FauxPas

I did not have a toaster oven in this house before, so the Cuisinart was very appealing to me - I was able to get rid of the toaster on the counter and put the Cuisinart in its place and it added so much extra functionality. This house has no upper cabinets on either side of the range so I could put the CSO on either side. I don't think I would want it sitting right under cabinets but depends on the situation, I guess and the cabinet materials. lindag, I think I see what you are saying and certainly that position would give better air circulation and let the steam dissipate somewhat, but the steam will still vent upwards. Are you cabinet bottoms a standard height from the countertop? Mine are only 16" apart here, so would be really close. In the Instant Pot thread, someone mentioned placing the pot on a Lazy Susan. Maybe the same thing would work in some cases for the CSO? Or a pull-out shelf? Both of the models that I bought have exactly the same controls.The one i bought in Canada comes with a bilingual manual describing it as the CSO-300C but I'm pretty sure that 'C' just stands for Canada and refers back to the bilingual labeling. The newer one has the better tray and drainage. I would think that the newer ones sold in the US have that also, right? Back to location, in the other house I might risk using the oven under the cabinets. Those cabinets are higher than these ones are and they are old and due to be replaced soon anyway.

I hesitated and she had already sold out of some of the seeds I wanted, but I still found at least a dozen that I wanted. I really like her mixed packages - the red, gold and chioggia beet mix, for example, which I did order. Or the SW peppers mix (also ordered). I ordered the Little Prince aubergine plant again. I don't even like eggplant but that was one of the easiest and most beautiful garden plants I ever grew. And it had tons of fruit on it. I just need to find a home for the fruit or finally learn to love aubergine!!! But I would grow that plant just as an ornamental pot plant, it was so lovely. And I ordered some greens/lettuces and tomatoes. Winter gardens are challenging - everything can get killed in a sudden frost - but I've had some good luck as well.

Thank you for your thoughtful answers, ladies! I appreciate that. Still on the fence about actually buying one, but also still interested! Maybe you need to 'tart your tomatoes up' more often, Anna! The Lazy Susan really is a good idea!

Ha! Yes, I have two of them! One for the Canadian house and one was supposed to be for the AZ house. But one is currently in our rental property and the tenant there loves it, so there is a chance I may even end up buying a third one. Or redeeming some Air Miles, that program sometimes has them available as a reward and I have some miles that have been sitting around for a long time.

rotuts, that is a terrific outcome! The new pan is definitely a lot better than the old one. I have heard it softly 'ping' in the oven now and then, but I have never noticed it actually warping like the old one did. The old one was awful.

What kind of quick pickle did you do with the beets, Mmmpomps? I do beets in the steam oven. They take a bit longer, but it's easy to do. I love beets and beet salads. Love your hot sauce! I'm wondering how you and Anna N feel about the space requirements of the IP - does it seem awkward to use in the kitchen? Anna, did you work out an arrangement so that you could watch things more easily inside the pot? Is the escaping steam a problem, how do you avoid your cabinets? If you weren't using it all the time, how easy is it to store? (I should really just look up the actual dimensions of the pot, but would like to hear your experiences.) I love tomato chutney and have been looking at that recipe for awhile. It has some ingredients I don't usually use. I should really give it a go. Thanks for posting the pics, Anna.

The series is hugely entertaining! I could read it every year without every getting bored. I loved the Foster's beer story, ha. So much lovely food. Lovely pics (wish I knew how to rotate them). I can smell the chiles roasting, can almost taste those stews. Awesome stuff, thank you so much for sharing.

A heads-up for any eGulleter who was thinking of visiting gfron1's restaurant in Silver City, NM. Don't delay, as The Curious Kumquat will be closing. I recently discovered that Rob will be selling the building and closing the restaurant. There is no definite closing date but it won't be open for more than a year max, and it may sell/close sooner. (I hope Rob will correct me if I am wrong on any details.) As someone who had the pleasure of visiting one of Rob's pop-ups in Tucson, I know that his food is fun, innovative, beautiful and delicious. It can also be a bit challenging at times, but that can add to the enjoyment of an adventurous diner. Rob and the restaurant will offer a series of “last evers” including the next Experimental Tasting dinner in October. Would love more details on that one! I believe Rob is planning a new restaurant start-up but not sure of location. I hope he will be advising us of his future plans and I know we all wish him the very VERY best! I posted some pics of the pop-up dinner somewhere, I may try to link to them here. Edited to add: Here is link to some of the pop-up photos: http://forums.egullet.org/topic/150111-southwest-pop-up-road-trip-az-nm/?p=2001929

I've been meaning to post this for a bit, but keep forgetting. I bought one of these ovens in the US last year and bought another in Canada this year. Here are a few differences between the two I own. The newer Canadian one is bilingual, of course. And the newer one has a better quality baking sheet, which doesn't warp the way the other (flat) one does. It also has some differences in the bottom of the oven, as seen here. The other one is completely flat. I assume this is to aid in draining. I still use this little oven all the time. It's a great toaster and I love the steam function. I used it a lot this summer to steam-roast fresh tomatoes from the farmer's market, which I would then freeze. I remove the stems and steam-roast until the tomatoes start to char a bit. After cooling a bit, the skins slip off and I put them in freezer bags to freeze. They are lovely for sauces and soups, making lasagne or other casseroles. I mix the type of tomatoes I use, but often include some Romas.

So sorry to hear that! What happened to the freezer?

I watched the Prune episode online. Fun to watch her make that sauce! I have both her books - but have only quickly browsed the cookbook and forgot that I even had Blood, Bones & Butter. I must take another look at both. Thanks, rotuts.

Thanks so much, Franci! I just ordered some seeds for the trombetta from Renee's seeds. The "packaged for 2015" seeds are now 40% off through this link, if you are at all interested! Enter SALE15 at checkout. I'm going to try growing some in my 'winter garden' in Arizona maybe.

I'll echo what Shelby said.

My bad, I misread your earlier post! I thought you were processing tomatoes as if they were sauce, but now I see that I didn't see what I thought I did. Yes, the lack of tested recipes is frustrating for sure! Thanks for clarifying.

I understand what you are saying and it makes sense to me (and to others). However, there are still some folks who say that the sauce is a different animal than plain tomatoes. For example (from the GardenWeb forum referenced above): So the spaghetti sauce recipe requires a much longer cooking time prior to processing which reduces the water content, plus generally has a longer processing time and added sugar. http://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can_03/spaghetti_sauce.html DiggingDogFarm, just wondering - when you process your tomatoes, do you just follow the processing times for the sauce or do you also cook the tomatoes down prior to processing? Again, I have never even used a pressure canner, so this is just of general interest to me, and I don't want to claim that I have found the best or the only answers. Only that I can see the reasoning on both sides.

Wow, sounds like you had a busy and productive night. Hope it was also lots of fun, which I suspect it was!!! Thanks so much for sharing, I love seeing your pics and reading about your prep work. Looking forward to the rest of the story, heh.

Agree with gfweb, it's so easy to read your printing, Anna. And I love your notebook and recipe comments!

Wow, I have been reading up on this and it's a job to straighten it all out. I don't have a pressure canner but vaguely thought I might be interested in one and so started reading up. This is what I understand: Tomatoes (whether heirloom variety or not) can vary widely in their acidity. High acidity is below 4.6 pH. Anything 4.6 pH or above is considered low acid. Tomatoes tend to straddle this line. One study of heirloom varieties by U of Illinois found an average range of pH between 4.18 and 4.92 and almost 30% of the tomatoes were in the low acid range. (Brandywine was found to be a lower acid, higher pH variety and it's a very popular variety.) Cited here: https://foodsafety.wisc.edu/assets/preservation/UWEX_addacidtomatoes.pdf But tomato pH can vary a lot due to growing conditions, soil/water/fertilizer pH and ripeness. Riper tomatoes have higher pH and lower acid. So even if someone gets a certain pH level in the same variety you grow/buy, your tomatoes may have a different pH level due to their specific conditions. Because of the difficulty of knowing the pH of the tomatoes that any one person is using for their canning, the USDA and extensions generally recommend the addition of acid to make sure the final product will fall within the safe pH level. For water bath canning, extra acid is always recommended. However, extra acid is also often recommended for pressure canning since USDA feels the true required processing time would be so long as to make the non-acidified tomatoes undesirable (mush, I guess). So the recommended processing times, even for pressure canners, may not be sufficient to reduce the risk of botulism to what is considered safe. To ensure that pressure canned tomatoes without added acid are safe, it would require a longer processing time that would make the tomatoes far less appealing. (I'm guessing they would be mush?) Also, no one seems to know how long the safer processing time would be, so it may be better to just play it safe and add some acid. Some people think that citric acid affects the flavour less than concentrated lemon juice, though it still reduces the pH appropriately. Still, some people choose not to add any acid when pressure canning. And some Extension sites may offer some support for this, such as is quoted here: http://www.simplycanning.com/canning-tomatoes-safely.html A good discussion here: http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/1969930/pressure-canning-tomatoes At the end of the day, I did not feel that there is a clear definitive answer on this but if I did go ahead and do some tomatoes in a pressure canner, I think I would just add citric acid. But others may disagree!!!! There are lots of opinions and discussions on this. I tried to find the best science I could and don't have all the citations anymore. I've forgotten some of the stuff I found but I think the summary above is pretty true to what I read overall. Not sure it will be of any help to you!

Not that small of a company, really: And it has its detractors: Also claims that it mislabeled its jar labels, stating the use of (implied fresh) lemon juice when it was really using lemon juice concentrate, against FDA regs.

I made short ribs tonight also, Mmmpomps. And while I normally don't mind doing the long braise in a basic pot on the stove or in the oven, I have to say that tonight I found it annoying, messy and slow (did a stovetop braise, almost 3 hours). The end result was lovely but it made me think that another method might be better. So I am definitely interested in what you folks are doing. I have never used a pressure cooker, slow cooker or rice cooker. And i have never made yogurt. I think I make pretty good rice in the Cuisinart Steam Oven, though I am definitely OK with making it on the stove top. I wonder about using the Instant Pot for making yogurt, steaming artichokes ( a big fave of mine), doing the Kalua Pork that Laura talks about in the IP cookbook or on NomNomPaleo. Also the Ligurian Chicken and Not-Refried-Beans from the IP cookbook. And how well does it function as a slow-cooker? And I keep wondering if there is anything intrinsically better about using the IP or similar to cook some things or if it is just a time savings? Not that I don't value time-saving!

I'd love to hear about the current year also, bobag87!

I would love to hear about your exploration of this new tool! And, if anyone was actually bored by it, they don't have to read the thread, right?! So I am hoping that you will share your adventures!!!!!

I have to admit that sometimes I make a quick 'sangria' by pouring red wine over ice, adding a bit of Grand Marnier and then topping it up with sparkling water. I think it's fairly decent. Edited to add: This is when I just want a single glass and don't need to make a batch for guests or anything.

That is indeed a lovely compliment! Thanks for sharing the chutney recipe, also. I made one last winter that was really good. Like you, I kind of pieced it together from a couple of recipes. It turned out so well that I patted myself on the back for writing down the way I made it. But I've never been able to find the written instructions, and I made no effort to remember because I thought I'd have it on paper/disk. Sigh.

This is interesting! I hope you'll keep us posted all the way along!