Tropicalsenior

Do you have a restaurant supply business in your area? I can't buy things from Amazon here, so I went to a Chinese restaurant supply house. I bought so many great accessories that will fit in my instant pot that I probably will never use them all. They are of excellent quality and will outlast me. Just be sure to measure the inside dimensions of your instant pot to make sure that they will fit. Don't forget to measure the height of the rack that they will sit on like I did. I now have a nice stainless steel pot that I am trying to figure out what to do with. Maybe I'll plant basil in it.

If you think this sounds great, go to her website and check out her method of using the tea to cook sausage. In fact, just go to her website. You will love it. She has so many more good ideas.

Probably the understatement of the year.

I had one like that and I like this one so much better. The way the handle is, and those Tyrannosaurus jaws give this one unbelievable leverage.

Ouch! I'll bet every man reading this cringed at that.

For whom. The extractor or the extractee?

You might be onto something there. I think I'll buy another one when I go to the Chinese store just to keep in the car. The last time that I went to the Bridgestone tire shop to get a squished valve repaired, they didn't have a socket that fit the lug nuts on my car. I had to drive five miles to my mechanic, borrow his, take it to the shop, and then drive five miles back to return it, then ten miles home. The clincher was that, unbeknownst to me, there was one laying right on the spare tire in the bottom of the trunk. I'm sure that little gadget would have chewed them right off.Oh well, everything in Costa Rica is an adventure.

It has a tremendous grip. I would say this is a case of extreme over engineering for its purpose.

No, I bought it in my favorite Chinese restaurant supply store. On the package, it was called a microwave grabber. I wish that I had saved the package with the directions. It was hilarious. It is supposedly used to take hot dishes out of the microwave. I use it to take inner pans out of my instant pot. it's got a grip like a bulldog and won't let go of even the heaviest pan.

Nope.

Nope, ouch!

Nope, but it sure would do.

This is one of my favorite gadgets. Does anyone know what it is?

Here are some photos of a bacon press that I was given some time ago as a gift. I only use it now as a panini press when I am making only one sandwich. It rusts like crazy and I can't figure out how to temper it as it has a wooden handle. It's quite small and only weighs 26 ounces. Several restaurants that I worked in had them and they were used only for bacon. Anyone caught using them to mash the juice out of a hamburger would have been promptly shown to the door.

Thank you so much. This will be a big help. I like being able to get the authentic ingredients but it can be frustrating.

Host's note: this post and the ensuing discussion were split from Hoarding Ingredients - suffering from Allgoneophobia? Does anyone else hoard cookbooks? I have over 200 cookbooks that I never use and can't bear to part with. I have spent so many hours reading them and dreaming about things that I would like to cook that they have become like old friends. Most of them called for ingredients that I would never find here. For the most part, I used them to find innovative ways to prepare the things that I could find. I rarely followed a recipe exactly, but I spent hours surrounded by books looking for the perfect one. Now with all the knowledge and pseudo knowledge on the web and recipes from every corner of the world, available for the asking, my cookbooks have become nothing but dust catchers.

This product intrigues me. I would like to have it to try your method of cooking sausage. We have a small, very slowly growing Barrio Chino and I may be able to find it there. Would you, perhaps, be able to send me a picture of your package? My problem in buying things there is that the personnel in these stores do not speak English and barely speak Spanish. A picture would be worth a thousand words to me.

Very interesting. But how big is it and how does it work?

Years ago I worked for a high-end delicatessen that was associated with a great butcher shop. They made their own smoked bacon and trimmed it and sliced it so that every slice was a work of art. That left plenty of trimmings, which we chopped and fried and sold as fresh bacon bits. One of the items on our catering menu was green beans with various seasonings, butter and lots of bacon bits. One morning I arrived to work and was asked to make up a hotel pan of green beans, which I promptly did by opening up four large cans of beans and preparing them in our usual way. Then I had a horrible thought and ask the manager who they were for. They were for the luncheon that I was to serve at noon and the client that I would be serving was a business that was owned by a wonderful Jewish Family. Although the meal was not requested to be kosher, we always respected the dietary requirements of whatever culture we were serving. I rushed to make another pan of beans and there were no more in the pantry and no way to get any more. I had to serve those beans. I did it with bated breath. I thought I had gotten away with it when the owner approached me and said he had to talk to me about the beans. My heart sank. Then he asked me for the recipe. He said that they were the best beans he had ever had in his life and would I please give him the recipe so that his wife could make them for him. I think I crossed my fingers behind my back as I told him that they were made with butter and Bacos, those horrible imitation bacon bits. After that, we made sure that we never ran out of beans especially since it became one of our most popular items. However, in addition to the bacon bits we had to start stocking Bacos, because the word was out and all of our Jewish clients started requesting beans with those wonderful Bacos.

Oh yes! Now I know what we are going to have for dinner. BLTs and broccoli cheese soup. I don't have any fresh broccoli so this will give me a chance to go to the store and restock my overstocked pantry. To address the problem of those terrible bacon bits on salads, usually they are overcooked and overaged. To me, well cooked, nice sized fresh bacon pieces are essential to a spinach salad.

https://youtu.be/WXJMO54Bwbk Give this a try. If it doesn't work let me know.

I save bacon grease and in fact, I buy the boxes of "bacon ends and pieces" to render down into grease for cooking but I use it up quickly. I do know that in some dishes the flavor of good bacon fat is indispensable. However, for me it is just a personal distaste connected with a terrible memory. Here, I can buy an excellent fresh lard, which I prefer. I do love bacon and for some things it is irreplaceable. I have been reading your blog and it is mesmerizing. Your knowledge and expertise is astounding. Thank you for sharing it with us. After reading about Aston I now understand your username.

I started with 48 ounces which left me with a cooked weight of 31 and a half ounces. They had quite a bit of fat on them. I also had two cups of good broth from the water that I poured in after browning them and that I used to steam them.

Scrapple: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrapple is completely different than head cheese: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_cheese I know from bad experience. My mother used to make scrapple, which I loved and my ex mother-in-law made head cheese, which I couldn't even gag down to be polite.

My ex, thank God, mother-in-law had an obsession with bacon grease. She saved it in 3 lb coffee cans which she stored in her pantry. As I recall, she always had at least six. She very scrupulously always used the oldest can first, which meant that it was always rancid by the time she used it. And she used it in everything! She used it to make pancakes, fry chicken, and to make pie crust, cookies, and cake. It's been 50 years and I still shudder at the memory. The one thing I don't save is bacon grease.