Okanagancook

Here is a shot of my pancetta. A few little spots of green mould. I cut them out. Not very deep and I think it has only just recently formed. I tossed a large piece where the hanger hole was (on the left hand side)...it had green mould inside the hole. I think the mould formed because the flat piece of pancetta was wrapped in cheese cloth from the get go while my rolled pancetta, which has no mould, was hanging for a week before I wrapped in cheese cloth. Question: should I toss the rest of the pancetta?

Yup, keep simmering. It looks like it has a ways to go yet because there are still lumps of fat and the remnants are not brown. If you can get in there an break some of the larger pieces up the rendering will go a lot faster.

As long as the liquid you are drinking has no particles in it, that is fine. For example, apple juice is ok; orange juice is not. Before I retired I was a clinical dietitian.

Clear liquids are meant to used for a short period of time and they are boring. I would just get a variety of clear juices which will provide you with your basic carbohydrates requirement . Sip on them and your consommé six or eight times throughout the day.

The Australians are very advanced when it comes to their Dietitians. At the Olympic Games in Sidney they had an amazing amount of information about the food being served. Everything had a full nutritional analysis and the database had an fantastic search program allowing the athletes to find the food they wanted based on a nutritional profile. So if an athlete was trying to follow their meal plan at the games, they could do so quite easily. And, the ethnic food choices were astounding. A model for future games. Glad you like the website. Cheers

Health professionals use a system of standard portion sizes to formulate meal plans to meet peoples' nutritional needs. Each portion size from each food group (i.e. meats or fruit, etc) represents a specific nutritional profile. So by formulating meal plans specifying how many servings of each food group, health professionals can demonstrate to clients what their food intake should actually look like. This website, although it is from Australia, shows what constitutes a serving size and then on the left hand side they give a sample 'meal plan' for a female and a male. This should give you an idea of what, say, lunch should look like for the average customer. It will only provide you with a guide. Hope that helps. Here is the link: http://www.eatforhealth.gov.au/food-essentials/how-much-do-we-need-each-day/serve-sizes

Curls, it is a 15 quart beauty, here: http://www.creativecookware.com/15-Qrt-Mauviel-Copper-Jam-Pan-P120C285.aspx But 5 lbs of fruit with the sugar work perfectly. Hardly any splatter. I love my timer :-), although drinking wine while using it to time four things can be a bit of a challenge!

checkout Douglas Baldwin, here: http://www.douglasbaldwin.com/sous-vide.html#Poultry_and_Eggs Depends on the thickness of the meat.

Crouton, pray tell, how did you make those...sweet potato season is here.

Stir Fried Chilli Pork with Cashews from Charmaine Solomon's Thai Cookbook. My all time favourite recipe from that book.

Stuffed chicken legs in pastry with Andouille cream from Emeril's New New Orleans Cooking and Cauliflower Casserole from Paul Prudhomme's Fiery Foods that I love. Total caloric load: out of this world. However, the chicken leg was excellent. Next time I would use less pastry or perhaps roll it out thinner. And for the cauliflower, we used much less oil than called for.

This is our first attempt at pizza using a 1/2 inch steel plate. Heated it up at 550 degrees F for one hour. Switched to broil about six inches from the element and baked Peter Reinhart's Napoletana Pizza Dough from "American Pie". Didn't take long...maybe 8 minutes and wow. It was so crispy especially the cheese on top. This is our new way cooking pizza for sure.

Here is my copper jam pot in action. It holds 5 lbs of fruit. It makes wonderful jam. So fresh tasting because of the short boiling time. No pectin required. Yes it was expensive, around $325 Cdn but if you make a lot of jam it is a dream. I bought some copper cleaner in paste form which makes cleaning the pan is very easy. I should say it is a big pot so I clean it in my large dog bath. I clean it as soon as I am finished using as I do with all my copper pots.

Keller's duck breast from Ad Hoc with blackberry risotto.

I like using English muffins for burgers. Just the right ratio of meat to bread.

Very cool website. The pictures of what they do and the farm animals are wonderful. And, it is nice to see they have a solar energy tracker. Those are amazingly efficient because they rotate and tilt to follow the sun.

Here is a website that shows the whole process. I have found it useful for watching the techniques involved. http://www.manjulaskitchen.com/2014/10/01/cocktail-green-peas-samosa/

Half a plate of vegetables. Good job.

Oh my goodness! My guts are churning just looking at that.

I use it to wrap burritos in. They then go in a plastic bag in the freezer. To thaw I just pop them still wrapped in the microwave...don't notice any excess wax. Also us to grate cheese on to.

Out here in the Okanagan, apples on the ground will not be sold so if you know the land owner they are free.

I use the Map Pro. Also good for tomatoes when you just need a few peeled.

If I just need a couple of peeled tomatoes I use my blow torch. A quick wipe with a paper towel and all the skin is gone and the flesh nice and firm.

For a nice duck breast I like the fat to be rendered, the skin to be crispy and the meat to be on the rare side. Does the fat get rendered when it I'd sous vide?

Looks like my Early Girls! How does it taste?