Deryn

Most of those DO look good, Anna. Maybe one could use them to inspire one's own weekly menus since I am sure you know how to cook all those (or can find out easily). If not this week, then just collect the ideas till you can or do want to make them. I suspect that the bahn mi roll may not be very 'authentic' anyway - sourdough? And how hard can steak frites be, roasted tomatoes included? And bearnaise is not really complicated. The basa catfish .. well .. I might be a bit more worried (than I would about the steak) about its ability to survive delivery plus x number of days till 'dinnertime' since it has to have been 'previously frozen' to make its journey from the Mekong delta. I would rather make that dish with another white fish anyway (not tilapia either) I think. I know you don't need encouraging not to order again, but just thought perhaps I would mention a few things that hit me when I looked at the individual dishes.

Glad you got the answers you needed so quickly. HR has always, in my experience, been very responsive - they have great customer service in my opinion. Good luck with those strawberries. Do hope you continue to post from time to time here on eGullet.

I am right with you, Anna. I have heard of 'yeast starter' - primarily in conjunction with beer brewing - and I have definitely heard of 'wild yeast'/sourdough 'starter' but not the term 'starter yeast' so otherwise, right now, I am totally confused. Barney - you are determined to use your old bread maker, correct? And you are equally determined to make a complicated bread with a lot of sugar and butter in it, right? And yet you also want to essentially make a sourdough bread I am guessing (though you may not realize that) if you want to use a 'wild yeast' starter. In a bread maker. Why? You can make no-knead dough so why do you 'need' the bread maker, if I may ask? And you seem frustrated by having to activate yeast that the instructions didn't tell you needed to be activated, but, was that recipe that didn't say to do that the exact recipe you listed in your first post - or have you modified it? Are you using instant yeast or yeast that must be activated? We have had threads here (and there are many on the web) where people talk about making yeast from the air essentially - and it is a delicate, often frustrating process but it can be done. If you make yeast 'from the air' successfully though, for as long as you can keep it alive after that, you have what I might term the 'starter yeast' for any bread (but, no, it will not be a 'dough-like' consistency - it will be brown and gloopy most probably - and should be kept refrigerated and 'fed') - but, because the process for making wild yeast starter involves a form of fermentation I think whatever bread it is used in probably would be called a 'sourdough' bread - and probably have a slightly different flavour as a result - a bit of 'tang'. And I am not certain it would work well with your particular recipe (most sourdough breads are simple - flour, water, salt, 'yeast') - but then I am no expert in that department. At any rate, people here want to help you but I would bet I am not the only one more than a bit confused about exactly what it is you really want help with. Do you want to know how to make yeast 'from the air'? Do you want to know if that kind of yeast will work with your specific bread recipe and/or when made in a bread maker as opposed to an oven, with or without kneading? Do you want to know why you have to activate yeast that is not instant (in fact, I would bet you wouldn't except that the results you got when you didn't could be because your recipe is so full of butter perhaps it requires the extra oomph that one might get from using more yeast than many of us use these days or what a prolonged activation in advance of adding to the mixture might provide)? Are you determined to only learn how to make THIS particular recipe or are you trying to learn more about bread making in general? Is this the only recipe you have tried? And if so, why? Have you ever baked bread any other way than in that bread maker? And have you ever baked relatively simple bread (just yeast, flour, water, salt) before? How much bread making experience do you actually have? If you could answer these questions perhaps we could better point you in the right direction. I have many questions. It appears you do as well. But, it seems as though this thread is wandering off what I thought your question was at the start and frankly, I am really lost. Was all you really wanted to know was how to save a teaspoon or so of yeast every time you make this specific bread recipe? I apologize but two things come to mind for me right now: Penny wise, pound foolish. And. Begin at the very beginning ... it's a very good place to start.

Steaming briefly with mint leaves would be my preferred way to prepare fresh peas - not that I do that often these days. Frozen really are the way to go in my opinion - but occasionally I will be tempted at a farmer's market. I haven't had/done any fresh peas since I got my IP but I don't think I would try them in there - too delicate and the timing would be so critical that I would be afraid to mess it up.

ElsieD, I am always leery in late spring/early summer as I approach the Canadian border crossing since I think this is the time of year when a bunch of new university grads (or maybe undergrads with a summer job) have finished training and are allowed to be 'officers'. They tend to apply the rules exactly as they memorized them and are sticklers for everything as one might do when one is new to any job. I don't blame them and they may not be wrong but it can be very hard on good honest people who certainly do not mean to defraud or put one over on Customs. The exchange rate is also a big problem - $20 is NOT $20, especially right now but if one has to keep exact track of it every day it compounds the problem - and that limit is really too low anyway as we all know. Sorry you went through that interrogation, etc. Going through Customs at any time is never what I would call a 'fun experience'. I know my blood pressure goes down and I Iet out a sigh once I have cleared successfully .. every time. And thanks for the heads up about the Blueberry Biscuits.

Hello, SatelliteDr ... and welcome to the eGullet forums. Have you talked to HarvestRight about this problem? I would not adjust the hinge side until I had spoken with them - seems to me I read something about that in the info that came from HR when I first got my FD. But maybe you did and that, and using the washers, were things they told you to do? And have you always followed the suggested procedure to check for a good door seal (using a sheet of paper) before you start up the machine? And do you always make sure you rotate the handle that extra quarter turn so it is really sealed? If you adjusted the hinge side, perhaps that also knocked the whole door out of whack somehow?

I agree with all of the above. I also do not refrigerate any vinegars or oils (except if open, expensive and known to be short lived - like nut oils). Likewise I do not refrigerate Worchestershire sauce or ketchup or mustard or oyster or soy sauce or usually maple syrup either. Maple syrup IS prone to mold if you leave it out a long time - but I keep it in a cool closed cupboard tightly capped and it does last a long time there (months) just fine. I do refrigerate mayo but rarely have the stuff except if it is homemade. I never buy salad dressings - would refrigerate if I had any however if homemade and only comprised of oil and vinegar I might not put in the fridge unless I wanted it cold - not to 'preserve' it. After all what is the difference between oil on the counter storing a long time and vinegars likewise - separately and mixed together? Not much in my estimation. I don't have any Maggi but if I did, I wouldn't refrigerate it. I refrigerate pickles (but only because I like them cold). And while I know that the eggs most of us buy have been washed and should be refrigerated since they are porous, if I know I will use them within a week I usually don't bother to put them in the fridge - at least in winter. One can rub them with oil if one wants to keep them out longer.

To be honest, particularly with thin-skinned, waxy potatoes like Yukon Gold, I rarely peel them at all these days (either before or after cooking) especially for potato salad, but, have done in the past. I answered Shel's question as he posed it because whatever his recipe or tradition for potato salad might be, I thought he was determined to peel the potatoes. Glad to see though that others piped up about how to peel after cooking (and even mentioned not peeling at all). If I am not going to peel though, I like to look for organic potatoes, hoping to reduce or eliminate some of the pesticides, etc. that can end up in the outer layers of the potato if farmed conventionally. I love potato skins (and the skin is also where many of the nutrients are stored I believe) so it bothers me to have to get rid of that part. Anyway ... glad you got the potatoes done, Shel, and I hope your Mother's Day festivities are all you hoped they would be.

rotuts - just as an aside: What kind of texture do YOU like in your meatloaves and/or meatballs? Is this a technique that would produce the kind of texture you like? How does one judge what someone else says is 'superior texture'? What I am imagining (and it may be incorrect) is that the texture that this technique aims to achieve is somewhat akin to that of those (to me) horrid little meatballs in a Chefboyardee can. Are there any other virtues (than being able to mix large quantities or keep one's hands from freezing and, one presumes, a very smooth texture) to this method?

I cannot imagine much that sounds gross-er than licking my nail polish off between meals because it tastes like KFC. I guess it 'may' be one way to cut down on between meal snacks (or it may just make one hungry for KFC, IF one likes that kind of food). There used to be (is there still?) a nail polish that mothers might buy to deter their young daughters from biting their nails. It was purported to be bitter so I guess the concept of adding 'flavour' to nail polish is not new but I do hope they have large cautionaries on the bottles to wash hands thoroughly before licking and nibbling.

Sounds more 'Chinese-inspired' to me. I wonder what would have made it specifically Indonesian.

I can't find the video you may be referring to (at least quickly), rotuts, but the texture has to be more like a pate than a 'homemade by hand' mixed meatloaf. I guess it comes down to personal preference as to what texture you want. I found all sorts of comments on the web about mixing by hand, mixing for a short time with a stand mixer, and the fact that institutions preparing large batches of meatloaf do use a machine (probably a Hobart though) to mix their meatloaf, but few to none saying they would mix a long time in a stand mixer and most saying they use a stand mixer do it because of the 'freezing hands' part (often because they have arthritis). I mix by hand as my mother and grandmother and everyone else I have seen do it does/did it. If I wanted a pate, I guess I might try the mixer if my food processor was out of service or too much of a nuisance to haul out.

Liuzhou ... if no lobster, try it with shrimp. Many recipes on the web. Though most seem to use extract, I am sure you could try them with seeds or make your own extract for savoury purposes. NYT Shrimp with vanilla Vanilla Butter Shrimp Rolls (tastecooksip) Vanilla Shrimp (food.com)

pbear - Texture is an excellent reference however the OP was (and still is, in my mind) very unclear about exactly what he wants to do and why. And it looks as though he isn't coming back again to explain himself further at this point. We are probably talking amongst ourselves (a fun thing but not helping the OP much I think) right now. Making spaghetti strands out of vegetable juice may work fine as an interesting technique and 'surprise' element for the diner but if the idea is to completely fool an adult eater to ensure that person actually happily consumes whatever food product on the plate thinking they are eating 'junk food' while unknowingly eating vegetables they don't like, I am not sure that agar agar noodles will do the trick, unless they are smothered in gravy or ketchup perhaps (whatever the diner DOES like) so you can't tell what they contain as the flavouring ingredient - but then why bother? Vegetable juice tastes a lot like tomatoes - so if they don't like tomatoes for instance, ketchup or tomato sauce would not be appealing methinks. According to what I understand from the OP, he wants to HIDE the taste of vegetables and fruit from adult diners (so even that suggestion of his that he make these noodles out of agar agar and vegetable juice is not going to achieve that objective). The noodles will still taste of vegetables - nothing he suggested will disguise that part and agar agar has no taste of its own - so the question still is will they eat much of it if they hate vegetables that much? The only way to disguise vegetables and fruit tastes/textures, etc. from adults is probably by looking at how mommies do it for their kids (by including small amounts in casseroles, breads, soups, smoothies and the like) and hoping that the adults he is feeding are no brighter or more observant than a child might be. One also needs to better define what is meant by 'junk food' in this case. If one is primarily referring to single or few ingredient items ... like French fries or popcorn or potato chips or gum or chocolate bars .. I don't know how one might conceivably add a large amount of real fruit or vegetable nutrition (if nutritional advantage is the aim - not even sure that is the case though) to those items while also retaining their original taste (that of the standard unadulterated junk food item) in order to (ostensibly) get more nutrition into someone who will not eat those fruits or vegetables otherwise.

10 pounds of potatoes should not be too much to store in one pot in the refrigerator overnight - either uncooked and submerged in water or cooked. I would suggest however that you don't cut the potatoes up into tiny pieces if you are storing them uncooked. If they are large potatoes, just peel them and cut, at most, in half for the refrigerated, water covered, storage part and complete the cutting up just before you cook them (or after they are cooked depending on how you like to do that part).

Seems to me that the quality assurance aspect is severely lacking, JoNorvelleWalker. Missing ingredients, poor instructions (recipes should be VERY thoroughly pre-tested in my humble opinion when it comes to this type of enterprise - and tested with a variety of client circumstances in mind as well - that is their business!), poor quality ingredients (at least some), and even ingredients that don't quite match the recipe instructions (i.e. the cabbage slicing issue). I definitely agree what you are receiving is not worth any money, much less $68/week, even if you did make some sort of meal out of it. It may be food (and I thank you for taking one for the gipper here by trying it out and posting your results) but it doesn't sound reliable and/or up to what was promised/what your expectations were, and if it is all you have in the house to eat, while I understand you making and eating it regardless, maybe a bit of pantry stock-up is warranted very soon - at least as soon as you send a 'no thanks, no more and this is why not' message to The Purple Carrot people - so you don't get caught again having to eat something that is less than desirable simply because you can't get to the store for some period of time.

What is a 'long time' for you in this case, Shel? If refrigerated and completely covered with cold water, I have peeled potatoes well before I cooked them. I do always refrigerate if they will stand more than an hour or two however. In many cases they have been kept cold at least 12 hours (i.e. overnight plus a few hours). I usually (for no really good reason probably) also add a bit of salt to the water when I do that. I have never had 'waterlogged' potatoes emerge - and don't expect that would happen with a waxy potato like a Yukon Gold anyway since they don't even get 'starchy/mealy' during cooking. In fact, though I don't recall doing this, I would bet a Yukon Gold potato would be fine (as I said, if refrigerated and completely water covered) for better than 24 hours prior to cooking. Changing the water every 12 hours or so might help too so no slime develops. Sorry about your injury. If I were you and couldn't stand or sit long, I might resort to propping myself up on a bed with my legs outstretched and a firm surface (i.e. perhaps a large cutting board) beside me to hold the container with water, etc. and peel away in that position. On the other hand, if you are making a 'large batch' (how many people will you serve? how many pounds of potatoes do you expect to peel?) of salad, you might also have to cook the potatoes in batches so perhaps you should just peel enough for 1 pot full of potatoes at a time (and maybe even make that pot smaller than you might normally - cook it, refrigerate the cooked ones, start peeling again, etc.). I do hope you have a large refrigerator because either way you will probably have it full of pots of potatoes either cooked or uncooked or both if you can't manage to prepare the salad from start to finish on the day of the bbq.

'School project' seems to have hit the nail on the head I think. Very frustrating when so many of us like to help and to provide our insight but some new posters bomb in with questions which are inarticulate or are sometimes even shady/evasive about what it is they really wish to know or to discuss - and then they seem to disappear as fast as they emerged.

Thanks, DDF. I may be in the market for another IP (that was the reason I asked) but it will be an IP-DUO 7-in-1, either 5 or 6 qt. The LUX versions do not have both low and high pressure - just higher I believe. I brought my TMX on this NC trip and I am using it but I am finding I also miss my IP (which I didn't bring). I, like many others, have often wished for a 2nd one at home so I think buying an extra while down south this time might be the right thing to do - aside from the fact that it is a fair bit cheaper in the US anyway, even with exchange.

Thanks, BeeZee - but which one? I can't find that price except possibly for the LUX models. I see the DUO as still over $100 (unless I also sign up for an Amazon credit card and receive a $50 gift certificate - which I will not do).

Early on in the article: A bit later down the page: A bit of a conflict there in assessing the target audience or is this just poor article writing? Are they already cooking a lot at home (and therefore presumably already comfortable in the kitchen) or are they in need of 'help' in that department?

As Liuzhou continues to point out (very correctly), unless you are secretly hiding vegetables in some food that a child ordinarily eats and likes, I think you are barking up the wrong tree here, even if you go the Heston route. Heston doesn't really try to fool people at the taste level usually - he primarily likes to disguise the outward appearance so they are 'surprised' when they bite into what looks like one thing and tastes like another. He may add 'smells' wafting near the plate as well to convince people that what they are about to eat is really something else - but, even that doesn't fool educated tastebuds once the food hits the palate. He may investigate the chemical composition of various foods and ingredients to further help with the 'surprise' element - but the 'surprise' element is what he is mostly about - and you are asking about making stuff that is 'no surprise' for the diner (in other words, they expect a French fry made of potato - they get something that both looks like and tastes like a French fry and leave the table believing that is what they ate - where is the 'fun' or purpose in that?) which seems quite the opposite thing. If the adult diner wants French fries made of potatoes - give them exactly that or you will fail in your stated mission in most cases I think. If they hate parsnips, why would you force an adult to eat them by trickery - and never have them know they ate them? Heston wants people to know what they ate - but only at the moment he wants them to discover that fact (at the moment they taste it). If you are trying to fool an adult eater into thinking he just ate French fries made of potatoes, even if they look like the normally consumed item in colour, shape and presumably texture, only potatoes will probably taste like potatoes once you take a bite. And unless you remove the colour from any vegetable (save perhaps a parsnip which is a similar colour to a potato), even getting the fry to look exact;y like the one made of potato is going to be very difficult - not to mention that the properties of most vegetables are different so if you fry or bake a parsnip or other vegetable like a French fry/chip, they often do not match in final texture (most will be 'soggier' than potato fries/chips). Perhaps a kid who has little life 'eating' experience will buy it, but, I doubt if many adults can be so fooled. p.s. If you really absolutely have to do this, it will probably necessitate taking everything down to the chemical/molecular level and recreating foods with 'chemicals' (examples might exist in the flavourings added to various potato chips to 'simulate' salt and vinegar or barbeque or chicken teriyaki tastes on the surface - most of which fail abysmally and may not be exactly healthy anyway). TVP is another possibility - soy masquerading as x, y or z - but many of us should not be consuming that stuff either!

Shelby - Some questions to ask yourself as you investigate these items: Can you tell if the plates are porcelain or not? (Hold one up to a strong light source and see if you can see light through it - if so, they are probably porcelain - either hard or soft paste.) Does the circular 'foot' on the bottom feel glassy and is it very white? That would also probably indicate porcelain. Or is it in any way rough or perhaps not quite 'white', which could mean they are some kind of 'pottery' or perhaps 'bone china' (which also isn't pure white because it actually contains bone ash). Hard to tell from a photo and of course distinguishing between 'fine china' and porcelain may be very difficult since I think the only real differences there is that one is harder than the other due to a difference in firing temperatures. Can you hear a 'bell-like ring' (similar to testing for crystal glasses but may be not as clear/loud) when you tap the edge of the plates (or you can try this on a cup - carefully) with a fingernail or does it thud? Porcelain will generally 'ring' but I am not sure if bone or fine will. Can you tell if the pattern appears to be a decal or hand painted? If all the plates seem to be too perfectly decorated and all alike, it is probable that the main pattern was created with decals (although the gold edge may still be hand-painted). Are there any visible differences at all between pieces? Any slight lumps or dents or other imperfections? Older china that was handcrafted may not be completely perfect or be consistent across all the pieces. Mass produced china may be imperfect in decoration but that will be consistent across all pieces. Is there any crazing at all? And if there is crazing, is it uniform or random in appearance? I am sorry that I don't know the answer to your question but I hope that you can find it - and I too would have recommended Replacements.com had I seen this earlier. But, figuring out a few basic things about the composition and decoration, especially since there is no maker's mark apparent, may help you further identify things if replacements.com can't help you or you don't go that route. Anyway .. the china (whatever it is) has a very pretty pattern I agree - and I hope you find out what it is and whether there is any significant monetary value - though since it has come down in your family, it already has a wonderful provenance and I am sure great emotional value.

blue_dolphin - While it may defeat the purpose of buying a pre-prepared, cooking-ready food, I wonder if ... if you coated the outside of the cakes with a bit of flour (or perhaps quickly dipped in egg and then flour), you might be able to stop the formation of the 'sharp bits of crab from hell' when baking (although I think if you did that, you might just pan sauté them and be done with it). I have been tempted to try those myself however so thanks for the heads up about the issue.

A little further clarification, please. You want to use fruits and vegetables IN a food you might make at home that resembles a commercially marketed 'junk/processed' food? Or do you want to shape fruits and vegetables to LOOK LIKE various junk foods? The purpose of this pursuit is .... to hide the fruits and vegetables from children or picky eaters so they get more nutrition, etc. without being aware of it? Or ... ? I know there are whole cookbooks out there (and a million websites, many started by 'mommies') on how to hide the vegetables from the kids in meals and snacks. Hiding the fruit .. well .. not sure that for most that is much of an issue. If this is about kids, most like at least some kinds of fruit because it is sweet so I am not too sure that is usually a problem that most seek to solve. If you want to truly disguise one food as another, you might want to look into how Heston Blumenthal (in particular - he is a master at this) and other modernists have been doing it for years. However, another 'suggestion' (based on the idea that what you are trying to do is indeed 'hide the veg' from kids) is ... beets in chocolate cake.