dcarch

I cannot imagine they actually sun dry tomatoes. Dehydrate? yes. I have mixed tomato powder with ketchup. Not that good. dcarch

Indeed, they are. dcarch

Another wonderful early spring Mother Nature gift is Hosta. dcarch Beef Tenderloin On Hosta Shoots

I would not bother. If both died, replacement will not last either. Just get a separate pump and see how long the heater will last. The heat will need fast moving water around it. dcarch

Would that be a leftover thinking from long long time ago that tomatoes were thought to be poisonous? dcarch

Wonderful stuff. I cook with black garlic all the time. dcarch

The last time I found out how much it costed to re-tin, I gave all my copper pots and pans away. dcarch

To me, copper cookware is like sterling silver flatware. Lot's of maintenance with no real benefit. dcarch

I think one thing everyone uses the most for cooking is the computer. Googling for recipes, storing recipes, watching youtube cooking demonstrations, etc--------. and visiting food forums! dcarch

How is your vegetable garden doing? Depending on where you are, many areas may just be warm enough to have your seeds germinate. It will be many more weeks before anything is ready for the kitchen. I have been harvesting daylily shoots for a couple of weeks now. Many parts of daylily are edible, and are commonly used in many parts of the world. The shoots and young stems are very tender and mild tasting, kind of like white asparagus. They are very prolific perennials. The more I cut, the more they grow. They are completely happy in shade and need no care whatsoever. Do you forage? dcarch Braised Cod on Daylily Shoots.

Whenever eggs are on sale and I have too many eggs, I just dump them in salt water. 40 days later, I will have preserved salty eggs. I will try adding miso next time. dcarch

Power is good, but power is not the whole story. A motor can have a 1000 HP, but rotates at 10 RPM. It is power + RPM. But power + RPM is not the whole story. What really chops food up is the different speed of the blades and the food particles. If the blades go at the same speed as the food, even the blades rotate at 10000000 RPM, there will be no chopping of the food at all. Power, RPM (not many blenders give you RPM information) and turbulence creates based on the jar design (that's why many jars are square), give you the performance of a blender's capabilities. dcarch

Pork skin has more gelatin than anything I have tried. Not very expensive here in NY. dcarch

A blender is an extremely simple machine. It has no gears and no belts to break and no heating elements to get burnt out. It has only one moving part, i.e. blade assembly direct driven by the rotor. There is only one thing to considered, they are mostly high speed universal brushed motors. If you take the time, Google "proper seating of carbon brushes for universal motors", the motor can last a lot longer. Universal motor needs to rotate at high speed to have its built-in turbine blades ventilate the field coils. So don't stall the rotor, or it can fry quickly. Shel B, go find one that you can check out first. The Ninja Blender has the sharpest blades than all other blenders, which can be dangerous if you are not careful. dcarch

Except electric cookwares. Different plugs. dcarch

I think Capital Precision Series has convection feature, which makes temperature more even. dcarch

You should check the accuracy of your thermometer. It is impossible to heat water to 290F. Perhaps you meant set the dial to 290F? dcarch

Bitter? broccoli rabe? What are you talking about? Go to a Chinese or indian store and buy some bitter melons and find out what bitter really means. LOL! Serious, it depends on season and where BR is from, bitterness varies. BR was on sale last week here (NYC) $0.99 a lb, normally $2.75 a lb. They were so mild and tender, I must had gotten more than 10 lbs. dcarch

Actually, Hydrofluoric acid can dissolve glass, but not stain glass. dcarch

This is my un-proven theory: Enamel is similar to glass, nothing can stain glass. However, due to difference of thermal expansion coefficient between glass and cast iron, over time, there will be billions of nano cracks on the surface of the enamel, which traps stain, which can be very difficult to remove by cleaning alone. dcarch

Thanks, Basquecook, The gefilte fish for Passover was made with cod because there was a severe shortage of whitefish. I added ground up mushroom stems to give the recipe some nice taste and better chewy mouth feel. I wish I could use skate, but skate is not kosher. The plating was based on the symbolism of “3”, because “All good things come in threes” I had black garlic sauce for the prime rib for Easter. I wanted a lot of color for Easter and for spring, so I made multi-colored pastas. Beet for red, spinach for green, eggs for yellow, and black garlic and black gills from portabella mushrooms for black. dcarch

I hope you all had a great Easter, and a wonderful passover! dcarch Prime ribs for Easter Gefilte fish for Passover

Thanks guys! How long does it take to shape the blanks? About 1/2 an hour. Final sharpening after tempering takes longer because you can't use too much machine power. That would mess up the tempering of the steel. About 1 to 2 hours. I bought my blanks from here: http://www.knifemaking.com/category-s/103.htm As I remember, the kanji says "Sharp matter". dcarch

I have a lot of admiration for people who have the dedication and energy to carry out the extreme complexities of turning a concept into reality. The Mellow looks simple, but it is a very difficult engineering and manufacturing item. I am sure all my concerns have been thoroughly dealt with. Some of my simple minded thinking, if I was to make Mellow work: “----Temp sensor and heater can be wired with simple plugs in the base unit. Think of it like the batteries on power tools, only not a battery, but a tank. I can think of quite a few ways to plumb the air bubbler. Some sort of rubber valve similar to how a heart valve works. When plugged into the base, the pressure from the air pump opens the valve to let the air out, and the air keeps the water from leaking down the tube. Remove the tank, and thus the air pressure, and the valve seals. –“ That is asking for trouble. I would not make an appliance that has the container with a sensitive thermister plug, a high power plug and a water valve attached to it. You cannot count on users being careful in plug and unplug the container. Also unless the rubber valve is spring-loaded, and cleaned often, leaks will happen. Assuming the unit uses a SSR to control the heater, I would think there is a need for a safety cutoff in the design. When a mechanical relay fails, it opens the circuit, OTOH a SSR works the opposite. When a SSR fails, it shorts. I hate to think what would happen with a 1000 watt heater going fulltime unattended. dcarch

On another thread, someone asked me to post pictures of my home made kitchen knives. Here they are. I am not a fancy display/showoff quality knife maker. I just want to quickly, and cheaply make a few knives that are sharp, and comfortable for my own working habits. Basically, 1095 high carbon steel or D-2 tool steel blanks, which are under $20.00 each, heat treated, hardened and tempered. With an angle grinder and a belt sander, they are shaped and sharpened. I used some wood and plumbing parts for the handles. For scale, the blade for the yanagiba is 330mm long. Anyone else here make their own knives? or other kitchen tools? Post away! dcarch