cbread

Any custom stainless fabricator can cut stainless steel into squares you could use as tiles or make you large sheet that could cover big areas without joints. Really thick stainless, the thickness one would associate with tile, whether in small pieces or large, will be expensive.

On the potential counter space issue, what about running a couple of units using a shelved arrangement with one higher and one lower or some such arrangement like on a cart? Beyond time keeping they should need very little tending other than possibly making sure bags don't stick together and make for uneven heating, so usage of horizontal work space could possibly be lessened.

Crushed ginger snaps work too.

I await the failure of my much unloved refrigerator. It is too small and has a top freezer. Bending down all the time to get to the items in the bottom seems user hostile. The freezer compartment is poorly laid out and makes it hard to access most of what's in there. I want very badly to get a bottom freezer unit with drawers for the freezer section. At least I did get one thing right with my current unit. It has no ice maker in the door.

Reading between the lines it sounds like McCormick's are saying that their spices are likely to be old and dead by the time you get them. A quarter tsp of a fresh and lively black pepper could be way too much but the same amount of outdated old pepper could be rather bland. Are there any real benefits from any spice? I have heard that cinnamon has health benefits, but my inner skeptic wants some far more qualified skeptic to weigh in with facts.

I don't know what is the perfect fork, but I'm quite sure it has four tines. Three is just so wrong.

Avoiding pattern, I had white but also I liked clear glass tableware. They have a quiet elegance and for a long time I admired them from afar, until I realized I too could have a set. So, now I do. But, I'm conflicted of late. I have always been wary of "excessive" patterning, whatever that may mean, and have been quite surprised to find myself hankering for some strongly patterned design, rustic and warm, I'm guessing Moroccan? There is a type of hand made tableware with a metal rim around the ceramic edge. I occasionally see isolated examples here or there, but no complete sets, so I haven't taken the plunge. I may end up amassing a cats and dogs collection unless someone can point me where I should look.

In any kitchen, one or two deep drawers may have a place, but more than that are probably, ummm, sub-optimal. There, that was diplomatically put. I advocate a series of different depth drawers to accommodate varying height items, from shallow at the top to deeper at the bottom. That's what I did in my new kitchen, and it has worked out very well. I believe there exist yet dumber things than "all deep drawer disease". My number one pet peeve (of many) for residential kitchen design is base cabinets with no drawers - deep or shallow - just a door on the front hiding a big confused pile of kitchen miscellany. Little else makes my day like having to get down on my knees to retrieve something at the back under a pile of other items. My last kitchen had those idiotic deep cabinets with doors. In my dreams I would have liked to have a little back alley "chat" with the contractor who put those in. I think that was the very first thing I declared would NOT be repeated in my current kitchen. Has there ever been a thread devoted expressly to kitchen design in general rather than as a response to an individual's particular kitchen conundrum?

A dear friend gave me one of those spoon rests. Were it from anyone else, I would have chucked it long ago. A wish to have my friend feel her gifts are appreciated makes sure it gets used all the time. I made my peace with it by using it merely as a rest to elevate the working end of my utensils off the counter. I place the handle end of the spoon or whatever on the counter and just the working end stays elevated. The tools don't roll of quite so easily used this way making it passably functional. Any shallow dish would work about the same. Said friend has given me a few other kitchen items. All have been harder to make good use of than the spoon rest. They collect in a bin. Gifts for someone who cooks even somewhat seriously are risky.

I did a little Google search about gluten tests and found, in a totally unscientific way, a bit of over the top, sky is falling gluten-phobia. One piece of advise for the newly diagnosed is to discard all of one's non-stick cookware, because it is porous. I guess everything is porous to some infinitesimal degree, but... Get rid of wooden tools and cutting boards that might harbor gluten? Sure. But Teflon coated metal? How much gluten could that carry?

I've gone for the toaster oven - watch it brown and flip it - technique. I've never had a toaster that worked well. If I preheat the toaster oven for a half minute on it's broil setting, it works pretty well. I set the shelf as close to the top heating elements as I can, and I watch, flip and extract at the right times. I once tried a Dualit owned by someone else who liked it, and to me it seemed an excellent bread drier.

I've been persuaded by the idea of salting as early as possible where practicable. Meats especially where the salt has time to be absorbed. Obviously, not with broths and sauces that will be reduced, etc. The flavor seems different, and to me, better than that of foods salted at the last minute. I'm learning cookery as I go, so the concept of salting early may be a bunch of hoooey, but so far it seems to me to have helped.

Scott123's commentary touches on something I have wondered about, the apparent thermal superiority of very thick aluminum in some cooking applications. In this case, pizza. Aluminum plate or slab somewhere between two to three times as thick as the steel Scott123 mentions would have about the same heat or greater capacity as the steel, and far better conductivity, leading to - and here's my theory - presumably way better heat transfer to the bottom of a pizza. I keep wondering if really, really thick (like 1" or more) aluminum plate would make a top notch pizza stone. It would admittedly look clownishly over-sized. And cost? It would be far from cheap or reasonable; I don't even want to think about the price, but the specs for heat storage and heat transfer for roughly equivalent mass, not thickness, of aluminum and steel make me wonder about finding or even DIY home casting a honking big slab. Just one of those daydreams - like building a beehive oven by the deck. Unlikely to really happen but.... Has anyone ever done this?

Trying out a bunch of things I have never used before. Nothing quite as exotic as crocodile. Quinoa, fennel pollen, tomato powder, star anise.

Cloth or plastic film always seem fussy to me. I just pop a pot lid on top of the bowl. Best is a glass pot lid so you can see what's happening. I give the underside of the lid a spritz with water from a mister to keep the air in the bowl from drying the dough

I can botch a perfectly good recipe quite handily with no assistance, but when I find a recipe that is unclear about which thing I am supposed to do what with, or has ingredients out of order, or fails in clarity in any of a dozen other ways, my ability to goof up positively shines.

I recently took average size red waxy potatoes, quartered them unpeeled, par boiled them in very well salted water, then gave them a prolonged very deep browning in bacon fat on each cut face. As I finished them they seemed rather hard and dry and I was worried they would be unappetizing, but once I cut into them they were hands down the best spuds I've ever made. The crust was wonderful. Lots of browning time and the use of bacon fat seem to make a big difference. Bacon fat is some sort of magic ingredient.

I bought the Vase Shaped Spice Grinder at SpiceHouse , but went back to the mortar and pestle. The grinder seemed to take quite a bit of time to munch through even a modest quantity of spices, but perhaps I am using it wrong. The mortar and pestle does a good job quite a bit quicker.

I don't know anything about freezing the dough, but a probe style controller hooked up to a light bulb in a insulated box would make a cozy environment for rising the dough, maybe with a computer style pancake fan to avoid hot spots and even out air temperatures. Raising the dough in a bowl with a glass lid on it is very convenient and allows one to see the state of the dough without opening the bowl. I use a glass lid that came with a pan I bought. In a foam insulated box it would take very little energy to keep to some optimal temperature for your purpose.Contrariwise in a very hot climate, if you want a retarded dough, a refrigeration unit of some sort, perhaps a solid state cooler, could keep temps down and give you a desired long proofing time.

I'm not yet using sous vide but would like to in future, so I have been watching these topics with interest.I have been assuming people would be adding preheated water from the stove or similar to get their water bath up to about cooking temperature. I have guessed that recirculating heaters are designed to add just enough heat to maintain a given low cooking temperature, and that they are not designed for rapidly generating huge quantities of heat and thus would be running full out for quite a while to bring a large volume of water to cooking temperature. Am I making things too complicated?

It sounds like American faux Mexican to me, what with all those tortillas, 2 lbs steak as a flavoring, the enchilada sauce, the chipotle en adobo. the spices - corn, onion, spices - hopefully abundant cumin, salad ... Maybe with the nuts you could cobble up a somewhat more authentic sauce?

For the prices on many of these machines, maybe I should be able to toss bricks in.

Cabela's website has a number of vac sealers available. Could you say which you are referring to?

I did fine with stews till I mis-read a cookbook and at the same time gave way too much weight to oft repeated instructions I hear on cooking shows to not scrimp on browning. I seem quite good at reading instruction carelessly and taking good advice too far.

I'd like to wrap up this thread for "closure". It's been a while since I made the rugged stew that prompted this thread. Taking everyone's very helpful comments to heart, I recently made a vastly more satisfying stew. The meat was the same supermarket "stew beef" but with reduced initial browning in minimal oil followed by a much longer slow cooking. Thanks to all!