JoNorvelleWalker

Nothing says summer like a chocolate malt. Sadly it has been decades since I could find an acceptable milkshake from an ice cream parlor. Even a local emporium that churns their own ice cream fails at the art of milkshake. What to do? I spun a beaker of Rose Levy Beranbaum's chocolate, from Rose's Ice Cream Bliss. May I pause to say I love my Ninja CREAMi? For the second portion of my project I employed a Blendtec Frothing Jar. The Frothing Jar does not have a typical blender blade. In place of the blade is a disc with holes. The Frothing Jar is a commercial product designed for foaming milk in coffee houses. Works wonderfully for milkshakes and emulsions. After the ice cream, I added about three tablespoons of Carnation malt and a goodly amount of milk. (No syrup, never.) I was rewarded a few moments later with three servings. (My Baccarat tumbler holds only half a liter.) Garnish was a green plastic milkshake straw. And yes, I do reuse my plastic straws.

Or where in the world you live. What do you pay for Best's in Australia? "Bring out the Hellmann's, Bring out the Best."

I have become fond of (what is called here) arctic char. I understand the char found (or, as last week, not found) in our markets is farm raised in Iceland. Was the fish you were served wild caught?

My local Shoprite has Hellmann's for $3.49 this week.

You saved me from myself. The Lee Kum Kee went back in the bottle. No complaints with the Kikkoman.

Tonight's dinner is to be stir-fried baby bok choy. Rice is cooking. Mise is en place. Mai tai is in hand (technically hands, however I keep having to put the glass down to type). The problem is I have yet to replenish my supply of Pearl River. I found in the refrigerator an opened bottle of Lee Kum Kee Premium Dark and a bottle of Kikkoman brewed in Taiwan. Neither are getting any younger. I have about an hour to decide which goes in my stir-fry. The stir-fry recipe is from Hsiao-Ching Chou. I make it often. There is not much to the recipe: stir-fry your choice of cut Chinese leafy green with garlic. I prefer baby bok choy. Add soy sauce and water, and continue stir-frying for a couple minutes. That's it. But since the ingredients are so simple there is a lot riding on the soy sauce, although Chou says if you don't have soy sauce you can just use salt.. When I ordered the Kikkoman they sent a case of six liters. And it was the wrong Kikkoman. I had ordered Marudaizu. If something on amazon is unexpectedly inexpensive there is probably a reason. Of course I did not have to pay, and eventually I got my Marudaizu. I gave one of the Taiwan Kikkoman bottles to a Taiwanese friend of my son's who proclaimed it very good. Of course he may have been being polite. Hsiao-Ching Chou's parents were from Taiwan, and she says she prefers Taiwanese soy sauce because it is what she grew up with while her parents ran the family Chinese restaurant. Left unspoken is the question of whether what Kikkoman brews in Taiwan is Taiwanese soy sauce, or Japanese soy sauce for the Taiwanese domestic market. I am so confused. Meanwhile amazon has Pearl River Bridge back in stock. A liter bottle is only $7.57 in plastic. A liter packaged in glass is still a lot more, $18.12.

Our family preferred Wanamaker's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wanamaker's Even though my mother was offended they wouldn't let her smoke there. How I remember meeting people at the Eagle. And the organ concerts. But most especially the toys. Food was good.

Well I reheat my hotdogs 15 minutes at 200C. I didn't go to grad school for nothing.

In a pan with a little water is the way I cook breakfast sausages. I've always cooked breakfast sausages that way. I thought the difference was that hotdogs are pre-cooked while breakfast sausages are not.

Thanks, though being lazy I think I will continue to heat my hotdogs in the APO. Somewhere I saw a suggestion to make a slit in the casing to prevent splitting. If I remember I will try that next time. And as far as I can tell the split is purely cosmetic.

Is there a way to prevent natural casing hot dogs from splitting?

I avoid limes with dark rough skin like monkey pox or plague. Nothing good shall ever come of them. For juicy limes I look for smooth skin, but I don't worry much about the color (unless brown and scrofulous), as I aspire to have at least a dozen fruits ripening in my bedroom at one time. And typically (like tonight) I purchase limes several times a week. Lemons are my nemesis. And any oranges I don't use up at once shall surely rot.

With lid the weight of the Fissler (actually I have three Fissler pressure cookers, but the Fissler in question) is 4.5 kg. I'm not sure what that has to do with the price of beans.* The shape of the pot (in Fissler's wisdom) is a conical frustrum, and I'm not up to calculating the volume before breakfast. I could measure the volume easily enough by weighing the water necessary to fill the vessel if you believe it is relevant to the discussion. From room temperature it takes about a minute for the pot to come to full pressure. I use little water, sorry I don't measure, about a half a cup. The beans are on a steaming tray well above the water. Before the water boils the beans are not experiencing much cooking. Maybe some convection from the residual air in the pot. Decompression under cold running water takes very few seconds, much less than 30, more like 10. *actual American idiom

When I spin Rose's chocolate in the CREAMi I have to run it through two or three cycles for proper texture. It may just be the nature of cocoa fat in ice cream. @Chris Hennes is experienced with Rose's chocolate recipe. Perhaps Chris could comment?

Some people go through a lot of work to peel a lemon.

Thanks. We'll see what happens come prime day.

Thanks. That's where it landed. I had a leftover baguette with my omelet for lunch. The bread I didn't finish I cubed and made croutons for the salad.

Caesar salad, Kenji style... https://www.seriouseats.com/the-best-caesar-salad-recipe Highly addictive. I ate a lot.

My Waring would probably handle most of that: (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) Granted the Waring won't homogenize a pot of soup. But my Blendtec would cook the soup as well. Why dirty a pot?

Humbly I retract my expressed happiness with KitchenAid. I purchased the KitchenAid after my Cuisinart immersion blender burned out. Unlike Cuisinart the KitchenAid did not burn out, but the KitchenAid motor now spins and spins while the blade does not move at all. It's not like I relied on the KitchenAid more than once or twice a year. The plan was for Kenji's Caesar salad... https://www.seriouseats.com/the-best-caesar-salad-recipe For the Caesar dressing Kenji calls for an immersion blender or a food processor. Given my food processor is humongous and lives in the bedroom, I chose the immersion blender approach and was met with profound disappointment. Thankfully I have an homogenizer on the kitchen counter. And I am now set for my next batch of anchovy ice cream. Is there any point to replacing the KitchenAid? Is there anything an immersion blender will do that other kitchen appliances can't accomplish?

I also enjoy dry fried green beans. Or I'll take my leftover 30 second green beans and use them in a stir fry.

All women in the dining room and they might get me there. I forgot to mention, I was intrigued by Jacques' suggestion to cook beans in copper.

One more restaurant where I probably won't dine. If 30 second green beans bother you and Jacques, my barely blanched Brussels sprouts would probably offend. I use a small Wusthof kitchen knife at the table to slice the sprouts so I can slowly savor them. But so no one is confused: the beans I use are very small. The 30 seconds are 30 seconds at full pressure in a Fissler pressure cooker, followed by a quick release. Sometimes steaming might go for 40.

This morning I had an organic baby bok choy delivery from Whole Foods. The specimens are huge: 14 inches/0.36 meters long, whereas the baby bok choy I typically buy are more like 4-5 inches in length. One choy would have been quite enough. I thought at first the amazon shopper had substituted bok choy for what I ordered. However these brassica indeed look like baby bok choy -- baby bok choy grown up and on steroids. And it's not like I didn't already have a cabbage in the hydrator. Fortunately my new rice cooker is supposed to arrive tomorrow.

And no doubt Jacques melts his ice cream. But I think I may try the idea of sauteing my green beans with shallots.