JAZ

I have a cake recipe that calls for 1/4 cup of almonds (ground fine) to 1-1/4 cups of flour. It's not a pound cake, but it has much the same texture -- rich and fairly dense -- so that might be a starting point. One trick I learned from this recipe is to process the nuts with some of the sugar, which keeps them from turning into nut butter before they're fine enough.

So I guess the hole in the cartouche is for the string that ties the bouquet garni together? Why crumple the paper first?

I bought some "red meat" radishes from my CSA this week. I love radishes, and silly me, I just figured these were a variation of the small radishes you eat in salads. When I got them, I found that they're the size of turnips, with a thick, kind of tough exterior. I sliced into one, and once I peeled the outside off, it did taste like a radish. But I'm not sure what to do with them. A Google search turns up dozens of hits on how to grow them, but precious few on how to prepare them. Any ideas? Is this something better cooked, or can I shave them into salads and otherwise treat them like the radishes I'm used to?

Not sure, but I'd imagine some of the olive gray would be the pressure cooking -- I'm not sure I understand why you pressure cooked it, as if the broccoli is chopped I don't find that broccoli soup takes much more than 15 minutes of cooking *without* pressure... ← The olive color comes from cooking pretty much any green vegetable in a closed system (i.e, steamed or blanched or boiled in a covered pot, not just a pressure cooker) for longer than about 10 minutes. Actually, I think the acids in the vegetables start to break down the chlorophyll in something like seven minutes, but of course they don't change color completely right away. As to why I cooked it in the pressure cooker: as I mentioned, this was very old broccoli, so I thought that pureeing the soup completely would be the best way to go. Given the fibrous nature of the stems, I wanted to make sure it was pretty mushy to begin with. As it was, after the 15 minutes in the pressure cooker, the soup blended to a silky smooth puree without even straining it. The texture was fabulous, so I guess it was a good trade off.

I just made broccoli soup last night in the pressure cooker; I had some broccoli that I'd forgotten about, so soup was the only option. I started with an onion sauteed in some butter, then added the broccoli and some white wine and cooked that until most of the wine evaporated. Then I added four cups of stock and cooked it under pressure for 15 minutes. I pureed it and added a couple tablespoons of cream. It tasted great, looked not so good. Is there any cure for olive-gray vegetable soups?

Great tip, but this is easier if you cut the tomato in half the other way (i.e., not through the stem, but through the equator, as it were) -- it opens up all the seed pockets and they all just pop right out.

For quite a while, I used Sauza Hornitos as my standard mixing tequila. I could almost always find it on sale for less than $20 (sometimes much less), so it was by far the best buy for a 100% agave. Then I moved, and price structures are different here. My standard tequila for mixing became Milagro (blanco -- I'm not so fond of their reposado), which is fine and usually pretty reasonable. But a few weeks ago, I discovered 1800 100-proof blanco. I made a margarita with it according to my usual blanco proportions (4-2-1), and it I think it was the best margarita I've ever made (not the best I've ever had, but truly exceptional). It's got all those funky wet-cement notes (and I mean that in the best possible way) that blanco should have; it doesn't get lost in a margarita yet plays well with the other ingredients; and on top of all that it's amazingly smooth. I know that there are other tequilas out there that make better margaritas, but for less than $30, the 1800 is my new standard.

Sorry for the lapse in posting -- working retail at Christmas didn't leave much time or energy for kitchen reorganization. But I have been busy the past few days. As I mentioned, I bought a storage unit that's now out on my deck. Didn't take long to fill it up, but it has relieved the congestion in the kitchen cabinets. I thought seriously about installing a pot rack or bar above the counter that divides the kitchen from the living room, but the configuration of the counter is such that I'd have to get out a step stool to reach anything hanging from a rack there. So any convenience of having my pots and pans hanging would be lost by having to get out a step stool every time I need a pan. So, I decided to buy this pull-out rack for one of the cabinets. It would have been ideal if it were wider, but the convenience of the pull-out drawers won out. I'm still deciding how to organize pots in it, but I'll post some photos when I do.

A voice of dissent here. We had a popcorn popper when I was growing up that was a deep aluminum pot that sat on top of a separate heating element. It made great popcorn, and when I went to college, my Mom gave it to me (she'd gotten a new popper). I made fabulous popcorn all through college, but the popper was so old by then that it didn't survive my college years. I then tried an air popper (awful -- popped corn so dry that no amount of butter could save it), some other electric popcorn maker (okay, but not great), and every pot and pan that I owned that seemed like a good candidate for popping corn. The stovetop results were uniformly bad. Tough, chewy popcorn, loads of unpopped kernels. Sometimes greasy, sometimes not, but never good. Fast forward some years. I was at my sister's and she made popcorn. It was great. "How'd you make this?" I asked. She looked at me like any big sister looks at a little sister who's clueless. "Microwave. Duh." I was a convert and have been ever since. True, "butter flavor" microwave popcorn is awful. And it's harder than ever to find "natural" popcorn (read: without awful fake butter flavoring). But Orville and Paul Newman both make very good plain (salted) microwave popcorn -- in fact, that's what I used this year for caramel corn. Granted, it's very expensive, and I do wish they made the plain stuff in the smaller bags, but that doesn't seem to be in the stars. Also, just in case you think I haven't tried stove-popped popcorn lately: At work, we had a Whirley Pop stovetop popper, and it made decent popcorn -- not great, but okay. It died, however, and recently a colleague made popcorn in a heavy pan on the stove. Gotta say -- tough, chewy and greasy. Just my opinion. I'm sure I'm missing something that's obvious to everyone else.

My answer would be that dutch ovens aren't good for roasting -- the high sides keep moisture up around the meat, so you're steaming rather than roasting. With braising, the main difference in pan size (assuming that the food to be braised fits in the pan) is that the larger the pot, the more liquid you'll need to keep the level up where you want it. If the last step is a reduction, you'll have a lot more to reduce, but that's just a matter of the time it will take to finish your sauce.

I agree that the key to a silky soup is to put it through a sieve after pureeing -- a chinois is nice, but a medium to fine sieve works as well.

Baking soda both neutralizes the acid in the brown sugar and molasses, and also makes for a lighter texture.

I've made this chard gratin from Fine Cooking, and it's excellent. Not sure if it counts as festive, but it's pretty dressy for a vegetable, and if you can find rainbow chard, it's very pretty. Plus, it has bacon.

I don't add them at the end, I add them at the beginning. I've tried stirring, and not stirring -- either way, they don't stay mixed with the popcorn. It's fine though -- I've decided I like it better without nuts.

I like these Zyliss tongs, mostly because they're really easy to lock and unlock -- you just slide the button on the side of them. Although the tips are silicone coated, they're pretty sturdy because they're reinforced with metal.

I know a couple of people suggested putting a shelf in the dining room, which seems perfectly reasonable when you look at the floor plan. In reality, though, the dining room is really more of a nook -- it's small. There's room for my bar and a small table, and that's really it. One thing that I forgot to mention earlier is that I've put up display shelves, which you can see in the first photo; I also put a couple up in the living room. They hold my nicer glassware, which I use only rarely. It's nice to be able to display it but have it out of the way.

I'm still considering the possibilities for a pot rack or bar, but in the meantime, I tackled the two drawers flanking the range. As I mentioned, I pulled out a lot of tools that I either don't use, or don't use very often. Here's the first batch of them (I added to the pile as I got more ruthless): Here's the scary drawer before: And the not-so-scary drawer now: I bought a cheap plastic expandable drawer divider, which didn't fit lengthwise into the drawer, so I had to put it in sideways. I'm not crazy about the divider itself, but it'll do until I can find or make a better one. The drawer now holds cocktail tools in the front compartment, with the cooking and prepping tools and serving pieces filling up the rest of the space. I moved some of the tools to the drawer on the other side of the range because that's where I do most of my prep, and it seems to me that they'll be more convenient there. Here's the other drawer before: And after: I moved the smaller drawer divider into this one. It's much too small, both in total size and the compartments. I'll look for a replacement, but until I find one, this is better than nothing. I also bought a storage cabinet for my deck where I'll move some of my cookware. I'll take some photos of that tomorrow when it's full. When I was buying the storage cabinet, I saw some two-tiered pull-out drawers designed for cookware (this and this). They were pretty cool, but both of these units are much smaller than my cabinets. If I could find something similar in a bigger width, though, I think they'd be great.

Last year at the IACP conference, Mr. Cutlets and John T. Edge were on a panel about (surprise) the hamburger. We thought it was strange that of all the elements of burgers that were discussed in the seminar, no one mentioned grinding beef. So afterward, we ran into John T and asked why they hadn't addressed the issue of grinding one's own beef. He answered that he had his butcher grind meat for him; it was clear that that was the end of the issue for him.

Washington State University (where I went to college) has a dairy and creamery that makes several very good cheeses. Its signature (and best) is called Cougar Gold. It's reasonably priced and while not terribly exotic, it is a good local product. WSU cheese

So far, I've taken Chris's advice and gone through the scary drawer and pulled a lot of stuff that I don't use, or don't use often. Some of it will probably go to Goodwill and some I'll keep elsewhere. I might pull more stuff, and will take photos to show what I'm discarding or moving. I should probably explain why I have so much stuff. When you work for a cookware store, you make no money but you get freebies from vendors and you get great discounts on cookware. You get incentive gifts from vendors for selling merchandise. I also belong to IACP, which occasionally gives members free stuff too. This explains why. for instance I have so many whisks, as Erin noticed. I have three non-stick skillets and a non-stick griddle, all of which were vendor gifts. I won't go on, but you get the idea. I know, I know -- poor me. But here's the thing -- if you had the chance to get free stuff, would you turn it down? If you had the chance to get a five piece set of Mauviel copper for less than $200, could you pass it up? I couldn't, so here I am. I suppose I need more willpower.

This is a big draw for me, because that's exactly what I have to do. It's not that I can't fit my cookware in those two cabinets, but what I find is that in general I use the bigger pieces more, and the dynamics of cookware cabinets pretty much dictate that the big pieces are always under several other pieces.

What does this mean? They can't be sharpened?

Linda and Maggie, thanks for the tips. I'll definitely add a trip to Ikea to my itinerary. I've never had a pot rack, so I'm undecided about whether I'd like one. There's one in the kitchen at work, but I'm not crazy about it because it's just a little too high for someone of my height. I can get the pans down, but can't always put them back up without a step stool. On the other hand, if the rack is over the counter between the kitchen and living room, height isn't such a big issue. I could have it low enough to reach, but wouldn't be hitting my head on it.

Several points come to mind: As Chris pointed out, batching cocktails is handy for parties, when you're making a lot of the same drink at once. When we teach cocktail party classes, for instance, we always mix pitchers of whatever drinks we're serving beforehand. We don't dilute the mixture usually; we just fill shakers with ice and add the mixture, then shake and strain out into the glasses. But to do this at home for one or two people seems odd to me. Making a cocktail -- even the most complex -- just doesn't take that long. Measure a few liquids, add ice, shake and strain; we're talking, what, two minutes? As far as kitchen tasks go, it's pretty fast and easy. Certainly the return on investment is high. Second, mixing a batch of, say, martinis might make sense if that's all one drank, but that's not what I do. I like choosing different cocktails, and rarely drink the same thing twice running -- rarely do I even drink the same cocktail from one day to the next. If I mixed a batch of a particular cocktail, I'd feel obligated to drink it every night, so it wouldn't go bad. That sounds boring to me.

Irishgirl, I've seen those and wondered how well they'd work on the side of the fridge. Good to know they stay up, and I'll definitely keep them in mind. I can't fit all my spices there, but I might be able to free up one of the spice turntables, which would be great. Plus, looking at my kitchen with new eyes, I've realized that I may be able to fit a spice rack on the strip of wall by my prep area -- maybe not the magnetic one you have, but something. Thanks!