Bernie

I guess if you know for certain what has happened to the ground meat before you processed it with flavorings etc and you were fairly diligent in cleanliness and temperature control, the bacteria counts should not be of concern. Perhaps some of the sauces etc might have lower freezing points and would act like a marinade, although a lot slower. I will freeze raw ground beef itself, but only when fresh. If I add things to the meat to make burgers or patties, I tend to cook them and then freeze them. I usually vacuum pack them as well.

By far the most helpful of all the advice here.......ice in it (if you must) but for the first day put the Scotch in the freezer for a few hours. It will go thick like a liqueur and you can drink lots...you will need more Scotch though (must have for the pantry anyhow...)

I have the same with Lamb rumps. When I get them I individually package them with a few branches of rosemary and freeze them. To use I usually just thaw then SV. As they thaw they end up with some liquid. I just SV as is. The liquid will "cook" somewhat but it would probably be OK to use to make a sauce. I usually discard it. If the meat in your picture was partially frozen or even very cold, then as it warms the liquid will come out more than "normal" In lot cases of meat we buy already packaged has absorbent material to sop up the liquids that come out naturally. This improves the "look" and handling for marketing purposes.

Not sure the "original" ever had bacon. I think it was always cold meat, chicken, corn beef or pastrami, tomato, lettuce, mayo. Like all these things, as clubs evolved perhaps many added grills for toasted cheese or toasted cheese & tomato, all the ingredients would have a relatively long shelf life in a drinks fridge.

Wasn't the original idea of a club sandwich was that the bar man made it?The various clubs (sports, sailing etc) didn't have a kitchen or cook, they only had a couple of barman (bar persons...sigh). Sort of like a bit bigger bar snack for lunch or dinner. He may have had a toaster but not much else which meant the fillings were not heated and could be kept in the fridge with the drinks that needed refrigeration?

As a kid growing up the only pasta you could buy was in a box (as apposed to plastic). I seem to remember all was long and doubled over. About a quarter was already broken in the box, I think from rough handling in the distribution and retailing. It was always a great game to try and find a full length that survived the cooking and serving. As a kid the joy of "sucking in" (the preferred method for us horrible children) a full length, with the attendant smearing all over the face of the sauce was a constant vexation to our mother.

I let it cool, covered, then put in in the fridge. I take the view that it has been sterilized and have introduced as few pathogens as any other foods. Keeping it cold should slow down any increase. For fried rice, I find it best to use day old rice that has been cooled and added to the fridge in a covered container. Probably wouldn't keep it for more than a week as it tends to dry out a bit. Wouldn't do it for excess rice from a takeaway, unless I microwave it first and then cooled because I can't really be sure whether its been sterilized or let stand at room temperature all day.

The onion, soy & other ingredients probably wont combine the same as they do in a Wok or high heat. The sugars will probably not change to the caramels that happen at high heat. You could partially cook the potato, onions & flavors on the stove top, cool them and then add the result to chicken thighs in the ziplock. bags and SV as normal. Its probably not going to taste the same as you remember though. Its likely to be a trial and error thing

On airline food....A recent show over here did taste tests at normal & high altitude (in a hyperbaric chamber) It turns out your taste buds change with altitude. The altitude dampens down their response. Airlines produce food that is very spicy but when eaten at altitude its fine. If they produce food that tastes fine on the ground, it is almost bland in the air. Generally, airline catering is pretty impressive, given the logistics and the huge range of passenger tastes to cater for. On the vegetable balls...that's the way they should be marketed, not as fake or "artificial" meatballs.

Probably dead right about cultured meats. My point was not that they were particularly marketed at vegetarians or vegans, but they were marketed with the aim of getting acceptance AS meat. I am sure we could add all sorts of chemicals to bread to make it taste like meat (yuk!) but it will still be bread. These are not cultured meats however, whatever the marketing may say, they are still be cultured protein (animal, vegetable or Soylent green) not meat. You are dead right about the light bulbs. In Australia, it was mandated that new houses were to be fitted with energy saving Compact Fluorescent light bulbs. Well they cost 10 times as much, last only a fraction as long (they grow dimmer with age) and are environmentally very unfriendly as you can not dispose of them to landfill and can't recycle them. Thank goodness LED's came along. But it give the Greenies that warm fuzzy feeling you get from helping the planet, even if you weren't and your logic was totally wrong.

I must say i am a little bemused by all the effort to create "artificial meat". I do understand, that in order to increase the efficiency of beef you may want to grow beef apart from a beast. Processing protein into something edible is one thing, attempting to pass it off as beef is quite another. Call it what it is, processed protein, not artificial beef. But, like vegan sausages, vegan burgers, now meat substitutes seem to me to be trying to piggy back on the reputation of meat. If you don't want to eat meat, don't eat it. Why is it necessary to try and make a "substitute"? I think I tried a very early version of the product and found it different, it had some of the texture of some beef, but the flavor was well off. The fats/oil within the product itself was far different to beef fat and so even with the usual added condiments, the overall flavor was odd. Then again what we all recognize as "beef" taste is more than likely the maillard reaction transforming amino acids & sugars into the lovely "browning" on that steak I guess the market does the same for a lot of snack foods (chips that are not potato, curly yellow things that are actually modified soy protein colored orange or yellow), so a clever marketing campaign could make the product viable, but not as a beef substitute, its just not close enough (yet).

We have a "wet season" (well we used to have). During the month or so before the atmosphere gets very humid and hot (~30C). I also keep the butter in a porcelain dish in the cupboard and it gets pretty soft but I put up with it. BUT it grows a little black "mold" during this month. It generally grows on the contact between the dish & butter. Its really bad if I use unsalted butter. I put in in the fridge overnight and its enough to keep it at bay.

And only turn a steak once. But no one can give you a valid reason why.

I put a cup of Polenta in the food processor. After 15 minutes I transferred to a different (bigger) machine because it made almost no difference to the texture. I guess it was a little finer but not much. Might try the coffee grinder next (but I don't really want to contaminate the grinder....) Might have to try the mortar and pestle first though .

So I thought I would try an old favourite but adapt it to SV The basic Recipe: (for normal oven cooking) 2Tbsp plain flour 1tspn chilli powder 1 tsp ground coriander 1/2 tsp ground ginger I/2 tsp salt Pinch Nutmeg 4 lamb shanks I large onion finely diced 1/2 pint Greek style yogurt 3/4 pint lamb stock (or use beef or chicken if lamb stock not available) 4 cardamon pods crushed 1 pinch saffron 4 small tomatoes each cut int0 6 wedges Mix the flour and spices coat the lamb shanks and reserve all the leftover flour/spice mix. Brown the lamb shanks in oil either in a very hot oven or stove top (depends on the cooking vesel) Remove the lamb from the pan and add the onions and cook till colored. Add the leftover flour spice mix & yogurt cook for 1 minute add the stock and bring to boil. Add the lamb shanks, cardamon & saffron cover and cook in the oven for 11/2 hours. Add the tomatoes and cook uncovered for 40 mins or so. Serve hot. Adapting to SV I used 2 lamb shanks. I used 3 tomatoes, each cut into 8 wedges. I floured the lamb shanks but did not brown them. In a saucepan on the stove I browned the onions, added the leftover flour/spices, added the yogurt, beef stock crushed cardamon pods, saffron and tomatoe wedges. Brought to the boil and simmered for 15 min. Allowed to cool. Put the Lamb shanks in a longish plastic bag added the "sauce" and carefully (over the sink) vacuumed sealed the bag with the food saver. I sort of hang the bag, start the vacuum pump but push the seal button when the liquid starts to reach the food saver. Set the temperature to 64C and the time to 99.59 hours knowing full well that I would cook only for ~72hours. This allows for delays and changes on serving time should unexpected guests call in and delay serving time. As it was It cooked for ~73hrs before I decanted in casserole dish and put in the oven at 200C for 1/2 hour. This was to reduce the sauce. It didn't reduce much. Out of the SV, In the Casserole, out of the oven. Results: I served it with rice. I was going to serve it standalone with corn bread but I got sidetracked and the corn bread was overcooked (not burnt exactly but the local bricklayer put in a tender to build a wall with them). The meat was super tender falling from the bone but still intact. It was pale pink in color but beautifully cooked. It was tender and very moist. The fat around the joint end of the bone was jelly like. It was exactly what i hoped for. The tomatoes were the biggest surprise. The wedges were still intact, with a texture I can describe as like warm glaced fruit They were sweet, and very pleasant. I will be exploring whether just the time or the other ingredients produced this effect because it would be ideal for accompaniment for other dishes. The cardamon pods did not provide as much flavor as I expected, neither did the chilli. This may well be to do with the low temperature. The sauce was too thin. It had the flavor I wanted, but because it was thinner it didn't adhere to the meat like I wanted. I need to reduce the amount of sauce/marinade. Probably need to add more flour or corn starch to thicken the sauce. Sorry about the layout but I am not used to working with images 😀

And that does bring up yet another offshoot.....The "original" use of cornbread developed out of necessity but like all good things it spread. Might I suggest the reason it spread so far was that its taste/texture profile goes particularly good with some sorts of food, like BBQ pork, deep fried chicken. Is it the case that its dry and almost neutral taste (though neutral is really the right description- it certainly has flavor of its own but it is subtle rather than imposing). As it became more popular it changed somewhat because of that very quality, because it needed flavor boost (sugar, spices, more oil, different flour) and it needed different shapes and baking configurations to help, because it was being consumed with other foods. I find it goes really well with spicy sauced foods, but on its own it does need flavors, oils/butter & toppings. I guess there are other foods that fall into the same category. Plain garlic bread with pasta but needs extra herbs,salt or Parmesan with other foods, basil with tomatoes, tarragon with salt water fish. They are just the "right" flavors. I guess that's actually the experience/knowledge that chefs learn and the art is in combining and using that knowledge.

Mine is close to that 11/4 corn meal 1/2 cup flour 2 tbsp sugar 2 tsp baking powder 1 tsp salt up to 1 cup milk 2 eggs 1/4 cup vegetable oil Mix to consistency of thick batter. (depending on egg size just reduce milk to get the right thickness) I put into into silicon muffin molds and cook till lightly brown (~200C ~25mins?) Usually i add chopped capsicum (bell peppers?) and chopped diced Jalapeno (pickled from Costco) In Australia its hard to get corn meal (or corn bread mix) so I just use Polenta. Most health food shops have it along with mainstream supermarkets in their health food section. From what I glean corn meal is a lot courser than Polenta but its almost the same thing, though it may not have any husk in the mix. I drop the sugar depending what I am having it with (usually smoked pork spare ribs in BBQ sauce). I suspect the Polenta makes it a little too dense and the first I made the crust (from a metal pan) didn't marry with the rather denser texture. The silicon still gives a crust but its not as thick. The crust is also a lot smoother but that may be ratio of dried to oil. Probably worth trying with whole meal flour to get a better, rougher texture, then go back to metal to get a better crust. Probably sacrilege but it may well be nice with shredded cheese added to the tops halfway through the cooking

The final ink is formatted wrong it actually opens this topic It should be https://rounduprisks.com/glyphosate-pdf-library/ One of the things I find really annoying is organizations like this, who say what they are, give a PQ box and no real details. There was/is a "Canberra Taxpayers Association" (Canberra is the national capital of Australia). Sounds legit & good. Inquiries reveal it has only ONE member, of this so called "Association". Looked impressive in the news until you realize it was just some Bozo trying to legitimize his inflated sense of his own importance. The IRT may be legitimate. Before trusting any information I would want some independent verification that they are not just a crackpot anti Roundup Group. When the verification comes only from claims on their own website or websites associated with the founder then I take anything with a grain of salt. Most of the articles are anecdotal in nature of from authors that sell anti gm books or anti Monsanto on the subject rather than independent commentators. I vaguely remember the FDA was lobbied successfully to increase the allowable residual of Glyphosate in corn that was necessary to make the general use of the chemical with their GM corn. There is nothing wrong with this provided there is independent research and testing. So far as I can tell so far from the answers is that there is a great deal of misinformation on both sides of the argument. There does seem to be some independent concern but it is so mixed with hysteria and counter claims, to the point I am not certain of getting any real truth. I think I will avoid using it on food crops and avoid GM food specifically designed to be resistant to Glyphosate, which are more likely to have higher residues.

The debate is obviously more mature in the US. It may gain some traction here as well, though the use of GM crops (and the subsequent use of Roundup on them) is not widespread. Roundup is readily available and used by homeowners. Thank you Alex & Heidih for those links. The first article noted by Alex is a little misleading in its scope. Facts and Fallacies in the debate on Glyphosate Toxicity probably should have been titled Facts and Fallacies in the commentary of Samsel and Seneff on Glyphosate Toxicity. Well it certainly discredits the 5 commentaries (and probably rightly so) but the article seems to be fundamentally about discrediting those commentaries rather than providing any evidence for or against debate on Glyphosate Toxicity. I do realize that the article is about the debate (not the toxicity) but it seems to me as an outsider it could well be construed as an attempt to discredit one side of the debate. The second article on the manipulation of the media I found unsurprising. Its what any good public relations firm does. Just because we do not like the outcome does not mean we should condemn the practices, if its legal its OK. An argument may be made about the ethics of the publications / journalists but that is an entirely different debate (Fake news anybody?) Remember the Tobacco industry? If they broke the law then prosecute them or if they did not but they acted improperly but you think it should be illegal , change the law to reflect the communities standards. If they lied and it had some ill effect then sue them. The third article pointed to by Heidih is a really interesting debate for outsiders (outside the US). Patents & copyright laws were originally designed to encourage inventors by allowing inventors to commercialize their work and recover their development cost before others could take advantage of their work. That is why Patents in most countries have a finite time limit. What has developed in this field though is that patents are more & more being used to suppress innovation. A classic example is allowing the patents on the genes of the human genome is a classic example of attempting to suppress research in the hope that the restriction itself can be commercialized, rather than the actual use of the gene itself. (you need to pay us a license fee to do research on "our" gene) I find it interesting that China does not intrinsically recognize patents or copyright. Their view is that it stifles innovation. I find the use of the FBI and other government agencies (indeed the judiciary) to obviously attempt to protect a commercial imperative by changing its name to National Security is very similar to the manipulation of the media in the Monsanto article above. You can do many bad things in the name of "National Security", after all that is exactly the same as what China is doing. What is the moral argument for not allowing the increase in food production in a world increasingly short of food?

Not sure if it belongs here. One Australian state (Victoria) has decided to investigate the regulation of Glyphosate because there are reports of (3?) successful court action in the US linking Glyphosate to cancer. I have seen the reports but there are no details. My concern is that genetic modified crops (soybean & corn) have been modified to resist Glyphosate, which can be used to control other weeds and can be applied broadly (aerial spraying?). The modification means that the resultant crops will have higher residues of Glyphosate. (I think the maximum residues were increased to allow these crops). Is there any discussion in the US regarding this subject? Perhaps someone in one of the US jurisdictions could fill us in on what the current thinking is. (good or bad) Opinions are fine but I for one am a bit short on facts.

One thing i forgot when cooking for kids. If you make a sauce for vegetables etc, serve it on the adults only and make it a point of difference. The kids may well resent it and try it out of spite. Even if they are unsure whether they like it their pride will not let them reject it. (I forgot how satisfying manipulating children can be)😃

I think that children's taste buds are undeveloped so they have a preference towards the bland. Like all things in children their senses are undeveloped. Taste & texture are new to them. The VERY first thing children learn is how to manipulate their parents. I can understand the advantages from evolutionary point of view (they can't actually kill their rival siblings like some birds for instance), but they can compete quite successfully to out manipulate their parents or other adults. Some never get over this phase and it continues into adulthood. My grandchildren absolutely hate pumpkin. But if they don't know or realize they are eating pumpkin, they make no fuss, which indicates their dislike is probably psychological. I am pretty certain that a few of our children's dislikes are the result of a bad experience with a particular food (they may have been in a bad mood and decided to test their parents by refusal) and the learned behavior just stuck. Remember their whole evolutionary imperative of their existence is to learn. Having said that, once they have those behaviors is fairly hard to cure them. They will like salty things. They will like sweet things (to us they sweet taste that children like may well be cloyingly sweet to us). They want easy. Cutting things is a skill they may not have (they do feel self conscious when they can't do things their parents think they should). They crave fats but not the look of it (its why children love french fries) Being really slow eaters is about manipulation not taste or hunger, its a learned behavior. So...enough with the profiling.... Find what vegetables they will eat. But make sure they are fresh and RIPE. Corn on the cob (make sure its ripe!) is good because they get to pick it up in their fingers and make a mess. They may not like it smothered in butter but try it with maple syrup. Same with carrots, make sure they are cooked properly. See if they will eat them raw, if not make sure you cook them soft. Cook peas with mint. Give the children mint sweets earlier in the day. (see manipulation can work both ways....) Pasta is always good, particularly if you make 2 types of sauce, spicy for you and mild for them (don't be surprised if they suddenly start to like spicy...they want to be like adults). Same with lasagna. BUT don't tell them what you are having, it just gives them a chance to object and lock in their choices without trying it! Cover the vegetables with a sauce they like, remember the sauce needs to tend towards bland or they will reject it! Any sauce that is new and different is likely to be rejected outright (not for taste, it wont get past the double negative "new" & "different") You will only get one chance at presenting a new sauce!

I have tried Pork tenderloin SV quite a few times at different temperatures and times. Because its very lean, it seems to me it doesn't seem to become as tender as I would expect. Perhaps the connective tissue is different and doesn't break down or change like lamb or beef. It doesn't take too much time to become dry. Mind you it breaks apart very easily but it seems dry to me. I have had some success by adding marinades before cooking. The best way I now have to cook pork tenderloin is actually covered in a low oven (100C) for a couple of hours in BBQ sauce then uncover for another half hour to thicken the sauce. I actually add hot chilli sauce to the BBQ sauce to give it a bite. By the way I always used to just BBQ pork tenderloin fillets but I also found it was a bit hit & miss as to how tender it came out. The taste was always fine, its just the variation in tenderness I found annoying. Perhaps it was more to do with the raw ingredients. I am just not sure.

No its just spring loaded. It opens about 1 inch or so. The spring seems quite tight and it does hold fairly well.

Did a shop at Costco the other day and came across a Sous Vide Immersion cooker. http://westinghousesmallappliances.com.au/product/sous-vide-immersion-cooker-whsv01k/ Price was AUD $99.00 (about USD $68.00). Pretty standard features like 99:59 hour timer, temperature range 25C to 95C. 1200W heater (220-240V) Used it cook a meal (fillet steak) and it performed flawlessly. Measured the water temperature and it held it within .1 degree of what was set. Good easily operated clamp. One slight criticism was that the lower half is stainless steel (good) but this rests against the side of the pot and if metal can rattle a little. I used a small piece of self adhesive felt about the same size of the outer clamp face on the barrel opposite the clamp and problem solved. It would be nice if the clamp opened a little more so I could use the my pressure cooker as the pot. Its nicely insulated and it just means 1 less tallish pot in the cupboard. General price at other stores in Australia AUD $126~$149. I still have the immersion bath (non circulating) which is easier to use but does take a lot longer to reach temperature but it does have a lot more volume.