col klink

Well, It’s official folks: Mrs. Klink has a bun in the oven. And, in an attempt to be of more assistance and play a greater role in the pregnancy I’m cooking meals in advance for my wife. Now a lot of what she eats is more about warding off nausea, but after a while there should be plenty of meals, prepared in advance and frozen, for her to choose from. Ordinarily I’d be able to prepare the dishes fresh for her but unfortunately, my job has me 2 ½ hours away and I only get to see her on the weekends. Worse, if she’s feeling a bout of nausea, she’s less inclined to eat since prepping food makes it worse (don’t worry though, she’s not in danger of starving). So, if I can prepare a ziti and all she has to do is turn on the oven I can feel some sense of helping out. So far we have a ziti in the freezer along with a turkey potpie. Last week a co-worker who doesn’t care for fresh tomatoes but never-the-less grows them by the bushel in his garden gave me the bulk of his bounty and I made a marinara sauce with ground beef. Actually though, it turned into manwich makings due to excessive beef. I’m also planning on plenty of pork and beef stews. However that’s not enough to get us through the coming months since she’ll get bored with them. So I ask for help. What dishes are great for preparing in advance, in bulk, throwing into the freezer and reheating? Oh yeah, it would be nice if a pregnant lady would like it. Oh, I should probably mention she likes to eat pretty much everything: all meats, most fish and vegetables with predilections towards unagi, parsnips/turnips, pork roasts and Swedish meatballs (which I’m also going to do next). p.s. The due date is April 30 (next year).

For those of you who like to throw technology at an issue or who just plain like to tinker, here’s an application note just for you. Automatic Temperature Controller: Designing a Data Logger for a Slow Cooker Don’t have the attention span to sit in front of your smoker for 12, 14,16, even 20 hours at a time? Well, now you can build your own temperature controller to hold your smoker at temp within 3 degrees F 98% of the time and within 1 degree 85% of the time. Those are some mightly statistics. However, it should be noted that the designer used a ceramic smoker which holds its heat far better than other smokers. And I can't begin to imagine rigging some type of controlling apparatus for my wood burning smoker that could control the airflow without burning and spending far more money and time than it's worth. But, this is a good data logger. edit: Appropos commentary: Guilty, as charged.

I've done this plenty of times, but more often with duck breasts than chicken. It easily impresses guests. edit: Malawry, I couldn't agree with you more!

Because we have the technology. Because we can. Who doesn't like mechanically seperated chicken? These ringed nuggets are made the same why McNuggets are made. They all come from the same bucket of goo. I had an opportunity to try them a year ago and they weren't any worse regular chicken nuggets from Wendy's or McD's.

It may be that your temp probe is out of whack. I've beaten the hell out of my Polder and now it doesn't even come close to reading correctly. Though what you described of the events doesn't necessarily point in that direction. You can check your probe in a real use situation by putting setting your oven at 400 or 500 F and roasting water. If your probe is reading higher than boiling, you have a faulty probe. But more than likely you'll need to pull your small roasts sooner than only 5 degrees before your idea temp. According to physics, a smaller thing will heat up more quickly than a larger thing of the same thing in the same temperature oven. Most recipes say to look out for up to 10 degrees of heating after pulling out of the oven. Now I've never seen that but I admit I've never roasted anything that small.

Cool! Sheep's butter? I'm definitely going to have to try that.

Here's the link to the Twinkie bankruptcy. I don't know how to feel. I suppose I'll feel bad for all of those that will those their jobs. I'm with Suzanne; I have a hard time believing that this will stop the production of Twinkies -- I'm sure somebody will buy the rights and make more.

Sorry to get back to you so late but there's no need for brining. That juice is natural and there's plenty more from where that came from.

Oooh, I love tongue -- especially smoked. I haven't done lamb or veal tongue, only full-on cow tongue which has a thin and tough membrane on the outside. I haven't found a decent way to take it off except to boil it for two or three hours. So as not to be completely unculinary I add all sorts of candy spices and a lot of pepper. After I pull it out and peel off the membrane (it's gets easier to peel the longer you boil it) I then smoke it until it's meat fork tender -- about 2 to 3 hours. Slice it thin and serve.

Time to go back to school kids:

I don't know how many people here will have made a smoked salmon cheesecake. Tell you what, why don't you send some salmon to some of our pastry chefs and me? We'll work on the cheesecake for you and then post the recipe. p.s. try posting in the Pastry Forum, they made not have made it in the past, but they could guide you.

That's true if you're using lighter fluid or "self light" charcoal but I don't see it as a problem if you're using lump or regular charcoal. But I also wouldn't put what I'm cooking directly on the coals -- I'd build an impromptu grate.

Grueldelux, that is a fantastic idea. I used to have a real wok buy my gas stove was too much of a pansy to do any real cooking. Way to think outside of the kitchen. (In my experience more people have a chimney than a butane burner for frying turkeys and fish boils.)

I haven't known anyone anyone to out and out wash their bullet other than just scraping. If you'd like to have a smokier end product try smoking the ribeye roast and finish with searing. When you sear the meat you seal the juices in and consequently seal the smokey flavor out. In your situation it doesn't really matter how much wood you use, it's not going to be smokey. edit: talk with your butcher and try to get the eye of chuck roast. I've seen steak labeled "eye of chuck" or "mock tenders" and they're my favorite cut of steak. They're just as marbled and tender as ribeyes but they taste like beef. OK, ribeyes taste more like beef than filet mignons, but chuck eyes actually taste like you're eating beef. Oh, and the best news? They're 1/2 the cost of ribeyes. In Minneapolis I routinely see them for around $5/lb versus $8 - $10 per pound for ribeyes. If I see them in my grocery stores I always pick some up. If I had the roast I'd lost to smoke and then sear it. Then I'd put butter on it. Cuts like ribeyes have plenty of fat and juiciness (though the fat doesn't go towards juiciness since you're pulling it at medium rare -- the fat hardly has a chance to render) and adding a frozen pat of butter during the smoking is only going to melt it and then waste most of the butter. However the butter that is left over would be smokier with the virtual bullet method than without smoking the butter. And since that method doesn't give smokiness to the meat you're getting what smokiness there is from the butter.

Ianeccleston, I'm in love!

Stone, how smokey was the steak? p.s. That looks damn tasty.

There is a Halal butcher across the street from Than Brothers on Aurora ave around 78th. I have bought many, many pieces of goat from them. They were all tasty and the owners are honorable. Here is their information: Continental Spices & Halal Meat 7819 Aurora Ave N Seattle, WA 98103 - 4753 (206) 706-0326 edit: Or you could look for Halal butcher shops that are closer to you.

Thanks for bringing this thread back up Doc and to answer your question, yes. We have a Dim Sum Gathering the last Saturday of October. Care to join?

Shalmanese, try the first post here Alinea: The Awakening.

Anywhere you use lime try using tamarind instead.

Just thought I'd revise this thread. I love geoduck! I recently had geoduck ceviche on a trip to Seattle where I also took at picture of the geoduck tank at Uwajimaya (it also happens to be my desktop at work -- it's an interesting conversation starter).

Right now, I'm preparing her recipe for breaded chicken breasts with brown butter and lemon sauce, from Mastering vol. 1. It's one of my family's favorite meals, and one I grew up on. It's also the first "fancy meal" I learned to prepare for myself, and by now I know it by heart. It's a great prepare-ahead-and-cook-on-the-spot recipe, since the breading gets a chance to set, so I'll be taking it to a party tonight and serving it to all my friends in honor of Julia.

Chud, as soon as you post 20 times, you'll be able to post pics and we'll be able to enjoy them. Get to work!

Here's a link to the AP story: TV cooking show host Julia Child dies. *Sniff* *Sniff*

Although the frappuccinos are good (well, not the low-cal ones), they still don't hold a candle to my favorite coffee drink -- cafe su da. The Vietnamese coffee with sweetened condensed milk over ice. I'm simply gonzo for them but unfortunately they're not nearly as ubiquitous as the frappuccino.