Norm Matthews

That's the one.

The pan is non stick aluminum. I pressed the dough down into the pan and let it rise, then baked it in the pan. It's heavy aluminum and it browned without me doing anything special. It came right out when I turned it over. I don't know any other store close by that carries the pan. It's new from Nordic Ware. If it turned out OK with yeast bread, thought I might use it for Challah on Thanksgiving. I am lousy at braiding.

The bread I made this weekend was gone after two days so I decided to make some more. Meanwhile a friend in Seattle posted a picture of a new loaf pan from Nordic. While the bread was rising I went to Williams Sonoma and liked the pan enough to get one. I know the pan is for quick bread but I thought I'd put a loaf of the yeast bread in the pan to see how it looked. I also saw what looked like a pretty conservative Italian recipe for meatballs and sauce so I made it for dinner to go with the bread. Also had a simple salad.

We had company after trick or treating, and I didn't take any pictures, but I put a chuck roast in the slow cooker this morning with potatoes, carrots, and an onion along with seasonings, and made a pot roast. We finished off the the sour dough bread too.

mmille24, good looking roast. I don't have sous vide equipment but that gives me an idea of what to put in the slow cooker for dinner tomorrow.

It's been at least since May. I fed it daily for about a week before I used it. I had some for many years that I would keep in the refrigerator for months but after about ten years it died and I decided not to have any more. Then a friend sent me some as a Christmas present about 4 years ago from King Arthur, along with a ceramic canister for keeping it. I use a sharp paring knife and cut it deeper than I used to. I also brush it with an egg and water wash inside the gash as well as outside. I put a pan of steaming water in the oven too. I don't know how much any of those things makes a difference though. One other thing I do that helps is: when the dough has set for about 10 minutes, I insert a thermometer probe in the middle of one of the loaves and bake it to 190º instead of to time. These were done about 7 minutes before the recipe said to let them bake. You can see the hole for the thermometer probe in the top picture on the side of the closer loaf.

Last week I woke up my sourdough starter that had been sleeping in the refrigerator since May and yesterday made some French bread with it.

I thought it would be a good time to wake up the sour dough starter that had been sleeping in the refrigerator since May. I made some sourdough French bread today after feeding it for several days. We had store bought deli fried chicken and baked beans to go with it.

Every time we have a yard sale, I have a few less cookbooks. The 3 drawers below the desk are also full of cookbooks, but this is what is left. There used to be a couple more book shelves full as well as this one. There are two books in there that aren't cookbooks. One is a bible and the other is a first edition (in dust jacket) of Atlas Shrugged. After I read that book, I was convinced Ayn Rand was a total kook.

I haven't cooked much worth mentioning lately, but today I visited an Asian market, and got some pork shoulder and bean sprouts and made pork bulgogi and Korean bean sprouts. We cooked the bulgogi at the table since the kids get a kick out of doing that at their favorite restaurant. I already had this propane grill for some time when the power might go out. We already had most of the other stuff. Not pictured is a dip made with sesame oil with salt and pepper.

When I was an art teacher, we used fixitive in a spray can to keep charcoal drawings from smearing. In the storage room was a bottle of fixitive (basically a type of varnish) and one of those mouth atomizers. In pre spray can times, fixitive was sprayed on drawings with it.

Chicken Parmesan was tonights dinner.

Yesterday, I tried a recipe from Jaques Pepin for braised chicken using all dark meat, bacon and vegetables. It was braised on the bone but I took them out before serving. It would have made a good pot pie if it had been topped with a biscuit dough. I don't understand frozen pot pie packages that shout ALL WHITE MEAT as if that were a good thing.

There is a problem with that recipe. If you combine fresh garlic and oil without heat or refrigeration, I think you should use it the same day.

Paul, that looks mighty good. When I make my own hamburger blend, I use your two beef cuts plus chuck. When I do a meatloaf blend, I use those two cuts plus some store bought brautwrust. But that blend looks really good too. Prime brisket plus butt should add a very nice fat blend too. Now you've given me a reason to get another one and freeze the flat for St. Pat's day corned beef.

Last week I thought I'd cleaned the smoker for the last time of the year. Then yesterday I was in Costco. They had USDA Prime brisket for $3.39/lb. I stood there and looked at them for a long time, knowing that if i got one, I'd have to clean the smoker one more time. I finally got the smallest one I could find. It cost $34(!). It spent 9 1/2 hours in the smoker. The point didn't ever get to the temperature that I thought it should but it the thermometer went in effortlessly so I knew it was ready to wrap. The point was great but while the flat was juicy and moist too but it was not quite as done as it could have been, IMHO. Still it was all good.

Shelby, the food looks really good. I like that dish that the shrimp is on, the one with the crackle glaze.

I had some chili left over from dinner the other day, so I made myself a chili dog on a toasted bolillo roll.

I haven't tried the 5 ply one but Calphalon in general isn't really great, in my opinion. When Calphalon first came out, I still owned a restaurant and got a small skillet to try out and perhaps get more for the bussiness. I hated it. A few years later a friend who works in a kitchen supply store said that brand was the most likely to get returned. I never got another one until I moved back home to Kansas City 3 1/2 years ago. My son and (now DIL) had stayed behind to finish the school year at college and kept a non-stick one I used for omelets. I got a non-stick Calphalon at Marshals to replace it and liked it. It was better than I remembered the first one. I have replaced it twice because the surface gets marred but I have stuck with the brand. The current one is about a year old. Eggs don't stick when I use a little butter but they do stick when my DIL cooks eggs without any oil. I tried an All Clad that I didn't like because the handle was hard to hold. It tended to want to twist in my hand and dump the ingredients. I tried another brand that was well recommended and liked it less that the Calphalon.

It's red chili flakes. Ingredient is listed as Tabasco chili

Thanks Selby. I like to make sort of a mini chili bar when we have it.

We had chili tonight.

That is the diet based on what early humans ate because examination of their bones showed very little evidence of diseases that kill many people today. But is it also true that humans normally did not live long enough to get age related diseased that we get today?

My son brought home a slab of raw pork belly with the skin still attached. He didn't want to cut off the skin. Every knife we tried was defeated by the flabby meat and very tough skin. After a night in the freezer, I got out an old long, curved black steel blade and sharpened it. That kind of steel can be easily sharpened to very sharp. It cut through the meat but had to be re sharpened every few cuts. I tried the other knives on the meat and they still struggled to cut through the skin. That is the only time I have needed a really really sharp knife in the kitchen in 25 of so years. I have a theory that those old high carbon knives are the ones that can turn greens brown due to their interaction with the high iron content in the knives. I also think those knives are soft enouth that they can be actually sharpened with a steel, not just realign the edge.

My son gave me an "as seen on TV" gift one year. I don't remember what it was called but it was a round grate and solid plate that fit over your stove burner. You were supposed to add a flavored liquid that would steam flavor your food while cooking on the flat-ish part. The directions, however said not to heat it so high the liquid would boil so it did nothing, not that steaming chicken broth or anything else would actually add much flavor in any case.