In quartz, it's not so much about thermal shock, although that can be an issue, especially above seams, as it is about the resin (plastic) component of quartz. Quartz companies love to tout the 93% quartz statistic, but that's 93% by weight! Quartz is a lot heavier than resin. By volume, it's around a 40/60 to 50/50 split, depending on color. That means that quartz really has more in common with an acrylic solid surface counter like Corian than it does with a solid rock countertop like granite. Resins can "ghost" at temperatures about around 250� if left in sustained contact with the hot object. At temperatures above 350�, some light scorching can begin. You can keep progressing right up the scale to full fledged deep burn marks. Any honest countertop fabricator specifies that you use trivets and cutting boards as everyday care for your counters. Anyone who pooh-poohs the risk is assuming that statistics don't apply to them. Well, they apply to someone! If you're that 1 out of 10,000 that loses the bet with the crockpot or the cookie sheet on your counter, that won't help your pocketbook come replacement time to know that 9,999 people had no problems doing the same thing you just did.

Crock-Pot "Baked" Chicken Pieces Put several wads of foil in the bottom of the Crock Pot to raise the chicken pieces. Placed seasoned chicken pieces on top of the foil. Heat 1-hour on HIGH and 6-8-hours on LOW. (This chicken will be like baked chicken, not stewed in it's juices like most slow-cooker recipes.) Crock\-Pot Boneless, Skinless BBQ Chicken 4\-6 boneless, skinless, chicken breasts Bottled BBQ sauce (enough to cover well \- or about 1 small bottle) 1/4 c. vinegar 1 t. red pepper flakes 1/4 c. brown sugar 1/2\-1 t. garlic powder Mix sauce ingredients. Place chicken in crock pot. Pour sauce over chicken. Cook on LOW 4\-6\-hours. Slow-Cooker Fudge 2-1/2 c. chocolate chips 1/2 c. (canned) coconut milk 1/4 c. raw honey pinch of salt 1 t. vanilla Mix all the ingredients EXCEPT the vanilla in the cooker. Cook on low for 2-hours with the lid on without stirring and NO PEEKING. After 2 hours, turn off cooker, take off lid and add vanilla. Cool the fudge in the slow cooker until room temperature (or approximately 1-hour). Stir vigorously for 5-10 minutes until it loses some of the gloss. Pour into a 1-quart prepared dish (or pan). Cover and refrigerate 4-hours, or until firm. Shredded Steak, Chicken or Pork (I made this last night using a short chunk of pork loin I had in the freezer \- about 22\-oz. I cut it in 1\-inch cubes while semi\-frozen.) Cube the type of meat you are going to use. Season with your favorite seasoning mixture. Cover with 1\-2 cans of Rotel Tomatoes (original), depending on how much meat you cook. One can of Rotel per pound of meat (more or less). Cook 8\-hours on LOW, or 4\-hours on HIGH. Remove meat and shred.

This dish, Tacchino Tonnato, is more of a summery dish, but it is simply the best turkey breast I've ever eaten. It's Julia Child's adaptation of the classic roast-veal-in-tuna-sauce, vitello tonnato, in which she substitutes turkey breast for the hard to find and expensive veal roast. (Turkey breast is much cheaper and more tender, and it works very well.) You may wish to save this recipe for next summer. This really is ideal for hot weather, especially for a luncheon for several people. You make the entire recipe a day or two in advance: the day of the luncheon, all you have to do is take the dish out of the fridge and, if desired, decorate it a bit. You can serve this dish with a salad, or make sandwiches with it, or just eat it plain. Delicious. If you don't like capers, leave them out; it'll still taste great. I'm reproducing the recipe exactly as Julia has it, but I would note that when I made it I found that the Dijon mustard tended to overpower the other ingredients; even though she calls for 2 to 3 tablespoons, I'd start with only 1 tablespoon and add a little more if needed. (I know it takes chutzpah to overrule Julia, but there you have it.) While it calls for poached turkey breast (and her directions for poaching a turkey breast follows the sauce recipe) if you just want to try out the sauce, you can 'cheat' and go to the deli and get several slices of precooked turkey breast and use that. (I've done that; works great, although it ends up costing about three times as much as poaching a turkey breast on your own.) She makes the point that you don't serve it as sliced turkey with a sauce on the side; you need to smear each slice with the sauce and let the slices absorb the flavors for a day or two. You can make the sauce in either a blender or a food processor. If you have a food processor, though, the sauce is extremely easy to make. In fact, my Cuisinart has a push-tube with a hole in it that is designed to drip oil at just the right speed for emulsifying with the other ingredients. Don't be intimidated by the recipe--for the most part, you dump everything in the processor and let it do the work. If you can make mayonnaise in the blender or the food processor, you can easily make this recipe. Tacchino Tonnato from Julia Child's The Way to Cook (Cold Sliced turkey breast in tuna and anchovy sauce) For 8 or more servings 1 - 7 oz tin (1 cup) tuna packed in water, drained 1 - 2oz tin of flat fillets of anchovies packed in olive oil, drained One-fourth cup capers, squeezed dry The grated peel of one half lemon 2 to 3 tbsp Dijon-type prepared mustard (you may wish to start with just one and add more if needed) 1 large clove of garlic, pureed, then mashed to a very fine paste with one-fourth tsp salt 4 egg yolks 1 to 1 1/2 cups or more virgin olive oil Drops of lemon juice Salt and freshly ground white pepper One 6-pound poached turkey breast (recipe follows this one) or 16 to 20 generous but thin slices of cooked turkey breast Decorations: 1/3 cup capers, drained; coarsely chopped parsley; lemon wedges The sauce. Puree the tuna, anchovies, capers, lemon peel, mustard and garlic paste in the machine, then add the egg yolks and puree several seconds, until the mixture has thickened. Finally, with the motor running, start adding the oil in a very thin stream of droplets, and continue without pause until three-fourths of a cup of oil has gone in and the sauce has thickened into a heavy cream. It will not be as thick as mayonnaise, but should hold itself in creamy suspension. Process in one-half cup more of oil, depending on how thick a sauce you wish to have. Season carefully to taste with lemon juice, salt and pepper; the sauce should have character, but should not be too strong in taste or it will kill off the turkey. Slicing the turkey. If you are using a poached turkey breast, discard the skin. Carefully remove in one piece the whole side of each breast from the carcass. Cut the meat at a slant crosswise (across the grain) into elegant slices less than 1/8 inch thick. Assembling. Spoon a layer of sauce in the bottom of a serving platter, and arrange the turkey on top, spreading each slice with a coating of sauce. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 24 to 48 hours before serving. Serving. Let the platter sit at room temperature for 20 minutes to take off the chill. Meanwhile sprinkle on the capers and parsley, and decorate with lemon wedges. Poached Turkey Breast Set up a 6-pound bone-in breast of turkey breast up in a kettle just large enough to hold it comfortably, surround it with 1 cup each of chopped carrots, onions and celery, and a large herb bouquet. Pour in 2 cups of chicken broth, 1 cup of dry white French vermouth or dry white wine, and enough water to cover the breast by 1/2 inch. Bring to the simmer on top of the stove; skim off the gray scum, which will continue to rise for several minutes. Salt lightly, then cover the pot loosely and maintain at the bare simmer for 2 to 2 1/2 hours, adding a little boiling water if the liquid evaporates to expose the turkey. It's done when a meat thermometer, pushed in to the thickest part of the meat near the shoulder (but not touching bone) reads 162 to 165 F. Let the turkey cool in its broth for at least 30 minutes. Refrigerate uncovered; when chilled, remove the turkey to a covered container.

Chuck is usually the less expensive cut! You need something with a certain amount of toughness/connective tissue to really stew it--something that will hold up--but otherwise anything works. Skirt steak used to be dead cheap, but now that the world has discovered fajitas, and that the skirt is really tasty compared to most cuts of domestic beef, it costs a ton. Brisket has become beloved of the barbecue crowd, so it's no longer cheap. Well marbled meat makes poor stew because once the fat is rendered out the good of the meat goes too. I've made stew from lean sirloin by cooking the veg mostly separately, browning the meat, and combining just for the meat to get done. But that depends on a blowout price on the sirloin, or a plan for other use dying on the vine. Because I trust the butchers where I shop, I don't mind buying "stew meat" which is a melange. It's nice pieces of meat trimmed off as they're cutting. They cook at different rates and have different flavors. The latter can make the stew more interesting, and the former doesn't matter if you're giving the meat plenty of time in the pot. I've heard that some butchers/companies throw "bad" meat together and call it stew. I don't know what that means. I don't mind paying less for odds and ends, and having to trim it up a bit.