Deryn

I wish you well, Simon. I am sure it will be a delicious dinner and you will manage well - I just hope you get time to enjoy it too! I once catered a wedding for 200 out of a motel room kitchenette - in one day - and no, I didn't serve just potato chips and dip. There was everything from poached salmon, Swedish meatballs, rumaki to shrimp cocktail and several types of other (home made) baked hors d'oeuvres. That was not a fun event, though it was successful and I got through it (with no sleep). It can be done - but, I am not sure it 'should' be done! On the other hand, it certainly cured me (of volunteering to take on way too much alone under extremely bad conditions). On the other hand, I had no one to ask to 'borrow' fridge or stove space, or even to bring along a cauliflower dish for me. You are having 30 people to this dinner? And none of them live nearby and have kitchens?

Simon, what do you mean by a 'minimalist' kitchen? I ask because if you don't think you will have enough burners, can you take a cheapy induction burner along? I gather you are already going to cook the cauliflower on site? How long does it take to make your cheese sauce (I am guessing that should actually be rather quick - though perhaps grating the cheese is the longest and messiest job?) Maybe you can either just make the sauce the day before and refrigerate, rather than freeze, or can you make beurre manie ahead of time and freeze that so you can more quickly make the sauce on site rather than trying to make the entire sauce and freeze it?

I think your menu sounds wonderful. The only thing I might question is (given the number of people you talked about hosting, even if many of them are kids) is the amount of shrimp you mentioned, unless you know most of your guests are not really shrimp lovers. If they arrive hungry, I can see a pound and a half of shrimp disappearing before the 10th person hits the buffet table. I know two of my kids (out of 3, even when they were small rugrats) would have scarfed down a pound between them in mere minutes. Of course, whether they last or not might also depend on what size they are. And I am sure your guests are very polite - and be dainty about their portions. Anyway .. everything sounds delicious and I would love to be invited too, please!

They are still, to my knowledge, hand assembling them and I know with their promotions lately they had a lot of orders. I know it is hard to wait but these are not 'made in China' or 'auto-plant conveyor belt assembled' items. I ordered mine before all the 'rush' lately and still waited almost 3 weeks. It is also the Christmas season right now which I am sure will slow things down a bit for your order. HR is a great company and once you have your FD I am sure you will be glad you got it and they took great care in putting it together, even if it takes a bit longer than you may have hoped for when you placed the order.

The baskets are absolutely beautiful, Shelby! You definitely deserved that top up on the wine and now, a long winter's rest! Next year, can you supervise the making of the baskets (if you do them at all) and just hire a couple of young neighbourhood teens to assemble them? Or perhaps you can just buy a few things to go in a 'basket' of some kind and call it a 'make it yourself' kit? And the following year, just give out gift cards for Costco baskets. I trailed a few people around Costco the other day who were obviously picking out 'baskets' for their 'customers' or employees - definitely not of the quality (nor made with the love you add) yours are, but, maybe it IS time for you to retire and rest on your laurels. At Christmas, just post pictures of all your past baskets around your office and savour the memories.

One of my favorite shortbread recipes is even easier - you melt the butter first. It is from Smittenkitchen - http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2008/10/twice-baked-shortbread-other-lost-recipes/.

Thanks for the sriracha report. Sorry that didn't work out. Mind you, don't give up ... sriracha in, or a thin coating on, something that does FD probably will work. On the other hand, I read that not only H2O sublimates - vinegars and alcohols may also not completely survive the process - or at least their flavour essences may 'evaporate'. Not sure about chili essences.

Way to go, Darienne! Now you can relax for a day or two? I hope so. What a lot of work to do this evening, Chocomom. Hope you do get a few hours of sleep. I am sure the results will be amazing though. Beautiful apples, Kerry! And what a sweet little reindeer. Poor fellow taking a nosedive but I am sure the wheels will fix him up. Santa's elves are a busy lot this year! I am highly impressed.

At least double the 'price' for your work (creativity/design, acquisition of contents, assembly, decoration of finished package), Shelby. Those are actually 'priceless' but if one wanted to charge, I would charge a minimum of double the costs to actually produce the basket. Ah, and then add at least another 10 percent, just because you can! Sorry it is all such a hassle - kind of takes the fun out it a bit I know (though it is nice to know your customers DO appreciate your hard work). Hope you have time to snap a pic of a finished basket before it heads for the door this year.

Was the sauce consistency good/as you expected, Anna? You used boiling water? I am thinking that it might work better to do the sauce separately from the pasta and then powder it - and keep it separate till after the macaroni is hydrated before adding it. Perhaps the sauce coating is somehow stopping the pasta (which would no doubt take longer to rehydrate anyway) from actually absorbing the water as much/as quickly as it might if it had more exposed surface area? That sounds like more work but if it actually reconstitutes to an edible product afterward, it may be worth it. Wish I could help with the 'experiment'.

Kerry - No answers here but I think it may be advisable to FD the sauce and the macaroni separately (and rehydrate separately too before mixing) if possible. At least if you did that you might be able to figure out whether the issue is with the sauce or the macaroni. I wonder if the sodium citrate is the problem (for some reason I cannot immediately fathom, mind you). Additionally, was the mac and cheese dish rehydrated as a single lump or was it broken apart? If you FD it as a lump/square, perhaps it would rehydrate better if broken up a lot first. Most MountainHouse 'dinners' for instance (like lasagna, etc.) are in little bits, not as a large piece of lasagna might be if fresh.

Welcome to our wonderful world of home freeze-drying and to eGullet, Scott. I hope you are going to love both! If you like cooking at all - or drinking - or just anything else associated with the culinary world, there is lots to browse through here on the forums while you wait to be able to post again (and for your FD to arrive).

No expert here but the overnight thing isn't about cooking ... it is about drying - and quickly enough so you won't get any mold forming, I would guess. Do you have a dehydrator? That might work too if you want to free up your oven.

Thank you. That was hilarious. What I want to know about the Chocolate Hot Pot trivet/lid is .. once you remove it from the scalding hot pot (hey it kept the chocolate inside and got it to boil faster - it is a lid after all) and put it on the table to protect the table from the scalding hot pot bottom - ummm the lid is now hot, particularly on the bottom inside (which is also probably dripping with condensing steam) .. how DO you protect the table from the hot pot LID (which is now a trivet)?

I would run to the store and buy 2% and whole milk, because by the time I figured this problem out, all the milk in my fridge would be sour. Or I would just wing it and put a bit of half and half into the 1% to approximate 2% and a bit more half and half in to approximate 3.5% unless it was a modernist cuisine recipe.

This discussion was split from the Freeze Driers and Freeze Dried Food topic. I don't have a can sealer. I have long considered buying one but I think the issue for me would be more finding the cans on a regular basis. Right now, I am throwing away (empty #10) cans that I got from LDS for a can sealing 'party' several years ago that never happened because someone broke their 'lend-out' sealer. I didn't have enough (48 I think I had) to justify a sealer. If I were to buy one though, I would get a manual one with at least the possibility to do 2 sizes of cans.

High fat content foods (or just fat alone - like butter - which can cause 'explosions') and very high sugar content foods (particularly liquids and chocolate by itself - but gummy bears are fun and not sugar free) do not generally freeze dry well. You can see a discussion about these things and proof of concept pictures for some experiments people tried along those lines if you review this whole thread from the beginning. Meats with fat on the outside should be trimmed, but, it is possible/probable, unless perhaps something is marbled to the degree that true wagyu beef might be, that marbling, as long as it is not present as thick lines or large patches of fat, won't prevent decent freeze drying no matter what kind of meat it may be. Of course, lean meat is always a better bet than fatty meat though I would say.

BGW - You may want to watch this video about Mountain House uncooked pork chops. I think you may be correct to be concerned about raw ground meats (there is always a possibility when grinding that organisms from the outside will be mixed throughout the meat) but if Mountain House freeze-dries raw 'whole' meat then I think there is probably much less potential for contamination going that route (provided you handle your meat carefully, and perhaps even wash it off well before drying - and of course, cook well after rehydrating).

I go on an occasional 'poached eggs (cooked with a fair bit of vinegar in the water to give a bit of tang) on dry whole grain toast' binge. I am not a huge breakfast eater so when I am in the mood, I may make these at any time of day, and even several times a day - and once started on this road, I seem to have a hard time stopping for sometimes weeks at a time before I tire of it. I always make poached eggs myself at home though because I have never found a restaurant (even one supposedly specializing in breakfasts) that does poached eggs with whites adequately cooked and yolks nice and runny. And I like my eggs 'free-form' - not looking as though they came out of a mold. And that tang from the vinegar is essential too. I probably love these because for so many years living in the Yukon (where 'fresh' eggs were an unknown commodity in those days), I didn't actually know that eggs could be yellow inside - I thought they were only available (when cooked) in 50 shades of grey. Is this a 'fetish' though? Maybe - at times. Perhaps it might be considered so when I am wiping yellow drippings from my face daily for weeks on end. And making second helpings because I didn't quite get enough of that lusciousness with the first go-around. It is definitely a 'guilty pleasure'.

My gosh - you must have rolled out of the ice cream factory! What fun. And, you say there is a panning bowl that fits on a Kitchen Aid .. made in Canada no less? You may get me hooked on chocolate yet, Kerry!

Tango Charlie (do you have an aviation background by chance?) - I will be trying to freeze dry all manner of seafood soon. Will report back when I do that. Welcome to the forum, Canon. I am looking forward to hearing about (and seeing through pictures if you can do that) your adventures in freeze drying once you get set up. My motivations for buying/using a freeze-drier are varied - from just the fun of experimenting, to a way to indulge my culinary curiosities, mixing and matching fresh with 'preserved' foods - either in their FD state or reconstituted, to storing for short, medium and long term needs. BGW - When you say you are not 'comfortable' with FD'ing raw meats, do you mean you feel they are not 'safe' or is it just the edibility (toughness, etc.) you spoke about that concerns you? Have you done more experiments since your last post?

CatPoet - You don't cook the flour at all in that market nougat recipe? It doesn't have that raw flour taste?

I am with Anna. The Thai food made me salivate. Thanks for the luscious food updates. Hope you are all enjoying your course.

Ah, Elaina .. your (daughter's) story brings to mind another one for me .. 1 chocolate fountain going cheap (as in 'free'), bought for my daughter because she couldn't live without one. Cleaning out my father's house (where she lived briefly) a few years ago I found it. Asked her if she wanted me to ship it to her. Nope, used it twice, no need for it now. And I have 2 old Tassimo machines. My husband used those more than I did, but he is gone now so they sit sadly gathering dust on the counter down south. I agree though that Tassimo coffee was much better than Keurig. I embarrassingly now tend to use Starbucks 'instant'/microground packages because I travel a lot and can make them in the car if need be - or my non-electric french press. I do use the coffee grinder when I use the French press. I could probably go on for a while recalling stuff I would rather forget but I promise I will quit now. I both love this thread - and hate it - because it reminds me of all the stuff I no longer use - and what a hoarder I may have become! Thanks, Anna!

Anna - Perhaps we need another thread about appliances we bought because we thought we could not live without them for whatever reason but actually never used them or used them minimally. My list there would look a lot like Lindag's - and include, in particular, a SodaStream and Keurig bought for a ONE night visit by my daughter (she never used them at all. I don't drink pop or even soda water. I tried the Keurig a couple of times and now need to think of someone to give it to) - and then there was a breadmaker someone gave me - never used - bread was always the ONE thing that I think should always be made by hand - literally (with the exception of the cinnamon rolls I make in the Thermomix) - it was given away pronto. (PS .. Anna - you posted about your Keurig while I was still writing this .. edited to say - PM me your address and when I get home I will be thrilled to mail you mine!) However, I did use the rice cooker for years and loved it - and it still works, I think .. I am just not sure where it is any more and I am not sure why I don't use it any more either - other than 'out of sight, out of mind' perhaps, or maybe that I am not cooking for a family either any more. But, the Breville grill/press machine IS currently used extensively for weeks at a time I find but due to size and space constraints, it trades places with the electric wok according to my whims. While it is in storage, I use my Staub grillpan on the stove. If I had a Jenn-air grill in NS (as I do in NC), I may never have even bought or used either the Breville or the grillpan - but I love them all. I also have had several food processors. The first was a Cuisinart DLC-7 Pro given to me by my brother in the early 1980s I think - it was in every day use for at least 25 years, and the motor still works and I still have it but the bowl cracked and needs to be replaced so I stupidly bought a newer version which was garbage and was used about 3 or 4 times - I won't bother to move it up north - it will be junked or given away because I have now gone without a food processor for several years and found I really don't need it any more. Oh and then there is the espresso machine I used to use every day and now it too is stored away - for special occasions that rarely seem to arise. Times change, needs and interests change. I don't regret most of my 'gadget' purchases over the years. Had fun with (most of) them for a while. What is still out on my counter and still very much in use? My Thermomix. What is out on my counter or within easy reach and is used very rarely? My Vitamix, my two Kitchen Aid stand mixers (one is on the floor because I can't figure out where to store it), and a couple of crockpots (heaven knows why I don't use them - just never occurs to me and they are in plain sight). What is in easy reach in a drawer and still gets used a fair bit? My old hand mixer. What now sees occasional use, is still loved, and has been used extensively in the past, but, is now in the closet? My Excalibur dehydrator - which may find itself rather lonely when I get the new FD set up. It still works and will not be given away in my lifetime though. The thing is .. I don't NEED any of the electrical kitchen gadgets I have (they are really mere 'toys' for grownups). I used to make everything by hand/the old fashioned way - and still can/do if I am too lazy to haul the modern, heavy 'time and step saving' equipment out of its hiding place, set it up, plug it in, remember how to use it, and wash it all afterward.