dcarch

There needs to be a rule here: If you don't grow your own heirloom tomatoes, you cannot joint as a eGullet member. I have a removable/re-installble insulated greenhouse, which takes about 15 minutes to take down and install every year. I never have to worry about frost or need to harden the plants. I get about two more months of growing in NY zone. dcarch

Thank you. Aebleskiver is very easy to make. You do need to have a special pan for it. It will be great to make them with the kids. They will have a lot of fun making them. Thanks. It is rediculously easy to make pork skin crackling. Pork skin dried with paper towel, and score the skin with a very sharp knife. Rub with salt and pepper. Bake in a 450 degree F preheated oven. Keep an eye on it to make sure you don't burn it. dcarch

A very interesting thread indeed. Food Psychology/Sociology in action. I wonder about the reactions to blue cheese when it first came out. The most disgusting, and vile looking, tasting, smelling substance ever to appear on the face of the earth. dcarch

Food is expensive. I don't know where you are located. I would run out to the supermarket and get a digital probe thermometer. You can get one for less than $20.00. dcarch

My tomato seedling chamber. I will have may be 80 plants. dcarch

Ground lean turkey can be chewy. I added topioca flour to smooth the texture a little. I do enjoy the nice bitter taste of mustard greens. For most leafy vegetables the leaves and the stems are like two different vegetables. So I often cook them separate in different dishes. BTW, Very nice stuffed hairy squash. I have done it with bitter mellon. Have I told you I like bitter taste? :-) dcarch

Kim, Thanks. You should teach McDonalds how to make Egg McMuffins. I love the Mona Lisa cup. The soup will put a smile on my face too. Shelby, Wow, what a parade of fine meals! Especially the bagels and the Venison corned beef on rye. menuinprogress , beautiful Sea Bass al Pil-Pil. rarerollingobject, you always have the most diversified dishes. You must have some very good shopping in your area. What a wonderful looking five-spice roast duck you made!. ------------------------------------------------------------- Made this Friday dinner to get the weekend off to a good start. Sous vide pork on brown rice and roasted carrots Crackling pork skin I made a mistake making the dough too thin, so I made Aebleskiver instead of bread. Have a wonderful weekend everyone. dcarch

Jenni, picnic is such a good excuse for those wonderful salads. Rebecca, the snap pea salad is so elegant looking. rarerollingobject, I admire your incredible ability to orchestrate meat and vegetables into harmonious and delicious salads. Something I have been hesitating to try. - - - - - - - - - - Buffalo Mozzarella and home-grown Great White and Green Zebra tomatoes dcarch

Does organic/natural mean it's harmless? dcarch

Using the presusre cooker as a presure steamer. In other words, put carrots in a container and the container in the presure cooker. dcarch

You have discribed the exact purpose of my post for the heat pipe idea. I have been using heat pipes for a while with a great deal of success, including using them for baking big cold turkeys. I only decided to post the idea mostly because one poster was asking what would be a best designed sous vide cooker. I thought may be makers of kitchen gadgets and sous vide cookers can see this post and perhaps would be interested in looking into this high-tech device and realize that they can be made inexpensively for kitchen use. dcarch

“Get meat a bit faster versus a whole heap of unknowns that could very well be toxic ... We've all tried to warn you subtly but let me be a bit more forceful: Don't do it, it is not worth it.” Very good advices to be careful when it comes to food stuff. Don’t hunt for mushrooms if you are not a 200% expert in the area of mycology. You will be suicidal to eat Fugu if you do not have years in training in the preparation. However, I am not entirely convinced that rendering the small copper pins food-safe can be so imposible. I am not convinced that for a few experienced sous vide cooking practitioners, to maintain sanitary conditions for a few pins is so overwhelming. I am not convinced that it is meaningless to take advantage of the incredible thermal transfer capability of heat pipes, for instance, in the situation when you have to cook an ice cold chunk of 4” thick roast to raise the temperature of the interior of the meat as quickly as possible to control and optimize the cooking time.. I do agree that safety in any kind of cooking is important, and I appreciate the advices for caution. We have come a long way to convince people that sous vide cooking should not be made illegal. No doubt driving a car is extremely dangerous and I don’t blame those people who will not drive a car. dcarch

Yes, eggplants were steamed separate. The ground turkey was very lean, I mixed in some tapioca, and some finely chopped pickled turnip. Seasoned with light soy sauce, pepper, seasme oil, and Shaoxing wine. ---------------------------- Lovely pork balls and mixed mushrooms. ---------------------------------------------- Roasted pork with crackling skin, on mustard green. dcarch

Depending on the shape of the IR heat source. IR goes by the point source or lineal source of radiation pattern. 6" may be a little close and you may get uneven heating. dcarch

The idea is this device called "heat pipe". It uses an interesting principle (latent heat, phase change) to conduct heat very efficiently. It conducts more BTUs than pure metal. That's why they use it in critical heat transfer needs in computers and other applications such as nuclear power cells and space crafts. It is very intriging that this high-tech device can be had at such low cost in the surplus market. dcarch

I understand your concerns, but consider the following: The amount of copper which will get into your body is dependent on the following: 1. Frequency of the use of copper cookware. 2. Surface area of cookware in contact with food. The larger the contact area, the more copper may leach into food. 3. Degree of agitation of the contact point between copper and food. The more agitation, the more leaching of copper may happen. 4. Acidity of food. Copper may react with acid food. I believe that the copper heat pipe as shown does not meet any of the above four conditions. In any case, a small amount of copper is required for good health, that tiny amount of copper, if in fact present, may just be good for your health. I think it is a good idea to beat eggs in a copper bowl, lots of stirring with metal to metal scrapping and exposure to large surface area. As I said, most of the piping for potable water is in fact copper. On the average, most people drink large quantities of water from copper pipes everyday for over 70 years (life expectance). I am not sure drinking water is not somewhat acid with chlorine and fluorine and acid rain. Having said all these, my experimental heating pins using heat pipes are actually tin coated. I think for SV, it will make a few hours of difference of cooking time to equalize cold temperature of a very thick piece of meat right from the refrigerator. dcarch I think the opportunity to introduce pathogens into the meat far outweighs the potential reduction in cooking time by perhaps only a few minutes. I doubt that it would reduce the time by hours since those same BTU's still have to make their way out to the water and the mass of the heat tube is insignificant relative to the entire mass to be heated. you are not providing any benefit to the process and complicating a very simple cooking method by introducing an indeterminate variable. I don’t have any data to show. As I remember, it takes close to half an hour of resting time for the interior temperature to get to rare temperature after you roast the beef in a high temperature oven. I would think it takes more than a few minutes in the SV bath. I will agree with you that the possible use of additional implements to accelerate the heating of interior of large pieces of meat is not for everyone. I have a feeling that SV cooking is at the moment, for many people who are adventuresome, and with a willingness to try for perfection in cooking, and this new technology of using heat pipe may be of interest to them. There are many who configure their own system with PID controllers, pump, bubblers, heating coils, etc. While I can agree with you that the using heat pipe can increase the possibility of introduction of pathogens, but for a well informed user of SV methods, that doesn’t not appear to be as an overwhelming challenge to maintain sanitary conditions. dcarch

This may not be a rice. I like real, not farmed, wild rice. Kind of expensive, but nice taste. dcarch

I understand your concerns, but consider the following: The amount of copper which will get into your body is dependent on the following: 1. Frequency of the use of copper cookware. 2. Surface area of cookware in contact with food. The larger the contact area, the more copper may leach into food. 3. Degree of agitation of the contact point between copper and food. The more agitation, the more leaching of copper may happen. 4. Acidity of food. Copper may react with acid food. I believe that the copper heat pipe as shown does not meet any of the above four conditions. In any case, a small amount of copper is required for good health, that tiny amount of copper, if in fact present, may just be good for your health. I think it is a good idea to beat eggs in a copper bowl, lots of stirring with metal to metal scrapping and exposure to large surface area. As I said, most of the piping for potable water is in fact copper. On the average, most people drink large quantities of water from copper pipes everyday for over 70 years (life expectance). I am not sure drinking water is not somewhat acid with chlorine and fluorine and acid rain. Having said all these, my experimental heating pins using heat pipes are actually tin coated. I think for SV, it will make a few hours of difference of cooking time to equalize cold temperature of a very thick piece of meat right from the refrigerator. dcarch

Good point. The material appears to be pure copper, the same material as drinking water piping. Of course it can easily be tinned. dcarch

"---Sheesh! It's lonely in here... Is it something I cooked?---" OK, I will post one :-) Simple steamed eggplant, ground turkey with oyster sauce. dcarch

“----Uhhh. Isn't this like reinventing the wheel? Today's heat lamps use less energy than they did twenty years ago and you don't have to monkey around with them.---“ The work involve in what I was talking about is very minimal. A set of 1,000 watt halogen work light costs about $50.00 on eBay, bulbs included. Operating incandescent (halogen) bulbs at half voltage or half current will make the bulbs last practically forever. The infrared bulb you mentioned will work fine as a heat source; however, at 500 watts the bulb should only be put into a ceramic socket, not the clamp-on one you mentioned. The reptile ceramic bulb probably will not work well because it is only 100 watts. When it comes to use electricity to generate heat (infrared) by means of electrical resistance (light bulbs), there is no more, or no less efficient way. It is always the same one watt = 3.413 BTU. dcarch

If you are handy with electrical stuff: 1. Get a 1,000 watt 220vac halogen lamp and run it at 110vac (with an plug adapter), you will have a very good warming lamp. 2. Get a 1,000 watt 110vac halogen lamp, wire it up with a rectifier diode to run it at 110vac halfwave, you will have a good heating lamp. dcarch

"---dcarch: What is the spice sprinkled on the mustard greens? It made me think of sumac - a spice I've been "hoarding" and have only used a couple of times.---" Dejah, That is home-made tomato powder. Chinese mustard green has a very pleasant bitter taste, like broc rabe, or dandelion greens. The sweet taste of the tomato powder accentuates as well as mellows that astringent taste. I recommend getting tomato powder for trying out in your recipes, including scallops. dcarch

I have a bottle of mustard oil. I bought it here in NYC in a Chinese store. Very powerful oil. A few drops goes a long way. It smells like wasabi. I will have to go to Jackson Heights here sometime and buy the Indian version and compare. J. Heights in NY is totally populated by Indians. dcarch

Heidih, those red pieces in the wheat bread are peppers. Genkinaonna, beautiful lentil soup. rarerollingobject, indeed, beautiful and simple sauteed chicken with roasted grapes, robirdstx, thanks for the links to your delicious looking turkey thights. MiFi, nice plating. C. sapidus, it is not easy to stir fry salmon without having it falling apart. You have done an expert job. Dejah, Sea scallops are expensive, so is wild rice. You have not wasted these wonderful ingredients. David Ross, I like the design of your monkfish dish and also The rack of lamb . patrickamory, I disagree with you. The Spaghetti with sausage sauce dish looks rich and scrumptious. Kim, absolutely beautifully composed photos of elegantly plated dishes. Funny, I just ordered a supply of Pop Rock candy on eBay. PopsicleToze, thank you so much for you kind comments. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - I make sous vide pork loin on quinoa, on home grown lettuce. And a stir fried Chinese mustard green side dish. dcarch