Tropicalsenior

If you tried to grab either of my cats with this, you'd draw back a bloody stump

The sounds great and I'm going to try it. Thanks for the IP directions. It only makes it easier. I've been looking for a good wire potato masher for about five years. Ever since a friend of a friend of a friend showed up and wanted to stay overnight, I've been without one. Three weeks later, when I invited her to leave, she left with some of my favorite cookbooks and the wire potato masher that I had had for about 50 years. The cookbooks I understood. They were good ones. But what does anyone need with a potato masher on vacation in Costa Rica?

Thanks for the tip. I will try that for just us, but when I'm making turkey and trimmings for twenty people, at 78 years old, I no longer have the strength nor the time coordination. So until someone complains, Ore-Ida it is.

Do you happen to know what brand they are? We can't get russet potatoes down here or even anything resembling them. Just the small red or white potatoes. They aren't good for mashed potatoes, you just wind up with something resembling potato flavored library paste. For the last twenty years on Thanksgiving, I have fed at least 20 people each year Ore-Ida instant mashed potatoes out of the box. I just doctor them up well and I get more compliments on my 'homemade' mashed potatoes. If they don't know, I'm not telling.

That's okay for most things but it doesn't work for caramel sauce.

Close, but what?

This looks great.

Potatoes don't freeze well because of their high water content. That's how Ore-Ida got so rich. They figured out how to do what the rest of us can't.

It is a total p PIA! I think I have owned every type of spoon rest made by man and I have hated them all. then I found this one. it is made of silicon and after I found out how good it was I went back and bought four more.When it gets messy I just pitch it in the dishwater and grab another. Here Is another little gem that I bought at the Chinese restaurant supply yesterday. I can see this being worth its weight in gold. What is it?

My recipe originally called for just the egg yolk and one day I got distracted and put in the whole egg. It turned out better than the first version so now that's what I do. I think the full cup of sour cream would affect the volume too much and you might want to cut that back to 1/2. if you are skeptical, Try it both ways. just be sure to add about 5 minutes cooking time to your recipe. Just for fun, invite people over and have a taste testing party.

I agree with you 100% on all your points. the best New York cheesecake that I had in New York had no crust. Just 100% fantastic, pure cheesecake. I would love to try a crustless version but my pan has an ever-so-slight leak and the crust seals it so it won't get out. I do not care for most unbaked cheesecakes. They make a terrible version here and actually put green jello on the top. I do have an excellent no bake cheesecake recipe that I developed for a friend with dietary problems. If you would like to try it, I can send it to you in a PM. The sour cream topping goes on the cake before you ever take it out of the pan. It melds right into the cake itself. If you put it on a cold cake it almost separates into a separate layer.

You and quiet 1 are both exactly right. But, unlike hers, neither mine nor this one have the little bowl on the bottom. I had to set it on a saucer which did make it unstable. Either that or put up with the mess. If you notice, it slopes slightly forward and that along with the fact that the ladles that they sell for Chinese restaurants are very heavy bottomed really does make them quite stable, just a mess to use.

No, sorry, not even close. I thought that this would be an easy one.

There really isn't any reason that any cheesecake recipe wouldn't work. I would just be sure to add the flour. And to be sure that whatever recipe you are using isn't too wet. The two references that I give, will give you all the information you need to get started. I do cook my cheesecakes a little longer than they do. Just start out at the minimum time, and if it seems too jiggly in the middle, cook it 5 minutes longer. You aren't going to ruin it. Hope this helps.

Not in my kitchen. Sorry, no.

Not really. Because of the size of the pan that you will be using, you are limited to the amount the ingredients that you can use. I have found a good ratio is, 16 oz of cream cheese, 1/2 cup of sugar, two eggs, and not more than 1/4 cup of another liquid ingredient (example: cream cheese, ricotta cheese, pumpkin). Also, because the cake does not bake as firmly as it would end in the oven, I always add two tablespoons of flour. This is the recipe that I use: Instant Pot New York Cheesecake Crust 3/4 cup any type of shortbread cookie (crushed) 2 teaspoons sugar 1/4 cup butter melted Filling 16 oz cream cheese, room temperature 1/2 cup sugar 2 tablespoons flour 1 teaspoon vanilla 1 tablespoon lemon peel grated 2 eggs, room temperature 1/4 cup sour cream, room temperature 1 pinch salt Sour Cream Layer 1/2 cup sour cream 2 teaspoons sugar Crust Add cookies and sugar to the bowl of food processor and pulse a couple of times, until small crumbs form. Melt butter in microwave and add to cookie mixture. Pulse until just combined. Pour cookie mixture into bottom of greased 8-inch cheesecake pan and press the mixture firmly into the bottom of the pan and no more than one inch up along the sides. Place pan with crust into freezer for 20 minutes while you mix up the filling. Filling Blend together cream cheese, sugar, flour, grated peels, salt and vanilla extract until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, lightly mixing until just combined. Do not over mix the eggs. Gently stir in the sour cream. Pour filling into the pan, on top of the crust. Add 1 1/2 cups of water to the bottom of your pressur cooker and place a trivet inside the pot. Cover the cheesecake first with a paper towel and then with a piece of aluminum foil and loosely secure the foil. Place cheesecake into pressure cooker. Lock on lid and close Pressure Valve. Cook at High Pressure for 35 minutes. Allow a 20 minute natural release. After all pressure has been released, open pressure cooker and leave the cake the cooker. Remove the foil and paper towel. Tilt the cheesecake pan and dab off any liquid that may have accumulated. Sour Cream Layer Whisk together the sour cream and sugar and then spread on the hot cheesecake. Let cool inside the pressure cooker for at least one hour. Tightly cover and place in refrigerator overnight. Cheesecake can be removed from pan after an hour in the refrigerator. Note: the gentler that you treat the ingredients, the denser the cake will be. If you want a creamier cheesecake whip the cream cheese sugar and sour cream together, but never whip in the eggs. This will cause air bubbles in the cake that you do not want! As I said, I took the procedure and most of the recipe from this website: https://thisoldgal.com/pressure-cooker-new-york-cheesecake/ and it is well worth reading her instructions and tips at this site: https://thisoldgal.com/perfect-pressure-cooker-cheesecake-tips/ I have made this quite a few times now and it has never failed. And yes, it is much better in the IP than in the oven. It never cracks, and it never falls, and I don't have to babysit it in the IP. I just set it and forget it until it's done

This one will probably be an easy one for some of you. I took a picture of this one in the store because I had one and found it to be completely useless. I gave it to the same friend that got the waffle iron.

Yes, exactly right! Although, why it was in with the knives, I have no idea

It all looks delicious... except for the spring!

The Costa Ricans would do it. A while back, I came across a sale bin here that had ice scrapers for your windshield and furnace grates. There's not one furnace in the whole country.

Well I hope this helps. When I showed him the picture he took me straight to this knife. It's not as curved as yours but it is similar. He said his mother in China had one with a metal handle just like yours and it is a fruit knife. She uses it both to cut up fruit and harvest fruit out of the garden. the young man that works in the shop with him said that his family had a farm that grew something that he could only describe as mustard, and that the children were given the knives with wooden handles to harvest the plants. I have no idea what part of China they are from. Stupid me, I didn't ask. Now I have one for you. This little Gizmo was right in the middle of the knives. I had to ask, but can you tell me what it is? It would be considered restaurant equipment. And they had my tea. all I had to do was show them the translation you sent me and they got it for me. I'm anxious to try it. Thank you so much.

Okay, you've got my curiosity up, too. I was going to wait until later in the week to go to my Chinese store downtown and get my tea but I'm going to download this picture and go right now and ask my Chinese restaurant supply man if he knows.

It looks to me like something that you would use to harvest herbs in the garden. It also looks like it would be good to use to butterfly steaks or to prepare pockets in pork chops for stuffing, neither of which the Chinese would be apt to do.

My mother had a manual Presto aluminum pressure cooker that blew up with her twice. I can still see the noodles hanging from the ceiling. I was scared to death of pressure cookers until I got an Oster pressure cooker. I didn't really use it all that much, just for beans and broth and soup, and it blew up for me. I was lucky, I was well away from it when it blew but my kitchen didn't fare so well. I was cooking pork soup and I had broth and pork splattered on everything within 12 feet of the cooker. Thinking back, I don't think the lid engaged quite right but I used it anyway. Just a word of warning, if it doesn't feel right don't use it. That extra minute of precaution can save a lot of cleanup and possible injury. The people that use the stove top pressure cookers love them and have total confidence in them. I admire them for that because, to use them safely requires an expertise and a level of concentration that I don't have. I love that I can set mine and walk away and do something else until it's time to take out the finished product. On another note, I had an electric pressure cooker in the 70s. It was from Sears and it was made just like the Presto deep fryers with four legs and an electric element in the bottom. It was green enamel. I used it with complete confidence until the rubber parts wore out and I couldn't get replacements. I then used it as just an electric cook pot until it died. Does anyone remember these?

I think what this boils down to is the fact that all of us cook differently and have different levels of expertise. Your method of cooking sous-vide yields results that make my mouth water, but I don't have the expertise or the patience to use that method. I'm too much geared to instant gratification. That chicken that I poached would have been delicious baked in the oven but I didn't have the time that day to babysit it for 2 hours and the leftover meat wouldn't have been as moist and good to use in the meals I wanted to make the rest of the week. And my kitchen would have become an oven (it's hot down here). Everything I did could have been done equally well by conventional methods but I would have used more electricity, taken more time, and I would have been terribly uncomfortable doing it because of the heat. For me, anything that accomplishes those goals and puts good food on the table is a better way. I hate to tell you this, just the fact that you own one and you are interested in our opinion and methods makes you a convert of sorts. Maybe little by little you will find more things that you like to do with it or you may get tired of it and it will go the way of my waffle iron. The thing that I like best about it is that it's not a one-trick pony. I can do so many things with it that it has definitely earned it's space in my kitchen.