andiesenji

I am so happy to see this posted here. I have been considering adding a wood-fired oven to my kitchen for some time, but have not been able to decide on which type would be best for my purposes. Thank you!

Try this sesame seed and honey candy Greek sesame and honey candy. It is virtually foolproof and very, very good.

I would like to add my congratulations also, Katie. Way to go!

As soon as Dr. O'Neill is finished with his patient, I will pass along your remarks. I am sure he will be pleased.

Also sauteed in duck fat!!!

I am so please that someone mentioned this. It is so perfect for cold weather. I have used Henri Charpentier's recipe for many years, but haven't made it in so long I will have to dig out the book to make sure I do it correctly. One of my dad's friends took me to his tiny restaurant in Redondo Beach in 1959, a short time after I got out of the Army. It was one of the events in my life that made me determined to learn to cook in the French manner. Everything was exquisite all the way through to the Crepes Suzette.

The canned Boston Brown Bread is much like a plum pudding when you get right down to it. A little dryer, not quite as dense and the plain contains no fruit. The first time I tasted it, when I was in the Army, I instantly thought of the steamed puddings we had when I was a child. One was even made in a cylindrical shape in a two-part mold and sliced for tea sandwiches. My roommate at that time was from Philadelphia and made an excursion to a grocery store and came back with a big jar of baked beans and a can of the brown bread and a package of chream cheese. On a totally illegal hot plate, she heated the jar of baked beans in a pan of water, sliced the brown bread and spread it with cream cheese to make little sandwiches. We sat on the floor and scarfed up the goodies and I was an instant devotee of the canned brown bread.

I agree.

Fantastic, Varmint! You are on your way with a bang. I think you did great on your appliances and didn't have to compromise on anything. I think the Bosch is an excellent dishwasher and would probably have been my choice had I not wanted one that could do multiple loads rapidly. The price is right also.

I also have a recipe using apple pectin, it results in a product similar to "Aplets". I don't have it in my computer so will have to look for the card and type it up.

Here is a tip for painting appliances, given me by my appliance guy who is a wizard. To keep overspray from affecting rubber gaskets, cords, etc., brush them with vaseline, using a flat, artist brush. After the paint dries, wipe the vaseline off with a piece of gauze.

I guess it's too late for you east coast and midwest people but at 9 Pacific time HGTV has a show called Kitchen Trends 2005. They showcase new kitchen stuff for 2005. And did anyone catch ABC's evening news. Sharp has a new superheated steam oven which has been very popular in Japan and will be introduced to the US this summer. It is supposed to cook things at high heat with steam so the fat cooks away but they don't dry out. This is for people who want to cut fat out of their diet and lose weight. Press release here. And it looks really cool too!! Jeez, I am going to suffer oven envy for several months.

They were "country-style" planks tongue & groove with top & bottom wrought iron straps with a "Z" strap from corner to corner. They were custom made - the job was done by a well-known Kitchen design place in Burbank. The wood was pecky cypress and extremely expensive.

I have had solid wood doors, and will never have them again. The doors in the overcounter cabinets on either side of the sink and the door in the undercounter cabinet next to the dishwasher warped, cracks developed between the boards and the doors would not close all the way. The drawer fronts also warped in a couple of places. These were supposed to be top quality cabinets, we paid a great deal for them from a kitchen design company and I was very disappointed with them. We replaced them with plywood doors which were painted to match one of the tile colors on the wall. They remained in excellent condition, closed with a solid "thud" instead of the clatter of the solid wood (plank) doors and were altogether much better.

You could try my recipe for lakhoum. You can substitute any concentrated fruit puree for the orange/lemon, etc. Lakhoum, also known as Turkish Delight Rind of 1 medium lemon finely grated 1/4 cup lemon juice 3 cups sugar (superfine) 1/2 cup (4 oz) water 2 tablespoons gelatin/agar agar or guar gum (for vegetarian candy) 1 cup (8 fl oz) water, extra 2/3 cup cornstarch 1 tablespoon rose flower water or one teaspoon rose extract/food grade red food coloring - couple of drops only. 1/2 cup icing (confectioners) sugar for coating finished confection. For orange flavored candy, substitute for the lemon and rose flavors - Rind of 1 medium orange 1/4 cup (2 fl oz) orange juice concentrate. 3-4 drops of orange flower water. Other flavors may be used, concentrated syrups, blackcurrant, orgeat, strawberry, cherry and raspberry. Use about 1/4 to 1/3 cup of syrup or strained fruit puree. Line base and sides of an 8 inch square cake pan with aluminum foil, leaving the edges of the foil extending out over the edges of the pan. Brush or spray foil with canola oil or melted butter. Remove white pith from citrus rinds. Combine the rind, juice, sugar and water in large pan with a heavy bottom. Stir over medium heat without boiling until the sugar has completely dissolved. Brush the sugar crystals that form on the sides of pan with a wet pastry brush. Bring to a boil, reduce heat slightly and continue boiling without stirring for 5 minutes or until a teaspoon of the mixture dropped into cold water forms long threads. If you are using a sugar thermometer it must reach 221 F. Combine gelatin with 1/2 cup (4 fl oz) extra water in a small bowl set over barely simmering water. Stir until dissolved. In a separate bowl combine cornstarch with the remaining water and mix until smooth. Add both the gelatin and cornstarch mixtures to the sugar syrup. Stir the mixture over medium heat until the mixture boils and clears. Stir in the flower water or rose water and a few drops red food coloring. Strain mixture through a fine mesh strainer into the foil-lined cake pan. Refrigerate over night. When firmly set, turn out onto a cutting board sprinkled with confectioners sugar. Peel off the foil and cut the confection into cubes. Roll cubes in confectioner's sugar. Store in an airtight container.

Check out the custom doors available from this place: Rockler Perhaps you should also consider plywood, in particular marine plywood. Fine marine plywood is strong, handsome and can be stained any color from pale blonde to deep walnut and can be trimmed on the raw edges with all types of molding from plain to fancy.

i also far prefer fresh...fresh water chestnuts are a revelation. i also love all fresh mushrooms...but am not generally crazy for dried <ducks head> but i think canned vegetables can add texture even when the flavor needs to be enhanced (or covered up) edit: abbreviation ← A caveat: If you buy fresh bamboo shoots, be sure and cook them in two changes of water and cook them without a lid. Bamboo shoots contain a miniscule amount of cyanide that can concentrate in the cooking water. There is not enough in the shoots after cooking to cause any harm and cooking them in an open pan allows it to boil off in the steam.

Open both ends, push it out and slice it thin.

Shallots have a mild onion/garlic flavor, quite different from an onion alone and not the same as onion with garlic combined. The flavor is complex and you have to taste one to understand the difference. The flavor is delicate and yet pronounced. I have tried to think of a similar example and there really is none. The only one that comes close would be the difference between anise and true licorice. Similar but different.

Saturday I received a late Christmas gift from a friend who was delayed returning home from a holiday cruise because of the tsunami (only because she and her husband gave up their plane tickets so people who were affected could get home sooner.) She sent me a cute stocking, which has now been shredded because I did not keep it out of the basenjis reach after I removed the little gadgets. Actually these are not so lame and yesterday I used one and it worked beautifully. She sent two of the OverBoiler Clips and I have placed one on a saucepan so you can see how it works. I had occasion to use it yesterday while cooking soup and it held the lid firmly in place which is really neat as usually they slip back down in the pan when I am not looking and the next thing I know is a boilover has occurred. The red thing is a lid popper for twist-on jar lids and it breaks the vacuum. I used it and it works just as it should and made it easy to open a jar that usually requires me to use my V-opener, after pounding the top of the jar on the counter. There are two scrapers, the blue and white one has one soft side and one rigid side, a very good idea. The silver thing is to remove citrus peel, I haven't tried it. The little round thing is a round level, to make sure your pans are sitting level on the stovetop and there is a tiny instruction phamplet that describes how to level various cooktops (I simply call the people who install them, but it is a handy item.) The green thing is a funnel that will join two bottles together so you can get every drop of whatever is in the top bottle into the bottom one. The round yellow thing is a drip catcher that is supposed to be slid over the spout of a teapot. (I have others, different designs, this looks like a keeper but I have yet to use it.) The silver funnel thing with the teeth is to be inserted (by twisting) into a lemon or lime, to extract the juice and will retain the lemon pips so they don't invade whatever you are adding the lemon juice to. I may or may not use this one. It looks like it will work and those little teeth are damm sharp. Ouch! The last thing, the white strainer thing, is to be pushed down into a can (it fits various size cans, large and small) so you can drain the liquid without losing any of the solid contents. My housekeeper likes the idea of this because I have a habit of using the can lid and dribbling a bit here and there as I move it around. All in all, I think these are all rather useful. I especially like the OverBoiler Clips - and my housekeeper is thrilled that I actually will use it as she is the one who gets to clean up all my messes...........

And as mentioned upthread, are very easy to grow in a window box or pots. If you take a look at my duxelles thread you will see a basket of home-grown shallots, some are very large, much larger than any I have seen in stores. (Like my home-grown ginger, I manage to get things to grow much larger than usual.)

Perhaps this should be on another thread but I have substituted kuzu root (AKA Arrowroot) for some jelling projects with good results. It is a bit trickier to use than regular gelatin but no more of a problem than gum arabic that is difficult to use and finding the food-grade product is not all that easy either. Following is a link to an article about kuzu or kudzu.... since it is such a plague in the southern states, one would think that some enterprizing folk would find a way to process it so that it would be less costly than the imported stuff. Kudzu - for your healt, who knew? Oh yes, it is definitely kosher and most packages I have seen have that clearly marked.

Unfortunately the video requies Windows Media Player and I have a Mac. Bummer, you would think, that since Macs are used for more video editing than Windows platforms, they would make it universal.

You can slice them thinly and dry them. Slice thinly and spread on a cooling rack (one with less than 1/2 inch grid is best) set on a sheet pan and place in your oven if you have a standing pilot. Otherwise put them in a warm, dry place - if the top of your refrigerator is clear, that is usually a warmer spot. You can even dry them in an electric oven on the lowest setting (usually 150 to 175 degrees. Just leave the door slightly ajar to allow moisture to escape and turn it off every hour, leave it off an hour then turn it back on. Check the progress as it doesn't take too long for them to dry to the point where they no longer feel wet on the surface. At that point you can just leave them on the grid at room temp and they will continue to dry. If you live in a very humid place, you can use a fan as long as it doesn't move the "chips" around. They keep very well, if stored in an airtight container. I sent some to GiftedGourmet for her to try. You might inquire how she used them. I use them in any recipe that calls for shallots. I simply soak them in a little warm liquid until they are soft enough to chop.

No, not in the duxelles. It just happened to be there because I also had some fruit and peel in the steam juice extractor on the stove and the everclear was added to that as soon as the juice was drained out of the pot, while it was still hot, this insures that the concentrated juice is protected from any unwanted organisms that might be floating around in the air.