deltadoc

According to "encyclopizza", it is near impossible to make a great sauce at home from tomatoes. The reason being that the manufacturer's can use lower temperatures at higher pressures to bottle/can the product, and the time from field to finished product is very short. Therefore, we've stopped buying Roma tomatoes at the farmer's market and canning mass quantities at home. I get Hunt's Paste in 6 lb cans for $2-3 at Sam's Warehouse, and can dilute that down to puree, sauce or juice and make my sauces from that. However, if I'm in a pinch, I've used Newman's Own Marinara, and Muir Glen Pizza Sauce with pretty good results. doc

Despite the fact that everybody thought I was nuts to spend 3 times on a new kitchen remodel (even by doing most all the work myself) as I originally paid for my house, the last 13 years have been sheer nirvana! We turned a large dining room separated from a tiny kitchen by a wall into a large L-shaped room with the old dining room becoming the new kitchen and the old tiny kitchen area becoming the new dining area. Re-plumbing waste, drain and supply lines was daunting, we added a 48" island with a tiny bar sink, we added a garden window over the dual main sink, all Corian countertops with Corian seamless built-in sinks, new Grohe faucets, Italian Ceramic 13" x 13" flooring (entry foyer, kitchen floor, dining room floor and back landing), all new lighting and electrical service (9 flush mounted ceiling lights with 5 (like 5 on a dice) with dual switches, an extra 4 counterposed within the pattern of the 5 on one switch, and a separate single light on a switch over the main sink, Thermador professional gas cooktop with griddle, grill and 4 burners, Dacor wall oven (convection/conventional), Sub-Zero built-in 48" frige/freezer, white raised panel Fieldstone cabinetry (including slide out garbage, slide out baking pan drawer, and swing out herb shelf, and two lazy suzans in opposite corners of a U-shaped countertop run, etc., 1200 cfm Vent-a-Hood) Everyday I cook in it I am so happy we did it! Opened up the small house we lived in for the last 30 years, and makes for a nice gathering place for company and entertaining. We can sit at the island with its overhang countertop for informal eating, or use the dining room table for more formal events. The only thing I would do different would be to insulate with firebrick and put in a 60" commercial Wolf gas range/cooktop with raised griddle instead of the THermador. 15k burners/griddle/grill just don't cut it as well as I would wish. But am still very happy anyways! doc

I like to carmelize a LOT of sliced onions in butter with some brown sugar, and then add already cooked (and cooled) sliced Idaho potatoes, with a LOT of fresh chopped Rosemary and S&P of course! Yum! I also like to remove bottom medallions from some freshly steamed Artichokes, mix a little fresh crabmeat in with the bearnaise sauce (that another poster suggested) and serve on the artichoke bottom medallions. Yum! I also like fresh green snap beans mixed with butter sauteed fresh portabellas with fresh squeezed lemon juice, freshly grated parmesan cheese, freshly grated nutmeg and S&P of course. Yum! doc

I wouldn't make lasagna without the ricotta and I wouldn't use the ricotta without the egg. Eggs just make everything taste better! How was it that Julia said "Give me plenty of eggs, cream and butter, then I can eat it!" doc

I definitely prefer the Atlas. Gives me more control over the pasta, and handling it provides the kind of tactile feedback that I need to know if the pasta is "just right". It consistently makes sheets of uniform thickness, and I find that using one hand to crank and one hand to "carry" the sheets onto the countertop is no challenge at all. If the pasta won't crank through properly, then I know that it requires further attention from me. When it comes time to boil, I want the pasta to stay together! doc

Julia always said she found the Swanson chicken broth to be outstanding. doc

I've been using Green Peppercorns in a demi-glace with Filet Mignons, sometimes for variety, I'll also add heavy cream to the sauce too. Read once where they suggested you crunch the peppercorns while they are in the cream. I tried that a couple of times but the cream tends to splatter all out the dish~! Recently tried Minor's Green Peppercorn Sauce Concentrate which is available from soup.com or through Amazon.com. It's basically a beef demi-glace concentrate with fresh green peppercorns in it. doc

How about a Greek style beef and risotto stuffed grape leaf with a smidgeoning of cucumber/yogurt cheese sauce? doc

Freeze them, peel and dip in chocolate, wrap and re-freeze till use. There was/is a cart that sells/sold them in NYC a few years back. Chocolate dipped frozen bananas. QUite good, actually! doc

My first thought was "Why not do lump crabmeat on the filet's?" Maybe have a bearnaise sauce for those that want the crabmeat on the filet. Or a honey/redwine butter reduction for the sauce. Nothing wrong with an old fashioned shrimp cocktail. Simmer salt, bay leaf, chopped celery stalks, rough chopped small onion, a garlic clove or two, a sliced whole lemon, and lots of whole black peppercorns for 20 minutes, put in the shrimp (depending on size, I use 24-30) simmer an additional 5 - 5 1/2 minutes, drain, shock on ice until serving time. Serve with a nice red cocktail sauce (for saving time, I use Hoffman House brand, which I've never been able to surpase in taste and quality! doc

I never ever boil vegetables. I steam them using a metal insert made especially for the purpose. You can always add S&P after they're steamed. By this means you also retain more of the vegetable's nutrients, because when boiling, the nutrients are in constant contact with the boiling water and it leaches them out. Steaming cooks the vegetables with minimal loss of natural nutrients. I think the texture is better by steaming also. I also think you end up using less salt (sodium) this way, which in the long run is much more heart healthy. Just my opinion. doc

Byerly's sells it a lot cheaper than the web site or the other places mentioned above. I used the demi-glace gold, the vegetable one, and several of the other ones. I think the only one I really thought noteworthy was the Demi-glace Gold. It's actually pretty tasty, and it does keep forever up in the cupboard. I use it only when I'm in a rush, or trying something new that I don't want to use my valued "homemade" demi-glace ala Escoffier. doc

While I am absolutely positive I read this somewhere many years ago, I've never been able to substantiate it. However, it would seem to make sense since my understanding is that beef tongue is rather bland: I read that they used to make pastrami out of beef tongue (after removing the lining). doc

OK, I'm going to sum up the entire trouble with the entire universe. ARe you Listening? The whole problem can be summed up very simply. The problem is that the average IQ is only 100. By definition, that means that every other person you meet, is below average in intelligence! That really explains a lot if you think about it! doc

I got one of those "wheely deals" looks like a minature farm tractor accessory for tilling for chopping up the clumps of earth that the plow made. It's supposed to chop up parsley, etc. but it don't work worth crap. I won't throw it away, because its French and very old! I still have the original box it came in! doc

When I was planning and remodeling my kitchen circa 1990, Superior Products carried both the Wolf Residential and Wolf Commercial stoves. They had a Residential model that had the 24" raised griddle with broiler underneath, 6 burners and two full sized ovens. It had built-in 3" insulation all around and was permitted to be butted right up to your home walls. As I recall, it had all the power of the Commercial model but with the addition of the insulation. While it was more than twice the price of the commerical equivalent, I only had room for 48", and I didn't want to go with their 36" model, so I ended up with a Thermador Professional gas Cooktop and an electric wall oven. Now, Wolf sold off the Residential division to Subzero, and the residential version of the commercial powered stove is no longer available. In retrospect, the puny power of the 15K BTU burners on the Thermador and the absolute crummy Dacor electric wall oven, I should have forgone the pleasure of a "nice looking kitchen" and made room for the 60" Residential Wolf while it was still available! Now I'm thinking of moving to a place that has a commercial kitchen on the first floor restaurant and living quarters above! (not really, but I do dream about having the commercial power and resultant cooking ability that kind of power would provide). doc

Last weekend America's Test Kitchen tested kitchen timers. I believe the hands down favorite was the digital West Bend. doc

Just to clarify: honey and raw sugar are definitely not the same nutritionally. Raw sugar is mainly sucrose which is a molecule made up of one glucose and one fructose molecule. Raw sugar (white sugar) is absorbed by the body through the process of osmosis. Honey on the other hand is about 1.3% sucrose, 31% Dextrose, 38% levulose, 7% maltose and about 1.5% higher sugars. Honey, due to the nature of its contents, requires "active transport" in order to be absorbed by the body. Active transport requires "carriers" and depending on the availability of "carriers", the absorbtion of honey results in less chance of hypoglycemia, and results in less "ups and downs" in insulin levels than sucrose or glucose. Since some people's health is dependent on watching the types of sugars they eat, I thought it necessary to go off-topic a bit to address this. doc

Since I make a lot of stock (mostly veal) and can it, most of the time I dilute the paste with stock. Gives it a bit more body. I used to swear on lots of garlic and onions in my pizza sauce too, but due to my wife's GERD, which onions (cooked or raw) negatively affect, I've started going with sauces that are more basic as I described above. Actually, I'm finding that they are more refreshing than the way I'd been doing it for the last 30+ years. Just a sort of "old dog learned a new trick" sort of thing! doc

True clinical studies, which I read as an employee in cardiology based medical devices tend to grab my attention. This is just my personal preference and is not intended to slight nutritionists, et al. doc

We buy large chunks of Parmesan and a couple other hard to semi-hard cheese, (I have a special ratio by weight that I use) and I chop them up roughly and grind 'em up in my Robot Coupe. Mix well, and then I weigh out 1-lb portions, and Food Save them in vacuum packed foodsaver bags and into the freezer they go. What's really cool is that the vacuum sort of "recombines" the finely grated/processed cheese back into fairly sturdy chunks, so that when i take them out of the freezer, I can break off a piece and, like, fresh grate it, or re-grate the whole 1-lb and put it into a quart mason jar and into the fridge until its all gone, and then back to the freezer to retrieve another frozen bag full and start again. We find the taste everybit as fresh as the day the original chunk came into the kitchen, and it makes it so easy to use the cheese mixture whenever its appropriate. Cheese is a LOT cheaper when you buy LARGE chunks of it at at time. I'm talking maybe 20 lbs of Parmesan alone. doc

Hey Patrick S, It really is a cool site, isn't it! I used to buy the 6lb size cans of Hunt's tomato puree and tomato paste, and then realized the paste is priced the same as the puree, and you just add water to the paste to get the puree and have more. SO I buy only the paste now, and dilute it to the required consistency. It has a bit of citric acid in it, which livens up the taste imho, and I don't miss the chunks of tomato as I add enough other stuff to add texture to the pizza. I am particularly found of adding ground fennel seed, tarragon, brown sugar, and of course S&P and a little fresh basil & marjoram to get a really wonderful sauce that is good on thin crust as well as thicker crust pizza. None of my pizzas work well unless I fire up the electric wall oven and rectangular 1/2" thick pizza stone to 550F for at least an hour before peeling the pizza onto the stone. With the stone set exactly in the middle of the oven, I get a nice browned bottom, thoroughly cooked sauce and the cheese is just taking on a hint of carmelization just the way I like it! doc

After 30 years of telling us that margarine was better for you, it is now a clinical fact that it is worse heart healthy wise than butter. They have always had equal amounts of fat calories. Most solid artificial spreads are hydrogenated to make them solid. That's bad news. (mom always loved the Diet Imperial Imitation Margarine)... I've always eaten butter since I left home and EVOO 30 years ago before it became the rage and could only be found in Italian grocery stores. 57, cholesterols is fine, blood pressure is fine, and I don't think my alopecia is due to butter intake! doc

Ask and ye shall receive: http://www.correllconcepts.com/Encyclopizz...ncyclopizza.htm Everything you ever wanted or needed to know about all kind of sauces, doughs, ingredients. Very interesting! doc

Logo looks just like its out of "Blast from the Past", very nice. I like it. Despite what anyone else says, I'm not hot on the idea of plantanos. You would never find something like that in the Americana era depicted by your logo/poster. Don't confuse your image. A confused image, if remembered at all, in the consumer's conciousness, will be a confused image. My understanding of advertising effectiveness is focus!!!! I'd keep my focus on doing what you first proposed. Bringing the best hamburger, fries and shakes/malts that you can. Just like you used to find almost anywhere in the 1950's in America. Something I've been looking for ever since. I just can't see actually "believing" in your vision, if you cloud it with something alien to the era like "plantanos". Might as well serve foie gras, bean sprouts, granola, tapanades (sic?), and quesadillos too... doc