andiesenji

I used to cut up a lot of game and had a meat band saw but sold it a while back when I found I was really in no shape to be handling heavy joints and etc. (I still have the meat grinder, it is very similar to the one Chris has, just an older model-bigger and clunkier but not more powerful) The guy that bought the saw also bought and dismantled the hook and hoist I had for hanging really big things, like a deer carcass or a beef quarter. He also bought my big cheese press (18" diameter) although I'm not sure exactly what he planned to do with it. I hadn't used it or the saw for several years but they were sealed in heavyweight Clopay covers. As I recall, back in the early 90s, I paid about $900. for the band saw plus a heavy duty weighted base with big locking metal wheels and a heavy duty SS table that could be bolted to the saw table. Admin. note: New Electric Meat Grinder discussion for 2011 at http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?/topic/139551-electric-meat-grinder-recommendations-2011/page__p__1825443__hl__meat+grinder__fromsearch__1#entry1825443

You can make them with a savory filling, as well as sweet but although I like them, the work involved is quite a lot for the results one gets. If you are cooking for a bunch of people, it is possible to make them ahead and hold then in a warm oven but the product is still labor intensive. I used to make them when my kids were well into their teens but I rarely bother now, unless I am serving a brunch and someone specifically asks ahead of time if I will make some. I agree that the W-S pan is overpriced. The Lodge pre-seasoned pan is a much better buy.

For folks who have been putting off getting a meat grinder and who also want to cut larger pieces of meat and poultry down to easier to handle sizes, there is a modest sale on this combination band saw and meat grinder at a very reasonable price. There is an additional cost for shipping but this is a heavy, bulky item and their charge is very reasonable compared to what I have paid for items of similar weight and size. I have purchased a number of items from this vendor (just ordered the "Sportman's Board") and have never been disappointed.

This is an odd coincidence. Just last weekend I visited a friend and was admiring a row of containers in which she has stored several varieties/types of long pasta - seven or eight kinds - in these nicely decorated tall canisters, labeled with P-Touch tapes with gold on black lettering. I didn't look very closely at them and didn't ask about them, assuming they were simply made for the purpose to which she had put them. Now, while reading this topic, I realize that I have seen the container before, at the only up-market liquor store in my area. So there is one use to which they can be put, assuming you use a lot of spagetti, linguini, (different sizes) as well as udon noodles, spinach noodles, and I can't recall the others, except there was one made from spelt.

I'll have to give this one a try. I do have gum arabic - is it just a one to one sub in the recipe for the guar gum or agar-agar? Yes, I measure it one to one. the only difference is that I mix it with enough water to cover it plus half and inch or so and let it soak overnight and then put it through a wire sieve to get rid of any little granules. Here's the link to the Lakhoum recipe One advantage to gum arabic is that it mixes well with oils so you can use the oil-type flavorings which I think are stronger than other types.

For the folks who have had problems with the candy not setting up or with excessive "sweating" here are a couple of notes. Don't try to make the candy when it is raining - if the ambient humidity is too high, the surface will remain tacky and often the candy will slump instead of retaining it's shape. If you have a dehydrator, go ahead and coat the candy with the powdered sugar and put it in the dehydrator with the fan on but on the lowest heat setting. Check it every hour and when the corners feel firm and resist when you press on them, turn the dehydrator off and leave them for an hour or so and then store in an airtight container. The original recipe that started me on this many years ago came from an Armenian friend and later I was given a similar recipe, with some variations, by a neighbor from Cyprus. The first one was made with gum arabic (food grade) and it worked beautifully but for quite a few years it became difficult to find a reliable source for it so I tried other ingredients with varying degrees of success (or lack thereof). Guar gum, xanthan gum(very tricky to use and a very little goes a long, long way) and others that I can't recall right now. I've substituted tapioca flour for the cornstarch, besides the arrowroot and I've experimented with some other ingredients - kuzu root didn't work so well.

It's not Peter Greweling's but I've been making Lakhoum for many years and my recipe has been in RecipeGullet for a few years and several members have tried it. I think it is fairly simple and I've never had a problem with it not clearing, but it is translucent, never transparent. my best recent results are when I use agar agar and arrowroot instead of the gelatin and cornstarch. I began using these ingredients because my daughter and two of my grandchildren are allergic to corn. The arrowroot is substituted 1:1 for cornstarch.

I just finished reading "The Recipe Club" A Tale of Food and Friendship - a Novel, by Andrea Israel & Nancy Garfinkel. This has a lot of recipes in it but isn't a cookbook, per se. It is a novel, written in the form of letters between two young girls and into young womanhood until something happens that causes a break. There is no further contact between them for almost thirty years until events unfold that explains what happened years before and there is an interesting resolution. It is not the typical type of book that I enjoy but I found it interesting and was reluctant to put it down until I had turned every page. I haven't tried any of the recipes but some look to be rather interesting and fun.

A spicy North African stew with couscous would have my vote. I'm not a big fan of lamb and usually only cook it with spices. I think there are several recipes in the tagine thread.

Lisa, you are entirely correct in that the deep swirled pattern molds are also called "turk's head" as are the ones that aren't swirled - forming larger cakes or molded dishes. Like this turk's head mold. Any mold or pan that produces a finished product that looks sort of like a turban gets this moniker and it can be confusing when one is starting out in collecting these things. Here's one that is misnamed because it is obviously a "melon" mold. A modern version of the cast iron pan is this one by Berndes which bakes small muffins, brownies and etc., beautifully with no sticking at all. You can get it cheaper than this price (if you buy from Amazon) by putting it in your shopping cart and leaving it there. From time to time it is reduced in price and Amazon will place a notice that will show up when you log into your account. My daughter got it last year for 16.99.

I have a worked chert stone about the same age that I picked up in a bottomland field in Indiana, and I do use it in my kitchen. It fits perfectly in my hand (how cool is that--a thousand year old tool!) and I use it to gently mash garlic cloves so I can peel them. Somebody a thousand years ago used it to crush bones for the marrow or to crack hickory nuts, and it now has a place on my window sill. Now those are REALLY old and extremely cool! I am envious indeed.

I love your pans and they are 19th century, but they are actually called "turk's head" pans as "gem" pans are smooth with no scallops (and are actually more common in the early days). Pans like yours were harder to cast well so they are rarer - they are sand cast and required a good deal of hand finishing after casting and those scallops made it more time consuming. Gem pans are either half a globe rounds or shallow ovals with a slightly flattened bottom. Like these... The "golfball" name they use is very recent and seldom used by serious cast iron collectors. Here's another site that has gotten a fair amount of my money in recent years but not for cast iron pans, I inherited those but they have some wonderful figured molds. antique molds and pans I have a couple of the turk's head pans that hold a dozen muffins one is made by Griswold and the other by the Chattanooga Foundry and it is quite rare. The early muffin pans did not have to be used exclusively in an oven but could be placed on a tall trivet in front of or at one side of the kitchen fireplace and thus bake the muffins. I used to take mine on camping trips many, many years ago, and baked plenty of corn muffins with a reflector oven and a wood fire.

I have a lot of very old cast iron and copper but the oldest thing in my kitchen is this dough bowl carved entirely by hand from a chestnut burl before 1790. My father's family migrated from North Carolina to Kentucky shortly before it became a state in 1792 and this dough bowl made the trip. It was carved from what must have been a huge old-growth chestnut burl as it is almost 2 feet long. My dad's mother didn't really know from what wood it was made but when I inherited it in the early 80, I took it to the Huntington to have an arborist authenticate it. You can see where one edge has a place that broke away but that happened sometime in the 1800s before my grandmother was born. It has been in use since it was made and I still use it.

Yes, but I bought the divided Lasagna Pan, not the brownie pan:

I agree with the Forschner Victorinox and the Fibrox handles are much easier to hold than the rosewood. Cook's Illustrated tested several of these knives and have shown the segments on Cook's Country or America's Test Kitchen broadcasts. For the money, they can't be bettered and in fact, were considered comparable to the high-end Wusthof and much superior to the Henckels that were included in the tests. I have a lot of expensive knives but I also have some of the Forschner Victorinox with the Fibrox handles for use when other people are going to be in my kitchen and when I don't want to subject my expensive knives to possible damage - such as cutting through bones, etc. The bread knives are excellent for rustic breads with hard crusts. I have no problem with putting these knives in the dishwasher - they were designed for this and for use in a professional kitchen.

I add flavored syrups to Moroccan dishes made with chicken or lamb - although I'm not a big fan of lamb - I do use goat or kid, which is readily available at the local Mexican markets. I use both the ginger and orange syrup in any recipe made with duck or goose, particularly the wild ones as it mitigates some of the gamy flavors. You can use them in any baked product - use less water. I generally mix all the dry ingredients together (without the sugar), then beat the eggs with half the water or milk and substitute the syrup for the other half of the liquid then add this mixture to the dry ingredients. You may have to adjust the baking time - I always test anyway, using the probe of my Thermapen as I can see if there is any unbaked center and also can see the inner temp - should be 190 to 200 F. when done and the probe should appear clean. If a recipe calls for molasses, substitute equal parts syrup. Cookies are perfect as an experiment.

Interesting use Tom. Yesterday morning I decided to start a pot of baked beans and instead of the usual molasses, I used some ginger syrup. I was away much of the day and when I returned the kitchen had a lovely aroma. I don't plan to have the beans as part of a meal until this evening but I did taste them last night and the flavor was wonderful. The ginger flavor did not mask the flavor of the beans (and bacon) but did enhance the flavor of the dish.

Have you tyried the jarred roasted piquillo peppers? I dice 'em and add them to their boxed organic roasted red pepper and tomato soup. Nice combo. I LOVE the piquillo peppers. I stuff them with homemade cream cheese into which I have mashed some onion confit, then roll them up in a section of flour tortilla and top with a dollop of guacamole or sometimes just a piece of avocado. Wonderful combination of flavors and textures.

I wouldn't describe it as brilliant but it is useful. The funny part of this process is that you are doing what one is always advised NOT to do when cooking a sugar syrup. There are always specific instructions to brush the sides of the sugar pan with a wet brush to prevent the formation of crystals and to avoid stirring after a certain temp is reached. To do all the wrong things and get a positive result is, in my opinion, a culinary triumph.

There is another solution to your "problem." If you cook the syrup longer and do stir it when it gets to the hardball stage, pour it out onto a sheet pan lined with parchment paper and drag a fork or similar utensil through it from time to time while it cools. It will form crystals, get grainy and if left long enough - usually takes a few days, will turn opaque and look like solid sugar. Allow it to dry until it feels dry and brittle. Break it up and grind it and you will have a flavored sugar. I have a quart each of orange sugar and ginger sugar that I have made this way. One of my friends loves the ginger sugar in her tea so from time to time I pass along a pint jar to her. (I candy ginger in quite large batches - usually fifteen pounds or so. This leaves a lot of syrup!) I put the pans in my Excalibur dehydrator to speed up the drying process but it works at room temp also. As I mentioned earlier, I'm thrifty or frugal - I was born in '39 at the end of the Great Depression and my earliest memories are of the extreme thrift practiced during WWII. Nothing ever wasted if at all possible. It's very difficult for me to dispose of any type of edibles.

Do not throw it away. There are many ways to use it. You can dilute it and use it to poach fruit - especially slightly underripe pears or peaches. If you don't have any on hand, find a source for vinegar with the "mother" and mix the syrup with it and allow it to "work" for a couple of months. (to a quart of "raw" apple cider vinegar add a cup of the syrup) You will have what is essentially an infused or flavored vinegar and you can keep it going by adding wine or more syrup as it matures. You can "candy" various nuts in the syrup - as well as other dried fruits - I suggest you steam them first to plump them a bit. Salad dressing and marinades and the stuff keeps practically forever if bottled or jarred in sterilized containers kept at room temp. You can also make "rock" candy with it - there is another thread about this but there are many web sites with the instructions of how to prepare so these big crystals will form on wood skewers or on kitchen twine. I abhor waste in any form.

I looked at the Rosle before I bought the Oxo - they were selling at a huge discount when Linens 'N Things went out of business, but I didn't like the idea of a separate "hub" in the bottom because if it isn't centered, the spin basket can hang up and damage the lid mechanism. I also looked at the Polder but the basket seemed a bit flimsy to me. I don't like the ones with the pull cords because every one I have owned has either broken (the cord that is) or the spring that retracts the cord has detached from the reel which then require that you rewind it by hand. On one the cord attachment broke and the end popped me in the cheek causing a cut - I still have the scar. The commercial ones are quite sturdy and they work even with a small amount of greens. I did a quick search and found a Eurodib 2.5 gallon salad spinner for a very competitive price.

I have both sizes of the OXO stainless and have used them heavily, for both salads and vegetables (the small one especially for sprouts) as well as for extracting whey from yogurt and soft cheeses, butter, etc. I bought them to replace the plastic ones that deformed in my old Hobart dishwasher. The baskets in both these have been in the new Bosch dishwasher (top rack only) with no problem. They get greens as dry as I like, sometimes, will full leaf romaine, I have to remove the lid, rearrange the greens and spin again because the shape of the leaves will not allow the water to escape. I have no problems at all with broken or torn leaves, etc. At one time I had a commercial washer/spinner for catering jobs. It was similar to this one but a larger size. It worked well but became difficult for me to use because of arthritis and I eventually gave it to the person who "inherited" my business.

The smallest are 1 quart/liter. They are clear enough for me, translucent to be exact. They stack several units high quite securely because of the way the lids are constructed with a higher rim and you can see in this photo how they can be tipped - I could tip them more but would have to reset the ISight timer. They are inexpensive and practically indestructible. I freeze stuff in them and then stick them in the microwave to defrost or even heat.

I've had just about every consumer type of vac sealer on the market, including the "Foodsaver Pro" models that aren't all that great and in my experience don't last long. Last year I got this one Pro 2300 and I love it. I have vac packed just about anything you could think of and it worked nicely every time. I rarely use the jars as I like the bags. I got a great buy on Foodsaver bags and have been using them and they work just fine. I also tried some of the Ziplock bags - got a sample in the mail - and they are okay but I like the others better.