Panaderia Canadiense

Obviously not glassware at all, but a little white cup with a blue bottom bearing the legend "Dairy" - just like in the graphic!

Yes, unless I happen to catch the goat man when the nannies are still full. If I'm using goat's milk, though, I'll generally also add a small knob of butter to the recipe.

.. and it seems that only half of my message posted! How very odd. My recipe (which is pretty foolproof and produces tasty dulce every time) calls for 1L of full fat milk, 250g of panela, 1 tsp of soda, and 1 tsp of vanilla. The main difference from the one you used is that the panela is dissolved in the milk before anything is ever heated, and then the vanilla and soda are added also while everything is still cold. On to the heat it goes (high heat) until you reach a nice, "toasted" colour (you'll know it when you see it), and then reduce the heat to minimum and stir constantly for another 10 minutes. After that, place the saucepan into a cold water bath for about 5 minutes and continue stirring (the shocking period is essential - it develops the flavour more), and finally allow it to come to room temperature, remove from the pan, and either eat or pop in the fridge. The whole shebang takes about 2 to 2.5 hours, but I'm blessed by high altitude and things boil more quickly for me here.

Traditional dulce de leche is made using at the very least a Demerrerra sugar if not proper panela raspadura or jaggery (raw crystalized cane pressings).... The higher molasses content of the darker sugars does a couple of things: first off, it carmelizes more roundly and quickly, and second off it imparts a fullness of flavour that you'll never get close to with refined or white sugars. %0

Why is toast always better in the UK than in the US? Except, why in the UK do they so often intentionally cool their toast? My scottish gran, bless her heart, said it was so that the butter wouldn't melt, and thus you'd get perfect crispiness along with the marmalade, and nothing gets on your fingers while eating it (by dint, I think, of the toast not being saturated by butter). Then again, she used to spread 1/4" of butter followed by a thin skim of marmalade. What are the criteria for judging good toast? Is it supposed to be crunchy all the way through, or is it supposed to be crispy on the surface but soft inside? Crisp surface, chewy center (not soft). The best toast, IMHO, is golden-brown on the faces and hot all the way through. I toast on a dry cast-iron griddle - toasters hate me, and the feeling is mutual. What's the best bread for toast? Whatever's not perfectly fresh. In my house, that's usually nice slabs of foccaccia, but sometimes it's nice, dense pumpernickel bagels. What else do we need to settle? What's the best method of producing toast the way you like it toasted?

The year-round farmer's market here is at its winter high-point (zillions of vendors). The year-round standbys (broccoli, cauliflower, napa cabbage, other cabbages, carrots, red beefsteak tomatoes, seda bananas, oritos, gold pineapples, black-skin watermelon, coconuts, altitude blackberries, cape gooseberries etc. etc.) are all in but in higher quantities, and the winter-specifics (romanesco, white pineapples, carambola, red guava, local apples and pears, and a couple of types of passionfruit) are starting to make themselves known. I find myself pining for the blueberries that will be in later this month, as well as mangoes, for which I'll have to wait until October, at least.

Cold sandwich: tuna fish guacamole with queso fresco, a nice slice of black tomato, and plenty of salt. Hot sandwich: locally produced cheddar with saurkraut and lots of mayo.

Neat, with a single ice cube. Anything else is an abuse of the Scotch Whiskey therein.

Parsley, Oregano, Thyme, Rosemary, Sage, Celery leaf, and Chive.

I've got a couple of options, both of which I use almost constantly. The first are stacking, hermetically sealed tiffins like these ones. If those seem too industrial (although I love 'em - all three courses, all right there! With a little handle!) you can also look for stackable lidded enamelware or stainless steel bowls with hermetic lids. I have both of these - the enamelware is the prettier of the two, and the stainless steel the more utilitarian. EDIT: Sorry - just noticed that you want nukeables. Tiffins also come in microwave-safe plastic in all sorts of fun colours (at least, they do here), and the stacking bowls in plastic are, basically, glorified tupperware. There are also lidded stackable melamine bowls and deep plates. Also: you're in Japan! Are there not lidded bento boxes? Those strike me as the ultimate stackables....

I made riccotta gnocchi using SobaAddict70's recipe, but substituting quinua flour for white. Came out very tasty under the fresh marinara!

So, what's in the oven? For me, it's 7-herb and sundried tomato Foccaccia.

Kim, if you'd like the recipe for the ginger-apple cake, just let me know. It's absurdly fast and easy. For me, the most recent bakings were Apple Pie (I was putting up filling and guess what?! Leftovers! So I kinda had to... At least, that's what I tell myself... ) And the old standby favourite, Banana-Chocolate Chunk loaf. This one is according to my Jamaican Aunt Dorothy's recipe.

Try chilling the truffle balls before dipping - this often works for me when I get leaky dipped truffles.

Yes. But I'd imagine that the difference between any force-ripened export fruit and one ripened in the sunshine on the tree is extreme! To wit, I hated papayas before moving down here and being served one that was cut from the tree just 10 minutes before it landed on my plate. There really is no comparison to import fruits. I buy a mixture of fully ripe (gold) carambola and half-ripe (pale green), which gives me a nice explosion of tropical-influenced green apple flavour. In turn, this marries very well to the sweeter mangoes (Julie, Ambassador, Reina - all of which are currently out of season, unfortunately) and strawberries (always in season).

The Carambolas are in! The Carambolas are in! I'll be making ice cream Tuesday for sure - probably strawberry-carambola.

Racking my brains (and ye olde google), I find that in the US and Canada, tree tomatoes are sold as Tamarillos and usually come from New Zealand. They're coming an awful long way, though, and I recall that the ones I used to see in Canadian specialty markets were always pretty sad little fruits, all wizened and squishy. Sorry for hijacking your thread, Darienne - on to more desserts!

A tree tomato. There are hints of regular tomato, but think of the cultivars that are sweet and subacid - more like a golden cherry tomato than, say, a Roma. Alongside that is a pleasant semitropical flavour reminiscent of sweet melon, and a flavour that can only be described as tree tomato, since nothing else tastes like it. The whole shebang makes for extremely good eating just sliced raw onto sandwiches, but generally the fruit is used either in sauces (I replace up to half of the regular Roma tomatoes with Tomate de Arbol in my red sauces) or as a juice (blanch, shock, peel, and toss in the blender with a bit of water.) The things are incredibly pectin-y, which means that I never have to thicken any sauce I make with them. A friend of mine makes a dynamite jam from the red-seeded type.

Solanum betaceum. You see them less in Mexican cooking, but as soon as you cross the Panama canal, they're everywhere. The tree is native to Ecuador, and the fruit is used in both desserts and savoury sauces, as well as being a very popular juice. In fact, if you ask for a tomato (tomate) in the market here, this is what they'll hand you, and certainly if you order tomato juice this is what comes. If you want a "standard" red beefsteak tomato, you have to specify "tomate de riñon" and nobody can fathom why you might want the juice of those things.... This is my absolute fave fruit for desserts - it's excellent stewed whole without its peel in a heavy cinnamon-anise panela syrup.

100% legal, as I'm not shipping you enough seed for you to start your own nursery - small quantities of seed are exempt under both Ecuador's and Canada's trading laws under an heirloom preservation convention between the two countries. PM me! I can also send you tree tomatoes (must be tried to be believed!)

Darienne, would you like some Tomatillo seeds? They can be grown very successfully in pots up in the frozen north (I have a friend in London ON that does it), year-round.

Make foccaccia with insane amounts incorporated into the dough along with sundried tomatoes that have steeped in olive oil. There truly is nothing better than a fresh oregano foccaccia done this way.

I'm very fond of Ecuador's signature cream soup, Locro de Queso. This is a thick cream of potato, white squash, and crumbled Queso Fresco flavoured with green onions and achiote - done right it's a warm gold colour. Another fun one is Repe Blanco, a thick cream of plantain, potato, and white bean with heavy cream, garlic, and rosemary. Both of these soups are served with half an avocado floating in 'em.

I swear by the silicone spatches made by Cafe du Joy (no idea whether those are available in the US) - just springy enough to conform, just stiff enough to scrape really well, and I can stir hot things with them as well without worrying that they're going to deform. I have seven different shapes and sizes for various uses.

Another way to creamy mashed potatoes is to add low-fat yogurt to them instead of milk/cream. You get that lovely full flavour with none of the angst that cream brings.