JoNorvelleWalker

I have long, thin spidery fingers. In other words weak fingers. Pull tabs never were a thing for me, even with pliers or a pull tab tool. Now for pull tab cans I use a can opener. Even our local Shoprite has a couple brands of tomato paste in tubes. The convenience is fantastic.

Vanilla. Peanut butter. The vanilla was good. Peanut butter perhaps the best ice cream I have made. https://forums.egullet.org/topic/152508-home-made-ice-cream-2015–/?do=findComment&comment=2321762

I am minded of the time I made eggnog with lab ethanol. The eggs curdled as if they were fried.

Time. I actually thought the Philips grill was broken because the elements were not painful to look at. Often I have to wear dark glasses to cook on it.

The steak was well overdone.

I will never again not label my gelato. We all know this is a brazen lie.

https://forums.egullet.org/topic/146534-i-will-never-again-part-4/?do=findComment&comment=2321919

I will never again broil my strip steak on the Philips grill keep warm setting.

I once had a kitty who made off with a steak. After that we had a rule that anyone on the table was fair game for being eaten.

If it tasted really good I wouldn't share.

Tonight I improvised a batch of Modernist peanut butter gelato. It is confusing because there are two very different Modernist gelato recipes and of the original recipe there are two quite different methods. I've made peanut butter gelato based both on the MC pistachio gelato recipe and on the MC@H pistachio gelato recipe. I find the original MC version superior to and no more difficult than the MC@H version. Tonight's batch of peanut butter was based on the original MC pistachio gelato. The major difference is that I wanted to test tara gum in place of locust bean gum. Herewith were my ingredients: Water 680g Jif Natural peanut butter 210g Golden sugar 140g Roasted peanut oil 100g Salt 4g Tara gum 1g Lambda Carrageenan 2g Glycerol Monostearate 1.5g Polysorbate 80 0.8g Be aware Jif Natural contains palm oil, sugar, salt, and molasses. I compensated. Also note tara gum is more efficient than locust bean gum, so I reduced the amount of gum accordingly. The original MC recipe and method is here: https://modernistcuisine.com/recipes/pistachio-gelato/ A video showing the modified MC method that I followed is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFzRFk94NQQ Be aware that there is no need to boil these hydrocolloids, no matter what @nathanm might say. I suspect boiling may damage them. I heated just to 90C. An unappetizing skin formed on the mix while chilling. Next time I might skip the chilling step entirely and go directly to the blast freezer. I don't see the need for chilling, but that is what the video said to do. Disclaimer: I didn't stir my mix while chilling which may have been my fault.

Batch 14. I got to use my new Super Bag and I reduced the sugar further to 220g. 90g almonds (blanched Spanish almonds) 90g apricot kernels 350ml water 220g sugar 20ml orange flower water I am enjoying my evening mai tai as we speak with a bowl of smokehouse almonds.

I should clarify that the auger did not become stuck while juicing. It was stuck while I was trying to take the machine apart for cleaning.

Tonight making almond milk the auger became stuck in my juicer. A real pain. Google was not much help. I finally freed the auger by running hot water repeatedly through the mechanism. May this be of help to someone.

I can report that the Super Bag was easier to work with and to clean than my muslin bag. The joy of the Super Bag is the loop on top.

Making a batch of orgeat tonight... Here is the medium (4x14 inch) 100 micron Super Bag filtering my almond milk. For the amounts I make I think I might be better served by a smaller bag.

I'm happy enough broiling with my APO. Nothing to write home about. When broiling with the door not open my GE electric oven shuts down with an over temperature error code.

This dough was almost a week old. Still good.

I shall never again misplace my pot of nuts. With relentless regularity it is again time for me to make orgeat. Earlier I weighed out almonds and apricot kernels. And put for them to soak. I'm sure I did. But then I could not find them. I searched the kitchen. I searched the bedroom. I checked the bathroom and the dining room. I looked in the oven and the dishwasher. I finally found the nuts in the living room, next to the pot of deep frying oil on top of the blast freezer.

Sweet potato sweetens if you cook it at a lower temperature. I didn't know much about squash amylase, so I googled... https://journals.ashs.org/downloadpdf/journals/jashs/124/6/article-p587.pdf

For dinner I used my ricer. Ricer only, no tamis. I found the result gritty, for lack of a better term. Still, none of the potato went to waste.

And how do you mash your potatoes?

Tonight I took an informal poll among my colleagues: one uses an immersion blender, one said a fork*. Another uses a ricer or an S shaped masher. The fourth turned out to be Irish and an aficionado of Kristen Kish. *though I suspect his response was less verity and more a cheap opportunity to mess with me and my potatoes.