blue_dolphin

I'm probably the one who recommended 3 min @ 300°F on steam-bake as that's what I used to defrost an English muffin or a roll and I don't pre-heat. In my hands, at that point, the middle of the English muffin is no longer frozen but still quite cold and I can easily split it with a fork. I wouldn't say the exterior is dry as a bone, but I wouldn't call it wet either - it's nothing that's not taken care of during the toast cycle that comes next. That said, you've clearly experimented to find a slightly longer and cooler setting that better suits your needs, so it's all good. I'd guess that you might be using a slightly shorter toast setting than I do (since I'm likely starting to toast with a muffin that's a little damper on the outside and cooler on the inside) so it probably all comes out in the wash....or the CSO!

Late lunch/early dinner. Penne with @ElainaA's slow roasted tomatoes, broccoli and kalamata olives

A few "leftover" pops. I had pumpkin purée leftover from yesterday's breakfast waffles and there was some heavy cream hanging out in an iSi whip in the fridge so I made these pumpkin pie with whipped cream pops: Very similar to the recipe in People's Pops except that I just used a generous spoon of Penzey's Pie Spice instead of making a spiced simple syrup. Tastes fine and I don't detect any grittiness from the ground spices. I had some strawberry and blueberry purées leftover from the other pops so I made a few berries & cream pops: My freezer is now full. I gotta give some of these away before I can make any more. If anyone wants to swing by with a cooler, I can load you up!

Stewed Spinach Eggs (Ägg med stuvad spenat), recipe available online here. In the video about this recipe at the link above, Rachel calls this Swedish shakshuka. I had my doubts but the warm, creamy spinach is generously seasoned with nutmeg and white pepper and tastes very Swedish indeed. The cool, crisp, lightly pickled garnish of red onion, fresh hot chili and herbs provides the perfect contrast to the richness of the spinach. I had to use a jalapeño because the called for red chile that I'm sure is in my fridge was hiding. Since I was lacking that color, I cut up a bunch of little gold tomatoes and added them to the vinegar and felt they were a good addition. I'd make it again.

I've been using a hot air popper and saving up so I can splash out on the Behmor 1600. The new model is ~ $50 more than the previous one which has given me pause but I like that I could roast 1/4 lb on the regular but go up to 1/2 or even a full lb when I have guests visiting. The quiteness of the Behmor 1600 is also appealing as I hate the noise of the air popper so I appreciate your comment on how quiet the SR540 is. More to think about!

I don't know how they compare to the commercial version but the recipe that @Anna N linked to upthread in this post makes an excellent cookie that I bet would be just the thing to enjoy along with your homemade peach ice cream!

@Franci, I couldn't decide whether to click on "Like" for that gorgeous pork and amazing-looking sopressada (would you say it's at all similar to 'nduja?) or click on the sad face because this: is what you had for your own lunch while looking at the rest!

Peach & strawberry pops Seascape strawberries from Harry's Berries and O'Henry peaches from Tenerelli Orchards. Also, a serving suggestion for the roasted peach pops from the other day. Just pour a little Elijah Craig or your choice of bourbon into an icy glass, add peach pop and enjoy.

Pumpkin waffle (from this recipe) with banana and walnuts. Sausage patty in the back there next to the maple syrup.

Roasted Peach: Blueberry & Peach:

Clearly, you are a better fryer than I!

I suppose it depends on the dishes in question. The bowls I use for pasta have no problem going from the fridge into a room temp CSO, then turning it on to steam-bake @ 250 or 275°F. Usually takes ~ 8 min for one serving. The same is true for most of the plates I've tried. I don't have any fine china nor have I subjected anything delicate to that treatment. Often, I prefer to heat things separately. Say, rice in one bowl and a saucy meat or veg dish in another. In such cases, I usually store the leftovers in various Corning or Pyrex dishes that I know can handle the temp.

In an effort to be even handed here, while it's not enormous, it is a sizable unit. The diameter of the element itself is 12" but there's ~ an inch of housing around that and because of the way the legs angle outwards, you're looking at ~ 17" diameter at those widest points. It stands about 3.25" high, so it's not wafer-thin either. That design makes me feel comfortable using larger, heavier pots on it but it does add to the storage size and the countertop footprint when in use. The only outlets in my kitchen would place it below upper cabinets, so that's not ideal. I knew all of this going in and plan to store it in the garage, which will make me less likely to use it. All that said, the $69 price is very good 🙃

What's the other Chinese cookbook in your top two? My favorite Chinese cookbook is also out of print. Irene Kuo's The Key to Chinese Cooking.

It sounds like you wouldn't want one so go ahead and mark yourself safe from this temptation! I have a gas cooktop and ordered a Paragon at the $99 price. The precise temp control isn't my main rationalization but I'm interested in exploring options. Factors in my decision: After the Northridge earthquake, my electric power came back on within a few hours but the gas wasn't back for well over a week so having an electric cooktop option is appealing. I've been curious about induction cooking, have never used an induction unit and thought this would be an inexpensive way to play around with it. I don't deep fry often but I like the idea of being able to set this up on the patio or carport to avoid the mess in the kitchen. There are a few other smelly...um...aromatic cooking tasks, like the stovetop smoked corn I made the other day, that would also be nice to do outside.

Yay! I'm so glad I could help enable a cook book purchase 🙃. It really sounded like a good book. I'll be watching the post and maybe I'll be reverse-enabled into getting it myself!

The Kindle version of Dining In is currently @ $1.99 on Amazon.com though not on Amazon.ca

OK, here's my take on the crispy split corn with ground chili, pecorino and bacon aioli appetizer that I mentioned upthread. The wedges on the right were from an ear of corn that I smoked first. I didn't really care for that variation. Might have overdone the smoke. The pieces on the left were good. Microwaved in the husk for a couple of minutes, shucked, cut into wedges as I described above, brushed with butter and ground chili then into the CSO on steam bake @ 425°F for 10 min. I pulled them out, sprinkled with some grated pecorino and put them back in on broil for 5 min to get a little browning. If I've got perfect, farm-fresh corn, I'll eat it simply cooked on its own but this is an easy way to turn a few ears of corn into a quick appetizer. It would be fun to play around with different seasonings.

After listening to Dave Arnold extol these books on the Cooking Issues podcast, I thought I'd keep an eye out for them in the thrift stores but eventually broke down and ordered them. $7 for one and $8 for the other. Jacques Pepin's The Art of Cooking 2 volume set published in 1988. Dave described them as a great depiction of French cooking in the US at that time. He said that in a conversation, Jacques allowed that this was his best work but that it never sold. Lots of photos of a younger Jacques and wonderful step by step photos that remind me of the Time-Life Good Cook series, though perhaps even more detailed. I often troll the internet for videos instead of turning to books when I'm looking for step-by-step demos but these are really well done and I think I'll get good use from them. I'll absolutely enjoy reading through them and I'm sure to learn from them.

I suppose you can eat them any way you like, or not at all if you have tidiness concerns. They are certainly a finger food and while the chef has a Michelin star, this restaurant is very casual. Cloth napkins but no tablecloths. We sat outside with a view of what's essentially a Target parking lot. I picked up a strip, dipped it into the aioli, used my knife to spread the aioli more or less evenly across the corn and ate it as if it was a tiny ear of corn. Some of my friends spooned some of the aioli on to their plates and dipped each bite. I got a little of the ground chili on my fingers but not all that much and since it's only a few rows of kernels, you don't get stuff all over your face like eating an ear of Mexican street corn.

Upfront CYA (CMA?) announcement: I am NOT recommending that anyone else try this, especially @JoNorvelleWalker. That said, it was relatively easy to cut the corn to the approximate sizes we got at the restaurant. I didn't feel unsafe and no injury resulted. A cooked, even par-cooked, cob is ever so much easier to cut than a raw one so I microwaved an ear of corn, in the husk for a couple of minutes, a bit less than I'd use if I was going to eat it directly, then shucked it. The kernels were still opaque in some areas, just becoming translucent in others. I don't have a smoker but when I made the Smoked Corn Mayo from Vivian Howard's Deep Run Roots, I smoked it on the stovetop and I should probably consider that as a first step instead of the microwave. On to the chopping.... I cut off and discarded a bit of the pointy end and cut the rest of the cob in half crosswise, into two cob-lets ~ 3.5 inches long. I stood the cob-lets on end and sliced downwards, cutting them in half lengthwise. They stood up very stably and this was easy to do with all fingers well clear of the knife blade. I placed each half cob-let flat on the board, with its cut side down and sliced each in half again, lengthwise so each cob-let was essentially quartered, yielding 8 cob segments from one ear. Easy peasy. Now, I have no idea how they were cooked. I didn't actually order them and only tasted them towards the end of the meal, not when they were freshly served, which might have helped me figure it out. Since the dish is titled "crispy split corn," deep frying is a possibility but rather unlikely to happen. I'll try some CSO methods but should pause and whip up some of that bacon aioli first...

Thanks - two new words for my vocabulary!

Note that Ball changed its guidelines a few years ago and no longer recommends pre-heating the lids. Just wash and keep at room temp until ready to use. They allow that simmering (180°F) is OK, if you wish, but is not necessary and that heating to an actual boil (212°F) is not recommended as such overheating can cause the plastisol to thin out, resulting in a poor seal. They also say that pre-sterilizing jars that will be processed isn't necessary either. They recommend heating jars to avoid the thermal shock of filling them with boiling contents but state that both jars and lids will be sterilized if processed in a boiling waterbath for 10 min or more.

The other night at a local restaurant, I enjoyed an appetizer called Crispy Split Corn with Bacon Aioli, Ground Chili and Pecorino. A few days prior, I'd had the delicious but exceedingly messy experience of eating an ear of Mexican Street Corn at a taco joint. This appetizer was still finger food but a much tidier way of serving something very similar. I'm not sure if you can tell from the photo but the corn was cut right through the cob into small wedges about 3 kernels wide and probably about 1/2 to 1/3 of an ear long. There was still a bit of cob holding each wedge together. It was definitely seasoned with the chili and pecorino after it was cut up. I'll give this a try one of these days and report back.

No kidding! Years ago, I went on a food and wine trip to Italy. Every day featured multi-course lunches with wine pairings and even more elaborate dinners at amazing restaurants. In between, there were visits to wineries, olive oil mills, balsamic vinegar makers, cheese makers, etc, etc, etc. Truly wonderful but also overwhelming. On one of the last days, we called ahead to the lunch restaurant and asked if we could just have a big salad instead of all the courses. They readily agreed and when we arrived, they proudly presented us with a gorgeous salad. We were delighted and enjoyed it thoroughly. Then they trotted out the rest of the courses...and the wines....🙃