OliverB

great tip Shalmanese, thanks! I don't mind buying "buttermilk" (which isn't really buttermilk in the US anyway), but if I can get away with a smaller container or even expand a tub of real creme fraiche to infinity, not bad!! And maybe it should be noted to non US readers, what's called buttermilk here is a cultured milk drink, NOT what's left over after making butter, which is what I would call real buttermilk. And it tastes heavenly after a long hike to some Alm (old high mountain farm house) in Austria! Thick, creamy, a bit sour, just hits the spot!

a great way to make Creme Freche in your SV, seems very easy and certainly economical, I'll have to try this soon! Creme Freche SV

The beef roast came out great! Gorgeous color all the way through, nice and tender, juicy and yummy. Definitely a winner. I made a rub with fresh garlic, salt, dried rosemary and pepper that I put on it after cooking, then browned it all nicely in the cast iron pan. Lots of wonderful roast beef left over for sandwiches too, I'll do this again! The roast was in the machine for a good 20 hours and came out perfect.

you could leave the meat in the bag and put it in a pot with warm/hot water that you try to keep at the target temp with a thermometer. If your destination is not too far away from home, you could also reheat it at home in the bath and then wrap it in a towel and put it in a cooler, where it should stay nice and warm for quite a while. I've made brisket on the bbq and kept it warm in a small cooler for several hours. Alternatively you could warm it in a low oven. That will take a while, so you'd have to arrive early to the party. Insert a thermometer to make sure not to overcook, but you might get some more well done area on the outside. Those are the approaches I'd take. Actually, a big pot with water in a low oven could be an other easy solution with less temp fiddling than a stove.

That's certainly true. I washed the roast well and dried it off, then seared it all over the outside to hopefully kill what might have lived there. I'm not so concerned about what might be way inside, hopefully the cow was healthy. But my hopefully true guess is that it'll warm up faster in the water bath than in a low oven, since the close contact with warm water transfers the heat much faster than air in the oven. Hopefully you'll hear back from me in the near future I'd not cook a whole chicken Sous Vide though, that's for sure. As interesting as that would be. Too much air/empty space inside. The recipe I linked uses 131 degree, I went to 135 (one above what I use for steak etc). Probably makes not much - if any - of a difference in that range, but made me feel "safer"

I'm running an experiment today, I put a big beef chuck roast into my Demi at 135 degree. It's been in there for about 20 hours when I take it out to give it an other browning (I seared it before I sealed it). I have no idea if such a big roast works Sous Vide, I searched here and in my books but could not find anything. My guess is that it'll work just fine, I'm sure it's "at themperature" for many hours already. If it smells off (which I can't imagine) or is too rare, I can always continue it on the stove or in the oven, but it was something I always wanted to try. The roast is somewhat over 5lb. Anybody ever do this? I searched for roast sous vide but found nothing. I'm hoping to get wonderful med/rare roast beef from this experiment and will post what happened. In the mean time, if you've done this or know of a post/website that talks about a roast in the Sous Vide machine, please let me know! Edit: of course, once I posted this I did find a recipe online: Sous Vide Roast Beef So I guess it works! I just hope the 20 hours will be enough, as I can't stretch time (yet). That looks like a neat website to explore further!

I use them all the time. I have one roll next to the sink on a wall hanger and one under the sink. I like the select a size ones. I use regular towels as well, but would not want to miss my paper towels!

I never put wooden cutting boards in, but they'd never fit anyways, so it's a non issue. Since there is a chance my expensive knife might get damaged, I'm not putting $250 in there to find out, I rinse it off and hang it back on it's magnet strip, quick, easy, and not thoughts spent on it. (despite the fact that Shun rates it as dishwasher safe, it's my favorite toy, so I treat it different than the rest of the stuff) I never put my non stick pan in either, it would take up half of the lower rack, I'd rather put other stuff there and rinse the pan out, which takes a good 30 sec or so, as I don't care what the chrome outside looks like - actually prefer a "well used" over a "brand new and polished with mouse leather" look Other than that, everything goes in, and if it doesn't survive I throw it out. I have the same mantra with house and yard plants, if it can't survive w/o special care (covered in winter etc) it will be replaced with something that can. New dishwashers did away with the plastic on top shelf only as well, which is nice. Oh, yes, cast iron will rust, I would guess it's the salts and what not in the soap and then the wet storage until dry. You should be able to save that thing easily though, if really bad get one of those steel wool with soap in it scrubbers (forget the brand name) and go at it, then put something like crisco all over and stick it in the oven to season it. My cast iron pan never sees soap, only hot water and a good scrubbing with a brush, then wiped off with paper towels immediately while still hot from the water, the residual heat dries off the last bit of water. I don't own any crystal, if I did put it in as well, same philosophy I have with plants. If it doesn't work the way I want, it has no place in my house

I'm so glad there's no Aldi (yet) in California, just their pretty brother Trader Joe's. I am German and I still have nightmares from mile long lines at the ONE open register (the other 4 closed and piled full of boxes), unfriendly and unknowing employees. I do love their paprica potato chips though, nothing comes close. The one thing I sometimes consider buying there in bulk is California nuts, buy them at less than 1 Euro, reimport them to California and sell them $1 less than the $10/lb stores want, make a killing. My family shops there all the time (it's so cheap!), I'd avoid it like the pest. IMO it's cheap for a reason. Great if you have limited income or other priorities (carpayments, vacations, etc) but I've never been impressed by their quality (except the chips) and the shopping experience is just terrible. Lately they seem to make most of their money by selling TVs and other some such stuff though, which is kind of funny. Just about anything new in my parents house is from Aldi, LOL Weird family that owns it too....

I'm not sure some of these would get much use, things like how to cook everything etc get the least use in my house, kind of a last resort if I can't figure out what to do with something. Not to say they aren't great, but there are no or not many photos, which all by itself could be a deterrent for somebody that doesn't cook much. I'd probably think outside the box, figure out what kind of foods she likes. Maybe Thai? Italian? Indian? And then get a very nice well illustrated book like that for her, guessing that trying to make something she really likes in a restaurant might be a fun project. At least that's how things really started for me, when I bought a copy of Thailand - the beautiful cookbook at CostCo. I always cooked something before, roast chicken, bbq, etc, but with that book I expanded on every day stuff I had learned along the way. Also some Italian cooking bible I picked up at the bargain tables was very useful to me early on. Lots of photos, great recipes. Especially the photos made me cook, as I had little experience aside of my "standards". But seeing something wonderful "I want to eat that NOW" certainly helped. This has not changed much for me by the way. Publishing books with gorgeous photos has become a lot easier and cheaper than it used to be and I rarely pick up books that don't have photos but cost the same as some similar book w/o photos. I'm a visual person. Cooks Illustrated books do little to nothing for me, I subscribed for years, but eventually dropped it once the homey stories and the "we're gonna try and fake this takes 47 hours to make meal and prepare it in 47 minutes" seemed to either take over or get noticed more by me. Add the goofy drawings, just not my cup of tea. One book I recently got, The Family Meal by Adria, might also be interesting for a novice. To me it's a book that actually has too many photos (almost illustrating how to boil water) but for a novice it might be a great introduction to some more advanced things as well and the recipes seem largely doable w/o hunting through specialty stores. on a last note, if she watches some cooking shows, it might be nice to get her a book by one of her favorite starts, even if it's some no cook like Rachel or the butter lady from the south, or yes, even Martha. If she likes any of these people, having their voice and banter in mind while cooking might help her over some obstacles and make it more fun. She can then graduate to real cooks later on

funny, never would have thought to look in that book! Will do so this week, when I make my second batch. Since we're on this topic, supposedly it keeps a month or so in the fridge, can you freeze this too, or will that turn into a mess?

I love poached eggs, but hardly ever make them. My kids like only scrambled eggs so far, my wife would prefer over easy (which I never make, breaks my heart to hide that nice yellow ball of wonderfulness! She has to do that herself) and my real favorite is not quite hard boiled, where the yolk is still runny on the inside, but hardened on it's outside. But when I do poach them, I bring water to a just barely simmer, I add some vinegar since I like the flavor, some salt too. Make the vortex, drop one in, when done take out, put in warm water in very low oven, make next one until as many as I need are done. I never tried the plastic wrap method, I'm afraid to get the egg molded with folds from the wrap, which I'd not like. Man, I could really use a poached egg to go on my Knödel tonght, would go great with my Bavarian Pork Roast. But I've been standing in the kitchen for hours making Lebkuchen already, I think I'll pass. (There's some just as right as possible Sauerkraut waiting though!)

the recipe I used did not say anything about lemon juice, the one I found online does (and everything else is the same) so maybe that's the reason, thanks! Next batch I'll add some lemon juice, they can use a bit of a sour bite anyways

I finally found some Quince at the farmers market and decided to make quince paste. Recipe is pretty easy, peel/core/cut quince, add lemon peel and vanilla bean, cover with water, bring to boil and simmer for about 40 min until soft. Drain, discard vanilla bean, puree everything else in food processor. Back in pot, add same amount of sugar, put on low and boil down to thick paste. Put in pyrex baking dish lined with parchment paper greased with butter. Put in very low oven for about an hour to dry/set. Same recipe I find online. But after an hour this was still very soft, top was somewhat set, bottom was soft marmalade. Back in the oven for an other couple hours, still soft. I finally ended up dividing it into two baking dishes, reducing height from maybe an inch to half an inch or a bit less. Back in the low oven and after something like 12 hours it's finally something I can actually cut into cubes. That's way longer than the one hour or so the recipe indicates. Any idea what went wrong? Instructions are a bit nebulous, what do they mean with a "very thick paste" before I put in the baking dish and into the oven? Mine was thick as lava, even on the lowest setting of the stove splattering paste all over form the rising bubbles, if I had gone longer I think it would have just burned. This is really tasty stuff and I have an other bag of quince to process, but really don't want to run the oven for an other 12+ hours.... Any ideas? I might just make quince jelly or just saute some in water and then add some butter to add it to a nice salad, but I'm baffled by the paste's refusal to dry/set. I've never made marmalade or pastes or anything like this, chance are good I did something wrong, but what? Add more sugar?

as for recipes, I've not gotten a single one in my inbox, only the message about the free photos (well, $8 or so for shipping....), am I not on the list? I did register. Guess I'll sift through my spam folder - - - nope, nothing in there as well.

I just got mine as well, sadly in a flimsy envelope and they are all damaged, but once I told them they sent out an other set, she said she found some cardboard to put around and a bubble mailer. What nice service! No reply on my question of eventually being able to buy a revised copy of the kitchen manual though, I guess that's not gonna happen

If you go with something like blurb there's often a feature where you can "page" through an online copy of a book, which might be useful for proofing/getting input for one, but especially for trying to sell it to non family members. I doubt I'd be very interested if the Jones family from down the road (or what ever their name may be) would publish a book of their family recipes, but if I got to see an online copy my initial impulse might as well change from who cares to want one! As for the index, I'd think there might be some kind of software tool for this? I don't know layout programs, but I'd think there's something like 'right click - add to index' function that will do that, including page number?

I just received a photo book done via Blurb, superb quality! Mpix is also good from what I hear, and even adorama makes books that get good reviews. now, these are all photo books, I'm not sure how well they'll work with all that text and text formatting. As for a cook book, I like them organized by groups (beef, poultry) or something like season. I don't care for books organized by menu, though I like the menu suggestions. A good index is a must (and hard to do right, I hate indexes that make you jump around with cross references, just give me the page. Bold if there is a major section. Don't reference every incident of the word beef but also don't lump all beef recipes into one endless list of page numbers etc) Photos are almost a must for me by now, there are quite some books I did not buy since they don't have any photos of the finished dish. I also don't like photo sections somewhere in the book, but I think that's going away now with modern printing. Stories are always great, and if it's (mostly) for family, maybe even family pictures? Clean consistent layout, story first, list of ingredients (I like that in the order needed when possible) and then easy to follow steps/paragraphs. YOu've got quite some work cut out for yourself there, but a great idea! Aso for what I'd pay, I'm not sure I'd buy "some family's" book (no offense) and certainly would not spend $30+ I do for "professional" books. No particular reason, but I'd probably consider $10-15 if I can have a look at the book first and see that I like it. Personally I'd not invest in the production though, but if you go with blurb or any service like that you don't have to print 500, you won't have any cost there, just your time/cost of getting it ready to be published. I'd also make sure to have at least several family members proof it, to avoid "I can't believe you put THAT into your book" later good photos alone are a major project! A lot of cooking involved there too...

we're doing a remodel and just got a nice piece of marble in the new bathroom and more to come. We bought a whole slab and I'll see that I get the rests finished for kitchen use. Sink cutouts maybe cut round or oval and used as cheese boards etc, and what's left as rectangular I'll have cut to fit my counter in the kitchen. At the marble place they hat lots of endpieces and broken slabs for cheap and as mentioned above, the cutting places probably have lots they don't need, should be easy to find a nice piece.

how far does it make use of the ipad? Is it "just" a "book" or are there videos, other interactive things? I'd have little interest in "just" a book, but I'm curious about full use of these tools, videos, other interactive features etc. Otherwise I stick to the real thing, and if it's not published on paper, oh well, more room for other books :-) Interesting idea though, a book per menu. Has promise! (does Next really only change their menu 4 times a year?)

Absolutely! One of the best cook books I own. Lots of fun history facts and great recipes. Not a cheap book, but worth every penny! And a LOT of the classics are in there, sweet to savory, roast to cake.

should be perfectly fine, I'd not use those with some flowery prints etc, but other than that it's just paper. But if in doubt, a coffee filter works great too. I've had to make my own coffee filter from paper towels too at times when I ran out of the real thing, also works with no noticeable effects on taste. Just more messy.

not having the book I'd suspect those are typos, I can't imagine any recipe asking for 500gr of carrots, except if you make carrot soup or something like that. That's a LOT of carrots. I'm getting a bit tired of typos in expensive books (hear me, MC?) that should be very easy to catch. And recipes in a cookbook should be checked extra carefully. And then checked again.

I'm somewhere between 250 and 300 now and I have to slow down, as I'm running out of space, I'll have to get rid of some before I can add much more, I'll get into trouble if I add an other bookshelf ;-p

I have to get Tamar's book, I took a butchery class from her a year or so ago that was a lot of fun. You'd never expect it from her (she's more on the petite side than burly butcher), but she carried half a pig from the walk in fridge to the cutting table! We shared the sawing though :-) We had a great bbq of some of the freshly butchered instruction meat and got a good load of meat to take home :-) She's a great instructor, I expect that book to be a winner.