Panaderia Canadiense

I'd only call it Mise en Place if everything I was going to use in the recipe was all nicely chopped/prepared, handy, and ready for me to toss it into the pan. Hence my assertion that I'll do my mise on my myriad chopping boards - I find that the traditional way of using small bowls a) cleans me out of small bowls, which I'm generally using for other things anyhow, and b) makes far too many dishes for me after the meal is over. I'll be cleaning the boards anyway, so why not use them? On the other hand, Mise en Place is an excellent system for large-scale kitchens (like restaurants, hotels, etc) where you have a) an excess of crockery, and b) grunts to do the chopping and the dishes....

We don't eat ham in my family, so there's no need for the cheezy chaser.... I do, however, almost insist on mac and cheese with hamburgers.

Roast Turkey must have mashed potatoes, and breaded, fried fish must have scalloped potatoes. These are my only hard and fast rules. After that, I'll gleefully match things based on flavour (multi-ethnic? bring it on!) and complimentary tones. I tend to pair acid or dry (alkaline) with heavy creams/rich sauces, and cool sides with spicy mains. I hold that all meals are improved by adding a salad course, and I refuse to serve anything without at least a bit of veggies on the plate. If I'm cooking for more than just my family, I'll also do as ChezCherie suggests and visualise the impact of the plates - I'll add colourful veg to otherwise visually bland plates every single time.

Ugh, too many dishes afterwards! I'll do my mise on the boards, thank you....

If it's going directly into a pan, I'll generally use my small, handled wooden cutting board and swipe it in with the back of my knife. Meats are rarely added straight from the block - they go into bowls of quick marinade, and into the pan from those. I have 10 cutting boards, so I never run into the "chop yourself into a corner" thing....

I use a roller press, the same kind that is normally used for wheatgrass. It takes one good thick bunch to get enough juice for a dressing, but boy oh boy is it ever worth it.

Well this sounds fabulous and I will definitely be trying! I'm also imagining these thin shreds in an East-Asian style salad... It's very good when mixed with shredded green mango and papaya, with a dressing of fresh-squozen lemongrass and crushed peanuts and more lime.... (you can never go wrong in a salad with lime!)

I have a nifty little tool that I usually use for beets and carrots, which produces very long shoestrings. I love broccoli stems done this way, quick-cured in lime juice with a hint of aji pepper, and added as a garnish to salads and cold starches.

Worse here in Ecuador. I worked in a Hosteria (4-star resort) kitchen where we turned out set-plate and a-la-carte meals for about 250 guests with a staff of 3 in the kitchen - head chef and two sous (one of whom was me), and 2 waiters. The dishes waited until the dinner rush was over, and then the sous and waitstaff became the dishwashers. This in a kitchen that was barely big enough for the chef and sous - stoves on the outer edges, chopping and plating on an island in the middle!

What about Balkan-style yogurt? Neutral pH, great flavour, loads of beneficial probiotics.... This is a very good salad dressing when you chop fresh herbs into it.

I'd be quite tempted to do bowls of salad with a creamy dill-yogurt dressing, and sprinkle the peas just as you see them on top.....

The packaging is definitely pretty - I've won awards for it, and my clients collect the boxes. Great idea, though - I'll give it a shot as well.

I recommend finding a child: they're often willing to work for peanuts cookies! Ha! I'm sure that Javier across the street would be thrilled at the idea..... Off I go!

I really like the stacking idea, as well as the in-hand thing (although I'd have to find somebody with nice hands - mine are all scarred and yuggly.) If needs be, I'll go out and buy a nice plate for the cookies - what I have are traditional Ecuadorian stoneware with brightly coloured glazes from Cuenca, which are a far cry from the stark white generally preferred for setting up plates. I find them almost too busy for the cookies, although they set off my cakes rather nicely.

Does anybody out there have any good ideas on how to plate cookies? I'm hoping to improve the photos on my website, and since I already plate cakes and whatnot it would be nice to be able to do this with the cookies as well. I sell traditional-style Western Canadian soft oatmeal-chocolate chip cookies, which are an unheard-of product in Ecuador, where the British definition of Biscuits rules. Trouble is, I'm fresh out of ideas.... Help please?

Small langostino, butterflied and pan-fried with chunks of fresh tomato, diced red peppers, and fresh shallots. Sprinkle with parsley and serve. Strictly speaking, I should also be using good Hungarian sweet paprika and powdered Aji Macho in the dish, but Mom swears by the more delicate flavour of just the fresh red peppers (we grow an open-pollinated type that's somewhere between a Poblano and a Bell, which really are quite nice done this way - they have a very mild, sweet heat.)

Absolutely, every single chance I get! I've made some wonderful friends this way.

I'll be baking a rather ridiculous number of strawberry shortcakes for everybody else's mothers! For my own mother, I'm planning to make a gambas, which is her favourite dish, along with seared fresh tuna steaks in soy-balsamic glaze on a bed of fresh rattlesnake beans from our own garden, and a 7-green salad with lemongrass-peanut vinagrette, and for dessert a triple-chocolate zucchini cake with brandy truffle ganache icing.

I'd add The Ultimate Encyclopaedia of Chocolate by Christine McFadden and Christine France. I haven't made a bad recipe out of it yet, and it gets quite inventive. Along with the yummies and the absolutely stunning photography, there's a wealth of information about the history of chocolate in Mesoamerica, its first steps into Europe, and all of the techniques involved in proper handling and processing.

Wrap in banana or canna leaves with finely minced palm hearts, garlic, and baby potatoes. Steam or grill.

Immediate wipe with a wet, soapy sponge, rinse and wipe with a cloth, dry with a dry one, and back onto the magnetic storage strip appropriate to the knife. Doesn't matter what I've cut with them, I always deal with them right away. I dry the same way as Lisa does - in a single fluid motion from the handle to the tip, along the spine of the knife. Nothing ever sits in the sink or the dishwater. I collect knives (and should probably confess that elsewhere), and anything non-stainless also gets a nice fine coat of oil before being hung back up.

I used to love their malted frosties, but I had very little patience with any of the rest of their food.

I sometimes forget how spoiled I am for ingredients here. I can get Calamondins, and for that matter Seville and Blood Oranges almost year-round at the giant Monday fresh market 10 blocks from my house, because they're grown about 20 minutes from here. Best of luck with your trees, and your muffins!

Wow, you all made me consider my habits..... For example, Lasagne. It isn't Lasagne unless it's got pieces of those finger-thin Sicilian pepperonis in the red sauce. Without those, it's a layered noodle casserole. Equally, using anything other than red sauce with those particular pepperonis in it is sacrilege. No "chicken lasagne in cream sauce" or "dessert lasagne." That's. just. WRONG. I also won't serve (or eat) a fruit salad with an even number of fruits in it, or one that doesn't contain pineapple. I am also a pie crust purist, using my great-gran's recipe. Lard all the way! This said, I'll gleefully mess with pizzas, mac and cheese, and any number of other dishes. I regularly add mango to savoury things, for example, and I love the taste of little chunks of ripe plantain in my hamburgers.

Should be delicious with Navels - or if you can get your hands on those small Calamondins that have the burst of flavour..... Thanks for the compliment on the name - I'm an expat Canadian living and baking at extreme altitudes, and my screen-name is actually the name of my bakery (literally, it translates to Canadian Bread-ery, but Canadian Bakery is the proper sense of the word - and if I'd spoken more Spanish when I incorporated, it would have been called Reposteria Canadiense - the Canadian Desert-ery)