extra for. I very much disagree with that assessment. I had a hybrid with 2 burners of each type and almost never used the radiant ones. Advantages in my experience are: more rapid heating, more rapid cooling, very good temperature control - especially at the low temperature range (depends on model), much more energy efficient, and of course the cool surface so food doesn't burn on and you can pick up spilled bits and eat them.

An aunt taught me to toast brown rice and onion in butter then add water to cook. I use olive oil.

The short pour is even worse in combination with one of those glasses, percentage-wise. Take a "standard" beer glass and pour 12 oz into it. The level will be 1/2 inch from the top. So with one of the thick bottomed 14 oz glasses, you will be getting only 10 oz. I grew up with actual liquid volume lines on beer glasses and that's government regulation I can get behind.

Irradiated food is another. The resistance to irradiated food is a more disturbing trend IMO. But perhaps we need a separate thread - I didn't think there was a trend to irradiated food.

Ah, I see, like Coca-Cola

CO2 + H2O makes carbonic acid H2CO3. In actuality most of it remains as dissolved CO2 and the final pH will depend on what else is in there to buffer the pH. Might be interesting to try to measure the pH as soon as you open it at different amounts of CO2 added. ... Love my Ohaus triple-beam balance but I think I can only reach about 1.5 kg at that resolution.

I think you are cooling the lid and head-space in the pressure cooker quickly enough to release the pressure but the liquid inside is still hotter than 100 C so it starts to boil rapidly. I have had food boil for at least 30 seconds when opening the PC after a quick release. I agree that a natural release is best for stock. You can factor the time sitting under pressure while cooling into the cooking time so it doesn't take much longer and saves energy.

One thing you might try is insulating (in the electrical sense) the aluminium from the steel. You may be getting galvanic interactions causing the aluminium to corrode. Perhaps some silicon sheet between the two would help. Disclaimer: Only a theory, I haven't looked up the potentials involved and I don't know the unit to understand if this would be possible.

yep.

Anyone have any idea of what might have happened with my garlic confit? Followed the recipe, weighed everything, cooked 2hrs and did a natural release. There was a slight layer of very dark material at the bottom of the jar that mixed in with the oil (not water). The garlic looked like the picture up-thread but tasted horrible - kind of like most of the nice garlic flavour was gone leaving the hard nasty taste you get from raw garlic. The garlic was a little bit old but functional for other dishes.

I wonder about the pressure cooker quinoa, too. I'm not sure it could come out better than in my rice cooker on the white rice setting. Anyone tried both?

"not especially interesting" sums it up perfectly. But it was within budget (as opposed to Sierra Nevada $75 a slab!) and it was new. It was interesting that a number of smaller brewery or seasonal US beers were in stock. I think you could buy beer retail in California, ship a container to Australia, pay the duties, and still make a profit. I'm wondering if we are seeing the things that aren't selling in N. America.

I bought Coronado Orange Avenue Wit for my Friday after work beer club. It wasn't horrible, but the best thing anyone had to say about it was that the label matched my shirt.

... or you could try a nourishing flip

My strategies are highly varied depending on hunger levels, time, and stress level. Range from fish & chips from the shop to prepackaged horrors. Actually we get some prepack Indian dal etc. that is decent and jars of butter chicken sauce. But sometimes the best way for me to de-stress is to take the time to cook. It might not be cutting edge gastronomy, but some sous vide chicken breast in the fridge is really versatile for whipping up something from a salad to pasta. You might want to look at Jamie's 15 minute meals for ideas.

I just received my copy of MoCuAHo from Powell's Books in Portland OR, which is one of my favourite book stores in the world. Price $98, shipping to Australia $13, very reasonable IMO (free US shipping, I believe). It did take over 2 weeks to arrive and there was no tracking but it was packed well and didn't suffer on the journey. Just letting you know about the option.

I added the simple after tasting. For some reason my dram seems to taste bitter to me. The pd was made with, I think 1/2 IC green (it was a while ago) but yeah, some more funk might stand up to the Duck and Bull better. For others out there. Duck and Bull is a pretty assertive cider IMO with a fair whack of traditional English cider apple varieties, mellowed with some pink lady. I have a confession to make, I don't actually have any Angostrura bitters but have Jerry Thomas decanter, Fee's barrel aged, and Fee's cocktail. I thought the pie-spice was a little too obvious with the apple but I think you are right that it could be the way to go. Further research awaits.

Not bad but not quite right, still, I think this has potential 1.5 oz rum (Havana Club anejo) 1 Tbs pimento dram 1 tsp. simple syrup 4 oz sparkling hard cider (Henry's of Harricourt Duck and Bull) small squeeze of lemon juice to see if that would head it in the right direction. Maybe work better with a different dram than my homemade but I think it needs something to tie it together. ... actually it's growing on me. Suggestions are welcome.

Pineapple upside-down cake.

From the label and their website that might not be fermented ginger beer but ginger beer plus vodka. There are a number of kinds of alcoholic ginger beer available here, which isn't too surprising given the Aussie love of ginger beer and alco-pops. I can't say I've tried them - I reckon if I want alcohol & ginger beer I'd prefer to add rum. But let us know how it is.

If the can is heated in boiling water the temperature inside will equilibrate to 100 C - not the same as a pressure cooker.

I mentioned elsewhere that I like a French 75 with sparkling [hard] cider. I think it would work particularly well with a Normandy-style cider.

Haven't tried this but I thought about it. I believe I saw a site suggesting you could use citric acid for cheese sauce, or maybe even lemon juice. In any case I have used citric acid and only noticed a tiny bit of acidity. Nothing wrong with neutralising your own, though. Did you figure out the stoichiometry or just add the soda until it stopped fizzing? Not sure I would have bothered evaporating the water.

My bay tree is just now starting to recover from over-optimistic leaf harvesting when it was little, I hope. It's a 2 m tall stick with a few leaves. I think some insects didn't help, either. They are rather slow growing trees.