Anna N

Here.

I used to be able to get mushrooms in cans only and I quite enjoyed them. I still keep a can or two around but now I’ve come to consider them as a different vegetable altogether. Similar to mushrooms but I’m not fooled into believing they are the same.

Like you, I am risk averse especially as far as unknown mushrooms are concerned. I have a vague recollection, perhaps even a false memory, of neighbours in Derby, England who succumbed to unwisely chosen mushrooms. “There are old mushroom hunters and bold mushroom hunters, but no old, bold mushroom hunters.”

Damn. You just cost me $10. The Grigson book is available as a Kindle edition and I love, love, love mushrooms. I am never happy if there are not mushrooms in my refrigerator. However, having said that, they are usually creminis and/or portobellos. We are seeing more varieties of mushrooms now including Shimeji, shiitake, king mushrooms and occasionally a few other varieties. But these are not normally available in a middle of the road grocery store. Certainly more varieties are found in the Asian groceries and in the very high-end groceries. One of my fondest memories is of field mushrooms collected by an uncle and cooked by my grandmother in milk. I remember nothing else about it but that black juice which I was allowed to sop up with hunks of torn bread. When portobellos first showed up in the grocery store I thought I had gone to heaven but they are not the same at all. They resemble the field mushrooms in size only. I am really looking forward to this topic and will eat up every word of it.

You turned down McDonald’s for Iberico ham? I’m apalled. Shocked and apalled I say.

Please, please tell me you are not attempting to compete with Gwyneth Paltrow.

Here’s what happens to me. Much of the time when I check out this thread, I discover that the books are only on sale south of the border or to prime members or the book(s) doesn’t appeal to me at any price. But now I am primed for a new book and so I end up spending much more money on something I really want but that isn’t on sale. It is a dangerous world we live in.

Those of you who are anxious to send Kerry off to Paris might keep in mind that without Kerry I have nobody to lunch with. Kerry is still doing her jet lag eating program so today we needed protein ++ for lunch. A steakhouse would have fit the bill perfectly but none are open at lunchtime. So a diner seemed our next best option. Hence we returned to Mo’s in Oakville. After earlier discussions of ketchup bottles versus squeeze bottles I could not resist asking Kerry to take this photograph as soon as we had sat down. Calamari with ranch style dip and a salad which we shared. Kerry ordered up ribs with roasted potatoes and the vegetable of the day. A roast beef dip and fries for me. Now I will confess for both of us. We had nibbled away at the calamari and the salad and it took quite some time for our entrees to arrive. Time enough for our brains to register that we had already had enough to eat. We asked for takeout containers, packed up our lunches and headed home. I don’t think we have ever before packed up untouched meals.

A better photographer will be along soon but in the meantime here you go. The developer version of the ANOVA on the right and the Joule on the left. The ANOVA 1.0 is the red one but it is pretty much identical to the developer version. I don’t know if the version currently available is the same size.

Absolutely.

Oh my! It is such fun when you can cook with friends.

I agree and in time if one keeps careful notes, one will have the best reference of all.

Pre-ordered so it showed up in my library this morning. Will be anxious to hear what you think of it. I am still resisting the mini but for how long I am not sure.

Extra underwear and socks are both highly overrated. Ditch them.

I might have to bite the bullet after all these years and get a prime membership! From what I can see those are definitely prime prices.

Having run into them mostly at potlucks I have a different theory: Of all the things on offer they are the least objectionable.

Beautiful handwriting.

Click This is Breville’s entry into the electric pressure cooker market. I am usually a huge fan of anything this company markets but not this time. Aside from the price which presently is $277 Canadian, the non-removable lid is the first dealbreaker! Anyone own one? Anyone wish they did? Anyone understand why the reviewer concludes that there are more pros than cons in this review? Over to you.

What! You doubt that the law is an ass? I have no idea if it still the law in Ontario but I do know it was at one time. If you were in a restaurant that served liquor and for some reason wanted to change your table to another table you could not carry your alcoholic drink to the new table. You had to wait for a server to transfer your drink to the new table.

I have noticed the same thing although I have never understood the logic behind it.

I bounced out of bed this morning eager to make a loaf of oat bran and flaxseed bread having discovered an unopened box of oat bran as I continued the clean up after my relatively minor domestic mishap (think Puerto Rico, California et al.). OK so there’s a bit of an exaggeration here. I didn’t bounce out of bed. In fact I don’t bounce anywhere anymore intentionally. But I was eager to get started. Set up my mise, proofed my yeast and started to weigh my ingredients. But when I opened the box of bran I discovered its contents were moving of their own volition. Not requiring any extra protein and not being one to deal well with creepy crawlies I turned to Plan B. Again a bit of an exaggeration. There was at this point no Plan B. But having dumped a whole box of oat bran into the garbage bin I wasn’t really keen on throwing away the other ingredients that I carefully measured out. So I looked through my pantry and I turned up some large flake oats and threw them into the mix. I knew I was going to be on my own in terms of adjusting the flour and water ratio to accommodate the new ingredient. Everything seem to be going along just fine. I opted to use the Cuisinart steam oven and I don’t know whether it was to blame or not. I just don’t trust it with bread. Anyway my bread emerged looking rather sad and with very little lift. I seriously considered sending it in the same direction as the package of oat bran. But I thought, before I throw it out, I’ll at least taste it to see if it’s worth a repeat at another time. To my surprise it was quite pleasant and would’ve made a fine side to a bowl of soup. But being so low to the ground it’s not really suitable for sandwiches. So I made another loaf of the Harvest Grains bread. This time I used 75 g of mixed seeds consisting of sesame seeds, flax seeds, pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds. I opened my big oven to prepare it to accept this new bread but couldn’t bear the thought of moving three cast-iron frying pans, two sheet pans, two cooling racks and a muffin tin. I know @Shelby understands completely. So this bread too went into the Cuisinart steam oven. I had to use foil of course else the crust would have burned but perhaps there is a little room for hope. This should make a decent sandwich.

Now we’re talking! Jealous. So jealous.

I am with you. Nothing I ever cooked in any of the slow cookers I ever had was worth eating.

Thank you. I am going to make it again probably tomorrow but I will mix up a different variety of seeds. I do enjoy pumpkin seeds but in this case I think there was too much of a good thing.

I believe this is the same recipe that @ElsieD used above. A friend brought me some white whole wheat from the US and definitely makes a huge difference. (I used my own seed mix.) But I also read somewhere, I can’t give credit because I’m not sure where, that 2 tablespoons of orange juice added to dough made with (non white?) whole wheat flour will cut the bitterness. Have not tried that yet.