A question from a reader: Marinating chicken…contained in a bag, in a baking dish to catch any drips Is it best to wash the chicken off after removing from package or not? I hear conflicting advice on this. Some say to wash off any germs from packing and some say it’s doesn’t matter b/c the germs are cooked off. Should I wash chicken? No! Please, no. Do NOT wash poultry before cooking. (Or any other meat for that matter.) Washing chicken doesn’t rinse away bacteria; it splashes it around. The bacteria is still on the chicken…and now it’s been sprayed onto the sink, countertops, arms, clothes, and anything else nearby. The safest thing to do is take chicken directly from its packaging to the stove. Now, I don’t take chicken directly out of the package and to the stove. I usually have to mess with it first – seasoning, cutting it up, that kind of thing. I treat chicken juices like a biohazard – because they are, until they’re cooked – and try to contain …

Instant Pot or Pressure Cooker? What do you search for?

Whoops, I have to issue a correction. How many tablespoons in a 4-ounce can of Thai curry paste?

Fagor America will be shutting down operations after its parent company in Spain announced it would close, HomeWorld Business has learned. In a letter from Fagor to its retail customers that was obtained by HomeWorld Business, company officials wrote, “Fagor America will be affected by this cessation and we anticipate the company will be closing in the next couple of months.” Fagor America to Shut Down Operations [HomeWorldBusiness.com] I’ve used Fagor pressure cookers for years, and I’m sad to see them go. I switched from Fagor cookers to Instant Pot a while back, but I do still have a couple of Fagor Lux cookers in my collection. They were a good alternative to the Instant Pot, and I always like to see good competition in a market – it keeps the companies from getting complacent. (Not that Instant Pot seems complacent, mind you – they keep coming up with new ideas and new cookers – but I don’t want them to feel too comfortable and take their foot off the gas.) I can’t recommend Fagor …

The wages of sin are death, but by the time taxes are taken out, it’s just sort of a tired feeling. ― Paula Poundstone The good news about writing a successful food blog? It provides a little side income. The bad news about writing a successful food blog? Side income makes taxes complicated. No new post today – I’m busy bookkeeping, sorting documents, and entering info into TurboTax. (I’m one of those weirdos who enjoys doing their own taxes.) Someday the blog may make enough to get someone to do my taxes. But for now, I have a hard time paying for something I can do myself. I’ll see everyone next week with a new recipe!

The most common question on my pressure cooker chicken legs and chicken drumsticks recipes: “My drumsticks are frozen. How much time should I add?” My answer is: I don’t know? Five extra minutes, maybe? That answer feels right, but I want to check it. I never cook my drumsticks from frozen. I’m cooking them either fresh or thawed. (I buy family packs of drumsticks. Straight out of the freezer I have a slab of chicken that won’t fit in the cooker. I have to thaw them enough to break them apart…and by that point I might as well leave them in the refrigerator overnight to thaw completely.) I go to the store to stock up on frozen drumsticks for testing. And…neither of my local grocery stores carries them. (They have individually frozen wings, and boneless skinless breasts, but no drumsticks and no legs.) I’m standing in the meat department, staring blankly at bags of frozen chicken wings. “What if I freeze them myself? No – no one would freeze individual drumsticks. They’re not asking about …

I’m going on a bit of an “inside blogging” rant here. If you’re just interested in the recipe, here it is: Sous Vide Butter Basted Porterhouse (from the freezer, seared in a cast iron pan) On with the rant! I hate SEO. SEO is “search engine optimization” – in other words, adding things to my posts so Google understands them. I want to write for people, not search engines. And yet… If I want to write a food blog that anyone reads, I have to do SEO. According to my statistics, 75% of you found me through a Google search, so I need to keep The Algorithm happy. (If you stuck around after that original Google search, and are still following me, thank you!) You don’t see most of my SEO work – and neither do I. My recipe plugin takes care of most of it. You see a neatly formatted recipe; Google sees a list of tags: This is a recipe, this is a picture, this is a list of ingredients, and so on. Unfortunately, when …