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Flat iron steak two ways. One with Worcester & Montreal steak seasoning, the other with a Peruvian rub of Salt, garlic powder, cumin, aji Amarillo & aji panca roasted potatoes tossed in duck fat, truffle salt, rosemary & thyme Caesar salad chimmichuri

Wow. I freaked at that picture, thinking that was now your stash! There's a pretty good learning curve, nothing that will throw you, but many would give up. Let me send you an upgraded handle! The traditional handle is the weak link in the design. Being too stubborn with a too stiff dough, I managed to widen its hole. I then went through several spectacular failures of embarrassing experiments making a replacement handle, before recognizing that the forces involved were beyond my usual experience. One can spend five minutes in Adobe Illustrator, then upload a design to a professional laser cutting service such as SendCutSend. I did, and I'm thrilled with the result. As for dough, I keep a MacOS Numbers spreadsheet of all attempts, which computes target hydrations for me. Too wet a dough just sticks together, but too dry can jam the bigolaro and make it howl. One wants to nevertheless go as dry as practical. This is easiest mixing the dough in a food processor (I mix other doughs by hand or in a stand mixer). Working without exact measurements, people tend to aim for a dough that just barely clumps together. A principle I've learned the hard way: The dough has to taste good. One can extrude any dough, this isn't a constraint. It nevertheless reminds me of traditional Japanese woodworking. They use a rice paste as glue. It's not really a glue in the sense of Titebond III Ultimate Wood Glue, or even traditional rabbit skin glue, but rather a mechanical stabilizer to fill faint gaps in the elaborate joinery that actually secures the structure. So the new guy is tasked to cook the rice. He asks what to aim for? "So it tastes good." I use food grade silicone grease on the shaft and die holder, wiping excess with a paper towel. I use a strap wrench to remove the die holder when it gets stuck. I rub a bit of olive oil around the plunger. If I've concerned that the bigolaro will howl halfway through, I feed the dough in several steps so the last portion doesn't get too compressed (aspiring to turn to diamond). I separate the strands, shaking on cornstarch if needed; flour will clump rather than dissolve away, cooking. For Asian noodles such as rice, one can extrude straight into boiling water as I saw done in a kanom jeen namya breakfast establishment in Thailand (had to throw that in to keep Dennis paying attention...) It's easiest to learn on fat extrusions like fusilli, as they easily separate, and can be cut shorter once they dry a bit. A related puzzle is how to clean the dies. Restaurants just soak them, changing the water daily, and toss the first dough to come out. A dental water pick does a reasonable job, once they've soaked. I happen to use an electric pressure washer, outside. We bought one to maintain our ipe deck, but I also use it to clean our Mexican molcajetes, whose open grain can trap food. I intend to make a tongue-in-cheek YouTube video on all this, going into the woodworking for my pressure washer die holder, suggesting with a straight face one should install an ipe deck to justify the pressure washer purchase, even though it's really to support the bigolaro.

Since the temperature finally got up over freezing yesterday, i cooked some chicken breasts for dinner last night and future chicken Caesar salad tomorrow night. One pair used Jack Stack BBQ rub (dark color) and the other pair (for the salad) used Blues Hog High Flyin' Chicken rub (light color). Chicken with Jack Stack rub, truffle spice roasted potatoes, green beans with bacon and onion, baguette. Very tasty.

no worries, online thread making does not imply ownership so post away your results with the new machine!

I'm hoping @Syzygies will turn up to tell me how he uses his and what consistency of pasta dough is required to get it to work well. I am keen to make wholewheat pasta as the normal white pasta sends my glucose levels soaring.

The forecast here (Perth, Western Australia) is 39c (102f) tomorrow! Might just leave the birds out on the deck, outside of the KK Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Packers victory brisket! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Looking good Sent from my Pixel 7 Pro using Tapatalk