Interesting Christmas Gifts Received 2014

[haresfur]

Im just dying here.

 

that's about the coolest thing Ive seen since the Original iPod

 

the possibilities are endless !

 

I also Sooooooooo  Pleased BedBath&Beyond does not carry these

 

Id be right down there  (  20 % off, of course  )

 

the possibilities are Indeed Endless with this Gizmo !

Take one for the team, Rotus.  We need the report.

[Toliver]

My oldest brother gave me a quite large smoked brisket   for Christmas. I cut it into chunks and put it into the freezer and will take out pieces as needed. He also gave me a nice home-made North Carolina-ish BBQ sauce to go with it. Plus, he ground up a variety of dried chile peppers that he grew in his garden and gave me a shaker of the hot pepper flakes. 

He's enjoying the pasta/sauce books I gave him for Christmas to go with the pasta machine I gave him for his birthday a few months ago. 

We're a family of foodies. 

[andiesenji]

This is the first time in decades that I received only one gift basket, of "gourmet" Italian goodies, which I appreciate but no W-S or Sur La Table gift cards, no Cheese gift cards, no gadgets or weird kitchen items and no cookbooks - which was a surprise because I thought for sure there would be one. 

 

I did get Amazon gift cards but I'm not inclined to spend them on foodie stuff right now...

[ElainaA]

A gift basket from Arthur Avenue's Little Italy in the Bronx. A pound each of prosciutto and mortadella, big blocks of asiago, provolone and manteche (provolone with a butter core - I'm not too sure about this one) plus some quite amazing kitchen towels with pasta recipes in Italian (these went to my daughter who speaks Italian, as opposed to my husband who simply lives it). And, from my husband, the maslin pan I wanted.

Elaina

[Kerry Beal]

A gift basket from Arthur Avenue's Little Italy in the Bronx. A pound each of prosciutto and mortadella, big blocks of asiago, provolone and manteche (provolone with a butter core - I'm not too sure about this one) plus some quite amazing kitchen towels with pasta recipes in Italian (these went to my daughter who speaks Italian, as opposed to my husband who simply lives it). And, from my husband, the maslin pan I wanted.

Elaina

Which maslin pan did he get for you?

[ElainaA]

Kerry - The one from Lee Valley. I wanted the smaller size which would have been sufficient for what I do but he tends to go large and got me the big one. It is beautiful. I hear marmalade calling me.

It will also be put to use as an ice bucket for prosecco at the New Year's Day brunch we are hosting tomorrow. (That started off with 6 people. At last count I think about 30 are coming. Guess what I'm doing today.)

Elaina 

[KootenayCook]

My nephew who is residing in Japan gave this to my brother:  

 

So, I am OKC's brother.  The kids are off skiing; so I can finally get to my computer (in the guest room) and add some info.  My son & his gf made takoyaki for lunch yesterday.  The cooker they gave us is not the "fully automatic" version shown in the video, but a fully manual version, basically just a teflon-coated plate with hemispherical depressions in it heated by an electric element underneath:

 

Along with it, they gave us Takoyaki mix:

 

 

and condiments (L to R, mayonnaise, takoyaki sauce, nori flakes & bonito flakes). Beer in the background is an obligatory accompaniment.

 

 

The first step was to wipe some oil onto the pan

 

 

Next, they poured batter into the depressions (just caught the tail end of this), and used a spike to move the spillover batter into the depressions and separate the balls: (They gave us a couple of spikes too - I just didn't get a pic of them, but you can see one off the top right corner of the cooker.  (One could use a satay stick or a metal skewer.)  The batter is quite runny.  They added cabbage to it.

 

 

Then a piece of cooked octopus (tentacles only) was added to each ball.  We had found some frozen baby octopodes at the supermarket & I sv'd them for 2.5 hr @ 185.

 

As the balls cooked on the bottom, the spike was used to separate them from the plate and then to flip them on their side (this was quite tricky at first); then more batter was added to the depression.

 

 

Eventually the balls could be rotated again.

 

 

The rotation of the balls continued for 5 - 10 more minutes to help them cook evenly, until a spike inserted into the centre of a ball came out clean. The balls also had to be moved from one depression to another, as the balls on the outside edges were cooking more slowly.  Once they were done, they were dressed with the condiments mentioned above.

 

 

They were still quite gooey inside.  Very tasty! People who had had them before, said they were authentic, though the sv'd baby octopus was softer than the boiled mature octopus tentacles normally used.

 

[rotuts]

Thank you for your above post.

 

I'm now a little less bereft.

 

I do love the Idea that a Bot does some or maybe most of my work ..............

 

that just depends on the time of the Day

 

we Use M.R. time here 

 

 

but thanks for your post

 

Ill look into it soon

 

burp.

 

and a happy new year to you all !

 

[Okanagancook]

Awww, I thought it was the automatic one 

They look tasty though.

[SylviaLovegren]

SL : now that you mention the Moorish influence, I remember that from Spain.

 

I wonder where its made for the NJ crowd.

 

The NJ ones were from Italy, but i don't remember from where in Italy.  The salumerias were Calabrian, Sicilian and Apulian.

[KootenayCook]

 

I do love the Idea that a Bot does some or maybe most of my work ..............

 

 

I noticed on the video that the bot sometimes fails to turn a ball & you have to help it along - so that means you have to watch it.  Might as well be spending the time turning the balls - I have to say I couldn't do that for long though.  But the people who run the takoyaki stalls in Japan do it all day!

 

HNY to you too!

[MelissaH]

Ooh, it's like a giant electric poffertje or aebelskiver pan! I love the idea: way more efficient when you're cooking for a crowd. (Can I come over? Please? I'll even bring some of our fine Lake Ontario octopus with me. )

[KootenayCook]

Ooh, it's like a giant electric poffertje or aebelskiver pan! I love the idea: way more efficient when you're cooking for a crowd. (Can I come over? Please? I'll even bring some of our fine Lake Ontario octopus with me. )

 

Of course!  But you have to make us some poffertjes

[Anna N]

It is January 6, the Feast of the Epiphany, and for some of us a sign that Christmas is over for another year and there will be no more gifts to open. But sometime this afternoon Santa Claus aka Canada Post placed a parcel on my back step. An eG Society member had taken note that I was mourning the demise of my Keurig coffee maker. Having one that was almost new but unwanted this elf packaged it up along with some coffee, tea, pecans so fresh they must've fallen off the tree yesterday, black walnut pieces, Trader Joe's nut oils and some very special honey. My cup runneth over. (No, not the Keurig cup!). I can't find the proper words to say thank you.

[rotuts]

Hurray !

 

there are still, from time to time  .......

 

BTW  I like those pecans !

 

       

Edited January 6, 2015 by rotuts (log)

[btbyrd]

I don't know if anything I got is especially interesting, but I made out like a freaking bandit this Christmas. Seriously, I don't know how it happened.

 

The main highlights were a Thermapen and a Waring MX1200XTX Commercial Blender. With these, I feel like I'm pretty much out of kitchen stuff to buy. Which is fine by me! So happy to finally have a high power blender. It's been a blend-a-thon since I got home from the holidays. And I've wanted a Thermapen for years, so now I can quit complaining about my "instant" read thermometer.

 

I also ended up with a load of cookbooks:

1. The Fat Duck Cookbook - Heston Blumenthal
2. Historic Heston - Heston Blumenthal
3. The Complete Nose to Tail - Fergus Henderson
4. Heritage - Sean Brock
5. Smoke and Pickles - Ed Lee
6. Mastering the Art of Southern Cooking - Nathalie Dupree and Cynthia Graubart
7. ManBQue: Meat, Beer, Rock and Roll - by my homeboys John Carruthers and Jesse Valenciana

I've got a lot of cooking to do...

Edited January 7, 2015 by btbyrd (log)

[Deryn]

Lucky you, btbyrd - Santa has amazing taste in cookbooks it seems! He must be a Heston fan (as I am - at least as far as his cooking and creative instincts). I got hooked when I watched his historic and fantasy-type shows a couple of years ago. I just recently bought myself his Fat Duck cookbook - there is a lot of reading there, not just cooking!

[Shel_B]

The main highlights were a Thermapen and a Waring MX1200XTX Commercial Blender. With these, I feel like I'm pretty much out of kitchen stuff to buy. Which is fine by me! So happy to finally have a high power blender. It's been a blend-a-thon since I got home from the holidays. And I've wanted a Thermapen for years, so now I can quit complaining about my "instant" read thermometer.

 

 

[Toliver]

It is January 6, the Feast of the Epiphany, and for some of us a sign that Christmas is over for another year and there will be no more gifts to open. But sometime this afternoon Santa Claus aka Canada Post placed a parcel on my back step. An eG Society member had taken note that I was mourning the demise of my Keurig coffee maker. Having one that was almost new but unwanted this elf packaged it up along with some coffee, tea, pecans so fresh they must've fallen off the tree yesterday, black walnut pieces, Trader Joe's nut oils and some very special honey. My cup runneth over. (No, not the Keurig cup!). I can't find the proper words to say thank you.

Brava or Bravo, to the unnamed elf! A tip of my imaginary Santa's hat to them. 

What a wonderful way to start off the New Year. Please post what you make with the black walnuts and the pecans. 

Congrat's on your gift!

[btbyrd]

I forgot that I also got Morimoto's cookbook... there were so many that it's hard to keep track!

 

Deryn: Luckily for me, Santa tends to get me things off my Amazon wishlist! I'm also a big Heston fan and have wanted The Big Fat Duck Cookbook for years, but finally "downsized" my wish to the normal sized (but still large) version. I joked with my dad: "You know this is the small version of this cookbook, right?" He asked whether in the big version the text was bigger... then I showed him how small the text actually is in the book. It's jam-packed with information so that even if you never make a dish out of it, you can still learn a lot. I believe Chris Young referred to it as "Modernist Cuisine before they published Modernist Cuisine."

 

Shel: Glad you're liking the Thermapen! Everyone seems to. My wife finally broke down this year, saying: "You've been asking for one of these for years and I thought it was finally time for you to get one." I haven't really used it yet, but the time will soon come. As for the Waring, I doubt that you'd want one of the Xtreme ones if you're looking for a lighter blender or a shorter blender; they're quite heavy and quite tall (it weights almost 14lbs and is about about 18.5" tall with the pitcher and lid). They do make a shorter pitcher, though. I've been on a blending spree since I got back home from the holidays and have been very pleased. My previous blender was the Kitchenaid that Cook's Illustrated/ATK used to rate as their top, non-Vitamix choice but it had a problem with the gasket so that it would leak out the bottom of the pitcher. This made for a lot more cleaning, since you had to wash the base and the underside of the pitcher. The Waring blows it out of the water. I have limited experience with my parent's Vitamix, but I'd say that the Waring is equal to or better than the VM. The power of both is so much greater than the Kitchenaid.... I tried making vegetable smoothies in the Kitchenaid, but they always came out grainy. Not a problem with the Waring. It's scary powerful. I've used it so far to make a boatload of smoothies and "juices," coconut milk, and a few purees. Everything has come out better than in my previous blender. I highly recommend it. But it's probably going to be taller, heavier, and louder than the blender you already have.

Edited January 7, 2015 by btbyrd (log)

[LizD518]

My nephew who is residing in Japan gave this to my brother:  

I was facinated by these dumplings when I visited Japan. I loved watching the vendors make them, but when I tasted them I didn't really love them.  However, I think they would be a great food stand item here in the states with multiple fillings and toppings.

[Smithy]

My sister gave me this beautiful ladle for Christmas:

She found it at some interesting gift shop/used stuff store and has no idea of its provenance, except that it seems to have been scribed by Lettie in '93.

The steel is good stainless, so this is as useful as it is beautiful! Does anyone know what kind of horn/antler comprises the handle? Our best guess is mountain goat, or possibly some variety of antelope.

[andiesenji]

My sister gave me this beautiful ladle for Christmas:

IMG_20150109_122850.jpg

She found it at some interesting gift shop/used stuff store and has no idea of its provenance, except that it seems to have been scribed by Lettie in '93.

IMG_20150109_122121.jpg

The steel is good stainless, so this is as useful as it is beautiful! Does anyone know what kind of horn/antler comprises the handle? Our best guess is mountain goat, or possibly some variety of antelope.

IMG_20150109_124100-1.jpg

Elk. A "terminal point" of an antler.

The structure is different in deer and reindeer.   

Edited January 9, 2015 by andiesenji (log)

[Shel_B]

 

Everything has come out better than in my previous blender. I highly recommend it. But it's probably going to be taller, heavier, and louder than the blender you already have.

 

Thanks for the commentary.  I'll have to measure the height of my Waring, and check the weight as well.

[Shel_B]

 

As for the Waring, I doubt that you'd want one of the Xtreme ones if you're looking for a lighter blender or a shorter blender; they're quite heavy and quite tall (it weights almost 14lbs and is about about 18.5" tall with the pitcher and lid). They do make a shorter pitcher, though. I've been on a blending spree since I got back home from the holidays and have been very pleased. My previous blender was the Kitchenaid that Cook's Illustrated/ATK used to rate as their top, non-Vitamix choice but it had a problem with the gasket so that it would leak out the bottom of the pitcher. This made for a lot more cleaning, since you had to wash the base and the underside of the pitcher. The Waring blows it out of the water. I have limited experience with my parent's Vitamix, but I'd say that the Waring is equal to or better than the VM. The power of both is so much greater than the Kitchenaid.... I tried making vegetable smoothies in the Kitchenaid, but they always came out grainy. Not a problem with the Waring. It's scary powerful. I've used it so far to make a boatload of smoothies and "juices," coconut milk, and a few purees. Everything has come out better than in my previous blender. I highly recommend it. But it's probably going to be taller, heavier, and louder than the blender you already have.

 

I came across this test of high-power blenders  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ej048qZNxpk.  The Waring fared very well.