Smithy

I looked at one of these in the local Goodwill store and passed it by, being of strong sales resistance at the time. If you show some great results, I might be tempted to go see if it's still there. Enable me, please!

I have a LOT of lovage in my flower bed. I should try making a soup with it!

I moved from California to northern Minnesota for 6 months, which turned into many years. My parents, who were San Joaquin Valley farmers, would occasionally send me "care packages" that were probably intended to entice me back 'home'. One very memorable birthday present came when my mother insisted that a flat of Truly Ripe Local Strawberries be shipped to me. My father was scandalized at the expense. My mother wanted to share the bounty. The strawberries suffered in transit, of course. The packing peanuts (yes, those styrofoam thingies) had gotten up close and personal to the fresh fruit so that the package included strawberry-stained styrofoam; the coolant had lost its cool; and juices were soaking through the cardboard by the time the package found its way to my office. Still, there were some excellent strawberries in the mix: fine examples of real strawberries, better than what you get in the store...in fact, the Platonic ideal of strawberriness. I never had the heart to tell my mother how much the cargo had been damaged. The good-hearted whimsy of the gift, combined with the successful few in the package after it arrived, made it a world-class present for me. Bless her.

It all looks lovely, but I don't understand "fondue" in this context. It may be the hour. Explain, please?

We began with a pickup-mounted camper. It had a small stove and refrigerator, a table that could become an extra bed, and a bed over the cab. Our husky at the time weighed 70 pounds, and took up most of the aisle. It was a beginning.

"STOP THE CAR!" I love that. A woman after my own heart! Any idea what variety of peach that is?

I think it counts. There's no mileage requirement for upscale / comfortable glamping...I can imagine the van feeling a bit crowded at the end of a long trip, though. Do you remember what you used to cook and/or eat during those trips?

In all the time I've lived in this area, I've never really noticed Louise's Place. It's an unassuming little place in what passes for downtown Two Harbors, close to the waterfront. A couple of weeks ago I had occasion to be in town for breakfast. I noticed the sign. I tried the door, which opened on an interior stairway. I went up the stairs and peered in. It's small, and clearly one of the places the locals hang out for breakfast. For reasons I can't explain, I was shy about taking more pictures, so there's none of the counter or menu. This is about half the dining area. The artwork and crafts are all for sale. Their special of the day was a sausage patty on a freshly-made biscuit, with cheese. This particular combination should sound familiar to anyone who visits places like Burger King or McDonald's. Those joints can only dream of making something as good as this. I don't usually eat large breakfasts, but if I'm in town again at the right time, I'll go back to Louise's to try them again. I asked whether they were new, since I'd never noticed them before. Nope...they've been around since 1992!

Galette made of puff pastry (Pepperidge Farms) with a topping of grilled, marinated artichoke hearts, sun-dried tomatoes, scallions, garlic, onions, cheeses, herbs and Dry Coppa. The recipe was loosely based on this recipe for Herbed Artichoke Gallete from Fine Cooking #160, Aug/Sept 2019. I say "loosely" because I took liberties with the ingredients, being determined to use up some cheeses that would expire soon with or without our help, and because we did not have leeks but had scallions and onions. I also thought there would be a household revolt if I didn't include some meat, so the Coppa went into the mix. Upper row, left to right: happenings in the skillet; the lot settled on the puff pastry before baking. Lower row, left to right: the cooked product; the cut galette, just before serving. I could see the mental groan from The Other Half when he thought this would be some Fancy-Dan vegetarian dinner. He was somewhat assured when he learned there was cured meat in the mix. He was downright fascinated when he bit into the puff pastry. I have played with this stuff only once before, and it didn't really register on him. Tonight the discussion was largely about how the layers are accomplished. We began with pie dough vs. metallurgy: he wondered about layers of pie dough splayed atop one another and then rolled, and I tried to explain that it was much more like folding and rolling layers: Damascus Steel. At last we settled into a geologic discussion: I thought it more along the lines of mica or vermiculite; he thought it more like schist. We both liked it. I'll be doing it again. Yes, we really do talk this way at home.

That is beautiful. Did you make that bread? If so, would you please point to the recipe you used, or describe the method?

Thank you both for a lovely trip, as always. I'm sorry to see it end!

I've been looking at the altitude setting. This pot will automatically add time for altitude adjustments. I don't know more about the algorithm and am unlikely to explore it much, unless we take this on the road to a higher elevation than where we live now.

Here's the first unintended consequence / unexpected result. I left the IP's alone to do their thing, and came back an hour after the Ultra had beeped loudly to announce that its program had ended. (The sound can be turned off or on.) Surprise! The "Keep Warm" function was warmer than my setpoint! The manual (yes, I did open it today ) says the "Keep Warm" function runs from 145 - 172F. If I had been intent on having something cook at 150F, I'd have been disappointed to see what happened afterward. The "Keep Warm" function can be turned off or on, but it appears that the temperature set point can't be changed. Incidentally, I've been reporting everything in degrees F, but the unit also works in degrees C. The altitude setting works in feet or meters.

Today I'm beginning the comparison between the IP Duo-60 and the IP Ultra-60. I already talked about the difference in lids and venting systems, but here's a picture for comparison's sake. The Ultra's lid is on the left. If someone wants a better picture so they can read the printing, let me know. The Duo's Steam Release Valve has to be manually turned to "venting" or "sealing" as the use dictates. The Ultra's Steam Release Valve automatically closes when the lid is locked onto the pot. The small button on the right changes the state of that valve: Press it in to release steam; turn it to seal the vent again. I think it's probably safer because you aren't touching the Release Valve (vent) itself, although with only a 2-inch separation between them I'm not sure it matters much. Both came with the rice paddle, scoop, measuring cup and steaming rack. There's a minor difference in racks. (Ultra is on the left.) Here's the first huge difference, the one that I hoped would be true with the Custom settings: The Ultra has been holding a fairly steady 152F since it reached temperature, about an hour after I started it. Based on two temperature setpoint, it seems to have a 2F offset. I can't get too fussed about that: if it's important, I can lower the setpoint by 2 degrees. The Duo is heating water at its "low" cook setting, and an hour after starting it's at 185F. I don't know whether that will be the final point. It was still climbing when I took this picture. Both cookers start the timers for the slow-cooking mode when they begin, not when they reach temperature. If I were the programmer for the Ultra, I think I'd have set it so the timer began when the "Cook" phase began, but that's a small quibble. One delightful aspect of the Ultra is that it remembers preferences. Yesterday when I started it in the SlowCook mode it began with its default of one of the classic modes. (I don't remember whether it was Low, Medium or High.) Today when I plugged it in it defaulted to SlowCook, Custom, 104F.

Yes, it's been a pleasure. Many, many thanks!

Yes, I think that's exactly right. This weekend I may get around to opening the manual to see what they have to say about it.

In 20 minutes, the temperature has risen from 105F to 131F and it's still climbing. I can hear a relay clicking on and off. The bar graph hasn't changed in response to the temperature change, so it appears that the image is simply a graphical representation of the phases involved and the progress through the phase in question.

According to my thermometer, it took about an hour for the water to actually reach 104F, although it rose to 100F from the initial 76F in about a half hour. Since the two-hour mark it's been hovering around 105F. I've seen it down to 104.x (can't remember) and up to 105.7. If I find a datalogger around here - or even a min/max recording thermometer (I think I have one) I'll be interested to see what the temperature swings are. At this temperature it's plenty good for a slow-cook; this isn't a precision circulator. It certainly holds a much lower temperature than the IP Duo 60! I won't be able to do much, if any, more with this today. Feel free to post questions or suggestions on what you'd like to see. Tomorrow or this weekend I'll be doing some side-by-side comparisons with the Duo. We may use this as a slow cooker for meat tomorrow. (Actually, I just told it to crank the temperature up to 150F. If I learn anything before I leave for work I'll post about it here.)

Here's a manual excerpt showing the different operating modes and range of parameters that can be controlled for each.

About 45 minutes ago I set it to cook at 104F. It's an hour into the 4-hour program and has slowly been climbing from 100F to 103F. I began with 76F water, up to the "max pressure cooker" line.

The line shows the program for that phase ("Preheating" in the top paired set of photos) and the bar graph shows how far along it actually is for that phase. In this case the phases were "Preheating," "Cooking" and "Keep Warm". The phase is named in the lower right of the screen. The graphs came up on their own without my asking. I think it will be nice for monitoring progress / status of a program, but whether it will be of use other than satisfying my curiosity remains to be seen.

Tomato ketchup?

I didn't try Steam Bake this time around. That was a disaster last week when I tried it on the mini-hash-rounds. I understand that steam bake is the counterintuitive favorite amongst this crowd, but I was afraid to try it so quickly following on the last disaster.

Right out of the box, there's a difference between the IP Duo-60 and the IP Ultra 60: the pressure control and relief valves. The system is more automatic than before. There's a warning tag with a tie around the relief valve; it's difficult to miss. I decided to try the pressure-cooking mode first. It really is a set-and-forget mode. I've been working lately with equipment that requires pushing a knob, turning it for a different mode, pressing it again (and so on) so I had no trouble with the controls. There are instructions for those who don't find it as easy, but I'll be happy to provide more detail for those interested. Maybe it's just because I like progress reports (although I hated them when required to give them to my bosses) but I really like the screen that shows the status of the program. It's bright and easy to read: what mode, how far along, and what's happening inside? At this point, the pressure was building. The timer had not started, and would not start until the pressure had reached the "high" point. Note the difference in the graph between the right and left photos. The bottom snap in this collage shows that the pressure "button" had closed and pressure was on the rise. After the pressure reached the set point, the timer began. ...and because I wandered away to do other household chores, it kept track as the temperature and pressure dropped after the cooking time had elapsed. In this photo, it was done cooking and had switched to the "keep warm" cycle as the temperature and pressure dropped. I don't have photos of the steam release, because I don't have enough hands, but I will say that after allowing the pot to sit for 20 minutes on natural release it was as uneventful as with my IP Duo-60...and it was easier, because I simply had to push a button down instead of twisting a valve. I still took the precaution of covering the vents with a towel. The last test I did tonight - and, alas, the last test I'm likely to do for a couple of days - was to see what this IP Ultra 60 thinks it can do for temperature control in slow cooker mode. If it can really accomplish this range of temperatures, it will be a marvel. Tests to come in a day or three. Tests of the other functions need to come along too. What would y'all like to see? The idea is to put my IP Duo-60 and this IP Ultra60 alongside each other and compare their performance. I have enough kitchen circuitry for this feat. The electrician who wired this kitchen would be proud.

Whee! Look what turned up at my house! This is my opportunity to evaluate the Instant Pot Ultra 60 and compare it to the Instant Pot IP Duo-60 that I already have. Where the IP Duo-60 has plenty of functions, the Ultra has more functions AND that control knob that promises finer control of temperature. Maybe it fine-tunes other parameters as well, but I've been especially interested in temperature. DH and I have been pining for a slow cooker that offers a better temperature setpoint than "low" and "high" or "low", "medium" and "high". Will this be it? A couple of extras -- lagniappes, as folks in some parts of the USA would say -- were included. We have all read about the tendency of the gaskets to pick up off-odors from, er, assertive ingredients such as garlic or onion, and the need for extra gaskets so that sweets aren't contaminated with off-odors. The other lagniappe is a pair of nesting steamer baskets. One fits inside the other so it can be added or removed at will. It's a perfect arrangement for cases where two ingredients need different steaming times. I'm all ears for suggestions.