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What an amazing transformation!

Wow! That's a great job you did on your smoker. It does indeed look like it's brand new.

Not strictly cooking on a pellet grill but I finally but the bullet this weekend and gave mine some (much needed) end of summer care. Id been a bit slack at tackling a couple of rust spots and managed to leave the cover off during some pretty bad weather. End result was I had some quite nasty rusting to the lid, chimney and back panel. What I know now, and what will hopefully teach me a valuable lesson, is that that spending 10-15 minutes doing this every now and again would have saved me a days hard labour. I ended up having to sand large parts of the Yoder back to the metal and respraying it… The good news is it’s come up like new! as happened when I first got it home that extended time cleaning and reconditioning it has given me a great respect for just how well made these things are. It really is a tank of a machine. Before pics (warning for those with a nervous disposition): During: And after the job was done (much better!):

@Kerala: it's better to be visitor than victim, but crossness with the universe is justified either way. I hope the situation is quickly resolved. That said, the food doesn't look bad. I have my doubts about that top photo containing "French toast" but maybe that person was a bit confused. The bread was fried and had, what? sugar added? Any cinnamon? My mother used to do something like that and call it "cinnamon toast". It didn't cross into "French toast" territory until egg and milk were included.

Tinga de calabacitas: Roast garlic, broil cherry tomatoes, and blend with chipotles in adobo. Sear yellow squash (gift from a friend's garden) and remove. Saute chorizo and onion, add sauce and cook down, mix in Mexican oregano and squash, and top with crumbled feta. I do love tinga.

Hospital cafeteria food, as a visitor. It's never good to be in a position to eat here. Breakfast of champions. Scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, baked beans, fried bread. The standard is strictly mediocre, like a railway caff or a roadside van. You could say it is as it should be. One of the customers kept calling it French toast. Lunch: (chicken) katsu sando. That's what they called it! Chips were my addition. Salt and lots of pepper. I'm rather cross with the universe at the moment, so I'm somewhat in the mood for self-sabotage.

I assume the food collected will go to a local food bank or community pantry, perhaps one where he already volunteers. Has he sought guidance from that recipient organization? If he hasn’t already done so, have him Google “food drive ideas” for schools or gyms or kids or wherever he wants to focus. Lots of good theme ideas there for Halloween and other holidays.

He might want to contact the local Senior Center, Library, and/or Municipal Building to see if he can set them up as donation locations. I've seen local kids do something similar and our town puts out a weekly email with various notices/events that include the info.

Maybe the wrong format/forum. My oldest son wants to organize a food drive as part of his public service project. Anybody here have experience or ideas in making one of these work? His current idea is putting out donation boxes at the rock climbing gym (aka his second home) and his school. I’d sort of like to see him take an extra step/make it bigger. Thank you for any ideas

I made sourdough early yesterday morning that was ready for Matt to make pizza starting early afternoon. He made a 17" Bacon Cheeseburger deluxe pizza (vegetarian) and with the extra dough a 14" Margherita pizza.

I tried to replicate a sauce I had liked recently to go over chicken thighs. I sauteed white onion, diced eggplant and garlic, added a tin of diced tomatoes, S&P and a small branch of rosemary. Tasted and added some balsamic vinegar and a teaspoon of brandy. We were pleased with it. Served with scalloped potatoes.

Frisée Soup with Royal Corona Beans and Country Ham from the “Bean Book” by Steve Sando - made with Rancho Gordo royal corona beans, country ham, leeks, frisée, garlic, thyme, red wine vinegar, bean cooking broth and finished with some parmesan

Chicken and ginger conger with century eggs, Chinese cruellers, and a new ingredient for me: crispy ikan bilis. What a punch of umami! My friends who winter in Malaysia brought back a big bag as we loved the crispy chili ikan bilis when we stayed with them.

Great job of documenting your adventures. Thanks for bringing us along.

You seem to be doing fine without 200 quid of stolen counter/cupboard space To make spatzle. Looks great 👍

I was gifted a couple of different types of Hungarian paprika so I decided to make Chicken Paprikash. I served it with spätzle and steamed cabbage. One of the recipes that I was looking at had an affiliates link to the Kull spätzle maker. The price on Amazon was $199.00! I guess it's time for me to move mine to the safety deposit box.

At least 10 days and counting since the last grocery store run. I do enjoy figuring out meals with what is on hand. Palak paneer, with turmeric shrimp and cubed sweet potatoes substituting for the cheese. Frozen spinach, dried fenugreek, onion, garlic, serrano chile, and turmeric, finished with yogurt and fried ginger matchsticks (forgotten for the picture, sadly).

Swordfish Cavatappi with Cherry Tomatoes, Mint, and Fresh Chiles from How to Cook the Finest Things in the Sea by Ari Kolender When I made this a few weeks ago, I made the full amount of sauce and froze it in single serving sized cubes so this was quick and easy to toss together.

No problem with knob markings, and no problem with snug attachment. But ours is just a range top (no oven) - I don't know if that makes a difference. I am so sorry to hear of all the problems you are having with your Blue Star.

Queries for the Bluestar owners here, about the knobs. First, have you found that the markings on the knobs to endure? Asking because mine are almost entirely rubbed out, including the one that was new in January 2023 when I had to replace the entire oven thermostat assembly: Second, have your knobs remained capable of snug attachment to the post? Because mine fall off if you barely touch them.

Not a dumb question at all! These were baked from semi-thawed. They'd been in the deep freeze since, oh, 2021 or 2022 (! yes, really!) and I'd set the package out to thaw one afternoon, then stuck it in the refrigerator when I realized I wasn't going to bake that day. There were still some ice crystals in the package when I loaded it into the pie shell. The original idea of the experiment had been to see if I could load a pie filling into a pie shell form, freeze it that way, then load it into a pie shell later and cook from frozen. Then, for whatever reason, I ended up freezing a flat and not-round package. The filling was loose enough for me to form it into the pie shape I needed, but it definitely wasn't completely thawed. It was really rather convenient.

Thank you. This may be a dumb question but did you bake it using frozen, semi-frozen or thawed peaches?

Old school Robutussin was pretty good!

I don't know if I can - but maybe this topic will help? Or this...https://www.seriouseats.com/kitchen-towels Side towels are what are used in basically every restaurant kitchen, not oven mitts, not gloves, not pliers. You just want to make sure you're using a dry one when grabbing anything hot.

They're soft but retain some structure and firmness, much as canned peaches would. I have one last slice of that pie in the refrigerator, so I just pulled back a bit of crust to show you. I think the texture after freezing, then baking, is about the same as if I'd baked the pie with fresh peaches -- but to be honest I could be misremembering.