abadoozy

I just got my VP 112 the other day, and have been playing with it. I have some specific questions, not sure if this should go in the "Cooking with Modernist Cuisine" thread or here, I picked here since it's specifically about vacuum sealers. I tried the compressed tomato and smoked lettuce from Modernist Cuisine's ultimate hamburger the other day, and the results were less than spectacular. The Smoked Lettuce recipe says that you should put the lettuce/smokey water mixture uncovered/unwrapped in the vacuum sealer, bring it to a vacuum, turn off the machine, and let it sit under vacuum for 20 minutes. I can't figure out a way to get the VP112 to not release soon after stopping, so I tried just sealing it in a bag and letting it sit. Result was not great - the smoke flavor wasn't perceptible. I read about vacuum-sealing to marinate, and they don't require the 20 minutes in the sealer thing, so what's the difference? I assume there is one, but heck if I know enough about vacuums to tell. The Compressed Tomato sort of worked. The recipe didn't specify to put it in a bag, but it didn't say not to either, so I did. It compressed some, definitely had a different texture than the control (ha!) tomato I served with it , but not much tomato taste. I believe that has more to do with April tomatoes in the Far North than the recipe, though. Has anyone else tried this? Did you bag the tomato? What were your results?

I have one of these and they work great for frothing milk and blending small quantities of salad dressing. It's not hugely powerful, but you don't need a lot of power for what you're talking about. Easy to clean, too.

I've never sharpened mine - in fact, I don't think the blades are that sharp to begin with. It's run fine for going on 8 years now.

I don't have any experience with Franke in particular, but I have always had a disposal in my sink - don't know what people do without them! You hear lots of horror stories about them getting clogged, but there's really only one trick to not clogging it. Assuming the Franke is not significantly different than any other brand, never ever ever run it without the water running, and after you turn it off, keep the water running for a few more seconds. You can put almost anything down there, including things like soft bones (chicken, etc), if you just keep the water going. About the only thing that's occasionally been a problem for me is lots & lots of peelings - like potato or carrot. A few is no big deal, but if you're peeling veggies for a crowd, throw them away, don't put them down the sink. Another tip: throw your lemon/lime/orange peels down it and grind for to get the scent of them in the kitchen.

Alas, Tapawingo is no more. I haven't been to anyplace in that area for at least a couple years, so I don't have up-to-date info, but here's where I'd be hitting: The Rowe Inn, also in Ellsworth, is very good. We used to go down for weekends and have dinner at Tapawingo one night, Rowe Inn the second. Rowe Inn is more casual, but food is excellent. Chandler's in Petoskey also was very good. Don't worry about the wineries - they're fun to visit, but in general, the wine is nothing to write home about.

Interesting. I haven't tried it, but my gut feeling was that putting the food that close to the broiler would end up burning things - pretty much your experience. I also know from experience that my broiler element does not heat evenly, and I wonder how much that would throw things off. My range is going on 15 years old, has been moved into 3 different houses (you know how mad it makes realtors when you tell them the range is not being sold with the house? REALLY mad) and across the country. It's not perfect, but I'm used to it and it loves me . I'll be really surprised if the calculations work, but I am going to give it a try before I give up. And if Nathan wants a very imperfect, but well-used and well-loved range to re-do his calculations with, I'd be happy to have him over.

Anyone calculate the "sweet spot" of their broiler, per pages 2-22 and 2-23? I just did, and there's a few issues. First off, the rods in my electric oven are not evenly spaced; the element consists of 3 U-shaped rods, making 6 straight rods, and the middle one is slightly bigger than the 2 on each side, so my rods range from about 4.5 cm from each other to about 6.5 cm. That gives me a "sweet spot" that ranges from about 2.5 cm - 3.25 cm from the rods. That's an inch to an inch and a quarter for us metric-challenged people. That's a LOT closer to the element than I've been broiling at. I'm not even sure if I'm steady-handed enough to get something like a pizza in the oven if I've only got an inch to do it in. And it's confounded by the fact that the element is set in a metal support that hangs down about a quarter inch below the elements. In order to really broil in the sweet spot, I'd almost have to come up with some sort of system to raise and lower the rack so that I could put the food on the rack, then raise it to the right level. Hmmm.....

Hey! I'm a girl! I've got 'em and I've been cooking with them and active in the threads. I've made the Mac & Cheese before I ever got the books, I've made the mushroom ketchup, attempted the gelato, and have my eye on a few other things. Currently waiting for my chamber vacuum sealer to arrive before trying much more. I've read through the first volume and on to the second. I hadn't noticed the gender division, but then again, pretty much everything in my life is that way. I'm a software engineer by day, into video games, like to read scifi/fantasy and science books (among other things), and like to cook enough to buy Modernist Cuisine. I'm used to being in the boy's club. I dunno why most women aren't into this stuff, but they're not. I don't let it worry me.

I made the Mac & Cheese with nothing but kappa, and it ended up being runny even at fridge temp, but I think other people have reported the same results with iota. It froze just fine - I used about a third immediately, then the rest a couple weeks later. There was no separation or anything like that, if that's what you were thinking. It was fine after being frozen, just runny, like those jars of icky cheez whiz kinda stuff they sell by the chips in the grocery store. Tasted great, though!

Funny - I just called my local dealer yesterday. In the US: Medium $525 Large $725 X-Large $995

Mine, with pug: As soon as I got them, my husband said "Let's clear off the table and they can live there as long as you want them to." Heck if that's not a good use for a formal kitchen table, I don't know what it. 95% of the time we eat at our kitchen bar or in the living room.

Question on the mushroom ketchup - I made it today, and it's delicious. But it makes a ton! I don't see any reason why I can't freeze it, does anyone else? As much as I like a good burger, I'd have to eat one every day for a month to use up this much ketchup.

I thought this was interesting in light of all the "OMG Modernist Cuisine is JUST TOO WEIRD! NOBODY cooks that way!" press that's been going around - I made the Mac & Cheese a couple weeks ago, and had some leftover cheese in the freezer. My 74-year-old mother came over for dinner the other night (spaghetti & marinara), and we had leftover spaghetti when we were all done eating. On a whim, I put the spaghetti and the leftover Modernist Cuisine cheese in a container and sent it home with her, with instructions on how to heat it up (in a pan, with some milk or water). She just called me this morning. She made it for dinner for her, my Dad, and my 65 year old aunt last night. They were blown away, said it was the best Mac & Cheese any of them had ever had, and, after I told her how to make the cheese sauce, she now wants me to get her some carrageenan and sodium citrate because the recipe is so darn easy that she'll make it herself. So much for Modernist Cuisine only being for ultra elitist cooking nerds - my Mom's a decent enough cook, but not one to do anything too fussy or spend all day in the kitchen (at least not now - 20 years ago, maybe). If she's willing to take a stab at it, I think these recipes/techniques are definitely going to be trickling down to the non-cooking-nerd population much more quickly than the naysayers are expecting.

Michigan's UP. I will venture to guess I'm the only person in the area with a copy, but would love to be proved wrong. Home cook, like to experiment, always up for something new. My day job is writing software; I like to think it's the engineer in me that's drawn to Modernist Cuisine.

I downloaded it and it's clever, but not THAT clever. Calorie-wise, it's a crapshoot, even when it correctly identifies an item. For example, I took a picture of 9 Jelly Belly jelly beans, an easily calculable calorie count of about 35 cals. It correctly identified the food as Jelly Belly jelly beans, but reported the calorie count as something like 120-140 cals. Totally off in an easily identified picture. So if it can't do things like that correctly, how the heck can it figure out more complex food? As others have pointed out, there's only so much info you can get from looking at an item. Whole-milk versus fat-free, etc, can't be identified by sight. And even if they could, I don't see how it can do portion sizes accurately. I just don't think it's possible to do what the app says it can do. It's hard enough for humans to figure out accurate nutrition by just looking at a plate (trust me - I do carb counting as I'm a Type 1 diabetic and my health depends on it), there's no way a computer can do it better with a simple picture, at least not with today's technology.

So those of you with the VP112 - is there anything it hasn't done well for you? Any regrets you didn't get a beefier model? Looking at getting one, and so far I'm not reading anything that says I should go for anything other than the VP112, but want to make sure I know the pros/cons. I'd actually like the smaller version as I have some hopes of lugging around 50 pounds by myself, whereas the 90 pound version would involve listening to my husband swear every time I wanted to move it.

I had to try this. I did banana puree from frozen bananas, since that's what I had on hand. Bananas, simple syrup per the recipe, no citric acid. Blend in vita-mix, stir over salted ice water until really cold. I had no clean pint jars, but I have the plastic vacuum container pictured next to the mango recipe so figured that would work. It's about 50 oz, so I measured out 120 grams of the banana puree (3x what they say to put in the 1 pint jars) and hooked up the foodsaver. I did the vacuum override, let it go for about 5 minutes, and.... nothing. Well, maybe a slight puff. But disappointing overall. On the plus side, I see a banana daiquiri in my future. And a chamber sealer, as soon as I figure out where to put it (not to mention how to pay for it.)

Ribs in general are amazing. I do baby back ribs at 155 for 24-30 hours and they're amazing. Probably my favorite sous-vided dish so far.

I actually like this style of book quite a bit. Both me and my husband were giggling because Modernist Cuisine reminded us both of the World Book/National Geographic/Encyclopedias we both liked reading as kids. Lots of pictures! Interesting sidebars! Graphs and charts! The only thing missing are series of transparent pages that you can peel back to see various layers of things, like skin-muscles-organs-skeleton. I'm a bit disappointed Nathan didn't include anything like that, though the cutaways make up for it. (and yeah, we're nerds. He wooed me over our shared childhood love of encyclopedias.)

Book 1, page 1. Start reading. As far as cooking, though, I've made the Mac & Cheese already as the recipe was posted here. Next up is the mushroom ketchup and maybe the cheese for the burger. Debating if I want to do the meat for the burger - seems like a lot of work and others have posted that it's not that huge of a step above a high quality standard burger. Also have been skipping around a bit and reading the wine chapter (gotta try hyperdecantation) and bits of the sausage chapter. And the BBQ sauces. And the Pastrami. And the pulled pork. And by then, I'm sure I'll have another list of things-to-try!

For those of you who have made the mushroom ketchup - any good suppliers for freeze-dried shiitakes or shiitake powder? Or can I substitute normally-dried shiitakes (or even porcinis? I have a ton of dried porcini)? I think I've found everything else, but I'm coming up with nothing on these two items.

It came! It's here! In one piece, and perfect!

They were on sale for $1.99/lb. I don't know what I'm going to do with them (though I have ideas!) but I had to have 'em. One is already confit, I'm thinking of roasting a second, and the other two will end up either as more confit or sausage, depending on how much I like the first round of confit. And stock. I had no clue what I'm going to do with goose stock, but heck if I'm going to throw those carcasses away.

FedEx is killing me... it's "out for delivery", I hear a truck, look outside and it's FedEx. YAAAAAYYY!!! Guy walks up with a teeny tiny box, it's only then I notice it's FedEx ground, and he's bringing me a completely inconsequential item that I forgot I even ordered. I think I'm going to implode. With my luck, I'll get ten other deliveries today, each from someone I *think* is bringing me MC, and by the time it really does come I'll be a total nervous wreck. And on another note, I had not one but TWO dreams last night that FedEx dunked my books in water & snow & mud and they showed up completely ruined.

Tuna-noodle casserole is definitely comfort food for me. I use the recipe from the Joy of Cooking if I want to do it the way my Mom used to - a couple cans of tuna, a couple cans of Cream of Mushroom Soup, egg noodles, peas, cover with crushed potato chips and bake. This recipe from Bon Appetit is a fair bit more work, but is amazing. Much better than the above, but not as convenient for a throw-together after work dinner.