Smithy

I probably won't bother this year, what with one thing and three others, but I have happy memories of past years' cookie collections. Strut your stuff, folks!

Amen! I was hoping for a 2-week visit and blog!

I've never had, nor made, panettone. From what I've been reading it sounds reminiscent of Christmas Stollen, which used to be a family favorite luxury from an almost-local bakery. Well. The bakery is still in business but those family gatherings are a thing of the past. I suppose I could have ordered a stollen for my sister and me, but in a fit of self-pity and desire to experiment, not to mention @Pete Fred's fabulous review... ...I ordered one for myself and one for my sister! Merry Christmas to us! Shopping for a panettone at a local store, as @Tropicalsenior did above, might have been more sensible. But no, I'm shooting for the stars. Planning to share it with special friends!

Judging by the photo, you sweated for your art! And it paid off! It looks delicious! 😀

Thanks for the reminder! Maybe it's time to revive the Larb Laab Larp topic? At any rate, it might time for me soon to try making it again. 🙂

Another "get it out of the way" dinner. I thought it would be headed for the Gallery of Regrettable Foods, and surprised myself. Last night I broke into this package of dried tortellini from World Market, and boiled and ate roughly half. It was okay. Had a decided "pizza" flavor to it, as the package suggested, when tossed with butter and grated parmesan last night. Tonight I boiled the rest. Lurking in the freezer was an unlabeled package of...something homemade. It looked tomatoey. It looked like it had sausage in it. Could it have been one of my disastrous and perverse attempts to make puttanesca sauce ahead of time and freeze it? (I won't try it again. But the tomatoes were exceptional that summer.) In fact I think it wasn't intended as puttanesca, given the presence of sausage and the lack of capers. But I digress. Here it is, refusing to divulge its identity. I sampled one of the sausage bits. Hot! And maybe a bit past its prime? Still...once the tortellini were cooked and drained, I threw the mystery tomato sauce into the pan with the tortellini and began to stir. I added the last of the heavy cream from Thanksgiving dinner. I thought of the aforementioned Gallery of Regrettable Foods. Well, comic relief is still a form of relief. Then I dished it up. Because I needed some greens, I piled some atop a bed of baby bitter greens. You know what? It's actually pretty good! I added shredded cheese at the table but forgot to take a picture of that. Sour cream was also present but didn't really help the product. The mystery meat and tomato, and the pizza-ish tortellini filling, actually played well off each other. Sometimes, it's better to be lucky than good.

I miss being able to go pick satsumas and other ripe citrus fruits at this time of year. It's a bit early yet for the navel oranges, but sometimes the crop is getting ready to pick by now.

It might help to tell us your current food processor: make, model, size? I've liked my Cuisinart DLC-8 and never had a lick of trouble with it, once I made the necessary modifications to be able to take the top apart for cleaning. However, I don't use it every day (or even every week) and I know a lot of people have had trouble with Cuisinarts. I have a Hamilton Beach 4-cup cheapie purchased for travel and currently put away since the trailer is gone. It's okay for "camping". This topic has quite a bit of discussion about food processor models, as recently as 2022, but there may be more current opinions out there.

"Kapow" is what happened the first time my father tried to microwave eggs! Anyway, what are the seasonings in this chicken grapao / kapow?

No visible change to the kraut this morning, nor would I expect it. But I did finally remember that the word I wanted yesterday to describe what happened overnight to the brine is "diffusion"! Edited to add: actually, I can see some surface bubbles and I'm gettting a bit of tart kraut smell out of the pickle pipe. I think we have ignition!

Lovely, as always. Where did you get those tomatoes, and how good are they? By now, the northern Minnesota farms are shut down for the winter. Grocery store tomatoes are hit and miss on quality.

I know what you mean! It seriously looks like a fun toy to me, and at $40 I can afford that fun. It looks like a good Gizmo for traveling, too. I don't know what my next Princessmobile will be, and maybe I'll relegate the toy to that purpose... but maybe not. Right now my cooking is so minimalist that small appliances make more sense than the large oven. If I were still working I'm pretty sure it would have a home in my office.

I just got an email from A4 Box. The sale is still going!

I'm so glad to see you blogging again! I have to admit that your scenery looks strange, though. No snow? It's snowy here already. I'd happily take any one of those breakfast burritos. Or that brisket. Or those sausages. Or those potatoes. Or...or...or...well, any of it! Did you make those sausages?

Those are good prices, with quite a variety of colors and styles. I'm amused that only the largest (8 quart) size comes in camo. I suspect it's because of hunting shack parties! 🙂 The 4-quart size is about what @Sid Post is looking for. However, it still doesn't have a programmable temperature beyond the 4 settings of low, medium, high, and warm. This is why I, like @rotuts think the Instant Pot Ultra is more advantageous. I like being able to specify a temperature and have it hold there for hours. Hmm. I've been looking around, and don't actually see the Ultra for sale any more. Instant Pot has a broad variety of multicookers available, and I'm disinclined to dig through to see which ones now have programmable temperatures. This IP slow cooker caught my eye, though: built more like the classic slow cookers, with a removable crock. It won't act as a pressure cooker, but it does have programmable temperatures. IP Superior Cooker Slow Cooker. The IP Pro 10-in-1 Multicooker (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) looks like it might have programmable temperatures. I'm glad I have the Ultra and don't have to worry about it!

@Sid Post, I'll second what rotuts says. I also have an Instant Pot Ultra, as well as the original version. I like the Ultra for its settable temperatures. The one thing you have to be careful of, though, is the automatic "keep warm" setting. It's warmer than the lowest custom temperature setpoint, so you can end up accidentally overcooking something. For more information, and comparing the Ultra to the original, see this topic. Getting back to your original question: I don't think the A4 box as it's originally shipped has anything deep enough to do slow cooking. I don't know whether the "deep dish" inset is deep enough, but haven't seen it to be sure. I think I recall reading in the A4 Box Induction Cooker topic that someone put a small pot atop the cooking surface and successfully cooked with it. I think it would have to be a pretty small pot, though: maybe not big enough for what you want to do.

I have no experience with that, but I wonder whether corn starch would help it to hold together.

I appreciate the comments about freezing, both from a texture and flavor standpoint. I should have made it clear that the cabbage was partially frozen in my outside refrigerator. i'm not sure whether it had been harvested before or after the first frost. This morning, I'm impressed with the way the juices are permeating and circulating without any help. I haven't shaken the jar, though I probably will every once in a while. Look what it's done, simply sitting on the counter! I have to look carefully to see the cheese mat, because the brine topping is now so dark. For comparison's sake, and to spare y'all from scrolling back up, this is what it looked like last night: No bubbling visible yet, but I wouldn't expect that so early in the process.

Sorry. I'm snickering because I said exactly the same thing to myself, for similar reasons to yours. And yet, here I am with a new A4 box on the way! I'll find room for it. Somewhere.

Part of the 3-pack of inserts that's already sold out includes a small ball thingie, but I suspect you still have to shape the meatballs themselves. I agree that part's a PITA. I made meatballs once. For my aging and ailing father-in-law. I haven't wanted to do it again.

By golly, it's possible to mess these up. I began with slices of a "focaccia" loaf I wrote about here, loaded it with slices of cheese and meat, pressed it until it looked great, then opened it and added spinach leaves and pickles. (I'm out of sauerkraut). Unfortunately, the meat was a combination of salami and roasted turkey breast. The turkey breast came out of the freezer. The turkey breast was still frozen when I started pressing. Looks great, doesn't it? The exterior is perfect. But the meat interior is still cold, and the pickles only added to the cold and watery quality. Don't start with frozen deli meat. Even if you're feeling impatient.

I hear in some circles that induction is more energy-efficient than standard heating coils. But seriously, after reading this topic on the A4 Box Induction Cooker I simply liked the look and idea of a small, portable cooker. At its usual price I couldn't see spending the money. For 40 bucks I'm eager to try out a new toy!

It works on induction.

Sometime late in the fall, when the growing season was winding down, I bought the last few (small) heads of red cabbage from my local farmer. I put the heads in the outside refrigerator. Occasionally I remembered them...but only today got around to doing something with them. Sauerkraut was always the plan. Well, it's an experiment. I decided during an earlier test that 2% by weight salt was probably the right proportion, and that's what I did after shredding the cabbage. The salt is mostly Morton's fine sea salt, but there's a bit of coarse kosher salt there too. That isn't really the experiment, though. 1. The poor cabbage heads were already semi-frozen. (It's been well below freezing for more than a week.) I couldn't tell it while shredding them, but when I started mixing in the salt I could tell that there may have been partial freezing. At any rate, it's all cold! 2. I postulated during my last test that too much headspace in the jar allowed black mold to develop. This time, I was sure to submerge the well-packed cabbage, but there was a lot of headspace. I topped it off with a 2% mix of water and salt. You can see in the photo where the cabbage stops and the brine begins. I'm using a leaf of cabbage, topped by one of the cheese mats inspired by @FauxPas, to keep the kraut submerged. (Her recommended mesh isn't quite the same as what I bought, but I got the idea from her here.) So. Will the brine topping help or hinder? Will the partial freezing hurt? How long will it take this incipient kraut to come to room temperature and start fermenting? Time will tell. I'll report back.

I just got an email from A4Box.com celebrating their 5th anniversary. The first 500 customers can get an A4 Induction Box (color of your choice) for FREE using the coupon code ANNIVERSARY5. I just ordered mine, and only have to pay shipping ($40). Our dear departed @Anna N and our dear, still-with-us friend @Kerry Beal had a lot of fun playing with theirs, back in the day! There's apparently another sale going on right now. If I can figure out how to get to it, I'll also order the extra trays and I'll report back here. (Edited to add: they're already sold out. That's why I couldn't load them into my cart.) Go to AFourBox.com if you're interested in this. Hurry!