Darienne

Isn't this the greatest??!! I love toast made in the press. You can even butter it first . It makes for a great toast for spreads and dips, too. Like really rev-ed up Melba toast. So, I wonder if you could simply make that kind of toast in an old-fashioned sandwich griller...you know grill sandwiches on one side of the removable plate...and make waffles on the other. Ours, bought last year in Moab second-hand, is SOOO old, it's made completely out of...wait for it...METAL!!!!

That's a little beauty. I have to make something for guests on Wednesday...perhaps an apple cake. This couple, whom we have never met, is bringing their two Bassets for a first play-date with our two Rotties. What does one serve??? Something with a St. Patrick's theme or a dog theme? What could be a dog-themed cake for humans???

Aloha Steve makes an excellent point. We like Chinese (especially Szechwan) food, African and Middle Eastern food and Indian food best, followed by others, like Mexican, Italian, Caribbean. Can't think where, if at all, that French food really fits in.

Ha! While we are outdoing each other in shame...I can say that I gave away my Julia Child cookbook many years ago and I just had to look up the word 'umami' to see what it meant. Top that, little sister.

So a friend came to stay last week from Ottawa, ON, and brought a dozen bagels. I specified...Montreal bagels or nothing bagelish. Unfortunately, I did not also say...buy them the day you are coming or don't bother. Not only did he buy them the day before, he didn't bother to put them in the provided plastic bag to keep them a tad fresh. Aficionados of Montreal bagels are aware of the stale factor. It is a tribute to my essentially forgiving nature that I did not mention it to him nor strangle him either, but smiled sweetly and ate the bagels, stale as they were. DH ran each remaining bagel under the tap very briefly and put them into a plastic bag into the fridge and truly, it did rescue them to a great extent. Visitor left his suit here by accident, so...I shall make a note of the house bagel requirements for his return visit. Bring 'em right...or don't bring 'em.

The first time I was ill after getting married, my DH made me a dish which means comfort and love to me after all these years: white rice, tomatoes and melted cheese on top. Yummm

As a reference guide, something you refer to forever, then the professional Greweling book is better. If you are just starting out and don't know your Maillard from your invert sugar, then the 'at home' book will help you to learn the basics with less pain. It's a hard choice. I knew NOTHING when I started and had the at home book been available, I would have preferred it. But for long-time reference, the professional book would be the choice. But then I already said that...

***Our friends are long-time syrup producers. They live on a road with their name on it and have their own cemetery going back 200 years. They know maple syrup!!! However, I know for sure that they don't know/do candy at all. Thanks for the help. My next plan is maple pinwheel biscuits. You know...roll up the dough with sugar, butter and cinnamon inside, etc. Sticky buns, but biscuits. In fact, #1 batch will be made as soon as I stop typing. I just did the candy for the experience of it...nothing serious in mind.

***Thanks for all the help.

Too late to add my follow-up to the last post. This morning I dumped the maple sugar lumps into my tiny food processor to grind it down to maple sugar, preparatory to using it in roll-up biscuits, and was quite surprised to find that it did not grind into small crystals, but rather into small lumps...sort of like soft rounded gravel...which seem quite 'dampish'. High water content still I would guess. Now the sugar lumps sit on a plate, drying, while I await any other information forthcoming from someone knowledgeable on what I might be doing instead...

For Chef Eddy van Damme's answer to the substituting invert sugar for corn syrup issue, here it is.

Good one, Shel_B

Welcome Richard Mold to eGullet. It's a terrific forum...like no other. Because I don't know how to link stuff properly yet, I am copying my earlier post from this topic on the 'Greweling at Home' book. "This is NOT just one more candy making book. It is an incredible book. The explanations are pure Greweling and as I read them and recall the agonies which I went through trying to cope with his professional chocolate book...how I would have loved this book. It's true...it does lack a certain charm perhaps, but if I had only one candy book, I think this might be the one." So that's one person's opinion. As for scaling up...it's something which I would not do unless I could find a Greweling or other expert recipe which called for a scaled up version. Some recipes will even tell you not to double the batch, but to make two separate batches. I don't have enough experience to know when I can and when I can't change a confectionery recipe. The first Greweling book is of course much larger, covers many more recipes in each category, and has much more complicated and professionally oriented text. The text in the 'at Home' book is much simpler for the novice, easier to follow. Good luck.

Reporting back on the Maple Candy which is not. All went well except for the fact that the recipe didn't warn me that the window of opportunity in which to pour the thick, creamy beaten cooked mixture into the mold was a mere split second. As I was pouring the liquid mass, it set almost in mid-air and now I have a big lump of maple sugar. I'll crush it to crystal state and make some maple sugar biscuits and take them to the family. Oh well, I had a good time and another learning lesson. learn, learn, learn...

This bottle I will do as the maple candy in Chu's book. We have some other maple syrup in the freezer from before...perhaps I will use it that way. Thanks for the advice.

Thanks. It is all grist to the mill and good.

I have glucose in a jar from a bulk food store. The ice cream guru has his own guru.

Way beyond my ken. But thanks so much for the information. And I am going to try using invert sugar in my next batch of ice cream. I'll report back on the ice cream topic I guess.

Thanks paulraphael. I would use the invert sugar to mirror exactly what the corn syrup does...sweetness is in no way my issue. Avoiding high fructose corn syrup is my concern. Seeing as you have not tried it and I have not tried it, the thing is next to try it and see what happens. I am hoping to hear back from Eddy van Damme as to his opinion on the subject. In the answers I found yesterday on his invert sugar recipe comments, there might be a slight change in amount. I'll go back and reread Chef Eddy's answers. Here is Chef Eddy's invert sugar link ps. My question to Chef Eddy yesterday is still awaiting processing as is the one from today in which I ask him directly about substituting invert sugar for corn syrup.

Where would this reading list be, if it still exists. And I think it would be a great idea. I would be willing to work towards one.

Right. Haven't tried either yet, but they are almost the same as the Chu recipe. All 'maple' candies appear to be variations of fudge or sugar, or don't use maple syrup at all, but simply maple flavoring. I am no scientific expert, like many of this forum, but the make-up of maple syrup seems to mitigate against using it in as many ways as say corn syrup or glucose. It all explains no doubt why in looking through my collection of 'candy' books, I could find only the fudge or sugar type recipes...there simply really aren't any????

I found one recipe in which you pack snow into pans and then pour the resulting cooked syrup into the pans. However, seeing as I am giving the candy to the children of the syrup donors, this is not a very useful end product. If we were 'making' the candy together, which we cannot for a variety of reasons, it would be a great idea .

Hi SLS, Yep, there are a lot of maple fudge recipes, but if I don't come across any other recipes to think about, I will use the one from Chu. It's more like maple sugar than fudge. I looked through all my confectionery books and haven't found much that isn't fudge or maple sugar. And other maple candies call for maple flavoring.

Cauliflower??? Well, OK, I will try it. The lasagna turned out beautifully we both agreed.

Speaking of Eddy van Damme, I just found his website this morning thanks to a post in another thread on Fresh Butter Cream in Chocolates which then led me to his recipe for Invert Sugar which then led me to ask him a question (still in moderation) about substituting invert sugar for corn syrup in making hard tac lollipops. But then, I would also like to know about using invert sugar in other foods: If I now use a couple of tablespoons of corn syrup in place of a couple of tablespoons of sugar when making ice cream (thanks to Paulraphael, my ice cream mentor), could I substitute invert sugar instead? What about invert sugar in marshmallows? toffee? other confections?