Darienne

Ed says it was a sirloin tip. It was very large and half price. (I don't know how to pick meat.) Did it like the pork in the slow cooker on low for several hours. It was incredible. I guess you can 'pull' just about any meat. It sure is handy to cook meat in a slow cooker and not have the oven on. Then I spread it in lots on a cookie sheet in the freezer for fast freezing and then put it all in bags in the cellar freezer for quick access to cooked meat for just about anything. Our eating life just keeps on changing and changing. ps. Should add that our grocery store has a real butcher (half-owner) who likes us.

Want to do the same thing but have to wait until hubby is away from home on garbage day else I will never hear the end of it. The use it before you lose it technique just ain't working. Hahaha! I have to sneak-clean the freezer, too, or else I hear "don't throw THAT away, someone will eat it!" regarding a chunk of something that looked like about 3 oz. of freezer burned, poorly wrapped, chili. I always feel pangs of guilt, tossing all my well intentioned bags of crumbs and ends and bits and bones. I do use some...just not all of em... Omigawd, are they all the same???? With my DH, it's always horrible, rock-hard, tiny bits of bread and buns. Or 1/2 cup of soup that not even the dogs would probably eat...nor my DH for that matter. The game goes on...as it has, no doubt, for centuries... Imagine that SHE comes across last year's frozen disintegrating mastodon soup and...

Never even thought to take photos until after lunch (our dinner), but today I made my first Enchiladas ever using pulled beef (a first, but after last week's pulled pork first)and some canned poblanos which were so far past the can's 'best by' date that it will be a wonder if we don't end up in Emerg soon. So delicious. Will make them for guests coming on Friday evening to stay over. So many firsts...so few photos... So that adds Enchiladas to the Moussaka, the various Chinese dishes, the ice cream, bread from scratch, and the other firsts that I am finally at this late stage in my life, building up a suitable repertoire of recipes to serve to guests. Photo next time I hope.

OK. I have a new one for me. Probably the rest of you knew, but I was too stupid to figure it out. You cannot freeze the rest of an opened can of condensed milk in an ice cube tray. It won't freeze. Of course. Duh... So, if said ice cube tray is somehow tipped on its side while someone is jamming just one more thing into the fridge freezer, its contents will rapidly drip onto everything else in the freezer...except that no one is there to notice...making a monumental and sticky mess which you will have to clean up. So, I'll never try that again. The condensed milk was down the drain...

Good for you, Pringle. I have the cocoa butter, but haven't gotten around to using it yet. Best laid plans... I do love my little Revolation.

Welcome, Moran. Lovely dessert. Wonderful story of childhood memories. I have been 'going' to make Tiramisu for years and years now. Your recipe has inspired me to give it a try. Thanks.

Yesterday in our little local grocery store in a tiny Ontario town called Omemee, $.59 for a pretty small lime.

I had read the story before but had not remembered it as being as bl**dy nasty as this original telling. However, I do get the point about the 'eyes'.

Made two ganaches out of Greweling's 'At Home' book today. Coconut-Lime Truffles: had no white chocolate so made them out of 56% dark Lindt. Vyer different and very nice even with dark chocolate. Well, actually, I don't like white chocolate really. Peanut Butter Meltaways: must have done something wrong because although the ganache tastes quite nice, it gives no sense of a 'singular sensation' when eaten. I didn't temper the chocolate this time around...that may have made the difference???

Am still awaiting reply from chief decision maker and 'buyer'. Your idea is a good one. Thanks.

Photo please at next creating.

Randi, that is incredibly generous of you to offer your box for use. I could easily order the Trudeau spatulas plus a thousand other things with one hand tied behind my back. Thanks.

Thanks Tammy for such a wonderful post. You have been busy! Quick responses: - don't think I would be interested in Jiffy Mix. - Middle Eastern is one of my favorites. Mexican also. - have no response on the scheduled time off part. - Sunday - brunch? I'd help on that for sure. - restaurant supply shop sounds good to me. Plus any of the other ones you mentioned.

Read through the entire thread again and discovered that Tino27 has offered to do a bread workshop. Count me in for that one, please. Also, being a Canadian plus living in the middle of nowhere and near a very small city, I am unable to find those specialty items that I would like to buy. For instance, I have a 9" one piece silicone Trudeau spatula that someone bought for me in the States and would love to buy two more for me and one for my friend. Small kitchen appliances, tools, gadgets...that kind of stuff. I phoned the local Ann Arbor Area Convention Center and they gave me names and phone numbers: Williams-Sonoma, Beehive Kitchenware, and Bed, Bath & Beyond. Now I can call ahead and suss them out. Any other names in Ann Arbor or nearby? (I'd rather not go for Detroit, is that's all the same.)

Welcome Dcarch. Lovely presentation. You are a talented individual!

At least a partial answer to my question about where the dark in dark sticky buns comes from. Chef Zoe says that a dark pan will bake the buns darker than a light pan. I used a pyrex pan. So much for color...but what about taste?

Question: When I was a kid my Mother used to buy Chelsea buns from the corner Loblaws (we are talking almost 60 years ago) and the topping was sweet, but much darker than the ones I made or the photos of the many recipes I have looked at. And the flavor was well, deeper? or something? How does one get that really dark sweet flavor? More cinnamon? Darker brown sugar? Well, that makes sense. Something else?

It's almost mid-May and I find it hard to believe that I never came across this wonderful topic before. Some slip-up on my part. To limit my list to five things...impossible, but here are five off the top of my head: 1. Spun sugar 2. a proper braided Challah - do it till I get it right 3. pumpernickel. dark, heavy, round, cornmeal on the bottom, like my childhood memories of Montreal 4. Black Rum cake. I have the fruit all ready and all the ingredients. I just have to DO it. 5. Ice cream sandwiches will redeem me after last summer's abysmal failures. DL's chocolate cookies and Alton Brown's Serious Vanilla Ice Cream. I want the sandwiches to look pretty so that folks go "oooh". ps. Yesterday I fulfilled two 'to do's', actually three: made pulled pork and made my first ever bread without a machine and made sticky buns from it. It felt very good.

One more from Value Village: Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home

Very nice, Iguana. And one of the things I like about your buns...and will do it next time...is that you made them in a round pan. I made mine according to directions, in a 9x13 pan, and as it obvious in my photo, they don't quite fit onto my largest platter. If made in a smaller pan would they not puff up a bit to make them taller instead of just wider? Next time. Next time, also from a brioche dough...maybe that of RLB.

Thanks for the information. I'll pass it on to my Ottawa friends. And if we ever get to Ottawa again...we'll go there for sure.

Here I come a very late joiner to the bread making set. Just about to turn 69 and today I made my very first bread not in a machine and I made sticky buns using my confectionery partner, Barbara's tried and true recipe. Of course, Barbara has been making bread her whole life and learned at her Mother's knee, Mother being a professional cake decorator. My Mother had no knees. Yesterday I had two semi-disasters making bread machine sticky buns. The first dough was so dry I ended up dumping more and more water into it and then an egg in a non-measuring panic with no idea of how much longer the kneading cycle would last. Decided not to continue the sticky bun recipe, but to make the dough into little rolls instead of just chucking it. The rolls were not perfect, but they were fine. We ate them today with my first ever Pulled Pork. The second disaster was of a different kind. The buns turned out well...but my DH said he didn't like them. Not enough goo, not sweet enough. The dough was all wrong...way too bready. So I began to look through my non-bread machine cookbooks: Corriher, Beranbaum, Joy of Cooking, Bittman...my head was swimming and I had no idea where to start. And not only were buns of any kind a first for me, now the bread machine recipes were not working either and I was going to leave that safe world behind. Then Barbara called and suggested that I simply try her recipe. Scribbled it down and they just are a few minutes out of the oven and pronounced by him who is wont to pronounce as "excellent". And so they are. Gooey as all get out and the dough is just right. So now begins the great foray into real bread making. This learning how to cook is amazing!

Tomorrow's menu is now fixed. Ed will make his cole slaw and we'll have the meat on buns and I'll probably doctor the sauce somewhat, plus print out both of your sauces. AND, of course, beans. I never thought of beans. Ed thought of rice, but red beans are better. Thanks. We'll pass on what looks like grits? or hominy? or something? What are the wilted greens? And for dessert, Vietnamese Coffee Ice Cream. Wrong pew, but it will work.

Many thanks. I did drain the meat, and put the sauce into the freezer to let the fat coagulate, removed it, put the meat back into the now beefed-up sauce and all was well. Just ate it with yesterday's failed sticky buns which became rolls (before any sticky was applied. But that is another story.) Next time, cole slaw for sure. Maybe even tomorrow when a guest plus 4-month old Bouvier is arriving for the weekend. For the human, not the dogs. Thanks again.

Thank you. If I might ask another question. The pork butt had a thick layer of fat which was topped by the skin on one side. I left it on the pork because I didn't know what to do and I was at the time overwhelmed by other issues...yadda, yadda. Should I have left it on to cook? Or taken it off? My friend who was here said what are you going to do? (Never cook something new with a friend visiting) and I said...I have no idea. I'll leave it on. And then things got even more complicated which is more than you wanted to know...