Marlene

Oh ok. Smoke that bird But if you want to roast it, do the bacon over the breast and cheesecloth over the bird route. I never roast turkey any other way (when I'm not smokin them) Susan will tell you to get a kettle. Mike and I will tell you to get a Weber bullet. Two against one. We win.

Oh! Oh! I want those! As a left hander myself, they'd be perfect.

Unless of course, you find mincing cathartic. Actually I didn't know that about fresh and dried thyme!

Thanks everyone! I've been bread challenged for years, so I was pretty happy with these. Kim, the basic recipe is on page 266 and I used Variation 2 on page 268 which is basically substituting buttermilk for the water, and omitting the dried milk. I followed the directions for shaping on page 82. I actually divided the dough and made one loaf and 9 dinner rolls. Bruce, if I could figure a way to get it over the border, I'd have sent some to you! And actually, I guess I should say it's my second time making bread since I did make Keller's brioche a couple of weeks ago. But I've never made rolls before!

Thanks Ann. It was my first time ever making any kind of bread not in a bread maker!

What, you can't finely mince thyme?

This one's for you Bruce, and Ann, the bread's for you My husband made a stir fry tonight. Served with basmati rice and the dinner rolls I made for the first time ever from Breadmaker's Apprentice

I had it on order. It takes a few weeks to ship from the States to Canada. My husband is making dinner tonight which will leave me free to play with this and take pictures of his cooking!

Would the rice/water ratio be different for basmati rice as compared to regular long grain white rice in a rice cooker? For long grain rice in my rice cooker, I current use equal parts of water and rice. I have one of those fuzzy logic rice cookers.

I have several wooden spoons and a couple of the wooden spatulas that I use a lot. I also have my grandmother's wooden spoon which I use exclusively for gravies and sauces. I have no idea why I only use it for those, I just do. I don't ever use silicone spoons and plastic ones drive me crazy, although my husband loves them.

I don't even want to look in my cupboards to see what might be there, but I do know I also have a bag of saffron, brought to me from Egypt by friends who travelled there. I also have no idea what to do with it.

I just received this, but I haven't set it up yet. Tonight I made Dianne's potato galatte: And served it with grilled rib eyes with a blue cheese compound butter:

Opus is open on Sunday's and is one of my favourite restaurants in the city. I love their foie gras. In fact, we're dining there on Friday night.

I have made and frozen pre-baked the biscuts from Dorie Greenspan's "From my home to yours" with great results. Bake from frozen at 425 for about 18 minutes. Edited to add: Oops. Her recipe does contain 2 t of sugar. Never mind.

To bump this up. One of the things I mentioned upthread is how much I hate cracking peppercorns for this dish. Even with my Unicorn peppermill, I still don't find I get it as coarse as I'd like and I always end up with peppercorn dust as well. My new solution? Order dustless cracked peppercorns from The SpiceHouse. I just received an order of medium and large dustless cracked and these are perfect for steak au povire. I'll probably make this dish more often now that I don't have to fuss with cracking the peppercorns myself.

I think it's because I cook mostly "north american", fairly predicable. Very little asian, thai etc. For the first time in 18 months I seem to have some time on my hands now though, so maybe it would be a good time to explore some different ways of cooking!

Thanks Bruce, but everytime I see one of your dinner posts I think, "I'd like to be able to cook like that!"

Ok wait. The stock reduced while simmering? Or did you strain, chill and reduce? Did you salt while making the stock or while reducing? If you salt before reducing it will become very very salty. Also, for a beef stock, (see post above) 4-5 hours just isn't long enough to extract all the flavours from the bones etc. And you're not an idiot. I didn't take up stock making until a couple of years ago. You should review all my clueless questions in the stock Q&A! I'm far from an expert, but I do make stock on a very regular basis these days.

My guess is it's because you roasted the bones first. My roasted beef stock is usually brown in colour. I just took a roasted pork stock off and the same thing. While not as brown as beef, it definately isn't clear. I definately get a different colour depending on whether I'm making a roasted or raw stock. And there's a difference between brown and murky. While roasted stock doesn't seem to need as much skimming as raw, it does need it. If it's murky, how much skimming did you do at the front end? That will affect the murkiness. You get clear stock from using raw bones and meat. I'm betting you it will be lovely. I recently attended some cooking classes as ICE in New York and our instructor gave the following times for making various stocks. Fish stock - 1 hour Chicken - 3-4 hours Vegetable - 3 hours Beef and Veal - 10-12 hours.

Just french onion soup and crusty bread tonight. I make and use an onion confit which gives the broth a very dark look and is incredibly rich.

That's it! I was having a brain freeze when I posted. They do have a website and you can order online. And, they even ship to Canada.

I've used all the WS demi glaces and I quite like them. They do last quite well in the fridge for a long time. Another option might be demi-glace gold, if you can find it.

Fair enough. My son is a fuzzy thinker and we've (I've learned to live with it) The other reasons for tupperware for me is that it stacks easily so I can get more in my cupboards and I can easily see at a glance when quantities are getting low. I just open my cupboards when making out a grocery list. And I don't eat enough take out to have very many take out containers, but the ones I do have, I use for freezing soup portions usually.

I think that's called bigamy in my country. I won't mention then that I have separate cupboards for baking supplies etc. Then people would really think I had OCD. (which I had to ask someone what that stood for!)

I got one too. Filled it out and haven't heard a word since.