MelissaH

Never tried it. I have an apple peeler, which works fine on apples but not so well on squash. And for small quantities of apples, a vegetable peeler is great. MelissaH

Some of you may recall that exactly one year ago, in the thread on multi-tasking equipment, I posted about one of my desires for my new kitchen: I'm a lucky woman. My husband did go for it over the summer, and I'm here to show you the results. Behold, the lathe, with its fodder in place: It's a Delta LA200 Midi Lathe, which I run on the slowest speed of 500 rpm. When I choose my squashes, I look for relatively straight ones, with thicker necks. To prep the squash, I wipe it with a damp paper towel to remove any surface dirt, and then cut off the top and bottom with a sharp knife, just enough to expose a flat surface. My husband built me the piece on the right side of the photo, which I use to hold the squash in place. It's basically a flat circular piece of wood with three screws. The lathe grabs the wood, and the screws grab the squash. To install the squash into the lathe, I simply jam it into the screws, trying my best to center it. Then I slide the live-center on the other end into place, crank it up a bit more, and secure it. (That's my hand securing it in the photo above.) Once it's secured in place, I let 'er rip! I've made a movie of the process and you can watch it here. (Moderators: can I embed the video directly?) I use an ordinary gouge, although I'd like to find one with a plastic handle so it's less likely to be adversely affected by squashy goop. I thought about using a parting tool to mark grooves for easy even slicing, but decided I'd lose too much of the good stuff to make it worth bothering. Those of you with sharp eyes will note that the lathe is technically not in the kitchen. It's in the garage, and it's easy to move outside. There would have been room in the kitchen, but I would have spent far too much time cleaning squashy goop off my kitchen walls. When I'm done, here's what I look like after shaking off some of the turnings: The full face shield is essential. I usually change into ready-to-wash clothes before starting, and I always wear a hat because my curly hair is tremendously good at holding on to squash turnings. The cleanup's actually not too bad, just requiring a little time with a broom and a handful of paper towels. The towel draped over the lathe keeps any sticky juice from contacting the bare metal, which helps immensely. I remove the turnings, wipe down with a damp paper towel, and then dry with another paper towel. I've learned that it's easiest to clean the live center if you remove it from the lathe. I do make a point of peeling multiple squashes in a session, since it takes as much time to clean up after one squash as it does after half a dozen squashes. And the payoff's tremendous! All those recipes that start with peeled butternut squash are now remarkably easy. A peeled squash is no problem to cube into perfect half-inch dice, or reasonably thin slices, or any other shape. (And who knows, the lathe might just turn out to have other uses as well!) Got any favorite squash recipes? MelissaH

An update on my dinner meeting at Golden Ponds: the food was adequate. I've never been a big fan of pre-cooked pasta, but I was able to find enough to eat. The big "highlight" of the evening was the make-your-own-sauce bar: you chose the pasta shape, a sauce, and whatever add-ins you wanted, and they heated it all together in a little frying pan with some oil. They also had some pre-made combinations, including spaghetti with escarole. I asked for a few pine nuts to be toasted, to sprinkle on top. They did this without blinking. Would I go back? Sure, if it were for another meeting. But if I'm hauling 80 miles over to the west side of Rochester, I'm looking for something I don't get at home. And there's no shortage of Italian restaurants in Oswego. MelissaH

This thread so makes me want to go to Italy! I guess I'll just file it on my "someday" list for now.... MelissaH

We do a lot of our shopping this way. We usually go in with a list, if nothing else a mental list of what days we'll need dinner for that week. (For instance, I have band rehearsal on Thursday nights, and I typically need to have finished eating well before my husband gets home from work, so Thursdays are usually "fend for yourself" dinner. But once we get there, we'll often see what looks good, and plan our meals that way. I'll often fill in the gaps with a trip to the orchard store, or a repeat trip to the supermarket later in the week if I'm heading out that way for other errands, and we're getting better about remembering to get something out of the freezer a couple of days before we want to eat it. The vacuum sealer makes a big difference for us, also. MelissaH

But there's no reason why, once it's frozen, you couldn't slip it out of the pan. Then when it's time to bake, you can just put it back into the pan. And in the meantime, you'll have the pan available for other uses. I have bad memories left from every time I've tried to use a disposable foil pie pan. MelissaH

Andie, that's beautiful! (I'm somewhat partial to Art Deco styling, but if I had something as gorgeous as that, I might have designed my kitchen around it! MelissaH

I'm going to a dinner meeting tomorrow evening at Golden Ponds Restaurant & Party House (500 Long Pond Rd, on the northwest side of the city). We're apparently going to be "served" from the pizza and pasta buffet. Has anyone eaten there? Should I come hungry, or get something for immediate consumption at Wegman's when I stop to pick up supplies beforehand? (And if any of you reading this are technical communicators and plan to be there, PM me please!) MelissaH

What's a lumberjack cake? MelissaH

I'd also look for soups where you're tasting the "stuff" in the soup more than whatever stock you use. Look for recipes where it says you could substitute water if you don't have stock on hand, or for recipes that call for water instead of stock; this is usually a good tip-off that the stock's flavor isn't so important to the soup as a whole. IIRC, Julia Child's potato soup recipe is one of these. I think I found her recipe on line here if you don't have Mastering. I made a soup last night that might also fall into this category. I was sort-of following a recipe from the new Alice Waters book. You start by cooking some beans (she said white beans, I used Rancho Gordo's Red Nightfall beans because that's what I had) in a 50/50 mix of water and chicken stock. She said to soak overnight, and then cook the beans on the stove, but I cooked my beans without soaking in the oven (of course) and I used water alone because we're having vegetarian guests at the end of the week. Then, you slice a couple of onions, and saute them, a few sage leaves, and a bay leaf (I suspect she meant fresh, but I used dried) in a couple of Tbsp of olive oil (no duck fat in the house at the moment) till the onions are soft. Then you add a medium butternut squash, which you've peeled and cut into half-inch cubes. My squash was huge, so I just cubed up the neck, leaving the lower portion with seeds intact. Anyhow, you saute with the squash for another few minutes. If I'd been thinking ahead, I would have probably tossed the squash with a little more oil and thrown it under the broiler for a few minutes to get some color, or maybe just oven-roasted the cubes, because I couldn't tell that cooking the squash in the same pan with onions did anything to it. Once the squash has gotten its headstart cooking, you add liquid. She has you drain the beans and add 6 cups of their cooking liquid, but I just used a container of nondescript chicken stock from the freezer, plus a container of water, which seemed like about 6 cups worth. The soup simmers till the squash is soft. The instructions say to add the beans when the squash starts to get tender, but I waited till nearly the end of the cooking process, and then I scooped in a few ladlefuls of the beans, with a little of the cooking liquid. (The recipe calls for a cup of dried beans, but as long as I was oven-cooking them, I went ahead and did the whole pound. I have leftover beans to do something with later this week now.) The soup was very autumnal, and could easily be taken in a number of directions. With a little chile, it could be turned in a Mexican direction. Add corn in some form, and you'd have something along the lines of a Three Sisters soup. We went European and ate ours with a grating of Romano and some toasted bread. Puree it, maybe with a potato added to help thicken it, and it's more elegant; maybe play up the fall-sweetness aspects with a pretty little fan of apple or pear up top? MelissaH

That sounds wonderful, Andie! I used my boiled cider to make a cookie. I got the recipe from King Arthur Flour. They were a big hit with my husband, which is exactly what I'd intended. MelissaH

Andie, as it turns out, we actually have both a hygrometer AND a refractometer (and a siphon starter ) in the house. My husband is a homebrewer, so we have all sorts of fun toys. Except that the hygrometer and refractometer are both currently in to school, as a colleague has a student working on a research project involving mashing and sugars. But they'll be back home before the next brewing session, whenever that happens. I'm glad to know that nothing disastrous happens if you overheat the solution. I wondered if, at 220 degrees F, it would somehow drastically change for the worse. I didn't measure the temperature of my boiled cider. But when I took it off the stove, it felt about like what happens when you heat up maple syrup. It's been in the fridge overnight, and it's still liquid enough to flow, albeit a very thick liquid. Is it possible to make an apple-flavored caramel, either by boiling down cider enough or by using cider to moisten sugar and then boil that down? MelissaH

What happens if you get it above 220 degrees F? MelissaH

Thanks, Andie. By the time I got this, I'd reduced my quart or so of cider down to about 1/3 cup. I nearly had a catastrophe: the little saucepan I'd used is a little handle-heavy if there isn't enough inside, and if the pot's not perfectly oriented on the burner grate, it will tip. When I heard a clunk coming from the kitchen, I didn't think much of it at first, and figured there was a cat on the counter, knocking things around. Then I remembered which pot I'd used, and went dashing in to check. Fortunately, enough liquid had boiled away that tipping the pan didn't cause anything to slosh out. At that point, I poured what I had into a metal 1-cup measure, which I left on the burner and continued to evaporate. I think I've eliminated enough water that I won't have a storage issue...if it lasts that long. Next time, I think I'll do a bigger batch. I very much like the crockpot idea. MelissaH

We have some fresh apple cider. I know we won't drink it all before it starts to turn fizzy, so I put some into a small saucepan and brought it up to a boil, then down to a simmer to reduce into boiled cider, since lately I've found more than a few recipes that call for it. My question: how much do I need to reduce my cider? I want to make something that won't take up much fridge space, but will still pour reasonably well. Thanks, MelissaH

Jumping in here, as my French is quite dysfunctional till I've had French and only French in my ears for a couple of days: You'll do fine! Go visit! MelissaH

The quirk I'd tell her about: make sure the oven is set up exactly the way you want it BEFORE you hit the clean button. I think that may be where my problem started. I hit clean, and then realized, "Oops, I wanted to leave the racks out this time to see if it makes a difference in how well they slide." I turned it off, pulled the racks out, and got the door closed again—but only after the latch had started its slide to the lock position. (You can see the latch when the door's open.) The door still closed without a problem, thanks to the way the latch is shaped, but I wonder if I inadvertently messed something up in the safety/lawyerproofing switches. Thankfully, it was a relatively easy, if time-consuming and energy-inefficient fix. MelissaH

Aren't Tuscan breads historically low in salt? Something to do with salt being taxed heavily, people learning to make do without, and the historical preference carrying through? MelissaH

Lonnie, Over the summer, my husband and I did a trip around Lake Ontario. We spent a night in Jordan Station, and greatly enjoyed visiting the Upper Canada Cheese Company and the Cave Spring winery. I'm afraid we won't be of much help with respect to restaurants, since we were camping and cooking our own. MelissaH

Cream of tartar and alum would both be considered mineral, not vegetable. There's nothing volatile, air-sensitive, or light-sensitive. These aren't particularly water-sensitive either. Baking powder and baking soda (both members of the mineral kingdom also) are water-sensitive. That's why you need to consider replacing these, whereas cream of tartar and alum would probably still be fine after decades, if a little hard. MelissaH

This week has been great fun. Thanks for taking us on! MelissaH

I think the vinegar is there as a kitchen-convenient and edible form of acid. Most vinegar is about 5% acetic acid in water, with a little bit of other compounds for color or flavor if it's anything but white vinegar. As I understand it, acid inhibits gluten formation, and would therefore help prevent the dough from turning tough. If water's an issue, I wonder if a solid acid, such as cream of tartar, would have the same effect. I'm guessing you need at least a little bit of gluten formation or the dough would just fall apart completely, but what would happen if you used all vodka, and a bit of cream of tartar to make your pie crust? MelissaH

My MIL puts vinegar in her pie crust, as well as an egg. She does it this way because it's how she learned from her mom and grandma. Despite the fact that she uses Crisco and not butter, her crusts always seem to turn out well. My MIL's grandmother wouldn't ever have dreamed of using alcohol in anything. The family story goes that the only question she ever got wrong on a driver's license exam is the question about the legal limit for blood alcohol content. She refused to answer, because she'd never use alcohol and therefore the question didn't apply to her. MelissaH

Peanut oil. I decided to try using peanut oil to re-lube the oven rack slides, since they (and not the rack themselves) are apparently the source of the rack stickiness post-cleaning. It's got the highest smoke point of the oils I keep around, so I decided to give it a shot. (If I'd had grapeseed oil, I would have used that, but we don't have any family or friends allergic to peanuts to worry about.) I poured some onto a folded paper towel, and greased all four rack heights, on both sides of the oven. And the racks slid slicker than...well, we won't go there. I used the oven for half a turkey breast. Put it on a rack over a cookie sheet, with some wedged and oiled potatoes. Convection, 375 degrees F, till the instant-read thermometer hit 165. Not a wisp of smoke to be seen. MelissaH

Which I think is a wonderful idea, especially if you can do so without adding a ton of extra sugar to the crust. MelissaH