Here's where I heard about the hashbrowns in waffle iron (have since seen it several places): Hashbrown Waffles by Waffleizer.com Directions: 1. Wash and peel the potatoes. Shred them and squeeze them dry with a towel. (This ensures that your potatoes brown nicely.) 2. In a mixing bowl, add the potatoes, followed by salt and pepper to taste. 3. Spread about a teaspoon of butter on the waffle iron. (A silicone pastry brush works well; neither you nor the brush will melt while you spread the butter around the extremely hot waffle iron, and any nonstick finish on your waffle iron will be spared.) 4. Pile the shredded potatoes into the waffle iron and close the lid. 5. After a few minutes, you may wish to squeeze down the lid a bit. Check the potatoes after 10 minutes. In my waffle iron on the medium heat setting, the potatoes showed golden-brown highlights after about 15 minutes. But yours will vary, possibly by quite a bit. 6. Carefully remove the potatoes from the waffle iron. Serve them with grated cheese or sour cream. You could also serve waffled hash browns with ketchup, alongside a waffleburger. But that takes serious commitment to the concept. And I would worry about you a little. I used mine as the base for a fried egg, topped with shavings of three-year Gouda. It took me about two minutes to clean my plate. And, no, I did not waffle the egg. Not that one, anyway. Cooking bacon came from Alton Brown's show.

Just a guess on my part. I think you would want "hard crack" stage for this. On my candy thermometer, that is 300 degrees. I don't know how that would affect the thickness of the coating, though. And it may be simply that the humidity is too high. That would have a definite effect on the candy. I'm wondering how a few drops of cinnamon oil would be in your recipe. Apples and cinnamon. Made for each other. And I really like your idea of making them orange, with colored sugar on the bottom. Very clever idea! Rusty

John, thanks for your reply. I actually think he only built the deck b/c he didn't want to install a ramp on our back porch like I wanted him to, so he had to have something to take up his time... We just had to have one of our dog's legs amputated, hence the ramp on the back porch... The new front deck doesn't even replace the need for the ramp since our dogs don't go out the front door, only the back into a fenced in yard. So no nighty & heels for him I'm afraid... This was his own doing. Don't get me wrong, I wanted a front deck eventually, but we need the ramp now! :) Sorry to rant, again, thanks for your reply! ~Shannon

People compost for different reasons. For example: They have scrap vegetable matter they don't want to add to a landfill. They want free soil amendments for their garden Note that the first reason focuses on the input - you want to use up excess materials, and the second reason focuses on the output - you need more compost. What works best for you depends on which side of the equation you want to prioritize. Another factor has to do with where you live. If you are in a rural area on a large property then having compost piles on the edge of the property is nothing anyone would notice. In the suburbs piles of vegetation may not be as easily hidden, and in the city you have very little space to begin with and have to factor in rats. Large bins make more sense in suburban yards and tumblers may be the only possible "rat proof" option for the city. However, I agree with Floral_UK - if your definition of "efficient" is least amount of work and most potent end product - slow cold composting is the way to go. Put a bunch of carbon-rich material (leaves, twigs, wood) in a pile or bin and let it sit for a couple of years (longer if there are chunks of wood), and you will end up with a rich, moist hummus that would benefit any type of soil. After all, this is the way Mother Nature does it and this process created all the fertile soil on Earth. If you want fast, then start with the same pile but: Chop everything into small bits Add "green" nitrogen-rich materials as well Make the pile as big as you can - bigger than 1 meter square at the smallest. The bigger it is the faster it will go. A steaming mountain of brown and green material will stay warm even in the winter. And hotter = faster. Turn the pile every couple of weeks You can get usable compost in about six months. But it will have less nutrients because much of the nitrogen has been used up in the process. That, plus the extra labor involved, is the cost of going fast and hot versus slow and cold.