deltadoc

I do the sear both sides of the steak and finish off in the oven. For hamburgers, I grill one side thoroughly, then flip once, salt & pepper, and turn the heat down and slow cook until done. I most always fine dice some onion, and add about 1 - 1 1/2 TBSP of Lea & Perrins or my own homemade Worcestershire sauce to the meat before making the patties. doc

Several thoughts: Who was it said that a country or society is judged by the way it treats it's animals? Guess that applies to individuals too. doc

Back when Julia Childs stated that she loved McDonald's french fries, I thought that they were using lard at that time. Now they use vegetable based product. We used lard when I worked in a restaurant in the 60's. The fresh lard never browned the potatoes very well, and I always tried turning the fryer temperature up just a little to compensate. The cheif fry cook would always go and turn the fryer back down again, and the boss always got mad that my fries weren't brown enough! doc

It's exactly 3 hours south of the Twin Cities. Take HW 52 South to Rochester. Pick up Highway 63 South out of Rochester. As you enter Waterloo, Iowa, look for Katies Maid Rites on the left hand side of the Highway. Its a singular building sitting like in a Supermarket parking lot, near the frontage road, almost next to a McDonald's which you will actually want to pass by. Best Maid Rites and Cole Slaw I have ever eaten anywhere. Maid Rites should qualify as Regional Food. Don't find them much outside Illinois and Iowa. doc

I've tried quarry tiles (pavers) and don't like them because sauce/cheese, etc., falls through the cracks and burns onto the bottom of my oven. Been using a rectangular (almost square) 1/2" thick pizza stone that looks exactly like the one that was recently shown on America's Test Kitchen as the absolute top choice pizza stone. I've had mine for 22 years, and it has never broken. About every 3 or so months, I just leave it in the oven and put the oven on self-clean cycle. Stone comes out beautiful. 1. Never put a cold stone in a hot oven. 2. Never take a hot stone out of the oven. 3. Never get water on the stone. It soaks it up, and it's still in there for a long time. You don't want water in your stone when you're cooking with it. I've followed these rules for 22 years, and my $8.95 pizza stone (1983 prices) still works wonderfully. I shied away from round stones, because the rectangular stone has more surface area for buns, rolls, square pizzas, etc. Many times, I leave it in and place casseroles, roasting pans right on it. As long as it has heated up sufficiently, it evens out the heat and nothing ever burns anymore. doc

After putting the pizza dough on the peel, I shake it to make sure it moves freely. Then I paint the oliveoil on, and shake it again to make sure it is mobile. Sauce on, shake again to keep it mobile. Meat on, shake. Cheese on, shake. Mozz on, shake. Then it always slides right off onto the stone. No problemas. doc

I find the following link to be very informative: http://www.correllconcepts.com/Encyclopizz...ncyclopizza.htm I make my dough in the bread machine as follows: 1lb 4 oz Bread Flour 12 oz Cold Water 2 tsp Sea Salt 1 TBSP Honey 1 Capful of the local organic store's yeast which I keep in old Fleishman's little brown jars The Zojirushi bread machine that I use, heats up the water, and then starts mixing the ingredients. At that point I watch carefully and add a bit more water to get the right moisture content. I can't explain it, I've done it so many times that I just know when it's right. Not too moist, but not too dry. When it's all done, I weigh it out into two portions. I use a rolling pin to get a thin crust pizza, which I dust continuously until I can pick the dough up right off the countertop (corian). If I don't want thin crust, then I use all of the dough, and push it out by hand starting in the middle in a more traditional way. But for thin crust, I find that I get a more even thickness with the marble roller than I can get by hand, and that way the crust cooks evenly. I then let the thin crust sit on the counter for a while, picking it up and turning it over frequently so that it doesn't stick. After about 20 minutes, I take it and put it on a corn meal dusted wood peel. I immediately brush the crust entire surface with EVOO, then I add pizza sauce which I roughly follow encyclopizza's (see above link) recipe for Sweet 'n Sassy sauce. I use our own canned Tomato puree plus Contadina canned paste to get the consistency of sauce I'm looking for (thicker than thinner). Then I add my own homemade Hot Italian Sausage which has already been browned and drained of grease. Then spread around on the pizza I place a few whole fresh basil leaves out of my Klimagro window greenhouse in the kitchen garden window, sprinkle some fresh chopped Italian parsley, then a few whole fennel seeds, sprinkle with a combo of grated parmesan, romano and asaigo, then low moisture part skim Stella brand mozzarella (that we get in 5 lb bricks from Sam's club) that I've already ground up in the Robot Coupe processor so I can evenly spread it over the pizza. I like to do it this way to allow steam from the sauce to escape through the cheese layer which effect I can't get if I use mozz slices. The wall oven (Dacor) and square 1/2" thick stone have been preheating at 550 F for 1 hour. It takes approximately 9-10 minutes for the pizza to be perfectly baked. doc

Jason, Look at the baked Genoa salami pizza. There's a "cow's head" almost dead center in the picture!! Very artistic indeed! See his dark eyes, floppy ears, long snout?? :) doc

Our rhubarb patch is coming up very nicely again this year just outside our front door. Due to these posts, I'm going to appreciate my rhubarb this year instead of taking it for granted like before. Yes, as a kid in Iowa, the rhubarb patch grew up alongside the garage!!!! As far as the sugar required, I going to share a secret that only my great grandmother seemed to know about. We use lemon juice with the rhubarb. For some reason, it seems to cancel out the tartness of the rhubarb, and the amount of sugar needed is reduced. In any event the combination of the lemon and rhubarb far exceeds the customary strawberry/rhubarb combination, at least imo. I made a rhubarb pie for Jean-Claude Tindillier one time when he was owner of Le Petit Chef in St. Louis Park. Turned out rhubarb pie was his favorite dessert, and he told me that he had never thought to use lemon juice in making it. He was so impressed that he went out into his personal orchard and picked pears and made me a pear Charlotte Rouse. doc

Hey Bruce, I live in Shoreview. Used to write a column for a couple of SW Twin City suburban newspapers. For consistency of food, Kozlak's Royal Oak on Hodgeson Road just north from HW 96 is one of the best restaurants around. Mark Satt is co-owner and EC there. Their salad bar is outstanding, and their house caesar dressing is non-traditional but excitingly good tasting. I've eaten there off and on since they took over the Sandpiper in 1977. Down on Rice Street and Little Canada in a shopping mall is Little Venetian. It's run by members of the same family that ran the Venetian Inn for many years which is now a bunch of condominiums. Their menu changes daily according to "whatever the chefs want to cook that day"! Wonderful authentic Italian food. And some that I don't know if you would call "Italian", but their stuffed green peppers are hard to beat. Down on Lexington and CR E, real close to Ingredients Cafe in Arden Hills, is Chanticlear Pizza. They make the most outstanding thin crust pizza I've ever eaten commercially. That's all they make, thin crust. Up east off of HW 96 in WBL, there's a Mexican Restaurant, but I can't remember the name. I believe Jeremy has written about them. Further east from there, the same owners have a very upscale Mexican Restaurant. Very tasty stuff. I'll see if I can find out the names again. And that's about it for the Northern Suburbs. Me, I drive all the way over to the Holyland to have their luncheon buffet. Majdi and Wadi go to extremes to make the most tasty buffet I've eaten at. Plan to arrive promptly at 11am when everything is fresh, untouched, and beautiful to behold! Friday-Sunday, the buffet is $1 more than M-Th. They send their own spice blend and their own meat (they have an onsite butcher shop) to Chicago to have their Shawirma cones made. Yeah, I know it isn't North Suburbs, but North Suburb people ought to know about the Holyland!!! Invite me along one day (PM me!) doc

I have a garlic roaster, and have never used it. I just take some heavy gauge aluminum foil, dribble some olive oil on it, take whole heads of garlic and rotate them thoroughly in the olive oil, adding more as necessary. Sprinkle with S&P. Wrap tightly (fold over all four sides and make sure they are sealed), but not so tightly that the garlic heads push through the aluminum foil. I then place it on a cookie sheet, put it in the oven at 350 for about 50 minutes. Time can vary depending on the "roastedness" you are looking for. Then when they are cool enough to touch, I unwrap the aluminum foil, squeeze out the garlics into a little glass bowl. I then add a bit more olive oil, some lemon juice, some S&P, and mix thoroughly into a paste. I add a bit more fresh lemon juice to cover the surface of the paste, and put the plastic cover on the bowl and put it in the frigerator. It lasts up to 3 weeks, well, um, it could last up to 3 weeks, but I use it up pretty quickly! I disagree with the theory that roasting the garlic in the olive oil, and leaving at room temperature. If you NEVER open the jar, then it is probably sterile. But the poster indicated that they dipped into the jar whenever they wanted some garlics, and that it the point where bacteria "could" be introduced. In biology, a sterile agar in a cover glass petri dish remains moldless, but once you open it, pretty soon stuff starts growing in it. doc

If memory serves me correctly, Craig Claiborne's Best of NY has Dinah Shore's moussaka recipe. It used bread crumbs. I made it once and was pretty disappointed in it. In Minneapolis, It's Greek to Me serves a moussaka which I found to be wonderful. I have mimicked their dish as follows: Meat Mixture: 2 lbs Ground Lamb (or very lean hamburger) 1/2 C Red Wine 1/2 C finely diced onion 1-2 TBSP Tomato Paste Salt, Pepper, Cinnamon, Allspice to taste Brown meat and onions, add tomato paste and red wine, cinnamon, black pepper and allspice, reduce. Salt to taste. Eggplant 3-4 Dark purple eggplant sliced in rounds with skin on. Sprinkle liberally with salt and let drain in colander for 1 hour with a plated weight on them. Rinse thoroughly and pat dry. Heat olive oil on hot griddle and griddle the slices until brown on one side and then turn one time and brown the other side. Keep olive oil layer light as eggplant will soak up as much as you put on. Set aside. Slice potatoes with or without skin in 1/8" slices. Griddle them till browned on both sides. Set aside. Bechamel Sauce Any recipe for bechamel sauce will work, but I start with a roux, to which I slowly add heated 2% milk while stirring. I like to keep my bechamel rather thick. I add 3 egg yolks to the sauce (beat the egg yolks in small dish, add some of the hot bechamel and stir, then add back into the bechamel) and parmesan cheese and a little salt. Don't forget to add freshly grated nutmeg to the bechamel. It is very important to the moussaka taste. Baking Layer the potatoes first in bottom of lasagna pan which has been oiled first. Then the meat mixture. Then layer the eggplant slices. Top with the bechamel. Bake at 350 until lightly browned on top. Let sit after taking out of the oven for at least 15-20 minutes to "set up". Slice and enjoy. It does freeze very well. doc

This may be politically incorrect but here goes: 1. Spaghettti: if that is really you in the picture, you're truly gorgeous. 2. When I think of brains, I think of three things: a. Einstein b. Return of the Living Dead c. All the people in the UK that got Mad Cow Disease because they ate beef brains. doc

Robyn, I am sorry to hear about your father-in-law, and especially the passing of your Mother. I think one of the most tragic events in one's life is to lose a parent. We grow up looking at them as infallable, they are our mentors, our teachers, our disciplinarians, the ones who love us, the ones who protect us, the ones who teach us right from wrong. Besides that, when one's parents pass, then we step up to the "line" and we're next. It is a sobering, melancholy realization and marks one of the Significant Emotional Events of one's life. Since egullet has "new rules", rather than have this post "cancelled", I will mention that I inherited two George Foreman griddlers. We can't find them, or else I would compare their operation to your "griddler". Hope that meets the requirements of posting a reply. I think your griddler is very cool. doc

There's a reason why garlic is sometimes referred to as the "Russian antibiotic". Clinical medical studies have shown that fresh garlic (don't know about roasted garlic) has medicinal qualities that make it effective against bacterial and viral infections. Based on my wife and I using mass quantities of garlic whenever sickness descends upon us, I can vouch for it's effectiveness. And I guarantee that Crystal brand Louisianna Hot sauce will temper any sore throat! Many skeptical associates have been astounded at the result of my insistence on them trying a TBSP full of my jar I kept at work!! doc (not an MD)

Thanks for that. Mine is a stove top, so clearly I'll have to practice a bit to get the right setting. ←

I am not sure about "a pressure cooker never boils". We have used ours for canning for 30+ years, and that is steam coming out the steam valve. Steam comes from boiling. The pressure comes from the fact that the steam builds up pressure because it is being regulated by the valve (retarded) rather than just being allowed access to the atmosphere like an open pot. We wouldn't be without the pressure cooker. Just yesterday, I found a box in the basement full of homemade ketchup that we canned in 1998. I was a bit skeptical about it still being good, but opened a jar and it was aged like fine wine. Totally excellent. Also found 4 pints of French Onion Soup that we made with Vadalia onions and canned in 1992. Outstanding tasting. Some things, we've found, through trial and error, cannot be canned, such as the six 1/2-pint jars of mushroom gravy that had lost their seal and I won't go into the obnoxious odor they gave off when we dumped them out yesterday. They'd been down there only 1 year. But I have two large open pots that I make beef brown stock in one, and veal brown stock in the other, at the same time. I reserve enough stock to make 1 gallon of Espagnole sauce, and another gallon of reserved stock, so that I can make 1 gallon of Demi-glace by combining the reserved stock and Espagnole Sauce. The rest of the stock gets canned as either beef or veal stock. Always remember to date and label what is in the jar. 1 year later, it's hard to remember what is in there otherwise! (One time, due to a shortage of canning jars, we reduced the remaining stock by 90% and had Glace de Viande, which I keep in the refrigerator or freezer indefinitely---the mention of this is a hint---always have enough jars and new sealing lids---the lids cannot be re-used). The process of canning makes cooking efficient, as once I heat up the oven to brown the bones, I don't have to heat up the oven each time I want a bit of stock for soup or sauces. Another benefit, is that the canning jars, once sealed, don't need refrigeration, and require no energy to store. They just sit there at room temperature, or at least basement temperature where we have many shelves filled with canned stuff we've made. Spaghetti sauce (with and without meat), condiments like ketchup, mustard, pickles; soups, stocks, pizza sauce, just plain tomato sauce which we make every summer by buying large quantities of Italian plum tomatoes from the farmer's market (and from our small garden); you can even can meatloaf, or even just hamburger (like Walnut Acres sells). A hint: buy yourself a couple of extra rubber lid seals. They wear out over time, and when your canner is as old as ours, it isn't as easy to find replacements 30 years later! A canner with a bad seal is not a good thing. doc

I get one of those juicers, and juice the carrots along with some cayenne peppers (not too many), celery, a bit of onion maybe, you know, try to make some homemade V-8 juice. I'd then freeze the juice that I didn't drink right away. Yum! doc

For a cold, this is what I take: 1. Triple Garlic Pate (roasted, braised, fresh) on baquette rounds. 2. Zinc pills (in the first day of the cold) 3. If accompanied by a sore throat, I follow the advice of an old bluesman who carried a bottle around in his pocket so he could still sing with a sore throat: 1-2 TBSP of Crystal Brand Louisianna Hot Sauce. Works everytime. doc

I always use 3 cups heavy cream (no seaweed additives) with 1 cup buttermilk. Put it in a covered Pyrex measuring cup. Let it sit for about 3 days on the counter. When it is thick like sour cream, but kind of silk-ily so, I put it in the fridge. Lasts at least 2 weeks. doc

Thanks! I've been researching this and the best I've come up with is that in the older days, the following criteria were met: 1. Steer was 3 years old, pasture/grass fed. 2. Bring 'em into the barn for 2-3 months and feed corn/oats/beet pulp to sweeten up the meat and increase marbling before butchering. 3. Hang 'em (dry age) for up to 5 weeks. Nowadays, the following seem to be more the norm: 1. Steer is 1 1/2 - 2 years old max. 2. Feedlot fed (who knows what that includes, I've heard everything from ground glass to make their intestines bleed thus increasing the protein content, to ground up cardboard, and all types of fillers) 3. Attempts to reduce marbling to satisfy the apparent desire of the buying public to have leaner beef. 4. Cryovac (wet age) them so that they're selling you water weight. Just what I've been able to find out but haven't had anybody that can confirm. doc

This isn't quite exactly butchery, but if I don't ask I won't know if you know! The meat we used to be able to buy in Iowa in the early 1960's was awesome compared to the beef that seems available today. Do you know how the steers were raised, fed, how old they were when they were butchered, how long were they fed corn, etc. before butchering in the "old" days? Thanks! doc

Biggest change over the last 2 years is that I have completely sworn off processed foods, especially those with corn syrup in them (like Coke and most everything else!). Second biggest change over the last 1 1/2 years was purchasing Professional Chef and Professional Cooking and attempting to hone my existing cooking skills and techniques! Biggest change over the last 5 years was buying an indoor greenhouse and growing my own fresh herbs so that I could cook with fresh herbs as much as I could. Biggest change over the last 12 years was remodeling my kitchen with semi-professional cooking equipment. Biggest change over the last 30 years (whoops, went past the original post limit of 1-15 years) was getting Escoffier's translated cookbook, and Craig Claiborne's Best of NY TImes cookbook at the same time for $1 each!!!! doc

Just curious, but wouldn't roasting the chicken first make it more of a brown stock than a white stock which is what I thought the original poster was making? It's kind of like in the middle, since most brown stocks you roast the bones, which really aren't being roasted (to browness) when the rest of the chicken is surrounding them. Again, just curious. doc

In 1986, I remodeled our 5' x 6' bathroom. I broke up the cast iron tub and THEN went out to look for another. They were about 4" high, so I knocked out the wall and made the bathroom 6' x 6' and put in a whirlpool. My wife can actually swim in it! Well, by 1990 the bathroom remodel had gotten me constantly looking at our 9' x 9' kitchen attached with a doorway to a hugh dining room. I ended up knocking out all the ceiling, the wall between the two rooms, took out the chimney that occupied a corner of the 9' x 9' kitchen, took out the hardwood floor in the dining room, the asphalt and vinyl overlaid kitchen floor, the plaster walls, the lathing, rebuilt up everything from the studs, subfloor, and joists, the plumbing, the electricity, the lighting, and eventually turned the dining room into the kitchen and the old kitchen became the adjoining dining/eating area. I spent months just planning out the flow, layout, dimensional considerations, optimum space usage, work triangle (sink, fridge, cooktop), even the line of sight to the wall oven. It took 2 years, $50K, and all my spare time. We lived on Taco Bells, 3 different pizzas (Dominoes, Pizza Hut, and I forget the 3rd one), White Castles, Dairy Queens, etc. the entire 2 years. But since 1992, despite everyone telling me we were crazy, I have a kitchen to die for with a Thermador Professional Gas Cooktop including 4 burners, a griddle and a grill, a SubZero built-in fridge, Corian countertops, Corian seamless sinks, an island (with a sink too), Fieldstone's best cabinetry, Italian ceramic 13" tile floor which includes the kitchen, dining room, foyer entrance area, and the landing at the top of the steps to the basement, new lighting, new electrical service, new plumbing, a Dacor wall oven, a Robot Coupe, a Commercial Kitchen Aid, Wusthof Trident knife sets, AllClad pots and pans, in-cabinet revolving spice rack, pull out garbage cabinet, two corner lazy susans, a garden window over the main sink, an Everpure water system with its own spigot on the sink and also connected to the ice cube maker in the freezer, virtually everything I ever dreamed of in a kitchen. Would I do it again? In a heartbeat. For over 12 years, we have had the time of our lives cooking in, and eating in, our wonderful kitchen and dining room. The money we saved by not having to go out to eat over the years has probably paid us back and then some. I say, spend the money, mortgage the house if you have to, you will never regret it, unless you don't do it the way your heart really says you should. Anyway, the kitchen, according to every real estate agent that has seen our house before and after the remodel has told us that no woman will be able to resist buying our house once they see the ktichen inside, even though the outside of the house is unremarkable stucco. doc