andiesenji

When I make black bean soup, after cooking for a suitable period, I remove half the beans and all of the pork hocks. Then I use the immersion blender to puree the remaining beans in the liquid, add some ground pepitas and check the seasoning. I then add back the whole beans the meat from the ham hocks, chopped, and keep at a very low simmer until ready to serve.

I think red karo is referring to the label. I was curious and followed the history of Karo link listed above. At the page, there were several pictures of the old packaging amoung them, a red label can. With regard to the pound cake, I have a similiar recipe with a pound of each sugar, butter and flour plus 10 eggs. If I had to guess ten eggs probably equals a pound. It is a fabulous pound cake. I find Louisiana interesting and bizarre. Being Thanksgiving, I kind of miss it today. ← The reference to "Red Karo" does indeed refer to the label. Just as people still refer to " Brer Rabbit Green " or "Brer Rabbit Blue", referring to the stronger darker molasses instead of the mild gold label which was found in all stores. Only a few stores would carry all three types.

I have some food allergies but that doesn't stop me from cooking with the things I can't eat when I am preparing a meal for other people. I also can't drink any raw alcohol but can cook with it, if it is cooked long enough for the alcohol esthers to cook away. And I buy wine and liquor for gifts, although I need help in choosing them because I can't taste. I think it is extremely rude for someone to force their food preferences on others. I like some spicy foods but not super hot foods but prepare them all the time. I took a couple of salsas to the L.A. Potluck that were too hot for me but others enjoyed them and I had advance notice that there would be people there who appreciated the hot stuff. Just in case, I also took along some of my homemade sour cream and also cream cheese to temper the hot stuff just in case. If I am preparing something that contains an ingredient to which I am allergic, I ask someone to taste it for me so I will know if it is seasoned correctly. It isn't difficult to accomadate food allergies but some people make a career of being unpleasant about demanding attention to their needs and make a fuss if there is anything containing their problem ingredient anywhere near their food without having any consideration for other people. I simply avoid the foods I can't have but try not to interfere with other's enjoyment.

Have you considered one of these chocolate machines? I saw one of these at a coffee place in Orange County last year during the Christmas holidays while staying with friends in Yorba Linda. My friend and I went to quite a few different places and I don't recall exactly where it was but I was very impressed with it. They mixed the chocolate with coffee or just with milk or cream, adding various flavors to order. It was an independent store, selling a couple of different lines of packaged coffee beans and pre-ground coffee, as well as a few teas, premium chocolate, chocolates and other candies. As I recall they had selections of Valrhona, Schokinag, Guittard and Scharffen Berger chocolate, as I bought several pieces of different types. Anyway, I thought the machine was really clever.

Regarding salamanders. The original utensil was much different from those we use today. I have one of the original kitchen utensils called a salamander, an antique from the early 20th century, ca. 1901. Unfortunately it is packed away in a box, otherwise I would take a picture so you could see it. It is a round cast iron plate on a fairly long handle which has a hollow end so a wood handle can be stuck into it.(more about this later). The plate itself has holes in it and was intended to be thrust through the firebox opening into the hottest part of the coals inside the stove and kept there until it was glowing red hot. The dish to be toasted on top, was brought close to the stove and the salamander was withdrawn from the coals, brushed off with a stove broom, then held over the dish until the perfect degree of browness was achieved. This was the only way they had for browning meringues on top of ice cream or other chilled desserts and also for carmelizing sugar-topped items or melting cheeses. Now about the handle. The salamander was fairly heavy and the heat of course radiated up the handle so about 2/3 of the handle is hollow and tapers inside. A wood handle (about the size of a broom handle) was tapered to fit inside the handle and these were kept in a bucket of water next to the range. This caused the wood to swell but also to be slightly pliable on the surface and also protected the wood from the heat of the iron. When ready to use, the handle was banged into the salamander and fit tightly. After use, the heat would dry the wood which would shirnk and make it easy to remove the handle from the salamander for use in pots that had similar type handles because it was easier to use two hands on the handle with these heavy pots and easier to control them if you could keep your hands further apart on the handle.

I dip cornbread into bean soup. (Southern type cornbread, the dense, all corn stuff.) I do dip regular French or similar firm crust breads into other soups and stews but I don't think that is so unusual. The chips I dip into cottage cheese (and it has to be large curd) are the barbecue wavy Lays or Masterpiece barbecue. I roast steak fries (the ones with the skins on) until they are quite dark and have a crusty surface, seasoned with a spicy, salty mixture. Then dip them in sour cream mixed with chives or scallions.

When using chocolate chips, it's easiest to get a shallow spoonful of the peanut butter, then dot the chips on top. Don't ask how I know ← One of the girls who works in my office has a flat wood spoon-shaped implement that is dipped into peanut butter then into a mixture of semi-sweet chocolate chips and toffee chips. She says the combination of flavors and crunchy bits is heavenly. Actually, I think the wood thing was once in the middle of a Dove icecream bar.

The salamander was the thing I missed most when I parted with my old Garland range many years ago. The big grill/griddle plate on top was the second, although it was the devil to clean and had to be worked over with a hone from time to time. I used the salamander all the time for so many things it is difficult to think of the most useful applications. Of course it cooked a lot of steaks and chops, mushroom dishes, the usual. I supposed that being able to slide an entire tray of creme brulee under it and have them all carmelized at once was a great advantage. The same with trays of gratin dishes. The kids also used it as a toaster, first toasting a slab of bread (I used to make double sized homemade loaves so they would have a slice that was the equivalent of two slices of regular bread) then buttering it and laying on some cheese (and in one case jalapeno peppers) then sliding it back under the salamander to melt and toast the cheese. Very quick. They also used it to heat leftover pizza, for breakfast as it was much quicker than the oven. My husband liked broiled ham steaks with a slice of pineapple sprinkled with brown sugar, then under the salamander until the top was carmelized. Tater Tots were also roasted/toasted in it.

Another of my favorite on-line vendors. Got my first induction range from them. Also most of my bread pans, especially the pullman pans which they have for much less than anywhere else.

This was discussed in detail in this topic. Which includes my suggestion of using exfoliating gloves on DRY roasted hazelnuts and on blanched almonds that have retained some of their skins. When dry the skins just flake away. After roasting, you allow them to cool just a bit then rub between your palms. The raspy surface of the gloves is enough to clean them quite well and I have never had a problem. If you steam or boil the nuts to blanch them, you have to wear rubber gloves under the exfoliating gloves or risk a scald. You can also buy skinned hazelnuts - they are available at the local middle eastern grocery where I shop, prepackaged, so I assume other stores would also carry them.

I have purchased several items from FEW (Food Equipment Warehouse) and have always been treated well. They post their phone number so call them 888-277-6070 and ask about the mixer. I was given the number by a friend in Virginia who bought a Pizza oven from them long before I even knew they had an ebay store. They are a company that specializes in commercial equipment, not a fly-by-night outfit.

One of my friends found some 1/2-pint canning jars with one-piece lids (instead of the lid-and-ring type) and screwed the lids to the underside of a cabinet in a row, back next to the wall. The jars were clear glass but she got a type of opaque glass paint (at a craft store) that is cured in the oven and dipped each jar in it up to the bottom of the screw threads. She then painted on the name of the spice or herb on each one. The bulk herbs she keeps in Cambro containers in the freezer and just puts enough in the jars for immediate use. It is very simple to grab a jar which releases from the lid with a 3/4 turn, they are out of the light and also in an opaque container. I haven't been in her kitchen for a while, but I would guess she has at least 20 jars under the cabinet which is over her prep area. I never thought of doing spices like this, however I have about 40 baby-food jars mounted the same way in my shed with screws, nuts, bolts, washers and other little things of various sizes to make them easier to find.

We so think alike! I have more than one "just in case" and also because I need one really long one for working in deep stock pots but it is too large for most other uses. (Waring WSB60 with 16"shaft) I have one that lives permanently by the cooktop (and for which I have an overhead plug recepticle for which I am eternally grateful as it keeps the cord from dragging through stuff) as I am always using it for sauces, and so many other things, and another in my prep area that is instantly handy for use. I have a bright red KitchenAid that was a gift, still in the box. My housekeeper, new to the American way of having gadgets for so many tasks, bought one for herself, her very first kitchen appliance, which she uses to chop herbs for a lunch/snack she makes to take to school. She could use mine but wanted one of her very own.

Try pairing it with duxelles, half and half on a slice. Takes it to an entirely new dimension!

Depending on your location, you might want to check out this one: Hobart.

If you keep your spice bottles in a drawer with aids such as these, you don't need to have opaque containers. Or these.

Why not make your own? It isn't difficult. Put half a cup of lightly roasted and skinned hazelnuts in a 2-cup pyrex container, add water to cover microwave for 2-3 minutes, depending on how powerful your oven. Add 3 tablespoons sugar. Microwave for an additional 3 minutes. Set aside and allow to cool. Test a nut by squeezing between your thumb and index finger. If it is soft and crushable, it is ready. If not microwave for additional 1 minute intervals until a nut is the right consistency. Old nuts will take longer than fresh. Then crush to paste in a mortar or pulse in a mini processor. A variable-speed blender will work but you have to be careful to pulse it a few seconds at a time and mix it with a rubber spatula between pulses so the blender won't stall.

bread crumbs!

The small freezer storage ziplog bags work quite well. If you take a hole punch and punch a hole above the seal, you can then thread spices of a similar nature (all your chiles), or sweet spices that are usually mixed together, or savory spices, etc, on shower curtain "rings" the old fashioned kind that have a fastening something like a safety-pin. These will in turn, hang neatly on a hook and the bags can be fanned out to find the one you want and slide it around to the opening. Easiest identification is to take address labels and fold them in half (with the backing still on) and write on both sides the name of the spice and the date. Then peel the backing away and stick it on one edge of the bag, so it sticks out like a tab on a file. If you offset each one on the bags from top to bottom, you can just about see every one while the bags are on top of each other. For many years I used this method to store my hundreds of pastels and found it was far neater than the open box method and saved me a lot of money by allowing me to see just what I had before going to the store to replace ones I had but couldn't find. This is a good way to store whole spices and you can tuck a smaller bag inside with freshly ground spices. I often do this with nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, etc., dating the ground spice bag as once ground they lose flavor quickly. If you have a Smart & Final wholesale grocer near you, check to see if that store carries the snack size food grade heavyweight bags and the pint size freezer bags. They are much heavier than the regular freezer bags made by Glad, Hefty or Ziploc.

How could I have forgotten the burnt-sugar pecans so beloved by my grandfather. I can remember sitting for hours, with an upside-down flat iron between my knees, and a small ballpeen hammer in my hand, cracking pecans for various recipes and for eating out of hand.

I treat onion confit as I do any confit, to keep it fresh and good. I put it in a sterilized canning jar, (just large enough to hold it with an inch of head room) press it down so there are no air pockets, then pour melted duck fat over it to a depth of 1/2 inch. You could use a neutral oil if you don't have duck fat but it is easy to break the cold fat and lift it off the confit, in fact, I melt it, strain it and save it in the fridge and use it again. The whole point is to keep air away from the surface of the preserve and duck fat makes a fine seal as it adheres nicely to glass. Melted Crisco works too, in a pinch. It has no flavor to interfere with the flavor of the confit. I treat duxelles the same way and it keeps for a long time. As long as the air/oxygen can't get to the surface of the food, it won't sour, spoil or develop mold.

I was in Target today and they have a new Rival with a very attractive crockery insert with a beautiful decorative design right on the crock. 5-quart, $34.99.

This is my 5-gallon one And this is the pasturizer. I also have a hand-cranked 1 gallon churn but haven't used it for a while.

It really helps when one has an actual butter churn which you can turn on and allow to do its thing for the alloted time. It makes the job much easier.

If you heat the syrup to dissolve the sugar and bring it up to 165 degrees and hold it at that temp for 10 minutes, then immediately pour it into sterilized bottles with a tight seal, you can keep it at room temperature or in the fridge for much longer if you invert the bottle. The point is to keep air away from the surface of the syrup (or any condiment or jam or jelly). Oxygen is the great destroyer and reducing the exposure will preserve anything such as this much longer. don't shake the syrup to mix the sugar, heat it unless you are going to use it all at once or within a day. Oxygenating the mixture by shaking just promotes growth of some of the bacteria that cause the clouding. When you need to pour out some of the syrup, set the bottle or jar upright for a couple of minutes to allow the syrup to drain away from the top. Remove the top and pour out what you need, then wipe the top and immediately reclose and invert.