KennethT

I have a 10 cup rice cooker (it's actually a combo slow cooker) and I hate it. We are only 2 people, and most commonly only make 2 cups of rice, for which this machine is extremely oversized. It makes it much trickier to make a good batch of rice.

In theory, the de bellota is "healthy" for you - they claim that the fat is very high in Omega-3 fatty acids - so much that they say it is equivalent to eating salmon! Or at least that's what I keep telling myself...

Holy crap is that drool worthy.... I love how it glistens!

@Chris Hennes Does MB talk about the reasons for the additives in the Wonder-ish bread? I wonder if they help delay staling...

The traditional way to serve this is with "pan con tomate" - which is a Spanish bread slightly toasted, then rubbed with a cut clove of garlic, and then rubbed with a cut tomato. The bread should be tender but crisp on the outside - I've never really found an equivalent in the US - but some kind of baguette with relatively tender crust would do. Personally, I find that the jamon iberico de bellota is best enjoyed by itself at room temp. Put a slice in your mouth and let it kind of melt while it rolls around...

@TicTac Where did you find a 3 cup zoji for $65? Are there any left?

I can't help with that specific place, but maybe you could do a virtual walk around with Google maps to try to find it that way?

@rotuts https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26693746

I've heard that this happens with most starches - and that the method of cooking is not important, but it is the cooling. Look for info on "resistant starch" - basically half of the starch becomes indigestible - but provide great food for your gut microflora. Some people complain they get a bit gassy when first eating a lot of resistant starch due to the increased activity of the microflora. The key is to not reheat things too high after the cooling - over about 110degF (I think but don't quote me) the starch will change back to non-resistant.

does anyone have experience with Cuckoo rice cookers? http://www.cuckoousastore.com/shop-rice-cooker-products/all-rice-cookers.html These are made in Korea, and look good, and are a lot less expensive than the Zojirushi...

That's correct - but you typically don't want heat all the way up the side walls of a wok. The curved induction machine you linked looked perfect for a wok - the heat would come to about the same place as it would on a traditional gas wok burner. If you don't have a curved induction surface like that, then you need to use a flat bottomed wok otherwise you will only have a very small point of heat source - aluminum or not, it's not enough to get the heat you want.

I don't quite see the point of cladding with aluminum to cook on induction. The purpose of cladding aluminum to SS is to even out a discrete heat source (like a gas ring) over the entire surface of the pan as quickly and evenly as possible. But induction works differently - the magnetic field causes the pan itself to create the heat, so as long as your mag field is even, the pan's heat will be even, with no cladding necessary. Also, if you have a powerful mag field source (that's the hob), you'd probably want the thinnest pan possible to give it the most responsive action.

I think the steel adapter may work better in theory than in practice. Unless the curvature of the adapter EXACTLY fits that of the wok, its heat transmission will not be very good because it is transmitting heat through conduction. Any gaps or space is dead air and is a decent insulator.

Wow that brings back memories... my parents had those when I was a kid. We had 3 - one for plastic wrap, one for aluminum foil and the last for waxed paper. They worked for years and years. Once they died, they were still usable - if you pulled on the sheet manually

I would call it "red curry duck".... I think I've seen something sort of like it at a market vendor selling various room temp premade curries out of large stainless steel bowls...

coriander, aka cilantro, is really tricky to grow so don't beat yourself up! Just look at it wrong and it bolts!

Yes, I definitely noticed that also, especially prominent in the last few shows...

@liuzhou That looks amazing. I wish we had something even remotely close to something like that here. ETA Then again, if we did have something like that, it would probably be $100 per person.

I've grown basil inside very successfully - even without artificial lighting - just in my southern facing windowsill that gets a lot of light... I'm sure I've posted pics of it in the gardening thread - it was the genovese strain and had leaves the size of my hand that were extremely pungent. I grew them in a deep water culture/nft hybrid hydroponic setup.

Yes, fans are important for a few reasons - not just to develop thick stems. They are also necessary because stagnant air will cause a humid microclimate around the plant which will cause the plant to slow photosynthesis, slowing growth. It also reduces transpiration which will cause calcium deficiency in the leaves leading to tip burn. The humid microclimate also leaves the plant more susceptible to molds/mildew as well as other diseases. ETA: if you only have 1 plant, you don't really need a fan on it, but if you have a bunch of plants grouped closely together, you definitely should have some ventilation...

@rotuts Good advice. LEDs are a good choice because they do not radiate much heat towards the plants - which is not to say they don't get hot, but are made with a heat sink to suck out the heat. Plant stretch (when they get leggy) is definitely caused by not enough light, but is also determined by the wavelength of light it is getting. Far-red is known to help mediate germination in some plants - too much far-red will cause plants not to germinate at all. High amounts of far-red will also cause plant stretch and some research shows that high amounts of far-red will also decrease oil/flavor production... so, for purely vegetative growth (what you want when growing herbs/lettuce) you want a higher amount of blue in your light. Back in the pre-LED days, that meant using a metal halide lamp for veg. growth (it has a bluish tinge) and then switching over to sodium vapor lamps to induce flowering (it has less blue and more far red - it looks like the old type orange-ish street lamps ).

her article was good information for a home gardener. Those a little more serious can find lots of research online - you need to know about PAR to judge a quality of a light, and then the ppf requirements of your plants...

I do a lot of indoor gardening (less so at themoment, but life gets in the way) but from what I can see from their website, the LEDs are really underpowered - especially for any type of fruiting plant unless it's also getting strong sunlight in a southern facing windowsill. Basil also likes lots of light. Beware - as basil grows, it becomes a HUGE water hog - I had a basil plant drink over a gallon of water a day! I've used a lot of the relatively cheap LED lights found on Ebay - some are better than others, but if you get a 250W (or even a 100W for just herbs or lettuce) light, it will be much better for your plants... and as @gfweb says, you can see my grow light in my apartment window from down the street.

I wish I could frowny-face and like at the same time. Sorry to hear about your troubles, but the outside looks great!

I don't know if anyone else remembers this, but many years ago, there was a tv show in the US showing a guy eating a bicycle - he first cut it up i(even the tires!) into very small pieces (like the size of a medication capsule) and then proceeded to swallow it piece by piece.