andiesenji

You have to cook the tomatoes down until you have something like tomato paste, otherwise you have a product that is too thin. You can freeze it in containers that are suitable for the freezer and it will keep for a few months. Or you can can it, you don't need a pressure canner a water batch (boiling pan) canning procedure will do just fine as the acid and sugar content is well above the safe level for such foods.

It's not my favorite task but I don't "hate" it, mild displeasure is my major feeling. I've had this Bosch dishwasher for a couple of years now and it is so different from my old Hobart that it did take me a while to get used to using the racks and I still don't like having to bend repeatedly to load and unload the bottom rack, one item at a time. I have to admit that it is really quiet. I can't hear it unless I am right next to it and then only a faint swishing sound. Since the Hobart sounded like a 747 taking off, it is a profound difference. The main displeasure is that I do have to unload the thing rather than just shove the trays onto a rolling cart and push it into the pantry and put the items away at my leisure.

You are so right, Jaymes. (by the way, where is your avatar?) I usually tie herbs with hard stems into a bouquet and drop into a pot with the string tied to a handle so I can fish it out, and indeed, the leaves usually drop off. I also use one of the larger "infuser" type basket things when I have a bunch of small pieces I don't want to leave in the stew, soup or ?? I love my floating infuser I found last year at the local kitchen outlet store. Floating infuser I liked it so well I went back and bought several more to give as gifts. The top is a sealed chamber that keeps the thing floating - very clever design. The handle has a slot that will slide over a straight-sided pan and let all the liquid drip out. I have a bunch of the large wire mesh ones but they are much harder to clean when those tiny stems get stuck in the mesh.

This site has the most simple explanation on how to work candy canes, keeping the non-working portion in a warm oven to keep it pliable. Candy Canes There are several excellent books on making candy - Laura Doran's has nice step-by-step instructions that are easy to follow. How are you going to pull the candy? Unless you have a good set up, it can be dicey. I have a butcher block with a hole that allows me to inset a metal shaft to wrap the candy around and use as a base to pull against. If you have a clamp-on meat grinder you can attach that to the edge of a table, oil the exterior and use that to pull against, from the other side of the table. Otherwise you need two people, it is not an easy task to handle alone, unless you are working with very small batches at a time.

Ditto on grating cheese, especially parmesan because it is so difficult. I have gone thru many a food processor trying to use them for grating parmsan regianno - now husband performs the task. Add to that juicing lemons and limes. One or two, no problem. Beyond that, my husband gets recruited just like the cheese grating task. Otherwise, prepping anything besides raw meat is my form of meditation. I could spend hrs chopping vegetables, spinning salads, and prepping herbs. Neither of likes cleanup but we have worked out a system that generally makes it pretty efficient most of the time. I grate hard cheeses in my Cuisnarts all the time and have for years - even Sap sago, which is about as hard as they come. For semi-hard cheeses I stick them onto a cutting board that has prongs to keep stuff in place and move the grater over the cheese rather than vice-versa. I got the Microplane cheese graters and find they work with much less effort than the regular type. Especially doing it my way.

I hear you and sympathize. I have difficult climbing a step stool because of bad knees. I use one of the heavy duty extended "grabbers" - the one that has things like suction cups on the business end. It can handle things up to about two pounds, which is fairly heavy. I'm waiting for someone to invent a small hydraulic lift on which I could stand to retrieve things from high places. It was no problem when I had a live-in housekeeper but now I have to rely on someone who is only here on cleaning days and I always forget (until she has left) that there is something in a high cupboard that I will be needing. Fortunately one of my neighbors has a tall, strong teenage son who is willing to be on call for emergency lifting and etc.

I'm at a loss here to see the problem. I use a lot of home grown herbs and I've never noticed it being a problem. When the weather is warm I wash them outside but the routine is the same. I fill a large stainless basin with cold water and holding the bunch by the bottoms of the stems, dunk them briskly up and down in the water several times, swish them back and forth a couple of times and shake off the excess water then cut off the very bottoms of the stems (where I was holding them) and roll them up in towels - you can use paper towels but I have stacks of "huck" towels left over from my catering days so I use them. All the dead, loose leaves and stems, bugs, etc., will float to the surface of the water and poured off during the plunging sessions and more water added if needed. I've found that even aphids and mites will be removed with this process where they will hang on with rinsing under running water. As I use no pesticides in my garden, there will be a certain amount of little bugs - those missed by the beneficial predatory bugs, but they don't like being under water.

The candied peel is an excellent, and more flavorful, substitution for citron in baked goods and spumoni. I envy you.

That's the reason I switched (mostly) to Cambro containers many years ago. The lids are interchangeable on some sizes, they stack securely and I store all but the largest in the super jumbo Hefty storage bags and hang them up where they are kept dust free and I can easily see where they are. I do have some Tupperware and it also goes into the storage bags and gets hung up where it is clean, out of the way and easily found. The hooks the bags hang from are just below the ceiling so the stuff hangs above shelves that are up to chest high on me. All the odd-shaped stuff that is difficult to store and is not used on a regular basis goes into these bags and hung in this hallway behind my kitchen. I buy these big storage bags by the case because I use them for everything from linens to garden tools. One holds nothing but boxes of cereal because they are bulky, take up a lot of room in a cupboard and this is the absolute best way to deter bug invasions.

I want a Viante Electric Pasta Maker. I saw one demonstrated this evening and was very impressed. Not that I don't already have pasta rollers and cutters but I don't have one of these machines that does everything except hang the pasta to dry.

When I posted my earlier note about the bombe, I totally forgot the one thing that was more intense than that, took longer and required more help. The Christmas I moved up here in 1988, I was challenged by a friend to prepare a traditional Polish poppy seed strudel from scratch. This may not sound very complicated but preparing and stretching the dough to the correct thinness and the correct size (same as a twin bed sheet) was a major operation and took a significant amount of time. It turned out okay but I vowed, "Never again!" Purchased filo dough has worked just as well for anything I had to prepare since then.

I have written in many other threads about the things I make at home that a lot of people do not bother with because they simply do not have the time, the space or the wish to do so. For many years I worked at a full-time job and had a long commute in heavy traffic but as I never needed the "normal" amount of sleep, I had plenty of time to allow me to exercise my desire to make things from "scratch." Since retiring, I have more time and have spent a lot of it doing just as I please. I bake my own bread and today there is no reason anyone can't get a good result because no one is limited to supermarket flour brands. Specialty flours are available online and some are reasonably priced if one wants a superior product. Also pasta. Being a diabetic and feeling that 95% of the commercial bakery products for diabetics are, in a word, ghastly and contain some ingredients that are weird but certainly not "wonderful," I prepare my own so I know what they contain and they taste better to me. Some things that I prepare at home take a lot of time and effort, although in some cases I have achieved an excellent product without the extended time and energy - sometimes this happened by accident, but repeated turned out just as well so I've changed my routine. Clotted cream for instance. Other things that I make that most people buy: Sour cream, yogurt, butter, candied ginger and citrus peels, chestnuts, glacé fruits, sambals, mustard, ketchup, mayonnaise and other condiments. Also pickles and etc.

I've already made a large batch of candied ginger, ditto orange peel and lemon peel, dried fruits that are slowly being converted to glacé and also two pounds of chestnuts. I've roasted and seasoned almonds, pecans, peanuts and macadamia nuts. Have some others to do but first have to measure out what I will need for cookies and etc. Yet to do is some sticky macaroons that will eventually be coated in chocolate for gifts. Cookies in the prep stage (dry ingredients measured and stored with the recipes) Lime and banana, mincemeat, Ginger, Cardamom & Black Pepper, dense black cocoa brownies with cherries, blondies with macadamia and dried pineapple, oatmeal/cranberry gems, "stained-glass cut-outs" and molasses "rock" cookies, plus a significant stack of pizzelle wafers. I have panettone dough, stollen dough and kringle dough in the freezer.

That is fascinating to watch. The procedure is similar to the much rougher technique I use on a center cut pork loin so I have a long flat slab of meat to stuff and roll. (also top round of beef) However I cut away from me rather than toward my hand - my knife skills have a long way to go before I can do even a small chunk of vegetable that thin.

I use the super-fine shakers that have a plastic or silicone cap over the mesh top and gently sprinkle the dust onto the item. I have dusted the top of meringues with no collapse. Mine are similar to this one. I have several in which I keep xxxx sugar, cocoa, the luster and colored dusts, rice flour and vanilla powder. I have a bunch of stencils in various shapes - holiday, leaf, lace, etc., as well as larger shapes - such as a wave, lightening bolt, sun and moon faces, that I use to lay down a pattern.

I didn't think to try gun cases. That pistol case is too small -- I have a 19" knife. But a small rifle/shotgun case might be ideal. You could plonk it down at the back of your station, and it wouldn't take up much space. You'd have access to everything. Best of all, it's unlikely anyone would mess with you on your way to the parking lot. Something like this would be pretty bad-ass. They have long slicing knives that fit diagonally and the others are fitted in stepwise from the outside in from long to short.

I have friends who are caterers and they bought these locking pistol cases to carry their knives Thermapens and etc. They use a bicycle cable lock to fasten the handles to a pipe or secure table leg to make sure the cases don't "walk off" while they are working. They tried camera cases but someone cut through the side of one to get at the inside - didn't take anything but ruined the case. The skin on these is tougher and the interior foam is quite dense and holds up well. They cut slits so the knives are placed on edge rather than flat so they can get more into the case.

The food related book I have enjoyed most this year is Cheesemonger: A Life on the Wedge by Gordon Edgar. I mentioned it soon after I purchased it several months ago. I sent a copy to my daughter and she and my grandson enjoyed it also. I've recommended it to several people who got it and found it as interesting as I did.

Sounds like a winner to me. No, I don't have one of those - and '69 was a little early for any micro computer and that one had only a binary readout, no text. Someone posted about it a while back on old computers.com. I remember the post mentioned one could buy three or four cars for the price of that "computer" so it was aimed at the high end consumer. However, I do have a Lisa, though not for the kitchen. I was an early convert to Apple, got the Lisa, then the first Mac and have stuck with them to date.

These statements are all correct except for "She was the first to use TV (1963) to actually teach cooking" She was the first female chef to have a NATIONAL cooking show. The first chef on TV and previously on radio, in the L.A. area was Chef Joseph Milani who was on radio in the 1930s and on TV in the late '40s and early '50s. The first female chef on TV was Mama Weiss on KHJ-TV in Los Angeles in the early '50s. I lived off and on with my dad in the San Fernando Valley from July '52 until June '54 and her show came on just as I got home from school and I loved it. My dad had built her home, so knew her quite well, and got her cookbook for me for Christmas '53 and I still have it. However, Julia did have a profound effect on cooking all across America soon after her show began to air. I watched Julia's show when it was first aired and I loved it too. Most people would never think of cooking with garlic - it was something "foreigners" used. Olive oil was also rarely found in the kitchen. (Strangely enough one could find a very small bottle in a medicine cabinet as doctors would often prescribe warm olive oil drops in a child's ear for an earache!) As was said earlier, "You had to be THERE" at that time and in that place. TV dinners were so common in most homes as to cause manufacturers of refrigerator freezers to increase the size of the freezer section exponentially. Prior to that the compartments were just large enough for ice cubes and a few boxes of frozen vegetables and a couple of cans of orange juice. Supermarkets changed after Julia's show began. Produce sections were enlarged and many more vegetables were added. Fish sections were enlarged. More and different cuts of meats were displayed. The demand for lamb, which had been in decline for more than a decade, suddenly increased and so did production. If you lived through it, you know what is was like before and after and have a great appreciation for what she did. Gourmet magazine was something that only the "elite" subscribed to prior to Julia but it became mainstream as ordinary homemakers wanted something more than Good Housekeeping, Ladies Home Journal and etc. Be thankful she did come along when she did, otherwise you too might be subsisting on Swanson's TV dinners!

The Wusthof shears that separate for cleaning are cheap and very good, they hold an edge and will cut almost anything, up to an including pipe strapping - I have done it. Others can give you more advice than me about most knives. I don't believe in sets because I like some types by one maker and others, etc. I can tell you that the very best bread knife I have ever used is the very inexpensive serrated one sold at Smart & Final, white handle, made by Dexter - Russell. It will cut very hard crusty breads as well as angel food cakes and maintains a sharp edge with no attention at all. It has a 12 inch blade. I have bread knives that cost ten to twenty times as much and that do not work as well.

You are so right about the handle size. I have large hands for a woman - I wear a size 9 glove - and I think that is the problem I have with many Japanese knives. I like the heft of the Wusthof and I love my 14 inch chefs, which was called a "French" knife when I bought it 30-some years ago. It has been a workhorse for me and the thickness of the blade at the bolster has allowed me to hammer on it with a wooden maul to get through extra hard vegetables (celery root, just a couple of days ago). I would hesitate to do that with other knives.

It is indeed simply personal preference. I have had some Wusthof knives for decades and I like the way they fit my hand and they maintain an excellent edge. When I bought them they were the top of the line and recommended by a friend who was a chef. I have some Japanese knives that I like for certain tasks but in my opinion many are simply overpriced and in side by side tests for me there is not enough difference to justify the additional cost. If a $135.00 knife works FOR ME as well as one costing $365.00, I'm not going to pay the extra. If I want a particular size and shape and it only is available from Japan, then I will spring for it. I've never liked Henckles, I've never handled one that felt "right" in my hand, the balance was "off" and they never felt secure in my grasp. Of course that is true for other knives. I like some of the Global knives but some do not fit my grasp well. I have one rather expensive Japanese knife (Suisin) that I purchased a few years ago and rarely used because it has the round handle and turns in my hand if I pick it up when I have any moisture on my hand. I was using it once, after removing seeds from chiles - I was wearing gloves and the handle sort of squirted out of my grasp and shot across the counter. I don't think I've used it since then, it isn't even on my knife bar. It all depends on what you personally like and what feels comfortable in your hand.

Andie, we can always trust you to have found a better way! Blanching them in their mesh bags, draining them on a dishwasher rack is BRILLIANT! I prepared some last night for a dish I'm doing today. I forgot to mention that I don't use a knife - I use scissors - I have a pair of the little Henckels "embroidery" scissors that are extremely sharp and just right for this task - those skins can be slippery. For me this is much easier than using a knife and faster for me. I also use them for cutting the stems on baby carrots and beets and trimming the leaves on baby artichokes.

I get them in little mesh bags, my local store has white, brown and red, so I get a bag of each. I dip the bags in boiling water, drain (in the dishwasher) and while they are still warm slip the skins off - they turn inside out - cut them off and go from there. This method takes very little time and is much less messy than peeling them dry.