Chris Hennes

It's interesting to me that the machines are actually provided to the stores for free. The company reserves the right to sell advertising on the screens, apparently. And there is actual a real-live human being checking all the sales via the camera feed, I think.

Has anyone tried any of the shrimp recipes? We don't each much shrimp around here because my wife doesn't like it.

I managed to figure out what some of them were by matching them to new bags I bought at the store, but there were two varieties that just didn't look or taste like anything else. I don't know if they just changed appearance over time in the containers, or what. I gave up and pitched them, it's not like I am short on varieties of dried chiles, anyway!

I've been doing a lot of cooking recently from Rick Bayless's Fiesta at Rick's, and in there he's got a recipe for a soft taco filling that contains canned tuna and pickled jalapeños. I didn't actually have the pickled jalapeños on hand, but the recipe got me thinking at lunch today. I added part of a can of "fire-roasted" chiles to a packet of tuna, along with some Cabot extra sharp cheddar, and made a Tex-Mex-style tuna melt quesadilla: Not too bad, if I may say.

Good suggestion about adding the sugar later, rather than to the Jamaica, I think that control would help a lot when using the stuff. I'll be curious to know how much lemongrass you end up settling on: I find that too much lemongrass can result in something that tastes a bit like furniture polish!

Yesterday my wife decided she wanted a smoothy for lunch. I do not have a high-powered blender, so the result a) was not very smooth and b) nearly destroyed the old blender. The upshot is that she agreed to pitch in for a new blender, so I've got the base BlendTec model on order, as suggested by Fat Guy. Has anyone used theirs for Mexican sauces with dried chiles in them? I'm interested to know how smooth the result will be. What about nut-heavy purees like a mole?

The plan tonight had been to have the chicken mole for dinner, but the mole took longer than anticipated. The backup plan: guacamole. Quick, easy, filling. Bacon-and-Tomato Guacamole (p. 26) I was a little apprehensive about this one at first because it seems like the trend these days is to add bacon to everything. I like bacon and all, but I prefer to exercise a little restraint in its application. This particular use, however, turns out to be a good one. The smokiness of the bacon and the chipotles play very well together, and both go great with the avocado. I had to omit the tomato because the only ones I had on hand were crappy, so I dropped in a little tomatillo instead, which works fine.

No problem. Today is a Mole-making day, which calls for a drink! Sangria al Jamaica (Jamaica Sangria with Cointreau) (p. 62) This one is really quick and easy if you have a stash of Jamaica (which I made yesterday). You start with a fruity young red wine, Cointreau, and Jamaica (in the Clement bottle): My wife calls that a "Rebate Red" because we bought it for the rebate . But it's a useful thing to have around for things like this: The drink is pretty dependent on that wine: with the Red Truck Merlot, which is pretty fruity and soft, this works quite well. You get the sweetness from the Cointreau plus a nice finish from the Jamaica. A decent party punch, and very easy to whip up.

Just a tad! Is this an issue with all the BGE's, Kerry, or just with the mini one?

Don't get me wrong, Anna, those ingredients are all used in SOME Mexican cooking. But far from ALL of it. For example, what I'm making for dinner tonight has not a single one of them. It seems that cumin in particular shows up far more in Tex-Mex than in actual Mexican cuisine. And most of the time when cilantro is called for, if you are one of those who can't stand the stuff, you can just omit it. I posted a recipe for that salsa over in the Bayless topic.

Anna, I wasn't sure if you meant the roasted tomatillo salsa, or the mango guacamole. The ingredients for each are: Mango Guacamole 3 avocados Half a small red onion 1 mango 1 tablespoon lime juice 1 hot pepper (or to taste) Salt to taste Make a normal guacamole but stir in 2/3 of the mango finely diced, and top with the other third, also diced. Roasted Tomatillo Salsa 6 medium tomatillos 1 hot chile, jalapeno or serano 1 small white onion Salt Roast the tomatillos and pepper until blackened, then puree in the blender until it's relatively smooth but still a bit chunky. Chop the onion finely and add it. Season to taste.

I'm incredibly impressed by the number of people in this topic who manage to adhere to a "clean-as-you-go" policy. It is a rare day indeed when I manage to even partially clean as I go. For the most part, dishes get done while I'm making my coffee and procrastinating before work in the morning.

My objection to the laser printer thing is that my laser printer is across the house from the kitchen. So even when I have the laptop on the counter with me, I have to go pick up the labels in the other room. I'm lazy, what can I say? I like the immediacy of having this little label gizmo with me in the kitchen all the time, it encourages me to actually USE it. As to the fading issue: dougal, my hope was that some chemical engineer had up with some technology to "set" the paper and prevent it from being "re-written" by the sun. Alas, this does not seem to be the case, I guess. The fading is not so much a problem in the kitchen, but it's definitely something to keep in mind if you hope to label things outdoors!

Anna, in that list of ingredients, by and large most of them appear predominantly in "Tex-Mex" type cuisine, at least much more so that "authentic" Mexican home cooking. Beans and rice are an exception, of course, but are also easily avoidable. If you want to get a real, instant "taste of Mexico" without any of those ingredients, find yourself some tomatillos, jalapeño peppers, and a white onion. Roast the tomatillos and peppers under a broiler until starting to blacken, then pop them in the food processor and puree to a sort of chunk consistency (first skin and seed the peppers to adjust the heat to your taste). Add finely diced white onion and salt to taste, and use as a chip dip. I think tomatillos are probably the single ingredient that most screams "Mexico!" to me.

Anna, your distaste for avocado might actually be avoided in this next guacamole, depending on how strong your aversion is. My wife and I commented about how "party-friendly" this one is: Mango Guacamole (p. 28) This is basically a straight guacamole with a LOT of mango added to it, which is actually a very nice taste combination. As usual I found it a little sweet, but I think this could easily be a favorite at parties, where it's a bit less "aggressive" than some other guacamoles. In particular, the mango softens both the heat from the pepper and the bite from the red onions to the point where I think even kids would like this recipe.

Mexican Cosmo (p. 61) Hopefully Bayless chose this name based on appearance and not flavor, because this is really a Jamaica Margarita, in my mind. The first taste is clearly of the tequila (I used 1800 blanco), then you get the fruity-floral taste from the Jamaica briefly, and then back to that funkiness of the tequila. Not a bad drink, if a touch sweet for my tastes (I omitted the extra sugar Bayless calls for in the recipe since my Jamaica was over-sweet already). I personally prefer my Margaritas with a bit less Cointreau, but plenty of my guests disagree and prefer the sweeter version.

No doubt at all, that would be excellent. Tonight I'm starting to dig into Bayless's beverage section while I prepare some chicken stock for tomorrow's mole. To whit: Agua de Jamaica (Crimson Jamaica Flower Cooler) (p. 60) I messed this up a bit and added too much sugar: I read the 1 1/4 and put in 1 1/2 cups instead, so mine is not as tart as I would like. Still, the flavor is nice (quite a bit fruitier than I would have expected), and the real application is going to be in cocktails, so the additional sugar shouldn't pose too much of a problem.

This topic has been in hibernation for quite some time, but over on the Recipe Instructions You Routinely Ignore topic it turns out that a lot of people substitute one for the other. Has anyone actually ruined anything by doing so?

I have one of those little label printers that you can pick up at the office stores for like $10 now: I really like it. There is something appealing to me about nice neat stacks of tupperware with little printed labels on them: Plus, I tend to have lots of bottles of weird stuff in the fridge: The one issue I have had is that the labels I use are not waterproof. So when I need something more resilient, I have to cover them with packing tape. They also fade pretty badly in the sun, as I discovered when i used them to label my tomato plants at the beginning of the summer. Now I have no idea which plant is which! Does anyone else use one of these, or is everyone else just using a sharpie and some masking tape? Which printer do you use? Got any tips or tricks?

Considering that jmolinari's talking about a two minute pie cooked at 750°F, for $150 in construction materials, I'd say that if your sole goal is pizza, this setup is probably better than a BGE. Certainly a better price/performance!

...fail to label my containers of dried chiles. What are all these, anyway?

lol, no, I guess I'm really thinking of sours here.

Oh, cocktails. I always ignore the amount of whatever the sweet ingredient is (cointreau, simple syrup, etc.), and generally start by cutting it in half.

Recipes that give a specific quantity of salt are ignored if it's possible to season to taste instead. Exceptions for things like dry rubs, etc.

Cheater! Try telling that to someone who hates celery...