First Uses

I put my cookware to use last night for the first time.  I started with something easy.  Spaghetti with meat sauce.  I used two of my stainless steel pieces, the 9.5 inch braising pan and the 3 qt. pot.

I heard that you are only supposed to use low to medium heat on stainless steel.  The settings on my range (I have a glass top range) go from 1 to 9.  I set the hamburger on at 4 and let the pan gradually warm up.  I seasoned the meat with salt and pepper.

While that was cooking, I set up my pot with a dash of salt and a drop of EVOO to keep the noodles from sticking.  I set the temp at 5 and waited for it to boil.  And waited.  And waited some more.  I increased the temp to 6 and finally the water started to boil.  I added the spaghetti and turned the whole spaghetti thing over to my wife.  She does pasta better than me.  It cooked for approximately 7 minutes until noodles were tender.

During that 7 minutes, my hamburger was cooking down just fine.  It was 85/15 meat which I take to mean that it is 15 % fat.  There was a lot of fat to drain, so I got an empty coke can and drained the fat into it as it sat in the sink.  Setting the can aside, I put the meat back on the range, reduced the heat to 2 and added 1 jar of RAGU (no, I didn't make the spaghetti sauce from scratch.  Let's not get ahead of ourselves).  I allowed that to reach a slow simmer.

SIDE NOTE:  These pots and pans that have lids have one very cool feature.  They have 2 little holes in the rim of the lid.  These little holes make the lid whistle when the contents inside are steaming.  I find this a VERY useful tool to make sure your food doesn't burn.  Am I thinking correctly?  Is that what they are there for?

Melissa drained the noodles, setting the pot back on the range on a new cool burner.  She then added the meat sauce to the pasta in the pot.  I rinsed out the pan with hot water, which rinsed out very cleanly.  My wife and I served ourselves with a side of Broccoli/Cauliflower which we microwaved in a bag.  After serving and before eating, I saved the left-over spaghetti, then rinsed out the pot.  It also rinsed out very well.

After dinner, I washed both the pot and the skillet with soap and water.  They both came clean very well, though I had to dry, dry, dry and then buff, buff, buff to get back that mirror-like shine.  Clean up was still easier than I expected.  How dishwasher-safe are these stainless steel pots and pans?  Anyone have any comments?

That's all for now.  My next task is to try eggs.  I want to fry and then scramble some to see how badly they stick.