Worth replacing: Cheesecloth

Although I’ve never made cheese (I’d love to try it!), I always keep a package of cheesecloth on hand.

Besides using it to encase the flavouring ingredients that I want to remove easily from broths and infusions, I also use cheesecloth to line my strainer when I make homemade soup stock; it filters out all the little bits perfectly!

Likewise, once the bulk of the liquid has passed through to a clean container, you can squeeze every drop out of the cheesecloth-wrapped solids and then toss the waste into the composter – so much easier than trying to clean all the little bits out of a chinoise!

Amy Snider introduced me to one of the cleverest (and prettiest uses) I’ve seen for cheesecloth. Amy wraps a piece of cold butter in cheesecloth and ties it into a little beggar’s purse that she serves with hot corn on the cob. The idea is to rub the bundle over the corn so that every cob is swathed in a perfectly even coating of butter. Smart!

Do you keep cheesecloth in the kitchen? If so, do you have any innovative uses for it that you’d like to share?

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NB: I’m traveling a lot this week and will pop in and out to add updates from Ottawa, Halifax and St. John’s and to respond to comments when I can; however, I won’t be as present as usual. For continuity, I’ve pre-written some posts for the week so please do pop in daily.

 

On deck this week are:
• Double crust pie making tips,
• Ideas for making squash delicious,
• Inexpensive Sunday roast options and
• Info about Jane Goodall’s influence on the food business.

 

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Canadian Blog Awards Announcement

I’m very happy to report that my blog Dana McCauley’s Food writer’s blog (http://danamccauley.wordpress.com) has been nominated for the semi finals in two categories of the Canadian Blog Awards.

Please take a moment to vote for me in the categories of:

Best Blog: http://cdnba.wordpress.com/vote-2008/best-blog/

Best New Blog: http://cdnba.wordpress.com/vote-2008/best-new-blog/

If enough people vote for my blog in this round, you may hear from me again, asking for your support as a finalist!

Thanks for any support you can offer!
Dana

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Worth replacing: Golden Syrup

In just a few days, my son Oliver will turn 12 years old and not once in those years (or the one or two preceding his birth) have I been without a jar of Lyle’s Golden Syrup.

A former colleague with Scottish roots introduced me to this delectable, gooey delight in her kitchen and I was instantly hooked. She used it in treacle tart (so does Heston Blumenthal) and to drizzle over steel cut oats. Both noble uses but neither is one of my favourite ways to use this 125-year-old product.

For a year or so, I was a casual user, drizzling a little Lyle’s on pancakes or toasted frozen waffles on occasional Saturday mornings. Then I got pregnant. About then it would have been a good time to buy stock in Lyle’s Golden Syrup or futures or whatever it is they sell against sales of this magical product because once I was finished with morning sickness, sales of this buttery flavoured stuff went through the roof.

At least once a day from my second trimester until I gave birth (and yes, that ‘at least’ is not hyperbole. What I’m about to admit really did occur more than once on some days during that time), I made an Eggo frozen blueberry waffle in my toaster, slathered it with salted butter and then added enough golden syrup so that every little square was full to the point of overflowing. I won’t admit to licking my plate but I did lick my fork clean on one or two occasions that I recall with shame.

The truly comic part of this story is not that I had this crazy pregnancy craving, but that I didn’t identify it for what it was at the time. For instance, my mother and I went to Florida for a week during my highest consumption period and I recall my mother’s raised eyebrow as she watched me eating this combo (again) while expounding on how weird it was that I had no cravings! To her extreme credit, she bit her tongue and didn’t point out the obvious.

These days I dip my own spoon only very rarely into the Lyle’s Golden Syrup jar; however, Oliver often requests it at breakfast time. Is it by coincidence or by design that  I’ve raised a little boy who loves the same syrup and waffle combo his mother craved while carrying him?  Who knows.

Have any of you ever had a recurring craving? And, if you’re a mother, did you have any cravings when you were pregnant?

 

NB:  If you’d like to learn more about what I do when I’m not posting here, check out this article from Saturday’s Vancouver Sun.

Worth Replacing: Cutting boards

Usually the items featured here as being ‘worth replacing’ are the kind of thing that I would replace if they were destroyed. Today, I present something that should be replaced frequently so that no one’s health is destroyed. A subtle but important topical distinction.

An article I read last week from a newsletter written for people who work in food processing reminds me of an important fact: damaged, scratched cutting boards can hold bacteria even after normal washing. So, I want to encourage all of you to do two things this week:

1. Examine your home cutting boards and replace any badly scratched ones.
2. Buy some bleach and a spray bottle then put the bleach and some water in the bottle. Use this cheap and effective cleaner often to clean your cutting boards.

And, since I’m at it, remember to change your dishcloths daily and to bleach your dish brush (if you use one) frequently, too.

This message was brought to you by someone who cares.

I just bought these four new cutting boards to replace ones that were looking too well worn in our test kitchen. When was the last time you replaced your cutting board?

Worth Replacing: Food processor

During the last several weeks as I’ve been working to perfect my butter tart recipe, it occurred to me how much use and value I’ve derived from my food processor. This workhorse is 13 years old and, until three years ago when I moved my test kitchen out of my house to its own location, this very unit was used both for personal cooking and recipe testing. The way I figure it, that makes this food processor’s age about 25 years old in domestic use terms.

I was surprised last spring during a recipe tasting for the Bakefest booklet that appears this time each year in Homemaker’s magazine to discover that a food processor isn’t considered a kitchen essential by everyone. In fact, more people at our tasting did not own a food processor than did. I was shocked since I truly would run out tomorrow and buy a new food processor if this one quit working tonight.

What’s the attraction, you ask? Although expensive as an initial investment, my food processor has paid for itself in pizza delivery savings alone. In about the same amount of time that it takes for the pizza guy to arrive carrying a $20 pizza, I can make the dough and shred best quality cheese in my food processor; roll and dress the pizza base and bake up a bubbling pie. I’ve estimated that the cost of the ingredients to make a 12-inch (30–cm) pepperoni and mushroom pizza using my food processor is less than $5. That means that each time I make pizza using my food processor instead of ordering it in that I save $15. Needless to say, if you like pizza (and we do!), it doesn’t take long for a food processor to pay for itself.

I also view my food processor as essential for making flaky pastry; I have warm hands which are great for kneading bread dough but not as well-suited for making pie and tart crust. Since I started making my pie dough in the food processor the quality of my pastry has gone up exponentially.

Do you have a food processor? If not, do you wish you had one? And, if you do have a food processor, what do you use it for most often?

Worth Replacing: A good chef’s knife

It seems obvious to me, a trained chef, that to cook efficiently and without frustration you need a good knife. Yet, so often when I visit friends’ homes, I see them struggling with terrible cutting tools. I don’t understand why. Sure knives are expensive but buy a good one when you’re 25 and it will still be in ready to cut through a squash when you’re too old to chew solid food.

I started my cooking career with a 12-inch (30-cm) Henckel chef’s knife with a black lacquer handle that sandwiched an inner core of steel. I used that knife all day long, every workday for about 10 years. It was a great knife during that time and it still gets used daily in our test kitchen. These days I use the Kasumi knife pictured above to prepare meals at home. It was a gift from my man with a pan and I love it. Smaller than my Henckel, it’s super lightweight and holds its edge well after being steeled.

I’ve written about knives here before and you can read my cutting edge advice (sorry, couldn’t resist!) advice by checking back a few months to this post.

I also recommend you address knife questions to Peter Hertzmann. He wrote the authoritative book Knife Skills Illustrated. To say he knows about knives is like saying that Britney Spears knows about bad press.

FYI: the latest issue of my quarterly online newsletter Topline Trends is now live and ready for your eager eyes. If you haven’t already, subscribe to Topline Trends so that you never miss an issue!