What sort of noodle bowl? There are fairs in Florida this time of year?

Hm, I know that place! One advantage of having peculiar west-frisian relatives I guess

I'm lucky enough to have a Thai restaraunt a couple doors down from where I work, but I won't shy away from the dehydrated (a la Ramen noodle) stuff either.

Yes we currently have the Florida State Fair going on, as well as the annual Polk County Strawberry Festival, which I attended this weekend. Lots of agricultural related activities, a "pioneer village", rides, and lots of unhealthy food.

I'm heading out on a 7 day bike camping tour in a few days, so I'll post my results!

That is really cool. I just didn't know there were fairs going on this time of year. Learn something new, everyday.

Thanks for the tips, i'm tired of turning my soup into cat food. I did a search and people seem to say that putting the rice in the crock is always a bad idea. I'll have to look up what the other items that you mentioned are.... I am ignorant of those terms.

As far as quinoa goes, I really don't know why it doesn't seem to be very mainstream. I had to go to a specialty natural store just to find it (which was actually nice, they had great bulk bins and a lot of interesting things). I like it better than rice or couscous, it's good for you and it seems to be pretty versatile.

Just made some chocolate chip-walnut cookies. The old toll-house recipe...mmm

Mmm. . . . cookies. If you don't own a Silpat sheet, consider it. Everyone who bakes should have one. I don't bake much at all and I still use the hell out of it.

I was introduced to those silicone sheets only three months ago, in a cooking workshop. I'd never heard of them. Kind of counter-intuitive experience, but they seem to work well.

They do! Silicones are such an augmentation for the modern cook all joking aside, we have a few items here (muffin trays, glove-like things to grab hot pants, oven mats) and they work superb. Also quite tough in terms of cut resistance, and they just don't deteriorate with age. Has anybody tried silicone bike tyres yet?

No, I'll stick to my classic cotton oven mittens for the time being ...

Ha! My most useful silicone kitchen products aside from the baking sheet are the 500F resistant spatulas and my ice cube trays. I disconnected the crappy ice cube maker in my freezer the day I moved into my house. I hate those little half moon pieces of ice. My bourbon deserves a genuine ice cube. This I believe.

Amen. Yes, C&V liquid lunch!

I don't use gloves at all, to grab hot pants. Actually, those were just slightly ahead of my time, I was around maybe 10 when they came out. I could see they were causing trouble, but didn't fully comprehend the situation yet. Back on topic, a good but simple one is the egg-on-cheesy-bagel-sandwich. Preferably with mayonnaise and extra cheese.

Those silpat mats look like a nice thing to have, thanks for the tip. Would that be a replacement for parchment paper?

Justin, lately i've been obsessed with measuring. All the different opinions out there about scales and dry measuring techniques has me questioning my poor methods. I have a scale.... do you think weight charts are trust worthy? Like this one: https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recip...ght-chart.html

Yeah, the silpat is a replacement for wax and parchment paper regarding most uses. You can't make an envelope and steam a fish inside a Silpat, though.

As you know there are a lot of differences between cooking and baking. Accuracy is one of them. I have this kitchen scale and I do use it, but more often to weigh packages to send to BF members than anything cooking related. But, yes, weight measurement is so much more accurate than volume for baking. I'm sure that chart is accurate enough. Your grandma didn't need no stinkin' scale or chart, did she?

Other than breads I just don't bake much as I'm not a fan of sweets so much. The art of making bread is just that, though, and you can really tell when someone knows what they're doing. Some of my wife's favorite meals (and mine too) are what we call "reach in madness" where I just create something with what is on hand. It's typically very interesting, pretty tasty and seldom replicated.

wow, that was some freudian typo, not even going to edit that!

Spicy Shrimp & Crawfish Udon Soup.

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That shrimp looks lonely. (?) Does fruit count as a full lunch, if it fills you up pretty good? I got some nice softball-sized Navel oranges today, at the organic joint down the street, and they're MUCH better than what we've been seeing, in the Navel category.

Did they have a name? I fell in love with Cara Cara navels several years ago. So good.

Friday's pizza night so we did it greek style tonight. Elizabeth made the dough. I added the spinach, olive oil, garlic, Kalamata olives, mozarella, feta, oregano and fresh rosemary to top it.Twenty minutes at 400 degrees. Good!

Real degrees or fahrenheits' monstrosities? Btw, inspired by your pic I started some pizza dough for tonight, but holy crap that turned out messy. Definitely have to work on that. Any tips?

400 Celcius. Here's our dough recipe. We use a good kitchenaid mixer for this but kneading by hand is just fine too. We modify this recipe by putting the water, sugar, oil and yeast directly into the mixer bowl, stir and let it set up for 5 minutes until you see the yeast start to foam. Then add the salt and start the mixer with a dough hook and slowly add the flour. If your machine bogs down, just add enough water to loosen it up. We make 2 balls instead of 4 and this makes two 14" round pizzas.

Rolling dough comes with practice. E's a pastry chef and she makes it look easy, just use a good large rolling pin. Punch the dough balls down into a round circle with your hands. Rolling dough is not unlike cutting with a hacksaw, let the tool do the work, don't throw your weight onto it. Stand one foot in front of the other so you can easily rock forward and back. Lot's of smooth strokes and rotate a bit every time. Always keep the work surface and the pin lightly floured to prevent sticking and to encourage movement, just lift the edges of the dough up and toss a light spray of flour underneath. We use trays with holes in them and put the uncooked crusts into the pre-heated oven for 5 minutes before dressing them.

Pizza dough? Active dry yeast, bread flour (high gluten content), turbinado sugar, salt, olive oil, water. Try this. I have some dough in the freezer I may break out tomorrow.

You've got to let your dough rise (twice preferably) and rest before you try to roll it out. I finish it with my knuckles and don't worry too much about the shape.

Good point about the bread flour, high gluten is always good.