MelissaH

Some things, I do freeze. But I have far more shelf space than freezer space!

Get a different blender? Or a different jar?

I'm only half joking when I say that I'd volunteer to do your dishes if I could hang out in the kitchen with you, and eat some of what you produce!

There was a wonderful Cambodian restaurant called Phnom Penh in Cleveland, OH, when I lived there eons ago. It was a favorite when some of us wanted to do something a little bit special for lunch. I don't remember a whole lot about it, except that it was delicious, lots of noodles and fresh ingredients and chile heat if you wanted it. In particular, I remember the one dish that we all always seemed to gravitate towards, because we could never decide what we wanted and it had some of everything: noodles, soup, and slices of eggroll. For the life of me, I can't remember what it was called, though. I also remember the frozen (nonalcoholic) drinks they'd make, especially the one with jackfruit. I wish I lived closer to somewhere with a large Cambodian population, so I had a chance of eating more!

I find that microplaned zest and chiffonade zest are different. I'll do the chiffonade if I specifically want pieces that I can strain out relatively easily, but most of the time I like the small fluffy pieces I get from the microplane because they seem to do a better job of making the oils available. Then again, I'm not in a small NYC apartment kitchen, and I'm usually pressed more for time than for space.

What hasn't yet been mentioned about a microplane is that with the very fine, fluffy shreds of cheese, I find that I don't need as much. I get a much more even distribution of the shredded cheese, more even than with a rotary grater, so that a little bit of cheese goes a very long way. Both my pocketbook and my waistline appreciate this.

Our 22 qt Mirro has served us well for many many years. Because we tend to do large batches of pressure-canned stuff, it does the trick for us. We usually take it outdoors and use the giant propane burner that my husband uses when he homebrews, which makes very short work of bringing the filled canner up to temperature.

Things I use the microwave for: *Taking the chill off refrigerated cat food before giving it to the cat *Melting butter and chocolate (separately or together) *Reheating leftovers *Thawing frozen vegetables *Heating milk, either for cooking or for hot beverages *Making roux when I'm too lazy to stand in front of the stove and stir and stir and stir and stir and stir *Cooking an ear or two of corn *Making a serving of oatmeal (this actually isn't me; it's when my MIL visits) *Starting baked potatoes For these tasks, I can't find a better tool than the microwave.

We do this often, and it works marvelously. No corn silk flying around the kitchen, or getting stuck in your teeth. It's not efficient for more than a couple of ears of corn, but for just the two of us on a day when it's too hot to think of eating much, it's perfect.

Appenzeller?? Where did you find it? Was it good and funky? (We've imported it from Ottawa, on occasion, but don't see it around here.)

Wegmans oreo knockoffs are good, but I wish they made the version with the vanilla cookies and chocolate cream! I really don't like the Newman-Os. Something in the flavor and the texture really turns me off. Maybe it reminds me of an old person's musty house, for some reason? Visiting a supermarket in NE Ohio earlier this week, I saw Golden Oreos with limeade creme. We didn't get any because I was afraid they wouldn't do well in the car with the sun beating down on them for 6+ hours.

Those smashed potatoes are my absolute favorite way to use what is marketed around here as "salt size" potatoes. We'll sometimes do the crisping on the grill. Have you ever tried that with the egg?

Kira looked incredibly happy eating that waffle. Do you think the sandwich technique would work with "normal" waffle batter also? (My usual is the ingredients from Marion Cunningham's yeast waffle recipe, sometimes with buckwheat flour subbed for about a third of the white flour, mixed according to the technique from Cook's Illustrated.) And please, yell when you're getting ready to plan your next Trader Joe's run!

How does the steam-bake mode compare to, say, using a regular oven but either tightly covering the food in question or pouring hot water into a preheated dish alongside? I'm still having trouble wrapping my mind around the benefits. Anna or Kerry, is the Costco in Sudbury new, or has it been there a while?

Anna, is the smaller-than-1/4-sheet size of the Combi Oven starting to get on your nerves at all, especially compared to the Breville?

So, KennethT, shall we put you first on the list of beta-testers for THAT?

You have my sympathies on the dishwasher's infirmity. But I have friends who only ever use theirs as a drying rack! How do you keep the swtrawberry crumble from getting all watery? When I bake strawberries, they always seem to exude their liquid in an effort to avoid the heat of the oven, and whatever else is in with them becomes intolerably soggy.

I'm with the foil contingent, regardless of whether I'm cooking them indoors or out.

Mine looks like a white plastic pair of scissors, except that instead of blades there's a cup with a hole on one side, and a pusher on the other side. Then again, I'm absolutely anal about pitting cherries for use in baked goods or for freezing, and I won't put a cherry into the "pitted" bowl until I know I have put the pit into the pit bowl.

Martha gives me the willies. She's got a baking show on now in our area, but she can't measure worth squat, yet she talks about how important it is to measure properly. If she really felt that way, she would tell us all to buy a scale, and show us how to use it.

How many ovens will you have available, once everything is unpacked and set up?

I'm thinking breadfruit, maybe?

When I was in Scotland last month, I obviously forgot to look at the varieties of oats. This linked recipe specifically calls for "medium oatmeal." What would the other options for oatmeal be? What do they look like? I ask because most U.S. oatmeal is of the rolled oats variety, and looks flattened. The Scottish oats look more 3D (and have more fine matter than the Irish oats I can find here).

I anxiously await your further experiments. I am particularly interested to hear if it and the Breville are really different versions of the same thing, or if they're different enough that they could both warrant a place in the kitchen (sorta like a blender and a food processor).

Or visit a homebrew supply store.