Cooking

oh and one important tip that hasn't been covered on here yet today is: get some powder free latex gloves if you are handling chopped chillis/scotch bonnets etc. And for blokes: never go for a piss if you've been foolish enough to handle them without gloves.

uh, men and women should be careful about sticking fingers anywhere for hours after cutting hot peppers.

I think I have had to take out my contact lenses with my wrists before.

yeah it is absolute torture getting it in yr eyes.

I went through a weird phase once where I wanted sliced jalapenos on everything. I had to eventually stop because of all the surprise burning.

slow cooker: other than making great stock, never really had good results from it and not particularly impressed when other people serve slowcooked meals either. maybe just need to get better skills idk

Lidded casserole dish in the oven did the business last night when making stroganoff with beef shin.

I was thinking : is there a diff between slow cooker and just turning down the oven to low.

unless your life will be incomplete without the ability to cook mushy braises while you're out of the house, don't buy a slow cooker

i like the aspect of being able to put on a (slow cooking) pot of beans for a hour or two and just forget about it. on the stove you generally have to keep an eye on 'em so they don't boil too hard, or conversely just sit there in hot water.

i hate to recommend bleach for anything, but it cuts through capsaicin lickety-split, if it's an emergency pour a bit on hand/finger and rinse. have tried olive oil to remove from hands before since capsaicin is fat soluble, but that doesn't work as well

Another vote for that knife as the best one you can get for so little money.

Another vote here. Tho I have a slightly different Victorinox. Use it much more often than the 3x as expensive Japanese one I have.

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71R%2BTXG7DmL._SY679_.jpg

The magic ingredient is capsaicin, from hot peppers. Just saying.

if you do get chili in your eye I recommend putting milk in a shot glass (or anything of a similar size) and keeping that pressed against your eye with your head tilted back

I do that anyway

and then go hang out at the playground

I think I have had to take out my contact lenses with my wrists before.

― Yerac, Friday, January 4, 2019 4:58 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol 100% although ironically wearing contacts also protects your eyes from onion vapors, so ideally you would leave them in for chopping onions and then remove before chopping anything else.

I posted this in the GBBO thread but w/e this is my first attempt at a cheesecake ever: https://imgur.com/gallery/UL9i0dF

Used my Instant Pot and the recipe book that came with it, only adjustment was to substitute stevia for the sugar. The color of the cream cheese is WAAAY off, and the ganache ended up being too thick (used too much chocolate), and I waited too long to pour it over the cheesecake so it doesn't look that smooth. But it's tasty!

ha silby

I love slow-cooked meat stews in my slow cooker but I'm not gonna fart about making bolognese or some side dish in it. it's good if it's more convenient for your day to start cooking 6 hours (or whatever) before you want to eat rather than 2. otherwise I don't really get the whole 'time-saving' aspect - you're still doing the same amount of prep.

Yeah, a slow cooker isn't so much about time-saving as about time-shifting

a slow cooker allows you to leave the house while deliciousness increases

i no longer eat meat and really feel like slow-cooked meats are the only thing they're particularly useful for - i guess porridge and grits and that sort of thing too - but i always found i preferred meat cooked slow and low in the oven than in the slow cooker. ymmv

I had baked beans in the oven today. I just left them in the oven while I went out of the house to run errands and the deliciousness increased, but no slow cooker was involved. This can also happen with pot on the stovetop. The added abilities of a slow cooker are fairly marginal, and I rarely use the one we own, but the ability to use a timer to delay cooking is handy sometimes when no one can attend to the dish for a great many hours.

I'm relaxed about a lot of risks but I can't leave the hob on while I'm out

same, im not rly happy with oven on if im not there either

unless your life will be incomplete without the ability to cook mushy braises while you're out of the house, don't buy a slow cooker

― call all destroyer, Friday, January 4, 2019 12:28 PM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

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$

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