Porthos

Beautiful dinner.

I purchased a refrigerator/freezer alarm from Thermoworks (Thermoworks Fridge/Freezer Alarm (RT801)) and it certainly has paid for itself. My freezer is just through the door into the garage and the alarm sits on top of it next to the door, making it reasonably easy to hear..

Yesterday I did pork loin chops again. I normally do them for 3 1/2 hour at 143 F. I decided to try 9 hours at 143 F. Instead of them being more tender for the additional time they were dry. My DW couldn't eat her piece at all. I will stick to my 3 1/2 hours in the future.

I placed the order for the TimeStack and 1 1/2 hours later I had "it's shipped" info including a tracking number. I have been inpressed with the quick handling of the several orders I have placed with them.

@blue_dolphin I won't have my hands on it until Sep 13 give or take a couple of days, putting it into initial service on the 16th. I am hoping to successfully record alternate alarm sounds instead of my voice. On my last cell phone I had loaded 150 sound effects.I used the submarine dive horn for the timer alarm on that phone. Very distinctive.

Thanks to my DW I will be getting the new TimeStack 4-channel timer I mentioned above, in yellow, for my birthday. September suddenly feels like it's a long way away. Yes, I want it for my ren faire kitchen. At Northern it is not unusual to have 3 different things happening at once that need timers. I like the fact that you can record individual messages or sounds for each timer.

Classic Thermapen Open Box—Only $63 each! http://campaign.thermoworks.com/2017_07_26_classic_thermapen_openbox_cons.html?utm_source=Nl-2017July26&utm_medium=email&utm_term=vib_link&utm_content=inbox&utm_campaign=July2017-Classic-Thermapen-OpenBox-cs

Not a wonderful photo but enough for you to see, at the top of the bag, how the grated cheese holds up to being frozen.

I don't know if they are coming back or not but I found these two reviews on the BBB website interesting: L'Epicerie Customer Reviews

When rolling with the punches I recommend rum punch.

Let's see. $100.00 for an unproven (to me) CI pan or keep using my Griswold #8 that I restored after picking it up for under $10.00. There is what appears to be another Griswold #8 under the crud at one of my local thrift stores but for the moment I am not restoring any more CI.

I am part way through season 2; just finished the Alex Atala episode. When I read, I only read biographies any more so the biographical aspects of this series are intriguing me. I must admit, though, that the title made me think it was going to be featuring sitting at various chef's tables in their kitchens. I was unaware that Chef's Table could also refer to tasting menus and restaurants. On the culinary landscape I am a peasant, a simple country cook who can't conceive of eating many courses of small tastes so, outside of the visual impact of presentation, the food being presented just doesn't wow me. But the insights into the lives of the chefs is well worth the watching. YMMV.

Does my crushing Ritz Crackers into my metaloaf mixture count for a panade or are they simply a binder? My wife asks about using oatmeal but I like Rits better.

Not on sale, but a new product of interest. http://campaign.thermoworks.com/2017_07_24_introducing_timestack_cons.html?utm_source=Nl-2017July24&utm_medium=email&utm_term=vib_link&utm_content=inbox&utm_campaign=July2017-Introducing-TimeStack-cs

We're getting fits and starts of monsoonal rain but it is suppoed to get up to 34C this afternoon. Not my first choice in weather. Frittata looks very tasty.

Longer. Even though I am not playing, just watching.

The chops ended up going for 15 hours and that was fine with me. They were disappointingly tough. Instead of cubing the meat I end up slicing it about about 8 mm x 8mm by 3 mm thick . This can be chewed. I think I will leave shoulder meat for stews.

Lamb shoulder chops, 134 F for 12ish hours. They will get seared, chilled and then cubed to becme an addition to a Greek Tortellini Pasta Salad. Cool dinner on a warm night.

I use the Cuisinart DLC_837TX Medium disk. I cut the cheese so that it fits down the smaller tube within the pusher and apply constant pressure. The jack just works so-so. In general I am grating that for others. Jack is much messier to clean up after.

@Dave the Cook Thanks for the info.

@Alex You've caught me in my one big cheat (although it never crossed my mind when I started this thread). I dislike dealing with garlic so I buy the big jars of chopped garlic from Costco and add to taste since their potency is less than fresh. I never go through that much garlic but at the price when I decide it's getting old I toss it and buy a new jar. Costs me maybe $10.00/year.

I will slice the olives and chop the green onions and the cilantro within a half hour of serving. I guess what I consider very freshly prepared is one of my idiosyncrasies.

Do you use the terms shredded and grated interchangeably? I am not sure that shredded cheese would freeze nearly as well as grated cheese.

No, never an issue. I do gently press the cheese to spread it out into a flat shape for freezing. If I remember I'll take some pictures in a couple of weeks when I grate more.

I regularly grate 2 lb blocks of sharp cheddar divided into 8 oz portions. They go into quart Ziplocs and get frozen. We pull them out one at a time to keep in the fridge. We've been doing this for years. There are four adults in our household at the moment but even when it was just my DW and myself we went through the cheese fast enough for mold to never be a problem. Right now we're also grating 2 lb blocks of Monterey Jack. All of this grating is done using a food processor. I do have one timing requirement for when to grate. I want an empty dishwasher so that I can immediately rinse off the parts of the food processor and get them into the machine. Today I am going to make our chicken enchilada casserole (freezing it for a future meal) so I will pull out an 8 oz bag of sharp cheddar just for that. Dinner tonight is make-your-own-taco-salad so I will make sure to have bags of sharp and jack out for that.