Norm Matthews

If you are used to European knives but want a Japanese-ish shorter knife, take a look at the Australian made Furi knives. I had one, (santoku) didn't love it, but thought is nice enough. My son loved it. They make chef style knives too. http://furiglobal.com/au/products

Meatballs and spaghetti for dinner tonight.

This evening Cassie and Charlie got back from visiting her brother in NYC for a week and I made a dinner for the first time in a week. I made Shrimp in Escabeche and served it on a bed of romaine lettuce and Chicken Manicotti with lots of cheeses, salsa and an enchilada sauce. I also made some garlic bread.

The package said achiote on one side and annatto on the other side. I figured they were both the same thing. Thanks for the explanation. I didn't know that. The recipe I used was from a video demo and he used seeds but called them achiote.

Achiote seeds was in a Mexican recipe I recently made and had to take a trip to the Mexican grocery down the street to find. They had it in a paste form. I had a Rick Bayless cookbook but gave it away because at the time I lived in a rather small Kansas town and could never find at least one ingredient in just about every recipe. I got rid of a Mario Batali cookbook for the same reason. I kind of wish I had them now. I am a fan of Diana Kennedy cookbooks though. PS We like Queso Quesadilla cheese in place of any Mexican style recipe that uses Mozzarella. My DIL has a Mexican father.

Shipping and handling: $800.

I told the kids that if they were going to spend a week in New York, I was going to have a lobster dinner. The picture represents a lot of firsts for me. First time I have taken a picture of food with my phone, first time I have taken a picture of food while in a restaurant, first time I have sent myself an email from my phone and first time in almost 20 years since I have been in a Red Lobster restaurant. Well hey, if you are going to have lobster in Kansas, there aren't many places that have it. The food was better than I remember but still the lobster was my least favorite thing on the plate. The parts of the crab that weren't overcooked were my favorite.

Carbon steel knives can be sharpened very sharp and with relative ease but they take a lot more care.

Except for the boning knife, they seem rather small, at least for my hand. IMHO somewhat awkward shapes too. If it is any consolation, they will get rusty and will be very difficult to clean with that texture.

I wonder why those who sell vegetarian food tend to tout how much is tastes like meat?

There is a restaurant in Salina Kansas that is around 80 (+) years old that makes sliders exclusively. They put some diced onions on the grill, toss a small meatball on top, smash it quite flat, poke holes in it with the back end of the spatula and cook it. They sell them by the bagful. About 10 years ago a new owner bought the place and replaced the grill. He had so many complaints that they had to go to the dump, find the old grill and re-install it.

I recall once on a TV show where a famous British chef who likes to yell and cuss went around and "saved" failing restaurants, gave one place a hamburger sandwich recipe that sounded more like a meatloaf sandwich.

Kansas City has something called 'burnt ends'. They were originally just trimmings from briskets but the concept of burnt ends has changed from it's origination and now is offered by several restaurants in pork too. I believe the pork spare ribs trimmings are used. I believe they are smoked along with the ribs, then cubed, seasoned again and smoked a little longer.

Kim Shook As near as I can describe the salad dressing, it was approximately three parts Ranch dressing, one part sour cream and powdered taco seasoning to taste.

A full slab of spareribs has a lot of excess that needs trimming before smoking. The trimmings amount to quite a lot of meat and need to be used for something. It also adds quite a nice flavor to anything to which it's added. Pork butt is what I was thinking about when I said you needed to add some fattier meat. Here is an illustration of how much meat trimmings are left after getting a slab ready for smoking.

I saw a Mexican pork roast recipe here on another thread this morning and decided to make it for dinner tonight. No one is home from work yet but here is the Puerco Pibil we will have along with some Spanish rice.

It makes some tasty sausage. You'll need to add some fattier meat with it though.

My DIL does not like meat with bones so I smoke large slab of meat trimmed off the ribs along beside the ribs then cut it into 1-inch squares, serve along with the ribs. I also like to shred some of it and add it to my BBQ beans.

Dinner tonight was salmon over rice, salad, asparagus and snap peas.

As Cassie was walking out the door for work this morning, she said she got off at 8pm. I wondered whether that was a hint that she'd like something ready to eat when she got home so I started thinking about dinner. First I cut up an onion into rings and put them in a jar with pickled pepperoncini juice and added some rice vinegar and sugar and let them pickle all day. I decided to try a hamburger mix with 1 lb hamburger, 1bratwurst, bread crumbs and seasoned salt. I also got some triple cream brie, mushrooms, tomatoes, lettuce, avocado, dill pickles and some pasta salad. We had grilled hamburgers and the pasta salad along with some baby watermelon. BTW, I did not squeeze the hamburgers on the grill .

I have heard professional cooks say don't press a hamburger while cooking in the skillet, you'll squeeze the juices out. This is a premise I wonder about. My impression is that has not been my experience. I don't mash one flat when I cook but I when I do press down on it, I don't see any juices gushing out. The only 'juice' I see coming out is grease and more does not come out just because I press down on it. Hamburgers, in my impression, release grease under heat, not under pressure. A hamburger that is dry is dry because it has been cooked dry, not squeezed dry. The same thing has been my impression with sausage patties. Anyone care to discuss this?

I was thinking about making meatloaf until Cassie reminded me that it was a little hot to be using the oven today, so I grilled some Kabobs outside. I picked up a Dole Southwestern Salad Kit because I was feeling a little lazy. It came with packets of taco flavored Ranch dressing, sour cream, cheese, and Dorito-tasting chip crumbs. I added some left over roast chicken pieces. We all liked it.

I will attempt to show how I was taught to fold it by using two napkins with the bottom one representing the dough and the top one the nut paste layer. The paper clip comparison may not have been an ideal example.

The povitica swirl starts out like a jelly roll but it is about three times longer than the bread pan so it is laid in the pan folded like a paper clip. When put in the oven, the different layers bake together.

Tri2cook, glad you like the recipe. When I was living on Strawberry Hill, the only way one could get it was from someone in the neighborhood and it was always made with a walnut filling. Now flash forward to today, the Strawberry Hill Bakery (which isn't on Strawberry Hill) now makes it and they have added a lot of flavors. As far as i know, they came up with all the new flavors and only the walnut is traditional but they are all good. When I made it, I used pecans and I loved it with pecans.