annieC

That's a lot better price then the first place you found, and you didn't even have to buy 50lbs worth. I love all the information on various places in both Lansing & GR- its amazing all the places you don't know about or even forget about in your own backyard.

I was surprised how much the produce has went down hill at Kingma's- I hadn't been there in several years and it was such a totally different store. I see similarities out here in Ionia County, since the SuperWalMart went in. More of the small places, like McCord's Farm Market and even our privately owned grocery store here in Portland. are having to add more gourmet & niche foods to try to compete. I will definitely check out Heffron's & Little Rooster Bread- being allergic to corn & all its derivatives, it is so hard for me to find safe foods. I tend to forget about Forrest Hills Foods most of the year, until Passover time when I have to stock up on a lot of things for an entire year since most of it is corn free. I need to make a trip down to Eaton Rapids soon to stock up organically grown grains from Ferris Farms http://www.ferrisorganicfarm.com/index.php Its fun figuring out just how to safely store a couple hundred pounds of unground grains, along with all the other food stuffs.

I'm glad you could remember the name- I'm so bad with names-lol. I'd think either Goodrich's or the oriental grocery store across the street I mentioned earlier would be good places in Lansing to check. The second page of this PDF list all the major ethnic food stores in the Lansing/East Lansing area: http://www.oiss.msu.edu/documents/resource...ry%20Stores.pdf It's a handout for students, but I've found it useful in locating various ethnic shops.

I think Kigma's might be it- its one of those places I just drive to without thinking about what its' name is. The one I'm thinking of is on the west side of Plainfield, and would be about a mile south of the 96 interchange. They use to be more of a produce place primarily, but now they carry a ton of international cheeses, and have made their meat department much, much larger. The Cascade Meijer just underwent a major remodel and it seems they have stepped it up another few notches when it comes to specialty meats and deli. Sadly they stopped carrying a few products I love in the international isle, and with my allergies, finding new brands is not easy- luckily other Meijers are still carrying them for now. I lucked out a couple weeks ago there when they had some of the Certified Angus Beef on sale, when they then marked it 40% off due to close date. It ended up being $1.60/lb for TriTip and another cut...so you know what my deep freezer is full of waiting for me to try out my Sous Vide setup. And at that price, even if I only use it to make ground beef, its worth it. I'll have to check Heffron out- I go to Harvest Health Food in the Cascasde/end of 28th St all the time and my doctors office just north of that shopping center. Is the Plainfield one in the shopping center right across from 96? Another thought in GR would be Forrest Hills Foods- they also have a very good meat department with real butchers.

Have you checked any of the ethnic grocery stores around Lansing? I know the one the on Trowbridge, right near MSU, has a lot of different types of frozen meats. Also, what about the grocery across the street from it- it tends to have more specialty items and is independently run, as far as I know. What about checking with Horrocks?- maybe they could order you in some at a reasonable price. If you're checking Sysco, you might as well check Gordan Food Service- I just hit them up tonight as I finally ran out of parchment paper for baking after nearly 10 years. If you don't mind a short drive, McCord's Farm Market in Ionia has a pretty good meat department. I love their fresh, never frozen chickens...even if I do have to pluck a few stray feathers-lol. I buy all of my meat from them, or from the Cascade (GR) Meijer's, as it has a lot bigger selection then other Meijer, especially for organic/minimally processed meats. I do know I've seen a pretty good selection of veal at the Cascade Meijer, so it might be worth a call there. There is also a couple small markets on Plainfield, near my sisters house in GR that have real butchers. One of them always have various bones available reasonably priced in their freezer case from whatever they butcher out. Since I live closer to Lansing, I always have to make sure I get a completely frozen bag and not a freshly processed, especially in the summer time. I can picture the shop and could probably give you directions, but I can't remember the name of it to save my life.

Couldn't the same be said for pressure cooking? You really don't smell the food as its pressure cooked, and tasting & feeling are definitely out- you basically know its done by how much time under pressure has elapsed.

I picked up a used Igloo cooler to use mine with- solves the insulation/loss of heat issue. It was just a hair too shallow, so I still have to put a mounting bracket on the side to attach my immersion circ to. Its also great to store the immersion circ in when I'm not using it.

[quote name=andiesenji' date='Nov 6 2007, 03:03 PM The bread box was to keep rodents and insects away from the bread. However some breadboxes had ventilation holes, usually small enough to keep out most insects (except for ants that could get almost anywhere). I have several, of various types (yet another collection) and none really keep bread from staling. What about the electric bread boxes? I saw one last week at a resale shop and had a chuckle. Though later I was kicking myself for not picking up to use a proof box- nice small stainless steel box with low temp heat element already built in...sounds perfect for a small proofer.

Hopefully Sunday I will get a chance to try it out- and maybe even take pictures of my setup too. I would like to be able to prepare my steaks ahead of time, then freeze them for later use/reheat. I assume I would drop them in an ice bath as soon as I pull them from the Sous Vide bath and then drop them in the deep freezer to keep. But what would be the best way to treat when I take them out? Defrost in fridge, I would assume, bring temp hot in water set at the same temp as I did for original Sous Vide and then pan sear quickly? BTW- remember the refrigerated immersion circulator bath I saw at the university surplus last week that I mentioned seeing for I think $35? I looked at PolyScience's site and I think the refrigerated part through me- that, and I was looking for something to put my portable immersion circ in- but I'm pretty certain now that its combination Refrigerating/Heating Circulator. It had the standard PolyScience analog immersion circ in a table top unit, extremely clean looking to boot. If I get a chance on Tuesday, the next day they are open to public sales, I'll see if I can get more info on it. Slightly off subject, but are there any other weird piece of lab equipment I should be on the look out for?- most people get weirded out when I start talking about using non-kitchen equipment in my kitchen, especially lab equipment. I already use Pyrex beakers & flasks, as well as test tubes & pipettes from there with my essential oils & such for making lotions & soaps. I would like to find something more efficient for dehydrating foods then cheesy plastic food dehydrator I currently have. Would a vacuum oven work? I see them fairly often & fairly cheap. I've also thought of some of the incubators- it is a major agriculture university after all. Any other ideas?

...and the size of the grains of salt too

The funny thing was I just happened to find it by chance & wasn't even looking for one. I'd seen them used on Iron Chef & read a few articles, but never gave it much thought until I happened to spot the one at the last second before the surplus store closed a few weeks back. Even then, I thought about selling it on Ebay until the city decided to flush the water line, turning our water orange. I'd already put stuff in my hair when I noticed this, and didn't want to run any hot water, least the rusty water get into my hot water tank, so out came the immersion circ & a 5 gallon bucket. It worked great & I figured at that point, I was definitely going to keep, so I might as well read up more on cooking with it too. I am keeping my eyes out for any more heating immersion circulators, though I only get to the surplus store once or twice a month. I probably won't be allowed to go back for awhile, since I bought 2 Steelcase cabinets for my basement pantry this week....it was buy one get one free, so 2 of them for $15 was too good to pass up. Plus they keep putting out more & more cookbooks from a special collections library for $2 each, and needless to say, I've added a lot to of cookbooks to my already large collection.

What's even sadder is one of the major brands of Rice Milk has a recipe on the back of the tetrapak carton that calls for real cheese & real butter. If you're using Rice Milk, you are most likely allergic to dairy or have personal/religious reason for not ingesting dairy, but I guess the marketers never thought of that-lol. Making your own soy milk, rice milk, almond milk, etc is pretty easy with basic kitchen equipment, even easy I would imagine if you spring for an Automated Soy Milk Maker. Some people balk that home made isn't fortified, like the store bought....so take whatever vitamin with your glass of home milk faux-milk!

I buy it at Sam's or GFS and then give little jars of it to all my friends once a year- they think its great I'm giving them such a 'gourmet' cooking item and I don't have to feel bad about wasting any. BTW- if you're really organized, you can even pre-measure your own little packets into Tuperware Smidget containers or something similar- 2 1/4 teaspoons by volume OR 1/4 ounce or 7 grams by weight equals one packet of yeast (I have it on a cheat sheet inside one of my cabinets )

I'm a newbie here and ready to try my hand at Sous Vide- I'm pretty lucky that I live near a major university that sells off unneeded items at a surplus store very cheaply, so I was able to pick up a used Immersion Circulator for $5- and yes, I cleaned it well...and they have a strict policy for sale of lab equipment that was used for anything toxic or anything like that. I was going to use a large stock pot, but reading through this thread got me to thinking about using something insulated. I tried the university surplus store again, but no luck (though they did have a very small cold immersion circulating bath for $35 yesterday), so I headed to a couple resale shops last night and found the perfect cooler for $1.50 (half off night). I'll have to take pictures to really explain it, but it was one of those you can plug into a cig lighter to cool/heat, so I took the working part off, leaving about a 6" opening across one short end along the top to insert the immersion circ through, keeping the rest covered to cut down on evaporation & heat loss. The interior dimension are 11"x16"x8"deep- sound okay? I already had a FoodSaver & wireless digital thermometer, so my total cost so far have been $5 for the immersion circ, $1.50 for the cooler, 50 cents for a small, flat drainage pan to bend into a protective shield to keep the bags from hitting the heating coil. Add a couple bucks for a disposable catering pan to line the cooler, and I think I have a pretty good set up for under $10...now I just have to get my courage up to actually try cooking some of the Certified Angus Beef steaks I have in the freezer. Any suggestions?