andiesenji

Check out the ones at Fantes The one happens to have wavy wheels, but it works quite well. A baker friend made a multiple strip cutter using a threaded steel rod and the large Olfa rotary blades - probably the 60 mm size - made for cutting fabric. To make the handles at each end he simply drilled holes in two pieces cut from a large wood dowel. I think those particular replacement blades come in a package, 5 for 15.99. I thought it was pretty clever. His wife is a quilter and he got the idea watching her use the rotary cutter to cut multiple layers of fabrics into small squares. He uses it to cut long thin strips for braiding Danish dough that are formed into rings. This is not a regular three-strand braid, the ones he does are multiple, very complex braids. I have watched him do them several times and have never been able to duplicate it.

I have a very old guitar slicer for pasta. There is an inch or so of free area under the wires. I roll the pasta out, drape it over the guitar then use a wood rolling pin which forces the pasta down between the wires. I put a sheet of parchment under the wires prior to placing the pasta. For chocolate I would use one of the silicone rolling pins or simply cover it with acetate and roll that. I know others here have previously mentioned the use of guitars to cut chocolate but perhaps they have not yet seen this post.

For gardeners who have a lot of green tomatoes on the vine with a cold snap coming on, which seems like an odd idea right now. (temps have been in the high 90s or over 100 here for weeks) This is a pie filling which can be used immediately or canned as you would any other high acid fruit and used later. It has a distinct lemony taste and an interesting texture. Aunt Hattie Anne's Green Tomato Pie 4 cups green tomatoes peeled and chopped into bite-sized pieces 2 tablespoons lemon juice 1 tablespoon grated lemon peel 1/2 teaspoon salt 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg 3/4 cup sugar 2 tablespoons cornstarch Pastry for both top & bottom pie crusts 1-1/2 tablespoons butter diced Cut aluminum foil in wide lengths or use pie crust edge shields. In a large saucepan combine the chopped tomatoes, lemon juice, lemon peel, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Cook over medium heat for 15 minutes, stirring often to keep from burning. Mix the sugar and cornstarch together and gradually add to tomato mix, stirring constantly. Continue cooking until liquid is clear. Remove from heat and stir in the butter. Cool for 15 minutes Preheat oven to 425F. Pour mixture into a 9-inch pie shell. Note: This works best in a glass pie dish. Cover with top crust and seal the edges so juices will not leak out. Cut several slits in top to allow steam to escape. Fold aluminum foil strips in half lengthwise and crimp all around the edges of the pie to keep crust edges from burning. Place pie tin on a cookie sheet on oven center rack. Bake for 50 minutes. Serve with vanilla ice cream or topped with whipped cream cheese. YIELD: 8 servings SUBMITTED BY: Andie Paysinger SOURCE: Andie Paysinger's great aunt Hattie Anne, an original recipe.

Just in case some of you folks are going to be in the area in early December, the Tamale festival in Indio is scheduled for December 3 - 4. It is a fun event. The weather in this area, a few miles from Palm Springs, is usually very nice at this time of the year. Here are some highlights.

Glycerine is hydrophyllic. That is, it combines instantly with water. If you want to experiment, rub some on your hands - it will be sticky until you allow a little water to run over your hands and just like that the glycerine on the surface is gone. It is used as a sweetener in some things and as a preservative - as in some medicines where alcohol cannot be used. Many of the herbal concoctions in liquid form are preserved in glycerine. Adding it to fruit juice in which you soak dried fruits helps with preservation and also allows the fruit to absorb more of the moisture because the glycerine has the effect of making the liquid "wetter" - a rather simplistic term but I can't explain the chemical properties technically. Look for glycerine in the larger bottles usually near the mineral oil, Milk of Magnesia, etc., much less expensive than the little dropper bottles. I keep it in a squeeze bottle with a tight cap on the top or even better, one with a one-way valve.

Over the years I have come across a number of recipes for steamed puddings, fruitcakes and etc., made with Porter or Stout. I believe that Guinness published a cookbook quite a few years back using Guinness. Somewhere in my loose recipes I have one for a delicious bread and butter pudding that uses a particular Yorkshire product, Old Peculiar, which is a bit sweeter than Guinness. I also have a recipe for walnuts (pecans also work) which are boiled in stout or porter, drained, sprinkled with a little salt and sugar then placed in the oven and dried till crisp. Very tasty, eaten alone or used in cakes, cookies or tossed in a salad. If you type "Guinness Cake" into your browser search window, you will get a list of several recipes. Here is a recipe for Chocolate stout cake Read the reviews from people who tried it.

I tried one of these in the late 70's, and no matter what I did, it was moldy in a few days. Do you have any problems with mold? I'd much rather have butter at a spreadable, near room temperature, and I like the idea of these things. Even if it was freshly washed, doused with boiling water and allowed to cool, it still grew mold. Any ideas? ← I find as long as you change the water every 3-4 days it is fine. I have never had problems with mold. Of course in my house the butter never goes uneaten for more than a couple of days . ← I have a couple of the butter "boats" which seem to work quite well. I put a scant drop of bleach in the water (which doesn't touch the butter) and that seems to solve the problem of molds. Butter Boat

How long will this keep? I'm nervous about having meat at room temp, but I want to try this! You don't need to do any canning/pressure cooker magic with this? If you are worried about room temp storage, you can process it in a water bath, as you would any high acid fruit preserves, jam or etc., for 15-20 minutes at a simmer Between the liquor and the cooking the stuff is pretty well preserved, just about as well as commercial mincemeat. If you have any doubts, you can always keep it in the fridge, or it can be packed in freezer containers and frozen. I don't recall it ever being on the shelf for very long, it got used up fairly rapidly. The flavor is not at all like commercial mincemeat. I made some last Thanksgiving and used most of it in tarts. Someone ate the rest directly from the jar as I found the empty jar with an ice tea spoon sitting in the sink. By the way, I also make a mincemeat, very similar to the pork recipe, using beef or turkey jerky. I make my own but if you can find the kind that comes in thick slabs, you can grind it coarsely and use it. That way there will be much less problem with spoilage, if that is your main concern. Somewhere in my hoard of old kitchen lore I have a recipe for mincemeat made from "bully" beef or salt beef. I haven't looked at it for years but if I can find it I will type it up and post it. As I recall, it required the salt cured beef to be boiled for several hours in multiple changes of water to extract the salt.

Melonpan tried the cocoa fruitcake and posted photos in the topic that was linked above. I also posted a recipe for a mincemeat made with pork, another family recipe that can be incorporated into a cake. It is in a different thread, I will have to look for the reference. I thought I had put the recipe in recipegullet but it is not there.

I posted some recipes last year, including this one which is quite different: society donor Posts: 3,191 Joined: 20-April 04 From: Southern California Member No.: 17,399 This is my cocoa fruit cake. I have recreated this from a recipe written in difficult-to-read, spidery handwriting in the journal of an ancestor with the entry dated 1690. It is important to use Dutch process cocoa. I use King Arthur Flour's Double Dutch Cocoa and Black Cocoa Half and Half. When glazed with the glaze at the end of the recipe, this cake will keep for several days at room temp and will stay incredibly moist with just a loose cover. I have in the past made this cake ahead of time and wrapped it well in Aluminum foil and kept it in a cool place for 6 or more weeks. However I now live alone. When my family was still all together, I could not keep it more than a couple of days......to give you an idea of the way things used to be, the original "receipt" called for 6 pounds of twice-boulted flour and 3 full pound loaves of sugar well beaten..... 2 pounds of butter and 3 dozen eggs. I have cut it down to a manageable size. FRUITED COCOA CAKE original recipe ca. 1690 1 cup BUTTER unsalted 1-1/2 tsp SALT kosher 1 tsp CINNAMON ground 1 tsp CLOVES, ground 1 tsp NUTMEG, ground 1 tsp ALLSPICE, ground 6 Tbsp COCOA, Dutch process 3 cups superfine SUGAR 4 large EGGS 3 Tsp BAKING SODA 4 cups, sifted FLOUR 1-1/2 cups CURRANTS 1-1/2 cups DRIED CHERRIES 1-1/2 cups WALNUTS, chopped or pecans or macadamia nuts, etc. 3 cups APPLESAUCE, unsweetened chunky style if you can find it, homemade is even better. Preheat oven to 350 F Grease and flour a deep 11" x 15" pan or 2 10-inch square pans or 2 holiday mold pans. In a large mixing bowl cream together butter, salt, spices, cocoa and sugar. beat until smooth. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after adding each one. Mix baking soda with flour. reserve 2 heaping tablespoons of the flour. Instead of sifting the flour you can simply put it in a large bowl and run a wire whisk through it which does the same as sifting, i.e. fluffing it up a bit. Add flour to batter alternately with applesauce. Sprinkle the fruit and nuts with the reserved flour and fold into cake batter. Pour batter into pan and bake for about 1 hour or until cake tests done. (deeper pans will require longer baking. ORANGE GLAZE GRATED PEEL OF 2 ORANGES 1/3 CUP SUGAR 1/4 CUP WATER 1 CUP ORANGE JUICE 3 TABLESPOONS GRAND MARNIER LIQUOR OR BRANDY Combine ingredients in saucepan, bring to simmer, stirring constantly, continue cooking until liquid is reduced by 1/2. Drizzle over cake ( I use a turkey baster and a perforated spoon as the glaze is too hot to dip my fingers into which is usually the way I drizzle icing . After the glaze has set, decorate edges of the cake and the plate edges with powdered sugar sifted thru a fine strainer.

I also rely on pounding instead of rolling and keeping the dough very cold and using as little additional flour as possible. I use a large Silpat mat laid on a marble slab. If the weather is quite warm, I place several of the blue ice packs on the mable to chill it as much as possible.

Probably because they might open the oven and ruin the cake to taste it ... or was it their personal magnetism? I forget now ... ← I had a chance to question one of my aunts about Lily Pearl's varied and interesting superstitions and regarding this one she said that Lily Pearl always said, "De mans be tromping too ha'ad on de floah so dey stay outta de kitchen when de cakes be in de ubben, lessen dey fall. Be dey cause de cakes to fall I be cussin' dem." *** Apparently none of the men every had the nerve to incur one of Lily Pearl's "curses"...... My aunt also reminded me that Lily Pearl had a lot of "rules" about how and when vegetables and fruit were picked. And lord help the man that whistled as he carried the milk and cream from the barn to the kitchen. That would call the pixies that would make the milk sour and the cream refuse to "set". ***Lily Pearl was a Gullah woman from the Carolina lowcountry that my grandfather had lured away from her previous employment, with his cousin, by promising her that her family would do much better moving to Kentucky with him. It is my understanding that she was the first black woman in our part of the country to own her own car, of which she was extremely proud and insisted that the men in her family kept it perfectly polished. If I had just one wish I could have granted, it would be to have Lily Pearl's recipe for Angel Food Cake. I have never seen one rise as high or be as light. It was like eating sea foam.

I bought my Maytag "Wide-by-Side" and a smaller fridge (mostly for garden produce and for cheese) as a temporary fix until I could decide exactly what I wanted as I was trying to decide if I wanted regular appliances or modular pieces such as drawers, etc. As I stated earlier, I had a bad experience with Sub-Zs. I got them to replace a huge 25 year-old Kelvinator side by side, 32 cubic feet total capacity and I think it was the biggest regular residential appliance made up to that time. They don't make them like that any more. It was sturdy, weighed a ton and the only thing that ever needed replacing was the door gasket. It had wire bins that tipped out in the freezer, instead of shelves, except for the rack for ice cube trays and stuff did not tumble out onto the floor (or my feet) when the door was opened. It was avocado green, as were most of my appliances at the time, and exceot for the color, I wouldn't mind having it today. There were a lot more refrigerator manufacturers back then and I think the competition was good as they really had to produce a great product to get the public to buy. Now it seems we have to take what is offered and much of it stinks. Just my opinion... Coldspot, Norge, Hotpoint, Westinghouse, Admiral and etc., all made great refrigerators that lasted for years and years. Now we are lucky if they make it past the warranty period.

There are lots more. Every culture has its own and some are very strange indeed. I think there was a book with all the old household superstitions published some years ago. The Farmer's Almanac used to list some odd ones.

Well, I think I would put this in the class of using magnets (or copper bracelets) to treat arthritis. A friend who is an MRI technician, works around very powerful magnets all the time and has severe arthritis can debunk the magnet therapy personally. I don't drink but I know people that do and they all say that the quality of wine depends on the quality of the grapes and the handling as it is prepared and aged. Of course imagination can do some odd things. Incidentally this has apparently been a tough year for pinot noir grapes, a very small harvest is expected but they also expect the quality to be better than usual because of all the energy going into fewer grapes. It should be interesting to see if the predictions turn out.

I grew up in a house with a very superstitious cook who had a long list of things one should or should not do in the kitchen at various times of the day or year. Certain tasks were not to be done by the other women who worked in the kitchen during their menses. (churning buttermilk or making cheese, for instance.) No man was allowed in the kitchen while cakes were baking. Liquor or wine bottles had to be opened outside or in the butler's pantry, never in the kitchen. They could then be brought into the kitchen. With beer it didn't matter. (It just so happened that Livingston county was a dry county, no beer or liquor was sold retail, however there always seemed to be plenty around.) Sauces and puddings were always stirred clockwise and never leave the spoon in the pan unless it was moving. The water in which the first spring vegetables were cooked had to be poured out in the kitchen garden otherwise the crop would be small. If anyone spilled salt they had to say "Blessings Be" three times and toss a bit of salt over their left shoulder. (apparently to blind the Devil). If silverware was dropped on the floor it meant company was coming for dinner. If someone dropped a plate and it didn't break it meant they were going to receive some pleasant surprise. If the plate broke it meant they were going to lose something. If a bee flew into the kitchen it meant properity for the coming month. If the fire went out completely in the big wood/coal kitchen range it had to be completely emptied of ash and a twist of paper containing salt and pepper and a piece of chicken feather had to be burned in the firebox before the new fire was laid and lit. An egg was roasted, chopped very fine and tossed out into the yard at the time of the new moon, for the "little people".

I like my Bagel Guillotine and if one has kids around it is safe for them to use with supervision. When I used to volunteer at fund-raising breakfasts we would have knife cuts almost every time from people trying to slice bagels and perhaps working too rapidly. Not only was there injury to a helper, but often food was ruined from blood contamination. And if you have once had to discard 20 pounds of ham because someone bled onto it, you would settle for a safe bagel slicer too. I have several electric egg cookers from various eras from the 1930s to the present. One is made by Hankscraft and was a Christmas gift soon after I graduated from x-ray school while in the Army in 1957. They all work just fine. The one I use most is a GE that does 8 eggs at a time and sounds a loud buzzer when the cooking cycle is done and the eggs are always cooked exactly the way I want, whether very soft or fully hard. It also has poaching pans which I have never used as I prefer them the old-fashioned way. I have my 30-year-old Bron mandoline which is on its third set of blades. I have tried them all and nothing works as well when one needs to slice a tub of potatoes, onions, cucumbers for pickles, ginger for candying, and etc. I just set the thing in the bottom of a bus tub, don my safety glove and go to it. Some gadgets are useless but some really work as they are supposed to and are handy for doing a job for you when you have several other things to do and don't have a helper in the kitchen. I also have one of the Stir-Chef things mainly for stirring lemon curd which can't be left without constant stirring and my arm is no longer up to doing that prolonged task. However most of the time I just collect interesting or peculiar gadgets because I like the quirky engineering (or lack of it) that goes into them. One gadget that I owned a long time ago and which disappeared when I moved, and which I would like to find again, was a large pot that looked sort of like a salad spinner with a crank into which one put potatoes and water. The inside of the pot sides and bottom was abrasive and when cranked for a few minutes almost all the skin was removed from the potatoes and it would do about 3 to 5 pounds at a time, depending on the size of the potatoes. I used it all the time and it was perfect for doing the small potatoes which take so long to peel by hand. I also use my knife to smash garlic cloves when I need only a few minced or crushed. However I also use a garlic slicer when I need a lot of uniform slices when I am going to dehydrate them. The slicer is made by the same company that makes the microplane graters and has a holder which one slides back and forth over the blade and holds 4 or 5 cloves, depending on size. Like beauty, the usefulness of a gadget is in the eye of the beholder. The rotating marshmallow holder may seem totally useless to some but others might find it useful for some other application. As soon as I saw it I thought It might be interesting to see how it would pick up and shape a thread of molten sugar while turning. I may order one just to experiment.

I hadn't considered the heat given off by commercial reefers. I live in a place where everything is airconditioned. I want it for the size of the shelves and the sturdy shelves which will hold a lot of weight. Also my kitchen is sort of separate from the rest of the house. The more I look at the Continental, the better I like their features. The Sub-Zs I had were a problem from the start. Twice the refrigerator compressor had to be replaced and the freezer once. There was condensation that apparently dripped down onto the floor and caused mold to grow. I kept smelling something like mildew and couldn't find where it was coming from until the units were moved for repair. That is when I decided they were no longer welcome. I live it a desert. It is very dry and I moved here to get away from molds and spores to which I am allergic. Bringng them with me via the Sub-Zs was not a good thing.

Andie, that basket is awesome! I won't be suing it to smoke as I use a Weber Bullet ... but my grill on the other hand would benefit from such a device. Thanks for the tips! A. ← My upright smoker is not available right now for photos as has it has been hauled off to a friend's place for him to use. It did not have a rotissiere but I just had two holes drilled in each side and large washers welded on to reinforce the metal and ran the shaft through from side to side. I also had a bracket to hold the motor welded on to the outside - the motor came from an old "Broil-a-vator" and has a chain drive that turns the shaft. Mine just happens to be square instead of round but I have seen the Bullet with a rotissiere installed and holding a flat fish roaster as the guy was smoking little fish like smelt.

I have a bagel slicer but it has a pointy blade that really cuts through the bagels rapidly, which really helps when one is preparing stuff for a bunch of people and one does not want inexperienced helpers slicing their fingers off with your expensive and very sharp knives. Bagel biter. Someone gave me one of the Ginsu ones and it did not work.

Drunken animals can be very funny. Growing up on a farm, like all my contemporaries, I was in 4-H. One year I raised a polled angus bull calf that grew up to be an enormous bull. He was very gentle and was allowed to roam freely around the home grounds. One night he got into the peach orchard, after most of the fruit had been picked, and must have eaten a lot of the groundfalls which had fermented. About 3 a.m. we heard a lot of bellowing and the men went out to see what was happening. Apparently Beau had knelt, either because he was unsteady on his feet, or because it was easier to eat the peaches in his condition. He had leaned sideways under a heavy limb and was stuck. When it got light enough to see, I sat and petted his head, to keep him calm, while my uncles sawed off the limb. After being freed from the "trap" Beau staggered around for a while, drank several gallons of water and found a shady place for a nap. Later that day he seemed hungover, rubbing his head on the grass and generally acting like he felt miserable. The farm vet gave him something to keep his stomach working properly and said he would be fine. I don't think he ever bothered the peaches after that. The hogs would often be turned into the orchards to clean up after the various fruits had been harvested and they would get drunk - I think they looked forward to it - one of the older sows would knock all the others out of her way to get first in line at the gate. You would be surprised at how fast one of those big animals can move.

Some friends stopped by this evening on their way home to Phoenix after spending 10 days in north Tahoe at a relative's vacation home. I had been reading eG and happened to mention this thread and got this story in return. When they arrived at the cabin, they found the ground floor door into the garage/basement (house built on a hillside) had been broken into. Inside they found the lid had been torn off a fairly large chest freezer and the contents consumed or scattered about (horrible stench). Plus a keg of home-made wine had been shattered. There was also abundant evidence of the identity of the perpetrator. More awful smells! When they questioned neighbors and a local ranger, they learned that a large male bear had been found dead a mile or so away having fallen off a cliff. The ranger said there had been a distinct odor of alcohol around the bear and his face was stained purple. Until learning about the wine consumption, they had thought it had eaten overripe berries that had fermented. My friends were sad about the bear dying but were relieved that they would not have a surprise visitor in the middle of the night. The owner of the house is getting a steel security door to replace the wood garage door.

Try any health food store. I have yet to be in one that didn't have both rennet tablets and liquid rennet/vegetarian rennet.

Check these out. I was not happy with my sub-zs and got rid of them a few years ago. At the time I was in the middle of a renovation and bought a Matag Wide by Side and a smaller refrigerator as a temporary measure until I could decide on what type I actually wanted. Friends have purchased and are very happy with commercial units which cost much less than sub-zs. I even like the glass doors. I already have a huge upright freezer so only need a unit that is refrigerator only. I will decide on the brand later but am leaning toward Traulson or True, although the Continental also has a lot going for it. This vendor doesn't charge for freight - which can be a significant cost. commercial reefers I should add that the Thermador, Kitchenaid and Jenn-Air are all even more expensive than the Sub-Zs. GE has a 48 inch side by side for 5110. but the others are all around 6000. The other thing I like about the commerical units is that in most the bottom shelves are much higher off the floor which is a great advantage for an old lady such as me.

I use liquid dishwasher detergent scrubbed into the grease spot with a toothbrush or nail brush. However the hand gunk used by mechanics may work as well. You have to treat it prior to washing, whatever your do. Another old remedy is saturating the spot with glycerine then forcing warm, not hot, water through from the back side of the cloth, blot dry and reapply the glycerine and repeat until the grease is mostly gone, then rub with strong bar soap (Fels Naptha, for instance) and wash as usual. Glycerine has the peculiar ability to surround particles of grease and separate them from cloth and it is hydrophyllic so it combines with the water and carries the grease out.