Anna N

Thanks. It doesn’t seem to want to cooperate on an iPhone and I no longer own a computer.

Darn.

Does anyone have this on their radar? Click. “What were some of the most surprising flavor pairings you discovered? - Strawberry and Mushroom. - Blueberry and Horseradish. - Clam and Melon. - Tomato and Coconut. - Coffee and Carrot. - Avocado and Cocoa.” I am just starting it and unfortunately it is not available in a Kindle edition but only in another electronic format from iBooks. This makes it somewhat less enjoyable than it should be.

I was determined to play in my kitchen today and I wanted to try to make some cheese buns which had appealed to me. They were gluten-free but that wasn’t particularly important. They just looked good. They were very easy to make. The ingredients are cream cheese, mozzarella cheese, cheddar cheese, and egg and almond flour. There is also some seasoning in there. I’m going to see if I can post a link to a recipe. They will never pass as bread but of all the gluten-free bread that I have tried I think I like these the best. I offered them to someone who is avoiding gluten by choice and she seemed OK with them but certainly not over the moon. Here’s a link to the recipe.

I will answer you over here so as not to drag this off-topic too far.

I had a day seriously playing in my kitchen. I had seen a recipe for some gluten free mini cheese buns which looked very interesting whether or not gluten-free was an important point. Since I had all the ingredients I decided to make them and this is a mini sandwich tomatoes, lettuce and Mayo. I was too lazy to fry up any bacon.

I did a few more tests and after I fixed my operator errors I think it worked more or less as advertised. It certainly is not as accurate at maintaining a temperature as the Joule or the Anova. Nonetheless I found it frustrating. It seems that every adjustment made on the iPhone must be followed by pressing the power button on the unit itself. If you don’t remember to do this then any adjustment you have made doesn’t have any effect. My only reason for even considering one would be if I were going to make cheese in it and I don’t think it would do well maintaining temperature precisely enough. Other than that my purpose-built sous vide units and my induction range seem less annoying to use.

Thought that I could convert the Beef with Lots and Lots of Onions for the Instant Pot. Wrong. It was a sad imitation of itself. I was able to redeem myself somewhat by dumping everything into a enamelled cast-iron casserole and putting in the oven for two hours. Surprisingly it worked out rather well.

The herbs were in the sauce only the basil sprig was mine. The claim is this can be made in nine minutes and although I didn’t time it I think that’s probably about right. There is so little available in terms of take out here in this particular spot where I live. I can get Chinese and pizza and as far as I know that is all. The Chinese has become only so-so and the pizza is quite disgusting. The advantage to take out is it can be a last minute thing. Pre-prepared meals need to be in the fridge in my case as I have no way of getting to the supermarket on my own.

Out of curiosity I weighed the chicken this time. It weighed 207 g. Not very many vegetables for two people. Once again I felt that the noodles were out of proportion to the other ingredients. The sauce and the noodle type are really the only things that distinguish the two meals. Half of the finished dish served up. My sprig of basil. Once again it neither satisfied my desire to cook nor my desire to have a ready to eat meal. I am just not the demographic for this. In a way it made me feel as if I was playing house. The only thing missing was a toy kitchenette. In terms of flavour this was more interesting although perhaps a little heavy on herbs.

No no no. Fairly straightforward is a slice of pound cake, some orange segments, a drizzle of Grand Marnier and a few toasted almonds. That’s straightforward. Yours is a work of art quite beyond my capabilities.

No Popeye’s chicken?

In very few words – – set it and forget it. Stovetop pressure cooker needs your attention. You must wait till it reaches pressure and then adjust the heat beneath it and you must be ready to move it off the heat when it is finished cooking. When you are finished prepping whatever you need to do with your ingredients you can bang them into the instant pot, press a button or two and walk away. It will reach pressure on its own and when the cooking time is complete it will shut off. It will also if you wish keep your food warm until you are ready for it.

I too love and usually eat the skin but I understand there are those who choose not to for whatever reason. If I felt a serious need to reduce my salt intake then it would definitely be the skin that would go first.

I shall try that next time.

It’s about the gravy dontcha know? And since I gorged on meat yesterday there is only a smidgen on the plate today. A piece of bottom blade was cooked in the instant pot with carrots and onions for 50 minutes at high pressure and with natural release. I took out the meat and poured the cooking liquid and vegetables into a separator. I put the vegetables and liquid back into the Instant Pot and blitzed them with my stick blender. I then added a couple of teaspoons of Bisto to boost the flavour. This was then poured over the meat which I had put aside. I added a cup of water to the Instant Pot, added a steamer insert with the carrots and cooked them for three minutes on high pressure with quick release. I added the green beans and brought the IP back up to pressure for one minute with quick release. Did I mention that I love my instant pot? I’m hoping my replacement base for the mini will be here on Monday.

It is worth the minute it takes with older eggs to just drain off some of that albumen in a small strainer. It has now become second nature to me. I put the small strainer over a long handled measuring cup, break the egg into it and let the albumen drain off, dump the liquid that drains off and pop the egg from the strainer into the measuring cup which is a handy device for transferring it into the hot water.

I have to confess that the Cuisinart steam oven never even entered my mind. Although it is now pretty much front and centre in my kitchen I manage to easily ignore it in favour of my Breville. I am sure it is a matter of habit more than anything else. Up north in Manitoulin the Cuisinart steam oven is the only option as far as a countertop oven goes so I look to it for everything. But down here not so much. The Breville has seniority and being a senior myself I respect that. When I took it from the oven and tasted it I knew at once that I should have done the seasoning test. It’s something I do with most things where you can take a small amount and fry it up to check if it has enough of whatever. I considered the rolled oats as they would’ve met a gluten-free requirement for someone who chooses not to eat much gluten but then rejected it in favour of the Panko and grated onion. I was, after all, trying mostly to please myself and be “happy in the kitchen” like the late but still much loved Michel Richard. I should have pulled it sooner than I did but I became distracted as one often does even when happy in the kitchen.

We have all heard of meat-less Mondays. How about we have a flora-less Thursday? (Plant-less doesn’t have even a hint of the necessary alliteration.) Very small ribeye that was on sale for only $7. It was cooked sous vide for 30 minutes at ~130°F before being seared.

Love the idea of the chutney. I also think that I would like the addition of some pork but I have some dyed in the wool traditionalists to please who might not take too readily to that idea.

I am reviving this topic only because I don’t know where else to post! I have had in my mind for sometime that I wanted to make meatloaf. I have made them in the past but it must be close to 40 years ago. I have a hungry son-in-law and a hungry bachelor son so I knew if I made one there would be a home for it. There is nothing particularly special about my recipe or my meatloaf. The only thing I will mention that might be a little different from what everybody else has done is a trick I read here. It is to grate the onions into Panko to create the panade. I am quite pleased with this but as with all things there is room for improvement. I will wait for some feedback from my guinea pigs (or any eG members who think they have THE RECIPE) and then I may attempt another one. I know @rotuts is a huge fan of turkey meatloaf but that would never pass muster in my family. I see a lot of meat loaf being made and enjoyed on eG and I was especially taken by meatloaf sandwiches. Now that I have never tried. If you’re a fan of meatloaf why not join in here and share your enthusiasm.

That is my kind of omelette. Save me from the anaemic “classic” one!

Good catch. I missed that.

I am continuing a number of tests and I did retry the Darto pan and I do believe my original result was operator error! It seems they’re almost always two more steps than there ought to be to do almost everything or is that just my bias showing? I really really wanted this device to fill a gap. For instance if it was trustworthy I could maintain a temperature one could heat the milk and make cheese. That is something I was able to do with the Sous Vide supreme. Not that I plan on getting back in the cheesemaking but nevertheless it was one of the things that crossed my mind when I first heard of this unit. It does not seem able to maintain a temperature particularly well. By that I mean not as well as the ANOVA or the Joule. I was hoping to monitor with a probe the moment are forgetting that they don’t work all that well in the presence of magnetic energy! However I did cook my steak sous vide and we’ll see what we get later this evening. There should be no surprises. The temperature varied only a degree or two and it was a very short time cook. So even though it was close to the danger zone of 53°C, it’s not likely to have time enough to grow any botulism nasties.

I am putting off tasting it so that I can anticipate that much longer before I’m let down.