ElsieD

Personally, I don't care for ratings unless they are accompanied by a comment. I have seen recipes rated on other sites where, say, a 2 out of 5 is given but without a comment it is meaningless. I would much rather not have a rating system at all but I would like to see comments.

Wherever did you find such nice tomatoes?

Shelby, what did you coat the chicken in?

Well, Mick, I have often wondered how to braid this. Not as easy as it looks.

We grew these one year with some success as in we harvested a few, not a lot. My SIL who lives in these parts also grew some with more success as she is on a small farm and could plant them in full sun. They are delicious.

Deryn, when next in Ottawa, I can take you to a little restaurant on Somerset Street called Dumpling Bowl where they make their own dumplings. I have been there when they were making them. One person rolls out the dough, the other person stuffs and folds them. They have a variety of fillings and they can be purchased for take out in both their fresh and frozen forms. They cost about $10 for a bag containing 15 dumplings. They are very good.

For the past few years I have been making and giving homemade food gifts to members of my family as small Christmas gifts. Example include last year's hot chocolate mix with homemade marshmallows, other years have included filled chocolates and also truffles. This year, I am thinking of chocolate cups filed with a ganache and topped with some sort of caramel topping. Ever open to new ideas, I am wondering what other people will be making?

After handling the hot peppers I always rub some sort of cooking oil on my hands and then wash them well with soap. The oils from the peppers blend with the cooking oil so my hands are then free of the hot oils. Having learned the hard way, I ALWAYS do this now.

Jaymes, thank you. I have to admit that I was just going to mix the two together. I like the idea of adding the hot sauce to the non-hot sauce until the heat level is where my husband wants it. He is the hot sauce lover. I am good up until a serrano and finely minced scotch bonnets on chicken wings but that's it for my heat tolerance. My husband, on the other hand, has been known to munch on whole Thai chilis when eating at Thai restaurants.

I' d like to thank everyone for their suggestions. I haven't done anything as of yet, but I have decided that as a first step I will do what several people have suggested and that is make a second batch without the peppers and mix it with the batch that contains the peppers. If that does the trick, great. If not, I will do some small batch trials using some of the other suggestions. I'll report back. As an aside to Chris Taylor, I cannot find find Scotch Bonnets where I live in sufficient quantity to make the sauce. Therefore, in the fall I go to a big market in Montreal, about 2 hours away and get them there. The peppers were late this year and I could not get enough Scotch Bonnets so decided to make one batch using habaneros. I find the SB have more flavor.

Whereabouts are you?

Thanks, Rotuts. These inserts that came with my pressure cooker should fit the IP nicely, then.

I recently made two batches of hot sauce, one using scotch bonnet peppers and another using habaneros. Other than the peppers, I used the same recipe, and the ingredients were: 600 gm. Tomatoes 200 gm. Habaneros including seeds and skin 400 ml white vinegar 4 Tablespoons (Australian) white sugar 2 teaspoons sea salt This was made in the Thermomix. The mixture was cooked up, blended and strained. The problem is, while the scotch bonnet sauce was perfect, the habanero is way too hot. According to the Scoville scale, they are supposed to be equally hot. Any suggestions on how I can tame the heat? I have about a litre of the stuff and don't want to throw it out but it is not really edible in it's present state. I tried adding some maple syrup to a test batch but that wasn't of much help. I did some googling and the only possible useful suggestion was adding carrot puree which appears to make some sense. Any suggestions?

What is the inner dimension of the cooking pot? The stated dimension is 8.66" but is that the inner measurement or the outer? I'm wondering if my pressure cooker baskets will fit.

I make foccacia rolls all the time. I just plop the dough into hamburger tins and bake them in the tins. I don't see why you couldn't do the same using, say, a muffin tin to get them more to the size you want.

Thank you, Shelby. I just bought some more tortillas today. We have a small chain of stores that sell tortillas under their name and they are thinner than the more common bakery ones. I look forward to trying this.

Shelby, do you soak the tortillas or just dip them?

I read this yesterday morning. I have the book, had some apples, and the cake was made by noon. There are just the two of us and this morning we shared the last sliver. It is fantastic, and thank you for posting this. Edited to add: I suggest lining the bottom of the pan with a circle of parchment as mine had a tendency to stick.

Safe trip back.

And according to Breville, there are no plans to introduce a steam oven.

Seeing as how it is your birthday today, I would have gone for the rum! Happy birthday, albeit late in the day.

I was in a little Latin American market yesterday and bought a spice mix called Relajo Molido. The contents consists of sesame seeds, oregano, bay leaves, garlic, Pumpkin seeds, plum, chili's, Annato, ground cloves, cumin and black pepper. It is a product of El Salvador. I was told that it is used to make a chicken stew in which you cook chicken, potatoes, carrots and this spice. When I got home I did some googling and found recipes for the above which sounded like the dish the gentleman at the store was telling me about. However, there are a myriad of recipes and since I am not familiar with this cuisine I have no idea what is authentic what isn't. Various recipes call for items such as pineapple, capers, cilantro, and olives among other things. The items that seem to be standard are, of course, the chicken, potatoes,carrots, garlic, tomatoes, chicken broth and this spice, although as far as the spices go, they list the individual ones that more or less make up the mixture that I have. Can anyone point me to a recipe that I should follow? Thanks in advance.

I was at a wedding on the weekend that took place at my SIL's place, which is situated on a large property with buildings dating back to somewhere around the mid 1800's. On this property there are some very old apple trees along with an old pear tree. They do not use the apples but leave them for the deer and their dogs to eat. They have no idea what type of apple it is. I brought some home with the intention of making and freezing applesauce plus a couple of other things. My question is, what kind of apples are these? The trees were there when they bought the property some years back and their appearance (the tree, not the relatives) could best be described as scraggly and not very tall, but they do have a lot of apples on them. Most years the apples are small but this year they are a good size. The flesh as you can see is almost white, with a pink line around the core. The skin is tough and not all that easy to bite through. The apple itself is delicious, a sort of sweet/tart taste that is hard to describe. To me, it looks mostly like a Cortland yet different enough that it could be something else. Anyone have any ideas?

Darienne, let us know if you buy them and what you think of them. One thing for sure - clean up is a breeze when you use them.

Aaack! I just got around to ordering my copy yesterday. They "say" delivery is expected mid November.