andiesenji

I have the AEG or Electrolux Magic Mill . I got it specifically for bread dough but it does other things also. It has a much lower profile than the KA, the top is open. The bowl is huge and dough does not have a hook on which it can crawl up - my big complaint with the KA. It will mix the stiffest dough when other mixers stall. It has a bit of a learning curve but of all the people I know who have bought them, only one has not been 100% satisfied. (I burnt out the motors on two (2) KAs mixing the Struan dough from Peter Reinhart's Crust and Crumb. My old Hobart KA could handle it but not the newer ones in the late 90s. Cooks Illustrated rated it poorly but I don't think they really used it as it is meant to be used. It has a TIMER - which I love. I can set it to knead and leave it alone while it works the dough and I can do something else without having to watch it. I have had it for several years and have never had a problem with it. It has a secondary bowl with twin whisks that do a great job on meringues. I recommend this vendor as they include extras that other vendors charge for and they ship for FREE! I have purchased many appliances from them. I have no other association with them, except for spending a lot of money....

I have more than one roaster oven, of various sizes, and have used them for all kinds of things for nearly 50 years. In fact, I have my grandmother's, which she bought in 1947. I have cooked just about everything one could think of it them, including turkeys, geese, ducks, chickens pheasants, legs of lamb, very large hams, ribs (is fantastic for ribs), hassenpfeffer and other stews, chilis, soups, apples for applesauce. I also use it for candying big batches of ginger, citrus peel, whole fruits and so on. For people with limited kitchen space, they can be used in the garage - before I moved up here, where I have a large kitchen, I used to use two on holidays, one on top of the washing machine, one on top of the dryer. Sometimes they come with interior divider/containers so that you can cook more than one food at a time. This was a big selling point back in the late 40s and in the '50s, etc. Ovens were small and few people had more than one. this one is similar to the Rival Some of the ones I have are larger than 18 quarts. Here is some helpful advice

My Mexican neighbors make empanadas with many different fillings, both savory and sweet. They are not necessarily 100% ethnically authentic because Celia has lived here for more than thirty years and has enthusiastically adopted ideas from other cultures. She makes traditional sweet empanadas filled with "candied" pumpkin or squash combined with pine nuts and "spices". The squash is diced and the pine nuts are toasted. Celia says she doesn't have a "recipe" she just seasons it to taste with cinnamon, the candied pumpkin or squash is already sweet. She makes savory empanadas with tongue that is cooked for a day then put through a meat grinder with the medium-coarse die. She mixes this with roasted peppers, cooked onions and stewed beans and presses it in a colander to remove most of the moisture (saving the broth that drains off) before spooning onto the rounds of pastry. She uses a wheat flour based pastry, not corn for these. She uses corn flour to make pastry for empanadas filled with pork and goat meat. You have to understand that I am watching them work, armed with my notebook and continually saying, "Wait, wait, what did you just add? How much? How do you spell it? Where can I get it?" and probably annoying the heck out of them. Plus, I am always asking "why" a particular item is treated a certain way. Usually there is a specific reason, but sometimes it is just "because my mother did it that way." We all have these traditions......... I had Cornish pasties when I was a child - I took them to school in my lunch box. One of my teachers scolded me for eating a dessert - she thought it was an apple turnover. She had never heard of a pasty filled with meat and vegetables.

I've had several grain/flour mills, some hand-cranked, some powered. The results were all so-so. Okay, and they produced a usable product, but I wanted better. I had a Whisper-Mill which was fair but I wanted greater capacity and more variable grinding. Finally, I got a NutriMill, which is fairly expensive but it has so many advantages, not the least is the volume it will produce, that I feel that it is well worth the cost. It also does not "burn" the flour - this is a problem with many powered mills and I absolutely do not like the bitter flavor that results. In fact, there were times when I went back to my old hand-cranked stone mill rather than settle for an inferior result. It works differently than the usual burr grinders. The NutriMill produces a range from medium coarse to extra fine and while I do sieve the product when grinding extra fine, I rarely find any coarser grains in the sieve. You can see the specs Here, at Pleasant Hill Grain I recommend this vendor and have purchased many appliances from them. If you have questions, phone them, they are exceptionally helpful. Here is a photo of my NutriMill with dried white corn and the meal ground from it to "Medium" Because the white corn is much harder than wheat, oats, etc., I do grind it twice - first on the coarsest setting, then on medium. I also do this with beans, which are also very hard. This is another advantage, some mills will not grind beans at all, and many will not grind hard corn. I am unfamiliar with the Wolfgang mill. I note that the chart does not have an entry for temperature rise and it also notes limited capacity.

I posted my experiences with the IH cooker and other grains, including mixed grains, etc., in post #39 on This Thread. I have learned, by trial and error that I have to add extra water to the "difficult" grains, such as farro and raw hulled millet. However, I simply checked the grain when the cooker went into "Keep Warm" mode and if it needed additional cooking, I simply added more water (actually hot water as I have an instant hot water dispenser) and clicked on "Cook" and it would go through a shorter cycle. Quinoa, amaranth and teff (which I usually cook in combo as I like the mix) cook up better than in the old style rice cookers and about the same as in the Neuro Fuzzy cooker. The bowl in the IH cooker is thicker and heavier because it is the magnetic property of the vessel that causes it to heat. I have had this on a metered block (just because I am curious) and the IH cooker uses less energy than the older type cookers, including the neuro fuzzy, because it isn't heating a coil that then transfers heat to the inner vessel. For the grains that can be more difficult and that sometimes resist getting past the extreme chewy stage, with a little hard granule at the center, I simply put them through the cooking cycle early in the day and let them stay in the cooker on the "Keep Warm" setting - which will go for 21 hours (or longer if you open the cooker, stir with a wooden spoon and/or remove some of the stuff) and will re-set itself when you push the button. I was experimenting with the cooker and was also experimenting with several different recipes that call for cooked rice or other cooked grains, including some baked items, fritters and pancakes. You will have to try your own experimentation, but it is fun and I never, ever had to throw out a batch of rice or grains, which I did have to do several times with the older rice cookers because the rice or grain eventually dried out. I never had this problem with the neuro fuzzy cooker either, the sealed lid is a huge advantage.

Some recipes are made with ingredients with very delicate flavors. You can usually substitute an oil but it should be one with neutral flavor - grapeseed oil is probably the one with the least flavor. However, if the butter is going to constitute a significant part of the flavor in the recipe, you really shouldn't use an oil. In many bakery producs you should use butter because it affects the texture. There was a discussion about this very subject about a year ago but I don't remember the title of the thread. You might try using the search function and select topic titles only, to reduce the number of hits. Here is one of the discussion threads. and Here's another.

I have a Russell Hobbs that I think is 8 or 8.5 quarts. Mostly I use the 6-quart ovals (I have several of these) but for cooking most beans I use one of the older and deeper round 4-quart. I haven't seen the Elite. I did have a 10-quart made by (I think) Breville, but I gave it away a couple of years ago. I have been considering getting one of the new Vita-Clay cookers, just for my collection, but haven't gotten around to ordering one so far. rice cooker/slow cooker combo

I love those Pecan Dreams also. I also use a similar recipe that I have from an "Ideals" Christmas cookie book that must be 40 years old. The only difference between the recipes is that the Ideals one calls for two teaspoons of rose water sprinkled on the pecan pieces an hour prior to adding to the other ingredients and occasional stirring so the nuts are infused with the flavor.

I want one of these oil-less turkey fryers!! It's not an oxymoron, it apparently cooks by infrared - sounds good to me. I love new technology for cooking traditional foods. I do have a conventional turkey fryer but this sounds like it mitigates any of the problem inherent in having a pot of boiling oil around (if one is not an evil castle dweller)!!!

I got out the slow cooker cookbook I mentioned above. The one I really find helpful is Fast Cooking in a Slow Cooker, by JoAnn Rachor. A Slow Cooker Vegetarian Cookbook the cookbook at Amazon On the first page she states she has 25 slow cookers (more than I have). She goes on to explain that not all slow cookers are equal... That is, there can be significant variations in cooking temps. She explains how to determine the cooking temp of your particular cooker. This is a boon for newbies! She has arranged charts of various kinds of foods (cereal grains, beans, root vegetables) in charts that take into the account the variation in heat levels in the different appliances. I have found this to be one of the most helpful cookbooks for people new to slow cookers, even though it has only vegetarian recipes. So often people complain that their slow cooker doesn't cook something in the time described in a cookbook. This one gives all the variables and makes the adjustments for you.

I have a couple of the old-fashioned apple-peelers and I also have a Rotato Express (2nd generation Rotato) electric peeler (and potato-stringer) which works nicely on evenly-shaped apples. However, unlike my old hand-cranked gadgets, it doesn't core them while peeling. Rotato Express However, I have to state that I don't peel or core apples for applesauce/apple butter. I simply quarter them and cook the chunks until soft, then put the pulp through a food mill.

I'll have to dig out the cucumber corer I found at one of the kitchen stores in Solvang. I think the Danish must love kitchen gadgets because the stores in Solvang carry many that I have never seen anywhere else. I never thought of using a cannoli form, that is such a neat idea. You are brilliant! I use a large larding needle to core the little pears, crabapples, and other fruits I candy whole - I don't core them completely, just up from the bottom until I can get the seeds out (or most of them). Sometimes after they have been processed and are transparent, I sometimes have to use it to get at some residual seeds. It's not critical, but they look nicer without the pips.

I also group things by where they are in the store. However my trek through the store is to the heaviest things first (anything in cans or bottles and jars) then to the next lightest, usually meats, then to the fruits and vegetables, etc., etc.... When I shop at the independent produce market I take one of my own carry baskets to fit on top of the grocery trolley because I want to segregate the more delicate fruits and vegetables. They are used to my little quirks. When I shop at stores that have bulk foods, grains and such, I take my own Zip-loc bags because far too often the ones provided by the store are much too flimsy and have been known to burst when picked up or when grabbed by the checker..... She had to shut down the line because millet poured into the gap and cascaded under the scale, not to mention spilling all over the floor. Crunchy! I had to pay for what had already been rung up and the checker and another store employee moved the remainder of my things to another line - and the other employee got me another bag (doubled) of millet. Since then I use my own heavy-duty bags.

I have Cooking Moroccan by Tess Mallos and the several recipes I have prepared have been very good. The cookies and pastries - especially the little "horns" filled with almond - are very nice. I recently made the sweet couscous because it is a favorite of one of my friends who was coming for dinner. I have all of Paula Wolfert's books - I have been cooking from Couscous and etc., since it was first published. I also have Claudia Rosen's books and have cooked from them also. I see nothing wrong with compiling recipes from cooks in a region, many, many cookbook authors have done the same and quite successfully. I also have Cooking at the Kasbah and like it very much. I have several more but can't recall the titles or the authors at the moment. I do have an older cookbook by Tess Mallos - can't recall the title of that one either. I recently got Dining on the Nile - an Egyptian cookbook. It has stories as well as recipes. I only have two other Egyptian cookbooks, one I bought about a year ago, My Grandmother's Kitchen, which has a ton of great recipes and written by an Egyptian. The other is a much older book, written by an English author who apparently didn't do enough editing because many recipes were missing ingredients in the lists but that were called for in the directions and several called for ingredients that I couldn't find anywhere and could find no reference to them. Both of these recently published books are great, both as cookbooks and for the history as well as the social food traditions.

Here's my current list, begun on Sunday.

I'm back, stuffed full of empanadas, flan and having tasted four different varieties of cajeta or dulce de leche, I can barely fit behind my desk. I have several pages of notes, some near to undecipherable at a brief glance so it will take me a little while to get them in order. The ladies with whom I met had numerous stories of how dulce de leche is made. Cajeta being that made predominately from goat milk. Colectively there were ladies who had made the various milk caramels with milk from cows, goats, sheep, burros and even llamas. The lady from Bolivia, Doña Madelueña Escudero (she printed it out for me) maintained a dairy on her family's estancia near Tariya for more than twenty years and sold fresh milk as well as butter, eggs, cheeses and "Manjar Blanco" as it is called there. It was made mostly from cow's milk as this is "cow country" but she also bought milk from farmers who raised llamas for their wool, sheep and goats for meat and milked the ones who were "not too wild." There were many jokes and much laughter about the "cowboys" and I wish I could remember all the stories. An interesting sidelight was the information that sometimes the dulce de leche is cooked in an iron pot in what I think is an outdoor oven or maybe an enclosed barbecue and it gets a smoky flavor. This latter bit really fascinates me, because I think it might make a very interesting variation. They also make a spicy rice pudding that is baked until it has a sweet caramel crust on top and that one sounds like it is something I would love. More later.

I generally use milk right out of the fridge and it does take a long time. In an hour or so I am going over to visit with my neighbor and her sister-in-law who is from Bolivia and had a dairy, made cheeses and cajeta, although a little different from Celia's and she calls it manahara-something. We are going to have a barnstorming session about cajeta and discuss the various ways it is made. There is also going to be a couple or three aunties sitting in, none of whom speaks English and my Spanish is minimal, at best. I will report back later.

The cocoa cookies I posted above will keep for weeks in a tightly sealed container. I am making them now for Christmas.

My very favorite sliced bread, on which to place a poached egg, is salt-rising bread. It has a delicate, slightly cheesy flavor that complements the flavor of the egg, without overwhelming it. When Van De Kamps was still around, I always had a couple of loaves of their version of this bread in the freezer as it tasted even better when toasted directly from the freezer. Since the commercial stuff is now difficult to find, I have to make my own. I also like the "English Muffin Toasting Bread" that is marketed by some of the stores in my area.

Remember, it will be thicker when it cools. Spoon some into a small dish and let it cool to room temp. It should be like thick honey at room temp. When chilled, you can invert the dish and it shouldn't pour at all.

I haven't really had a problem with it foaming as much as you describe and I can't explain why yours is doing so. I wil do a batch and see if I get the same problems - I think if there were excessive foaming, I would skim off the foam, I do this when I make a buttermilk custard. The only problem I have is that sometimes it gets too thick after sitting in the fridge for a few days, so that I can't even spoon it out of the jar without heating it in the microwave. (Carefully and on reduced power because otherwise one can get a volcano effect which can take hours to clean!! - do profit from my mistakes.) Actually I think I will do two smaller batches. I want to try using a pinch of calcium carbonate in one batch to see if it has any effect.

It's possible your Crock-Pot doesn't get as hot as mine does. Also, how humid is your weather? Mine takes longer in the rainy season - we have had so little in the past couple of years I have forgotten to mention it. Just keep it going until it has the consistency of thin gravy - that is, it will coat the back of a spoon and is slow to fill in the gap if you run a finger across it. It will thicken as it cools, just as with many puddings. It should be the color of dark caramel.

I suggest you read the warnings about nicotine poisoning before you attempt this. Nicotine-based insect poisons were taken off the market quite a few years ago because alcohol extractions of nicotine are readily absorbed through the skin at lethal doses.

I've been baking bread in a convection oven since the earliest ones came on the market. I reduce the temp 25 degrees F and when preparing a new type, watch to see how fast it bakes, some take significantly less time than a convectional oven. To make sure, I use an instant read thermometer to be sure the interior temp is 190 degrees F for a regular pan loaf of white or whole wheat, 200 degrees for French, Italian or rustic "artisan" type breads baked on a stone.

Perhaps you could adapt something like automatic feeder for pet food as long as it is shielded from heat, it should work. I had a couple that could be set to dispense food several times a day, but I gave them away when I no longer had multiple dogs in kennel runs and wasn't spending all my weekends at dog shows.