andiesenji

I think I have a new project. I am going to assemble all the things I use for tasks for which they were not designed and take a photo, or maybe more than one photo, depending on the number. I will limit my findings to things actually used in the kitchen because if I added things used outside the kitchen, it could get very complicated. (I bought a set of tamis - the old-fashioned wood-framed ones- for sifting very fine potting mix in the greenhouse.) I have one of the broad microplanes on a handle, in the bathroom for grating a particular soap (oatmeal) I like to use on my face. My housekeeper does the same thing though she bought her own grater. I have a set of kitchen shears, with serrated blades, in the garden shed because I have not found anything else that works so well for cutting plastic tubing (for tying plants to a trellis). I have one crank-type flour sifter that I use for sifting ground nuts, crushed cookies, etc.

I just added two more, just for fun: The Peanut Cookbook by Dorothy C. Frank (cover cartoon by Edward Gorey) 1976 and The Lord Peter Wimsey Cookbook by Elizabeth Bond Ryan and William J. Eakins 1981

For the really big watermelons (and the huge Hubbard squash, turban squash and banana squash) I have a really nifty machete my neighbor brought me from Mexico. I have a dough trough I don't use for bread. I place the watermelon in the dough trough, hold the machete above it and let it drop. The weight will split the melon nicely. The Hubbard squash takes a bit more effort but at least I don't have to take it out back and use an axe on it like I used to. I scared the heck out of my neighbor when I was using a ninja yell to assist me in chopping a big old Hubbard with a double bit axe. The next time they went to Mexico, he brought me the machete when they returned. By the way, the dough trough, that I ordered from Lehman's, has been a godsend for cutting things that tend to roll. I congratulate myself that I have prevented numerous injuries by using it thusly.

I have a Hobart. I wanted it because I was doing a lot of canning and it will sterilize the jars very efficiently. It is true, even with the high-density sound proofing material and installed on a dense rubber mat, it sounds like a 747 taking off. However the complete cycle is just 90s seconds and I love it. It cleans everything nicely. It came with two racks or trays, one with pegs which holds plates, saucers, pan lids, grill racks from my barbecue and a combination rack that holds just about anything. I bought additional racks for stemware, cups, etc. Because it is easier to load the racks on the counter and place them into the dishwasher, not so much bending. It is not at all like a consumer dishwasher. The racks are not part of the machine per se. This isn't a Hobart, but this is what it looks like commercial dishwasher with plate rack. The cycle, once the dishwasher is programmed, starts as soon as the door is closed and the cycle is finished by the time I have the next rack loaded. I have a stainless steel cart with two lower shelves and the top on which the racks just fit, so I can pull the washed rack out and stick another inside. It isn't practical for normal home use, but I was doing some catering, wanted to have my kitchen certified for commercial use and it was necessary and I could write it off as a business expense. I do know a couple of families who also have commerical units but one family has 9 children, the other has 11. For them it is a matter of survival or sanity. For me it was more like vanity, if I am to be perfectly honest.

One of my favorites is ABEbooks If you use Advanced Search You can enter a keyword - for instance - Bread, Baking Published date - for instance - 1900 to 1960 then select the country - USA select Hard Cover then Highest Price (or one of the other criteria) and if you wish, First Edition Here are the results If you expand the search to all countries, you get many more results - many in the UK - I have purchased a great many wonderful old cookbooks from England and Scotland.

Oh Yeah! I am VERY familiar with that site. some of the evidence:

Wikipedia has this to say about Grains of Paradise or Melegueta Pepper I have purchased them for use in a tagine with chicken and also ground and mixed into coarse salt and other spices to top a flatbread. I purchased them from Great American Spice Company.

I haven't seen any uncoated waffle irons for a few years. The non-stick ones showed up in the 60s. I have a large collection of old waffle irons and all are in working condition. However some are better than others, heat more rapidly, cook more evenly, etc. I often use a "vintage" GE which is huge. I use Bak-Klene spray on it and it has achieved a degree of seasoning that means the waffles will not stick, but it does take a few sessions for them to come out completely clean. I bought several of the ones in my collection on ebay. If you decide to bid on one, use a bidding service such as Bidnapper which places your bid right at the end of the auction so someone else can't bid the price up. Decide on the maximum you are willing to pay and enter than on Bidnapper. Don't bid up. Look for GE, Sunbeam Toastmaster and General Mills like this one. which were manufactured to complement the new image of Betty Crocker and were made by McGraw Electric, a premier, top of the line manufacturer. There are not many of these around and they are excellent when in this kind of condition.

The Pork Cake thread has the story about where the recipe for Christmas Cake made with Pork Mincemeat from my Dad's Grandmother "Meemaw".... Viva's remarkable photos are worth looking at. Hard to believe that was two years ago. Meemaw's recipe. The "mincemeat" is not at all like commercial mincemeat but we don't have an alternative term to explain it better. Pork was much more plentiful than beef (and there is a lot more fat on a hog, pound for pound) in the south, and hogs fatten well on less expensive food and can forage for themselves in the woods, on acorns and roots, so people in the rural areas were much more likely to have pork fat than beef suet. People in rural England also knew the worth of hogs so I believe that in many cases traditional recipes were altered over time to reflect the materials available at the time, whether pork fat, beef fat, etc. My maternal great-grandmother came from England and was an avid collector of "receipts" from earlier eras. Since she was born in 1844, earlier times for her meant Regency, Georgian, and etc. She died in 1949, when I was ten, two months shy of her 105th birthday. We talk about the changes we have seen, think about what she saw. The industrial revolution, most of Victoria's reign, Edward, George, Edward and George. She often talked about how the traditional methods of cooking and baking, and the ingredients had changed so much from when she was a girl. She really did no cooking herself, I don't think she had ever done so, but she was interested in recipes and cultivated cooks and bakers and winkled their secrets and faithfully recorded them in her journals. One of my earliest memories was watching her perched on a high stool in the kitchen and giving detailed instructions to the cook on how to prepare something new.

Note, from left to right 11 cup, 14 cup, 20 cup. and I have had all thee running at the same time on many, many occasions.

Although pickling had been discovered in ancient times, when sailors began sailing very long distances, they found pickles prevented scurvy. as noted here. Mostly, it was used to preserve foods through periods when fresh vegetables were not available. The ancient Egyptians had what were essentially pickle factories, and probably the peoples of Crete, Greece and later Rome, learned from them. In ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt there is evidence that they pickled the rinds of melons, otherwise inedible. Funny that thousands of years later watermelon pickles would become so popular in the American south.

I have a stove-top waffle iron too. Mine is a Griswold but unlike the regular round ones is rectangular and has what are sometimes called stars & hearts designs but are actually playing card suits. It is very well seasoned but it doesn't fit on a modern stove top very well - although I have never tried it on my new cooktop with the continuous grate. It was made to sit on a solid cast iron stovetop with the lid removed directly under it so the iron would heat faster. It is a bit tricky to turn over.

Try steaming the rubbery cakes. I would take one of the cakes, cut it into thirds, wrap it tightly in muslin dampened with liquor and place in a steamer and steam for 5 minutes. Remove it from the steam, cut off a piece and re-wrap the remainder and let it cool. Meanwhile try the piece you cut off. if it is okay, treat the remainder, if not, steam the piece you re-wrapped for another 5 minutes and see how it compares to the first one.

I know exactly what you mean about having multiple appliances and tools. I think I have carried it to a far greater degree, however. I am not going to confess how many drills I have because I can't remember, plus I have one of those things that cuts in any direction as well as drilling, etc. I have a 5 qt, bowl-lift KA that is several years old and for that I have two bowls plus a copper liner, so effectively have 3 bowls because I have beaten egg whites in it, removed the liner and put that into the fridge and started right in with the now-empty bowl. I also have a larger mixer, an Electrolux that has had various names, 8 liter bowl, very powerful, different mode of operation, perfect for bread but I have mixed cookie dough, cake batter and, with the auxilliary bowl, beaten egg whites and whipped cream. I used to do a lot more baking than I do now and often had both mixers running at the same time. In addition, I have a collection of "vintage" mixers and there have been times when one (or more) of them has been hauled out to handle a job when needed. That being said, I also have a fairly large kitchen with plenty of room for several people to work without gettin in each other's way (most of the time). Plus I have a room-sized pantry with a 22 x 72-inch butcher block table which can be used when needed. It is 5 inches lower than the standard counter height to make it easier for me to use certain appliances. (I have a large meat grinder at one end that is bolted to the counter because it is difficult to move and I prefer to do the meat grinding and sausage stuffing where I don't have to stand on a step-stool.) I always had two bowls for the KAs, I bought my first bowl-lift machine in the late '60s and went to Hobart, which had a service center and retail outlet in Van Nuys, CA., to buy a second bowl and some accessories, meat grinder, juicer, etc. I did not have a huge kitchen at that time and wouldn't have been able to fit a second mixer in a sopt where it would be convenient to use. (We started a remodel early the following year and doubled the size of that kitchen because I was not going through another holiday season of baking crowded into an inefficient space.) I don't recall exactly when I bought the copper liner for the 5-qt KA bowl, but it was soon after they became available. Incidentally, there is one selling on ebay at this time. Unusual, they are generally very difficult to find. KA copper liner for 5 qt bowl.

Last month, when this topic was bumped up, I began looking for additional waffle recipes and trying the ones that were "different" and came across this site. Waffles. For the Rice Recipe #1 I deliberately overcooked the rice so it was crumbly and the waffles were excellent. I made it a second time using sweet rice, which is much stickier and the results were even better. I loved the German waffles and found them to be quite different from any of the others. The Virginia waffles, made with cornmeal, turned out very crisp and took longer to cook than any of the others and were well worth the effort. I used Anson Mills White corn meal. I made the Spicy waffles but did not serve them for breakfast. I served them for dinner topped with chili and a dollop of sour cream. Delicious! and very different.

I agree with SweetSide for very thin cake batters the "swirling" technique works well but has to be done just prior to placing the pan in the oven. It also takes some practice Oh, one more thing. If you ever use glass baking pans, lower the oven temp by 75 degrees.

I make applesauce with a combination of several types of apples. I simply core and chop the apples peel and all, add 1/4 teaspoon of kosher salt for every quart of apples, cook until soft and mushy, then put the cooked apples through a food mill to remove the skins. I like the rosy tint this gives the applesauce and I think it enhances the flavor. I usually can half the batch unsweetened, then divide the remainder and add sugar(or sugar and Splenda since I have diabetes) cinnamon and a tiny bit of ground cloves to part and cook for just long enough for the flavors to blend. The remainder I continue cooking, adding sweetener and a mixture of sweet spices until it has cooked down, become dark brown and very thick, apple butter.

If the stuff is really sticky, I toss in some more flour and scrape with a stiff plastic scraper, one end flat, the other end curved so it will fit a bowl. The flour keeps the dough from re-sticking to the sides and bottom of the bowl. I scrape out as much as I can then put the bowl under running cold water, scrape the final bits out with a plastic mesh scrubber. I often use a wooden dough trough for very slack doughs, including sourdough. Again, I use the plastic scraper to remove as much of the sticky dough as possible, then just let the remainder dry. Because the dough trough has been treated with oil for so many years, the remaining stuff simply flakes off after it is completely dry. Occasionally I may have to hit a spot or two with a dry scrubber, scrape it again, then I wipe the trough out, re-oil it and hang it up. Before I use it the next time, I always wipe it vigorously with a wad of paper towels. I have this type. And these, the top two plus the one at the bottom. I also have several of the metal ones with the wood handles, but mine are all very old Dexters.

Maybe it is that statue of Vulcan. When I visited the park in 1957 (I was stationed at Ft. McClelland outside Anniston) I was shown the cascades and the statue, then driven around through Homewood to see the famous "Moons"..... (I took a lot of photos.)

Lordy, many parents have gone through this phase with one or more children. I have with one and I finally resorted to serving his meals on a divided plate with a side dish for any extras. I had a set of these, made for restaurants. Explaining that the food would all be combined in his stomach did not budge him off his attitude one iota. He would eat each item, then go on to the next. He didn't want gravy on potatoes but was okay with it on meat. God forbid that his peas touch his mashed potatoes! Both were then "contaminated" and could not be eaten. The first time the family went to a smorgasborg place, he went to the dessert section, got several of the little dishes and put each of his selections in a separate dish. I had to explain to the server about his little quirk - it was a bit embarassing. Fortunately he outgrew it. Apparently you are not alone because someone is marketing these! Oh yeah! He wouldn't eat anything that was in a casserole or where vegetables were mixed with meat, chicken, pasta or ?? The only exception was tamale pie. That he liked.

I had to pick up some onions yesterday afternoon as I discovered I did not have quite enough for a big batch of soup I am preparing for Halloween night. At the market I noticed a swarm of fruit flies hanging above the pile of onions at the end of the gondola and was careful to select only very dry and very firm(hard) onions. I picked up one that felt a bit soft at the stalk end and peeled back a bit of the top layer and found a mass of tiny ff maggots. I pointed it out to the produce man who was working on the potatoes and he brought over a box and began going through the rest of the onions to discard as many of the affected ones as possible. He said they had been having a problem with their most recent delivery of onions which came in a huge pallet-sized cardboard box instead of the smaller ventilated boxes they usually get. He said it made considerably more work for them because they have to transfer them from the big box to boxes they can place on their service carts, then transfer them again from that box to the display. He told me that he often will cut an overripe melon in half, put the halves in the bottom of a plastic bag and place it where the infestations seems to be worse, during the hours the store is closed. The ffs are attracted to it by the hundreds and he can close the bag quickly, seal it and dump it in the outside dumpster.

K8memphis has the right idea. When I attended baking school, way back in the '50s, we were taught to plop a measured amount of batter into the pan, depending on the size of the pan, then take a broad icing spatula, put it flat at the center of the batter and drag it toward the side as we turned the pan, which effectively drew the batter out to the sides of the pan, leaving a bit of a depression in the center. We did not have time to wrap the pans with wet strips, we were preparing batter for 20 or more cakes at a time. With sheet cakes, we used a bench knife (scraper), again, drawing the batter from the center out toward the sides. The pans have to go straight into the oven because the batter will level off if left too long on the bench.

Melissa, Have you considered getting one of the "roll-out" tray-drawers that actually set on the floor and fit into the space under the cabinet. My big oven has 5 racks and I got one of the roll-out things which fits under the oven stand itself, but I could fit one for a regular oven under any of my base cabinets. Similar to this.

I agree with Darcie B about the current crop of KA mixers. They do not have the staying power of the older ones built by Hobart even though they have higher wattage. The Struan bread, popularized by Peter Reinhart, is extremely dense. The KA dough hook simply stuck in the mass and refused to move until the motor failed. The second machine broke down while mixing oatmeal cookie dough. I finished that batch in my old (30-year-old) Hobart 10-quart. Then I exchanged the burnt out KA for the one I have now. I have never tried to use it for heavier doughs because I bought the Electrolux, which has an 8-quart bowl, is probably too big for your purposes and it is considerably more expensive. However, you can see it here. By the way, if you should decide on the Bosch, I highly recommend this vendor. I have purchased several applianced from them, two Excalibur dehydrators, the Electrolux mixer, a grain mill, a bread machine, a vacuum sealer and several others appliances as gifts. Their service is exceptional and their prices very competitive. If I have a question, I can phone and get knowledgeable answers. Incidentally, the KA warranty is for one year. The Bosch warranty on the motor is 3-years, the other parts 1-year. The motor is the big factor. Same warranty on the Electrolux, 3 years on the motor, 1 year on accessories. However I know at least a dozen people who have them and have never heard of anyone requiring motor replacement. One person had to replace the SS bowl because it could not handle being run over by a Ford Expedition in the owner's driveway.

I don't like the deeper pans for browning meats, poultry or for roasting vegetables, because I have found that the higher sides cause a bit of steaming even uncovered. Sometimes I want this and it is advantageous but mostly I prefer the wider, shallower straight-sided pan. I prefer a smaller diameter saucier and have a favorite copper/SS-lined pan which has the curved sides which allows a whisk to cover the entire bottom for mixing sauces. This is totally different application and I wouldn't use the saucier for browning chops or chicken pieces. I do use it for browning small pieces of meat or whatever, for inclusion in a sauce, for flavoring, etc. Your original question referred to needing something that would be wide enough to "accomodate all the pieces in a single layer" which is what I addressed. Incidentally, Amazon has a 5-quart Anolon saute pan, with basically the same shape, domed lid with long handle and helper handle which is oven-proof to 400 degrees, for $80.00. Here. I personally do not like the Non-stick Anolon, but this anodized aluminum is pretty much comparable to Calphalon and at less cost. At one time Anolon was mostly sold in sets and the individual pieces were limited in type but in the past two or three years, they have expanded the line of "open-stock." If you are a Costco member, or know someone who is, check their cookware. They carry a line similar to Calphalon that is a very good buy.