Darienne

So a dessert is made: 1 1/2" in diameter, made in tiny muffin pans in gold papers which I had on hand. Graham cracker crumb crust, one banana coin, a dollop of dulce de leche heated and thinned with cream to make it pliable and topped with plain bittersweet chocolate ganache, around 65%. Next time?. No cracker crumb crust. Better a real pastry crust by far, both for handling and for taste. I made them this small because I feared the sweetness of the DDL would just overwhelm everything else. Which it didn't because there wasn't all that much of it per tartlet. But the crust was the wrong taste for the rest of it. End of story. I put them in the fridge and the plate, which seemed balanced, waren't nohow and when I next looked I had a great mess of little tarts all smushed into each other. What a mess. I rescued a few of the relatively unscathed for the group portrait. Insult to injury, a terrible photo. Remember...they're only 1 1/2" across.

Thanks, PanCan, for the lemon advice: that should cut the sweetness by a tad. And of course, I was not going to freeze the whipped cream part...but you knew that.

Question: would this recipe freeze well if made into small tartlets? Firstly I'll cut the recipe in at least half and then make it in little tart pans. It's a pie which I won't eat and DH doesn't want to be left with the 'responsibility' of eating it all, so I suggested the tart idea. I would think the tarts would freeze well. Any advice, please?

Can it really work? Can it really be reduced to something so simple? Answer: YES! I just did it. So simple. So neat. So tidy. So quick. So little work. Now Dulce de Leche to put on tonight's ice cream. Thank you JEB9.

If I show this recipe and photo to my DH, Ed, he will begin hyperventilating. Two of his very favorite things. Together. And lots of them. This sounds like a good birthday dessert for him. I am not a great banana fan, but your magazine sounds fascinating. My fruit of choice has got to be raspberries. ps. So ordered for his birthday next Saturday. Thanks.

Ditto. Love my wood floors. :wub: Never have anything else again. And we live on a farm on a dirt road with big dirty dogs and no one takes off shoes to come into the home.

Missed this the first time around. Sounds very good to me. What I want (for some reason) is to make those little holes that commercial ice cream sandwiches have in them. Any ideas? Besides just poking them in with a sharp stick?

Unless I am mistaken, FG (or is it NSFG now?) has not answered the question from Deus Mortus yesterday...why the fascination with this measurement? A question from me: Do most folks have blocks of cabinets? Therefore, if the distance reported is, say, 23"...are all the cabinets 23" from the countertop? We have a galley kitchen...two walls with everything just a few feet apart. The cabinets have various heights to accommodate the window, sink, stove, fridge... It doesn't look higgledy-piggledy, at least not to me. Very functional. (Way too small for my current obsessions, but then as my late Mother was wont to say, and endlessly: You don't always get everything you want. )

Chris Hennes would be my guess too.

Oklahoma City?

Bless you, young'uns for your kindness to an old...and slightly senile...white-haired lady. Somehow the eye missed the salient detail 'wall'. So business: over the sink: 17 1/4" and 22 1/4" other side of kitchen: 19 1/4" and 29 1/4" (plus two other cabinets which I didn't count: one over the hanging microwave and over other the fridge. DH built the kitchen and put the cabinets up so as to give us the most storage space.

I'm still lost. You don't mean to where the cabinets attach to or sit on the floor?

Hi Lindacakes, I know nothing about this gentleman but my ears perk up at the word 'ice cream'. Have you made any of the desserts yet? Do they feature making your own ice cream? And what method? Any really mouthwatering desserts? I take it that it is well-illustrated. Thanks for any feedback.

From FG: Fear not. I am still quite heavy. (I still can't do multiquotes properly) GOOD FOR BOTH OF YOU AND GOOD FOR ALL THOSE WHO HAVE WORKED SO HARD TO MEET THEIR GOALS OF LOSING WEIGHT!!!

Ya got me! I guess I 'forgot' to say that sometimes I just take them and jam them into the garbage under some stuff so he won't notice...

Two more things hit me tonight that I despise doing: emptying out and then cleaning out the kitchen compost bin, and rinsing out and drying plastic bags which go into the plastic bag recycling bin. The compost thingy must be done and I agree to that. We do share the job although this year I find I am the one doing it most of the time. We eat a LOT of vegetables so it doesn't take all that long to get filled. As for recycling plastic bags. I hate doing it. I don't mean the large grocery bags...no one uses them any more...no, I mean the ones which contain meat, especially the dogs' meat, and other sticky, gooey or otherwise not dry and solid ingredients. Yuck. It's HIS (DH) job and he promised I wouldn't have to do it, and then he leaves the bags sitting in the sink, with water in them, and I have to. And I hate it. End of crab!

Gotta say that this ice cream thread is incredible. I have ice creams ahead to make for weeks...nay, months...thanks to us all!!!!

That is an excellent idea. Making birthday ice creams, I mean. I reserve judgement on the flavor mentioned above until I can taste some.

Now that I've made sweet tomato jam, I might well try this. Last week I also made Tomatillo/Lime jam. This appeals to me even more as an ice cream flavor. The jam has bits of lime peel in it. Have you made the tomato ice cream? And did everyone like it? Or just you?

OK. Basically I am much lazier than you, Heidi. I would simply coat all the vegetables and flowers lightly with olive oil and whatever seasonings you might want, if any, and roast them in the oven in large aluminum cheapo pans if you have a great lot.

This sounds sweet and simple, but I couldn't disagree more. Not everyone can look at themselves objectively, physically or otherwise. I grew up looking in the mirror and hearing my father tell me I was fat. I grew to think I was morbidly obese. I look back at my childhood photos and i was chubby, at worst. This tainted me for life. I look back at photos of me in my 20s and 30s and wish i could tell myself, relax, you look fine. I might add, you won't believe what's coming down the road! Sorry if I'm reacting. It stuck me like saying if you want to lose weight, just don't eat so much. RG, you have every right to 'react. You and my husband. I've seen his kid photos. He was never really fat at all, just chubby, but those words can stick in the mind forever and color whatever happens, good or bad.

You have said it all, Susie Q

Many kudos to you, sir. My DH was a fat kid back when there were no fat kids. 1940s. Now he is a slim adult. He's probably the only person I have ever known who did the path from fat to thin and kept it off for about 30 years now. He's 5'10" or so and weighs 144 or so. He's thin to everyone's thoughts (but his own. Being a fat kid scars you forever) In the 1980s he weighed about 130 for a couple of years and looked like (here's age telling) a Biafran. He looked awful. He didn't think so. I can't imagine many 5'10" folks weighing that little, but he's of French Canadian and Oddawa extraction on his Mother's side and the men are skinny (and the women fat). Why his metabolism changed in that directions no one knows. Mine, like many women's at menopause, went the other way. Rats. I have no idea if this is of any help or interest to you, but there it is.

The first thing which comes to my mind is a sauce made from yoghurt, some fruit liqueur, fruity jam, a bit of sugar if necessary depending upon how sweet you like things... We often use this where whipping cream is called for.

Gosh, I had no idea that the 'free sample' issue was so complex for so many. I figure that first of all, the companies figure the cost of the samples into the end price of the product. It's advertising. Also, because we eat so sparingly in terms of buying prepared foods, many of the samples in Costco are things we have never tried before and I'm interested in trying new bits in case something really good emerges...like Mary's Organic Crackers...which I simply love now. Or their cashews which Ed likes. We don't normally buy pre-made egg rolls or pirogis or hummus or salsa or that sort of thing, but it's nice to know when you can count on a useful product when you run out of time. This way we get to try the product before we commit ourselves to several dollars' worth. The Costco container of cashews costs about $11.00. A fair exchange I think. Or, at least, that's how it works for me.