The food thread

Microwave Oven upgrades.

I have a 15 year old oven that is starting to look a bit sad, although it still works fine. We don't "cook" much with it, but it is good at heating any watery liquid (of course!)

Now the household is down to the two of us I am aware of the wastage running the big double (electric) oven for small quantities. Mostly fish and vegetable grilling, pizza and her cakes and pies. I use the gas hob top for saucepan stuff and a corrugated steak grill plate.

So I have my eye on a modern combi oven/grill/microwave and would welcome tales of your experience with same.
 
So I have my eye on a modern combi oven/grill/microwave and would welcome tales of your experience with same.

My sister never uses her combo that includes the microwave. It my seem silly but we get a large amount of use out of an ordinary toaster/oven/air fryer YouTube.

I knew a top fine dining restaurant that served frozen peas "cooked" via a cycle in the Hobart dish washer.
 
So I have my eye on a modern combi oven/grill/microwave and would welcome tales of your experience with same.

We have an OTR combi unit and to be honest we rarely use it for anything other than the microwave. The oven function is slow to heat and seems to be cooler than what you set it at. We also have not had much luck doing the combi method of cooking.

Ours was bought as a Kenmore Elite so it's likely either a Samsung or LG.
 
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Grown here in Vancouver

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Then get some if you ever have the chance ;)

The fruits finally ripened (they're actually "blet", darkened and turned to mush inside). I extracted the pulp, cooked it with about the same amount of water, passed it through a thin sieve to remove the toxic seeds and added 60% of the weight in sugar plus some vanilla sugar. Back on the fire to evaporate part of the water until it's at the consistency of chestnut cream.

Taste is somewhere in between a pear and a chestnut, lovely.
 
The directions on the box show the secret to getting a good edge!

You didn't even see the other side!

IMG_20191124_184614_compress24.jpg
 
Interesting a common stone in Japan would be 1000/6000 grit. My father's bottle of 3 micron diamond powder got tossed by my mother after he passed away. One of his jobs was to prep and examine samples of iron/steel before massive castings like the generators at Niagra Falls were made.

Did he work for Allis Chalmers / Milwaukee - I thought they made the turbines / generators. (Unless this was for a more modern version.)
 
No idea, you brought it up. The only thing I read on the box was the price tag (now gone as it was on a plastic wrapper).

Most folks I have watched sharpen with their hands moving left to right and back again. The directions show away and back.

Left to right leaves a rounded edge and not a constant angle.

Away and back allow using a finger or two to hold the angle and the motion is full body resulting in a longer lever from the pivot. This gives a uniform edge and angle. It also shows 20 degrees for edges that see more force and 15 degrees for less stress slicing.
 
Interesting, I have always pushed/pulled (can never make up my mind), it feels like the most natural way.

Now I learned years ago to move the blade across the stone as though trying to cut a thin slice, essentially "pushing" the blade across the abrasive surface, in order to avoid creating a bead of metal on one side. A friend of mine who is a jeweler and knows a thing or two about metal, does the opposite. He "pulls" the blade across the surface to deliberately create a wire along the edge, the with a series of alternating strokes breaks off the wire leaving a very sharp edge, which is also what a strop does. He start with, say, ten strokes on one side then ten on the other, then nine each side, then eight, etc, then once each side for ten repetitions.

I have tried it both ways and prefer my way to set an edge, and his way to finish it.
 
(no chicken! Not enough flavour).

The industrially raised chicken situation is bad these days, at least here you can still source them directly from small farms at a price. The Asian markets still have the big salt baked/soy sauce chickens hanging head and all. When I was deep in student life a $2 meal consisted of 1/4 of one of those chickens hanging in the window, a small bowl of rice, and a side of stir fried onions.
 
There's been quite a few food awareness programs on NRK, previously they managed to bring back "retired" egg laying hens to the stores. Great food.
This year has evolved around sheep (the parents of the more known lamb y'know), bananas, bread, vegetables with "beaty errors"... And last was a sugar tax that prohibited companies to give away food products for free to those in need.