Dave W

Some negativity on TB's offerings here. I find the AM crunchwrap (eggs, sausage, hash brown, cheese, sauce in a tortilla) to be a 10/10 breakfast item, in the context of fast food.

Like Shelby I made it rain at the nursery the other day. Finally got my hot paws on some real holy basil/ocimum tenuiflorum after a couple seasons of never finding it and failing to germinate the seeds I ordered from the internet. Can't wait to make some pad kee mao.

Vegetables are cheap and cook in a flash, I've cooked them SV but it never really produced any results that seemed worth all the extra fuss and time to me.

It's nice to make everything from scratch as always but for a rote beginner using canned paste and coconut milk is perfectly acceptable. Look for maesri brand curry pastes and aroy-d coconut (or any coconut milk with no sodium metabisulfite preservatives) You can take 3 hours or 30 minutes to make a Thai curry and the results just aren't that far apart. Since you've got all the raw ingredients already let me give you this piece of advice: toast the shrimp paste OUTSIDE.

To make pellets into sawdust for smoking, get the pellets thoroughly wet, then allow them to dry completely. Et voila.

The actual process is exceedingly simple: heat plus fuel plus oxygen will produce the combustion you need. If you can limit the heat or the oxygen you can control the amount of smoke and its qualities. Unlimited inputs of the above will produce a fire which is of course undesirable.

Build a smoke generator that's portable then you can use it in your chamber, in your outside smoker or in a cardboard box. You don't want to have the generator affixed to your curing chamber since you may need flexibility to apply smoke to something while your chamber is occupied with an unsmoked product drying.

I like the addition of curry powder to a butternut and green apple soup. It's pretty 2005-ish in food trends though.

I make my toor dal pretty soupy, does that count? It's always a smash hit around my house mustard seed, cumin, fenugreek seed onion garlic ginger peeled roasted green chilis tomato paste cayenne and turmeric, fenugreek leaves water red lentils vinegar, salt Surely you can figure out the rest?

It's fully tarnished no doubt but it still cooks fine.

I like my copper bottomed revereware pan, it's clad with steel inside though. I typically cook either in the pressure cooker (stainless clad) or bare cast iron, and rarely in the anodized aluminum or enameled cast iron.

As a general rule of thumb I'd divide braising time by 3 to achieve the at-high-pressure cooking time. So, skinless chicken breasts can pressure cook in about 5 minutes, thighs in about 10-11 minutes, brisket/pork belly in an hour, etc etc. Better to undershoot and finish with an open pot than to cook it to death.

It's really just stupid how much easier it is in a PC. I can't believe I made open pot subboiling pots of stock for so many years.

5% salt with a pinch white pepper. Pellicle. 4-8h Cold smoke. I used apple chips in my smoke generator here because it was the only chips I had. Usually alder wood. The apple is good though.

Well at least I made the lox!

I make boules by pre-shaping with a quick 4 corner tuck, then flip, bench rest, then flip and fold in the 4 new corners, then flip seam down and gather under with your hands once or twice just so the top of the ball is taut before proofing.

Bell, guajillo and burpee "hot mix" peppers. They get another 10 weeks to grow in the greenhouse before planting out or I may just leave em in there all summer.

This is the second extraction from the same chickens. Some water added this time.

Schmaltz my world up.

This is the essence of 6 chicken carcasses and leg bones that I roasted first. Added the juice from the roasting pan but not the coagulated proteins. No water added. 90 minutes high pressure natural release.

I built something very similar however not with a viewing window and powered by a large aquarium air pump and I agree, it works wonderfully.

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I thought I was gonna bake something else for once but then 24 hours later I had a levain bread from FWSY yet again... No regrets!

For some household colds, a simple chicken and vegetable soup tonight

The flooring is oak boards with a gray stain. Weed patch ie lawn and veg garden is directly out the window over the sink. In the context of colorado weed if I were so inclined there are plenty of other people growing that.