blue_dolphin

However much you like 🙃 When I'm making something that has at least as much veg as pasta, I go with 2 oz for a main dish serving. If it's pasta-centric, like carbonara, I bump it up to 3 oz for a main dish. I consider those very ample servings, not small.

I inherited one from a friend that's about 22 x 22 inches and 33 inches tall. I'm not tall so the shorter height could be handy for some tasks but it's not really big enough for much and I've never had the ideal spot for it. My friend had it at the end of a run of countertop so there was extra space available. I cook a lot of pasta but have no desire for extra plumbing that can leak and cause water damage. Same reason why I'd prefer a combi oven with a refillable reservoir to a plumbed unit. If the pot filler had an aspirator arm that would drain out the water after cooking, I might change my mind. It's carrying hot pots full of water back to the sink that I don't like. I have a single-bowl, deep sink in my laundry area. Very handy when I need to soak half-sheet pans and racks. It would kill my back to be bending down to reach the bottom all the time if my kitchen sink were similarly deep. In the kitchen, I have a 60/40 double-bowl sink in the kitchen. The 60% side is deeper and the 40% side is more shallow. I use the small, shallow side the most. If I had the space, I'd want a full size fridge and full size freezer, side-by side. If your space is so large that you can leave room for a larger fridge, I'd do it.

I always weigh dry pasta. I started eons ago when I participated in a nutrition study where we had to measure and log everything we ate for about 6 months and the pasta weighing stuck with me.

For any new wafflers looking for ideas, I highly recommend Dorie Greenspan's Waffles from Morning to Midnight (eG-friendly Amazon.com link). Used copies are available very inexpensively. There's an eG topic on cooking from the book here: Cooking with Dorie Greenspan's Waffles from Morning to Midnight.

Black bean dip with harissa

Yesterday's leftover cornbread, split, lightly toasted and buttered, topped with peperonata and a boiled egg on a bed of arugula dressed with a little vinaigrette. A variation on a recipe in Grist.

Charred green beans with black beans, peppers, red onion and roasted corn from Ruffage, dressed with Red Weapons instead of the chili oil from the book. As I was putting the veg on the plate, I occurred to me that it would be nice with some cornbread so I made a 1/3 scale batch of the all-corn cornbread from Grist in a 6.5" skillet. All-corn meaning no wheat flour, just cornmeal. I failed to follow the directions properly so I can't comment on the recipe but, split and buttered, it was just what I wanted. As you can see, I ate half of it 🙃

I use one of these asparagus steamers (eG-friendly Amazon.com link), which was only $25 when I purchased it a few years ago. Does a nice job of containing any spatter. I like to use it with my Paragon induction burner but its thermometer is rather chunky and doesn't fit between the pot and basket which means I generally use it without the basket. Depending on what you're making, it's best for 1 or 2 people, 3 at the most. Upside is that the small diameter minimizes the amount of oil needed. It is also useful for steaming asparagus.

Yep, that's me. For many years, I had gas stoves with a big swath of empty space down the middle, between the burners. It was pretty much wasted space so I always put a spoon rest there. My current cooktop has 5 burners and no free real estate. At first, I put the spoon rest next to the stove but I was just moving it all the time to clean under and around it so it's long gone!

I'd like to say my knives are incredibly sharp and I have amazing knife skills but I used my Oxo V-slicer (mandoline-wannabe) for the radishes. They were pretty big and I figured cutting them as thin as possible was the way to go.

Per the recipe, the salad is dressed simply with oil & vinegar, salt & pepper, and the goat cheese is sprinkled over the top. I, however, happened to have some of the goat cheese vinaigrette leftover from the beet & radicchio salad I made the other day from the author's other book, Grist, so I used that and just added a small amount of additional goat cheese. I tend to think it's worth mixing up the vinaigrette as it brings along a little shallot, lemon juice & zest but is still light and in no way mayo-like.

Today's salad, from Ruffage, is reminiscent of a Waldorf - celery, grapes, apples, and pecans - but with goat cheese instead of mayo. I had this with a chicken sandwich but the chicken could just as well have been cut up and added to make it into a main course salad.

Where do you intend to put this thing and what do you plan to dispense? Seems like there are some sort of rotating paddles at the bottom of each container and the size of the paddle and the length of time it runs determines how much stuff is dispensed with each cycle. In the video below, the demo guy mentions that shredded cheese has to be the sort of pre-shredded stuff sold in stores that includes a non-clumping agent. If you shred your own, it's going to clump up. Here's the video from the company at some sort of trade show exhibition of a demo model where you can glean a bit more about how it works, but not how much it costs. Edited to add that I thought it was a negative that someone from the kitchen has to come and open up the front of the machine to change out or refill the canisters. Seems like you'd want to be able to do that from the rear. Or at least have that option.

That's good to hear! Going back through comments, I know that you liked An Everlasting Meal but were less than thrilled with her other book. My copy won't be here for a few days but I've got my fingers crossed that it will be good!

I put the rotisserie base and forks in the dishwasher. Could have easily washed them up with soap and warm water in the sink as I did with the spit. Cleaning the grill itself isn't really any different from usual. There's a bit more grease on the angled reflector and the glass that covers the bulbs but not too much. I generally use this thing for vegetables, shrimp and the occasional sausage so it stays pretty clean. Zero smoke. The drippings go straight down into a removable tray that's not heated. Having it on for that long (~ 90 min) does generate a good bit of heat which could easily be addressed with an exhaust fan. In my case, the cord isn't long enough to let me set the grill on the cooktop where the exhaust fan (that I don't have anyway) would be most effective. Sorry, no action shots. There's a little video in one of the Amazon reviews. Not sure if that link will take you to it. It was submitted by Skilos on Aug 8, 2020. Edited to add that I think Skilos must have a pet bird as I don't think that screech sound is coming from either the chicken or the rotisserie. Back to the drippings. I usually keep the drip tray covered with aluminum foil for easier clean up and I didn't bother to change it out before this cook because I figured it was just going to get dirtier but I wish I had because I could have had some nice, clean chicken fat to save.