Smithy

Back in 2019, someone marketed the A4 Box Induction Cooker, and our champion eGullet members/enablers tried it out. You can read the initial discussions here. It's an interesting and fun gizmo: lightweight, heats by induction, small enough to fit into one's travel kit if traveling by car or trailer; easily suitable for a dormitory (unlike the electric skillets my best friend and I used, that nearly scorched the furniture and carpeting). What was especially wonderful about it was the variety of inserts available. It came with a flat plate and ridged griddle; there were also 3 inserts: for deep dish (as in, soups) and a couple of different inserts with indentations for pancakes or ball-shaped stuff or whatever. @Kerry Beal brought our attention to it here and Anna N, may she rest in peace, ignited the rage with her experimentations here. Trouble is, the darned thing was charming but cost as my as my full-sized kitchen stove. I couldn't imagine buying one for my purposes. I think a lot of people must have felt the same way. Then it went on sale! Cheap!! And I bought one, and several other people did as well. Without going into a lot of detail, I noted that mine was on the way here when it was on sale, and a lot of other people enjoyed the same bonus. Good news: my original package, in the blue I preferred (there was much discussion about color choices, back in the day) became available for $40 instead of the original $250 or whatever. Maybe it was more. Bad news: the extra inserts (pancakes, deep dish, aepleskiver or octopus balls, take your pick) were not available. They haven't been available for well over a year. So the company was probably blowing out inventory while they circled the drain. Upshot: this magic A4 box, which is quite definitely not related to a printer, is a fun toy that doesn't live up to its original promise. But I have one, and I'll keep it around. It is gratifyingly compact and easy to clean.

I've been roasting vegetables today: red bell peppers, carrots, red onion and eggplant. They're nice to have on hand as easy additions to other dishes. Today I excavated a smoked duck breast from the freezer and allowed it to thaw. Looked like a good accompaniment to the vegetables. The final result: linguini that I'd forgotten I had, put together with a sauce of butter, olive oil, cheese and half-and-half (not really up to Alfredo standards) and the ingredients in question. The duck breast had been seared first. Pretty good. Is it worth trying to reproduce? I dunno. Will I be able to finish the remains? Easily.

I think that's one of the most gratifying experiences in cooking / baking / confectionery and, for that matter, in any other skill. It means you're really getting a grip on the process! Congratulations!

On the surface of it, sandwiches sound easier to make and package than the hot cooked meals you've been preparing, packaging and chilling. But now that you've done it, what do you think? Might it actually be a more fiddly process for cooking in quantity? If not, maybe the doers like you are simply too busy getting ready for their own feasts.

...and at opposite ends of the world and the climate swings, I spent hours getting ready for the first winter storm of the season. By the time I was finished, I needed something warm but easy. I decided to try a quesadilla, more or less following @Shelby's instructions elsewhere. I was going to make it on my panini press, but then thought: the A4 box is stacked atop it. Why not try the quesadilla on that? See whether it's still worth the space it's taking in my cupboard. Step 1: start cooking vegetables first. I tossed the broccoli and cauliflower in oil and salt, loaded them onto the griddle, and slapped the lid on while I prepped the tortilla. Step 2: prep the tortilla. In this case it meant cutting open the bag in the wrong spot (WHEN will I remember that these are easy-open bags, with a zipper closure?) and then loading up some stray cheeses that needed to go. Step 3: load as much veg as possible into the quesadilla, fold it over, and make room for it on the griddle. Let the rest of the vegetables stay there and continue cooking. It was pretty good, and dead easy. The broccoli and cauliflower, by the way, steamed as much as cooked while that lid was on, so they turned soft. Not at all the same as roasting them. But those that didn't make it into the quesadilla and continue to cook developed a delicious crust. Yes, I'll keep the A4 box. And use it more.

@patti, you are truly a wonder! Generous, inventive, and a blessing to your community!

Thanks! I still have her book, so I'll check out the original!

Well, it all sounds splendid except possibly the world's best braised cabbage. In this neck of the woods, "World's Best" is a brand name for chocolate bars sold as fundraisers (school bands, football teams, and so on). I've never seen that brand applied to braised cabbage, so I suspect it isn't a brand name. It may deserve the hyperbole, even so. More info, please. I'm always up for good ways to treat cabbage. 😀

@blue_dolphin, what fun!!

That would make a LOT of Key Lime pies!! Or my mother's favorite dark-chocolate microwaved fudge!

A discussion about eggs in @patti's blog about Cooking for a Community Fridge got me to hankering for one, and wondering how well one would cook if I loaded it atop a hot potato casserole. This Fully Loaded Baked Potato Casserole, from 5 days ago, has been a wonderful dinner element and I'm almost done with it. I decided to see how it is with egg. I microwaved the potato dish until quite hot, broke an egg over it, slapped the lid on it and watched. Nope. Not enough residual heat to cook it as much as I wanted. (I like some runniness in the yolk, but not so that it's flowing everywhere. Firm white, please.) With just a gentle microwaving -- about a minute on 40% power -- I cooked the egg without a yolk explosion. Okay, the whole thing looks messy. But trust me, it was good. I'm now fortified for more pre-snowstorm work.

I'm stocked up pretty well for Duke's, now. A few days ago I was in Superior, WI (adjacent city to Duluth, MN) and in a grocery store. Same chain as where I spotted the $1 difference between Hellman's and Duke's. This time, the Duke's was $1 cheaper than in Duluth. I didn't bother pricing the Hellman's. I just said, "huh!" and bought another jar of Duke's. So now I have 2 unopened jars. Should do me for a while.

Oh boy, I think I could go live at Solaris! But then, the other food looks great too! And thank you for those lovely, evocative photos of the scenery. I can practically see the palm fronds waving. I wasn't aware that there's a push to catch and eat lionfish as pest control. Sounds like a good idea, especially if it's tasty.

I love the story! And I'm sure the sandwiches were delicious: the kind of thing I'd pick up at a good roadside stop, but made with much, much, much more love. I hope you'll indulge yourself with the hard-cooked egg and slice of cheese on bread, at least for yourself (and post it in the Breakfast topic). Just because some of us looked askance at the idea doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad idea. Without reviewing the responses, I'm pretty sure that everyone (including me) who answered with a "nix, nyet, no" is a Northerner. If you're nostalgic for it, you may have lots of company in your neck of the woods.

Thank you. Yes, I plan to be heading out sometime after Christmas, maybe in January. I'm still working out where to go and when, and how much food to pack. 😀 As usual there's more in the house, garage, and trailer than one person (or even the former two) needs. Which cookbooks? Which cookware? Which dishes? There were things I was sorry not to have along last time, because I packed in such a hurry. Now I have (relative) leisure to sort it all out. The Princessmobile has spent most of the summer at the shop, for one reason or another, and still needs work before I can launch. Once I start packing and arranging, I'll update this topic to show something of the packing and decision-making, if anyone's interested.

For some reason this seems problematic to me, in a way that scrambled eggs in the breakfast sandwiches you're considering don't. I realize that all these sandwiches will be cooked, chilled, and presumably reheated somehow. So why am I skeptical of hard fried, then reheated? It sounds aesthetically less pleasing to me, but maybe that's just me. Would they be likely to explode in the microwave when reheating, do you think? I assume the yolk would (ideally) still be intact, so its air bubble would still be present. A hard-boiled egg, or at least an almost-hard-boiled egg, will explode. Ask me how I know. 😆

Thanks for that recommendation, @Honkman. I have all the ingredients, have never made red beans and rice from scratch, much less using RG beans. I'll have to remedy that!

Seen at the grocery store yesterday, when I was getting low on mayonnaise: (I guess I should have cleaned the lens earlier!) I was surprised at how much the price has shot up on both products since my last purchase: somewhere between $2 and $3. We have been discussing the rising cost of groceries; this is another example. I bought the Duke's, btw.

I am amazed, astonished, uber-impressed with the work and love you put into this project in general, and that last meal in particular! Thanks also for the information about the pulled pork and how you did it. The mac and cheese -- well, too bad I'm not down there! I'd come take some of those leftovers off your hands! (Not that I need them.) And nice to see you using the Tabasco green sauce.

Over here I reported getting a 5-gallon bucket of russet potatoes. Today was a good day to try one of several casseroles I've had my eye on: mimicking stuffed baked potatoes, and mimicking a store-bought casserole I had enjoyed (see here) from Miiller's in Llano, TX. So, today I tried the first of several recipes: Fully Loaded Twice-Baked Potato casserole, from afeastfortheeyes.net. Delicious. It was easy, and a good excuse to cook up a lot of bacon ends and pieces I bought recently. I don't think the texture is the same as the Miiller's dish, but this has far fewer ingredients and is delicious. I can only show the "as baked" photo this time; the plated dinner portion is blurry. No matter; I should have lots of chances to show this again. The sauce is a mix of mayonnaise and sour cream; the rest of the ingredients are roasted potatoes, grated sharp cheddar cheese, bacon and green onions. The only liberty I knowingly took was substituting Lawry's Seasoned Salt, which I had, for the specified Montreal Seasoning, which I didn't. No regrets. This recipe is a winner!

Okay, you Bamix fans: are you talking about the cordless version? If so, how do I choose among them? Are there any attachments / blades that you don't use, or that you simply wouldn't go without?

I like mine so much that I bought a backup, and I bought a couple for family members. I note that they're on sale right now for advanced Black Friday pricing...and incidentally, there are other colors available for those who aren't as set on red as rotuts is! rotuts, I'm not sure what you mean by this: If you mean, not on the pop-top type can that started this conversation, I bet it would.

I can't, and you've gotten suggestions above although your followup questions haven't been answered. What I will note is that somewhere around here -- I've been looking and haven't found it yet -- I remember a discussion about enameled cast iron (ECI) interiors crazing from the steam of a loaf of bread dough loaded into the hot pan. I saw it with my own pans, and went to a Lodge cast iron pan (not ECI) for that purpose and I spared my ECI Dutch Ovens further torment. With that in mind, I think you'll need to evaluate bread loaded into a non-preheated pan as well as bread loaded into a preheated pan (and covered vs. uncovered!). Then look for early signs of crazing. That said, I think it looks like a great pan set. Please share your evaluation of it. I may buy one for myself, just for the chance to try it out.

I'm not at all a chocolatier or confectioner, so I'm asking questions as much for my own edification as to help stimulate this conversation. In baking, if I were to add liquor my considerations would be (a) overall liquid to solids propotions (i.e. keep the propoortions more or less the same) (b) possible pH changes and effects (c) sugar content change, and how that might affect the flavor as well as consistency of the final product Is that the sort of thing you're considering? Finally (for now), am I correct in assuming you're talking about liquor as a flavoring in the filling? Or are you talking about liquor-filled sealed bonbons, in which my considerations above are totally irrelevant? 🤷‍♀️

I can identify with that "so much food to use up...but I HAVE to have this now!" feeling. If I were to stop buying rotisserie chickens and the occasional fried chicken thigh I'd have far more room in my freezers by now! I think that pizza looks wonderful. I'm glad you indulged yourself on your anniversary.