Darienne

Sorry, had to go look. They're Cuisipro. Got on the recommendation of other people here a few years back. Thanks, PR.

I have that exact crock pot and while I have never done beans in it, I have done a lot of other dishes, including pulled pork. And on low, and without any problems. I think Heidi is correct.

And your better ones are....

Thanks, natasha1270. Fortunately I have a cache of US coins.

Dhardy dropped me a post yesterday about a new confectionery cookbook just out: Sugar Baby: Confections, Candies, Cakes, & Other Delicious Recipes for Cooking with Sugar. Gesine Bullock-Prado. Found it this morning in Chapters while looking for May's Saveur (thanks Pierogi) on Mexican food. It looks like a pretty useful book EXCEPT (and I did read this in the Amazon review) it has ALMOST NO PHOTOS. ARRRGGGHHHHHH! I didn't have much time to look at it and I wasn't going to buy it at full price. Has anyone looked at it? David, have you looked at it extensively? What do you think of it? Thanks.

An idea although I'm not sure where to get one where I live. It might be something which I'll get around to...or not. Thanks.

Vitamin C crystals. And the one spoon was off by about 1/4 I would say.

In another thread, I think it was Andie who suggested that you can verify your scale's accuracy with a US quarter or nickel. I'll google that point. Thanks.

Two excellent points. Thanks. ...that assumes my scales are correct...

We have that at our bulk food stores also...I just never remember the containers. I should put some into our Rubbermaid containers!!! Duh...

Just got the shock of my life...well, perhaps that's a bit of an exaggeration...when for some unknown reason I decided to check one set of spoons against another. They don't match! What do I do to find out which is accurate? I thought of the pharmacist and DH said no, that won't work. This is Canada so our scientific types don't use Imperial measures. In fact, we are officially on the Metric system. Which I have trouble with still. Who should I ask? Where should I run? Well, walk. Thanks. Five minutes later: OK. I called the pharmacist, thinking he might have metric measures as in one teaspoon is also 15 ml. Nope, it's all by weight.

One more: lacquer thinner, my go-to sticker remover. Of course, it's toxic as can be but I have it handy in my studio where I used to use it with regularity. Can't use it on some plastics...it takes the plastic too.

Am lovin' this, Heidi. Using all those garden goodies: I will cook and freeze anything which seems to be likely to go beyond its best use time. Colored peppers were on special last week at an unbelievable low price here and so we bought a passel. I roasted them all and into the freezer they went. A dozen uses spring to mind. Also I envy your having neighbors who are also interested in food, preparation and eating. The best part of living in Moab two years ago for 6 months was sharing with my next-door neighbor/landlady/friend our interests in just this. First and only time in my life to have a next door friend. (I really don't even have next door neighbors now.) Actually, I suppose that's why eG is so important to me.

Kitchenmom's reply brought to mind one of my conservative favorites: tabbouleh. Bulgar, green onions, olive oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper, parsley and mint...lots of mint. Nothing else. This dish with tomatoes, etc, etc, or with a couscous base may be something, but it sure h'ain't tabbouleh. And I don't want it. And I won't eat it.

I never thought of bringing small/medium plastic bags to a bulk food store, and we usually forget to bring clean re-usable small plastic containers into which you put tahini, peanut butter, honey, etc. Shame on us, but no plastic container of that size ever seems to go to waste in this household. I have a couple of 'shopping' bags in my purse...the kind which fold into themselves. Love those little goodies. Moreover, we always have two large Rubbermaid containers in the back of our Focus and our full size van. They either go right into the store with us and sit in our cart as we shop or Ed wheels the groceries out in the shopping cart and then fills the containers which are in the back of the vehicle. Thus we never have to buy plastic shopping bags (which are extra charges in almost every store now). Gosh, I feel virtuous. Of course we NEED plastic bins with secure-fitting covers with two large snoopy dogs everywhere we go.

So interesting about soap stone...and I wonder if it includes marble and other stones which are carved. When I went for one year to art school, we carved soapstone and I recall the instructor saying that when soapstone is newly mined, it is much softer than after some exposure to the air. It wasn't quite like butter, but it was so easy to carve the unexposed surfaces. So your soapstone counters would have already been cut and exposed to the air to harden before installation, I guess. (But I really have no idea.)

Odd you should mention Calamondins. I just finished a post in Heidi's blog about my Calamondin saplings. They come from an area friend who has two bearing trees. If I live another 25 years (ha!) I should get fruit. Otherwise, you cannot buy them here. Ever.

Good new word. Deserved to be invented. I have a shamefuf secret: because we can't get blood oranges most of the time, I am going to try this recipe with Navel oranges which I have on hand all the time.

I have a photo of the cake, but it doesn't look like anything really. Just a one layer round cake in my case. And my cut piece is not 'plated'. (I did add more sauce subsequently, but I didn't make enough and wanted our guests to have enough first.) I've never plated anything in my life. (For you only am I including this photo.) But the taste of the cake had me waxing poetic at length.

I am, as the British would say, gobsmacked by your photos of your house and garden as always. Now I can't decide whether to fly directly to your house for a week or two, or to cut you completely out of my life because of soul-destroying envy. Do you at least have a mat you stand on in front of your sink? I have two thriving calamansi seedlings in my front window now in the great frozen north...although not as frozen as Brandon Manitoba...and if I live another 25 years I might get a crop. Blog on, Heidi. I hang on your every word.

All the replies to this topic have been interesting. And I have been thinking about what my own reply will be. OK. Macaroni and cheese for one. Grilled cheese sandwiches...only cheese...for another. Hot dogs in cheap buns with cheap relish and mustard. Probably there are a good dozen dishes if I really put my mind to it. However, I wonder how many of the dishes about which we are conservative hearken back to our childhoods. Comfort or semi-comfort foods. Foods we ate growing up. Foods our Mothers or Grandmothers made. Foods we ate at the country fairs. Foods which were featured a number of years ago when most menus...here I am speaking of those born of Anglo origin or western European in the USA, Australia or Canada mainly...did not encompass the foods of the world, like Thai and Indian for examples. My Mother never made foods which were not strictly "North American" at the time: meat, potato and vegetable. Or at a time when we made foods which were from at most one or two other non-North American diets. Please, I am not encompassing all families, all diets, all menus here. Just skimming across the top of the subject...

Hooray for Heidi. I am so looking forward to reading your blog.

Hi runwestierun and Panaderia Canadiense (interesting name), Thanks for the suggestions. Will try the muffins very soon. And yes, my pans are fairly dark. And no, I might not have remembered about flouring the nuts.

Thanks for this reply, RG. Epazote: I didn't see any when I was in Toronto, but I shall look and ask for it next time. Does it come in a dried form? or is it fresh only. Cheeses: There were some cheeses available, but not many more than the ones I purchased: queso panela, queso fresco, Oaxaca cheese. There were one or two more, but that's about all. I'll try some of the other nearby stores, but Panela's is definitely the largest.