Porthos

Smithy, I am enjoying this blog. I also followed your princess camping stories. I am rather anal about having only plastic cutting boards in my kitchen. I am very big on everything being able to go into the dishwasher. I purchased a bamboo board a few years ago. I rarely used it because of my aversion to hand-washing. It finally went to a thrift shop. (The aversion is to hand-washing as the final cleaning. I pre-scrub everything before it goes into the dishwasher. Maybe if I had a 3-compartment sink in my kitchen...) I also got a chuckle out of recognizing the mixing bowl you used. I have them in multiples in 3qt through 8 qt plus a14 qt. Are yours Tramontina or another brand?

I haven't looked at stoves in a long time - but - make sure you have at least one high-power burner. Mine is 16K BTU and does what I want. I wouldn't complain if I had a burner around 20K. I have a free-standing camp stove with 30K burners I use for my ren faire stuff and for certain things I wished I had one of those burners in my kitchen - with a more powerful exhaust system than I have now.

I don't watch the "Junkfood" network so I haven't seen this. Although I have no training per se I do own several books on the subject and have worked on having decent knife skills for several years. I have a teenage guy who cooks in my ren faire kitchens who wants a culinary career. He can't enroll in the program of his choice until he turns 18 but he has taken some cooking classes aimed at people who want to be professional cooks. I have worked with him on knife skills. This past fall there was a class on knife skills. First student the instructor comes to is holding the knife like a serial killer about to strike and gets shown how to hold the knife. Second student gets reminded to keep the fingers curled under. Instructor comes to my friend, takes a look and says "you know what you're doing, keep it up." Made me happy that I have been able to pass it on.

I think it's time for my George Foreman grill to suffer a similar fate. Cooks ok but is a pain in the a$$ to clean. Haven't used it in several years. I have been doing this kind of cleaning/clearing for the past year. This past weekend I pulled down our flower vases because we were running out of room again. I asked my DW to pick 3 I could donate. While pulling them down I was trying to figure out why we had so many again. Then I remembered that it was us who brought home most of the flowers from my mother's funeral in 2010. DW picked out 5. That really helped.

Quartered, salted and draining. Thank you for the suggestion.

A modest goal for 2014 but a goal nonetheless: Learn to roast vegetables. I don't mean carrots and potatoes tossed into a beef roast but honest-to-goodness roasted veggies as a side dish. This past fall I was given some Brussels Sprouts to cook for my ren faire guild. Not wanting to boil or steam them I decided to half them and oven roast them. This dedicated Brussels sprouts nay-sayer was instantly converted. Tonight will be the first attempt at roasted zucchini in length-wise quarters. They will be lightly coated with EVOO, salt and pepper then put into a 425 F oven (My low-end Oster convection toaster oven) until the color looks right. Later attempts will have more seasonings added but I want to start with the basics. As an aside I tried grilling some zucchini last spring on my big 8-burner event grill and it was just short of a disaster. It was too wet for how I tried to do it. Overall goal is to find 3 new veggies to roast this year. I figure asparagus will be another one to try. Modest, as I said, but that is the goal. Wondering out loud: Could I find a way to grill sweet potatoes that I would find edible since I majorly don't care for sweet potatoes any way I have had them. p.s. Since I am unemployed nothing that would require much moola would be in the running. I can afford veggies and I like them.

Vollrath Intrique 3 quart. Stainless steel construction. I strongly trend toward commercial kitchen equipment for my home kitchen since I know that it can go into the dishwasher and since it is an NSF-marked piece to can be easily cleaned to California (CURFFL health codes) retail food standards.

New saucier delivered. Now to give it a test drive. Not for tonight's dinner, though. Corned beef in Guinness with carrots paired with freshly-baked Irish soda bread have no use for a saucier.

In the 10 years I have been preparing vegan dishes in my renaissance faire kitchen this has been a question I could never answer. I gladly prepare vegan food as part of the feast for those who are vegan, I just never make anything that is pretend meat. As for how I feel about meat for myself, look at my signature line. I did just have a new thought about this run though my mind. If someone who loves meat has adopted vegan eating as part of fighting a disease, I can see that person longing for something that reminds them of the meat they gave up for health reasons. My friend Tina, who lives far from me and is battling breast cancer, comes to mind.

While at Disneyland today my DW made a point of picking up a peach cobbler dessert in response to my remembering my mom's peach cobbler up-thread. It was good, and I appreciated it, but it could never replace mom's.

DDF, I watched the video this morning. While I was out running errands I picked up a dozen chicken thighs. I de-boned and skinned them according to the video (better technique than I had used in the past) and then weighed the meat and the scrap. Total weight was 62 oz even with the scrap accounting for 25 oz leaving me with 37 oz of meat.. Since it is of no use to me I calculated the cost of the meat after trimming to be $1.81/lb. I buy my boneless skinless for $1.99/lb. Since I get no pleasure out of cutting up chicken the $0.18/lb difference is worth it to me. That being said, I am grateful for the link to the video. It has given me a new technique that in very specific instances could be useful. So I will continue to buy my Swanson's and you will have your perspective that home-made stock is the proper source - and that perspective is in keeping with the topic at hand. Good Eating.

When I first responded to this thread I was thinking of those still with us. My mother-in-law was an incredible cook. From everyday family meals to knock-your-socks-off Thanksgiving feasts for sometimes 30+ people to organizing and leading the meal for 130-150 people at her sorority wine-tasting fund-raisers she was superb. And she was a wonderful human being. I miss her terribly.

In our home I do believe I am the better cook but just barely. However, my wife bakes circles around me. My mother, a bride during the depression, did things to vegetables that I considered a crime. I am supremely confident that broccoli is not supposed to be gray. Her baking skills is where she shined. What I would give to sit down and have a helping of her peach cobbler using the peaches she had canned off of our tree...

Interesting idea. I bought these at BB&B (of course using the 20% coupon) using some gift money. I like this shape for getting down into spice jars.

I have no source of bones from chickens. Because of dietary issues my DW has coupled with the fact the my adult daughter has issues with never thinking chicken on the bone is ever completely cooked I buy boneless skinless chicken thighs. I have indeed purchased thighs and boned and skinned them myself. It was a royal pain in the posterior and I have reasonable knife skills. My wife had bariatric surgery and finds that white-meat chicken no longer agrees with her. In the five years since her surgery I have never been able to cook a chicken breast that she can properly swallow. Since she and I both prefer dark meat anyway it is a no-brainer.

Why do I prefer Swansons chicken in a can over home-made. Because I have never been satisfied with the taste of my home-made stock. About 2 months ago I made some stock for use the same day. Went through all of the steps down to a bouquet garni. Skimmed, cooked down, cooled and de-fatted. When I was through making the dinner that used it I still didn't care for the taste as much as I like the taste I get from Swansons. I applaud those who make stocks that are superior to canned. After decades of on-again/off-again attempts at home-made stocks I don't think they are worth my time, and I say that only for me. I am satisfied that the people who eat my food (including my ren faire food) enjoy what I produce. I cook mostly from scratch. I used canned tomato sauce, canned beans at home (dried beans for faire food), and I eat canned soups (consuming the whole can's worth) for lunch occasionally.

This is meant for Adam George up-thread. Of the 11 knives in my knife block I regularly use the following: 10" chef's knife for fruits and veggies only (gets hand-washed & dried and returned to the block when I am done with it), 10" chef's knife for proteins, 3 1/2" paring knife, 7" Santoku for cutting up bricks of cheese into smaller pieces and for green onions I just made the decision yesterday to retrieve my 12" slicer from my knife roll and add it to the block but it still won't be used that often. My DW's knife block is closer to where we keep the bread so I generally grab her bread knife if I need one. And I use my Wusthoff ((sp) shears regularly. The tomato knife that came with my Spanish Henkels set has yet to be used. I rarely use the 3 "slicers" with the curved blade that came with this set.

Milton's Healthy Whole Grain - toasted and buttered, nothing else on it. This bread brings so much flavor to the party it's amazing.

New saucier ordered.

I am very, very happy with the result of the CI recipe. You would never know what an inexpensive cut of meat it was. The best part - about 3 pounds of left-overs. Thank you all for you input.

Here you go - basically I started with the sour cream recipe that I got from the lady who lived next to my granny on Vancouver Island and added the brown sugar in place of the white, a bit of molasses, the spices mentioned and the dried fruits.Sour Cream Cookies ¼ cup butter¾ cup sugar2 eggs2 ½ cups flour¼ tsp salt1 tsp soda1 cup sour cream or yogurt1 tsp nutmeg1 cup raisins, soakedlemon and orange rindHermit Variation¾ cup brown sugar2 tablespoons molasses1 tsp cinnamon¼ tsp cloves¼ tsp allspice1 cup raisins, soaked½ cup chopped nuts¼ cup peel½ cup chopped dateslemon and orange rindAlternate liquid and dry ingredients. Bake 12-15 minutes at 375 These are going in the cookie tins we do at Christmas: I did change up the flavors a bit: Sour Cream Apricot Cookies 1/4 cup butter 3/4 cup sugar 2 eggs 1/2 tsp vanilla 2 1/2 cups flour 1/4 tsp salt 1 tsp baking soda 1 cup sour cream 1 Tbsp lemon zest 1 Tbsp orange zest 1 cup chopped dried apricots, macerated in cream sherry Pre-heat oven to 375F Cream butter and sugar, then beat in eggs and vanilla. Add flour, salt, and baking soda. Add in sour cream, lemon and orange zests, then apricots. Bake 12-15 minutes. I will use a little more zest next time.

Couscous with pine nuts and golden raisins - yum. Oatmeal Raisin Cookies are my fav. And the farm-style oatmeal cookie recipe I use doesn't begin to ask for organic anything.

The check has arrived. Familial decorum dictates that the check not be deposited until after the 25th. I will also wait just in case my DW passed on the info to some family member asking for gift suggestions. Don't need 2 of them.

Boiled sprouts will never, I repeat, never be on my table. My personal choice is halved, tossed in EVOO, salt and pepper and oven-roasted. Don't have enough oven time available to add them to this year's menu.

We bought a low-end Oster convection oven earlier this year and did NOT like it for toast so our old toaster sits next to it. I absolutely love it for roast veggies, however.