ElsieD

Le Cordon Bleu here has special menu events from time to time which they hold in their Signatures Restaurant. Tickets are pre-sold for these events; today's was sold out, the capacity seemed to be about 40. This event was called Boulangerie Delight and so it was. Below is the menu and pictures of the courses. The servers, cooks etc. were students in their final year with the head chef supervising. There must have been 14 of them roaming the tables, but they were never obtrusive. The food was mostly good, though the carb cakes could have been hotter. The coffee was cold, but cheerfully replaced. As you can see, the last picture is of the desserts, 5 each. As we were leaving, take-away boxes in hand, one of the students came over to tell us that there was an extra box waiting for us. That turned out to be a duplicate times two of the third course, so we came home with 18 assorted pastries! John shared a brief memory with the head chef about his time at Cordon Bleu when he took Cuisine Basics. They both lamented about banging their heads against the overheads above the work stations. Not meant for tall people. John is just over 6'3" and I'm guessing the head chef is the same. A nice change of pace for us.

I haven't used it yet but my plan is to use it in peach frozen yogurt and ice cream along with peaches to bump up the peach flavour. I'm trying the same thing with strawberries. Maybe smoothies or protein drinks?

In the end, I pureed a bunch of peaches and once dehydrated, I'll use my blender to turn that into peach powder. I decided to slice a bunch using a knife, and roasted the slices in the APO. That took care of 6 quarts. I'll do the same thing with the rest of them. Thanks, everyone, for your suggestions and comments. By the way, the roasted peaches are for a roasted peach frozen yogurt I found on the Brod and Taylor website. It's excellent.

Can I use the slicing blade to slice peaches? I'd like to make 1/4" slices and then dehydrate them to make peach powder. I have 18 quarts to do and am looking to not slice them with a knife as that would take me just short of forever.

Thank you for chiming in. As you can see, they have become considerably riper since when I posted that picture. For comparison purposes,the two pictures below show them when I brought them home and today. I just tested them and there is no give to them yet nor will they peel so it looks like they need more time. Since I want to use them for baking, should I wait to do anything with them until they are almost/completely black?

What a nice sister!

Thank you. From what you said, i should wait to use them until they turn yellow? The picture shows them as being more yellow than they are.

There are more than 1,000 species of Thai bananas?

Staff note: This post and responses to it have been split from the Banana Bread: Tips & Techniques discussion, to maintain topic focus. I bought these today. They were labeled in the store as Thai bananas, but there are no other markings on them to tell me more about them. I bought them thinking they might be good for banana muffins. Does anyone have any words of wisdom for me, particularly, are they ripe now or do I wait to use them until they turn yellow? All help appreciated.

Did up a pile of corn for the freezer today following @Shelby's directions.

Winnipeg and Sudbury are the closest according to Mr. Google. They are both 7 + hours away from Thunder Bay. Too bad new de minimis rules are now in effect or some Canadian might have been willing to buy one and send it to you.

I'll do that. I can tell you that there was lots of room including between the top of the chicken and the roof of the oven. No parts were in danger of being singed.

I used turbo roast for the first time the other day to roast a chicken. The recommended time in the user manual was 40 minutes. I had a bigger chicken so roasted for 45. It was slightly overdone, next time I would check it after 35 minutes. Sure does do the job quickly and well. I love the thing.

Can you tell us the name of the one on Amazon? Your link won't take me to the American site and when it asks if I want to go to the Canadian site, and I say yes, the item doesn't show. That happens a lot.

Can you elaborate on the canned Rotel tomatoes? I'll soon be getting a plethora of plum tomatoes.

Can you elaborate on this please? Are you saying the desk top version will operate on everything but the other won't? Are there two versions?

Nice!

Does anyone know of a good recipe app, as in a place to store one's recipes? I am currently using Evernote but find it expensive and would prefer to purchase an app. Evernote won't let me print a recipe which I find annoying. I am about to test recipekeeper as they allow you to try it out with 6 recipes. One thing about recipekeeper is that their client support is excellent. I sent them 2 different emails and got replies quickly. What, if anything do you use? I my case, I need something that will work on Samsung, I.e. Android.

I would freeze it.

My current favourite is roasted strawberry.

I don't do a lot of preserving but we actually got good peaches in my neck of the woods. So 10 quarts skinned, peeled, pitted and in the freezer. 13 quarts of strawberries were hulled and roasted for roasted ice cream. The strawberries were only done up because they were excellent this year. Those two items were bagged in the appropriate portions and frozen. We also have delicata and sweet dumpling squash to deal with when they mature. In addition, we share a small garden with my SIL who lives in the boonies so I gathered up some plum tomatoes, skinned, cored, ran them through a blender and cooked down to a sauce. The sauce was then run through a food mill and run through the blender to smooth it out. There are what seems like a ton of tomatoes yet to come.

I guess that is not what you want, but it is advertised and sold as an Asian Utility knife. Are you looking for an Asian brand?

I have this one, the 4 1/2" Wustoff Classic and am very happy with it.

I don't have a problem with it. I lay the cob down on the cutting board, start half way down, then turn the cob around and do the other half. The thing is sharp. I can't remember the instructions that came with it but i didn't like doing it the way they suggested. This works much better. Keeps the kernels under control too.

I have one very similar, mine is a Zyliss. I absolutely love it. Works like a charm.