Speaking of brownies, today there’s a recipe for special brownies in the Post.
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Inspired by @Ryuthrowsstuff 's sausages I’m making rillettes with pork belly and duck. The benefit of rillettes over sausages is that I don’t need any equipment, while the downside is rillettes offer very little in the way of ribaldry and innuendo. I haven’t made any bread yet, but seeing all the amazing sourdough has got me hungry for both it and stuff to go on it. And that’s where the rillettes comes in.
This is about 1.5kg of pork belly and a chopped duck, which was salted and cured overnight in the fridge, now with bay leaves, onion, garlic, a few cloves, orange peel, black pepper and some Grand Marnier (because why not) just before going into the oven.
It’s now in the oven in a casserole dish, mostly covered with water and with baking paper under the lid. At least three hours, probably four at about 160C and then it’ll cool overnight in its liquid. Tomorrow the meat will be shredded and packed into pots with enough fat and liquid from the cooking to keep it ■■■■■, and sealed with the separated fat.
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Made some placek (basically, a Polish coffee cake) from my grandmother’s recipe (no yeast) for Easter this year, since we had to spend it at home…
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I really like this one
- no need to be too fussy about the type of beans or even include them at all if you don’t want to but they do work. I don’t know what the bit about sticking all the ingredients in a jar for a nice presentation until you’re ready to bake is about - why would you do that?
This is also a nice start:
Personally I replace the butter with about half the amount of vegetable oil margarine and don’t bother with the cherries.
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The bean ones look really good!
It’s a popular gift to give, especially around the holidays, along with the recipe, and the recipient just needs to add the liquid ingredients. A homemade boxed-mix, as it were.
e.g. Google image search for cookie ingredients in a jar gift
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Chicken pistachio korma for dinner-I used two Serrano chilies and mom was saying it was too spicy. The recipe calls for eight(!) but I have never used more than four. Next time it will be one jalapeño, I guess. Mom is 86 and her palate is going a bit wonky. Today it will be fancy chocolate cookies to keep me busy.
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I have only had black bean brownies once before - they were pretty good! Thank you for the suggestions. The Jamie Oliver recipe looks pretty good - I will also probably omit the cherries.
(Thank you @Gyrofrog, too!)
I guess I know what I’m baking this weekend (or whenever this week’s batch of cornbread runs out). I’ll report back about which recipe I end up trying and the results 
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It was time to use the broccoli… paired with a black angus hamburger with some edam and cheddar on top.
And the bloody corkscrew just fell apart when I tried to open the wine.
Good thing engineers believe in having redundancy in critical systems/tools.
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Those wing style cork screws have a tendency to do that.
I’d recommend a pulltap or trutap waiter cork screw. Last an incredibly long time. And cheap.
It’s practically the only thing used in the beverage industry unless you’re working with vintage bottles with potentially fragile corks.
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The waiter corkscrew… yeah, I broke at least three of those so far. And the corkscrews of two pocket knives. And one of those air-pressure thingies. And one of the “conventional” ones. And today’s was the second of that particular type that didn’t make it.
Tools generally last a long time in my hands - I don’t know what it is with me and corkscrews. I never had any problems with bottle openers.
The best corkscrew I have used so far is the one by Tupperware. Sturdy material, good grip, teflon-coated screw. And that’s what I’m getting next. (We can start a pool amongst the commentariat on how long it will last if anyone us interested.)
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That drill bit tho, lol.
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Okay, mine’s just a mock-up using the screw from the broken butterfly opener - but Bosch actually makes something like this:
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What brand?
Cause like I said Pulltaps or True. There are just a lot of shitty cork screws out there. You really wanna get the name brand ones.
They’ll still wear out. But I’ve never seen one snap a shank. And they come in bulk quantities.
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The best corkscrew is the rabbit. It let’s you easily de-cork and re-cork a bottle. And looks good too.
https://www.rabbitwine.com/the-original-rabbit-corkscrew.html
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That might be a good solution. Replaceable screws.
I’ve found they have a real problem with synthetic corks of various sorts though.
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One was a flipping Laguiole. The others I don’t remember, but all purchased from the sort of stockist where restaurants buy their gear. One might have been a 92 by SCIP, they’ve been making a waiter’s corkscrew/knife since the 1890ies or so.
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I’ve had a laguiole wine key. It broke in 30 minutes.
Like I said Pulltaps or True, nothing else really holds together for long. The Pulltaps being the really durable one. I know people who’ve had the same one going for 20 years, unheard of in the restaurant business.
But now that I remember the replaceable screws, a Rabbit really might be the trick for you.
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I’ve checked the Pulltap’s website, and now I’m almost positive that a Classic 500 was one of my victims.
The Slider 150 Samurai has a nice finish, though.
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There are a lot of copies out there, the Truetap ones are an identical design and there’s a lot of non-branded ones out there. The Pulltap ones say “Pulltap” down the front, kinda the only way to tell them apart.
Just walking into the a restaurant or liquor store, the identical ones they’re selling are almost never actual Pulltaps. The knocks off wholesale for like a buck, while a Pulltap wholesales for $3-4.
The Truetap sits in between and you most commonly run into them branded as promo items. Liquor, wine and beer brands like to hand them out. But they tend to turn up in grocery stores these days, I keep seeing these little racks of True products. They make a lot of little tchotchkes like rubber duck ice cube trays and fruit knives shaped like Toucans
Weird company.
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