Anna N

You know Sandwich Saturday sounds so boring… until you do it!

Methinks you are desperately in need of remedial training in the joy of kitchen toys.

And you’ve arranged to have my other ones delivered when?

Straight from the refrigerator into boiling water. Boil for 6 1/2 minutes exactly and then into ice water.

So some further play time with my new toy. I had some green beans that needed using up, half a chub of kielbasa, and I knew I had seen a can of cherry tomatoes and a tetra pack of Pomi tomatoes in the pantry. With those I thought I could pull together a meal. Using the ceramic dish I sautéed some onions and some sliced kielbasa. I added the can of cherry tomatoes and was about to add the can of Pomi tomatoes when the best-before-date caught my eye. Hmmm. May 2017. But what the heck. They were in a tetra pack. They should be safe to eat. I opened the package carefully and poured out some of the contents into a saucer. Glad I took this precaution. They no longer resembled tomatoes. They were almost the colour of dark chocolate. A tiny taste convinced me that they were not going in anything that I wanted to eat. Had this been a can of evaporated milk I would’ve had a lovely supply of dulce de leche! But this left me somewhat short on liquid. So I quickly supplemented with some Better Than Bouillon vegetable stock and water. I added the green beans put the lid on and let whole thing come to a boil before turning it down to a slow simmer and letting it do its thing for about an hour. Made a perfectly satisfactory dinner with some orzo and a piece of garlic naan. I had to be careful and eat around the tomatoes as they are currently having a quite unpleasant effect on my system. (For those who don’t know they are a natural diuretic.) This morning, while checking all the various news outlets that I follow on my iPad, I found a grilled cheese sandwich recipe offered by the Washington Post. I am not generally a grilled cheese fan. But this one offered miso butter and caramelized onions. That is my language they are speaking. The Washington Post is behind a pay wall that didn’t stop me finding the recipe! Anyway I could’ve figured it out all by myself if I was so inclined. While I attended to my morning chores (that would be the ones that should’ve been done last evening), I caramelized two small onions in a mix of oil and butter on the plain grill plate of the A4 box. I made up the spread which was a mix of miso, grainy mustard and butter and spread it on some rye bread. Then I assembled the sandwich with cheese and onions. The outer side of the bread was spread with plain butter as the miso would certainly burn. As luck would have it my bacon press fits my new toy like a glove. (So I have a panini press as well as all the other functionality of the A4 Box.) Grilled cheese sandwich with Seriously Sharp Cheddar, caramelized onions and miso-mustard butter. The rest of you can dip your grilled cheese sandwich in ketchup if that’s what you want, mine was dipped in mango chutney. One thing to think about when using the box is that’s the lid is going to be dripping condensation so you need a parking spot for it. I think I’m going to find this toy much more than a toy. So far it has proved capable of meeting my requirements. I am guessing there are some things I can bake in it but at the moment I’m not quite sure how to approach that. Any thoughts anybody?

Me too. Judy Rodgers was my inspiration.

So I took the A4 for its maiden voyage this morning. As I mentioned to @Kerry Beal, its name sounds like a British highway! Mis was mushrooms, a sausage, split in half, an egg and a slice of buttered rye bread. I preheated the flat grill plate for two minutes at medium heat (between 320/392°F 160/200°C) then added the mushrooms and the sausage. I covered the unit with the lid for five minutes. I turned over the sausage and the mushrooms and cooked them for a further five minutes. I added the bread and the egg and continued cooking until I was satisfied that everything was done to my liking. It made making breakfast a bit more fun than it usually is. There is really nothing to clean up other than the grill plate which is just going to be wiped down with a paper towel I think and then a damp cloth over the unit itself for any grease splatters . I particularly enjoyed the roominess of this configuration as against a round frying pan. Stay tuned for further meals on the A4.

Aaarrrggghhh. You are just cruel.

Yep. I was able to figure out that much.

Scanned in the QR code and it took me to a page full of lovely Japanese characters (the written kind not the human kind)!

Oh the pressure, the pressure!

But you would have to settle for white and you said you wouldn’t do that.

Me too and I would’ve left it at that but it seems to be almost a recipe. If you look very closely in the upper right hand Square there is a notation of 30 min. In the next square there is a notation of 4 min. So I am wondering if it is actually the recipe with most of it written in Japanese?

Well all ye naysayers.... @Kerry Bealsort of took one for the team as you asked her to but it’s now occupying space in my kitchen! It was purchased while we were up in Manitoulin in July and shipped to a Buffalo address and only now was Kerry able to get down there to retrieve it. For me it is like Christmas in September. Here it is with all five interchangeable cooking surfaces: plain grill pan, takoyaki pan, wavy grill pan, ceramic deep pan and six disc pan. For those who think that the only thing you can make in a takoyaki pan are takoyaki there’s a whole book devoted to things that you can make that are not octopus-based. Look up The Little Book of Takoyaki on Amazon. Also included in the package is something called a shovel which is basically a silicone spoonula, tiny fingertip protectors, a tablespoon and a teaspoon measure which click together, and the most intriguing of all: A number of these resealable plastic bags. I am a verbal person not a visual person so I am still struggling to interpret what they are intended for. My first instinct of course was to assume they were used for sous vide. Nothing in the instruction manual nor anywhere in their advertising material do I find any reference to these. Marinade bags maybe? That’s my best guess. Here is the website for the manufacturer: Click.

You’re killing me.

Eggs scrambled with some cheese and some scallions and piled onto a toasted English muffin.

The lengths some people will go to just to be different. Tender crisp green beans dressed with kimchi cream and served with two almost perfect 6 1/2 minute eggs.

I wanted something just a little different this morning. The last time I put in a grocery order I was able to get some frozen artichoke bottoms. I took one of these and chopped it up and sautéed it in a little butter. I put it on some toasted rye bread and topped it with some Seriously Sharp cheddar.

It is geometrically challenged.

Wow! I can’t imagine how one warps a Darto pan without a Bessemer furnace.

I was mighty glad when @Kerry Beal finally got back from her Las Vegas jaunt! I do miss my weekly lunch out with her. The restaurant we went to today was recommended to me by my Cleaning Angel. It was a gorgeous day here, neither too hot nor too cold so we opted to eat outside. First, however, we had to ask the staff to please open up one of the tables that didn’t look like it should have come with its own beanstalk. What is with these high tables and chairs that seem to have taken over in so many restaurants? Having said that the staff was extremely obliging and brought up one of the “normal” tables and chairs from the lower section of the patio which was not open at lunchtime. This restaurant is in an old house and it is really only two steps from the intersection of two highways (6 & 7 Clappisons Corners for those who know the area) and yet it was easy to believe that one was in the middle of the countryside. This was my view. Cutlery was the first thing we noticed since it was incredibly heavy. The brand is Chef & Sommelier. The menu. The chef is a Canadian from Owen Sound. Tea for Kerry. A small glass of rosé for me. Calamari. Steak bites. And the Moroccan chicken sandwich. We shared all three dishes.

Will not open for me either.

@kayb I believe this recipe would lend itself easily to being gluten-free. I did not think that my daughter liked date squares else I would have replaced the all purpose flour in these with a gluten-free baking mix and I believe it would’ve worked just fine.

Here. P.S. We don’t “do” margarine. Prefer the stuff made by cows not chemists.

It’s a Betty Crocker recipe.