Thank you, again!
Posted on 04/15/2018 1:38:21 PM PDT by Jamestown1630
Dear Cooking Friends;
Since I changed my weekly cooking thread to a monthly one, I've received several private emails from folks who are disappointed at this change.
It's very gratifying to me that the thread has been so popular and that so many have enjoyed engaging it. As I mentioned in March, my life is going to be rather consumed with a couple of unusual projects over the coming Summer. I have felt that my free time wouldn't be predictable enough to give the thread the care that I tried to give it over the past several years.
However, if anyone would like to access the ping list on my home page, and post more frequent threads, that would be great. Yaelle and Cottonball have done a wonderful job of this in the past.
-JT
A message for the Cooking Thread folks.
-JT
The cooking news I have is that I was able to cook and shred a seven-pound Spanish pork roast in an hour thanks to my new instant pot. Flavor was incredible too.
Instant Pot is Da Bomb!
My favorite new kitchen appliance
We have an Instant Pot now, too, and we love it.
A lot of people will be disappointed to learn its not, like pot powder that you just add water to.
I think the people on the Cooking Thread know ;-)
Thank You, JT! I hope your summer is filled with fun and fruitful endeavors! (a food pun?!)
If anyone has an amazing chicken salad recipe, I have to make sandwiches for my daughters school dance in two weeks.
I have often made this in the form of fancy tea sandwiches, but you could make it as a regular sandwich too. The Lemon-Basil butter and the crunch of the almonds are what make it. (I think I got this from a flyer that came with fancy Pampered Chef tea bread molds):
Almond Chicken Salad Sandwiches with Lemon-Basil Butter
To make butter spread:
Combine ¾ Cup softened butter with 2 tsps. Lemon juice, a pinch of salt, and ½ cup fresh basil leaves finely chopped, or 2 T. dried basil.
To make filling:
Combine 1 C. finely chopped cooked chicken with ½ Cup mayonnaise, ½ cup slivered almonds, and salt and pepper to taste. (I shred the chicken in the food processor, to get a very smooth, consistent texture.)
To make sandwiches:
Carefully spread each slice of bread on one side with thin layer of butter spread. Then place filling on one bread slice, and top with second buttered slice.
If you take these to a party, they can be made the evening before, and stored in a container with a double layer of paper towels between each layer of sandwiches. The butter spread will help keep the bread from going soggy.
(If you DO want to make fancy bread: I usually use the Bridgford frozen bread dough, cutting dough in half and baking each half in a canapé bread mold sprayed with PAM. To slice the bread for sandwiches, it helps to partially freeze it. Slice thinly.)
Bkmk food
I love the Sonoma Chicken salad -recipes is on the Whole Foods website. I live too far in the sticks to have ever visited one, but have heard plenty of jokes about them. Say what you will about the store, their salad recipe is amazing IMO.
My stove sees very little use now, because of my Instant Pot. I’m doing Sous Vide on any meat I cook. I just need to pull the trigger on a Searzall. I have two ribeyes in there now. Once they are done I’ll put them in a container, fill it with my smoke gun, then have some nice smoky perfectly cooked (Edge to Edge medium-rare) steaks.
Okay.
We did a small leg of lamb in the Instant Pot for Easter. It was wonderful - I didn’t even think I liked lamb much anymore. It came out very juicy and tender.
Our favorite thing to do it it is pulled pork.
Thank you, I’ll see what I can find.
I just got a Japanese vegetable cleaver - I thought for some tasks it might be nicer than a chef’s knife.
Does anyone use one a lot?
I think that’s what Miss Marmelstein calls ‘Whole Paycheck’ and my co-workers agree - the last time they went on a lunch hour to see what it was like and pick up a few things they said, ‘Never Again.’
(I’m wondering if the discounts you supposedly get through Amazon amount to much.)
I don’t have one now, but I’ve thought that a cleaver, with a mallet, would be very useful on some of the big hard squashes.
Yes, I will have to try it on a butternut squash- a task I never look forward to!
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