Dan Dan Noodles with Shrimp and Pork Fried Rice

and we'll start the show. So whenever you're ready.

Yes. Okay. Hi everyone. Here we are at another show of Around the Kitchen Table with myself, Susan Sarah, and Chef Dennis Littley. And we have another wonderful show today. You know, winter food, savory, you know, that type of thing. Hi Dennis, how's it going?

It's going great, although it is a little— it's not cold in Florida anymore, but it's rainy and we've had some of our not quite biblical rain, but all-day rain. And we've had some storms. So if things start to kick up here, the storms are moving through, I mean, all day long.

I love storms. I love storms. We had, you know, the blizzard we had over the weekend. We had about 30 inches of snow.

Wow, I know, that was insane.

It was insane. Let me tell you, uh, so it, it snowed for about 18 hours, more than that. Straight sideways blizzard snow. It was the most wonderful thing. Woke up on Saturday, blizzard, you know, and we just, you know, binge-watched TV, had good food. We were all prepared. It was the most wonderful thing. I love, I love big storms.

I know I posted that I got up bright and early and bundled up to go out and shovel the snow, and then I remembered I lived in Florida, so I went back to bed.

Yeah, I know, that was really, you know, that really hurt. Yeah, that hurt. So anyway, so I just want to continue and to tell any new viewers who are with us that Chef Dennis Littley is a very accomplished chef, a teacher, a mentor over many, many years. And of course, you show us how to cook, you know, food and with restaurant-style techniques and the, and the secrets and the tips that are life-changing and profound. And I don't say that lightly. I'm not an exaggerator. And, you know, so many wonderful accomplishments and one of the top, you know, kings of cooking socially. And myself, I'm Susan Sarah, certified kitchen designer, owner of my own kitchen studio for many years. And now I have founded— still in the kitchen industry, award-winning, you know, brand consultant to top kitchen brands. And now I have a company also where I import Swedish rugs, Scandinavian made. Yep. So what else?

You've traveled internationally for your kitchen designs. I remember you were out in Milan for the show there, and you've been in Florida. You were just here in Miami recently for design. So you do a lot more than— you do bathrooms too, if I remember.

Oh, only under protest.

Only on the pro, okay, it's mostly kitchen. Well, I can understand that. But kitchens are an integral part of every household now and everybody's personality needs to reflect their kitchen. And, you know, in designing mine, you know, you were very, very good about listening to me and taking my ideas even though they conflict with what you thought might be better in design because the person's gotta be happy with it. I had a builder when we redid our kitchen the last time and he offered me 3 choices of cabinets He says, there's dark, you don't want that. There's white, you don't want that. And then there's like the regular oak. I went, okay, I guess I want that. Then he goes, yeah, you do. So I was like—

I hate that, that drives me crazy. I'm sure you have, you know, different things where some of your colleagues, you know, say there's only one way. And you know, it's funny, I try to walk the— there's a balance to walk between yesing the client and, just yesing and not being creative and pushing the client. So, I'm sure you agree with Fu too. You don't want to just, you know, you know more than they do. You want to guide, but you want it to be about them. It's not about them. It's not about me. It's about them.

And you can't force yourself on them either. It's got to be their decision. You show them the options, weigh the options. And lots of times the problem is lots of times after you do it their way, they look at you and go, "Oh, this isn't like I thought it would be." And you're going, "I know!" I know, I know.

So we're gonna talk today about the kitchen sink. Let me tell you, you know, I've touched on it before, but I want to talk about the trends for 2016 and beyond for kitchen sinks and find out what, you know, what sounds good to you. And so you tell me when we'll do that and we'll go into that. And for your part, you're making— I can't pronounce it.

I'm making dan dan noodles. I had put down lo mein.

That's easy.

But it's not really lo mein. So I wanted to go back to it because of the seasonings are a little different and there's a little more to it. And before we get into that, I want to talk a little bit about ingredients. And now Nesmake said that it's pronounced pho.

Oh, so, okay, thank you.

You got schooled on that once. Nazim's in the house from Milan watching too. So some of the things when I did some research on it and started looking at, because noodle bowls now are becoming huge and you see them everywhere. It's like starting to overtake some of the taco kind of easy eating industry because noodles are really simple. And if you use them the right way, you can throw together ingredients and make them just as quickly. And the variations on it are just delicious. So there's a lot of different things you can do. So I started learning about it and I'm going, you know, for me, there's soy sauce. I know tamari is like a strong soy sauce, and that's about the extent of it. So then I found out that there is a dark soy.

Oh.

And it's thicker, and it's almost— to me, I haven't tasted it yet plain, which I should have because I just opened it this morning. It has that consistency of a good balsamic vinegar, that more of a thickness to it. It's not as thin. And then because we try and cook healthy, I'm also using a low sodium regular soy sauce.

Yeah, that's always good.

You know, just to cut back since I'm using something that dark. And then I was reading and there's things like black vinegar.

Oh, whoever heard of that?

Yeah, right. I know. So I bought some. I went to an Asian store, an Asian grocery yesterday, and I bought some items. I looked through what they said for this type of Sichuan cooking, and dan dan is like a spicy, salty kind of a taste. And it can have as much heat in it as you want. And then I got some hoisin sauce, which I bought.

Yes, I have that too. That's wonderful. I also have fish sauce, which I have not used. I don't know what— I'll have to hunt for recipes on how to use that.

Yeah, it's just sometimes it's that different flavor. It's not really for fish, but it gives a different— that, yeah, that different flavor in the back of your tongue. I can't think of the word. And then I got some chili oil. I got some rice wine, cooking wine. And I want to— I do want to get some sake. I just— I don't— I didn't want to just grab what they had where I was. I want to wait and get some decent sake.

You know, you are exactly like my husband, except he goes to Home Depot. He says, all right, I'm going to Home Depot to see what's going on. You go to the, you know, to the grocery and see what's going on. You're an ingredients nerd.

That's why I don't like to take Lisa with me, and she hates going with me.

I know, because you just look. I know what you do, right?

She would have died in the Asian grocer because the aisles were so narrow and they had boxes stacked everywhere, and it was like— and I'm looking, I've got my list and I'm looking for things. And then I actually had a friend, a friend from Blab, send me his brand of sriracha. Srirachoy.

Oh yeah, yeah, that's so hot. Hot sauce, a hot new sauce. I mean, everyone is— it's been around for a while. I have— I don't think I have that.

So yeah, Dragon Chinese ancestors create miso in 400 BC. Buddhist monks bring miso to Japan in 600 AD. Europe discovers miso. And then in 2014, this has got— this is his sriracha with miso in it. So it's a little different. It wasn't overly hot because I— when I first— I put the sauce together this morning, I was afraid it was going to be too hot, so I used half of what they said. Went back and put the rest in because it really wasn't bad. So I thought I would use that since I needed a chili garlic. I don't think it's got a lot of garlic in it, but that's okay for what we're doing. So I'm going to start, and we're going to start with the dandan noodles. And the dandan noodles are pretty easy to do, and we're going to do some shrimp in these. So I have some shrimp. Let's turn this on. I have—

how about all the millions of noodles that you see when you go to an Asian marketplace? Isn't that amazing?

Well, these are— and I have to cook some and see what they doo-doo because they had— doo-doo, I said doo-doo, sorry. They do because it said for 7 to 9 minutes for thin, for 10 or 11 minutes it was medium, and for 13 minutes it was wide. So I don't know if they keep getting bigger or what, but I don't want mushy noodles, so I went with the 7 minutes. But they are It said to use a wheat noodle, and these are basically— it's a big box of wheat noodles.

Oh yeah, that looks like the real deal.

Yeah, so I mean, you can get, you know, you can get a small package, and most grocers sell wheat noodles. Now, so that's the difference over this with this dish, and then you'll see some cellophane noodles and some different kind of noodles. So this is a wheat noodle.. And it's a little bit of a wider noodle, but it doesn't matter. It said you could use linguine if you didn't have them, if you didn't have availability. So I mean, you could always make it with that. Just, you want a flat noodle for it. So I'm heating this up. We're going to drop a little bit of oil in it, and then I'm going to very quickly sauté up a few vegetables and some shrimp.

So is that something like canola oil?

That is just, yeah, it's— I don't use canola oil. I use corn oil, actually. But you could use peanut oil. A lot of Asian cooking will have more peanut oil in it. I don't want to use sesame oil because it's going to be too strong. I actually have some sesame oil in my—

Yeah, I was going to ask you about sesame oil.

I have sesame oil, but that's in the sauce. You have to watch what you use because it can overpower. So I'm going to throw in some— I'm trying to remember what I'm doing for this. Okay, I'm going to throw in some sliced peppers. Shrimp sauce. Do something else. And the sauce was put together, and we'll talk about that in a second. I find my towel.

Oh, here it is.

All right, so we're just going to cook these a little a little bit, try and get them started to turn pink. And most Chinese food that you make or Asian food that you make is pretty quick. Now, I don't have a wok, but you know, you could— so you can do this in a frying pan. I do have a wok, but it doesn't work on the induction cooker. But I just want to get these just to about there, and let me take them off.

So you're— oh yeah, so you're taking them out now. Are they fully cooked?

I'm gonna let's just put it— this is how quick it is. So let's just—

wow.

All right, so this is a sauce I made. This is the dandan sauce. I'm just going to put enough of it in here. I like to coat them. And I'm going to put in— where's my noodles? Oh, here's my noodles. And you can do it one of two ways. You can either just take your noodles and put them in with this.

Oh, that's a one-pot meal.

Toss it, or you know, you can put this over top of your noodles. Now the one thing that happens with something like this is it's brown, so it's going to get— it's not going to be a super attractive look.

Well, maybe there's some— I mean, I would imagine you don't, you don't use parsley, but maybe you could cut some scallions.

Absolutely. So the difference in this then is serving it. So if you toss your noodles and you could serve this, this would be really nice in a little bowl too.

Oh, noodles. Who doesn't love noodles?

I know, in any language, noodles are wonderful.

You know, that, that, that's great. I just got some gulf shrimp from my CSA, you know, my weekly thing. Yeah. And they said it was— everything is organic, supposedly. And they got some from out of the area, which is gulf shrimp. So I think I need to make that.

Absolutely. And the one thing I didn't do was I didn't toast any sesames. But if you have some sesames and you toast them, and they'll stay toasted once you get them done. You can add them to sprinkle the top of these. So now we just want to put a few scallions. And if you want to put a little more color with some—

What did you just put on them? What was that? White?

They're scallions.

Oh, oh, oh, okay. It's not the green part. It's the white part. Okay. It's the white part. Okay.

I cut from the onion up to about half of the green. Ah, you know, this would be your Dan Dan noodle. It's this simple.

I can't believe it. That is a record. That is record time. That is record time for everything we've made. Wow.

Good. That's really good. And it's not hot, so it could be a lot hotter. But so, so this is beautiful. This was easy. That's how easy it was. The only complicated part was the sauce. I get a little heat now, but you know, it's not bad heat. It's residual heat. That's good.

So it's good. So, so Nesmix is asking, how do you make the sauce?

Okay, let's talk about the sauce for a minute. This is what the sauce is looking like. I'm going to move this over here so I don't eat it while we're talking. Next one's a little more difficult. It's not really difficult, but a little more to it. So here's the sauce, and the sauce is very simple, and I'll be putting this up on my website. But it's got sugar, dark soy sauce, the reduced sodium soy sauce, sesame paste, which I couldn't find. Hmm. I used some tahini. And you can see it's a little lumpy and stuff, but when it hit the heat, it kind of dissolved and went into it. And it's the sesame paste is because you want that little difference of flavor. So I'm gonna go, this was not a very big Asian store. I'm gonna go to a bigger one, see if I can find some more ingredients. So it's the sesame paste, a chili garlic sauce, and I use the soy racha that I had, but you could get any chili sauce. And if you don't want it too hot, I was going to use sweet chili sauce, but I don't have any, so I remembered I had this. You could use a sweet chili sauce if you don't want super heat. A little bit of chicken broth, and then whatever vegetables you want to put in it. So There's bean sprouts. It could have had some bean sprouts in it. It could have had some snow peas in it. It could have had—

Oh, good idea.

Some Chinese mushrooms, some Asian mushrooms in there. So anything that you really like, vegetable, broccoli, you know, anything you like. The secret is in the sauce though. So again, the sauce is dark soy sauce and we talked about, and you'll be surprised it's there. You just have never looked for it. Okay.

Wow. Can now to use Do you see a reason to say stir in some cornstarch?

No, don't even need it.

Make it a little bit thicker?

Not with this at all, 'cause the noodles are soaking it up. If it was a standalone sauce that you're serving over top of something, then you might want to. But this is really, it's not thick by any stretch of the imagination, but it just blended right into the noodles. It coated all the noodles. Everything went well. So the noodles aren't really hot right now, so that's why I threw them into the pan. But if you cook them, take them out, and they're hot, you could actually twirl them, put them in a bowl, put your sauce and then just pour that over it and eat it.

That looked great. That was so fast, I can't believe it.

Yeah, so again, it's the sauce. And once you get these supplies, like, there's nothing in here that would go bad. You could make it up and then just put it in the fridge, I guess. I you know, it's always a good idea if you have extra leftover to do that with it. But again, it was, like I said, the dark soy sauce, regular soy sauce, sesame paste, a chili garlic sauce, a little bit of broth, and some, your veggies, your shrimp, and your scallions. And then you could use whatever else you want. If you had some toasted sesame seeds to make it look pretty. A lot of that is cosmetic and just making it more visually attractive. So, you know, it's a real simple sauce to make, and if you have the stuff in hand, you'll be more inclined to use more of it and make some different things. This would be good with—

That's the key. You are absolutely right. You're absolutely right. Having it on hand and, you know, just mixing it up, you know, from the regular chicken, steak, whatever. That's what makes it exciting.

Chicken and steak would be perfect with this too. I mean, with a new protein, tofu, you know, or just vegetables or just a boatload of vegetables, and then you just use a vegetable stock with it. So, I mean, you can go from vegetarian vegetarian to any kind of meat you really want in it to make it taste, to be fun and to taste good. So, you know, it's an easy thing to learn. You saw how fast, you know, once you're done, it's like, are you ready to eat? 'Cause it's gonna be done in like a couple minutes.

Yeah, I see that.

Yeah, so it's real simple to do. So that was the dandan. And like I said, if you Google, you know, I will do a recipe on that. But if you Google Dan Dan noodles, you'll get some different recipes for them and a little bit of education on the flavors. But this is like a Sichuan kind of dish. So, but that was easy. All right, so let's move this back. Noodles look so good.

Oh yeah, and there's so many, like I said, there's so many different types. One Asian market I went to, the entire aisle was noodles.

Oh, they have so many varieties. Again, I think a lot of them are all the same, they're just different packs and stuff, because I stared at them for a while and I picked this up. And the reason I got this was because they were the longest noodle that they had. They had other wheat noodles, but they were shorter. And I went, no, I want long noodles. I want these to be like really fun to eat and messy. So I went along.

Yeah, yeah. Now this looks— this looks— if I didn't know better, I'd say it looks like short ribs.

Well, yeah, this is a butt, a shoulder butt or whatever. I don't know. I'm sure, but it's pork and we're going to start to do our fried rice. So I'm just going to take a little piece of this and I made the whole piece because I wanted it for sandwiches. Okay.

Okay.

So you can see.

Yeah, look at that.

And I was picking at it when I— when it came out. Oh my God, the flavors. Oh my God, so this would be really good on one of those soft white buns, even.

Yes, yes, yes.

Well, that's good. So we're going to make pork fried rice. So I just want to— and mine is not as neon red as some of the ones you get. But I'm just going to cut this up in some small pieces. And this is one of the reasons my fried rice, my pork fried rice, never quite tasted right, because I did not know that this is what we were using in it.

Huh, interesting.

I hate to tell you, I used to use bacon in it, and it just isn't right.

Oh wow, no, I don't think so.

Well, it was good.

Do you think that you can make pork fried rice into a single, you know, main dish?

Oh, sure.

Or is it, you know, I think of it as a side dish.

You could, but I mean, I think it's something like you saw how fast this was. I would serve it with something else. I mean, if you get some store-bought egg rolls and heat them up, maybe, you know, if you don't want to make your own or a nice vegetable sauté to go with it too. You know, something other than just the rice because the rice is not going to stay with you as long. You know, it's that old joke about being hungry 2 hours later.

Yeah.

It's going to fill you up and then it's not really going to stay with you. So you need, I think, some other things with it. So we're going to start our fried rice and the fried rice, the Chinese pork I will also talk about later too. And how to make it was pretty simple. But the pork fried rice, I actually made a sauce up. Let's talk about the sauce before I start cooking it. And the sauce is very simple. It's a mixture, again, of dark soy, regular soy, rice wine, which was this one I got, a little bit of rice wine, which is not a deal breaker. You can use white wine or no wine at all. Honey, and sesame oil, and a little pepper. So that's the sauce for the rice. Now the one thing I did learn, another mistake I've been making, I've been using regular rice when I do fried rice and it never quite came out right. So I did get some jasmine rice and it cooks so fast.

Oh, does it? Oh my God, they're smaller grains, right?

They're smaller grains. They're really white. It smells like Chinese rice and they really get fluffier. So it, I don't know if it cooks up different, but this is what I'm gonna use to make it since I'm trying to make it a little more authentic. It wasn't difficult to do. You can use these in any other thing you do afterwards if you don't wanna just have rice. You can put it in soups or, you know, make other things with it.

Do you have a rice cooker or you just use a pot and water?

I just use a pot and water. I had a rice cooker for a long time and it was like I forgot how to cook rice or something. I used it so much and then I realized when it broke, I went to order another one and I just made it in a pot. I went, well, that was easy. So I just—

I never had one, but my, you know, my daughter-in-law who I said is Chinese American, she has, you know, that her and my son, they swear by it. They wouldn't not have it. It's like having a toaster.

Well, you know, if you eat a lot of rice, it's a good thing to have. Yeah. And a good one, not like the one I had. The one I had, it was just a junky little one. But I mean, they make these beautiful rice cookers that really turn rice out, you know, and I've been to parties at a Korean friend's house and she was making rice like crazy because half the food she made was so hot and spicy. We were looking for rice. It was delicious, but it was killing us. But, you know, it's a good thing to make. And again, it's like, what tools do you like? What tools do you use all the time? What do you want to have in the kitchen? You know, and if you have one and you use it, you know, it's great. You can make rice in slow cookers too. You know, this new slow cookers do all kinds of things. So anyway, so we have our— we have our pot, and I'm gonna— again, I don't have a wok, but I'm gonna make it in here. Oh, Renee says she makes polenta in hers as well. Hey, everyone's coming in, and when we get a lot of people watching— so I'm gonna start, and again, I'm gonna start with a little veggies. The rice is cooked. If the rice is cold You want to get it out and let it warm up a little bit, or at least come to room temperature. And if not, it's going to take a little bit longer to cook. And this is something you could do on a flat top too. Like when I was at school, I used to make this in massive proportions and I had a flat top. So if you don't have a wok, you know, the wok is nice to have. If you don't, you can always get around it. So I'm going to throw in some diced onion. Onion that I have. I've got these nice colorful peppers. Where am I here? Oh yeah, throw them in. And again, nothing is a deal breaker. I think the onion really needs to be in there, but it's not a big deal. I'm going to throw the pork in.

And you know, that's something that kids would love too, and it gets them to, you know, eat their protein and eat vegetables. And, you know, that could be a one-pot meal for children.

Absolutely. So this is pretty simple. In fact, I'm just going to put a little bit more oil in here. And again, this is, you know, once the rice is cooked, this is a one-pot meal, even without a wok. Let me get this down. And I just want to cook this a little bit. You know, if you want a little heavier garlic taste, you can put garlic in there. If you want to put more onion in, you can put more onion in. You know, it's all a matter of, again, how you like to flavor it. The sauce, I think, is going to be the key aspect rather than just adding in soy sauce. Adding in these few other little elements into it. And there is some garlic in my sauce, I do believe. All right.

Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah, gotta have the garlic.

So this is pretty much here, is done, the sauce.

Now Peter says a wok pan is really nice to have. I couldn't do without mine. Peter, I haven't owned a wok. Tell me What types of— I mean, do you do anything other than stir-fry in a wok? Tell me why you love— you couldn't do without your wok.

I'm going to add some rice. Rice, good. A wok is just really easy to work with. You know, it's those sides that you can pull stuff up on so they The heat of your pan is only at the bottom. I mean, that's— and it's really good for making the one-dish meals.

Yeah, I mean, you know, at the end of the day when you're tired and you've had— you know, that's what's attractive to me, and that's what makes me interested in doing more wok cooking.

So now I'm scrambling a couple eggs in the center.

Oh yeah, the eggs. Okay.

And you can scramble them up ahead of time and just add them in. It's a little messy this way, but it still works. And you know, this is pretty much all there is to it. And the sauce is, is the part that's going to give it that real good flavor.

I mean, you could also put scallions in there. I don't think you're gonna— oh, you— well, you put the onion in though.

Yeah, I'm gonna do some scallions too. The onion really is a nice base flavor. And the one thing about scrambling the eggs ahead of time is you'll see them a lot more. And this way it's coating the rice, so you might want to scramble them up or let them just sit in the middle rather than mix them in like I did. Just kind of gets them all over the place.

Looks like a good consistency, not too— no, it's not too— oh, peas.

Peas, scallions, and I have some sprouts here. And again, this is just something you can put in whatever you want. This is just something I'm putting into today. So I have some color. I have some texture. A little salt.

It looks like— what I'm trying to say is it looks like the perfect consistency. It's not too dry. And it's not like, you know, glumping together kind of thing. It's really— you can work with it easy.

Very nice. Okay, that's good. Very nice fried rice. Actually could use a little bit more seasoning. It's maybe a little more soy I'll put in. So I'll perfect this recipe. I'll get it a little more right. But you have the nice pieces of pork in here, the rice. I'm almost tempted to serve this with tortillas.

You can start a trend.

It'd be a real fusion. But anyway, that's a real quick pork fried rice. You know, you can use regular rice with it. It doesn't have to be jasmine rice, but I think it held up a little bit better. Jeff, relax.

Okay. It looks great. Yeah.

So now we have this. Get a plate, a bowl.

So that's for dinner tonight, right?

Yeah, and Lisa's going to be hungry.

She—

well, she did take some little stuff for lunch today, but she doesn't always pack her lunch.

Wow, that looks great.

Yeah, so again, you know, you can garnish with anything you want. To make it look pretty. You can leave the scallions out and put them on the top. Again, some toasted sesame seeds. You want to throw a little more colorful pepper in, you know, and just put it in a nice big serving bowl, bring it to the table, let everybody eat. The same thing with the noodles. So you put those two dishes out and maybe get some store-bought egg rolls or stop at your Chinese grocer and get some egg rolls from him. And have a nice, more authentic, more healthy version of Chinese meal than you would get if you, if you went and bought it out. I mean, because sometimes you just got to wonder what they're using and what they're putting in because they're cooking for us. They're not cooking for fellow Chinese people. You never really see Chinese people waiting in the restaurants we go to to buy food from them. So makes me—

that's true.

So let's talk about the kitchen sink now. I didn't give you much time to get in there with it, but—

No, that's okay. Yeah, so we talked about everything and now we're adding the kitchen sink. And as some of our viewers know, we're in the middle of, or, you know, close to finishing designing Chef Dennis Littley's kitchen. And, you know, I've showed pictures about the kitchen sink before, but let me tell you, it is a major factor. And I'm gonna overwhelm you with some pictures, take a look. I'm going to move my camera. And let's see, I'm going to try to put it right here.

And good.

Okay. And here we go. I have a little slideshow for you. You know, it's the— okay, well, first let me go through some— no, well, first I'll go to the theory. I have a theory recently that, and that is that even if you have a small kitchen, it makes sense to have a large sink. And I'll, you'll see, soon see why. And I want you to really look at some of these pictures, you know, and have a think about maybe a different point of view on them. So here's a kitchen sink. This is the Kohler Stages sink. You'll see it has 2 faucets, and the single bowl size is about 35 inches wide. It's 45 inches overall. But now you'll see more uses for it. You can have the— you can see there's a little rim where I'm putting the mouse. There's a rim on each side of the sink, so what you can do is put a cutting board, which comes with it. You could slide it back and forth. You can even slide it all the way over to this side. And so it comes with a number of accessories. This is what it looks like. You know, it has a sink grate, so that protects it. And here's another shot of it where you have this recessed sort of flat area here. You can put defrosted foods here or anything you wanna keep separate on that sink. Now take a look at this. This is where some versatility comes in. You have a, and I use, I have this sink and I use all of these things. You have a plastic sort of receptacle here that's narrow. And I might use that for, sometimes I'll put the chopping block on the top and then move things with my hand into this, either trash or things I wanna bring over to the stove. So there's many, many ways to use this sink, deal with trash, you know, food scraps, scraps, things like that without getting into the countertop and getting that all messy. This also, this piece also comes with it. And now this will flip over and you'll see what happens there. And this is exactly how I use mine. I have the, you know, I use this for fruits and vegetables, this plastic receptacle that flips up and down, that is for meat. That can be used just for meat. It's dishwasher safe. And then this can be used for whatever. So, I have so many pictures to go on, I'm just going to do a little brief commentary. But these are just different configurations of how you can use the sink. And you can have it wide open or you can have it, you know, not wide open. Now, this is a faucet that's a touchless faucet. And what you do is you put your hand underneath, you just put it for a second in and out and the water will go on and go off. So, you don't have to touch anything unless you want to regulate either the flow or the temperature of the water. But for a lot of quick things, it's in and out and it's nice when you have really gunky hands. This is a new apron sink. It's made by Blanco, a brand I love. They are extremely durable. This is made of what's called sill granite. It's indestructible, indestructible. You can do anything to this sink. It's a matte finish. It's, you know, this dark charcoal, which we're seeing now more and more. It has clean modern lines and it's really beautiful. It's also paired with a beautiful faucet. And oh, you can't see it too well, too easily on that. Image, but you know, maybe— oh, you know what? I should come up closer then. There we go. Yeah, here's that, and here's— and this is just a Blanco sink too. We have the cutting board nearby, we have the division, and I know you hate double sinks, and I hate double sinks too, but if you have one side that is smaller than the other, then that helps, and it also comes with this accessory The biggest problem is they're the same size, so you don't have a decent size sink.

I think if you had a little one, that's a whole other story.

Yeah, you're absolutely right. And here's a very nice, you know, useful, you know, faucet that Blanco has. And this is another shot of it too, where you can put little accessories on the side. So lots of things are happening with sinks. This sink is by the brand Franke. I mean, look at that. Look at the strainer here. You don't see it. The water comes in, goes out from on all the other sides here. They're getting more clean line, very sexy. Here's an apron front sink in stainless. And now Franke's newest introduction is this item here, which is a rollout sort of— it's almost like a drainboard support. You'll see how it can be used. You can put it on top of their sink. They just came out of KBIS Kitchen and Bath Industry Show last week with a sink called the Chef Center. Sinks are getting larger. They're getting larger and smarter for every size kitchen. And you'll see why you can— they're becoming so much more versatile. Back to that in a little bit. Now, this is a hot and cool water dispenser. So many things you can use this for. I couldn't live without mine. Insinkerator is the go-to brand, and they have different types of faucets, and you just use it for everything. So that— and here's their, their hot water tank. I think they have 2/3 of a gallon hot water at the ready, you know, up to 210 degrees. Wow. Yeah. Now, here, this sink I've shown you before. This is pretty radical. It's pretty wild. You know, the only thing about something this wide, and this is called the Galley Sink. I think it's thegalleysink.com. You know, where do you put the dishwasher? This, you know, and you have to sacrifice a lot of space underneath. However, but you know, I want you to see the concept behind these larger sinks. You may not want one this wide, but take a look. You have the strainer, you have— look, you could even put dishes in there. You can, you know, you have it next to, you know, the bowl here, all kinds that you just insert. Take something from the stove and just put it over there. There's so many—

no, there's so much you can do with it, even using it like I saw with ice packed in it for— so if you have parties for you, I mean, they are great. They're great.

Yeah, this is really what I want you to see. And I mean, even this, you know, putting the pasta already into a built-in strainer. I mean, how great is that? So here you go. You're chopping your vegetables and you're moving them into the bowl and then you take the bowl and, you know, bring it to the stove or bring it wherever.

So, so if that water heater, if it's filtered water, the one you were showing.

Yes, it is. Yes, it is. And Sinkerator is the go-to brand and they have everything. And you change the filter probably once every 6 months. I would say 6 to 9 months. So here, this sink also comes in a matte black. Here you have 2 faucets. I have 2 faucets at my sink. Wow. I have two faucets. And the reason I have two faucets, I have a 45-inch sink, is because in my case, my husband and I each have no patience. So he comes by and he needs water for something. I come by and I'm in the middle of cooking and he's bothering me. Let me tell you, it is saving our marriage. It is so amazing. So in your case, you do all the cooking. So I can't see why you would need two faucets.

Knows better than to stay, to come in the kitchen when I'm cooking. That's all. She's very happy with that. She sits with a glass of wine and waits for dinner.

Yep. But you know what? I think a double faucet and a larger sink for all size kitchens is, I think we're going to see that more and more because it's just practical. It's so practical. And yeah, so this is the sink that Franke just came out with. It's called the Chef Center. And now that, This over here, this is called a roll-up mat, and this does indeed roll up and you can put it anywhere you want and so on and so forth. Here's another sink that this has the division in between, that's Kohler. This is also a Kohler sink, the apron front sink, which is beautiful. This is a beautiful version of the apron front sink, and that's still quite popular. And then we have, you know, faucets are getting crazy. They're getting all kinds of crazy faucets. This is a little bit of an industrial look. And this is by Brizo, which is a company under Delta, DeltaFaucet.com. It's a higher end. And then let me tell you, warm finishes are coming back absolutely in hardware and fixtures and lighting and faucets. This is a Kohler faucet, wall-mounted, very functional because of all the different ways that you move it. So, very cool. Again, this is actually a brushed bronze, and that's it. That's what I have for you on sinks. So, are you overwhelmed?

I, I, this is just, you threw the kitchen sink at me today. What can I say?

Well, I hope that was helpful.

Oh, absolutely. I love those things.

The kitchen, let me tell you, the kitchen is fun right now.

And that's the whole secret to having fun in the kitchen is making it fun, getting some of these new appliances and some of these new concepts to make your life easier and to make it more enjoyable when you're in there. And then you're gonna wanna spend more time in there cooking. That's the whole secret to being happy.

Yep, and I'm gonna send you some links for these things. And then I want you to at least consider them, you know, Absolutely, absolutely.

I don't know if we'll go with two faucets, but—

but I know you don't need two faucets.

Yeah, one faucet's good, uh, because I, I love having all this space. And if you saw it now though, it'd be like, boy, the boy needs a bigger countertop, because I'm like, square inches.

But see, you know what, some of that stuff on the counter can go in this bigger sink.

That's true. Yeah, one of the problems I had, like, I tried to put a cutting board on top of this sink, but but it doesn't fit right. So every time I've done it, we've had an accident where it slipped off and fell. So that would be, that would be really nice.

I got you covered. I got you covered.

Because I do, do like my, like my room spread out.

Yeah.

My, uh, my guy that comes in and sprays every, um, 2 months came in today while I was set up and he goes, oh my God, I've never seen you ready for a show today. This is great because he always wants to know what I'm cooking and what we're doing because he always comes on Wednesdays, but he's never come when I was set up.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I bet, I bet, you know, he was ready to sit down and eat too.

I had the pork cooking and there was a lot of good smells in here this morning.

Yeah, well, this looks wonderful. It looks easy and wonderful and a different weeknight dinner. I like it.

Yeah, you know, and thinking outside of the box, you know, I showed you two relatively simple simple things to make with this. But, you know, once you start putting your own mind to it and putting your own variations to it, you'll see how, how easy it is and how versatile it is. And again, it's a matter of maybe you're going to spend about $20 on some different sauces, some different flavors that you're going to have in the house, you know, but don't bury them in your cabinet and keep them towards the front and start using them because you'll find that they make excellent marinades. I mean, the marinade I made for the Chinese pork was just, you know, and again, I just took the butt and I cut it up into 3-inch, about 3 or 4-inch pieces and put it in there with—

So easy.

Yeah. And, you know, I got a little jar of Chinese five-spice, you know, so these are little things you can buy, you know, that you're not going to use a ton of, but if you have them there ready to use, you're more inclined to try it and then fuse them. You know, don't be afraid to use some of them with like I joked about the tortillas, you know, don't be afraid to like blend the Mexican with the Chinese or some other flavor that you like with these spices and come up with other things that you enjoy eating, other grains. You know, these would be good with lentils or, you know, just using different sauces with different—

And you know what, I bet you there are a lot of sources online to get these ingredients if you don't have an Asian market nearby. I'm sure there are places to do that.

Yeah, you can buy everything online now. I have, you know, I still like to go out in stores and shop, but I always have deliveries from Amazon. I have deliveries from Thrive Market coming, you know. Thrive Market is a great source for healthy things for you, not just food, but for, you know, cosmetics. I ordered Lisa some hair color from there and some shampoos for me and different different things. So, you know, you can find these and they're a lot cheaper than buying them out at Whole Foods or places like that where you can find them. And they ship for free if it's over $50. So you find these places that do that and you order every now and then. But everybody, I think everybody's got Asian supermarkets, you know, and Indian supermarkets. And I haven't delved into Indian cooking too much, but I mean, go in those too, because some of those, the spices and the flavors and the air Gorgeous.

I've always done, I've always barbecued a, what is it, chicken? It's not chicken tikka, it's tandoori chicken. And I, you know, marinate it with the yogurt and the ginger and the lemon and everything for sometimes a day or two. And, you know, that's easy to make and so delicious, you know, very flavorful.

Renee showed how to peel ginger. You ever peeled it with just your spoon? No, you took a spoon because I'm always cutting it and ending up with half of the ginger gone because I got to cut it off with a knife. I just took a spoon and peeled it. Comes right off.

Wow. All right. I have some ginger. I'll try it.

It was life-changing. There you go. Let me find you the YouTube link. So she's even got a YouTube. The spoon on ginger works well. Yeah. So there's little tricks to make it and to make it fun. Like if the kids are cooking with you, you know, give it to them to cook and they may want to eat ginger then that they would never had turned their nose up to because it's a strong flavor. So it's something you need to get used to. But that's it for Around the Kitchen Table today. I honestly don't remember what we're making next week. I think it might be blackened chicken and Alfredo, but I don't remember for sure.

I'll be there.

You'll be there. He'll be there. So we're trying to get more flavorful. And, and again, you know, you saw these were a little complicated, but they weren't. Like, you can make these sauces ahead of time. Like, you could do them when you have time on the weekend, put them in containers, put them in the refrigerator for the weeknight. Then you came home, then you just cook your stuff real quick and your pasta or your rice real quick, and you throw throw it all together. Very simple, very easy, and a nice change to a weeknight meal where you're just rushing around rather than stopping and getting takeout.

Sounds great.

All right, so we'll see you next week around the kitchen table. Thanks again.

See you next week.

Bye-bye.