Darienne

Confectionery partner, Barbara, and I have two of those Perfect Brownie pans and make our toffee pieces in them. They work really well. Hokey looking...but they work nicely. ps. The Perfect Brownie pan has 18 divisions to its grid.

Omi. That looks SOOO good.

We are talking nearly two weeks for ice cream #1 and as noted, I'll report back. Thanks.

Hi Paul, Thanks for your answer. Actually the ice cream has lasted well over a week at the house. I give a lot of it away (you know, bribes, thank you's, apologies, etc.) and Ed and I don't eat a lot of it. If I ate everything I made... Usually the ice cream is moved to the upper freezer for serving purposes, but of course the upper freezer is much smaller and already packed with the often used bits and bobs. I think I'll move a lot of the stuff out of it to the cellar freezer, so I can store more ice creams in it for the weekend. I shall make #1 today and then report back how it works out vis-a-vis storage for two weeks. An experiment. DL's Vietnamese coffee ice cream...minor alterations: a tad less than the prescribed amount of condensed milk (can holds only 300 ml = 1 1/5 cups); slightly more half & half, finely chopped cacao nibs and 2 T of Panama Jack. Well, that's not too minor is it? As always, thanks.

Good idea. Not a problem.

We've this weekend thing coming up starting on August 26th and I am starting to make baked and cooked items ahead of time and freezing them. Some stuff is no problem. But ice cream...ah... First of all, I can make only one container a day with my little ICE-20 Cuisinart maker. Secondly, I'm not making stuff while folks are here. And I need to make at least 5 kinds. My downstairs freezer is -33 degrees C in the center of the frozen ice cream container bowl. That's the 'colder' side of the freezer. Otherwise it varies and I can't figure out what is meaningful about getting all different temperatures here and there. (My fridge freezer goes from -10 to -18 degrees C. Warmer than the cellar freezer. Both are fine with my ice creams in the past.) I have had few problems with ice cream since the help I received from my ice cream mentors, Paul Raphael and Jon. I make mostly cornstarch-based ice creams. I'll cover the ice cream with plastic wrap in an air-tight plastic container, put it in the cold side and NOT open it until it is time to serve. The freezer is a chest freezer and not subject to constant opening. How many days do you figure I can start before hand. (I am already committed to making, assembling and wrapping the ice cream sandwiches on Aug 21 & 22.) Thanks.

Exquisite. And I looked it up. Swiss Meringue Butter Cream.

Not exactly exciting, but it is what I am doing. Getting ready for the annual Dog Weekend at the farm starting on the 26th (long weekend), making muffins and little loaves for breakfasts and snacks, all to be frozen immediately. Poppy seed muffins with that incredible recipe by Pastrygirl which takes one cup...YES ONE CUP...of poppy seeds instead of 2 or 3 dinky tablespoons, blueberry muffins - a recipe given to me by Calipoutine last year, and some teeny tiny corn muffins...just trying out a new pan given to me by my confectionery partner, Barbara. It's called a Big Daddio.

Where do you get squash blossoms? In a grocery store? Outdoor market? Do they have a short or long season? Are they expensive? We're off to Utah again soon, and I've never seen a squash blossom in the local Kroger's, but then I didn't look. Not sure of the local Hispanic population. Certainly no Hispanic grocery stores.

Learn something new everyday. Found two answers to supreming: - one cuts away the membranes - the other cuts away the membranes and the flesh near the membranes. Yes?

Fascinating!

All good ideas and this one is a beauty. I'll ask. That would make it possible to store it near home instead of at the home of the decorator. If you would like the recipe, just pm or email me. It is one delicious cake. The filling is to die for with a whole orange in it. None of this 2 TBSP of orange juice stuff. And I'll use Gran Marnier in it. But then we'll be drinking Margaritas anyway with our Mexican (read Tex/Cal/Mex) luncheon. Anyone who wants to come is invited. You need only to be a dog person, even one currently without a dog.

For the DH's 70th and our 50th I am making his favorite cake but I have serious storage and time problems. I have to make it as far ahead of time as I can. I can freeze the chocolate cake layers, but what about the filling? And what about the ganache topping which a friend has offered to decorate with words of wisdom or some such thing. We'll have a large gang of dogs and their humans here for the weekend and I can't make the cake at the last minute, or the filling or anything. And I'll not have enough room to store it anywhere in a fridge and there is no coolth anywhere to be found...unless we have some weird cold wave. A friend has offered to keep it in her fridge and bring it at the luncheon. Can I freeze the filling? How far ahead of serving can I make it and keep it? How far ahead of serving can I fill the cake? How far ahead of serving can I make the ganache? Assemble the entire cake? Etc. OK. Cake is three jelly-roll thicknesses of chocolate cake. The filling is: cream cheese, whipping cream; fresh whole orange, orange zest, sugar, orange juice and orange liqueur. The ganache is bittersweet chocolate and whipping cream. All help is appreciated. skip the doodads and enlarge the cake times three.

There are several blogs about ice cream only but I can't really speak to their seriousness. I have them bookmarked, but only just dip into them now and then. I did jettison a few that I found pretty awful. http://icecreamfellow.blogspot.com/ http://yourefrosted.blogspot.com/ http://www.icecreamgeek.com/ http://japaneseicecream.blogspot.com/ Good luck with your project.

Could there please be photos of the above posts. Thanks.

Laundry/lingerie carousel hanger oh, and sorry if my post implied a lack of travel experience. add to the list... sharpening stone and/or honing steel for your knives (and other tools). You can probably pick up misc. small items @ the second hand stores, as you mentioned earlier. I loved Moab, and also Mesa Verde CO. No offense given, none taken. Laundry we do at the Village Market place. Ed has a honer with him at all times. And you are correct abut the misc.'s...Wabi Sabi and Memory Lane it is...or the General Dollar store. All the highspots in Moab. Good woman. Moab and Mesa Verde are my idea of where to dwell.

What a lot of good ideas. Of course, if I followed them all, we'd need to pull a trailer too. As for the Swiss Army knife...on the person of the DH at all times. And hammers are everywhere in the life of a reno man. There's a hammer in each car. Not taking any chances with going into the water in the car without a hammer. As noted, with five days between us and Moab and two large dogs who eat raw and living on the cheap, we already have a lot of 'stuff' one might need. But I have scribbled down each and every idea given. Thanks.

Ha! Ice Cream Mentor Man. You always come through for us. :wub:

I've made strawberry ice cream where I cooked the berries with sugar, vanilla bean and a little lemon. Then add to the base. I found that with the berries cooked, they don't get the icy-ness like fresh berries. So Robin, I took your advice and cooked the strawberries first. Wonderful ice cream. DH and young worker loved it. Big time. Thanks.

Nope. No salad spinner for us. Cast iron skillet. We have one. I have no intentions of using their pots or pans. One burn and you are replacing it. Trays are good. Still we can buy stuff like that at the $ store. We have a traveling knife case and everything we take with us goes in Rubbermaid containers. Blue for Ed's work, red for my work, turquoise for clothes...2 small bags for the overnight in the motel. And both pink kitchen containers come in. And the Coolatron. We are stuff heavy.

Good: peeler. Have microplane listed. Good: scissors. Blender/food processor. I'll think on it. I don't find them interchangeable completely. Spices: nothing I can get at home I can't get there at their bulk food store. Skillet/ hob. Hey! Why do you think we are in an economy condo? Besides. They are very reputable and I'll just take my chances. Thanks for the idea, though. Another friend thought of funnels. And I remembered Canadian comet. Also. My favorite storage container is not available in Canada, so I'll buy a bunch of them Stateside. Also, also. This is turning out to be a big help.

Peeler. Good. Might not have remembered that. Don't have either a Penzey's or Sarah's in my world.

Interesting. I had never even heard of one before this. I see that none is available at Amazon, but surely they are in kitchen stores???

Thanks.

Short answer: it's incredibly beautiful. Long answer: I'll PM you if you like. It's a long story...aren't they all? As for the pans, non-stick or otherwise. I don't know if I'll be able to find out what is there any better than I have to date. Therein lies my quandary. A tiny food processor and a small crockpot are not really what I want. But their large siblings take up a honking amount of room. And there are so many other items fighting for space. Thanks.