Smithy

We have a fifth-wheel trailer. It's pretty big: what they call a toy hauler, because the back room (our dining room when it's set up) is a garage for toys like a 4-wheeler, bikes, and so on when we're traveling. When we're set up it's generally a dining room, although it can theoretically be a guest bunkroom. The bathroom is mandatory!

It's true that their busy times are waaay too busy. I'm able to avoid their busy times, but you wouldn't have had the luxury, especially during a big tourist weekend like the boat festival weekend. Love's Creamery makes great ice cream! Were you in the LIncoln Park area, or at the end of Park Point where they have a stand, or do they have another place I haven't found? Do they offer sandwiches also? I was only aware of the ice cream. The Lincoln Park area (general vicinity of Superior Street and 27th Ave. W.) is developing into a wonderful craft brewery and food area. I don't think that OMC Smokehouse sells meat by the pound, but they have excellent food -- locally sourced, locally cured and smoked as the case may be.

I've stopped there once or twice since their fire and rebuilding. I haven't noticed much difference in their smoked fish from previous years, but keep in mind that I (still) prefer the Northern Waters Smokehaus fish so I'm not as tuned to the quality of Russ Kendall's fish as you would be. I do think it's great that they're around, and so much a part of the community that everyone chipped in to help them rebuild after the fire.

You may know the rowan tree by its American English name, "mountain ash". They're common in northern Minnesota and parts of Michigan, but I don't know about Grand Rapids. In northern Minnesota the berries are turning conspicuously red right now. Beyond a name clarification, I can't help: I've never worked with the berries and don't have any recipes to help the original poster. My recipes are for a sweet jelly, a tart jelly, and a meat glaze or rub using the berries.

What was the texture of the day lilies in the soup? Silky, tender, gelatinous, crunchy...?

@Margaret Pilgrim, are you willing to share your recipe for peach ice cream? It's been ages since I made mine (actually, it's my mother's recipe) and I'm curious as to how they compare. Heck, I might even try making some again, even though I'm the only ice cream eater in our household.

That seems like more than I paid when I bought mine, several years ago. Do you know the usual rate for this model? Edit: Maybe I paid more, like $129...

I'm new to the CSO so I may have missed a trick or three, but I don't think it has the circulation to provide the same convective power as an air fryer. (This peeves me quite a bit, actually, for reasons relating to counter space and marital harmony.) In my limited tests so far, the CSO hasn't been as good as an air fryer for "tater tots" or breaded pieces of "fried chicken", much less reheated fried leftovers. It is incredibly easy to overcook, overbrown and overcrips reheated fries in an air fryer. Such a feat doesn't seem possible in the CSO. If someone has a good technique for making the CSO match the performance of an air fryer for, say, onion blossoms or reheated fried potatoes, I'm all ears and taste buds. No doubt @Margaret Pilgrim is as interested.

The powder adds an acid kick without dampening a crisp crust and making it go soggy, according to the article.

I wondered the same thing.

This batch of irresistible peppers from a local produce stand.... ...went into the CSO at 425F, steam bake, 30 minutes, and turned once midway through... ...thence into a covered bowl to steam and cool down. (I removed the lid just long enough for the picture.) What an easy, nonmessy way to blister peppers so I can skin them! There's a bit of char also, which should help with the resulting flavor. When we're traveling I do this over a campfire, but I think the steam function of the steam bake may have helped loosen the skin more.

I also spent time trying to work this out, with about the same success and conclusions. Another point is that the butane stove, if it's a tabletop model as I assume, has a smaller fuel throughput (cfm, btu/hr, whatever) than the Wolf range. From a practical, I-don't-have-to-do-this-anymore-because-I'm-retired-and-I-hated-emissions-calculations-when-I-had-to-do-them, empirical approach I'd suggest getting a carbon monoxide alarm if there isn't one already installed. The alarms are cheap - many battery-powered smoke alarms include them - and easy to install. I don't have a favorite. Kidde and First Alert make good ones. That doesn't answer the theoretical question, but it will allow weinoo to enjoy the cookery without worry!

Eating a big breakfast, then eating nothing until dinner, would probably be a good way for me to lose weight...but I'd likely lose as many friends as pounds!

The new Instant Pot Ultra got a workout today, along with the nesting steaming baskets that came as a lagniappe with the set. We had some of the above-shown country style ribs as leftovers. All that sauce begged for something to soak it up. I chose to try pressure-cooking potatoes and eggs at the same time. I should note that I've been perfectly happy with steaming eggs to get them cooked to hard stage, but there are folks here that swear by pressure cooking instead. I was willing to try. Into the bottom basket went the eggs; into the top basket went the potatoes. A cup or two of water went into the liner pot. It was all given 5 minutes' cooking at high pressure, with nearly 20 minutes' natural release before finishing with a quick release. One egg cracked, as you see. I haven't tried peeling any yet. I really should have been cooking the green beans at the same time, either in my other IP (Duo) or on the stove top. I didn't do that. Once the potatoes and eggs were done I filled the pot with hot water and set it to Saute mode to boil the water. The beans got a few minutes' cooking, then an ice-water bath to stop them from cooking more. In retrospect, I should have cooked them longer (they were tough-crisp rather than tender-crisp) and then saved some from the ice-water shock so they could be eaten warm without further cooking. It was late and I didn't want to do the next steps. So it goes. While all that was going on, the pork was gently being reheated in the microwave. Pork, juice, potatoes, check. Excellent. Green beans...well, a bit tough, but edible. A dash of tagin classico seasoning brightened them even if it didn't make them more tender. It's all put away, the dishwasher is running, and I have over a pound of trimmed, par-cooked green beans with little more effort than the trimming. Yay!

Over in this topic about Alton Brown, a brand-new (to me) concept popped up: vinegar powder. @weinoo noted that Wylie Dufresne had been making and using it for quite some time, but I'd never heard of it before today. Bless her, @blue_dolphin posted a link to an article about it, with a recipe. The article, in Taste, is Vinegar: Now in Powder Form. The recipe is for Salt and Vinegar String Beans, excerpted with permission from the Superiority Burger Cookbook. Well. I liked the idea of ordering vinegar powder, but I liked even better the idea of taking stale bread, soaking it in vinegar, drying it in a low oven, then grinding it. I especially liked it because I had half of loaf of once-excellent sourdough that has languished in a bag atop the refrigerator, waiting to become bread crumbs. I liked it even better because of the recipe for Salt and Vinegar String Beans. I love summer green beans, and I had just bought a couple of pounds. How low should the oven temperature be, and for how long? I didn't know, and the article didn't say. Which vinegar might be best? It sounded like cook's choice, although the recipe in question called for malt vinegar. I divvied up the bread loaf into 4 sections for taste comparisons: malt vinegar, white wine vinegar, apple cider vinegar and red wine vinegar. "Low oven" is pretty vague. Once the bread was well-soaked I pulled it apart and spread it onto carefully-segregated baking sheets. Two small pans' worth (the red wine vinegar and apple cider vinegar) went into my Cuisinart Steam Oven using convection bake mode. After 2 hours at 150F they were barely drying. I turned the bread, gave it another 2 hours at 175F, and then again another 2 hours. In the meantime, the breads from the other two vinegars went onto standard baking sheets in my standard oven, at 200F of convective baking. That process took around 2 hours. Note to self: in future, use 200F and use the higher air flow of the larger oven. The top picture is of the original stale bread portions, getting their bath. The bottom picture is of the dried bread crumbs. They'll meet the food processor on another day, to be ground into smithereens and give interesting taste notes to foods. I'm looking forward to trying the green bean recipe in the next day or two. Who else has tried this? Got any successes, failures or insights to report?

Me three. I finally fished (ha) mine out of the toolbox where they'd been stashed so they'll be readily available near the kitchen. eta: Oh wait, mine is a hemostat. Same idea for this purpose, though not for its original use.

Good to see you here! Thanks for the compliments...and please come back more often!

Glad you like the tajin! The dinner looks great. I didn't time the blanching, but I think it was on the order of 2 minutes, maybe 3...just until the corn was barely cooked and had taken on a brighter color and firmer flesh. I had a big bowl of ice water waiting to stop the cooking as soon as I pulled the corn out of the boiling water.

The cut corn kernels are now spread out on cookie sheets and freezing. There is a definite textural difference between the kernels that came off the blanched ears and the kernels that came off the blanched-and-then-frozen ears. If there's a significant visual difference between the two batches that I can pick up with a camera, I'll post that later. Right now it can be felt more than seen. The blanched, then frozen, then thawed ears yielded corn kernels that were mushy (soft) and lost a lot of their juices. Those kernels were difficult to cut off the ears (but impossible after the ears were frozen, as noted above) and a lot of the corn "meat" stayed on the ears. The cobs should have a lot to give corn stock. The kernels remind me of creamed corn. The kernels that were cut off the cobs after the cobs were blanched kept much more of their structural integrity. I know from experience that they'll freeze well and make good provender for later. Note to @ElsieD: the reason we have taken to blanching the corn before freezing is that when I simply cut the corn kernels off the cobs and then froze the kernels, without blanching, the resulting product was tough even after being cooked later on.

Welcome! What sorts of things do you especially like to cook? Any big learning projects going on at present?

Thanks for the information. I hope you are on the mend and able to try it soon.

You're all making me wonder whether I still have that potato ricer I never used! Did I give it away, or is it in some box somewhere?

It makes sense to me that the chickens' diet, general health and possibly breed would affect the shell strength, but I haven't kept records to test the idea. I'd like to know what others have observed.

I learned about flat-surface cracking from a friend who'd been trained as a chef, way back in the '80's, and have never looked back. The reason Dean gave me was that an edge could drive the shell into the egg, with possible contamination as a result. At one time I was proficient enough that I could hold an egg in each hand, crack each on the counter, and open each with the hand that was holding it...simultaneously. I don't remember the last time I felt the need to hurry (or was it showing off, even to myself?) that much, though. Maybe I'll try it and see how much of a mess I make, now that I'm out of practice 🙂

The leftovers made enough for 3 meals for 2 of us. On the left: that meat is tender! and still juicy! On the right: with the sauce added from the pot. We'll need to cook potatoes or rice to soak up that juice. As rotuts says, "yum yum". Our samples of the leftovers didn't indicate overcookedness after all, so maybe it was just our tiredness and general crankiness that led us to think so last night. Still, having to hustle it along at the end didn't help. Next time we'll cook at a slightly higher temperature, and start it earlier in the day.