andiesenji

Right! I have a bunch of those but the lids are long gone but the vessels themselves are almost indestructible.

I have one of the new 6-qt. KAs but I have never used it for bread dough. I burnt out two of the previous type (Whirlpool) 5-qt bowl lift KAs (supposedly "Heavy Duty") and got replacements and still have the third one. I have one of the Electrolux mixers, (AKA = AEG, Magic Mill 2000, DLX 2000) made especially for bread dough and with a much larger capacity than the KA. I have written about it in earlier posts in this thread. I simply gave up on using the KA for bread dough, except for very small batches and very "slack" or wet dough. The DLX is expensive but if you bake a lot of bread, it will save you a lot of grief in the long run. I particularly like the fact that it has an integral timer that shuts the machine off at the end of the kneading time and the bowl is large enough that I can leave the dough in it for the first rise unless I have an exceptionally large batch. I recommend the online vendor Pleasant Hill Grain because they have super customer service and if you have ANY question you can call their 800 number and they are very gracious about answering even the most inane questions (I have asked a few!) patiently and with good humor. Their prices are very competitive and they include things that are extra with other vendors.

Anything like these? And have you checked at Cost Plus World Mart or Pier One?

Do not attempt candying in a pressure cooker! The syrup will bubble up like foam and seal the pressure release, followed shortly by an explosion. I candy big batches of ginger in an ancient electric roaster. You can find them on ebay at reasonable prices or you can buy a new one for not a huge amount of money. They have a much better temperature control than a crock pot and you can actually use fry baskets in them (because they are rectangular) which makes it much easier to lift out the candied material. click here and scroll down to the 18 qt roasters. $39.00, 49.00 and further down one for 99.00. I have a 23 qt Westinghouse that is 40 years old and still works just fine.

I have six 4"x4" x 2 in. deep square cake pans that I use upside down on a sheet pan to make square pastry "coffins" for quiche and meat pies. I roll the dough then roll a docker over it before cutting it into + shapes (I use a pattern cut from a patty board) before applying it to the pans. Sometimes the dough will sag a bit but I use a sharp knife to trim the edges evenly as soon as it comes from the oven and is still a bit pliable. I reserve the cut-out pieces and cut little leaf shapes which are baked on parchment and applied to the top edges after the shells are filled. I bought my pans at a restaurant supply out here but Fantes carries the same pans. Fantes, item # 9104 - for future reference. And they also have a 3x3x3 square pan further down the page.

I love it! I want one! I am an inveterate collector of kitchen gadgets from the incredibly weird ones from the Victorian era to the odd things invented in recent years. This fills my requirements of the odd, unusual and single-purpose gadget that most people would either give away or bury in the junk pile.

Go to Acanthus Books They have reprints of the entire Oxford Symposium, the Leeds Symposium and many other reproductions and facsimile editions of historical food books. I have purchased many of their offerings and have yet to be disappointed. You can select from many eras, Click on Browse by Era and see what you can find. I went to them because I was extremely dissatisfied with some of the "Historical Food Atlases" that were available in regular bookstores. You should also consult The Food Timeline.

I would second the suggestion of The Splendid Table How To Eat Supper because I have found it enormously useful. However, not knowing exactly her preferences would give me pause. I have for some time been ordering Amazon email gift cards with a gift note explaining that I would have liked to buy a specific gift but not knowing the person's inclination, hoped they would enjoy spending this. So far, every giftee has been enthusiastic about the easily accessible Amazon purchases and have sent me a note indicating the item or items on which they spent them. One wrote that she felt justified in buying something that was completely frivolous since it was "free" money and it happened to be an item that she had coveted for some time.

That looks stunning, Rob. very clever.

While searching through The Splendid Table How To Eat Supper I came across the mention of Herve This and his 65 degree egg. (Actually 149 degrees F.) This intrigues me and I wonder if anyone else has tried the experiment but plan to try it myself tomorrow. Method described here. I'm not sure my oven will operate at that low a temp but one of my dehydrators should so I should have some results. I don't know how successful but it should be interesting. I do love eggs...

A friend in the entertainment business, who knows I am a foodie, sent me this link today. Apparently the post production is taking longer than expected but they are aiming for a release date in August. Julie & Julia I am anxious to see it. Loved the book.

Another southern rice and bean combo is Hoppin' John, most often made with black eye beans (erroneously called black-eyed peas) however, any bean will work. It is just another of the combo dishes that makes a complete amino acid chain. My favorite way is to partially cook thick-cut bacon and finish cooking it with the beans prior to combining with rice. I also often add cut green beans. Hoppin' John recipe Hoppin' John recipe - and history. For something really hearty and different. Brazilian bean and beef casserole. Or you can always consider the classic cassolet. And there is an extensive topic on eG about it.

I buy it but don't care for it as a cold cereal, I like it as a hot cereal - somewhat like Ralston or Wheatena, which are not easy to find in my local stores now, unless I am willing to buy a case. I also used to buy Ruskets - a Loma Linda Foods product but they disappeared many years ago.

I would like to add that you should scrub the lemons well with a brush then place them in a solution to remove any pathogens for a couple of minutes. I use a gallon of water to which I add two teaspoons of bleach. If you haven't heard or read about the sampling of lemons (and other fruits etc.) in markets, restaurants, and so on, you have missed some important info which has been around for some time but apparently missed by many. (one of the reasons I refuse water in restaurants in which a slice of lemon has been placed.) There is a discussion about preserved lemons with Paula Wolfert's directions for 5-day lemons, posted by her, in The Preserved Lemons Topic See Post # 32 And the 30-day recipe is here: Preserved Lemons.

I posted on March 1 about some new offerings from Salt Traders. Following that I placed an order and got some of the Curry Sugar. Wow, is this stuff good, I have sprinkled it on rice, toast, oatmeal cookies and other applications which I don't recall. I am using it up so rapidly I just placed an order for more. A lot more! Read about it in this blog - The Salty Dog and note that during this month Salt Traders is offering a 10% discount. Not a bad deal. I know some people feel that salt is salt and see no need for the stuff with the fancy prices, but I am a bit of a fanatic about salt and love the various blends and I can certainly discriminate between the various "flavors" - or I like to think I can. The pepper/salt combinations are very nice and work well in most pepper grinders but I am personally using them only in grinders with ceramic "works" because I don't trust the salt not to have an effect on metal gears and such. (This constitutes the proverbial "word to the wise" from me.) By the way, they have a link to Didi Davis' store and that store has a spicy mustard oil for cooking. I know there has been discussion in another thread about mustard oil but can't find it offhand. If interested, check it out.

Very nice examples. I also have Ed Wood's book (and the earlier one) and have used many of his recipes. I have some other books dealing with sourdough that I have delved into from time to time. I can say that to get an open crumb with large holes, I work the dough as little as possible. To get a tight, evenly fine crumb, I work the dough much longer and gauge the final rise, after shaping and panning, when I can dimple it and the dimple recovers very slowly. I documented the activation and use of a new culture from Ed Wood in the sourdough starter thread a few days ago. Here, in post # 278. As you can see, the loaf has a fairly fine, even crumb, no big holes and is firm enough to slice very thin. I wanted this result because I wished to use it for sandwiches and for preparing a batch of melba toast. I oiled the top before baking because I did not want a thick, chewy crust and I got exactly the result I wanted. I will be baking another batch tomorrow and will work the dough much less and see what type of crumb results. As I wrote in that post, this is an extremely active culture, developing rapidly and with a lot of action.

Not, I hope, used inside the house....... I haven't had much to report for the past week ++ because I have been having most of my meals with my neighbors as I have been helping them prepare for a big engagement party for one of their daughters (she is 30-something and they had despaired of ever getting her married off. She is a teacher and dedicated to her work and rather serious but has met a very nice man who shares her values.) Some of the work is done in my kitchen and some in theirs and meals have been rather informal and at odd times. We went on a shopping expedition last Sunday week and I was surprised that I was able to limit my purchases to just the necessities to replace perishables I had used up during the previous two weeks. I didn't even buy any cheese at Trader Joe's, a rare event for me. And I spent only $18.00 at Sams Club. Wow. I spent more on dog food at Petco than I spend on food for myself. I have begun a new sourdough culture and posted my experience with it on the sourdough starter thread. I baked a large loaf so did not have to buy bread at the store. After the party this weekend I will begin again with my frugal pantry and freezer "shopping" and dining.

Green tomato pie is a sweet, dessert pie and is a staple at church socials in the area in western Kentucky where I was raised.

If you want something really different, unusual and one that few people have ever encountered (outside of a few rural areas in KY and TN) consider a Green Tomato Pie Actually one does not have to use green tomatoes, very firm or even hard, tomatoes that are already red, any variety but the ones with more flesh and less seeds work best. It is a sweet, lemony flavor that has a marmalade texture. I have yet to serve one that was not consumed immediately, although sometimes I had to convince people to try the first bite. Although I posted the recipe for a two-crust pie, it is even prettier with a lattice top or with little cutouts of leaf or other shapes.

I believe that in some cases internet recipe sources are better than the vast majority of cookbooks because they often are immediately critiqued and corrected if there is an error or a misstatement in ingredients, measurements or methods. I have a fairly extensive collection of cookbooks (long ago lost count) and there is no way I can examine more than a very few to research a single recipe or group of similar recipes in those books. It is far easier to check my recipe against a plethora of online listings to see if it is authentic, if ethnic, proportions or ingredients are correct and directions are accurate. There was a time, prior to the internet, that I had shelves full of separate notebooks with sections devoted to various types of foods and key to which cookbooks I should pull out to search for a particular recipe. Frankly, I have no idea where those notebooks are now located - the shelves once occupied by them are now full of other stuff. My organization skills have been supplanted by my skills in negotiating the maze of the internet. And yes, I was an early subscriber to user groups with recipe listings and my CompuServe account fees used to run into the hundreds each month. (Not to mention Delphi, Genie, Prodigy and very briefly, AOL.) The first really intuitive site for recipes online was SOAR (The Searchable Online Archive of Recipes) which I found via BMUG and which is now Recipe Source.

I agree with using regular sheet pans upside-down. When I had my commercial oven I baked cookies on full-size sheet pans that slid onto the side rails in the oven either way and now that I have a small oven I use the half-size sheet pans the same way. They don't warp and are useful for multiple baking tasks so I have tossed most of the other cookie sheets I had. I have two insulated pans used only for meringues that I don't want to brown at all.

Catalina dressing is a stand-by helper for pork too. Years ago Kraft held a contest for the varied uses of the dressing and one favorite was this: Catalina ribs. It can be "spiked" with hot sauce for a spicier offering. It doesn't have to be cooked in a slow cooker - it works just fine in a heavy covered pot in the oven.

If it is stamped Made in France, it is the real thing. France is very strict about the manufacture of copper utensils.

Do you have a rice cooker? Mine have rounded edges with flat in the middle and are non-stick. If you have the time you can order a round contour pan here. I have a couple that I use as top layers over a regular round. I don't have an 8 inch, only 10 and 14 in.

You can use them but may have to add a bit more liquid as they are like a sponge. Compare the cooking directions with the directions for old-fashioned rolled oats and if more liquid is required, add the equivalent. I think you can find recipes online for flaked oats - I have found recipes for flaked barley and wheat.