This is not to convince you to buy a sous vide cooker, but will give you a reference perspective point regarding temperature and cooking time with short ribs: (copied from the WEB for cooking short ribs at 145F for 72 hours) "Collagen determines, to a large extent, whether cooked meat ends up tender or tough. It is also the determining factor in how long you should cook a given cut of meat. Collagen fibers are the biological equivalent of steel cabling, forming a mesh that holds bundles of meat fibers together. Proper cooking unravels the cable-like structure of collagen fibers and dissolves them into juices, transforming the tough collagen into tender gelatin. In order to unravel collagen fibers, you must heat them. Heat causes the fibers to shrink, and the contracting mesh squeezes juices out of the meat. The hotter the cooking temperature, the more collagen mesh contracts, and the more juices are lost. If you cook the meat at lower temperatures, fewer of the collagen fibers shorten at any given point in the cooking process, so the mesh constricts the meat less. This is why meats retain more of their juices when cooked sous vide. But at lower temperatures, more time is needed to shrink, unravel, and dissolve enough of the collagen fibers to make the meat pleasantly tender." I generally SV cook at 150F for 48 hours. Short ribs is expensive, given the fact that it is mostly bones and fat, here is a suggestion for you for fun: 1. pressure cook short ribs in a separate container with no seasoning and no water for about an hour. You will get a good amount of the most concentrated beef broth(juice) ever for many recipes. 2. Remove the meat from the bones, and use the bones later for more beef broth the regular pressure cooker way. 3. Now with the meat, which has most of the fat rendered already, and find recipes for boneless short ribs and cook until tender. dcarch

I haven't had much time at the computer lately, and I missed this until now. Sorry. Thanks, LindaC, for answering in my stead, especially since I didn't know the answer! Loves2cook4six, I got the recipe from my King Arthur Flour Baking Companion, and their recipe for white bread calls for potato flakes, so that's what I copied down, and what I've done when I've made this recipe. (I'm only now getting to where I feel brave enough to experiment with changing bread recipes) There are others here that are much more expert on bread making than I am, but I can't imagine why you couldn't just use a different bread recipe, and just form the monkey bread as it's described, as Lowspark pointed out. I think a fairly light textured bread is called for, and I suspect the potato flakes might have something to do with helping the bread to keep a light texture. However, I don't really remember what the potato flakes do for the bread, other than they are a sugar source. I wish I could answer your question more clearly. Sally

I love that cake, but it isn't mine, really. It's Pixistix' recipe, she's one of those people who has gone to the Pillsbury Bake Off more than once, so she's better than I am. Nonetheless, I can tell you that I use all purpose flour in the cake. Just be sure to beat the eggs and sugar well, 4 or 5 minutes is not too much. Otherwise the cake can be denser than it should be. The frosting tastes like penuche fudge, to me. It's not extremely caramelly and sometimes it is slightly grainy, which I like and others don't. That recipe came from the daughter of CindyNY. Good luck, and happy birthday to your son! Annie

Other than the obvious--increasing chlorophyll, which increases photosynthesis, which increases the amount of energy the plant has? Not really. It's critical in the sense that no iron, no chlorophyll, no photosynthesis, but other than that, if the plant isn't chlorotic, it doesn't have a problem. You can use iron in your gardens if you like. It'll darken the green hues there as well (and enhance some flower colors directly, not just by contrast). But mind spraying too much in terms of the Epsom salt in the garden. Too much Mg isn't a good thing.