The Kitchen Sink

MacGyver’s Fat Separator, Simple Way to Make Homemade Gravy

Whether it is for turkey on Thanksgiving or Christmas, a roasted chicken or a crock pot beef roast for Sunday dinner there is nothing better than homemade gravy made from the giblets, drippings or the au jus. The problem is that many of us do not own a fat separator and if we do, because …

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Pesto Presto – Pesto Genovese

Pesto Genovese Ingredients

Way before modern Italy, the Romans were making a type of sauce called ‘moretum’ that was made using a mortar from which the name is derived. Moretum was usually made with herbs, oil, salt, vinegar, occasionally and eaten spread on bread. Compare this to modern day pesto which is usually made from basil, pine nuts, …

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The day after Halloween – Pumpkin Bargains

Pumpkin Bargains

Normally the day after Halloween is when you can pick-up bargains on candy (sweets), but it’s also the day that supermarkets drastically reduce the prices of pumpkins since everyone has finished making their lanterns. Not that pumpkins in the US are particularly expensive anyway, but just look at this 13lb (5.8kg) beauty I picked up …

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Bread from potatoes? – A new sourdough starter

Potato Sourdough Starter

I go through phases of making sourdough, and yes I admit it here, that sometimes, I have allowed my sourdough pet to die. I am a bad sourdough parent. Keeping a sourdough pet isn’t difficult and it is far easier than looking after a dog or a cat, since you only have to feed it …

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Oh la la Brioche

Brioche

Brioche is a strange bread. It is somewhere between a cake, pastry and bread. In France it is often eaten for breakfast with just butter and/or jam, but it is also very good lightly toasted with butter as afternoon tea, as a basis for desserts, savoury dishes such as Cervelas Lyonnais en Brioche or coulibiac, …

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