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Post by OLKoot on Feb 8, 2005 12:38:35 GMT 12.75
Call Wolfgang Puk over for the evening and let him prepare his palatial delights!!!! ;D By the way, my daughters now a CNA going to school for nursing...shes going to follow in her mothers footsteps..... I guess the next thing to do is prep for the meal you want to prepare...get all the necessary accutraments ready and available so you dont look stupid in the middle of some thing that requires proper timing....like DONT BURN THE GARLIC,or the timing it takes to create a great sauce...........
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Post by Two Tales on Feb 8, 2005 23:30:56 GMT 12.75
Well I guess..the first thing is knowing what you are going to cook..you need to either make a mental or paper check list..ask your self do I have all the ingrediants..normally 3 cups of flour means 3 cups of flour...what am I cooking it in...hard to cook two dishes using one pan/pot etc...what has to be done first..is there any thing I need to do before hand....Most of us don't have restraunt style stoves...we use that ol' 4 burner with the at least one oven (some folks have 2) and a micro wave (I don't like using mine much) so what do you need to keep food hot...so the dishes you set out for your guest come to the table at the same time...so you can set down and eat with them....timing is everything in proper preperation...and palatability
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Post by Two Tales on Feb 8, 2005 23:48:52 GMT 12.75
we talked brifly about cleanliness...let's go one further on the outdoor stuff...not any harder to do...but takes more work to set up...washing your hands..this should always be done under running water...try and do that on a trek into the woods sometime...it's hard but there are simple solutions...wash the best you can using anti bacterial soap then reinse using water and bleach solution...it doesn't take a lot of bleach to kill nearly every bug you can get on your skin....next you have to dry your hands...please don't use a community towel for this...Paper towels are good...but you can use the same solution of water and bleach plus a cold water reinse to wash your cloth towels after use, they should be dry by the next time you need them..if not that extra set comes in handy here...if you are not reinacting period proper then I would also suggest the use of disposable gloves (always get the non-powdered kind)
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Post by Paws on Feb 9, 2005 1:22:49 GMT 12.75
Excellent advice! When re-enacting as cook I keep two pans of water on the fire and when preparing food use water for handwashing liberally. A tablespoon of clorox in your rinse water will kill any remaining bacteria on your cookware or mess kits. I set up three large vessels one with very hot soapy water, one with very hot rinse water and one with very hot sanitary water. After washing the dinnerware it goes to the drain boards or is hung on the fire irons to "air dry" I only use towels for the hands in re-enacting. This is a safety and sanitation practice that the CW era citizen had very little knowledge of and the lack of that knowledge sent a lot of souls to an early grave. When preparing meat for the pot or pan I set up a hot pan of soapy water with a pan of rinse water and several towels. The order of use goes something like this; "touch the meat, wash the hands in soap, shaake off excess, rinse, shake off excess water, dry with towel!" That happens "every time" the meat is touched until the operation is completed. The utensils and work surfaces are sterilized immediately in the same manner. My wooden work surfaces are scrubbed then wiped down with strong vinegar. One way to save yourself a lot of time and maintain sanitation is to prepare your foods to be eaten raw first. For example, pare and cut your salad ingredients before you do your chicken. That way all of the cutting is done before you need to sterilize the knifes and cutting board. This helps prevent accidental cross contamination. Just a matter of preparation and planning!
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Post by Paws on Feb 9, 2005 1:37:48 GMT 12.75
Call Wolfgang Puk over for the evening and let him prepare his palatial delights!!!! ;D By the way, my daughters now a CNA going to school for nursing...shes going to follow in her mothers footsteps..... I guess the next thing to do is prep for the meal you want to prepare...get all the necessary accutraments ready and available so you dont look stupid in the middle of some thing that requires proper timing....like DONT BURN THE GARLIC,or the timing it takes to create a great sauce........... Or even worse, "Darn I don't have any flour and I already have the sausage fried for the gravy!" Check out your recipe and gather together everything that you will be needing to perform the task from preparation to put away. Step one is prepare the work area by removing or relocating everything that will get in the way. This is a biggie for me when baking because I have about 200 pounds of cast iron in the oven to relocate! Clean it up too as needed. Prepare yourself. This is when I set up my sink to be ready to wash my hands and receive soiled utensils as we move along. Next I gather my tools and ingredients. For this I have a half dozen shallow stainless steel roasting pans I picked up at Wal=mart for nine bucks each. For the amount of use they get the could as well have been gold. I gather my materials using a roasting pan for each recipe I'm preparing. Next I set up my pots, pans and cooking gear. Pre-heat my oven, set water to boil as will be needed and try to work in an organized fashion preparing the dishes that need the greatest amount of resting or cooking time first. Oh by the way planning doesn't start an hour before meal time, it started last week when preparing the grocery list. ;D You think organization for cooking is Pooh Pooh? Try this experiment. Tomorrow morning when you make the coffee take along a note book and write down everything that you must do to make a pot of coffee. Every verb noun combination will represent one step in this process. For instance. "Remove basket" is a complete step. "Install filter" is a complete step. And so on!
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Post by Rich on Feb 9, 2005 3:04:03 GMT 12.75
You mean you can't just set everything on the floor and let the dog take care of it for you? Same with the hands. A good dog licking will clean those suckers right up.
Sorry, I know this is a serious post about real stuff but my mind just does not function well with "serious". Or, apparently about anything else.
I just had to write something here because it is my 300th post.
Rich
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Post by Paws on Feb 9, 2005 4:17:49 GMT 12.75
Not inmy house with 17 cats and six dogs in the house! Lucky to find a clear place let alone a clean one!!
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Post by Two Tales on Feb 9, 2005 17:28:52 GMT 12.75
We set up for a cooking class that was to be filmed . So we gathered all the stuff (ingrediants and utensels and cookware needed)..to speed things up we even pemeasured every thing liquids were poured into quart or pint (steralized) mason jars and labled for their intended use. dry stuff was put into bowls that had lids and were also labled (these are those cheapo glad wrap thingies you can get at wally world) cans were opened and covered with plastic wrap..egg cartons were cut to hold the right amount etc...placed foil on the ground for receiving the charcoaland the coals all started 1/2 hrour prior to the demo... it worked so well that i have adapted it some what to my own kitchen..and always for demo purposes...makes you look good when every thing is at hand and goes together like you are a pro ;D ;D...we started set up the night before by browning the meat, par cooking onoins and that sort of thing...so I guess what I'm saying is prior proper planing prevents poor preformance... did I get that right ;D
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Post by Paws on Feb 10, 2005 2:35:39 GMT 12.75
Near as I can tell, you only missed one "P"!! ;D It really really is worth the effort. Everything works so much more smoothly when you have thought through the process and planned ahead of time. Try it out! Whoever is doing breakfast tomorrow think about it tonight. Mentally go through the entire process and then physically "prepare" for it before bed time. Do your setup tomorrow morning and just see how much more quickly things go for you. I'll be expecting a report. Don't forget the minor details either. Pre-measure, pre-position, prepare. Remember that includes yourself, your workspace, your equipment, and your ingredients as well. How appropriate for the subject of "Preparation" to be discussed on this thread! After all; Preparation is ""WHERE IT ALL BEGINS!" Comments, questions, discussion?? ;D
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Post by OLKoot on Feb 10, 2005 15:07:02 GMT 12.75
I agree with all that TT and PAWS said, I just want to add one thing...its great to have everything ready, and measured, but then the real secret is to cook according to the order and time it will take for each item....Like adding wet to dry, potatos cook longer then peas, how soon will it take the coffee to purke so that its ready along with the meal, not 20 minutes after its all over...dont do the toast first.....etc
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Post by Paws on Feb 13, 2005 4:34:28 GMT 12.75
Pretty well said there Steven. ;D The recipe , Pancit Canton, posted this week is intended as an exercise for us here to test us on our knife skills and the Preparation aspect of cooking. As many of you who like Asian or Oriental dishes and are willing, pleasegive this an honest effort. Trust me, the recipe is excellent and if you can master only this one dish you will be a competent cook. It is a genuine confidence builder and impresses the hell out of your guests seeing you confidently take on this complex dish. Secret to success is using the knife to make the correct cuts and to organize everything to the inth. Read through the recipe a couple of times and if you have questions and want to try this give us a shout. The dessert soup, contributed by Ken Hulme, is a wonderfully easy recipe with many rewards. Make your guests eyes sparkle with a new treat! Thanks Ken!! Oogablock would be amazed!! ;DI'd like to stay with the general topic of "Preparation" for a while and maybe shift direction just a tiny bit and discuss "Kitchen Layout" and "Work Flow Analysis!'
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Post by Paws on Mar 21, 2005 5:48:42 GMT 12.75
Let's make a pot of coffee!! How many steps does it take? How much distance does one travel? How much effort, travel, time, does it take a day, week, month or year to make coffee?
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Post by OLKoot on Mar 21, 2005 9:43:28 GMT 12.75
INteresting....coffee doesnt take me long to prepare....we have coffee brewer in which we put enough water, and enough coffee and POOF in about 15 minutes I have coffee..... Now with a perculator, its basically the same method of enough coffee to enough water, then let it start perking and for me in about 1/2 hour I have some good coffee... I once had to make coffee on a BBQ becuase the lights were out,so I took my old perculator placed it on the BBQ and came back in an hour for the best coffee I ever tasted.........
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Post by Paws on Mar 21, 2005 9:58:45 GMT 12.75
Uh huh! That's what I thought. Steve doesn't know how to make coffee; who is next? ;D
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Post by Paws on Mar 21, 2005 10:13:17 GMT 12.75
Here is how we do it at my house: Step #: Activity: Note: 1 Remove caraff 2 remove basket 3 Open Filter container 4 remove filter 5 install filter in basket 6 open coffee 7 measure 1 scoop coffee into basket and filter 8 repeat 9 repeat 10 repeat 11 repeat 12 insert coffee and basket into position 13 transport caraff to sink (10 feet) 14 fill caraff with cold water 15 return caraff to coffee pot (10 feet) 16 open water reservoir in coffee pot 17 pour water into reservoir 18 Place coffee pot on warmer tray 19 close water reservoir lid 20 turn on warmer tray 21 open reservoir lid and check water level in basket 22 repeat 23 repeat 24 close reservoir lid and serve Now that we have an understanding of how we make coffee here; how do you make your coffee?
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Post by RogueWarrior1957 on Mar 21, 2005 10:37:19 GMT 12.75
Holy buttered biscuits, and Sweet Kitchen Mary! If I put more than two scoops of that powerful coffee I use in the filter cup we'd be floating a few iron wedges here! Needles would fly out of there like they were devil possessed. Like Brylcreme...a little dab'll do ya! That new special roast Folger's in the plastic can is strong stuff. I use about half as much of it as I did the store brand. -Bill the Rogue-
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Post by Paws on Mar 21, 2005 13:13:47 GMT 12.75
That is 10 tablespoons for a ten cup pot. If the wife isn'there I usually add one more scoop and get the first cup just as it begins to drip. So how does the Rogue Warrior make coffee?
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Post by Rich on Mar 21, 2005 13:53:59 GMT 12.75
Well, I put five big scoops of coffee to one carafe of water, hit the brew button and then wait for it to finish. Then I wait about an hour for it to get cold and then I drink it. Don't care for hot coffee.
Rich
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Post by Two Tales on Mar 21, 2005 15:28:40 GMT 12.75
Guys,
I put the water in the pot ..no walking required as it's next to the sink...coffe is sored under the counter in the lower cupboard...I put the filter in the basket...add 1 rounded cup of grounds, put the lid on and plug it in..sounds like a lot don't it...not for the 42 cup perculator I use ;D ;D takes about 45 min to cook this off...
the other way I like to do it is fill the pot with water...add 1/2 cup grounds and a pinch of salt..put the pot right in the coals and let'er work..once it starts to boil I pull it back and let it simmer for 15 mun then take it off the fire completly and stick a cold knife in to settle the grounds...serve..to keep it hot just set it over by the fire on a flat rock..
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Post by Paws on Mar 22, 2005 4:00:59 GMT 12.75
Well dog gone! This exercise was to introduce layout; however, I can see that we are in desparate need of culinary instruction as well here! ;D I promise as soon as we move into food preparation characteristics and treatment we will learn how to make coffee together and correctly Shhhh, this is a secret and the wife doesn't know yet! I'm going to look at a restaurant today; to maybe purchase! Tee hee she's is going with me for dinner!!
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