Darienne

Hi Jaymes, Of course you would know the recipes. You could write your own book. And I do use some of your recipes already. I should have added that I did add to the Tomato Cobbler recipe. Added a sprinkle of cheese on top and Ed suggested adding black beans and rajas to the mix. Maybe corn. Tex-Mex a la Ontario.

I'm not from Texas and have actually eaten very little in Texas over the years. Sad to admit, Texas is basically on the southern route from Ontario to Utah for us. (Don't hate me because I am an ignorant Canadian. ) We stopped in Terre Haute, IN, for a decent cup of coffee at the local bookstore and I decided to buy one cookbook to read both to myself and out loud to my DH on our current trip and it was the The Homesick Texan by Lisa Fain. I have been following her blog for some time now and had decided to get the second book but the store had only the first. Bought it. Read extensively from it. Going to get the second book also. I had already made a strawberry ice cream from Fain's blog and now have made Tex-Mex Meat Loaf with Chipotle-Tomato Glaze and the Tomato Cobbler. Both were great successes. The photo was not. While in Moab, UT, where you can't buy the more 'Mexican' ingredients anyway, I think I'll make a lot more of her recipes. Can't buy those ingredients back home in the far frozen north either. Well, like achiote paste, epazote, traditional chorizo, all the cheeses, etc. Anyone else cook from this book?

At $10 a pop, I wouldn't be buying them too often, you can be sure. But then they never make their way up to the far frozen north into our nearby provincial type city (Don't tell anyone I said the part about provincial ) As for BH short-breads...I take it you mean just add some BH zest? I have downloaded three different recipes from the web to look at more carefully today: DL, Chef Eddy...both for candying and Dessert First (Pastry Girl) for BH Ginger Cake. Shall report back anon. Thanks for the idea. I can probably do all four in the end.

I freeze the extra. DL's Vietnamese Ice Cream works out to 1 1/2 cans of condensed milk. So the rest of it goes into the freezer. Problem solves (for me).

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Thank you so much. A terrific explanation for those problems which have occurred to probably every brittle/toffee maker. And so timely for me. (And others.) Thanks, Lisa

I know you all know what a Buddha's Hand looks like. Heck, Heidhi even has a tree in her neighborhood, but here is another photo. This Buddha's Hand is a particular one because it is MINE! MINE! I bought it a couple of days ago in Albuquerque at a Whole Foods and I was just thrilled to pieces to finally own one. What I will do with it I have no idea yet, but I do have this photo record of MY very own Buddha's Hand for posterity. And yes, it smells lovely and I smell it each time I pass it in our rental condo kitchen.

I like to make Viennese Crescents from Fanny Farmer for Christmas using ground pecans instead of almonds. I make them in extended ovals instead of crescents and drizzle dark chocolate on their tops in a rounded zig-zag pattern. These go to a Christmas Eve party along with DH's French Canadian Tortiere. Also a favorite...and I have a couple of 'commissions' to make it for a local business...is the Copy Cat Enstrom's Style Toffee.

This sounds like something I must make. Almost everything tastes delicious dipped into chocolate. Or coated. Or topped with. Or rolled in. Or...

Even better if you can get them at the dollar store! A funny thing which often happens when you give out goodies in a fancy tin, is that you get them back again. A sort of 'if I give it back to you then maybe you will fill it again.' A friend of mine makes delectable Christmas cakes, baking right in the little Dollarama round tins. I always give the tin back after Christmas. Hint. Hint.

Just curious: What does this mean? What was the "chocolate" then? Seriously I don't really know. It was in exactly the same format as Baker's Unsweetened chocolate but I've never noticed it in a grocery store so I can't say what it was. Sort of a compound chocolate I suppose but not as bad as the dreaded Merken's Chocolate Melting Wafers.

Our dishwasher died an honorable death after more than 20 years just two days ago...but I WILL NOT consider a new dishwasher as a Christmas gift. I hope Santa brings you all you desire, Maggie, and if a dishwasher is a present in your house, then I hope you get one!

Thank you Andie and Baroness. He will hear of this to be sure. Of course, he will have already known about it.

May I horn in to ask about this book please? India's 500 Best Recipes. Lots of great photos...I am a sucker for photos. I can't comment at all about the recipes. I've made a couple with no complaints. I'm thinking about getting it.

Totally. Perhaps you recall World's Best Chocolate Bars which charities sell to make money. Or chocolates wrapped in foil from the Dollarama? It doesn't make any sense to me. Or you. I can always used lollipop sticks, cardboard presentation boxes, foil candy cups, etc. Real vanilla. Still now I am beginning to sound like a misery-guts. (What a strange expression.) A second fridge is terrific. Our late son lived with us for a couple of years a few years ago and then we bought him our second (second-hand) fridge. Then last year we bought a second (second-hand) freezer dedicated just to dog meat (NO! meat for dogs!) and it's now filled with apple juice and apple sauce. We had the biggest bumper apple crop of the last 17 years.

I work with chocolate. So, I am often given chocolates as a gift, especially in women's group which exchange small gifts. Sometimes they are pretty dreadful. Why would folks give chocolates to someone who works with chocolates?

Name? Photo? Amazon.com link?

My DH is insisting that we put in a new propane furnace and hot water heater. OK. I said. I want a gas stove and oven. OK. He said. It's a done deal for the spring. But it could count as a Christmas gift. Tomorrow morning I am stopping at the Mississauga Kitchen Stuff Plus and picking up: a new pastry blender, a little specialized lime juicer, a handled micro-plane and a ruffled chopper. (My pastry blender broke after 50 years of little use, and I can't stand the non-handled Lee Valley micro-plane any more. It hurts my hands after a while. I WANT the lime juicer and yesterday in my 'Edible Gifts for Christmas' class we used this chopper gadget for 'chopping' the chocolate. It's designed for ruffled French Fries, etc. I have a 'real' chocolate chopper but this one I can lean over and use my body weight instead of hands and arms alone.) Can I count these as Christmas presents also?

Took a local cooking class just for fun with a couple of other women yesterday. We made: Tex Mex Chili Chocolate Truffles, Istanbul Spice Market Exotic Chocolate Bark, New Delhi Fragrant Indian Brittle, Florence Renaissance Chocolate Dipped Almond & Orange Zest Biscotti, and Hot Spiced Cider. It was fun. The chocolate couldn't be real in that particular situation, but I knew that ahead of time. The teacher asked me to explain a bit about tempering to the others. Not enough spice for me in anything. One friend agreed with me...the other thought it was all too spiced. I thought the overall effect of all the pieces was too sweet...the other two thought it was fine. Interesting. I did pick up a couple of useful tips I had never heard of. Putting a second sheet of greased parchment paper over the brittle and rolling it quickly. Made a lovely flat candy. Also I had forgotten about rolling truffles in other than chocolate. The finely chopped cookie crumbs worked much better than the icing sugar or cocoa I thought. You could make a quite non-sweet cookie to use. The icing sugar tends to darken and come off and the effect is too sweet for me. The cocoa, while delicious, gets on your mouth and hands if you are not very careful. Nuts are good too. I'm going to make the brittle again, adding finely shredded fresh ginger to it. The ginger is taken from PanaCan's Ecuadorian recipe for Dulce de Mani and it's fantastic!

Thank you, thank you, thank you. You have just reminded me that I can actually GET a Buddha's Hand with any luck this year. I had completely forgotten about them and couldn't get one the last time we were in the Southwest because it was too late in the winter. No idea of what I am going to do with one...but I'll get one from Albuquerque if I can.

Maybe someone more knowledgeable than I am can help you better. The world of cooking and baking is still relatively new to me and although I feel free to add nuts to just about everything, I still don't mess around with the eggs or oil or flour. The muffins IMO are quite moist, but I wouldn't call them greasy. But then, last week I made some carrot muffins last which I plus others...who may or may not have been being kind...considered delectable and a friend...who, I might say, delights just ever so slightly in putting me down...said they seemed a bit greasy to her. Who knows? Not sure about cutting down by 1/3 in the butter. I could certainly cut down on the sugar next time...but then the DH loved them as sweet as they were. And definitely add nuts to them. Walnuts being the best to me in this case.

I don't know about the Wasabi part, but I am definitely trying the rest of this recipe...a king of Oriental Pulled Pork.

I can almost taste it. Looks lovely.

Twelve large muffins. They are SO good. I had eaten a similar muffin a couple of years ago at a friend's house and always wanted to try making them. And so I did. I used a large naval orange.

DH and the roofer just declared these the BEST MUFFINS EVER! Can't get much more praise than that. Recipe comes from Cadbury, an eGulleter and is here: Orange Muffins The only changes I made were to add 1 cup of chopped walnuts and use AP flour with the additions to make it 'self-raising'. DH likes nuts added to everything that man or womankind could add them to. Moi aussi.

Now THAT'S an apple pie!