Kakugori's Profile

http://www.youtube.com/user/cookingwithdog/search?query=azuki

This is an incredibly common style of bento box, btw.

I'll second the ice cream. Black walnuts are much stronger in flavor than an English walnut, and I love them that much more. No comparison. They make a very delicious pie (as you'd do with pecan, sub walnuts), if you have a good gf recipe for tart or pie crust. I've also used them to make pesto.

Candied kumquat flowers [link]
Dried orange slices as Christmas ornaments (10 months from now...)
Dried herbs
Dried meat or chicken chews for your dog (like jerky sans seasoning)

"Online instructions said to 'condition' the stone first."
I've never heard of conditioning a pizza stone, so I'm thinking this may be the issue. Were these instructions from the manufacturer, or some unrelated website? Generally, you try to avoid getting oils on a baking or pizza stone - bread doughs should not stick to it, so I'm not sure why they'd tell you to oil it. A baking stone isn't like a cast iron piece that needs seasoning.

Sandwiches. Yes, with cream cheese. Maybe turkey, baby spinach, red onion, poppy seed and garlic cream cheese and pepper jelly.

Do a sort of sweet and sour sauce, or as a glaze or other type sauce. For meat or veggies! Think sweet and sour chicken, shrimp, fried tofu. Glazed meatballs (or meatloaf glaze). With soy sauce in stir fries or fried rice.

Add it to stews or braises.

It's delicious on baked, frozen cream cheese wontons, if you want junk food suggestions.

Not any stranger than root beer or birch beer (Boylan's is nice). Never had it, but I'd like to try one.

I just buy chocolate, and melt it in the microwave. If it was already in temper, and you don't break it, then it stays in temper and there's no worries. To do something similar on the stovetop, you don't fully melt the chocolate - it should just hold its shape, while actually being melted, and you can stir to finish the melting. Alternatively, you can seed the chocolate to get the temper going by reserving a small part and adding that after you take the bulk of melted chocolate off the heat.

A mini crock pot works well to keep it melted for longer durations.

Professionally, chocolatiers have a machine that keeps the chocolate melted in the proper temperature range but there is still a lot of work involved. That's why they're pros. And those machines are $$$$$$$$$$$$$.

Now, I have no idea how not to make a total mess while dipping the chocolates. That part takes forever, and I always end up with chocolate all over my fingers. Meh.

When coating a cake or somesuch that isn't completely covered, put it onto a baking rack, place a sheet pan underneath, and pour the chocolate on (start pouring around the sides, then the center). For smaller items that need to be "dipped", a fork to hold the item and a spoon or ladle to pour the chocolate over the top. If you can, dip the bottom first and let that dry, then do a pour-over.

Humble Bean's smashed kabocha on toast, with caramelized onion and ricotta
http://www.humblebeanblog.com/2012/11/smashed-kabocha-on-toast/

Recipe cards annoy me - they're often too small to include all the information. Instead, I have binders with page protectors - one for baked goods and one for savory staples. When I find a recipe online, I print it out and after it gets made and I decide to keep it, then that recipe goes into the binder. For newspaper clippings and such, I have a smaller spiral bound notebook that they get pasted or taped or copied into. Recipes I haven't tried out yet go into a plastic file folder, again organized into meal type things and baked things.

It's good to be organized, but that is really a personal system. For me, recipe cards just aren't the way to go.