Cooking For Engineers®

Recently, I received a wireless thermometer from Thermoworks to try out. Their newest product is called Smoke and is specifically designed to help people barbecue and smoke food at home. Smoke has two parts - a base unit (which takes two of Thermoworks standardized Pro-Series probes) and a wireless receiver unit - which lets the user track the air temperature and the food temperature without going outside to the smoker.
Thermoworks is selling the Smoke at $99 and this would definitely welcome tool for anyone who likes to slow cook food outside.

These days when I reach for a spatula to turn food in a pan, I've been finding myself grabbing the GastroMax Slotted Turner more often than not. Tina bought this spatula for me after months (or maybe years) of listening to me complain about our various spatulas. After buying the GastroMax Turner, my complaining has stopped.

Chocolates are one of the most popular treats in the United States (some sources claim that over 50% of the candy sold in America is some form of chocolate). Some chocolate creations are simple in shape (like a standard chocolate bar) and some are extravagant sculptures (like the ones shown at ChocolateWork.com). At home, it's not always easy to get chocolate to melt and set properly. Sometimes the chocolate burns, sometimes it seizes, and sometimes it just doesn't seem to harden as expected. In order for melted chocolate to harden (and shaped) properly, it needs to be tempered. In this article, I'll hit on the basics of melting and tempering chocolate.

Sometimes, buying cream in bulk is too good of a deal to pass up. For about the price of two cups (470 mL) of heavy cream at the supermarket, you can pick up a half gallon (8 cups) at the local wholesaler. But, unless you're cooking for a party, that's a lot of cream to use up before you hit the expiration date. After you've made a couple cream pies, clam chowder, and topped your angel food cake, you realize that you've only used four cups of cream! What do you do with the rest? Well. . . I make butter.