Lyn Never's Profile

Yeah, one-bit seems safer - how am I supposed to eat an entire skewer full of salad? Like a sword-swallower?

I understand the sweet-on-sweet inclination for sweet potatoes, but don't forget about the glory that is garlic and sweet potatoes. I want to make these with garlic in and on them, to go with a steak or stew.

Yep, Ro*Tel is the key. I like the version with a hint of lime.

I have no idea how broadly available this (or a similar product) is, but in my neck of the woods the Kroger grocery chain carries a Velveeta knock-off called NiceNCheesy, and aside from the nuclear orange version, they have a Queso Blanco with Peppers flavor which has no heat at all but a remarkably nice flavor for a big block of cheese food. It also looks all fancy because it's not Velveeta-colored, like you might have used real cheese.

You can have no food at all in your house and still get roaches coming in for water during droughts or hot summers. They also like the glue on cardboard boxes (if you put anything in storage, watch out what you bring home), and are prone to living in dense vegetation or woodpiles, which make a convenient entry vector if you have either right next to your house. Some parts of the country are just roachy, it doesn't matter how clean you are, the trick is to make them prefer to live somewhere else.

I don't think five years is unreasonable here. I find that plastic pots weather so badly that they begin to crack (or flat-out shatter) within a year or two of outside living. Terra cotta gets brittle eventually, and like any pottery pot is doomed if dropped, blown over, knocked down by the dog, etc.

Most plants have to be repotted for size eventually, and pots of the size in your photos tend to be workhorses for a gardener, more of a dorm room than a permanent residence.

I can't imagine why these would only be recommended for someone who wasn't a gardener or a green thumb, as I am both (the other thumb's black) and think they are lovely and practical and, unlike the plastic junk, can go into the compost when they've outlived their usefulness as a container.

With Nature's Miracle or any enzyme cleaner, it gets worse before it gets better. As the enzymes do their thing, the stink will intensify, and then as they finish their work (or run out of steam, which sometimes happens) the smell will fade. That's why they are perfumed so heavily, but I don't think it helps much. I've had a product called AntiIckyPoo recommended to me over Nature's Miracle, but have not tried it.

In a week or two after the NM is done, a thorough going-over with a Rug Doctor or similar extracting carpet cleaner (you want something that's going to pull water out pretty hard) should make a pretty good dent in the smell.

I've had a far higher start rate with the dome-type starters with dirt sponges, like from Park Seed and other places. The Jiffy pots are always either too wet, too dry, they float and fall over, the roots entangle in the plastic mesh and you can't pull it off without tearing, or nothing starts in them in the first place.

- Corningware French White, set or a variety of sizes (I use the ramekins for everything from mise en place to butter dishes, so I ended up buying another 8 later, and I use my large oval probably 3 times a week or more)

- Tongs - one set long, 3 short

- magnetic knife rack (it's bad luck to give knives as a gift, it cuts off the friendship, so if you register for knives plan to give a penny to each person who buys one)

- we are breakers of things, so we stuck with simple china that can be replaced or mix/matched. Ditto glassware. I have family silver, so we just got a nice new set of dishwasher-safe flatware.

- OXO tools. There are nicer designs, but few harder workers.

- Several pieces of simple serveware. I picked out some plain white porcelain trays and hors d'oeuvre pieces kind of on a lark to fill out the sub-$20 category, and I use them constantly.

Bake it for a number of hours a little cooler than it takes for it to smoke. Use newspaper or brown paper sack to mop the pooled grease out of it periodically (be very, very careful with your hands, arms, and paper when you do this). You may need more than one session of this; you really want to bake out as much of the grease as you can. You can scrub it with salt (and paper) each session when it's only slightly warm, which should help a little. Once you've gotten as much of the stuff off it as you can, reseason it.

If you live in a hot sunny place, in between sessions you can put it out in the sun (set it on a lot of newspaper to protect whatever it's sitting on) for some more low-tech treatment.

The problem with washing these pans when they're oily (and I'm assuming it is if the pan is properly seasoned) is that you can sometimes make a soap-oil emulsion that stays on the pan and is wicked hard to get rid of without a lot of exposure to heat.