tammylc

From comments here and reading about the various fruits, we ended up doing this order: Black Sapote Atemoya Carambola Kumquat Dragonfruit Papaya Guava Passionfruit This was a pretty good order. As Shalmanese said, the dragonfruit were very mild, so on the one hand they should have been earlier. But on the other hand, they made for a nice palate cleanser after the very potent kumquat. I think I'd move the kumquat last if I were to do this again, and then put the dragonfruit before the carambola. The black sapote are mild but flavorful, so it's good to do those very early. But probably any order would have worked. Anyway, all my guests (and I) had a really good time and learned a lot!

Do you think the baking technique (in the closed hot pot) would have the same crust improving qualities in a GF bread? And if you have any good GF bread recipes to share, can you PM me? Thanks.

In my experience with these softs of things, I've found that people generally like having a little more ceremony attached to it, and doing things one at a time creates the opportunity to tell people about what they're eating, etc. Which they seem to really like. It would be a really quick event if I just handed everyone a plate of fruit! There is enough of (almost) everything that people will have the opportunity to compare and contrast as well.

I'm hosting a little tasting event for some friends tonight. We'll be tasting some unusual and not-so-unusual fruits that I brought back from a trip to Florida. I'm trying to figure out what order to offer things. In a wine tasting, you taste from dry to sweet. In a salsa tasting, you taste from mild to hot. Any tropical fruit experts out there want to weigh in on how you'd order the following? Black Sapote Carambola (aka star fruit) Kumquat Passionfruit Papaya Guava Pitaya (aka dragonfruit - red fleshed, if that makes a difference) Atemoya Thanks!

Did you try this? And did it work? I've got a friend who can't have wheat either, and I'd LOVE to be able to make him a loaf of bread.

I didn't see any gloriously large spiders. Too bad! I definitely got more treats because I was interested. There weren't a lot of things available to try, but we got most of them. I should have gotten a shake at Robert's but wasn't feeling like it at the moment. My dinner got delayed, though, so it would have been a much nicer tide-me-over than the peanut butter crackers from the vending machine...

I had a blast at the Fruit and Spice Park. Not a lot of fruits were in season right now, but I got to try a bunch of really interesting things. I'll definitely plan to go again if I'm here in another season. Definitely important to get the tour - things are not well marked, so I think it wouldn't be very fun to do it on your own. After the park, I stopped at Schnebly Redland's Winery. They make wines out of tropical fruits - carambola, mango, lytchee, passionfruit, guava. Interesting. The guava and mango were my favorites, but none of them were worth the $14-$18 to take a bottle home. Then on to Robert is Here. Robert helped me pick out some unusual fruits that I'll be taking home to Michigan with me for a little tropical fruit tasting party I'm hosting on Thursday. The most unusual things I got were dragonfruit, black sapote, and a couple tiny atemoya - their the last of the season. I got a canestel, but it's very not ripe and so it won't be part of the tasting on Thursday. I took lots of pictures and notes to write up something for my blog. I'll come back and at least post a pointer here or even crosspost it if I'm feeling willing to double upload all my pictures...

Thanks Adrienne. I'm looking forward to my visit!

This loaf turned out beautifully! Check it out: It was fabulous - not at all gummy. Crunchy crust, but not too tough. It was a big hit at my wine tasting club tonight. I used Abra's recipe for the larger loaf, including the semolina, and KA AP flour. I used Morton Kosher salt, which is very large crystals, so for the larger loaf I used 3 tsps and that was about right. I did a 15 hour first rise, and a 2 hour second rise. Did the second rise on a towel with lots of rice flour. I baked it in my enameled cast iron pan (don't know how many quarts it is - 6 or 8, I guess). I preheated at 450, and left the lid on for the first 25 minutes. When I removed the lid, I lowered the oven temperature to 425, and cooked it 25 more minutes, IIRC. Temperature was 209.5 when I took it out of the oven. Thanks to everyone for all the excellent tips!

I don't have an eggnog truffle recipe yet... I'm going to start with one mrose posted in the pumpkin pie truffle thread, but I have yet to do a test batch. Check out his post - I'd love to hear your experience with it.

The only cheesesteak place I know of in Ann Arbor is a little hole in the wall called Izzy's located in a strip mall on Stadium. I've only been there once, and the cheesesteak was okay - don't really remember it much. It's only open lunches.

Thanks. I'm making egg nog truffles with rum in the same set, so I probably won't do rum with the chestnut. Maybe a bit of brandy?

Would you add sugar? The recipes I'm seeing online basically have you make chestnut puree with butter and sugar, and then incorporate that with melted chocolate. Here's a typical one:

Thanks. I'm making hand formed truffles as well, so I appreciate the concern for workability. I was just surprised by the ratio of so little liquid - usually I see 3:1 or maybe 4:1 ratios for white chocolate. But clearly I just need to do a sample batch and figure it out from there. Thanks!

I've decided I'm not quite busy enough, so I'm going to make some truffles for the holidays. I'm planning "seasonal" flavors - egg nog, gingerbread, cranberry, and chestnut, I think. Anybody have a recipe for chestnut ganache to share?

mrose, or anybody else - please tell me about the glucose in this recipe. Is it there for preservation, or for flavor, or texture? I'd think the white chocolate would be really sweet already. I just want to understand the proportions a bit before I attempt a test batch. How's the flavor? It seems like there's not much eggnog - does it contribute much to the taste, or is that mostly coming from the vanilla bean and the nutmeg? Thanks!

Yeah, the reason I asked is that I'm pretty sure my first loaf, with a full 18 hour rise, got overproofed. It was very wet and I got no oven spring at all. I had bubbles all across the surface after only about 12 hours, but I waited for about 15 before doing the fold, then two more. It's in the oven now, and I just peeked at 20 minutes to see if I should take the lid off yet (5 more minutes, I think). Beautiful oven spring this time - I'm really excited to try this loaf. I used Abra's recipe for the larger loaf with 20% semolina.

The range on first rise is really broad - 12-18 hours. How do you know it's ready for the next stage?

How's this sound for a plan? Land around noon, get my rental car, drive down towards Florida City. Hit the Fruit and Spice Park either before or after checking into my hotel, timing to depend on syncing up with one of the tours (1:30 and 3 pm). I know you weren't impressed, Robyn, but as a foodie I'd find it more specifically interesting than a regular botanical gardens. Hit Robert is Here after that, then maybe some of the other stops on the Redland Riot tour that I linked to previously, if I have time and they look interesting. Late afternoon, head up to Coral Gables to meet Fresser for dinner - from what you've said about traffic, it sounds like I'd be counter flow so it wouldn't be too horribly long a drive?

Haven't been for quite a while - but I don't recall the Fruit & Spice Park as being worth a second trip (I lived in Miami for over 20 years). OTOH - Fairchild Tropical Garden is worth a second - and third - etc. If you like to bike - you can rent a bike (maybe in Coconut Grove?) - and take the bike path down south through Coral Gables to the Gardens. It's a lovely ride. What is Robert Is Here? Robyn ← Robert is Here is a fruit stand that sells all kinds of really unusual tropical fruits, in addition to other things: http://www.redlandriot.com/RobertIsHere.html http://www.robertishere.com/stand.htm It, and the Fruit and Spice Park, were profiled in a recent issue of The Art of Eating, Edward Behr's periodical. When I realized that I was going to be in the same neighborhood, it seemed worth a look.

Anybody have any experience with either of these places? I'm thinking I might ditch my plans to bum around Miami for the day and instead go to visit the park, etc. Any recommendations for a good Cuban lunch on the way to Florida City/ Homestead/ Redland area, or anything interesting for dinner?

I'd describe my crust as relatively thin and crisp, but I only kept the lid on for 20 minutes.

I want to be a plate-aholic, but don't do tasting menu dinners often enough to justify investing in the plates I covet. And the ones that I do have tend to have too many people - it's one thing to have enough plates for 6 or 8, another thing entirely for 16 or more. You asked for recipe ideas. These are very seasonal for the meal you've got coming up, but the squash trio amuse bouche I made for the Heartland Gathering this year is very amenable to doing ahead, as a whole or in parts. On the upper left is a baby patty pan squash, hollowed out and filled with crisped guanciale mixed with fig preserves. All of this can be done in advance, and the guanciale mixture would just need to be heated prior to topping. You could do this with pancetta or bacon as well. The zucchini blossom is stuffed with a simple puree of white beans, garlic, lemon, parsley and salt and served cold. The roulade is thinly sliced and grilled zucchini with a filling of goat cheese, olive oil, sundried tomatoes and thyme. You can prepare them way in advance and just heat them up in the oven prior to serving.

Fish, I think. We don't eat it very often at common meal, and we like it (even more important, our toddler likes it!) so I try to cook it fairly often when it's my turn. I'm thinking of just doing my pecan crusted tilapia with brown butter sauce again, but I'm totally up for new ideas. From a price perspective, I need to stick with something that I can get relatively cheaply - tilapia is something I can get a really good price on for really good quality fish, so I've tended to stick with that. But I could explore other fish possibilities.

After a bit of a break to accommodate all this travel I've been doing for work, I've got a bunch of cook shifts in a row. Wednesday I made jambalaya, and was quite pleased with how it turned out. I wrote up the recipe and posted it to my blog, in case you ever need to cook jambalaya for a crowd. Since it was the night before Thanksgiving, it was a small meal for me - only about 35 people. Tonight I made turkey and wild rice soup. When I posted this menu, I assumed that I'd be home for Thanksgiving, and that I could coordinate my Thanksgiving cooking to support the meal. I also figured that - like Wednesday - it would be small meal. At 50-odd people (I had late signups and drops, so I'm not sure of the final number) it wasn't a small meal. And I ended up not being home for Thanksgiving, and thus not having a turkey. Fortunately, I convinced a few neighbors to donate their carcasses to stock making, so I set up a couple big pots of stock yesterday, and finished up the soup tonight. I bought a boneless turkey breast and cooked that up for the meat, since I didn't have any leftovers. Stock is cheap, which meant I could splurge on some spendy ingredients - real wild rice from Zingerman's (although I ended up supplementing that with some of the regular stuff), as well as Zingerman's bread (day-old, refreshed in the oven) and cheese for dessert (1/2 lb each of four kinds - the big splurge at $16/lb or more). I'm too lazy to go dig out my shopping list and give you the full rundown. Sorry! I cook again in a week, and I'll be reprising the Egg Curry that I made once before - hardboiled eggs in a tomato curry sauce, with dal and raita and rice. My plans for my other meal in December have fallen through, so I need to come up a menu for that meal - anyone have any suggestions?