manjar's Profile

Really good cinnamon ice cream is... really good.

You could pick up one or more molinillos.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molinillo_(whisk)

They're pretty cool looking, don't take up too much space or weight, and would make a killer gift combined with some Mexican drinking chocolate tablets.

One of the biggest time-wasting mistakes is doing things one after another (sequentially) that could be done at the same time (in parallel). Two simple examples of avoiding this are:

* if the dish requires boiling, fill the pot and get it over heat before doing anything else
* if baking/broiling, turn the oven on before doing anything else
* if frying in a pan, get the pan on the stove over low-to-low-medium heat before doing anything else. When you need to cook, you then increase the temperature and the pan will get to cooking temperature much faster and be more evenly heated

A similar approach applies to how you sequence the preparation of multiple dishes in a meal: start with the ones that take the longest time, and once those are baking/simmering/whatever, move on to the quicker ones.

The more you do in parallel, the more things you need to keep track of at the same time, but it can easily cut your kitchen time by half or more. To avoid mistakes and make the process less crazy-making, it can really help to use a multi-timer. I set one for each concurrent step, and when it goes off I just check everything to make sure it's not burning/boiling over/whatever.

English muffins can be divided into two types: Thomas' and non-Thomas'. Which did you use? (Note: I'm a huge Thomas' fan!)

Tomato powder is a great option, too, if you only need a little bit (which is often the case for me):
http://www.thespicehouse.com/spices/tomato-powder
When I first saw the headline of this post, I thought that's what you were talking about. :)

P.S. - @tuttidolci: espresso thumbprints? Can you tell us more?

That looks utterly revolting. But I bet it tastes good. I'll try it next time!

Did you have to peel it off the shelf? Does it have things crawling around in it? Et cetera.

@myself: meaning, truffle oil/salt instead of the sauce mentioned in the recipe. Faster, simpler, and lets you taste the cauliflower, too.

Kosher (for most seasoning)
Table (mostly for salting pasta water)
Coarse sea salt (where crunch is needed)
Smoked (tastes way better than liquid smoke)
Truffle (for when the oil won't work)

I'm thinking of adding saffron salt next.