CanadianHomeChef

Day 12. Basil in the foreground, romaine in the middle, and tomatoes off in the distance.

Transplanting should be easy. It’s a self contained pod. It feels more spongy than dirty, so it should come out easy. Company says it can be transplanted and there are pics online of it being done. The soil oil isn’t too deep, so larger fruit bearing plants will have to be transplanted. I will measure when I’m back home.

Same. I like that you can flip up the clips and keep the lid on while microwaving, as there are small venting holes under the clips.

Leaves are getting longer on the lettuce. Basil is slow and steady. Tomatoes are finally starting to show more leaves.

Is there a difference? I cannot for the life of me find Yukon Gold in Calgary

Maybe a little overkill for bacon and eggs. But my stove top is covered in control freaks. #HolidayBrunch

Day 8

Day 7 Romaine

Day 5. Lettuce basil tomato

Day 4

And yes the pods are expensive. But if it means fresh, hassle free basil, it’ll be worth the cost. Of course I’ll experiment with my own soil and seeds to see if I can save money.

Decided to start an indoor herb garden, and bought a “Click and Grow” based on the recommendation of Cook’s Illustrated. The starter kit comes with 3 basil pods, 3 romaine lettuce pods, and 3 tomato pods. Planted all three, and came home today (day 3) and saw that all the lettuce and basil pods have sprouted. The image is of the tallest plant so far—Romaine lettuce. The tomatoes are taking the longest but I think I see a bit of green buried in the soil. Anyone else have have one of these? I think I’ll just stick with herbs moving forward as I’m too impatient for lettuce, and from what I can see online the fruit bearing plants yield little. Tomatoes are super tiny; much tinier than cherry tomatoes.

Must depend on what you’re cooking? Most of the things I slow cook are submerged in a liquid. I have a stew going right now on the CF and the liquid matches the pan temp exactly. Any parts sticking out are in a steam environment heating it up. Once it starts to thicken up, maybe I’ll run into problems?

That’s why you watch for it on eBay and snag it for the same price as their triply line.

True. And with the kind of precision and accuracy the Control Freak affords, I can get better results than traditional slow cooking. Just want a starting point for existing recipes though. Then I will adjust.

Thinking about trying some slow cooker recipes on the Control Freak, using a enameled dutch oven. For temps, I'm going to use Cook's Illustrated's top rated slow cooker. They say that at "low" the cooker got to a max temp of 193.5°F. And at high 203.8°F. I will start with those temps, but may adjust as I'm at a relatively high altitude (Calgary), so simmering happens at different temps. Also on the Control Freak I expect consistency of temp, whereas in a crockpot it probably fluctuates a lot (meaning an overall lower average temp). But I think these two temps are a good place to start. I'd also like to program a rice cooker temp. Already did one for my stove top pressure cooker. The Control Freak is making many of my counter top appliances redundant Edited to add: Also might need to adjust temps a bit since Cook's Illustrated measured content temps, not pan temp. If I use a clad pan, fill it with water, and set the pan temp, I usually find the temperature of the water to eventually equal the pan temps (+ or - 1 degree). Thicker viscosity contents (e.g soups or stews), might be a few degrees off. I could solve this by drilling a hole in my dutch oven to take a probe temp, but I don't really want to do that, and I really don't think slow cooking needs that kind of accuracy

Made some mushroom risotto on the Control Freaks for lunch today. Simmered a broth on one (207f), while I fried some mushrooms on the other (250f). Kept the broth warm (140f) and ladeled it onto the risotto at the end.

The Hestan Cue requires the use of a special frying pan. Haven’t used it before but it doesn’t seem as versatile. And imagine you have to carefully handwash it?

$1399 USD. I thinks it’s worth it now that I own one. But I’m still glad I got both of mine for a steal on eBay.

That’s what sold me too. And I can definately see more evenness when I boil water in it compared to the triply. The bubbles reach closer to the edges of the pan.

By heat distribution I was talking about eveneness. Yes it takes longer to heat up, but I don’t have a 10 inch induction burner that will make contact with the entire base. So I appreciate that the heat will travel further to the edges of the pan.

I just gifted myself a D7 12”. Upgraded from my stainless steel triply. It’s quite the hefty beast and heat distribution is amazing.

Any Control Freak plans for the Christmas season? I’ve been super busy at work (teaching), and I feel like I haven’t had the time to really play with my units. Looking forward to the free time to experiment the problem is choosing what to try 😂

Nice! Will try this the next time o need ghee.

Lettuce all romaine calm.