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vilasman

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Everything posted by vilasman

  1. I read where one person has a lot of measuring spoons, cups and bowls and such and they use them all when cooking and they dont wash any of them until they are finished. I took that concept a few steps further. I actually bought enough of the basic cooking tools to basically have 3 sets. My wife cooks like a tornado, I clean very slowly. I cook slowly too. But my concept is.. wife cooks with one set of things... that set goes in the dishwasher and starts washing. Wife cooks with the 2nd set, it goes into the sink, awaiting the first to finish. If wife is not yet out of steam, she then moves on to the third set, the first set comes out dry, the second set goes in and starts washing. Usually by this time she needs a break but by the time she recovers, she has a nice clean kitchen and at least 2 sets of tools to work with.
  2. Well the garage and the porch and the basement all work, pretty much no matter how hot the pan is when you deposit them there. Problem is when you are ready to use said pan again, you must find your way back to the garage, the basement or the porch, and as often as not, that will force a change in planned pan, to stainless steel or anolon. And neither of those, will blacken a meat or for my taste, which lean toward campfire cooking, even cook okra, onions and tomatos the same. I tend to leave my double griddle in oven, ever ready to bake bacon and lately I have been leaving my pizza pan in as well, as much to bake bacon as to season the pan. My wife tends to turn the oven on without looking in it even though she knows I leave the pans in... and then I have to find a place to land a 350-400 degree pan. I only have a 4 burner stove. There are times I could use a 6 and it is in the plans. But in the mean time... There are times that I might use 2 or 3 cast iron pans together or in succession and when they come off the stove, and I am counter top space challenged I can't just dump them into the sink, soapy dishwater or the dishwasher like I can most things. But more than anything else, I get tired of having to bend over and dig them out when I am ready for one of them. What I want is to be able to land a pan somewhere... I have a cat. It can't be hot. I want easy access and I dont want my CI to be banished to the corner like a bad child. Now that I am getting the hang of the seasoning process I am liking my CI more than any other type of pan. For the things that it is good at.
  3. If you were going to make a stand or a cabinent to store your cast iron pans in, would you make it out of iron or wood? Which would do a better job or preserving the finish? A Iron or steel stand or cabinent would have the advantage of being able to receive the pan while it was still hot... Any thoughts? I have been playing with the idea of going to a welder and having something fabricated
  4. I have 3 lodge grill pans, a double burner grill/griddle, a 12" and probably a 6" as well. I love them. The 2 burner lives in the oven and makes bacon on a regular basis. The 12" Is the primary weapon of choice for fish or lamb or what ever I may want to cook right now . The baby one I use when the 12" is dirty and I am to lazy to clean it or for the middle of the night lamb chop. The best thing about my lodge is that a butter knife or at least my butter knife fits very conviently between the ridges. So if i need to chisel something out I have a ready dishwasher safe tool with which to do it. But as has been stated many times before, nothing sticks to my cast iron. And I have a lot of it. As long as you get anything loose that might stick before the pan cools, you shouldn't have a problem. I tend to use table salt to scrub it out with or absorb excess oil or bacon fat and carry it away.
  5. I see , I'm thinking.... a real reason for another toy...
  6. How interesting about the second full sized food processor. That really befuddles me. Now i have a 11 cu K/A that came with 2 smaller bowls a 7 cu and I think it is a 3 cu, which nest. And then i have cusinart mini chopper and the braun which has the min chopper. And I used the large one and the braun friday night, and the braun and the little one last night. but what would you do with two full sized processors at ounce.
  7. I had been eyeing a new hand held K/A. I want one with a very low first speed so that I dont spray myself with flour. Think you have brought me to a solution! I collect BBB coupons for just such occasions
  8. So... you can bake a cake at say 300 F, in a darker pan for a little longer time and you should come out with something close to a golden brown crust. I have a choice of pans. I have some SS steam table pans. My mom was a cafeteria manager so i have a lot of that stuff. I have some 10" wilton pans and I picked some 9" yesterday And I have a bunch on analon pans that I got to replace some Ultrex. The anolon pans are like olive colored and got them because nothing will stick to them. I also have a boat load pf pyrex in a bunch of sizes, including pie plates that i guess I could use to make layer cake. Now I have been using the SS pan since I was a kid with great longer exteriors, but they dont seem to come in shapes and sizes that normal people expect cakes to come in. I want to make bread and rolls and then cakes and a couple of kinds of pie. I am trying to sort out what will work best for baking a given thing
  9. Well, confession.... I inherited the junky gene from my mom... Also I am an electrician and I have 2 battery drills, and 3, I guess you would call them, regular drills, and I am planning on getting a 4th,(the kind you put a bit in and drill metal or wood or whatever) and then 2 drills for brick and concrete and I see myself getting 2 more. Now there are times when I will have 3 or 4 of them out at the same time. One to turn screws, one light one to go through joist and not make my arm hurt, one heavy one for situations that the light one wont go through like, 4 or 5 joist together and a masonry drill for that block wall that got in my way. Granted anyone of them given the right bit and enough time, would go through any of that stuff, but who wants to take the time. Besides you wear yourself out using the heavy drill for everything, and you wear your tool out using the light drill for everything. I also have to residences, neither of which has a large kitchen. The farm, everyone comes to a few times a year and for funerals and reunions and DW is the best cook in the family. The condo, we have had people over every weekend for a month now and she dosent seem to be slowing down. I guess multiple bowls and beaters would work, and save space, but last night, I used my K/A to whip or mix about 8 things in rapid succession, as soon as I finished one and got it in the oven, and could rinse the bowl and the paddle I was onto something else. With two mixers, it seems like I could have mix one, turned that over to my wife to finish, mix the next thing, she takes that over and I am back to the first. We would take turns. We have 2 counters and 2 cutting boards and we swap like that. Bowls I think it will be, but I want a new toy
  10. I have a 6 qt bowl lift Kitchen aid already. I dont have a lot of counter space. Any sane person would not be considering another Kitchen aid. Now that we have established that, for those of you who have more than one mixer....If I get a second bowl for my 6qt, will i kick myself later and wish that I had gone on and gotten another mixer. Really I just want a tilt head and I am tempted to get a pink one to support breast cancer and such. But would I really be better served by getting another bowl or 2?
  11. I think I saw a tip in one of the cooking maazines recently on how to bake a layer of a layer cake so that it would come out pretty flat and you wouldnt have to trim of that top hump. Any one have an idea of what it could be? I am using the largest wilton round cake pan.
  12. vilasman

    Waffles!

    For those of you who have tried the waffle recipe from fine cooking, have you run across any reciepes that were as light as that one but with more flavor or in some other way superior to that one?
  13. Another happy braun user here. I have the MCA 550 which i guess is 550 watts. It does have a lot of attachments. the little chopp jar, the big mixer smoothie jar, the ice crusher attachment, the whisk and the stick blender part. The motor housing part has a little wall holder that i will find a couple of inches of wall space to mount, maybe today. This is my second Braun , my first is stlill working... i gave it to my mom. I have seen people complain about the attachments. I am a big milkshake drinker and it is more convient to pull the smoothie jar out dump ince cream in it, whiz it up and, when I am trying to impress/scare people i will put a draw in the smoothie jar, take out the blade and drink straight from the smoothie jar. When I am not trying to aggravate my wife in front of her friends I have several huge glasses that I dump it into. Whiz some soapy water in it, rinse and done. Not take it apart, the glass and the base go in the dish washer, the rubber parts get washed by hand and then you re-assemble and put away. I make home made whipped cream, salad dressing and whip egg whites for various things. Grab the stick blender, I have a tall metal round bottomed mixie cup, drop the ingredients in it, whiz rinse and done. I have the mini cusinart FP processor, (now regulated to grinding spices/mixing spice blends and chewing up brown sugar (the second coffee grinder locked up)) and I have a K/A FP with the 3 bowls. If I just need a little bit of onion,pepper... chopped it's a lot easier to pop that little chopper bowl together and chop chop, rinse and be done. Instead of the process of dealing with the processor. Also , if you do it like we do it, there are times when you cook something to eat, while you are cooking a larger meal for guest or whatever or you cook something to eat while you are cleaning up a "tornado" ravaged kitchen like I am doing now, and I am getting hungery. The braun lets me prep some food for a side meal while my wife is cooking the main meal. Oddly enough, i rarely use the main blender stalk attachment.
  14. Does anyone have a full of butter, sinful, fattening, delicious dinner roll recipe, that takes a long time to cook ( or chort) but is worth the wait?
  15. Thank you ever so much for this answer, I understand now. I have about 14 pieces of it now and I love it. I would imagine that when food starts sticking its time to dump that pan. My interest was sparked because the professional line is hard to find except at discount stores and when I googled it I found that it is readily available outside of the US and that there where several pieces that I had never seen. Any who, I also have plenty of SS and Cast Iron for those scorching hot applications. Thanks again for the info.
  16. Argh! why must she be right
  17. Why does it seem that Anolon is treated like the illegitamate step child of exspensive cookware? I realize it's allclad or calphalon but I cant make anything stick to it and believe me my wife has tried Also I notice that anolon professional isn't really sold in the US. I am not sure that the other lines are as good as the professional but I dont like the handles on the other lines. Are there any real problems with Anolon?
  18. My wife and I are having a debate on whether it is proper to use place mats and chargers at the same time and whether any plate can be used as a charger or does the charger have to be bigger than the plate used for eating Any thoughts?
  19. I have a friend who is a CIA graduate, that I try to encourage to join this happy throng all the time. Whenever I do she says that she already knows al the techniques of cooking and that when ever she checks out stuff on foodtv or the other discussion groups that it is just rehashing material that she learned in school. What would some of you say is the benefit of joining and participating here. She is not currently working in food.
  20. after reading this thread, I was inspired to be adventerous, I sprinkled them with Emeril's essence and dipped them in aged cabernet wine vinegar. It wasn't bad but I think malt vinegar might have been better.
  21. My first post here... The one thing that I would add is, everytime the wife and I do a dinner I also make notes on things like whether we needed more serving spoons, how many quarts the punch bowl holds, (so I can better plan for the drink) and all those other things that occur to you while you are serving and entertaining or washing the dishes and cleaning up.
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