Mottmott

I'm sure everyone was so in awe of your wonderful pix that they missed your question about freezing the dough. I'd like to know, too. Sometimes, I'm just too tired or out of time to do the whole batch at once.

Can you get Northern Spy apples? When I can get them, they're my favorites to use in a pie, either alone or in combination with something else. MelissaH ← Northern Spies are my favorites, too, either in pies or out of hand. I love perfumy after scent in good harvest years. Failing that I use Winesaps when they're still fresh and crisp, then switch to Grannie Smiths. I've almost given up making apple pies in favor of tarts. No doming problem and they look so pretty when you take the time to arrange the top slices. Besides I halve the butter that way and feel a little less guilty.

Simple! That's because... <jingle> "Nobody bakes a cake as tasty as a Tastykake." </jingle> ← I don't think they taste the way the used to - ever since they were bought out by Phillips Chemical Co.

I hate to say this because I really try to keep costs down, but there's another way that it got easier for me: that KitchenAid pasta attachment. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out how to use that Atlas hand-cranked machine with only two hands. Indeed, I needed four in my house: one to stabilize the machine (the clamp didn't work with any of the surfaces in my kitchen), one to crank, one to feed the dough, and one to remove the pressed dough or cut pasta. Now I only need two hands -- and that machine can roll far more quickly than I ever could with that crank. [Pasta traditionalists committed to fork-blended eggs slowly incorporating a mound of flour atop the clean counter should turn away now.] I also find that the KA works very nicely for the initial dough blending and kneading. Plunk down your two cups of flour with a pinch or two of salt and blend for a bit. It'll make a slight well in the center, into which you break the three eggs. Then turn the paddle on low to beat the eggs and then incorporate flour into them. As they start to bind and create little nodules of dough, turn the speed up; when it's starts to ball, switch to the dough hook and knead it for a few minutes. I always take it out for some hand kneading before letting it rest, but it works like a charm. I have found that I make this more often, and thus practice more, thanks to the KA attachment; screwing up and starting over isn't as big a pain in the butt as with the hand-crank machines. ← On my death bed, they will wrench my KitchenAid and Cuisinart processor from my right and left hands as I try to take them to the great beyond. How did people cook and bake before them? I'm not a gadgety sort of person with these exceptions. The pasta rollers are terrific. I can't imagine pasta making with the fiddly dance of the hand cranked machine. I tried it once. You might want to try using the processor to make your dough. I find it even quicker and easier than the KA - and it cuts down on the flour storm when I'm careless with the switch. I made some lovely delicate ravioli using the royal all purpose (dump in a heaping cup of flour, a drop or two of olive oil, and 2 eggs, then pulse - works like a charm). This produces a slightly moist dough, so I have no qualms in liberally dusting while I run it through the rollers. I think Kristen's dough problems may have resulted from a too moist dough. My only problem is that I like ravioli with very thin dough, but then it sometimes tears while cooking. I plan to try the 00 flour I've just bought to see how that compares. This week I made a simple filling of freshly made Italian deli ricotta and some duxelles, When I make ravioli, particularly in summertime, I prefer a simple dressing. This time I used some lemon infused Nunez oil (it's organic) and sprinkled it with chives from my garden and a dusting of pepper and Maldon salt. I also like brown butter and sage with home made pasta, but I'm cutting back on sat fat. The fun of ravioli is the endless variations possible.

I've been getting some wonderful fruit from a local orchard. When I'm not too busy scarfing them down raw, I poach the peaches simply, in water, with allspice, cinnamon stick, a splash of kirsch, and a very small amount of sugar. After they've poached to the proper texture, I remove them, reduce the liquid, return the peaches . I'll try a batch in wine or champagne, but I think that might interfere with the peach flavor rather than enhance it. A week or so back I made a peach pie with them, but the essentail peachy taste and perfume is stronger when poached. My index for when a peach is best to eat? If you can pull the skin off without first dipping it in hot water or paring it. I just use the knife to catch the skin away from flesh and pull. If perfectly ripe, it takes very little more time than the hot water method and does not damage the fresh ripe taste.

Don't forget that restaurants and their customers will also face high heating costs this year. And generally, when oil goes up, natural gas does too. My memory may be faulty, but I think Louisiana is some sort of hub for nat'l gas. I think lower end restaurants may feel the pinch much more than luxury restaurants as people have less disposable income.

In Philadelphia, I believe, grinding your garbage is considered a form of recycling. Edited to add that when I don't want to plug my garbage disposall with too many potato peels, etc., I do use a bowl.

A large luscious white peach which left a perfumy after taste (from a local orchard).

My son's a batchelor for the week, so I've been feeding him. And I've spent several days this week cooking with my other son's daughter. I won't go into detail on the homemade fettucine and ravioli I made with my gd or the mussel/shallot/riesling/creamsauce of earlier meals. Last night I made pork chops, brined, then stuffed with a bread stuffing (bread, duxelles, parsley, grated gruyere, moistened with juice of rehydrating porcini), these were pan seared and then deglazed with reisling that was reduced before adding the chicken stock and remaining porcini juice and porcini and, of course, the pork chops. On a cooler day, this would have gone into the oven, but instead they simmered stovetop slowly til the liquid was very reduced. Our appetizer was a composed salad of arugula, long thin farmers' market type beets (sliced), canneli beans, sprinkled with chopped toasted walnuts, and very aged raw milk Stilton. I prefer not to mix vinaigrette - especially with a salad of this sort, so I drizzled it generously with Nunez olive oil and then sprinkled it with a fine Sherry vinegar so that when you eat the salad, you get little separate bursts of unhomogenized flavor from one mouthful to the next. My son was disappointed that he didn't get any of the rustic peach tart I'd made with my gd and sent home with her. But he was consoled by dessert made of North Star orchard peaches that had been poached in a simple syrup flavored with cinnamon, allspice, kirsch, with the syrup well reduced and poured over. If I'd had more energy I would have toasted and chopped some pistachios to sprinkle over. Neither of us needed the extra calories, so I omitted the homemade vanilla ice cream I still had on hand after making some for my other son's family. The funny thing is that I though I do make these things when cooking just for myself, it was very taxing to make so many dishes in such a short time. When I cook for myself alone, I don't make all of them on the same day. I've gotten out of the rhythm of family cooking like this every day. And I've got to get a camera!

Some foods are naturally lowfat and don't need tweaking. Meringues are egg whites and sugar. You can add chocolate or nuts, etc. to them for variation. You can make them in container shapes and fill them with fresh fruit, etc. Angelfood cake is also naturally lowfat. Marshmallows should be lowfat. Also consider fruit desserts. Baked apples are classic, but any fruit can be peeled, drizzled with sugar, dusted with nuts and baked. Poached fruits can be superb. Also, when you do need to use fat in cooking or baking for him, stick with the monounsaturated fats. Olive oil is great for savory cooking and even is used in baking. Grapeseed oil is another monounsaturated fat with a neutral flavor and has a higher burning point than olive oil. There are some recipes for cakes and pies that call for oil rather than butter and other sat fats. Some Italian cake and pie dough recipes use oil. (I personally stay away from canola.)

One of the things that appeals to me about making my own crackers is no preservatives or transfats, etc. I know what's in them. So last spring I did it a couple times using a recipe from Martha Stewart's website. They turned out ok, very basic. I also did cheese straws that turned out very well, but dont recall where the recipe came from. When the weather gets cooler I plan to do more of this. I heard somewhere, perhaps here on eG, that it's sometimes possible to use a pasta maker to roll out the dough. Has anyone here tried that?

That's where I went, too, and I cook at home.

So you agree 7-8 days is pushing the limit on mussels, clams, etc.? I actually don't pay too much attention to the "R" months. The problem is I thought I was going to a good fishmonger. I go way out of my way to get there. And generally I've had good luck there. I was shocked at how old these mussels were. Ippolito's is the retail associate of Samuels (not sure of the exact nature of their association), the company that distributes fish to the best restaurants in town, including Le Bec Fin. I'm beginning to wonder if Ippolito's is selling the "leftovers" from the restaurant trade.

When you buy still live shellfish, how do you choose? If you're running a restaurant, I assume you automatically get that little time ticket. What do you want to see on it? Yesterday (Aug 25) I saw my first shipping label on a small sealed bag of Canadian mussels and need some help figuring it out. The time tag was inside the sealed plastic bag where it did me no good til I got home. THEN I read it was bagged Aug 18 and shipped Aug 19. With the exception of two which were broken and tossed, all were closed before cooking, all opened when steamed. But the cooked mussels looked really small within their shells. So my quesstion is when it comes to seafood how fresh is fresh? Clearly the mussels were alive and edible. But it strikes me that unlike wine, mussels don't improve with time and 7-8 days out of the water can't be a good thing. Hey, and not even all wine improves with age. How long out of the sea should Mussels, Clams, Crabs, Lobsters, Shrimp, Languistines, etc. be while they are still live? Should we treat farmed mussels like oyster and avoid in months without "R"? Or expect that, like lobster, summer is not their best season? What do those who know, know to do?

Smart chefs use websites such as eG. We're their best customers, we care about the food we eat and are eager to share our opinions with our eFriends who also care. And as our observations are usually posted in the context of discussions, the point of view of the reviewer becomes obvious, usually. At eG we all want good restaurants to succeed. We want to eat there. Why should chefs be afraid of that? Even our complaints can benefit them.

My knees and back don't say I'm large. I'm actually pretty small. I'm only 5'3" and 30-35 lbs OVERWEIGHT. I don't need to buy an extra seat when I fly. Still, I'm OVERWEIGHT, not large. My knees tell me, my back tells me, my bp and cholesterol tell me. I don't think many of us are talking about anger/loathing/hatred when we say (or think) that someone's overweight. When I do see someone who is so overweight that their bodies waddle instead of walk, or hear of people who are hoisted out of windows to take them to the hospital to save their lives, I feel pain. I can't imagine how uncomfortable and painful it must be - in every way - to carry about an extra 100-200-300 lbs! I don't think it denigrates those who are so overweight to call it that. Our bodies aren't engineered to carry so much weight without repercussions, and I believe it would be irresponsible for people in the medical field or responsible for social policy to ignore it. I think we have a duty to each other. And we have a duty not to be unkind or morally judgmental while we carry it out. I believe you are reacting to the unfortunately frequent negative moral judgment that sometimes washes over people who have a weight problem. At one time people were reluctant to call cancer and other diseases by their name because of social and moral attitudes towards those. Today this is particularly true of disabilities that can be perceived as lifestyle issues, even though they might not be. As long as we muddle this kind of attitude in with the health ramification of any physical disease or disability we will not be able to deal with it in a sensible and effective way. I think if we were able to resist moralizing about this issue it might be easier for those who need to confront it.

Funny this topic should come up, because I was knee-deep in it for a few days just recently. Because I haven't received it yet, I can't vouch for or deny its quality just yet, but I can tell you how I plan to use it. Last Friday, I ordered a somewhat higher-end toaster oven, a refurbished DeLonghi Airstream digital combo oven (AD1079) from Amazon, their last one in stock for the moment. It has several cooking options: keep warm, bake, bake with convection, broil, dehydrate, defrost, built-in rotisserie, and "pizza function," whatever that means. I've gotten along for years without an auxiliary oven of any kind (well, besides the microwave), but finally decided to get one for several reasons: Three times in the last month or so (and dozens of times in the past), I wished I had a second oven in which I could bake something to go along the low-temp slow food I had cooking in the full-size oven. The afterthought items were a bourbon and cane syrup pecan pie, corn bread, and crème caramel, so in each case, the current oven temp was wildly different from what I needed. I don't have room for a second full-size oven or the dough for a nice double oven with warming rack, nor do I have a lot of spare counter space, so something smaller that could fit on a cart would be in order. I recently watched the "To Roast a Chicken" episode of The French Chef, in which Julia uses an in-oven rotisserie unit and thought, (first) "How come the power cord on that thing didn't melt?" and (second) "Well, I've got a trussing needle, but no rotisserie. Dang." Sure, I roast chickens in the usual way on a V-rack, but the thought of perfectly uniform browning is very appealing. I would probably prefer roasting in hell before considering something like the Ronco Showtime rotisserie unitasker. For many reasons, not just the spray-on hair he still sells. I'd like to try my hand at dehydrating foods (an optional rack on the DeLonghi) and maybe even fresh herbs (despite my best efforts at preservation, I still have a lot of waste), but without the dorkiness factor of using stacked air conditioner filters and a fan à la "Good Eats." A warming oven would be very nice to have. Hey, I could warm a stack of plates in there before serving, too. Cool. After a good deal of research on various units, I found the DeLonghi can handle all these tasks and, at 1.1 cubic feet internally, with two racks, but just 23"Wx16"Dx15"H externally, can fit a 9" pie tin or 9"x13" baking dish. However, its list of $300 it was too pricey for me. The final justification (okay, okay...rationalization) for this purchase arrived in two forms: First, I found that Amazon's refurbished price plus an ongoing $25 kitchen & housewares promotion brought the price down to the much more reasonable 50% of list price. Second, I also wanted to set up a sort of Ultimate Dried Herb & Spice Rack that didn't take up any counter, cabinet, or wall space, and so looked for a small cart that 1) was low cost (under $100), 2) had the right dimensions and sturdiness for the new oven, and 3) had a pull-out shelf that could accomodate thirty 3"x3" 8 oz. clear top square tins in one layer so I will never have to poke through cabinets for such things again. After a somewhat lengthy search, I finally found one (and, surprisingly, only one) that fits the bill -- here it is after I set up the spice and herb rack but before the oven's on it, obviously. ← I'm considering getting something like this and would really appreciate your feedback once you've used this for awhile. Things I'd like to know, beyond the obvious question of how well it does the job it's meant to do: is it easy or hard to keep clean? How much heat does it throw off compared to your regular oven.

Sigh, ok, if I eat too much and exercise too little, I'll be fat. That's My Business. If I'm fat, my cholesterol, bp, arteries, etc. will be in the risk zone. How high a risk? Well, it depends upon how fat, how sedentary, how my genes support my unhealthy life style. But don't YOU dare tell me that, and the GOVERNMENT shouldn't oughter DARE to tell me I should watch what I eat or how much I should exercise. That's MY business, my responsibility, and, oh yeh, my insurance company (supported by escalating rates) or medicare or medicade when they pay the bill for my angio-whatevers. And what right does society/government have to impede advertisements for all the delicious treats out there whether or not they are healthful. I'm free to eat anything except other people; advertisers are free to advertise. It's America. And what do schools think they're doing when they yank out the machines full of sodapop or force nutritious lunches on our children? These kids have the right to be fat and go against their parents' wishes when they trash mom's lunchbox and opt for a Mac and soda. How irresponsible of schools to not have income from vending machines which would lower my taxes even if it will increase them down stream when these kids grow up to be unhealthy and use medicare or medicaid. Let the future take care of itself, I say. It's clearly all a matter of personal choice and personal responsibility. Get off my fat back. I only wish I could.

Katie, you're too kind, you refrained from telling on me-- I all but ate the shells!

What he said.

I have a Krups machine and it does that as well. And with ice cream, it seems that the fat gets pulled out of its emulsified state and sticks the walls of the bowl. Has anybody else seen the fat separation problem in other machines where you need to pre-freeze the bowl? I'm wondering if it's because the bowl surface is so cold it pulls the fat since fat solidifies more quickly at 0 degrees F. ← It was a wonderful day, not hot and humid as most of the summer has been, so I thought I'd go for it and made a basic vanilla ice cream with creme anglaise base. I found I had to hold the machine steady so that the ice cream was scraped off the side. That didn't take care of the bottom, so I used a silicone spatula to scrape the bottom, which worked well enough that I wound up with a very acceptable vanilla ice cream. I WOULD NOT buy the Krups because of all this fuss. I wonder if the Cuisinart works better than this.

Yes, you can do that. But if there is anything attached to the house that you do not want to sell when you sell your house, my advice is to do the replacement before the buyers come in. It simplifies things and elimates the psychological sense that they are being deprived of something that's part of the house. If you want to keep your new stove, when you put your house on the market, put it in the garage under a a blanket and a Silo special in the kitchen.

I believe I heard that Cuisinart like Kitchen Aid is under new management. We may no longer be able to take the names as a guarantee of quality despite our 20 or 40 (in my case) year old FP's & mixers that just keep going.

One element in your decision might be how long you intend to stay in your house. You're high end stove may return your investment when you sell depending on the demographics of your neighborhood. If this is to be your long term home it's not a factor. But if this is a starter home for you in one of Phila's many "neighborhoods" then your potential buyers may not know a blue star from a no-name Silo special (yeh, I'm dating myself) and not be of any advantage to you when you sell.

I have had the Cuisinart supreme for almost a year now and I really like it. Very nice if you are interested in making icecream in 1 Qt. batches. The only downside is that it is rather noisy. ← When I get my own machine, I may go for one of these. I think I read upthread that some machines don't work well with smaller amounts. How does this one do?