Darienne

I well remember the first time I made DH a Boston Cream Pie. And I thought he would be so happy. I think I followed a Martha Stewart recipe. But no. He is the son of a French-Canadian cooking, baking, Mother and if you know anything about French-Canadian cooking, Sugar Pie is a regular feature. And pure pork Tortiere. DH grew up on Millefeuille and Napoleons and Rhubarb Pie which had so much sugar in it that you couldn't taste the rhubarb. (Sorry, dear departed M-i-L.) And so my cream filling simply wasn't rich enough. Make it richer, he said, Like my Mother did. And so I am asking. Take your regular Creme Patisserie and add what to it to make it 'richer'? Butter? Several tablespoons? I've Googled 'very rich pastry cream filling' and can't get back the usual egg, cream...and maybe a smidgen of butter...recipes. Help please.

That's two for Lion and Globe. We have to go into the city tomorrow so I'll send the DH to gather the names of the brands held by our Asian grocery. Need ingredients to make Hot and Sour soup anyway.

Kind words, Liuzhou, and I thank you. There's nothing really exotic (in North American terms) or authentic I wouldn't think in our dishes, but we do use some of the ingredients which you wouldn't find in most Canadian Chinese restaurants, unless you were in Toronto or Ottawa or Vancouver. Long beans, eggplant, cabbage, tofu, lychees, longans, for a few. I've even gone as far as making a steamed sponge cake. Nothing exciting...but not restaurant fare. Peterborough Ontario, in east central Ontario, is not a hotbed of exotic cuisines. But hey! we live here. And I can't complain. We just don't eat out anymore. (Except basically for good Mexican food in the southwest and fish and chips at home. Ontario does good fish and chips.)

As for the mistake of buying 'peanut cooking oil'...it never occurred to us that oils were subject to such counterfuge before. Does not speak well of our discernment.

No idea, Smithy. I'm just trying to get personal anecdotes. It seems to me that almost all research leads to confusing conflicting evidence in the end. Maybe we'll just do that thing. The Magic Bullet did last a good long time. And did an adequate job. I'm not trying to pulverize flax seeds in the first place...

Thanks all. I shall look for Rice Bran Oil next time we are in the city. I'm afraid that our taste buds are not sophisticated enough to tell the difference between one oil and another. No doubt you would all laugh heartily at our attempts at Chinese dishes. Unfortunately we now have only those horrible 'All-You-Can-Eat' buffets in our area now and we find the food unacceptable. All swimming in the same sauce pretty much. Chinese food for the Cheese Whiz crowd. (Sorry if I am insulting some eGulleters. Can't think of a more useful comparison.)

Thanks Cyalexa, daveb and JoNorvelleWalker for the information so far. All grist to the mill, so to speak. Interestingly enough, yesterday I watched a video of a Vitamix versus a Ninja (or one of them...can't seem to find it this morning) and the Vitamix won by a slight margin. However, what I came away with was the fact that now, confined to my family size Hamilton Beach Wave Action blender, I was not keeping the action going long enough to completely make my smoothie smooth enough. So this morning, I let the blender run twice as long, and what do you know?, the smoothie was acceptable. (Not wonderful, not beyond compare...but good enough). I'll do more investigation before I make a final choice. Or rather, before he-who-makes-those-sorts-of-choices makes the final choice.

DH and I make Chinese dishes for our lunches quite often. He does the 'mises' and I do the cooking and get ready the odds and sods, like the tea, setting the table, putting out the condiments, etc. Truth be told, his job is more work than mine...but then he gets to have Chinese food quite often which is what he likes. And we use peanut oil, most of which we buy at our local Asian grocery store. And until yesterday, neither one of us never looked at the "Ingredient list" for peanut oil. Peanut oil would contain only peanut oil...one would think. Apparently not so. Our current container which is titled "Peanut Cooking Oil" has the following ingredient list (in order): Soybean Oil, Sesame Oil, Peanut Oil. Who knew? Yesterday we bought peanut oil at a regular grocery store, a Loblaws brand (Canadian brand), and it contains...wait for it...100% peanut oil. Hooray!

Good heavens...the Ninja injuries. But then, to me the Hamilton Beach had very serious injury possibilities. The blades could be engaged without the blender bottle on them, thus leaving them completely open. Would never have had one with children in the house. Or old folks...which come to think of it...we are both swiftly becoming. I think the Vitamix is simply out of our snack bracket. But thanks.

Well, my Magic Bullet died last fall after many years, and while in the States in October I bought a Hamilton Beach which turned out to be a piece of total junk. The gears...some kind of rubber or acrylic...sorry I am not a CSI type...just came off last week. That's not very many uses. They just fell off. So now I am going to buy a 'good' smoothie maker. Don't really want to spend more than $100.00. Or is that unrealistic? The question is for making smoothies and other small one person beverages, what is the best brand to buy: Ninja? Nutribullet? Black & Decker? Oster? Does anything out there have gears made out of a material that will last? Thanks for any help.

I'm with you Deryn on the 'use' issue. Mine is a Cuisinart, the BIGGEST home unit you can buy, bought by my DH for who knows why, and I use it at least once a year. Fortunately DH is a fixer type guy and with luck it won't need fixing anyhow...

So now, if you want to change careers, you know you have an 'in' in fixing stand mixers. I'll keep your name in mind.

We bought a Keurig for entertaining a large number of folks every summer and it seems to work quite well. Personally for us it was not useful because we drink our coffee very strong compared to most people and you simply cannot make strong coffee in a Keurig.

Canadian Hawthorn is apparently ours in Ontario. You can eat the berries...see the article...and indeed our own Kerry Beal has attended the Hawberry Festival on the Manitoulin Islands where one can partake of hawberry flavored ice cream and jam. (Locals have been called Haweaters and I don't know if this is an insult or not.) This tree, which is considered a weed tree and is PROLIFIC to the max, has the most wicked thorns I've been scratched by.

First thing to pop into my mind is coffee cake. Arey posted this most wonderful apple fruit cake: Mother's Applesauce Cake (Poor Man's Fruitcake) which his Mother got from a friend many years ago. It's the sort of loaf cake you eat with a slice of strong cheddar or just butter along with coffee. I don't know if I can print here on eGullet but I can certainly send it to you in a message. I made a triple recipe and have cut the cakes in halves and frozen them for sudden mid-day visitors.

Tere, if you lived nearer...a LOT nearer...I could certainly supply you with Hawthorn berries. I know you can eat them...but to date, we haven't tried. It's probably not in the near future either.

Here's our current favorite meatballs recipe: Taco Meatballs Recipe (Pinterest is NOT where I originally found it but can't seem to locate the original source at this point). I add a package of Goya Sazon Cilantro & Achiote and double the cumin and go heavy on the ground pepper. And use hotter chiles than the mild called for. Etc...as cooks do. I like the fact that there is no frying...just bake in the oven. And I use a small scale to get them approximately the same size...and I make them very small. I usually make a triple recipe so all that work lasts quite a while. They can be added to just about anything which takes ground beef.

For Elsie: here's where to buy it in Ottawa: Canada in a Basket 55 Byward Market Square Ottawa (613) 241-2088 Alas, the Canoe Museum does not have birch syrup in stock and Whetung's (where we sell our decorated gourds) no longer carries it. And it's not carried in the Cambridge area. I think we'll stick with Maple Syrup until our next unavoidable trip to Toronto. Thanks to you both.

Thanks so much Kerry. Not sure how I missed this. I'll try them both tomorrow.

Thanks Elsie. I imagine you could also find it in Sudbury. We went there to teach a workshop about 10 years ago and I couldn't breathe from 100 miles out until we got back to that point...birch pollen. I know I can get it online...I wanted to see if I could pick it up somewhere. I've phoned a lot of local places which you might think might carry it...but they don't. My friend who lives in Cambridge spent a year in Finland in high school and is looking forward to having Pannukakku when she next comes to visit. So I thought I'd try for the birch syrup. Online would be a last resort at this point. Might not even like the stuff...

Terrific gfron1. I envy you.

Pannukakku has become a new favorite in the McAuley household. (LCBO Food & Wine, winter season 2016). We've been using Maple Syrup...made with DH's help in a local sugar shack...but the recipe actually calls for birch syrup. Does anyone know where to buy it in Ontario? Any grocery stores carry it? Specialty stores? Toronto? What about in the Cambridge/Kitchener/Waterloo area? Thanks.

I watched as far as the lip on the cylinder and gave up. Fascinating stuff...but definitely not for me. (And it is Saturday which means laundry, meds, next week's breakfast assembly, soup making, pulled pork making, bed remaking, dog hair vacuuming, etc, etc...not time to sit and watch extended cookie making videos... ) But thanks for bringing this wonderful cookie maker to our attention.

And here am I (and others) a War Baby. No sugar in our cereals. My favorite was always Grape Nuts. Haven't had it in decades. (American and Canadian Grape Nuts have different formulas...the American ones are not quite so hard as the Canadian and are sweeter.) I should have said...no sugar coating on our cereals...

Dear Andrea, My heart goes out to you in your loss. We have lived through 2 terrible house fires in our city home (we live in the country now and heaven help us if we ever have a fire because it all has to be trucked in) and it was years before we drove up our road without my heart being in my mouth. Our insurance company was so good to us that I could scarcely believe it. I don't have a chocolate room or special counter tops anywhere, but perhaps you can ask the Chocolate Doctor, Kerry Beal, for photos of her chocolate room. It is wonderful and I loved working in it when friends and I took a chocolate course. (If Kerry gives the OK, I can post you all the photos I took from that day.) All best in the future rebuilding.