FauxPas

ha, do you have a Xmas tree in your bedroom as well as your living room? I was over at a friend's place tonight and she had one in her bedroom, one in her living room and one on the back patio. She loves Xmas. PS I absolutely love the glimpses of your house, it looks so warm and welcoming.

As you know, I love the Mimbreño stuff also! I love your platter, I bought my husband the same fishes design on a mug, as he is a Pisces. And then bought four or five more mugs in that line! They are my fave mugs, nice and big. Is yours the larger 15 oz size? I bought a set of dishes at HF Coors at the "First Saturday" sale once. They are the Ahwahnee design, made for the famous hotel of the same name in Yosemite. Well, it's not called that anymore, because of a trademark issue, it's now the Majestic Yosemite: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahwahnee_Hotel The First Saturday sale includes seconds, discontinued and overstock items and includes items made for various restaurants in Tucson and beyond. I paid around $25 for a set of eight dinner plates, six salad plates, six soup bowls and then various butter chip dishes and small platters. And they have the famous Ahwahnee design: Most of the dishes I bought are barely 'seconds', with only tiny imperfections. The problem I have with them is that the dinner plates are oversized and bulky and don't fit well in my dishwasher at all, so I rarely use them. But I still recognize them as a great deal and a bit of history. I wonder if the hotel still uses any of this line? @Smithy, if you go to the First Saturday sale, it is held in the factory area so you get an idea of the size and scope of their production. However, it's not the same as an actual factory tour. (I've never done the tour, and would be interested.) Also, really pleased that you found something interesting in that cookbook! They hummus looks delicious!

From Wikipedia: In 1972, Charles Fry sold the Fry's Supermarkets chain based in California for US$14 million to Save Mart Supermarkets. He gave a portion of the proceeds, approximately $1 million, to each of his sons, John, W. Randolph (who goes by the nickname "Randy") and David, neither of whom had much interest in grocery store retailing.[3][4] Instead, in 1985, they joined together with a fourth partner, John's former girlfriend Kathryn Kolder, to open the first Fry's Electronics store at a 20,000 sq ft (1,900 m2) site in Sunnyvale, California.[5] Today, Fry's Food and Drug stores are owned and operated by Kroger and are not affiliated with Fry's Electronics, although they share an almost identical logo.[6]

Not seeing this anywhere. Link opens to a price of $59. Was there a 1-hour deal or something, maybe? I'd be interested in the Mini only at the right price (already have two 6 quart ones).

@weinoo, thanks for sharing all this! I can't wait to see the finished product! Work should be complete well before Christmas, yes?

@Smithy, we had a wonderful time meeting you two AND all your four-legged companions! Your cats are lovely, PJ is an adorable puppy! I hope we have more time next time, so many things to chat about and not nearly enough time to cover them all. And there are many great places to eat and drink in Tucson, the hard part is narrowing the choices down. It was great fun to actually visit the Princess Mobile and a real pleasure to meet the folks who travel in her!

Oh, that Prime Rib looks SO GOOD! I did the Hasselback potato gratin for T-Day for a gathering at a neighbour's house. I made two batches - one, just russet potatoes and the other, mixed russet and sweet potatoes. I upped the amount of garlic (doubled it, I think) and also increased the cheese by a couple of ounces. I reduced the amount of cream as it seemed like a lot and I didn't want the potatoes swimming in liquid. Their instructions were to fill with liquid up to the half-way mark and I doubt if mine was much past the quarter mark. I was pretty generous with the salt and pepper. I think they turned out OK, pretty good really, but probably not spectacular. The top did get a little crunchy and they were a bit more browned than yours, probably because they could stay put in the oven longer than yours with your required oven juggling. People really seemed to like the mixed ones, the alternating slices of russet and sweet potato looked nice and not too many sweet-potato-haters there, I guess. Ha.

I bought one of these for my husband. For $100, it's pretty hard to beat, since the reviews on it are quite good: https://www.engadget.com/2017/10/16/amazon-fire-hd-10-review/ https://www.pcmag.com/review/356287/amazon-fire-hd-10-2017

If you don't want to make your own pasta, some stores carry the premade fresh lasagne sheets. They measure about 9 X 10 inches and make for nicer layers than the narrower dry ones and I think they taste better. Are you making a classic Bolognese style sauce? You could roast fresh tomatoes for the sauce. I like to steam-roast them, sometimes I use a sweet tomato, like a Campari. Marcella Hazan has a few lasagne recipes.

It certainly gets lots of good reviews. Digging through the Q & A's, I found an answer from the seller stating "The interior dimensions on our oven are 12.83in L,10.90in W, 8.89in H. " But it's hard to determine how high the lowest rack position is. I would guess the the three different rack positions are about 2 inches apart, so the lowest rack position might give 6 inches or so clearance? Several users of the Cuisinart Convection Steam oven have commented that it makes excellent toast, I'd agree with them. But it's a bit pricey.

I'd love to see a side by side, especially given the price difference between the two! Doesn't the ThermoMix cost three or four times as much?

I'll wish you luck, also! Let us know how it goes!

Has this one been on sale before? Ruth Reichl's My Kitchen Year: 136 Recipes That Saved My Life for $1.99 for US Prime members.

I'm not sure how many North Americans are familiar with them, either. They may be unusual to some people here, also. Our CSA farmer likes to try different things. Emphasis on "north" americans, ha. They may be much more common in southern parts of N America.

They can be pretty tasty. We get them in our local CSA farm share, some of which is pictured here. I don't think they are hard to grow. You can see them in lower right in this image. I think we get them once or twice a year.

I have a few of her Indian cookbooks. Never looked at this one before and not sure why, but I own it now! Thanks, @chefmd.

That would be this Instant Pot version, I believe.

Pressure Cooking Today sent me an email saying that Amazon has the Instant Pot Duo 7-in-1 on sale tomorrow: Amazon 1-Day Deal Monday, October 2, 2017 as of 12:01 PST Instant Pot Duo 7-in-1 Multi-Use Programmable Pressure Cooker, 6 Quart $69.99 Save $29.00 or, 30% Limited to: 5 Per Person or, While Quantities Last

I saw this earlier and it seemed to have online availability but then it showed out of stock. They usually do free shipping over $75 so it might be worth checking back later for anyone wanting one in Canada.

Yes, how is Chum? Is she helping out with things? As the cats are, I assume? I love reading your blogs - or your posts in general. You have a knack for description and always make us feel warm and welcome! I also love how you draw on so many things - your own garden, local fishing and hunting, online resources(!) and bring them together to make such interesting meals.

There is a local farm here that makes salt but it's sea salt. You can let it sit for a few days so the suspended particles sink and then strain the clean water above through a fine sieve or cloth. That's all I've got. But I could put you in touch with the local salt-maker. I've never made it myself. I LOVE Lexi. More Lexi. What does Lexi eat?

I use my smartphone for many of these things also, but somehow I just don't think of it as a kitchen product. It certainly is a helper though!

There is an Android version, but it's getting pretty mixed reviews. I don't think I'll bother installing it right now. The number of 1 and 2 star reviews are almost the same as the number of 5 star reviews. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.instantpot.app&hl=en#details-reviews @Anna N, have you used the Apple version? Would you recommend it?

I didn't necessarily feel impelled to rush out and buy any of these things, but I now own most of them and would never give them up! I really didn't realize how much I would use most of them until I had them. I rather overthought buying most of them, which is kind of silly considering what I pay for mani-pedis in a year, for example. Give up a few visits to the nail salon and I could easily pay for some of them, ha. In fact, I liked them so much I bought extras. I absolutely adore my Instant Pots, my immersion circulators (Anova and Joule, but love the compactness of the Joule), my Cuisinart steam ovens, and my induction cooktop. The induction cooktop is probably my fave in some ways since I use it a lot and the ease of clean-up makes me smile every time. Also love that it doesn't heat up the kitchen in summer and no open flame or hot surface to threaten cat or occasional young child visitor (or husband). The CSO is close in terms of use - I use it daily. But I love them all. Is the iPhone a kitchen product? I'm an Android fan, and I like my OS to be lean and promptly updated so I go with Google Nexus or Pixel lately, but the only thing I use it for in the kitchen is the Joule app and I'm not exactly enthralled with that. Do other people enjoy that app? Or other smartphone features for the kitchen? I use my tablet for recipes sometimes, but only if I really can't print them out.

I would share your tale with the IP people in Ottawa. I think they like to know how resilient their product is but, if I were them, I might just offer you a new pot. You have done some inadvertent testing of the pot's limits and demonstrated your love for the product. It might be just fine going forward but I would at least talk to them.