SEPTEMBER, 2018 ~ What's for dinner / supper???

There is a new service that delivers orders from restaurants called Menufy and they are offering free delivery from some restaurants this week. Charlie ordered tempura and sushi from a Japanese restaurant for dinner tonight.

NormM wrote:There is a new service that delivers orders from restaurants called Menufy and they are offering free delivery from some restaurants this week.  Charlie ordered tempura and sushi from a Japanese restaurant for dinner tonight.

Can't beat free!.....

OK, I know one of you got a new oven with a steam clean feature. I'm starting to look at new stoves and wonder if the steam clean feature works. I hate it that my oven is coated with chicken fat spatters that are difficult to remove and then smell up the kitchen when I want to bake a cake.

The steam clean feature on my oven is just a little well where you pour about a cup of water and turn on the heat setting that turns it to steam. I have never used it. I never have used the regular oven cleaning setting either.  I became kind of anal about that stove and clean so often, it does not have a chance to have dirt stay on long enough to get very set in.  I also take the grates off the top and wipe it clean 5 or 6 times a week.  When I was shopping for stoves, I noticed one of them featured a steam cooking feature that I thought would be good for baking but when I asked the salesman if it needed a hook up to a water line, he showed me a little pan where you pour water and I figured I had enough little pans to pour water in without paying for that one.

PS I think steam cleaning idea is a good one though because the regular oven cleaning setting locks the oven door shut for a few hours and has extreme heat that can damage the  shelves if you forget to take them out and the steam cleaning is gentler and quicker so you can just wipe it down afterward.

PPS BUT you need to steam clean it more often because if it gets too dirty, it won't work as well as the other high heat oven cleaning setting.

Well, for crying out loud, Norm......would you please bake some chicken thighs on a sheet pan at 450 and then try the steam clean feature? I need someone to do research for me!

LOL

Chicken isn't on the menu right now but when it is, I'll give it a try just for you.

bethk wrote:Well, for crying out loud, Norm......would you please bake some chicken thighs on a sheet pan at 450 and then try the steam clean feature? I need someone to do research for me!

LOL

My LG gas range, which you all know we fell in love with, has a feature called Easy Clean. The stove came with a plastic bottle that you fill up to a certain line with water, spray it inside the oven and then pour the rest of the water in a small reservoir in the bottom of the oven. The lady who cleans for me used it about 3 months ago for the first time. She told me she thought it would be good if you used that feature often but that I'd waited more than a year to ask her to clean it so she still had to scrub some of the places. (I don't know where she scrubbed as Brian and I only saw a couple of small little black spots on the bottom.) She didn't seem impressed with its ability but then I think she was politely telling me I should have tried it out sooner. I didn't think the oven was very dirty but asked her to clean it just to keep it looking good.

This is the spiel that LG says about Easy Clean: "LG EasyClean delivers the fastest oven-cleaning feature yet. In 10 quick minutes your oven can be sparkling clean, without strong chemical fumes or high heat. Simply spray the oven interior with water, press EasyClean and then in 10 minutes, quickly wipe away any leftover grime."

It's a self-cleaning oven but as I've said many times before, I've read many horror stories about people using that feature on their stove such as melting part of their adjacent cabinets and other things near the stove due to the ridiculously high temperature. I've also read some models do not let you turn off the self-cleaning feature once you start it, something that would scare me. So I know I'll never use the self-cleaning feature. I'd rather use Krud Kutter to clean the stove more often (well, get Lynn to do that as I can't get down there with my back anymore). I take care not to bake anything that could drip or boil over or whatever without another pan under it. The dirt mine had on it was primarily splatters on the glass pane in the front and a couple of little spots on the bottom, which I guess were from using the broiler or something that the convection fan blew from a pan. Lynn cleaned the oven for me and it still looks brand new inside -- it's a huge 6.3 cubic foot oven that has a bright blue interior and it still looks shiny as this photo. But then again, it's only been about 3 months since Lynn cleaned it. I told her to go ahead and try the feature again soon if she thinks it needs it and to just let me know she cleaned it so I can pay her extra.

I'd planned on getting one of those "sheets" of some sort that people put in the bottom of their oven to keep it clean but after reading the booklet that came with my oven, it said NOT to put anything on the bottom of the oven so I didn't. We're big believers in "the worst possible thing happening" to us so we both agreed we wouldn't get one!!!

Thanks Beth and Jimmy for your comments on docking. I'm glad I was doing it right all along.

bethk wrote:We drove to Andrea's Wednesday night. We just wanted to get out of Dodge and be done with dealing with anything about the house. It feels good to know none of the maintenance is our responsibility any more.

Andrea made Greek Lemon Chicken and Potatoes for supper last night, a recipe she had found on allrecipes.com. Chicken thighs and tiny baby potatoes baked on a sheet pan with a marinade of lemon juice, olive oil, dried oregano, rosemary, s&p and some chicken broth.  We made zucchini spaghetti to go with it, as well as a giant roasted red beet my brother gave us from his garden. Everyone loved the meal and there were no leftovers except for a small container of beets...because the beet was the size of  a whole chicken....HUGE!

I think Dane is going to  head home early tomorrow morning, one more day of decompression here. I'll fly out on Wednesday as I'd planned.  He's enjoying a couple days of just sitting around with nothing to do but let his daughter wait on him hand & foot.  LOL

Andrea's dinner sounds lovely, Beth. As you know, I love lemon especially with chicken. Must've been fun for you to have someone cooking for you for a change though I'm sure you probably did something, like cooking that humongous beet!

Now all I can think of is lemony chicken! I was just telling Brian the other day that I want to buy a whole chicken to cut up and make that Lemon Chicken recipe that I made once before that was a take on Rao's famous Lemon Chicken. It was really delicious; you brine the chicken pieces (2 breasts cut in half, 2 thighs and 2 legs) first, dry them and then oven roast them skin side down in the skillet, removing the breasts and flipping the thighs & legs to brown the other side. Then you made the sauce with the juice, chicken broth, shallots, garlic and flour in the skillet prior to putting the chicken back in to finish cooking in the oven but with the skin above the surface of the liquid. It was very lemony with the zest from 2 lemons and the juice from those 2 lemons and perhaps another. The chicken came out perfectly cooked and crispy as all get out. The flavor sounds a lot like what Andrea made in that sheet pan. My mouth is officially watering.


Brian made some chicken stock the other day and from what he said, he didn't use as much water as I do for the amount of chicken bones we had. After he strained it in the chinois and left it in a pot on the stove I was going to reduce it to make it even better. It was soooo good when I tasted it that I didn't do a thing to it except remove the fat. It made three cups of stock so I filled an old ice tray with a cup of it and I'll seal the rest in 1-cup bags for the freezer. It was so good it got me thinking of using it in something we really liked like that Rao's Lemon Chicken!

He's making roast beef sandwiches with sauteed onions and beef au jus on toasted onion buns for supper tonight. He said all I have to do is go downstairs when he starts making them so he can make sure they're both nice and hot when he serves them. Such a deal!

Charlie asked me to make some empanadas. He loves those and found a recipe that he thought looked good.

Michelle, I can't wait for you o see pics of Andrea's Greek chicken dinner....it looked as good as it tasted! And, yes, I did come up with the plan to scrub that gigantic red beet and then wrap in foil and roasted in the oven for 3 hours.....but it was really good.

Tonight I got spoiled even more.....it's Jim's birthday so Andrea made prime beef filets, topped with crab meat and hollandaise sauce, fresh green beans, sliced tomatoes and herb knot rolls. OMG! Just the fact she did all the cooking and the steaks were cooked to perfection would have been enough but everything tasted delicious. We'll have homemade yellow cake with chocolate cooked buttercream frosting she and Tori made, in a little while, after supper settles (and Jim's football game is over).

I could get used to having her cook for me on a regular basis!

Jimmy, I got my LG French door refrigerator probably 5 years ago...LOVE IT! It use to be you would buy appliances and not have to worry for years and years......not so much anymore.

This house came with a side by side refrigerator. It might be original to the house (1988). It is still working out in the garage but I hate side by side refrigerators. This one has an ice maker that takes up half of the freezer and the refrigerator side is barely wide enough to take a pizza box. I replaced it with a French Door LG and like it just fine (Knock on wood)

For the first time in many years, I am going to make a turkey for our Thanksgiving next weekend.  I started a new thread called turkey stuffing in the holidays section.  Looking forward to your ideas and help.  Thanks.

Andrea made homemade pizza tonight......forgot to take a pic.....but take my word for it, her dough is delicious and everyone puts on their own toppings. Had the pizza with a tossed salad.

This house came with a French door counter depth LG fridge. It isn't big enough for us but I also don't want a fridge that sticks out too far. I don't like one large freezer drawer. I have to dig for things. A couple of times the ice started to stink so I have had to put baking soda boxes in the fridge. Sometimes when you open the bottom drawer, ice spills out into the drawer or the floor. Other than that it is fine. I once had an expensive GE fridge that died after 4 years. It got hot and started leaking water on the floor. I tossed it and vowed never to buy GE again.

Got a question about water softeners. Anyone have one? This house came with one and we don't know how to maintain it. We had a look at it the day and found it has two tanks. One has a lid and when opened we found it stunk and had patches of black mold. Is this in our tap water? I have got to call the manufacturer. Are they necessary?

Tonight is pineapple chicken with potato salad.

I had a water softener years ago. It was absolutely necessary with hard water, lots of minerals in the water as well as a slight sulphuric odor. My best advice is to call a professional who can access YOUR water situation and determine if your equipment is salvageable. Bad water can ruin your appliances (ice maker, washing machine) and mess up showers, bathtubs and sinks.

bethk wrote:Michelle, I can't wait for you o see pics of Andrea's Greek chicken dinner....it looked as good as it tasted!  And, yes, I did come up with the plan to scrub that gigantic red beet and then wrap in foil and roasted in the oven for 3 hours.....but it was really good.

Tonight I got spoiled even more.....it's Jim's birthday so Andrea made prime beef filets, topped with crab meat and hollandaise sauce, fresh green beans, sliced tomatoes and herb knot rolls.  OMG! Just the fact she did all the cooking and the steaks were cooked to perfection would have been enough but everything tasted delicious.  We'll have homemade yellow cake with chocolate cooked buttercream frosting she and Tori made, in a little while, after supper settles (and Jim's football game is over).  

I could get used to having her cook for me on a regular basis!

Good for you! No one is more deserving than you to have a meal cooked for them. Not only did you not have to come up with the menu (!) but you got to enjoy meals someone else cooked for a change. What a fun way for you to spend time with your family, Beth. Can't wait to see your pictures when you get home. And homemade cake is, well, icing on the cake!

I don't remember what subject the original post was placed but this is about the steam cleaning feature of some ovens. I steam cleaned my oven today for the first time. It only takes a half cup of water. When I turned it on, it set itself for 5 hours. I turned it off after 40 minutes. That is when I found out that the second setting available is for 30 minutes. The biggest advantage-besides the time- is that you can turn it off whenever you want. It made the whole kitchen quite warm. I'd not do this in the summer, and the oven took about an hour to cool down enough for me to feel comfortable about wiping it down. The inside of the oven was not very dirty to begin with but it wiped down nicely. I'd probably recommend using distilled water to avoid leaving a white film in the oven to have to wipe off. The main thing I didn't like is that there were a few grease spots on the glass door that would have wiped off easily if I had done it before the steam cleaning. After they were burned on the door and i had to use a powdered cleaner to get rid of them. Over all, I'd say that if you want a self cleaning feature, it is nice to have the steam cleaning option. The higher heat cleaning should be used, in my opinion, only when you think cleaning the oven is hopelessly uncleanable without resorting to using it.