curls

@rotuts fyi there aren’t any InstantPot recipes in her pho book — she published before she created those but her book does have recipes designed for a standard pressure cooker. So for IP recipes, check her website.

@rotuts the chicken meat was tender and juicy. In the recipe Andrea Nguyen specifies a few steps that she uses to keep the chicken moist... low pressure, natural release, removing the bird from the broth to cool. Hopefully those steps will work for any fowl but they definitely did for the chicken I cooked last night. Her recipe suggests using half the chicken for the pho and using the other half for Viet cabbage slaw or chicken sandwiches. I'll probably use the leftover chicken to make chicken salad sandwiches.

The result was a winner! Will definitely make this again and try out her IP beef pho recipe. Two photos, the ingredients ready to be pressue cooked and the resulting pho.

I recently ran across an InstantPot pho recipe from Andrea Nugyen https://www.vietworldkitchen.com/blog/2017/11/instant-pot-chicken-pho-recipe.html. Has anyone tried it? I am planning to give it a go later today. Also picked up her pho cookbook. She also has a recipe for IP beef pho on her website.

Yup, I added one sliced onion to mine, may add more next time.

I probably have two plastic bins full of repurposed jars — I don’t want to check the basement too carefully, if there are too many I might have to start recycling them. 😉

Finally put together a batch of @HungryChris marinated mushrooms. He said they would shrink during their five minute cook but I didn't realize just how much they would shrink! Next time I'll either double the batch or put them in a smaller jar. Looking forward to trying them three days from now! Yes, that is a repurposed jar -- no longer any cherries in there.

Really, no microwave in the room? Wouldn’t be a crisp but you could make a fruit compote with a microwave cake.

They're all jealous because they weren't able to find their own extra tables. And what is today's footware?

Kerry you paint quite a picture! Good luck in your travels. I hope you packed your bags earlier and have posh socks for FCIA.

Indeed it can be! We also have some maker spaces in the vicinity and some of them have amazing equipment. Join the maker club and you get access to lots of tools. Still, in the end I don’t know if this route winds up being any cheaper than ordering custom moulds from a professional (if your order is large enough). Definitely should be cheaper for small quantities of custom moulds. Either way, the equipment is fascinating, takes tons of research, time, and money.

Yes, another rabbit hole has opened up... spent a part of the day looking into the current state of 3D printers. Way more options and lower price points now then when I looked at this stuff a decade ago!

Wood, metal, etc. and a CNC should be able to create a nice smooth object to be thermoformed.

Good to know that the thermoform units can handle the thicker poly. Yeah, a lot of the 3d printed stuff is covered with lines -- would either have to smooth it or come up with another material to put in the thermoform so you have something that you want to mould.

Should be like taking chocolates thru... just get them swabbed and examined. Did TSA take your brownies away @RobertM?

All very good points. Perhpas a thicker polycarb could be used in a thermoform unit. Would also be interesting to see the results if the tempering, molding, and unmolding were done under ideal conditions. I have gotten good results from some of the Tomric thermoformed molds. They won't last as long as regular polycarb molds but I have gotten better results from them than what I saw in this video and it would be nice to be able to create custom designs on ones own.

Made my first batch of Paul Young brownies. First seen here https://forums.egullet.org/topic/157568-chocdoc-and-eg-friends-in-lala-land/?do=findComment&comment=2177722. Made them in a round pan since I did not have a small enough square pan -- they still taste like brownies 🙂. Oh my, what a tasty brownie, this one beats my previous favorite fudgie brownie by a mile. Made these with 73% Becolade Noir Vietnam chocolate. Thank you @Kerry Beal for all your help! Now to find out if the office loves these or hates them (tempting those with New Year's resolutions to abstain from sweets). 😉

Would be great if we could make our own molds and try out thermoforming at this year's chocolate workshop. @gfron1 know anyone in St. Lois with this sort of machinery?

Thanks for the link, interesting videos!

Happy New Year! Time to putter in the kichen this morning. 🙂 Waffle with bacon. Not pictured is the coffee and maple syrup. Made a few extra waffles to go in the freezer for easy weekend breakfasts. I prefer to go light on the waffle batter (or get it just right) instead of putting in too much and having to clean up the mess. Did rather well today.

chocolate house - pre-decorations Planning to go real simple with the decorations... maybe just some icing/snow. Many thanks to @Chocolot and @lambrecht gourmet for the inspiration.

This year's Winter Holiday flavors: chocolate truffle, bourbon ganache, milk chocolate peanut butter hearts, dark chocolate peanut butter hearts, marzipan & cherry-raspberry pâte de fruit, and chocolate dipped candied ginger. For lagniappe, some milk & dark chocolate dipped pretzels. arranging the box of chocolates completed box milk chocolate pretzels

Great question! Sorry I don't know the answer but I agree, would be nice to have small scale automatic wrapping machinery. I would make a lot more caramel and taffy if I could give the wrapping job to a machine!

Quite a selection @Haley! I really like the green one in the front with the two shades of green and a bit of white. Would you please tell us the flavors for all your chocolates.

I also use cellophane. Purchased mine from Glerup Revere. They work very well and are available in a number of precut sizes. https://glerup.com/shop-now-candy-packaging/confectionery-packaging/candy-cellophane-sheets.html