MelissaH

I agree with everyone who's saying to look really really really hard at the big one. It's enough larger that it can take the place of your standard range oven for many things, in ways the smaller one could not. I can fit a 9-inch dish (square or round) in mine, with plenty of room around it. My standard 13-inch pizza screen also fits in nicely (and the oven does a reasonably good job on a pizza). We don't typically get chickens that large, but I agree with gfweb that it probably would fit in.

Or, if you don't already have one, have you given any thought to a pressure cooker? We like ours because it enables us to not have to plan ahead quite so much.

We've been cooking our scallops sous vide since we put together the equipment to do so. We'd sear them in duck fat if we ever had any. Even just seared in oil, they're amazing, right up there with some scallops we had from a restaurant in a small town on the west coast of Scotland, a few years before we'd ever thought of doing them sous vide ourselves. About the only thing that might make them more perfect would be if there were scallops growing in the water about half a mile north of us. Last time, we wondered about putting them in small buns and serving them as scallop sliders!

That plum cake is the recipe my MIL stumbled upon and made, because we had plums to use. It was delicious. And, lucky me: we have plum halves, pitted and frozen and waiting for winter, when otherwise there wouldn't be plums for plum cake. Kerry, you and Anna always find the most fascinating things to do on Manitoulin. What do people who live there full-time do?

I've never bought an eyeball, but an ophthalmologist friend used to do so often when she was in school. She liked cow eyes for practice, because they were nice and big. What does one do in the kitchen with eyeballs, other than practice your eye surgery techniques? What's the edible part?

I miss shopping with my husband. We love to shop together, and in fact back when we were in grad school, some of our "dates" were spent in the supermarket doing our shopping. When we visit somewhere new, we always make a point of going to a supermarket there. We drive relatives bonkers when we go to visit them, because the very first thing we do is a "recon" where we walk up and down every single aisle to see what they have, and only then do we put together a list and start putting things into our cart. My town of 18,000 people is down to one supermarket, which we both dislike tremendously and therefore don't want to spend money in. However, I make the hour's drive down to the city each week, for my regular Friday morning pickup hockey game. Afterwards, I do our regular weekly shopping at a much nicer supermarket near the rink. We've made a ritual of compiling the week's menu, and the shopping list, a night or two before. Anything we need to fill in the gaps at either the orchard store or the small grocer with the terrific meat counter, I pick up during the middle of whatever weekday I'm in the appropriate neighborhood, alone. Sigh. We do make a point of visiting the farmer's market together each week, when it's the season. And we periodically get a shopping trip together into the city on a weekend, usually when we need to do other things that we can't do in our town anyway.

But have you tried a taste of it, though? Just asking. I have tried it, and it doesn't work for me. My favorite tomato soup is the tomato-mushroom bisque from Coopersmith's in Ft. Collins, CO. That might go with a grilled cheese sandwich, but I'd rather just make a meal out of the soup and the bread. Then again, as far as my husband's concerned, mac and cheese must must must be accompanied by a slice of bread slathered in smooth peanut butter. I always thought mac and cheese just needed a salad alongside. But I digress.

I'm with the contingent of sliced American cheese (but only the processed cheese, NOT cheese food or <shudder> cheese food product) on storebought sandwich bread, cooked in a frying pan with plenty of butter, but no other additions please. My husband insists on tomato soup (from the can, mixed with a can of milk) alongside but I won't do that.

175 degrees Celsius is about 350 degrees Fahrenheit. So no, 175 isn't low if you're metric.

One year of CSA pretty much destroyed kale for me. When you make a kale salad, does it still look like a big overwhelming bunch of green? Or does it start looking more approachable? I still can't face kale, and it's been nearly three years since our last CSA share.

You and Kerry the "Bad Girls" of eGullet. I'm sure they have visions of the two of you in your kitchen, cooking up things other than food. I still have several of those. I used them for sculpting wax for little figurines for jewelry (dogs and etc.) Unlike regular wax sculpting tools, those can be gently heated (center of shaft wrapped with a small strip of duct tape) for working the harder wax types and with a little careful grinding on the diamond lathe, can be sharpened to a razor edge... It's being able to look at an item and see ALL of its possibilities that makes shopping in thrift stores so rewarding... Yeah - hubby took one off my hands - he'll probably use it to spread glue or something. Those look like chemistry lab specials.

My favorite fillings are the easy ones: jam or fruit butter (bonus points for homemade, but store-bought also works) or Nutella.

We keep our freezer inventory in a shared Google doc. (Ours is just a word processing document, but there's no reason you couldn't use a spreadsheet instead.) Both of us can access it, and because it's cloud-based, we can even use our phones to look at it while we're shopping.

Thanks, Rona. I had planned to use it in a Filipino dish! I may still not like it but it won't likely show up in a spaghetti sauce. Anna, when you do use it, I'll be curious to hear what you think of it, and whether it's worth looking for.

Does Trader Joe's ever have pistachio butter? (I'd go and look myself, but we're now "only" 90 minutes from the nearest location, and I don't have plans to travel that way any time soon.) It seems like the sort of item they might carry.

All you curry-haters: if it's called something that doesn't include the word "curry," is it still bad?

How fine was that crystal structure of the halvah? (Did we ever get an answer to that question, which came up at the 2013 candy workshop?)

I'm envious of your ability to get butter puff pastry in the supermarket. Here, this time of the year, no such luck.

In my dishwasherless days, I avoided using the Cuisinart because I hate to wash the darn thing by hand. The only other thing I find as awful, and as dangerous, to wash by hand is my mandoline. Now that I have a dishwasher, it goes in the top rack. I think by the time I get all the pieces in, it takes up half the top rack. It's SO worth it to me!

We redid our kitchen several years ago. For me, the grill was a lifesaver, and the biggest challenge turned out to be the dishwashing, particularly of the larger pots and pans that didn't fit well into the small barsink we were using. Much as I hate to use them, paper plates and plastic utensils were a godsend. We ate a lot of sandwiches and salads. And the week I was watching a friend's cat was awesome, as I was able to cook up a bunch of stuff in her kitchen and freeze portions for later reheating. I couldn't imagine trying to be kitchenless in winter.

Does anyone by chance have an answer to these questions? I'd call the toll-free number and ask them. Mine didn't do this, either the first time or (after that fan started rattling incessantly) the second. Their customer service is excellent, and if there's a problem, they'll make it right.

To me, that dishonors the salad tremendously.

My go-to ideas for leftover steak are salad, fajitas, and stir-fry or fried rice or something of the sort, but it looks like others have pretty much covered those already. You could make sandwiches (with peppers and onions, or with ruthcooks's mustard idea). Add them to a SE Asian-ish peanut noodle dish with cucumber. Or make a quick summer vegetable saute or stew, and at the last minute, toss in the steak. Lucky you!

Anna, I'd be honored to have you come and cook for or with me sometime, but I think we each make our own breakfasts!

Nothing to add, except another voice asking for the results of the experiment!