cdh

Haven't tried the Tonnino... am remedying that now. A six-pack of their ventresca is on the way.

For a difference, perhaps butter your bread... Americans don't tend to do that, Brits do. Or if you're a Brit, try mayo instead of the butter. (But I don't think the two would play nicely together simultaneously.) Also think about adding alfalfa sprouts as your green addition. A curly tangle of them is much less likely to get wilty than a single leaf of lettuce. Tapenades, or olive slices are also nice. And think about cheeses that spread, not slice... A slathering of camembert on the bread would certainly liven up turkey breast.

I tried a rhubarb elderflower strawberry sorbet. It initially rang in at north of 30, and I watered it down to about 29. Perfect texture without any stabilizer additions. Going to be repeated. Perhaps with a squeeze of lemon juice next time. Hope my elderflower tree still has some flowers on it.

Have you taken a brix reading on the sorbet base? What is the target for a sorbet with a nice texture? North of 30?

Sounds like the Wired guy read what Ninja sent along as documentation. Since I got the refurb with no documentation, I can't confirm or deny that they tell you not to use normal ice cream recipes... but reading that review makes it sound like that is a thing said in the docs.

On the subject of making your own, I've been playing with my Creami a bit, and have made some good stuff. I've been very lazy base-wise, not getting around to cooking up anything custardy, and not feeling like consuming lots of heavy cream recently... so my base has been 50/50 by volume of almond milk and blueberry kefir. Just that, with a drizzle of blueberry syrup and a couple of tablespoons of sugar in made a nice batch when run on the Light Ice Cream setting, but the leftovers froze up like a rock and needed reprocessing the following evening. So I decided to try playing with stabilizers, and happened to have some xanthan handy, so the next batch was 50/50 with syrup, and sugar came out better, but still didn't keep a nice texture after a day in the fridge. So batch 3 was the same base, 1/4t of xanthan, but with 3 tablespoons of sugar, a squeeze of lemon juice and a tablespoon of gin added. Bingo! I think the extra sugar plus the alcohol is what makes it nice and scoopable out of the freezer the next day.

Just so you know, Amazon does have procedures in place for when their deliveries do damage... I just wanted to vent that a driver spun his truck tires in my stone driveway and dug some holes as he raced to get out of here, and Amazon transferred me to a property damage insurance carrier. Complain in the right way and you could get your door repainted.

If you really want to do the Japanese thing correctly, the stuff you're looking for is called "bincho tan". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binchōtan It is beautiful to look at, burns hotter than normal charcoal, and is extremely difficult to find outside of Japan. I gather that there are some hexagonal sticks of charcoal that try to mimic bincho tan. If that is impossible or out of budget, big solid lump charcoal is the thing...

Some reading for you: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/bakers-yeast-for-a-sahti.256887/

As I recall, some of the US interpretations of the scandinavian Gotlandsdricke were brewed with bread yeast... you might look for recipes for that and work on variations. You're not going to get a juicy hazy NEIPA or a clean and clear lager out of one... but you'll probably find something that it really works for. I'd lean towards wheat/barley grain bill, and don't go nuts with the hops until you get a sense of what the yeast flavor underlying it is going to be.

Amazon has OXO cooling racks on sale for $8. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B076JN4B2J/ref=ppx_od_dt_b_asin_title_s00?ie=UTF8&th=1

Unwrapped and broke in my Creami finally. Freezer cycling between 0F and -10F. Can of pineapple chunks poured straight into the pint and a spoonful scooped off and eaten to get the level down to the line. Stellar results. Very very nice! Do they always produce hot electric motor aromas while working?

He's not wrong that its the R&D that you're paying for... Traditional alcohol-based spirits have about 1000 years of prior art to draw on and use to optimize processes and predict what you're going to get. If n/a spirits have a thousand year run, they'll naturally come down in price as the body of usable knowledge fills in.

Yeah... the review has a slightly biased feeling to it. "Yeah, it kinda works, but THE REALLY GOOD STUFF comes from the machine 30x the price..." The fact that they admitted it works counts as a real win for Ninja, I think. And chef-guy's admission he bought one for his home kitchen too.

That's a good starting point- What's the minimum brix for acceptable texture chez BlueDolphin?

I've not even received my box in the mail yet, and questions are forming from all the reading up I'm doing. Has anybody figured out the absolute minimum Brix for the frozen stuff to be safe for the machine. I read that a block of frozen water is too hard for machine to grind through... yet frozen pineapple bits in syrup work fine. Everybody here working on the dairyless stuff must encounter similar issues. Has anybody with a refractometer done any measurements and come to any conclusions? Does the machine have any clutch-like safeguards built in, or is it a recipe for a hard fail/smoking motor if you go past the "too hard" threshold?

Deals on this thread almost never last longer than a month... and some disappear right quickly. I'm feeling guilty because AMZ presented me with Julia Child Vol2 for $1.99 over the weekend and I bought it, but didn't post here. Today it's back up to $20.

That would do the trick, and not require waiting on the slow boat from China...

The brew basket would allow you to do the gongfu style short steeps of lots of leaves. Or you could look into ordering something like this. It also lets you steep a lot of leaves in a little water and drop the water away from the leaves quickly. Yixing pots are fun and pretty, but they also drain more slowly than you'd get with the filter basket or Kamjove thingy. That time difference can make a difference in some teas that are tasty when brewed for 10 seconds at a time, but unpleasant when it gets to 20 or 30 seconds... (lookin' at you, dancong oolongs).

OK. I've been coopted too. Woot order placed. A fun new toy to play with!!!

Another thought, remembering you're in NY. A weekend in the Hudson Valley many years ago taught me the extent to which your water can affect your tea. If your well water is full of minerals, some of them will interact with the tea flavors. I had brought along some of Ten Ren's fancier King's Tea that was delicious at home, and while there it brewed up disgusting. Absolutely undrinkable. So If you happen to run across a tea that is just not doing it for you, get some bottled water and try brewing with that and see if it is your taste buds, or suboptimal brewing materials.

I've got one of these and am quite happy with it. https://www.amazon.com/Chefman-Temperature-Control-Electric-Kettle/dp/B08G8WX93H?ref_=ast_sto_dp&th=1 Though, given the picture and write up I should clarify that I've _never_ dropped tea into the infuser basket in the kettle. That is just asking for disgusting brown sludge buildup that you'll never get clean.

I've not tried the refrigerated version... never even noticed there was an unfrozen lasagna option. The frozen one that was missing from the freezer last trip is the default lasagna I go for. But the new Florentine is a worthy addition to the lineup... hope they restock on the meat lasagna _and_ keep the spinachy one around too. They usually have a frozen meat, and a frozen "veggie" whatever that is... probably ratatouille layered between noodles, which does not appeal.

Last trip to TJ's they didn't have the meat lasagna that I enjoy... but they did have a new Florentine lasagna, so I picked one of them up . Excellent addition to the TJ lineup. Very very tasty stuff.