A Journal of Urban Living

The Cuisinart is dead.  The motor sounds but doesn’t turn.

I discovered this unhappy fact while attempting to make crusts for an apple pie.  I still have a pumpkin pie crust to go.  The Kitchen Aid produced the former.  I may go all old school and make the latter by hand.

Having not been without a food processor this decade, save for the odd weekend ski trip or backwoods camping adventure I’m not really sure how this will impact things.  I’d say it’s  my most used small appliance after maybe the toaster oven and the citrus press.  We’ll have updates on our Cuisinart-lessness, I’m sure.  Happy Thanksgiving.

My first experiments in sous vide yesterday went okay but not spectacular. Carrots for 35 minutes at 85°C were a little tough. Added some salt and frozen stock to the bag as well as some tarragon wrapped in plastic wrap. The flavors permeated nicely but the texture was still a little on the crunchy side. Perhaps 40 or 45 minutes or baby carrots would have worked better. Also, I forgot to add any butter in the final glaze. Perhaps that too should go in the bag

Salmon was done at 50.1°C for 20 minutes. Also added green onion and spring garlic into the bag as well as lemon slices. The salmon was brined briefly, dried and then placed in the bag with another herb sachet (tarragon and parsley) as well as the onions. The salmon was moist. A fresh sockeye or king might have had slightly more flavor but it wasn’t horrible. Next time I might go up another half degree and I’d probably sweat the garlic and onions in some olive oil first.

For our next experiment with hydro-colloids we’ll gel strawberries with, uh, pectin and sugar and place in Ball canning jars.