Transote's Profile

I like the freezer-to-slow-cooker meals when I bring a meal to someone; in a gallon zip-top freezer bag, I put one boneless pork loin, a bag of fresh cranberries (or frozen), about 1/4 C brown sugar, 2 t ground ginger, a good pinch of salt, and 2 T cornstarch. Kind of mix it all around in the bag, then label: 3-5 hours on high, or 4-6 on low in a slow cooker. I also give a bag of frozen broccoli and sometimes uncooked couscous or a loaf of nice bread (fast! easy! requirements for sleep-deprived parents) to go with the pork. The parents can put all of that (unless you give couscous) into the freezer, then dump the contents of the gallon bag into the slow cooker. Freezer meals are like money in the bank!

That was my immediate thought--$30 for a pitcher that does what I can already do. It may do it better, but $30 better? Probably not. As for me, it's something that I could see myself loving and being diligent about using for a year or two, and then feeling its guilt-inducing plastic eyes on me for several years after. Then I'd eventually give it away and feel sorry I bought it.

Great news. Like many Kitchn readers, I'm not especially recipe-bound; so I appreciate outlines, ratios, and methods more than recipes. Like the recent panna cotta post that described a formula. I also love recipes for pantry staples; crackers, mixes, things like that, instead of recipes for particular dishes.

The biggest trouble I have with making crackers at home is getting them thin enough. Roll too thin and they just fall apart; roll too thick and they're just not cracker-like. Thoughts on technique?

I do the same when it comes to pinning, checking the recipe first--it's so easy to pin everything I see, but I try to be very picky about what I choose; quality over quantity. And if I'm pinning it, it's because I realistically think I would want to make it in the future. If the recipe doesn't check out, it'd just clutter up my boards.

Or can of cream of something. Seems like Pinterest is sometimes like the junk food of the internet when it comes to recipes--lots of eye candy, but not necessarily great quality.

@Tami B, I pop mine in a paper bag in the microwave--no oil. (1/3 cup of kernels in a paper lunch sack, two staples at the top to close it, microwave 1:47 on high--at least in my microwave.) And I think it'd be just fine without the oil.

Me, too! But only in a microwave. I have yet to hear the same thing from someone else, but I can taste when meat, especially chicken, has been reheated in a microwave. Thus all the chicken leftovers are not eaten by me! Too bad, since the convenience factor is so nice sometimes.

I bought one ten years ago without having a space to put it. I still don't have a space to put it--like another commenter said, my kitchen is also all cabinets and windows, with not enough vertical space between counter and cabinet to put it up. But. My husband found a fantastic use for it, solving two problems: Spice storage and using something I already had. So it's store face-down in my spice cabinet, holding up spice jars. (We glued a small washer to the top of non-metal spice jars.) I wish I had three more magnetic knife racks now!

I agree with the previous comments. So nice to see a real kitchen--which means not-magazine-ready, not-perfect. But functional and happy and loved by those cooking and eating and living in it.

I think pbsteele's thoughts are especially striking--my cabinets are a yellowy maple, too small, and have outdated hardware. I think about them every day and fantasize about how I'd change them. I would love white, bright, sleek-fronted cabinets. But these have served us well and since this isn't our forever house, their replacement would not balance out sell price, so we leave them as is. And are happy for that.