Marlene

I too, have been unable to master the "flip". Sigh.

Making stock.

Thanks Soba. You made me order chinese food tonight! (yes we got the regular stuff)

Build a bridge and get over it Marlene! This is the range I have. It's a slide-in and the "intrusion" into the kitchen is minimal. You also typically get a bigger oven with a range than with a wall oven ... unless of course the wall oven is wider, like 36". (duh!) Re: the sub-panel for the cooktop. Can it be moved into a neighbouring cabinet? That's usually how I plan it ... makes it simpler down the road. Keep in mind that pulling out a slide-in range is no simple task either. Not as difficult as a wall oven, but challenging nonetheless. A. ← It could be Arne. There are reach in cabinets to the right of the cooktop and drawers as you're looking at it. There is a space of 18 inches between the wall and where the cabinet starts, so it could go there,but then I'd have a hole in my cabinet back wall. yeah, yeah, no one else will see it but me.

So here's where I'm at: The island will be 6 X 4 1/2 . On one side will be a utility drawer, two pot drawers and a pull out bar. the other side will have 4 utility drawers and two cupboard. The island will have power. We are still tossing the slide in vs wall oven option around. The problem with the wall oven is two fold. 1) the transformer box for the cooktop is against the wall and is quite large. I'd have to relocate that somehow. There's also a breaker panel there which all the appliances are wired to. With a wall oven, I'd have to unscrew the thing everytime to be able to pull it out if I needed to get at that box. With a slide in, I'd just have to pull the range out. Now if I could just get over my aversion to having things stick out, i'd just bite the bullet and go with the slide in. The contractor is pricing it both ways for me, and that will probably decide it for me. One week to close.

Up for company this weekend will be the Five Spice Baby Back Ribs!

1. We always get 1 fried rice and 1 steamed rice 2. We tend to alternate rice and dish 3. Chopsticks normally 4. It depends on the dish. I tend to eat only the meat 5. Fried chicken wings no. Sweet and sour chicken balls, yes. 6 We always get the same thing with the exception of 1 new dish everytime which is usually a spicy something for my husband to try 7. We have two here we really like. Bronte Chinese Food and Halton Chinese Food.

Oh yes, we Canadians are extremely entertaining. It's going very well by the sounds of it. I told you in the beginning, that not all kitchen renovations have to be a nightmare. Mine certainly wasn't, and so far yours isn't either, not withstanding the earlier glitch. I'm so looking forward to seeing what you've done!

So get them to take pictures, or do something with the plating. Or let them kill each other. All in the name of eG education of course.

in case you haven't noticed, all my dishes are plain white corelle.

I've got my next recipe all picked out. Honey Glazed, Five Spice Baby Back ribs. Somebody stop me. I'm out of control. Susan, I'm going to have to come down there and start taking pictures for you. Better yet, I'll send someone who actually knows how to take food pictures

butter, sour cream and parmesan.

Stracotto with Garlic and Pancetta, Step by Step I started out by sauteing the vegetables: Then added the garlic head, wine and fresh herbs and simmered for several minutes: Put the roast and the marinade into a ziplock bag and refrigerated for 24 hours. Today, I took the roast out and browned it all over in some oil. The recipe calls for doing this in a skillet, but I used the Le Cruset pot that I intended to use for my braise. I used a bottle of this for the marinade: I strained off the marinade and reserved the veggies. Put the meat aside and poured out some of the fat. Added brandy, and scraped up the brown bits and let reduce. Then I added the marinade, and let that reduce, then a cup of beef stock and let it reduce again, till it looked like this: Put the roast in, the pancetta, and garlic and veggies, used parchment paper, and put it into the oven, slow braised for 4 hours: I gave up on the parchment paper half way through, but the end product was still amazing: Smashed the garlic into a paste: Shredded the pancetta and added it to the strained sauce simmering on the stove: Sliced, or more correctly shredded the roast and served with mashed potatoes and sauce: Before sauce: This one was great. The only comment I have is that it's a little salty, due no doubt, to the pancetta. The garlic paste on top is an absolute winner. And it truly smelled heavenly while cooking!

I'm getting into using more and more fresh herbs, especially as I continue to explore the world of braising. I recently bought some fresh rosemary sprigs and fresh bay leaves. (who knew they were really green?). I haven't used very much of either, and I'm not sure how to store them now. In the fridge, on the counter? A deep dark hole somewhere? Once the snow lifts and we have nice weather again, I'll experiment with growing my own, but in the meantime, these are the next best thing.

Hmmm, I've taken the parchment off halfway through. I left it hanging over the edges because that's what Molly's book says, but as I mentioned, it makes it harder to get the lid to fit properly. Next time, I'll try it not doing that.

I've got the pot roast in the oven, and I'm testing the parchment paper theory. Two things come to mind right now: 1) I have more trouble ensuring the lid is on properly, and I've had to double check it a couple of times. 2). Normally, I've found with Molly's recipes so far that I have needed to reduce the cooking temperature by 25 or 50 degrees, otherwise it's bubbling to much. So I set the temp for 250 to start, after 20 mintes, I increased it to 275 and now I've increased it again to the original temp of 300. Is the parchment paper preventing it from bubbling?

I'm glad you asked this Kim, because I was going to! I have to admit I have not tried it. Of course, not having braised before, I wouldn't know the difference. I think I will try it with the braise I'm planning for today and see if I can notice any difference.

I didn't think I had access either, but amazingly, I found pancetta in my local Sobeys!

I've started this, and of course, I'm taking pictures as I go. I'm figuring how can anything with a whole bottle of red wine, bacon and a full head of garlic be bad?

Excellent! Just in time for the winter storm we're about to get!

I've discovered the Stracotto with Garlic and Pancetta recipe. This is what I'll make next. Now it needs to marinate for at least 24 hours, so depending on how soon it thaws out, this will either be tomorrow or Wed night's dinner now.

We're expecting another snow storm this afternoon and tomorrow, which will make tomorrow a perfect day for braising I think. Since I've got a pot roast in the freezer, it may be a good day to try Molly's Pot Roast with apples or perhaps the Yankee pot roast redux!

I haven't yet. That's on the list for next week's dinner! The Le Crueset pan is 5 1/2 quarts.

Me too! Unfortunately not readily available where I am. I bought "reserves" when I was in Nova Scotia last summer but they didn't last me very long, BTW, these were Lay's brand Last Fall I discovered Walker's Marmite and Thai Chili flavoured crisps; they were fabulous! Unfortunately, can't get those very often either... From what's available here I like first, Miss Vickie's sea salt and malt vinegar and second, Lay's dill. * edit for poor typing ← I love the roasted chicken too. They are Lays. Very occassionally, Brunos will also have them, but not often. Recently I saw a President's Choice version of Roasted Chicken though. And Old Dutch BBQ rocks. It's the one thing Don misses from living out west. When we take the RV out west this summer, I think he has plans to fill every available space with boxes of Old Dutch BBQ

I've been on a Munchos kick lately. They are very hard to find here. Bruno's had six bags left the other day, so I bought them all.