The Thread About Food for Eating Returns (Again)

[hm yeah]

holy shit you wouldn't believe how addicted to little oranges i am

 

[GRANDnumberofMULTIPLES]

I've been on a real pork kick lately.

This was New Year's Day dinner.

Spoiler: Pork Chops in a white wine/dijon gravy recipe

I eyeball this recipe and a lot of it is done on taste so feel free to tweak it. Served up with some green beans sauteed in butter and salt/pepper and some roasted red potatoes on the side.
Thicker chops are best for this. I prefer bone-in since they seem to be juicier but boneless also works just fine. Pat dry, season each side with salt and pepper. Get your pan good and hot and the fat of your choice. I prefer olive oil or butter if I'm being extravagant. Toss some crushed garlic cloves in with the chops, searing and ensuring that they are cooked through because food poisoning is not romantic, delicious, or fun. For the love of god use a spatula or tongs and don't stab your meat.
Move to a plate to rest and tent with foil or something to keep warm. Add at least a half cup of white wine (I used pinot grigio) to the pan to deglaze all the delicious stuck bits. Add some chicken broth mixed with a bit of flour to thicken things up. Using a whisk is my preferred gravymaking equipment
Keep reducing this delicious sauce and add your dijon. I like mine spicy so I use a good squirt or two. When everything has reached your desired thickness and taste add any juice the chops have left on the plate, give it a final stir, and serve.

If you want boss green beans I highly suggest you parboil for about two minutes and then shock in cold water before you prepare them your favorite way. That way they're not the nasty overcooked things you probably remember.

This is something I made for my family.

Spoiler: Garlic-studded Pork Loin with Balsamic Reduction

You'll need lots of garlic. Peel and lightly crush the cloves, inserting them about an inch apart on the top surface of your roast. Give it a good rubdown with some olive oil. I crusted the roast itself with pink Hawaiian salt (though I imagine some kosher or sea salt would work fine too), fresh black pepper, thyme, a little dry mustard, and crushed rosemary. Reduce balsamic vinegar until it's thick and then pour it on the roast. Do not turn your back on the reduction because there is a very short threshold between "this is good" and "oh god it's a column of charcoal rising from the pot."
This is also a great time to toss your potatoes in with the roast. I lightly toss them in olive oil and a little salt and pepper. Cook until it's done (always varies depending on your roast thickness) but use a higher temp, like 450 or 475 so you don't dry that shit out.
Remove from the roasting pan and separate the potatoes out because we're gonna make our gravy in that pan. Pull the cloves of garlic out because you will regret the day you were born if you chomp one and add those to the pan. Keep the meat warm in the meantime. Add your chicken broth (how much depends on how much gravy you want and how big your roast is) and flour (shake a little at a time in; we're not baking a cake here) and cook to your desired thickness.
Carve your roast or don't, I'm not here to tell you how to eat it but it makes for a nice presentation with that delicious crust. Top with craisins if you're into that and ponder serving up some applesauce too. Applesauce is a natural friend of pork. Serve and enjoy the adoration.

 

[hm yeah]

spaghettios were a guilty pleasure of mine. i haven't had them in ages, and proper spag in quite some time. and now that i'm just sticking to the veggie spag, you know that when you prepare them "correctly" you drain out a lot of color and nutrients and flavor in that water? besides, with our shitty local water, we haul drinking water. drinking water is probably something you all take for granted, by the way.

so what i did was i just got some tomato sauce going.

1 16oz can tomato sauce, with a bit of water added
1 16oz can diced tomatoes, undrained
oregano, thyme, rosemary, onion powder, garlic powder, and basil at the end

got that going for a bit, then just added dry veggie noodles right in there and just let it simmer while covered. then i diced up some spanish stuffed olives and let those stew in there for a bit. added some olive oil at the end.

it's really, really good. definitely a keeper. sometimes vinegar is nice on it.

as for bread, looks like we'll just be having whole wheat for a while.

1 cup water
1 tsp salt
2.5 cup whole wheat flour
1 tbsp gluten
1 tbsp sugar
2 tsp active dry yeast
3 tbsp molasses
1 tbsp canola oil

 

[hm yeah]

don't go to the store a lot, and i gotta save money for booze, y'know? but i'm being wiser about money. and it really doesn't take much to make me happy.

been meaning to be mindful of getting some brown rice and probably bananas each time i visit a store. today i got some italian spices, broc, and red cabbage.

i'm going to just fry some shit up on the stove tonight. whatever it will be, i'm sure it will be delicious.

 

[GRANDnumberofMULTIPLES]

I have been a little weird about food lately (which happens from time to time for a laundry list of reasons that I'm not gonna get into but this time I was really sick for like four days) and spent last week eating homemade chicken soup. Apart from the broth, that is. Fuck if I'm going to boil down chicken bones and make stock when I'm delirious with fever.

Today I got adventurous and made tuna salad. I'm always trying to improve it and have only gotten better. With one 5 oz can of tuna I added:
-Half an avocado (other half will be for tomorrow)
-chopped celery (one stalk)
-squirt of lemon
-fresh ground black pepper
-one chopped shoyu tamago (recipe here: http://www.eatyrgreens.com/shoyu-tamago-soy-sauce-eggs/ -- you will pretty much want to do this to all your hard boiled eggs from now on)
-one small spoonful of mayonnaise. This is especially helpful if you add more ingredients to the tuna (ie, more than just avo/spices) because I noticed that lots of egg/celery/onion can get too crumbly. Actual mayo tastes so much better and binds it well too. I'm fond of the Best Foods/Hellman's with olive oil.

I would have added some chopped pickles but I was so hungry I forgot. No red onion in the house either but it was still very enjoyable. I ate it scooped onto a few whole wheat crackers. Unlike some "lighter" things I've made/bought for lunch I actually feel full but not so full I'm gonna pass out in the middle of a work meeting.

 

[hm yeah]

i absolutely seriously need to get to the store because the house is like a food desert again.

with my limited resources, i made some of what i'll call "purple soup".

- water, salted
- arbitrary amounts of fenugreek, fennel seed, and coriander. whatever smelled good.
- yellow onion, garlic, celery
- red cabbage
- black pepper

boiled it for maybe an hour because i'm not made of patience.

indeed it's purple and has a mild flavor and is a bit sweet.

 

[sm0t]

I make a mean shepherd's pie. I browned the beef in Guinness. Last time I used a red ale which also came out tasty, but this extra stout really brings out the savoriness of the meat.

 

[GRANDnumberofMULTIPLES]

I made the mistake of shoving a burrito in my face for a late lunch and only now just ate dinner. I made a slim little sandwich with swiss, oven-roasted turkey lunchmeat, a little dijon and a healthy spread of mayo. Served with some veggie straws (for crunch, I'm not deluding myself into pretending they're ~thuper healthy~) and red wine.
I fucking love (the right amount of) mayonnaise. For the longest time I could only do it on club sandwiches.

 

[Trombonista]

Normally I take an apple for my serving of fruit for lunch, but tomorrow I'm going with mango and strawberries.

 

[GRANDnumberofMULTIPLES]

I made my first mayo-fried grilled cheese. The mayo doesn't burn quickly like butter, won't destroy your bread straight from the fridge, and adds a nice subtle tangy flavor. If you do this don't use Miracle Whip because you need the eggs/oil from real mayo to brown and get crispy. MW will just burn. The benefit to using mayo is that the cheese on the inside has a chance to get nice and melty while you get a good crisp outside. Just replace the outside butter with the same amount of mayo.

For my boyfriend's birthday I seared us New York strip steaks, blanched and sautéed green beans in a little butter, salt, and pepper, and made garlic mashed red potatoes.

Two days later there were still some leftovers. I split the last bit of steak between us, fried the green beans in some chopped bacon, and made cheddar-garlic mashed potato cakes.

 

[hm yeah]

just loaded up with green cabbage, some mixed greens, eggplant, apples, bananas, broccoli, and

some kroger veggie chips because it's been a while

i'mma have some eggplant with cocktail sauce. it's better than it sounds.

the chips are saltier than i remember.

 

[rocket]

there's no meat in that dish which provokes my knee-jerk urge to judge you, @hm yeah

but it is defeated in the face of how delicious that sounds

 

[Magpie]

So I felt shitty today and decided I needed some comfort food - this time in the form of a roast. Decided on chicken and potatoes, pretty simple and good if done right. And oh god did I ever do it right.

The potatoes are simple enough. Peel and cut em up, then parboil them in salted water (cover with cold water, bring to rolling boil, then vigorously simmer for two minutes). Drain in a colander and shake the hell out of them to make the outside fluffy, then coat in a couple teaspoons of flour (I used cornflour - roomie can't have gluten) and shake again. Plop them in a pan of preheated oil (100ml of oil in a 200 degrees Celsius oven) turn to coat, then roast for 15 minutes. Turn them, give them another 15, then turn them again. Bake for another 10-20 minutes until they're that amazing golden brown. Audibly crispy outside, light and fluffy inside. Little blobs of heaven.

The chicken was first patted dry with paper towel to help the skin crisp up. I then seasoned them with a rub that was a mix of whatever sounded good on my spice rack, so that was mostly salt, black pepper, mixed herbs + a little extra parsley, then garlic and onion powder/granules (not salt). For good measure I also drizzled over the juice of a lemon. The only added fat/oil was a light drizzle to coat the pan, but in hindsight it would have worked on a rack to further crisp the skin. Baked uncovered in a 200 degree (C) oven for roughly 40 minutes. Came out perfect and so tender and juicy that when I cut into it, it squirted across the desk. Lots of flavor too without being overbearing.

Then there was just some sweetcorn on the side and onion gravy (made with granules because effort). Needless to say I am feeling SO much better now, and I think the can of Red Bull I had earlier might be helping.

 

[nad7155]

The potatoes are simple enough.....

That looks delicious!

 

[Ravenor]

Would anyone like some bread recipes? I have a bunch I cook regularly and I am willing to share.

 

[cheersensei]

I made myself something I haven't had since my birthday...a nice Guinness float. Guinness Extra Stout and Mukilteo Mudd ice cream...

 

[Magpie]

Tonight to go on the streak of making stuff from scratch just because I can I decided to so some homemade burgers and chips made with similar logic applied to the roast I did yesterday.

For the burgers I took 500g of mince and a few rashers of diced bacon and mixed them together, cracked in an egg, chucked in a handful of breadcrumbs, then for seasoning I added a splash of Worcestershire sauce, ground in salt and black pepper, then put in some parsley and garlic + onion granules because I couldn't be asked to peel and chop all that. Shaped out four quarter-pound patties and let them chill in the fridge for an hour before frying them over medium heat until they were well done (only well done because of the bacon, plus undercooked mince squicks the shit out of me). I put some slices of medium cheddar and a rasher of bacon over each and covered the pan with foil to let the cheese melt as I waited on the chips.

The chips were pretty much done by the same rules as the roast potatoes last night. I increased the cooking temp in the oven to 230 degrees Celsius, and the timing was different, but the process was pretty much the same. Peel and slice up the potatoes into approximately chip-sized, then parboil em and rough them up in a colander. Add in some cornflour, shake em again, then plop them in a pan of preheated oil. I also added some seasoning consisting of salt, pepper, and garlic granules. Pretty much a wait and watch game with these. I turned them twice in the roughly 30-40 minute cooking time until they got really nice and crispy, then I took them out of the pan and shook off the excess oil in a bowl lined with paper towel.

The burgers are tasty but I am still trying to figure out a seasoning mix I like in em. Room for improvement. Chips are fab as hell. All in all, a successful mealtime. :>

 

[Fialovy]

If you want a good ramen recipe, just use some that liquid soup, the kind you get in cartons. Tomato juice is good if you want something spaghetti, but any soup and yield really tasty results.

Here an example of what I mean, as long as it is liquid without anything too chunky in it it is good, you can likely find some inexpensive tomato soup which will make really good makeshift spaghetti. Instead of water, what you do is let the noodles cook in the soup without the seasoning packet in the microwwave until the noodles are cooked making sure to stir every two minutes (it typically for my microwave takes at least six to eight minutes) and the soup is a thick, saucy consistency, then boom, you have a really delicious pasta dish and you feel a little more classier.

I've also been experimenting in making my own cashew/any nut butter you like sauce in the microwave for ramen as well.

 

[hm yeah]

got some homemade whole wheat bread and put in some mustard, onion, and spinach.

in the pan i put canola oil and garlic.

i cooked it like a grilled cheese sandwich and ate it and didn't care.

oh yeah, let's see if i can recall my generic whole wheat bread recipe off the top of my head

small loaf (takes 4h30m to make)

1 cup water
1 tsp salt
2 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 tbsp sugar
2 tsp ad yeast
1 tbsp gluten, i guess
4 tbsp molasses
1 tbsp canola oil

setting 4 on my mr.coffee bread machine

seems about right. gotta let it air out for a while or it'll be soggy.

 

[ASoulMan]

Today, I made what was essentially an oatmeal pancake for breakfast using oatmeal, milk, eggs, and sugar. Fried it in butter and got something that was so good that I didn't need any syrup whatsoever. I also fried up goetta to compliment it.

It was an idea that was brewing inside my head one day and didn't become reality until now. It was worth it.