Cooking

My oven is electric so I’m OK with leaving it on to go out, but if it were gas, NO WAY.

treeish, pret or au bon pain used to have a quinoa small bowl that was really good/healthy/easy that i reproduce sometimes. Quinoa, arugula, tomato, hardboiled egg, shelled edamame, lemon. Easy to swap out any of those ingredients for like spinach or other beans but the hard boil egg in it was a revelation when I first saw it.

La Lechera has a game-changing recipe for slow-cooker pulled pork. I'm serious. I've served it to multiple crowds of ppl to universal acclaim. The hype is real.

slow cooker stuff I make on the regular and can't imagine bothering doing any other way:
masoor daal
saag paneer
whole roasted chicken
pulled pork
brisket

lol it is really good :)
i don't have the energy to educate anyone on cooking atm but i wish you the best of luck treesh
experiment and learn

Thank you! I think I got more information than I can process just in this thread. Food is this whole sphere of life that I just haven’t really been embracing it seems.

I don’t have a slow cooker but I have a huge wok that Imll use for stir fries.

slow cookers, pressure cookers, and instant pots are divisive conversation topics, I think because the camps tend to be the Can't Live Without It camp and the What A Pointless Invention camp

I think Yerac's initial advice is pretty good tbh. you will accumulate staples/figure out what you need to have on hand to consistently make what you like.

For my part, doing most of the cooking for a family of four, my major constraints usually come down to a) what will the majority of my family eat without complaint and b) what did we get in our CSA veggie box that week. Then I map out what to make for dinner for at least 5 nights of the week (assuming one night will be either leftovers or takeout/eating out), figure out what ingredients I need to make those dinners that I don't have on-hand, and that's my grocery list.

Cooking for one, though, is a particular bitch, I dunno how you do that with quality ingredients without wasting a ton of food tbh.

i'm not sure how useful thread devolving into stating snarky advanced cooking opinions such as 'buy japanese knife' and 'don't use commonplace easy tool to cook' is to treesh's original q. slowcooker is excellent for noobs imo, and i still use mine on occasion. it's great when you're short on time and it's nice to come home or wake up to the smell. you can get em used at any charity shop for like 10$

― flopson, Friday, January 4, 2019 4:56 PM (forty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i wasn't trying to be snarky (and i don't think anyone told anyone to buy a japanese knife?) but my problem with slow cookers is that they completely destroy the texture of vegetables and stews that come out of them are oftentimes mushy and insipid. i recognize that they have a place in many kitchens because they are convenient and don't need to be attended to, and if you're making things like pulled pork or legumes my problem isn't really a problem. that said, understanding that we all have different goals for our cooking and levels of ambition, i would recommend learning just about any other method of stewing and braising first.

I lived without a slow cooker for years and could do so again, but the things that I've learned to make in it are definitely better than whatever shitty version I was making before I had one

xp

fwiw I wouldn't bother making chicken noodle soup or beef stew or the like in a slow cooker, that seems kind of pointless

I've never had any mushy results from my slow cooker. Even cubes of sweet potato that were in there for 6 hours were soft but had their shape/texture still.

I don't think you need to dive in with bulky equipment to start off with though, treeship. Just some recipes that look fairly simple. I use bbcgoodfood.com for like 75% of my meals although it is British so terminology and ingredients may be unfamiliar - also the website has gone down the shitter and is becoming less easy to use.

don't you mean down the loo

I cook(ed) for one for years in NYC and I was Trader Joes all the way. Pretty perfect for one person cooking. I would go every Saturday morning, spend $40-$45 and have all my food for the week. Breakfast burritos (egg, veg sausage, on a whole grain wrap) for breakfast, spinach/broccoli salad with the balsamic/rosemary chicken, or I would make chicken encrusted with almond meal they sell there, and dinner would be random stuff. Their frozen stuff is great for quick things during the work week and they sell so many veggies, cuts of protein in good proportions for one person.

yeah TJ's does seem more geared to this kind of thing than most. But even there it means buying a fair amount of pre-prepared stuff, no?

I think I'll give a slow cooker a try, it's not like they are pricey.

I got into tortilla a few years back, which I loved but my kid didn't like it so I changed the recipe to include tomatoes, cabbage, chick peas, cumin, coriander, chilli and garlic. And made it a more scrambled type very spicy, semi-omelette/masala and he loves it now. Nothing wrong with doing meals that don't have no name that you are aware of.

cooking for one is depressing but i can’t imagine eating out 3 meals a day

i can imagine eating out 3 meals a day but i would need to earn like double what i do

anything that's eggs mixed up with stuff is called 'Skip's Scramble' in our house

Don't order the Skip's Scramble

lol

I cook for myself and haven't had any real issues with spoilage or portion size. Being able to portion out some and putting in the freezer when necessary (seldom happens for me but obviously that's good to have), though usually refrigerating is enough and lasts me a week. I do find that I'm a little gunshy about buying certain things from e.g. TJ's because it's clearly not intended for one person to consume, but then I have a coop grocery that offers more customizable portions.

NB: I've eaten moldy fruit/bread on several occasions, and probably will again in the future.

ok are we gonna get this slow cooker pulled pork recipe posted here or what??!??

no but here's a non-slowcooker carnitas recipe

https://www.homesicktexan.com/2008/07/carnitas-houston-style.html

NB cannot account for why the author chose to illustrate this recipe with weird close ups of the food

xpost TJ's has a lot of prepared stuff but it was really the only grocery store I went to (besides a local veg/fruit stand) and I eat pretty healthy. They have an easy selection of vegetables, things I like: shishito peppers, avocados, brussell sprouts, haricots verts, persian cucumbers, and the bags of baby spinach and broccoli florets made making salads easy, sizes were perfect for one week. I always kept almonds from there in my desk too. Oh and they have pretty good hummus/guac/pesto/ types of things. Nothing ever really goes bad for me but I always try to keep my overhead super low so I pointedly try not to waste food. I will juice everything in the fridge before that happens.

Oh man, I do not look at the serving size at TJ's. If it comes in one container it's for one person.

Also I like cooking for one person. I find I eat a lot better because I don't have to alter things, change things up for other tastes or feel compelled to make something taste better by adding more oil or salt. So like if treeish is trying to eat better, it's easier to only be concerned with yourself.

TJ's veggie selection is actually something that I tend to avoid! In some cases it's portion size (those zucchinis(?) are way comically enormous, I will never make anything with however many celery stalks as they come in), but also because I'm trying to reduce the amount of packaging waste from stuff I buy (which is where the unpackaged produce of my coop comes in).

Yeah the packaging is ridiculous. Although at least it's mostly bags rather than clamshells. I only see those tiny/baby zucchinis? But I also typically cook all my veg at once and then snack on them through the week or use it for salads/toppings.

Maybe I'm the one due the Japanese knife accusations. I really like $40 ceramic chefs knives, and you would too if you get angry that you can't seem to cleanly slice tomatoes with conventional knives after a month's use. At least I'm not pushing $200 knives like Alton Brown.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a783vEF2yYA

this isn't the smoothest presentation on seasoning a wok, but he knows what he's talking about.

Holy shit, just did an egg fried rice/minced beef/ stir fry concoction on my seasoned carbon steel wok and the fucker passed the non-stick test with flying colours 🍳🍳🍳🍳🍳. I'm now a believer, and I had some moments of doubt last night when the smoke kept setting off alarms, I was thinking I might be losing my marbles.

I made a vegetarian white sauce lasagna with cremini mushrooms, but the sauce ended up being gray. I've used this recipe before, though this time I used unsweetened almond milk (I probably used whole milk previously) and flour to make the sauce. Could that be why it turned out gray? It tastes fine, so I'm asking mostly out of aesthetic curiosity.

Yep. Some brands of non-dairy milk add yellow coloring, like annatto, to give a buttery hue.

Personally, I just avoid most prepared non-dairy milks for cooking, as I can taste the calcium carbonate (chalk) that many use for calcium when warmed. Anyway, soaking raw cashews in water, then blending, makes for a perfectly fine substitute for creamy soups. As does blending unsalted almond butter with water.

can you explain what you mean by "use for calcium when warmed", Sanpaku? idgi

one of the reasons i love trader joe's unsweetened plain soymilk so much is that it's just water and soybeans.

It's missing a comma, I read it as: "when warmed, I can taste the calcium carbonate (chalk) that many [brands use to fortify with calcium]."

I've been making my own tofu recently and sometimes its hard to get past the soy milk stage, fresh warm soy milk is so delicious. The left over bean meal is a great addition to potato salad too.

This is like when I always get a jolt when my garlic turns blue because of the vinegar I added.

I can't leave my copyeditor hat off: "when the milk substitute is warmed, I can taste the calcium carbonate (chalk) that many [brands use to fortify with calcium]."

i felt like a ninny. but i kept reading that, knowing the calcium carbonate is a ionic compound so dissociates in liquid and the calcium doesn't require heat to be reactive, and missed the point.

Google: my boyfriend thinks my bolognese is unimpressive please help me

would it help to add a splash of acidity? what's the deficiency, or is your boyfriend inarticulate about food?

How is there not a show about couple cooking difficulties? I would love to be the asshole on that show giving f'd up advice.

xxp
go for the Antonio Carluccio trad bolog recipe, which doesn't use garlic or herbs and is just a nice simple beef, onions, carrots, celery, wine, tomato puree, butter and pasta type deal iirc.

https://antonio-carluccio.co.uk/recipes/tagliatelle-al-ragu-bolognese/

if in doubt, add MSG

I really like the Robert Sinskey recipe, which uses bone-in cuts, equal parts homemade stock/wine/milk, and a long cooking time. The secret is orange peel, which gives it a slightly exotic flavor.

http://www.robertsinskey.com/kitchen/recipe/bolognese-authentic-style

I think the 1 1/2 hour simmer is one of the most important steps, but ppl don't always have time to do this. I tend to avoid diced pancetta because I blame it for making me ill once - probably need to give it another try - cos bacon isn't a proper substitute and there aren't any fancy delis that sell the quality stuff you see italian chefs using in my neck of the woods.

Milk in a bolognese sauce is a secret I picked up on Facebook (from an ILXOR actually) a while ago that definitely works.