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I made some bean soup, which ordinarily I would "flavor" with smoked ham hocks, however I was cooking for vegetarian friends and used smoked salt. Everyone raved about how good it was.

It's an interesting vegetable and I am happy that it is now more widely available. I shred it and pickle it with ginger, cut it into matchsticks and combine with oranges and grapes for a fruit salad with a bit of crunch and have substituted it for apples in Waldorf salad because the apples I had were mushy.

Sounds great to me. I also love Miracle Whip and it reaches its zenith on a turkey sammich (or a ripe fresh-from-the-garden tomato and onion sammich in midsummer). While I do make my own mayo, I have yet to get the taste and texture just right on my trials at homemade MW so I still buy the regular type.

You can solve the short cord problem by using an extension cord that is rated for higher wattage, that is one that is rated for heavier appliance use. They are always 3-wire and will have a tag with the wattage rate right one them. I have several, from 24 inches to 8 feet - the latter has 3 sockets on the female end and is rated at 2500 watts. The single ones are rated at 1875 watts.

There is this place and this place and this place I have another link but can't find it right now. Will post it later. This is the other site: Golda's Kitchen blue stripe apron

Another nice thing about the Floormate is that the handle folds down and the caddy that holds the supplies and extra parts will piggyback on the front of the machine and it will slide nicely into a very compact space. If there is a major spill on the floor, it is quite simple to pull it out and clean up the mess in one process, rather than spending time wiping it up then having to clean the floor anyway. A dropped half-gallon of milk, forming a lake on the floor, took fifteen minutes to clean up and that including getting the Floormate out, fillin the solution container and dumping the dirty water. Only one paper towel required to wipe up a couple of dribbles.

You might want to consider one of these little gems. Having the DVD as part of it is handy for watching cooking demos too.

Laminate flooring is okay to damp-mop as long as you don't leave a lot of water standing on the floor for a long time. The main thing is to prevent water from seeping through the cracks to the underlayers. Trust me on this one (says she whose family had to move out of their new home for a week last year when the brand-new laminate flooring got flooded by a broken washing machine)!!! ← My neighbors laminate floor was sealed with something to permanently waterproof it, which is required when it is installed over a slab floor, at least it is here in this area. They hose it off, or at least the covered patio floor is hosed off. It doesn't lay directly on the slab, it is on spacers that are made out of a rubbery material with holes in it, that look sort of like the mats used in prof. kitchens. They had it professionally installed by the same flooring place that did my new flooring and refinished the flooring in the original part of my house.

I have this hard floor cleaner which cleans any type of hard floor except the rough type of paving squares. It works beautifully on hardwood, glass, ceramic and other tile, marble, honed slate and terazzo and also on poured seamless flooring and teak decks. I am surprised at the mention of not being able to get laminate flooring wet. My neighbors have it in their laundry room and the covered patio, which doubles as a mud room, because it would be easy to mop up the stuff they carry in from working in the garden and the stuff the pets carry in.

The capacity on these blenders (and the KA mentioned above) is simply not enough for my purposes. I don't want to have to puree a soup in multiple batches. I use an immersion blender for many of these tasks but sometimes I want to prepare a puree that is smoother than I can achieve with the immersion blender. The capacity of the Vita-Mix is one of the reasons I bought my first.

I make a version of creamed onions but mine are signifcantly different to not really count as "creamed" per se. I use a combination of baby white, yellow and red onions (I steam them separately so the red ones do not turn the others pink) and sometime cippolini if I can find them. I toss them with a small amount of peppery cream sauce so they are just coated, transfer them to a shallow casserole dish, then I prepare buttered, toasted-in-a-skillet bread crumbs which are spread over the top and then the dish is run under the broiler for a minute or so. and here's a version if you think the traditional recipe is too bland.

That is an excellent point. Vita-Mix stands behind their guarantee. The refurbished units are popular with many of the Hispanic fast food places in this area and one that I frequent has four or five which are in constant use. Also, the local health food store has several at their "smoothie bar" which are going all day long. They prepare some weird stuff that I wouldn't touch, the wheatgrass type, but the texture of the product is great.

Tommy, you have said it all! Perfect!

The flavors won't go "off" or spoil, however the maximum extraction reaches a limit at about two years. The beans will still have some aroma and flavor, so if you have kept them in large enough pieces that won't get lost, remove them from the liquid, dry them completely and stash them in your sugar container. If they are in small bits, dry them (a mesh tea ball works nicely and you can hang it in a warm spot) then tie them into a piece of muslin (or something that works really good is nylon mesh that you can buy at the yardage store, the stuff that is made for curtain liners) then put that in your sugar canister.

Hey, if it works for you it is a gem! I don't have anything against them per se. For me it is simply a practical matter. My baking was usually in larger batches and by weight, not volume measurements and dumping the dry ingredients into the sieve and sifting it through served to blend as well as sift out any lumps. If you sift something besides flour it is easy to use a stiff brush to clean the sieve but a complex sifter, and many have two or three levels of mesh, is very difficult to clean. Some of the "antique" and "vintage" contraptions are quite clever and interesting, which is why I collected them. These are all made in the U.S. and it is really amazing how many inventors registered patents for this really basic kitchen gadget.

How about turkey empanadas. My Mexican neighbors made some yesterday for snacking during the football games today. (That is the women made them while the men and boys were watching college football yesterday.) A plate full was brought to me and I just tasted one cold and it is delicious. I am told they are even better if warmed in the microwave and dipped in salsa.

The marmalade will be just fine. In fact, you will find that the deeper flavor will taste wonderful with cheeses. Some people actually "burn" marmalades and jams on purpose to give it a hint of bitterness to make them taste better with cheeses. These are "naturally" more expensive because of the lengthier processing time. Who knows, they may have begun as a "mistake" but now are merchandised as condiment for cheese or?. Somewhere in my piles of clipped recipes is one that includes "fried" quince jam or marmalade that is simply combined with browned butter in a small pan and drizzled over a pizza made with fresh cheeses and grapes, for a dessert pizza. I tried it once and thought it was terrific. I had forgotten all about it and am so happy that your post has reminded me of it.

I've been using Vita-Mix blenders for many, many years and have had the Super 5000 since it was first introduced. Vita-Mix 5000 These blenders are made in the U.S.A.! The newest is the 5200 but I still use my nearly thirty-year-old 3600 which has had the cord replaced, but otherwise has needed no repairs. It has a stainless steel container. Unless you are using it for constant, heavy-duty blending, the 4500 turbo should work just fine for you. I got the 5000 because it came with an extra container and blades that were designed for grinding dry grains. (Ironically, just a few months later I bought a dedicated grain mill.) It has a safety power cut-off built in that stops the motor when material "freezes" or jams in the blender and after you turn the switch off, remove the container and clear the jammed material, it will start up again. This has happened to me when blending mustard which can achieve the consistency of plaster.... Vita-Mix 4500

No moving parts, nothing to break or hang up. One just dumps a scoop of flour from the scale into the drum and shakes it. It will sift a lot of flour very rapidly. I measured my big one and it is 14 inches in diameter and the sides are 5 1/2 inches high, the screen is 1/2 inch up from the bottom edge. I do have some old mechanical ones as part of my kitchen gadget collection but I have never used them for sifting anything. They have too many nooks and crannies that collect residue. The open drum type just needs to be banged upside-down on the bench and perhaps dusted with a bench brush. You can also get the shallow "dish-shaped" sifters in different mesh sizes and these work fine for smaller amounts. Here you go, these are the kind I have, Made in France, guaranteed to impress!! Bridge Kitchenware's tamis sieves

When I worked in my mom's bakery and went to baking school back in the mid '50s, I used what were then called "hoop" riddlers or sifters, at least in that part of the country. I still use them and have a smaller set for spices and cocoa, etc., and a large set (they nest) of graduated mesh sizes, for flour, cornmeal, and etc. 1/16, 1/32 and 1/48 th inch mesh. The original reason was to remove bits of stuff that one did not want in their product, but also to "lighten" or aerate the product that has settled and packed down during shipping and storage.k Click on this link and scroll to the bottom of the page. these are what I would buy for a professional. I'm not going to post photos of mine because they are all the wood type and after 30-40 years of use are stained and not very pretty. However they have lasted a very long time with fairly hard use. There are some more expensive ones here.

That used to happen to me all the time if I had more that five or six guests, because invariably there would be some who didn't eat certain things so I would have alternates. Finally I came up with the solution of writing all the names of the dishes on sticky notes and putting them on a gate-leg table (that opened up and closed rapidly) well ahead of time and placing each plate, platter, bowl, cup, gravyboat or whatever, on top of the appropriate note. This also omitted the last minute search for said container, particularly if other people were bringing things that required a particular bowl or plate, etc., and also placing with them the serving utensils that were required.

Earlier today I discussed this with a couple of my neighbors (had to go out to the road to retrieve the mail) and one said her sons always insist that she remove and set aside the drumsticks as soon as the turkey is done. They like the dark meat simmered in a sweet and sour chili sauce, served over rice, for their Friday evening dinner. The other neighbor says she "absolutely loves" having lots of turkey leftovers because that means her family can fend for themselves and she doesn't have to cook for at least two, often three days. If they have a ham for back up, she can push it to a fourth day, especially if her husband (a firefighter) is on duty. She has teenagers who know their way around the kitchen.

I am still using my old Bron, which is getting a bit long in the tooth, and have been leaning toward replacing it with the de Buyer Pro V which I had a chance to try about a year ago and liked the way it worked. deBuyer Pro V mandoline However I just spotted this gem and am wondering just how much better the blades can be to justify this price. I will say that the working position of the deBuyer is a siginificant advantage for anyone with less than optimum strength and/or artiritic joints and much less tiring to use. Of course, the cost is not going to be reasonable unless one is going to be using it for large batches of sliced and/or julienned foods on a fairly regular basis. I need one for slicing ginger for my large batches of candied ginger and for slicing cucumbers and etc., for pickles.

And turkey chow mein... I have a friend who only ever makes it with leftover turkey.

It depends on the dishes. I have fairly utilitarian ware for everyday use, mostly Corning but I also use a lot of heavier vintage restaurant ware, Hall china, Shenango and Syracuse. However I also use a set of Homer Laughlin Blue Willow china from the '40s that has been through the dishwasher many times. The only problem I have had with dishes is with the small, shallow Corning dishes that are just a bit too small to stay firmly in the rack and bounce around on top. However, none have ever broken or caused damage to other dishes. I don't have any problems with plastic items because I don't leave them in the machine and it is the drying cycle in regular dishwashers that melts plastic. I have Tupperware that I use constantly and has been through the Hobart hundreds of times with no problems. My best china never goes into ANY dishwasher, it is always washed by hand, the stuff I have is well over 100-years-old and I intend to maintain it for as long as possible. Crystal is much tougher and not subject to crazing so it goes through the dishwasher with no problems. (I also have a water filtration system for the entire house, so I no longer have the problems with "fogging" in glasses that was a problem before and required an occasional hot vinegar bath to clean them.)