Smithy

I don't know (I really don't) about cornstarch, but I think gelatin would work well for that purpose.

Laurentius, I haven't tested any of them because the shapes don't appeal to me. I'm glad blue_dolphin finds them useful, though!

I'll do a more rigorous test than I've done so far, and get back to you on that. Right now mine's in the dishwasher -- but all I used it for was peanut butter.

My pair of these spatulas has arrived. I think they're going to work well. They're a little shorter than the iSi spatulas I so love and can't replace, but they're the same thinness. Below: Mrs. Anderson's on the left, iSi on the right.

I'm on a grilled sandwiches kick thanks to my thrift-store find of a panini press. I'd save some of that gorgeous brisket in slices and press it with proper accompaniments into a sandwich. Mushrooms, cheese, condiments of your choice. Tomatoes? Pickles? Kraut? Lettuce? into the sandwich after grilling. My husband would want to slather it with barbecue sauce (ick, I say!). Actually, cheese and maybe some sauce trapping chunks of brisket would be good in grilled sandwiches too, using the little chunks that are leftover from slicing. I did something like that here with a badly-abused pork tenderloin. I'd want to use some of that lovely brisket, gently warmed (microwave if I had it, low skillet otherwise) to dress up a nice green dinner salad. @rotuts' ideas above all sound good, too. I'm just adding to what he said. 🙂

I can't note what @JoNorvelleWalker did, but here's a topic on making crumpets. Mmm...maybe time for me to revisit the issue!

Well. Now I've discovered that I really, truly want that automatic shut-off feature. I ordered this model (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) for our house, thinking it was automatic shut-off. It isn't. I'm sending it back in favor of this unit (eG-friendly Amazon.com link), which (also) claims auto shut-off. We'll see what happens, won't we?

It's now June, with no visible change in the roll. Could it be bagged in, say, a nitrogen atmosphere? Or is it really so heavily laden with preservatives?

That is a beautiful platter of food! Are you saying that the rice colors are their own natural growth colors? I've heard of the the forbidden black rice, but I had no idea rice could have such vivid colors as the blue and magenta you show above.

No, it's a Catzilla butter dish.

Last night I tried the press for something other than sandwiches: used it as a griddle instead. We had 1 burger and 1 bratwurst. I quickly decided that the griddle wasn't hot enough to cook that brat in a timely fashion and put it in the microwave with my darling's ear of sweet corn. His bun went onto the griddle instead. That also allowed me to smash the burger and cook it on both sides at once. The griddle put very nice marks on the bread. The burger? Well, the jury's still out on that. I can see that this device might make nice smash burgers, but I would have liked the surface to get a bit hotter. In this particular case, the meat tasted old. That had nothing to do with the cooking technique and everything to do with how long it had been sitting out of the freezer. I'll try again and experiment with the controls a bit more, sometime in the future.

One problem I see with your idea is that cheesecakes tend to become more dense the more you handle them. Mixing the two batches together by hand may hurt the texture. I'd be inclined to try a half-batch and cook it that way, and use a smaller pan if necesary.

Dingdangit, I didn't think of that! No, they're the same level. A good workaround will be to put some sort of support -- a coffee can lid, or a salad plate, for example -- on the larger platform, then tare it out and use it as the support for the pan or bowl. It's possible the designers thought there might be times that either platform would need a "boost" so they kept them the same height. I suspect it was more for aesthetics.

Sure. Note that the crock pot was "warmed but not on". You could do the same thing with a heavy pot that's warmed. Friends of mine used a glass jar although they may have been in a warmer climate than you. The main thing is to wrap it well so it stays warm. Putting the entire assembly into an insulated cooler / styrofoam chest (but NOT cooled) will protect the batch even more from cooling too quickly.

I adore this simile! 😄