2011 Archives « Kitchen Ramblings Kitchen Ramblings

Sweet Pancake with Berry Syrup

Ingredients:

1 cup milk

3 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup sugar

1 1/2 cups flour

2 tablespoons butter

powdered sugar (for top)

Fresh or frozen berries (blackberries, raspberries, blueberries or strawberries) or 1 bag frozen berries (drained)

1/3 – 1/2 cup maple syrup

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Whisk together milk, eggs, vanilla extract, sugar and salt. In a separate bowl, sift flour and baking powder. Mix dry ingredients into wet ingredients until blended. Let batter sit for fifteen minutes.

Put 2 tablespoons butter into an 8 or 10 inch cast iron skillet and place in oven until hot.

Put skillet out, add batter to pan and return to oven (middle rack) until golden, puffed and center is set (approximately 15 minutes)

Dust with powdered sugar,

If you desire the syrup:.

Pour 1/3 cup of maple syrup into saucepan and add berries of your choice. Heat at medium low heat. Serve with pancake warm at table.

My group of 6 can kill this pan, If I have any company I make 2.

Read More | Comments (2) | December 31st, 2011

The Egg-Perfect Egg timer Review

Yes, I laughed when I saw this small egg timer that was supposed to deliver perfectly cooked hard, soft or medium boiled eggs. Since I already know how to cook hardboiled eggs properly this item just seemed useless.

I thought of the many people I see online saying that their hard boiled eggs yolks never turn out yellow and those who follow recipes (like my son) and are spinning eggs on counter tops to see if they are done. So I decided to give it a try against the normal directions most of us follow for hardboiled eggs.

The timer claims to calculate cooking stages based on temperature, not time and adjusts for number of eggs, water and altitude. It claims to darken as the eggs used are at the stage indicated on the timer.

I started the eggs in cold water, placed on stovetop and inserted this egg. I put my reservations aside and boiled them gently until the egg darkened to hard boiled (yes it matched my other time almost perfectly). I removed them from the heat – and let them cool. The Norpro Egg-Perfect Egg timer is short on directions for after they are boiled. I attempted to remove the shells (extremely difficult) this is because the instructions do not indicate how long to cool, etc., but other than that – they were perfectly cooked hard boiled eggs. Perfectly done, and not overdone, yellow yolks.

Bottom line – at $4.99 this egg timer might come in handy for soft boiled eggs because more people seem to have difficultly in obtaining that stage than hard boiled. If you love gadgets or know a beginner, this product does work (still need a bit more directions for after removing the eggs from the pan than given in my opinion.) So if this is something you need, its an inexpensive option for an item that actually works.

Read More | Comments (2) | December 30th, 2011

The Saga of Cooking software

After years of binders, recipes boxes, file folders and various other methods of keeping all the recipes I’ve clipped from magazines organized, I broke down and purchased recipe software from Cook’n.

I read all the reviews, I pondered the cost. I thought long and hard about whether I would devote the time to actually loading all those recipes (since time is something I don’t seem to have enough of – why you ask did I start a blog? Crazy I guess). I waited for the CD to come. It arrived in a brown box – a secret from my family who already thought I was insane with the whole “cooking thing”. I installed it and then the real trouble began. I became obsessed with entering recipes every spare moment I had.

You can create a menu for the week and the software will create your grocery list from the recipes you’ve chosen. I had the only typed grocery list at the local market. Now my family could make fun of me in earnest. Even my butcher, Earl, thinks I’m tweaked. I spent Sunday nights pouring over all the possibilities to create the next 5 days meals. 2 nights beef, 2 nights ethnic, 1 night chicken? The possibilities were endless and for several weeks I had enormous grocery bills from creating my gourmet menus. Finally, I returned back to earth.

After that stage, I entered the collect more cookbooks stage, as if I didn’t already have enough recipes to enter. Somehow I envisioned I would have the largest compilation of recipes ever. Bananas Foster, got it. Coconut custard pie, Turducken, check and check. The honest truth is that all of these are already available on the internet. I was completely hooked.

There are numerous reasons that owning the software is a blessing. I finally took all my old family recipes from their yellowed recipe cards and have them in one place. Not to mention all the magazine clippings from 1991 from Southern Living. I can search for a recipe by an ingredient. If I have left over turkey – I search turkey in the software and every recipe comes up to choose from. Have pork loin in the freezer I need to use and no great ideas? Cook’n. it’s motivated me to keep that meat moving. It also has allowed me to enter recipes from cookbooks that I had been saving for just one or two recipes. Then I was able to paperbackswap them (there’s an additional article here on this site) and get more cookbooks, which led to more obsessive behavior.

I can search internet recipes and enter them directly or I can print out a cookbook for my niece of my mother’s and grandmother’s recipes for a gift. For those of you watching sodium or fat, it has nutritional values associated with most recipes. It was easy enough for me to figure out how to use (which was the real bonus after having a previous company’s software which had such a long learning curve I gave up on using it.)

Apparently they have started an app for your smart phone, but I’m not that techno savvy yet. I just wanted to have all my recipes together, organized and not in several places with no way to identify where my Christmas cookie recipes were.

If I had to focus on one item it does for me – it’s the grocery list. Having a full time job, husband, kids and the life that most of us are living today, I can pull a menu together – hit the grocery list button – check off what I already have in the house – and print. It shows the quantities needed as well as the item. It makes my grocery shopping a breeze compared to the old days.

All in all, Cook’n was a very good investment in my house of both money and time. It is foodie software. I bought Cook’n for my friend and she used it for about 2 weeks and reported back to me saying that “it’s too much work to enter the recipes.” She ended up buying numerous e-cookbooks off of the Cook’n website and she enjoys her software that way. She hasn’t added any new recipes in over a year, but claims that the Cook’n cookbooks are more than enough. I guess not everyone caught the bug like me. But if you’ve got the itch for organization and new recipes….. this is foodie genius.

Read More | Comment (1) | December 29th, 2011

Cookbook Enthusiasts – A Great Way to Swap Cookbooks – Paperbackswap.com

I came to a great place several years ago that allowed swapping of paperbacks, hardbacks and Audio books, not to mention textbooks. I joined this group because my niece who is an avid reader recommended the site to me because you can “recycle” your previously read books for credits and redeem your credits for a book you haven’t read. What a great concept. Unlike the library, you can choose to keep your books or pass them on. I started getting my daughter her “tween books” at this site because I had no interest in keeping them.

After about 6 months it dawned on me that this would be a great way to get cookbooks for only the price of a used paperback and postage. So I scrounged up the cookbooks whose recipes were already loaded in my cooking software and posted them onto the website. I had 6 requests on night one. I had credits to use! And so my addiction to Paperbackswap.com began.

The rules: You load 10 books into their system – they give you 2 credits to start. As your books are requested – you ship them (and when they are received) you get a credit. You then can use credits to redeem on any book they have on the site (you can also wish for books that aren’t listed currently). You can turn books around after you have read them or keep them. The sender pays postage on the book they are shipping. It’s that easy.

So, now I have stacks (literally) of cookbooks surrounding me in my office that I am supposed to (in my spare time) be entering into my cooking software. I have received the Barefoot Contessa cookbooks, Mario Batali, Tyler Florence, Jamie Oliver, old southern cookbooks (excellent fried chicken recipe) and ethnic cookbooks from Morocco, Asia and Greece, just to name a few.

I have traded for books that, quite frankly, I wasn’t willing to shell out $30 for, but I would take a gamble and try with paperbackswap. If I didn’t like it, I reentered it into their system and said goodbye to a less than stellar cookbook. I have traded out great cookbooks and the not so great. I have also found a great resource for some of the really old cookbooks that I love. All the old paperbacks in my home (not necessarily cooking related) have been traded for cookbooks. The only problem now – where am I going to put all these cookbooks?

Read More | Comment (1) | December 29th, 2011

A Kitchen Plan – Ways to Save Money and Time

January is here and most of us overspent on the holidays in so many ways we probably don’t even want to check the balances in our accounts. After spending some time with my 24 year old son who had to stretch his budget for the holiday season, I got to thinking of both ways to save your time and money, not just during this season, but all year long.

Some of these ideas I’m sure you already know, but I’m always interested in the small little tip that I didn’t even think about, so I added what I thought my son could benefit from. I would love to hear any other ideas you have.

1. Plan your meals for the week. I will post separately how buying recipe software has saved me thousands with a family my size, but in a household of two it will help also. The number one way planning your meals helps is by making a concrete grocery list and sticking (as close as possible – I’m not counting in the occasional Reese’s peanut butter cup or gossip magazine) to your budget. It also assists you in gauging how much all those recipes are going to cost you. This is helpful during holiday times or birthday dinners when you are having company over to get a good running guess of how much money serving that standing rib dinner is actually going to set you back. The cooking software is an added bonus in helping with this task. Also planning meals that focus on vegetables rather than the meat is a way to save money as well. Stir fry, frittatas, Panini’s, as well as meals that use rice, potatoes, tortillas or other items that stretch the budget have been used for centuries to stretch a budget.

2. While I’m a fan of some major brands, don’t forget the store brands. Many items really are fine as store brands including milk, eggs, flour, sugar, some canned or frozen vegetables (you’ll need to try these to see if you like them), Save the splurge items for things you really won’t bend on – like Hellman’s Mayonnaise or Heinz Ketchup for example. The store brands seem to save you anywhere from 20 – 40%. I know the bakers out there will tell me there is a difference in all the flours, and there is, but for the millions that don’t bake often, the difference in cost will not be felt in a recipe that calls for 2 tablespoons flour.

3. Make sure you check the size and price difference. Example – a 16 oz can vs. the 32 oz can price difference. A lot of times it is cost prohibitive to buy the small can. You can always do something else with that large can of tomatoes (part of that weekly meal plan) to use them which will only save you more money. Don’t overbuy based on a store special, i.e., buy 10 get 1 free, if it’s something you don’t use often. It doesn’t do you any good to have 11 avocados if you don’t plan on making guacamole for a party – they are going to spoil before you use them.

4. Shop the bottom shelves. Most super markets are paid to place items at eye level and the cheaper products are on the bottom shelf. This is especially true of items like juice, cookies and chips. If you are shopping snack foods – make sure to keep an eye on the bottom shelves of your local market.

5. Know the items you use the most in your household and stock up when they are on sale or use one of the bulk store warehouses. This makes a big difference on paper products, laundry detergent and shampoo. For household groceries, if you eat a lot of chicken in your house, make sure to take advantage of your local market’s sale on chicken breasts (for example) and use some for a recipe this week and freeze the rest. Don’t forget to mark what date you are putting on that chicken (addressed in item #7).

6. Eat with the season, right now, use acorn and butternut squash, not asparagus. Utilize #7 to have that asparagus during the off season, but buying asparagus fresh out of season means your not only paying more – it’s likely to not be as “good” either. Buy at the local farmer’s markets. I support my local economy and I buy fresh. It’s always better than my local grocery store and usually cheaper as well. This is especially great if you can or freeze because they usually discount in bulk.

7. Use the freezer. Freeze your leftovers. Most food, not all, can be frozen and used later. Stockpile seasonal ingredients like fruits and freeze them for a time when, for example, peaches are not in season, and then you can make a peach pie that takes like its August. There are those who stockpile bread when it is on sale and freeze it. I personally don’t care for thawed bread, but it’s a great idea for saving money. I think it’s also a great money saving idea to stock up on many items that freeze well – homemade chicken, beef and shrimp stock, your spaghetti sauce, chili, just to name a few. This also offers a great Wednesday night option when you didn’t plan a meal and want to escape the price of take out. You can also use this to take lunch to work rather than buy lunch out.

8. Plan a leftover night or freezer pull out night. Use only items that are leftover in the fridge or freezer and use them up before they go bad. Turn that leftover chicken into soup or maybe a Panini. This saves a ton of money in the long run.

9. Save all the items you use in the kitchen. I keep many marked huge Ziploc bags in my freezer constantly. The first is the bread crumbs bag. I buzz (with food processor) all the ends of my bread loaves, rolls, etc., to become bread crumbs (which I can season as I like) and freeze them. They take only minutes to thaw out and I never have to buy store bought bread crumbs (with the exception of Panko). The second bag is all the vegetables I am not going to use before they go bad (the last stalk of carrot or celery, cut and place in Ziploc bag) for later use as soup. The third bag is for homemade stock. I save the ends of carrots, onions, garlic, potatoes, whatever and keep this bag for the stockpot for stock. The fourth bag is for bones, etc., also good for stock.

10. Make your own stock, it saves you a ton of money over store bought and it’s healthier. It is also the base for every good chicken or beef soup. Which you can turn into a great vehicle to use up leftover meats. You can vary it just by changing the spices used which also helps you to use up spices that might be near their expiration date.

11. Using up spices before they expire. This was a real challenge for me. I am a spice hoarder. Which requires me to rotate often and use spices when I really don’t want to use Garam Masala for 4 nights in a row. The first idea is if you are using a great deal of dried spices in your home, buy online at larger quantities as it is significantly cheaper and usually the quality is better. When you are getting too close to expiration date, make up a spice blend and use on steaks or chicken.

12. For those of us bent on fresh herbs, get a couple of pots and invest in a small area for home grown herbs. This will save you money all the time and it’s easy (I do not have a green thumb and even I can do it). Only grow the herbs you use all the time, example, basil, parsley, oregano, because once it takes off, you won’t use that lemongrass quite like you think you will. (My family could tell you about having to consume more rosemary then they wanted to one year after I planted 10 plants). If you really wanted to get fancy – there are numerous books on the subject of drying your own herbs. I decided to skip that part. If you have the room, growing a garden in season is a great idea, but is an investment of time and money. Make sure you are going to follow through for several months and plan how to use all the items you plant so that it doesn’t become a waste of money in the end or the great giveaway to all your friends.

13. Plan your splurges. I don’t think living on a shopping budget means never getting to have a lobster or mangos or whatever item is your idea of deliciousness. It means that if I’m going to have a lobster (for my husband’s birthday for example) – I take that into consideration when planning that week’s meals. Maybe we need to have meatloaf or chicken soup with sandwiches another night for dinner. Plan wisely and you can have it all.

14. Don’t let your lack of know how stop you. With the advent of the internet, a recipe and directions for whatever you would like to have are readily available. If your passion is paella, learn how to make it via a reliable internet source, and make it at home rather than going to the expensive Spanish restaurant. Try to get other people in your house involved. It’s fun to experiment and it makes the evening a real entertainment source as well. This also reminds me to buy your ethnic foods at ethnic stores (if possible) – rice is literally half the price at the Asian market over my local grocery store and the quality of the rice is far superior. I utilize any ethnic market I can find. Latin, Asian, Middle Eastern. If I pass one, I stop in and see what I need that will store well, including spices.

15. Get creative – use those leftover vanilla beans to put in a jar with sugar to make your own homemade vanilla sugar. Make your own flavored oils. Add some garlic to your olive oil bottle and make your own garlic oil. If you use pretty jars, these also make great gifts to other foodies. If you are really creative, learn to make your own jam – this saves tons of money and helps stock your pantry for many recipes and just really good peanut butter and jam sandwiches. I am going to learn to pickle this year. (Stay tuned next fall for my family complaining about having pickles at every meal).

16. Have pets? Notice all the fancy new pet foods contain all natural ingredients? It’s cheaper to buy tuna on sale than it is cat food. Mix your cat tuna with some left over veggies mashed for a healthy, cheaper food or buy the butcher’s leftover meat scraps and add rice for a cheaper and healthier dog food.

17. Start a buying club in your area – I love this idea and I am currently trying to get this off the ground where I live – get together with 3 other foodies to purchase items together in bulk. You can buy case lots, sides of beef, half a pig, etc., and split it equally. Food wholesalers will also sell to you at discount if you have a minimum order. If you’re on the East Coast like me, Food Wholesalers is a source for purchasing wholesale items in bulk. If you live in the mid-west or west coast, do a search for wholesalers in your area. It only takes a lead person, some organization and the desire to budget and buy quality products. Otherwise, if you’re like me you end up owning almost 9 pounds of Parmigiano Reggiano.

18. Don’t waste, rinse out your tomato cans and canned soups with a little water or milk to get everything out. Use dried cheeses up by grating and using as a topping before they go bad. Soften your hard brown sugar by putting a slice of bread into the bag (I recommend using one of those inexpensive brown sugar blocks in your Ziploc bag – that was money well spent); Reuse bags – all bags. Ziploc bags, bagel bags, shopping bags. I don’t reuse them if they require washing, but I do when they only held bread. Reheat stale chips and use as taco salad. Make your own buttermilk or half and half rather than paying full bang at the grocery store. It’s cheaper to buy the cream and add it to milk to make half and half than buy the half and half. The buttermilk is 1 cup milk with 1 tablespoon cream of tarter or lemon juice added. If you’re a real baker, there is a slight taste difference, but not enough for the average at home recipe and there is a significant cost savings.

I know there are those that are going to tell me about unplugging your appliances when you are not using them (I don’t do this, but it is a real savings I’m told), keeping your refrigerator at the right temperature, not opening the door more than necessary, don’t leave your tap water running for extended periods – fill the tub and don’t keep running it to wash dishes. There are more ways to save money (and a thousand websites that can give you more than I can think of) but these are a good start. I would love to hear your ideas and thoughts about creative (and reasonable) ways to save money in the kitchen.

Read More | Comments (5) | December 28th, 2011

Herb-Crusted Rib Roast with Horseradish Cream Recipe

I adapted this recipe from Sunny Anderson’s recipe (Herb Crusted Roast Beef with Horseradish Cream):

I changed some of the ingredients and amounts and it turned out fabulous (she calls for Roast Beef, but since I bought an entire Rib roast for the holidays and only used half of it, I used the other half for this recipe instead of the beef eye round that Sunny calls for.

1 3 or 4 rib roast

Salt and freshly ground pepper

1/2 cup olive oil

7 cloves garlic (less if your family prefers it)

1 bunch of parsley (leaves only)

1/2 bunch of fresh thyme, leaves only

8 sprigs fresh marjoram, leaves only

2 sprigs fresh rosemary, leaves only

Horseradish Cream recipe below

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Put garlic, parsley, thyme, marjoram, rosemary, salt and pepper in food processor, pulse until it is chopped. Add 1/2 cup olive oil slowly and blend until a paste is formed (I actually like it a little bit looser)

Rub paste all over roast. Bake for 1/2 hour at 400 and then reduce to 350 degrees and cook until an instant read thermometer reads approximately 125. Let rest and then serve with horseradish cream.

Horseradish cream:

1/2 cup sour cream

2 tablespoons prepared horseradish

1 teaspoon lemon juice

Salt.

Mix all ingredients and refrigerate until ready to serve roast. This can obviously be made ahead (and is better if you do so)

The roast was delicious. I did omit Sunny’s call for mustard powder. I definitely thought it was delicious without, but I have never tried this recipe with the mustard so I cannot say which would be better. I did increase the temp for the first 30 minutes to improve browning and I increased the garlic and used olive oil instead of vegetable oil (just a personal preference). This will be a recipe I will make again and again.

Read More | Comments (0) | December 26th, 2011

Mom’s Macaroni Recipe

After all the big Holiday dinners. I will need an easy, but satisfying dinner for the family, but quite frankly, I’m too exhausted from the crown roast, rib roast, turkey and various other big dinner menus I’ve made recently. On December 26th, my dinner menu will include Mom’s Macaroni. You can make this dish either stove top or in a crock pot. i normally do this in the crock pot if I have my act together, but its even better made stovetop. This serves at least 8, maybe 10. I have 6 in my family and we have leftovers. You can reduce the recipe in half for 4, but prepare to have some for lunch the next day!

Ingredients:

3 pounds ground beef

2 onions, chopped

1 29 oz can tomato sauce

1 29 oz can diced tomatoes (or whole tomatoes and break up)

4 minced garlic cloves (you can omit this if you don’t like garlic)

2 tablespoons Italian seasoning

4 bay leaves

3 cups water

3 tablespoons soy sauce

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

1 tablespoon seasoned salt

1 tablespoon garlic salt

2 cups elbow macaroni or other small pasta

2 cups cheddar cheese (you can omit this if you are dieting or are lactose intolerant)

Brown ground beef and onion. Drain grease.

If using crock pot, put meat and onions and all remaining ingredients except noodles and cheese into crock pot, Set on low for 8 hours and forget. 45 minutes before time is up, add 2 cups of macaroni (you can add cheese at this point if you want to melt it in or save to serve on top of bowls of macaroni at dinner table if you want everyone to have the same amount of cheese. Actually – it only needs to cook about 4 –5 hours, but it will serve well at 8 hours as well so it gives you a lot of options as far as when you need dinner to be done. I serve with salad and rolls and dinner is served!

If stovetop is your thing, put meat and onions and all remaining ingredients in Dutch oven on burner (at medium heat) and cook for 30 minutes. Add macaroni and allow to cook for approximately 15 – 25 minutes more Top with cheese..

This is even better the next day (like Chili). I save this meal for the nights I’m not going to be home because even my family can throw in pasta and cheese and put Mom’s macaroni into a bowl. If you happen to be home, you can jazz it up tableside with sour cream or scallions. Without or without garnish, my family thinks this dish is a culinary triumph, which makes me chuckle. To be honest, it’s pretty good. Just down home, warm your belly food.

Read More | Comment (1) | December 26th, 2011

Cook Like A Rock Star by Anne Burrell

I admit I’m biased about Anne Burrell so before I review her cookbook, I need to be honest about My daughter’s obsession with all things Anne Burrell.

My daughter happens to have a great deal of physical problems and we rescheduled a visit to Johns Hopkins Hospital to visit with her surgeon to be able to have Anne Burrell sign my daughter’s cookbook. Upon waiting in line for hours, what does my daughter do? Bursts into tears so that she couldn’t say a word to Anne Burrell. Cookbook $27.99, moment with Anne Burrell, priceless.

With that in mind, I will do the best I can to review this cookbook objectively, but I admit to a strong bias.

I breezed through the recipes in Cook Like A Rock Star while waiting in line to see Anne Burrell at Williams Sonoma. On first glance, I thought it was another Italian cookbook with high end ingredients which would require a lot of work (a Mario Batali spinoff – since he does write the foreword). I was pleasantly surprised to note that while you can feel Mario’s inspiration in this cookbook, Anne definitely has a mind of her own and this cookbook is all her.

While this cookbook would strain my 24 year old son’s budget (with items such as Figs stuffed with gorgonzola & walnuts or Rockin’ Porchetta with fall veggies,) there are some items he could afford such as Rosemary & Lemon Roasted Chicken or Halibut in paper. The thing to note is that this cookbook was not intended for the beginning cook. I think this cookbook is good for all ages but really hits all us 40 or 50 something year old cooks who yearn for something creative and different to try. Some are old standbys (rack of lamb or rib eye) and some are new (Taliolini with Salsa Cruda and Ricotta Salata).

I have tried several recipes; the Pasta Fagoli, Risotto without a recipe, Dry Rubbed Bone In Rib Eye and Braised Lamb Shanks. All were excellent. I will make all four recipes for my family again. I am looking forward to trying the Rack of Lamb crusted with black olives.

Most of the recipes in Cook Like a Rock Star are not Wednesday night – get home from work – and whip them up style recipes. They are Sunday afternoon, drink a glass of wine – with good music – while prepping – type of recipes. While a lot of these recipes might not be your cup of tea (say the Duck Breast), if you haven’t yet learned to make pasta at home, there is a very good recipe for basic pasta in this cookbook – along with Anne’s technique for making pasta.

I am forgetting Anne Burrell herself. She adds her feelings and musings on mise en place (prep), tasting as you go, pantry items and many other culinary virtues. She is funny, but crisp, which also makes this an easy to read cookbook.

Since I have a large collection of cookbooks, I am always looking for a cookbook that is different and challenges me to strive for a higher calling in the kitchen – Cook Like A Rock Star is all of that. I believe everyone who strives to be a better cook should have this cookbook in their library to have for that special someone who you want to wow!

Read More | Comments (3) | December 21st, 2011

Thermapen Instant Thermometer – Worth the Money?

After years of wasting money on different brands of instant read thermometers and having less than desirable results, I recently got a Thermoworks Thermapen. For most home cooks, you are probably asking what is a Thermapen? It is an extremely accurate digital instant read thermometer. Thermoworks the company that manufactures Thermapen is renowned for their scientific equipment and has branched from thermometers for the science community to the culinary community.

For the home cook, their Thermapen is pricey at $89 compared to the instant reads you will find in all the kitchen stores regionally. Having previously owned Rosle, Taylor, All Clad and Williams Sonoma’s instant read thermometers, ranging in cost from $20 – $42, I can attest to the fact that none of these other brands even come close to the Thermpen’s accuracy and speed.

All but the All Clad thermometer have left my kitchen due to either not working consistently, registering 10 – 15 degrees off (unfortunately normally this results in overdone meat,) or requiring a full 45 seconds to register any legible temperature. I have owned many other brands, but they were so insignificant in this arena, I can’t even recall the brand names.

As much as I love All Clad, their thermometers are the only product I have ever purchased from them that I am disappointed with. I recognize that I am tweeked for all things kitchen related, but, If I had all the money that I wasted on the other brand’s instant reads, I could own several Thermapens.

In fairness, I am comparing a commercial grade thermometer to a mass produced “home kitchen” thermometer. There is a world of difference in both quality and price. The Thermapen offers splash proof which means you can use their thermometer with wet hands. The digital temp tonight read within seconds and was spot on. I could actually watch the temperature change as I slid the thermometer into the roast. I pulled the roast from the oven at 125.4 degrees and let it rest and was delighted to have achieved a perfectly rare roast upon carving. The All-clad showed its temperature at 114 taken seconds after the Thermapen.

The additional automatic shut off (I’ve killed numerous digital thermometers by them being left on in a drawer) is a nice feature as well. For some, the ability to flip between Celsius and Fahrenheit may also be a plus. This doesn’t really add any benefit in my kitchen. The Thermapen is hand-assembled and tested and uses a professional thermocouple circuit design. These thermometers are used in professional kitchens and by the safety inspectors who check temperatures in restaurants. Thermoworks is also a US company. I do happen to like that as well.

The downside, this particular model is $89. Most home cooks probably cannot justify $89 versus $20. If you’re only going to use the thermometer as a guide of when to pull and not rely on it for accuracy, then $20 will work for you. If you are a control freak in the kitchen (like me) and don’t want to waste good money on an expensive roast this holiday season (specifically if you like your meat rare or medium rare rather than well done) then perhaps it’s an investment worth making.

As I said at the beginning of this review, there really isn’t anything in the kitchen stores that compares to the Thermapen as far as professional instant read. The nearest comparable professional instant read online was over $200.

I consider the Thermapen an accurate, fast, easy to use thermometer which doesn’t require elaborate instructions or me to deduct 15 degrees and hope the roast isn’t medium well after resting. I also like that the Thermapen doesn’t tell me when the roast is done by some of the new “enforced” settings like their “medium rare” setting instead of when the roast is at 130 – 135 degrees.

As a final note, Thermoworks does offer a less expensive super fast pocket thermometer which isn’t water resistant and a waterproof pocket without an auto on/off switch for $19 each. I haven’t tried any of these, but for $19, I am thinking of giving them a try. Both of these thermometers are marketed for the average home cook and are comparable to Taylor’s non-digital instant read. Perhaps if I get around to purchasing one of these models it would be a more fair comparison that the one I’m trying to draw here.

Bottom line – A quality product which is a stretch for a lot of home chefs but definitely delivers what it promises.

Read More | Comment (1) | November 22nd, 2011

Making turducken at home?

Turducken is a chicken stuffed inside a duck stuffed inside a turkey with alternating layers of stuffing between. When carved you will get a slice with chicken, duck, turkey and stuffing.

Having had turducken previously, I checked my favorite company out of Louisiana to purchase a turducken for my mother last year. She thought the price was steep at $69.95 plus $50 dollars to ship (14 lbs – over night). There had to be a way to make this culinary phenomenon at home.

The list of ingredients:

3 cups prepared stuffing at room temperature (whatever stuffing is your families favorite)
2 cups cornbread stuffing at room temperature
1/2 cup cranberry sauce
1 10 – 12 pound turkey (which you will need to debone)
1 4- 5 pound duck (which you will have to debone)
1 3-4 pound chicken (which you will have to debone)
6 Tablespoons butter, room temperature
8 fresh sage leaves, chopped fine
2 Tablespoons fresh thyme leaves, chopped fine
6 tablespoons butter, room temperature
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

Mix about 1 cup of stuffing with about 1/2 cup of your cornbread stuffing with the 1/2 cup of cranberry sauce. You should now have 3 separate bowls of stuffing.

Mix 6 tablespoons room temperature butter with the chopped thyme and sage.

Debone turkey, duck and chicken – this will take a LONG time.

Pull skin from turkey and make a pocket and put butter mixture evenly under the skin.
Run your hand under the skin to separate and make a pocket, but do not separate skin completely from the meat. Distribute the butter herb mixture evenly under the skin.

Rub the turkey skin with room temperature butter. Be generous with the salt and pepper and this point. Lay turkey skin side down and add salt and pepper.

Add plain bread stuffing evenly over turkey; place duck on top of stuffing skin side down; salt and pepper the cavity and add the stuffing with cranberry to the top of it. Add chicken skin side down and salt and pepper again. Add cornbread stuffing on top. Skewer the chicken closed and bring the sides of the duck up to cover the chicken. Skewer the back of the duck. Repeat with the turkey. Carefully turn over the turducken so it is breast side up. Remove all skewers except the last one holding the turkey. Place in roasting pan. Roast 3 – 4 hours (basting every 45 minutes or so). During last hour of cooking, I recommend adding aluminum foil to the top of the turducken to make sure it doesn’t overbrown. Check temperature on turducken to make sure that the stuffing is at 165 degrees.

After removing turducken from oven, let it rest for at least 30 minutes.

Yes it was tasty. The work was unbelievable! The hardest part for me was worrying about cross-contamination. I must have cleaned every knife, cutting board and the countertops so many times I was exhausted before I even began stuffing the 3 birds together. Food safety is a big thing with me and this recipe is a nightmare in a home kitchen. Between 3 different types of fowl and worrying about cross contamination with the stuffing, I had just about used every cutting board and knife I owned to complete this meal. Not to mention the over 45 hand washings! After I completed this meal I had to do a complete scrub of the entire kitchen.

In addition, I started this prep at 5 am and didn’t serve the turducken until almost 1 pm. I admit I didn’t rush, but deboning and cleaning 3 fowl is not an easy task if you don’t do it often. Not to mention making 2 complete stuffing recipes from scratch. This did not include any of the time after the meal for my obsessive cleanup or the amount of dishes and pots, pans, knifes and cutting boards you will need to wash. It was a crazy amount of cleaning.

Unless you can purchase your turkey, chicken and duck already deboned (assuming you live in NYC or another metropolitan city), this recipe is an incredible amount of work. The stuffing is the easy part.

So this year when my 81 year old mother asked for turducken, I looked at the $69.95 plus $50 shipping as a gift. $120 includes all the ingredients, all the sanitation and all I need is a roasting pan and some butter? I’m in! Good luck to them in Louisiana making this thing since I think the 3 sets of stuffing and birds would probably cost $70 at the grocery store to purchase. I figure the $50 to ship is the cost to not have to spend a day deboning and cleaning, not to mention the cost of all the cleaning supplies and hand soap.

I ordered a turducken from LA Crawfish and slapped it in a roasting pan and set the table. I was able to sit with everyone during the family get together rather than being a crazy woman. When it was done – savory goodness with only normal dishes to clean. What a joy!

While some might look at the prices for this unusual culinary treat as high, until you have actually spent an entire day schlepping with a turducken, I wouldn’t say the price is unreasonable. It’s an expensive dinner – not unlike having lobster.

All in all, it’s a definite cooking experience. One I’m glad to have had and one I’m not likely to repeat again. I will just let LA Crawfish do the work!

Read More | Comments (2) | November 18th, 2011