Made a whole lot of spaghetti with red sauce and sausage.
Got about 6lbs of canned san marzanos and crushed 'em up by hand and threw 'em in the pressure cooker for 45mins along with two big halved carrots and two halved white onions along with plenty of crushed garlic, some black and red pepper, salt, oregano and basil, 2lbs chopped up sausages and about half a bottle of a decent Chianti. Tonged out the carrot and onions when it was done.
Ground chicken with serrano pepper and yellow + red bell pepper and some seasonings. I like to make about 2lbs at a time. Made for chicken tacos, leftovers will get used for either frito bowls, chili macaroni, or a pot of chili if desperate. I'd make more at once if my freezer were larger.
My mom has a meat grinder I want to borrow to make my own out of chicken thighs, but I think the mess would be a pain to clean after.
Gonna make chili tomorrow; would pinto, kidney and garbanzo be a good bean combo?
As far as most recent I made squash pancakes just to get rid of the damn things someone else decided to grow. Green onion, garlic, egg, flour, too much salt or baking soda I think. Didn't measure at all.
Update on my chicken bone broth. After it was simmering for a literal day I strained and jarred it. Got just over 3 quarts out of it. I left it in the fridge for a day and skimmed off the layer of fat on top of the jars.
I can tell it's got a lot of collagen since the broth is basically jelly when cold. Warmed it up in a mug with a pinch of salt and...it's pretty pleasant. Just enough seasoning to come through. I simmered a sliced lemon with it but wasn't sure the 24 hours would make the flavor go away. It did not.
I'm going to try pork bone broth next, when I'm done with these jars.
Shit I forgot about this thread it was absolutely delicious tbh. I added a little bit of honey and soy sauce to the pasta as it finished and used scallions rather than parsley. Chitalian needs to be a thing
Playing around and trying to get used to my (not) instant pot. Decided to try cooking dirt-poor/redneck food (which I fucking love to death) — Tuna Helper! Stock photo of boxed dinner. Hand-man with the spoon seems happy enough, so it must be good!
Yes my fellow poorfags or folk who grew up in working-class America (MAYBE Canada — I don’t understand you bagged-milk faggots). THIS dish was a highlight of my childhood. Is it good? Meh, but I don’t care. It’s 100% comfort food (and cheap AF). So when I learned you can make it in an instant pot/pressure cooker in 6 minutes w/o stirring/babysitting it, I was, you could say, very interested.
I took my Crock-Pot branded multi cooker (NOT an instant pot, but worked the same) and added the canned tuna (cheapest store-brand in water of course), the butter, the milk, the seasoning packet, and the water following the box instructions. Made sure noodles were SLIGHTLY submerged in liquid and sealed the lid. Rule of thumb for pressure cookers w/ pasta is half the time minus one. Box said 14 minutes, so I set HIGH pressure at 6 minutes. I let it go up to steam, cook, and finally quick release immediately afterwards. Once it’s OK to open, I take off lid and it looks like shit. HOWEVER, you must stir vigorously and it then turns out perfect. After stirring and waiting 5+ minutes, me happy tuna helper looks just as good as I remember from childhood: Results after stirring and waiting 5+ minutes. Plz don't doxx me and my (not) instant pot...
Is it appetizing-looking enough to put in a magazine photo? FUCK NO! This is poor people childhood food! The smell, texture, and taste brings me back to the days playing Warcraft 3 on a shit-bitch laptop after school in the afternoon. Nostalgia memories passed, I can now make childhood-happy meals that are dirt-cheap in one pot w/o really thinking (even when inebriated!). The (not) instant pot cooker may be the best thing that entered my life — I can make fancy AF dishes AND cheap childhood favorites w/o thinking.
This was my attempt at a Something Awful-esque review/recipe. Hopefully my humor/entertainment attempt came across well.
Bread! This was my first try using Adam Raguesas recipe, it was REALLY easy and turned out fantastic. Going to use the leftovers for french toast today.
A youtuber I watch had a 'taqueria pork bowl' Hellofresh advertisement so I went and made my own, Esquites, rice with lime, nicely seasoned ground pork, sour cream and cheese. Tastes like heaven.
Last thing I cooked was tuna stuffed rice balls and yakitori kebabs with pineapple. Cooked on my panini grill because fuck going outside in this weather.
Made some Korean dish of which i can't remember the name of yesterday, got it from Maangchi's channel ages ago but have changed some things up over the years to suit my tastes more.
Marinated 600g of pork butt with some shaoxing wine, light soysauce, dash of MSG and some cornstarch. Minced a thumb of ginger and three cloves garlic, chopped a white onion, finely chopped two scallions. Pan on high heat, oil, put meat in, let it get a nice crust, out of the pan. Added more oil, put in the white onion, stir-fried it for a bit, added ginger and garlic, stir-fried some more, then added the meat back in. Big dollop of korean chili paste now, around 2tbsp in freedom units, i guess. Korean chili flakes after that, 1tbsp, and a dash of brown sugar, after that the scallions, keeping some of the green for garnish. Finished with a splash of light soy sauce and roasted sesame oil.
No picture of the finished dish but GF wanted to eat the dish again today so have a pic of my prep work, or Mise en Place for the fancier kind of faggot, instead, taken with my incredibly shitty phone camera:
Had left over meat sauce/bolognese in the fridge. But I decided to do it a bit different, instead of putting the sauce on the pasta I would do the opposite. Heated the sauce and boiled pasta, mixed the finished pasta in the pan with garlic and butter, spread the sauce on the plate and put the buttery pasta on top. For a fast leftover dinner it was pretty decent and there's is certainly room for improvement.
Today on the supper menu: Grilled turkey burgers. Hand pressed with rosemary olive oil, salt and pepper (because fucking Trader Joe’s is an hour away from BFE). Served with smoked paprika mayo and lightly pickled Vidalia onions on Kaiser rolls. Success!
Had left over meat sauce/bolognese in the fridge. But I decided to do it a bit different, instead of putting the sauce on the pasta I would do the opposite. Heated the sauce and boiled pasta, mixed the finished pasta in the pan with garlic and butter, spread the sauce on the plate and put the buttery pasta on top. For a fast leftover dinner it was pretty decent and there's is certainly room for improvement.
Leftover bolognese is better than fresh and no one can change my mind. The pasta just needs to be freshly cooked and it's golden, so give yourself a bit more credit for your lovely meal.
tax:
I've been cooking an unusually high amount of beef lately. I should probably back off from it a bit for budget and cholesterol-related reasons. We don't have high cholesterol and I need to be more mindful about doing my duty to keep it that way. Please eat your chicken and fish for most of your meaty meals, Kiwis.
Found some chicken breasts on the freezer, so I let them thaw, sliced them good and threw in some spice mixes (coarse salt, paprika, mint, garlic, black pepper, mustard plus some others), put the slices on a bowl and added just enough vinegar to fill it a little and let them marinate for 2 hours while I was out taking care of some errands. Came back, added some flour for the breading and fried them on fresh sunflower oil, just enough to get them golden brown, tasted great!
The vinegar added to the flavour and didn't let the salt and the spices overwhelm the meat's flavour. They were just right, not overdone and far from dry and chewy, the secret is cutting them just right so you don't get slices that are either too thin or too thick to keep the cooking time consistent. Great meal!
Nostalgia memories passed, I can now make childhood-happy meals that are dirt-cheap in one pot w/o really thinking (even when inebriated!). The (not) instant pot cooker may be the best thing that entered my life — I can make fancy AF dishes AND cheap childhood favorites w/o thinking.
