What's cooking? part 4

Will save you from wasting food from freezer burn! Buy in bulk, portion into 1 meal increments and vacuum seal.

But don't try to seal liquids up in it, just solid things. But that means already frozen things - I freeze lime and lemon juice in ice cube trays then vacuum seal 6 together. (I end up with a lot of citrus juice when I make bitters)

Also, I have upped my sous-vide game and have a heater and temperature controller available if anyone is interested. The temp controller is a DSV, works with basic crockpots too.

I buy raw peanuts in huge quantities from a local processor, so I vacuum seal those in 2-cup and 3-cup quantities and freeze. Also after the last batch of beef stock, I picked off a lot of good meat from the neckbones and sealed it in big handfuls for the pets. I don't want it for people food, but it's great for the dog and cats. Vacuum sealers are great if you have the freezer space.

marinade
marinade

seriously you can marinade meats in like half an hour with a foodsaver, super easy

and we always foodsaver leftover ribs: reheat them in a pot of cold water on the stove; once water is boiling yr ribs are done. way better than microwaving etc

That's a great idea re leftover ribs!

works a treat!! i used to hate reheated ribs

This is making me wanna eat ribs and also want a food saver

both are otm

guys these bags are so fn expensive omg

like i wd love to marinade w/ a fs but how do i justify "wasting" a bag when I can just put it in like idk a ziploc and squeeze all the air out

You can buy the roll material and make your own bags - pretty easy and lower cost. Ziplocs work pretty well for storage/marinating, but for freezing the heat seal is more durable.

i got mine at costco and the roll bags def make more sense anyway. with the non-roll ones you just end up wasting plastic.

def def def do the roll, so much better.

You can buy the roll material and make your own bags - pretty easy and lower cost. Ziplocs work pretty well for storage/marinating, but for freezing the heat seal is more durable.

― Jaq, Thursday, March 26, 2015 7:16 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

wait what

where do i do this??? googling is not turning up much

also what food blogs are we following in 2015? I'm rediscovering feedly and so far i have smittenkitchen and thekitchn and serious eats. Anyting else?

I use Serious Eats for everything, although I alter their recipes at will because I'm slightly less OCD than Kenji Alt also I do not get paid for this shit and have to do work sometime.

oh food52 too

Here's how it works with our older very basic model: Cut the roll material the length you want, stick one end in the vacuum sealer but not into the well where the vacuum gets pulled (you just want it to seal, not actually try to pull a vacuum), start the cycle. It will sense that the vacuum is done and then seal the end of the bag. Open it up, take out the bag and fill it with your stuff, then seal the other end like usual.

Oh! I thought you meant like buy the actual plastic material and actually construct bags on all 4 sides.

I read that Weston bags are cheaper and/or better than FoodSaver brand -- can anyone confirm or deny?

Midwest Mom-style Food Blogs:
Budget Bytes
Newleaf Wellness (she of the crockpot freezer meals fame)

Aspirational - http://www.sandwichtribunal.com/

Disgusting/Hilarious - http://www.thepizzle.net/

some of those sandwiches in the first link look amazing, wow

especially those pueblan cemitas

http://www.thepizzle.net/the-dump-cake-dump-cake/

lmao

i am....not clear at all on what's going on there

This was the post from that blog that won me over - http://www.thepizzle.net/purina-fancy-feast-broths-the-cat-food-taste-test/

That's fucking dedication to a theme, and so gross I can't help but admire it.

greenkitchenstories.com/ - Scandinavian hippie yoga people, vegetarian blog
localmilkblog.com - actually awful but a great hate read; you should look for her poetry and her about stuff with the ten items she needs to travel with. One is crystals or magical rocks or something like that
minimalistbaker.com

mostly feeling serious eats/bon appetit/saveur/cooks illustrated/etc these days over food blogs

test kitchen > artfully distressed cooking utensils

it's warm in sac today but I dont care, I'm making crockpot white bean chili because I love starting the week with leftovers for dinner

stebe I love simply recipes ---> www.simplyrecipes.com is the uniform resource locator

I ignore the hot weather/cold weather food dichotomies because I live in Texas and everything is air conditioned, if I wanted to eat only weather-appropriate food I'd have to live on watermelon for eight months at a time.

good point

smitten kitchen shakshouka never fails to disappoint. Really great feta takes it from delicious to sublime.

I have never succeeded at cooking the eggs properly when making versions of shakshouka OR that similar thing you make with leftover salsa and chicken and tortilla chips the next day. My eggs always refuse to firm up while the tomato sauce ends up sticking to the pan underneath because the water simmers away and I can't add more water to the spot under the still-raw eggs.

do you have a lid on the pan?

It's my cast iron skillet, so I have one that mostly but not completely fits. It helps, but I still haven't mastered this whole thing.

Crabbb!!! http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/colcannon/ mashed taters w/ kale and scallions and so much butter + cream, what the fuck! this is great! you are great and so is your URL!

I had a right cooking day yesterday. For dinner I made a slow-cooked pork shoulder stew with chili and shredded coconut, served with rice and black-eyed peas. While the pork was cooking I made a banoffee pie and some black pudding. I wish I could remember which recipe I used for black pudding last time, as this batch seemed much thicker and not nearly as full of blood.

Hey guys I was gonna make this recipe for pork chops tonight but my friend says flipping every minute + not popping them in the oven will dry the SHIT out of them. What are your thoughts? idk if I've ever made pork chops before!

http://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/new-favorite-pork-chops

Depends on the cut but my preferred bone-in pork chop method is to sear them on both sides them put them in the oven, then make a pan sauce. Flipping any meat every minute seems... wrong?

Agree! Heartily! You want a nice brown Maillard reaction on each side, which it can only get through sustained heat. Flipping it seems like it would prevent browning??

looks like this is in a lot of hot oil, though, so maybe that's the deal

i have never tried this but it makes a lot of sense: http://www.seriouseats.com/2014/03/the-food-lab-pork-chops-blah.html

for the tl;dr set: dry-brine, low oven till near final temp, sear in skillet to finish

I do the reverse sear for tri tip, and it works well

And you need that Maillard reaction for the pan sauce which is like 90% of the reason to even make pork chops.

Pan sauce, Steven D. Pan sauce.

lol

did you see the whole recipe though? doesn't it make a sauce w/ the butter?

I didn't look. You're talking about flipping a pork chop every minute, which is crazy talk, and I'm a busy woman.

lol <3

I'm a frequent meat flipper and am not ashamed.

l-r: pork chop, me

http://tilde.club/~dolnack/images/tlc1.gif

Bone-in and brine are my pork chop musts. I sear and finish in the oven like the other wise folks here. Then while they are resting the spouse makes a pan sauce that involves BACON (pork on pork, why not) and onion and mushrooms and HEAVY CREAM.

We'll be lucky if we make it into our 70s.

Flipped that shit once a minute til the thickest part hit 135 and it got crispy pan seared and oh so juicy so eff the haters #yolo