XPav
1881
I think I had the same Costco crockpot with the same results, I threw it away.
Lime meringue pie is one of the worst things about a girlfriend with a citrus allergy. (Yeah, I could make it anyway just for myself, but it’s no fun if you can’t share.)
The Costco return policy is amazing.
A few years back, they even let you return computers, until they eventually realized people were just returning them every year or so and basically just trading up for a new computer on the back of the progressive return policy. Now they have limits in place for computers, but the rest of the stuff is fair game. I know I’ve lost receipts and they were able to locate a record of my purchase by looking up my credit card records.
They also have a limit in place for televisions, because people were basically using them as a rental service for the Super Bowl. 30 days, I believe. But I think they still cover defects for a lot longer than that.
Doesn’t apply to LCD monitors, though.
I laughed. This sounds like something most of the folks in my family would do, but none of the people in my wife’s family would even think of.
That’s just how we roll.
Oh man, that’s a shitty allergy. I’m a REAL sucker for citrusy desserts. In fact I’m planning on making lemon/lime macarons after I pick up some food coloring.
Athryn
1887
Well, I basically followed the recipe from here. but I made a couple of changes.
-The store was out of Ancho chiles, so I substituted New Mexico Chiles instead.
One caveat with the sticking them in the blender – make sure if you have a white blender like I do, to wipe it down immediately after blending. I didn’t, and my blender lid is stained pink now from the chile puree.
-The original version of the recipe called for 6 jalapeno peppers. I used only 3, and looking at the recipe now, it looks like they changed it too.
-Since I didn’t have actual Ancho chiles, I substituted 1 teaspoon of the chile powder with some ancho chile powder.
-I also used 2/3 ground chuck, and 1/3 ground bison/buffalo to balance out flavor and fat.
-In the end, I had to add a lot of salt, but double check as you go along. This might have been because I used an organic beef broth and not Campbells or something.
Other than that, it was tasty, and I still have some leftover in the fridge. It makes enough for a crowd, that’s for sure!
interman
1888
So the past week or so I’ve been baking and crossing stuff off my to-do list. I realized I’d never made focaccia, ciabatta, and scones. For the focaccia I used a high hydration dough (got pretty decent air bubbles), and as topping I used olive oil, salt, caramelized onion, garlic, and parmesan. Really yummy, and will make again.
Next was the ciabatta, where I chose to use a 95% hydration dough. Let me tell you now, it’s not a lot of fun to handle something like that without a mixer. It took about 6 hours from start to finish. Taste was good, and the air bubbles were the best I’ve gotten so far. The biggest challenges were forming any kind of gluten strength, and shaping the dough and transferring it to a baking sheet.
And today it was time for some scones, which is so, so much easier. I usually only eat scones at restaurants, waiting for my meal to arrive, and I wanted some more taste, so I added raisins and apple bits.
Good stuff.
AlanC
1889
One suggestion: try it with cubed (1/2" in size) and not ground meat. The cubes will break down a bunch after 3+ hrs of cooking and will leave you with more stringy meat bits.
I find that it improves the texture a bunch.
Ground meat reminds me too much of the shit that comes in a can of chili.
Athryn
1890
I actually like the ground texture, if you don’t super break it up, it’s still nice and chunky.
Gendal
1891
What did you replace it with? I am kicking myself now for turning down the new top of the line crock pot they have at Williams Sonoma I was offered for free. Certainly not going to pay the crazy amount of money they want for it.
How would you handle that filling? The SO is begging me to make macarons again but neither of us loved the chocolate ganache filling I made last time. I do however love lemon meringue, key lime pie, etc.
Yum. Made blueberry scones last week from CI that we loved but I added too much butter I think, should have measured it instead of eyeballing it after grating.
Made chicken pot pie from CI too, very happy with how it turned out. Thinking I might need a late night snack…
Also started making Ginger Ale thanks to a recipe I saw over at Boing Boing. Was surprisingly good. So I tried out Alton Brown’s version which involves cooking a syrup, straining out the ginger, and letting it sit for twice as long. It’s also very good but not as sweet or gingery, probably because it doesn’t steep in the ginger for more than the cooking time and the yeast have twice as long to eat the sugar.
So I am thinking a combination of the two recipes would be best personally. Cook the syrup like Alton for it’s sanitizing effects but don’t strain the ginger. Let it sit in a 2-liter with the water and lemon overnight then strain the ginger out (I didn’t like the bits of pulp myself), add the yeast and sugar, and let it sit for two nights. Hoping that keeps the intense ginger flavor of the BB recipe but the sweetness and carbonation of AB.
Could also just add the yeast and sugar initially but I am worried, probably with out cause, that straining it would take out too much carbonation?
Yeah I’m kind of sick of chocolate at the moment, so I’m going to be ripping off http://trissalicious.com/2009/10/26/daring-bakers-october-challenge-lemon-lime-macarons/
Gendal
1893
That looks just about perfect, thanks for the link interman.
Marged
1894
Mmm, I made cake salé with green onions, ham and gruyere last night. It was extra delicious.
Kaigen
1895
I was going to make my whole wheat, apple cinnamon cookies that I’ve posted before in this thread for my new roommates, but I realized I was missing several ingredients. Instead, I adapted that recipe into these:
Whole wheat, oaty chocolate chip cookies with a touch of cinnamon and sea salt.
interman
1896
Hazelnut macarons with lemon/lime custard filling
Got home at 3am last night, so I forgot to separate the eggs I would use today. Because of that the macs didn’t hold together the way they normally would, and I suspect that’s also why they didn’t get any feet. The hazelnut taste was a nice change, and the custard filling had enough taste to make my head spin. I’ll add more sugar to it next time.
Just finished up curried potato soup. This was an adventure for us, as we’ve never had curried anything, and Matt’s a picky eater. And we actually like it, so I’m glad the experiment was a success.
It’s a frighteningly yellow dish (hooray for turmeric), but has a great smooth texture. Yukon Gold potatoes were an excellent choice for it as well.
Tortilla
1898
Ooo, that sounds interesting Meghan. Links to the recipe you used?
Williams Sonoma is crazy expensive for everything. They generally carry good stuff, though.
Cook’s Illustrated’s favourite slow cooker is the Crock-Pot Touchscreen, which is pretty pricey at $130. Still cheaper than the $200 All-Clad that Williams Sonoma carries, though. Oddly, they didn’t test any cheaper Crock-Pot models, so you might be able to do just as well with one that doesn’t have a glitzy touchscreen on it. The Crock-Pot Countdown seems to have exactly the same features and is less than half the price.
