The Cooking Thread
-
@HardwareGeek said in :
That reminds me, I should make another batch of chili soon. Good cold weather food.
About that. I badly overestimated the volume of my stock pot and underestimated the volume of the ingredients I bought. I have a 12 quart pot, and just the beans that are currently soaking overnight in it have filled it almost to the top as they absorb the water and expand. There's no room for meat, tomatoes, onions, and the other necessary ingredients. I can find bigger stock pots, and even at fairly reasonable prices, but not locally. Since I've already started soaking the beans, I can't wait a week for a bigger pot. I guess I'm going to have to portion the beans and freeze the rest until the next batch of chili. And some of the meat, too, because there's no way I have room for 9 pounds of beef, along with the beans and other ingredients. I thought I might use only half the meat, but it's probably going to be only 1/3 (one 3 lb. package).
-
@HardwareGeek Chili has a bit of a kick.
2.6 pounds (1.2 kg) of beef
3-ish maybe pounds (1.5-ish kg) pinto and black beans — I'm not at all sure how much stayed in the pot and how much went into the freezer
3 cans (5.25 pounds, 2.38 kg) of diced tomatoes
2 red bell peppers
2 onions
6 jalapeños
3+ tbsp chili powder
1 tbsp cayenne powder
1 tbsp paprika
7 anjo chilis (not much heat, nice fruity flavor)
1 tbsp habanero flakes
salt, black pepper, oregano, all the fresh garlic I had left, maybe 6–8 small cloves
the liquid from the tomatoes+2 liters of water, so there was enough liquid to be able to stir it.I thought about getting something even hotter than the habanero, but that's the hottest pepper my usual grocery store carries, and to try to find any at other stores. However, I'm satisfied with the pepper mix I have.
-
@HardwareGeek said in The Cooking Thread:
I'm satisfied with the pepper mix I have.
Yeah, after having eaten a full serving (or two) for dinner, I really wouldn't want it to have been any hotter. The burn in my mouth is mostly faded, but I fear the burn in my stomach is just getting started.
-
COOKING STATUS I made a simple pie for dinner last night. My mother had thoughts.
The food was too hot and the milk was too cold.
She ate most of it though. Usually, she leaves half the plate.
-
@HardwareGeek said in The Cooking Thread:
I fear the burn in my stomach is just getting started.
It was. Due to the spiciness combined with being a bit overfull, and my stomach really seemed to be digesting it rather slowly, I was a bit uncomfortable most of the night. Next time, I might use only 4 or 5 jalapeños, instead of 6, and maybe half a tablespoon of habanero flakes.
-
@HardwareGeek I would suggest that it was entirely the habanero flakes that did it to you. Jalapeños are very mild in comparison.
-
@boomzilla That's entirely possible. If memory serves (which it often doesn't), I doubled the number of jalapeños from the previous batch, and used the flakes instead of 2 fresh habaneros. I don't know what the equivalence is between fresh and dried; it's possible that works out to 10 habaneros, or something.
Regardless of the effect on the spiciness, using fewer jalapeños means less time spent dicing them, and that's a good thing, as long as it doesn't reduce the flavor and heat too much.
-
-
@boomzilla I am sad that I did not discover these when I could still eat them.
-
@boomzilla I've seen this post and now I'm going downstairs for a stroopwafel.
-
INB4 Things that remind you...
-
-
-
@loopback0 I think I've posted before that a long time ago I used to hang out with a bunch of foodies. There was a friend of a friend — not part of the group I hung out with, but known to many of them — who carried around a card that said
ฉันอยากกินอาหารไทยร้อนๆ บ้าเอ้ย!
(or something like that; if it's not quite right, blame Google Translate). "I want my Thai food hot, dammit!"
-
-
@dcon said in The Cooking Thread:
@accalia Sounds like she needs a bit of "Last Dab" (from Hot Ones)
Sydney would probably use it as mouthwash. :D
-
@HardwareGeek said in The Cooking Thread:
@loopback0 I think I've posted before that a long time ago I used to hang out with a bunch of foodies. There was a friend of a friend — not part of the group I hung out with, but known to many of them — who carried around a card that said
ฉันอยากกินอาหารไทยร้อนๆ บ้าเอ้ย!
(or something like that; if it's not quite right, blame Google Translate). "I want my Thai food hot, dammit!"
I believe in that same conversation I brought up my friend's father who lived in Thailand for a long time, and spent some time in a Thai prison (but that is another story, this guy is as close to Indiana Jones as I have ever met) who taught me that if you want authentically hot Thai food in the US you have to order "Thai hot". If you just order "hot" they will make it spicy to American standards. They have to differentiate it because Americans that ordered "hot" and they made it spicy to Thai standards it would frequently get sent back.
I believe I have also mentioned that when I order food "Thai hot" and someone asks to try it they always take one bite and look like they have been tear gassed. It also keeps my wife from eating my leftovers.
-
Yeah, the looks you get when you order 'thai hot' (or any other authentic hot dish) and then proceed to enjoy it are great.
-
@HardwareGeek said in The Cooking Thread:
ร้อนๆ
ron-ron = really hot (temperature)
เผ็ด phed = spicy (hot spices)
Well, ambient temperature food is a thing often found at markets. And not always the food can be heated up there...
-
@BernieTheBernie Like I said, blame Google translate. I can't even read the script, much less the language. (Contrast with Greek — I can read the script and know simple vocabulary and grammar — or Cyrillic — I know most of the letters and can recognize a few words. Thai script I know not at all.)
-
-
@loopback0 Two hours for a single slice of toast???
-
@HardwareGeek Anything worth doing is worth doing slowly to some.
-
@HardwareGeek said in The Cooking Thread:
@loopback0 Two hours for a single slice of toast???
Duh. It's slow cooked.
-
@loopback0 said in The Cooking Thread:
am curious..... how crispy will it be, the slow cooker keeps most of the moisture from the bred in rahter than drivig it off like a toaster would.... i am tempted to try this, just to see hoe it differes from 5 minute toast in the toaster
-
-
@Luhmann said in The Cooking Thread:
@accalia said in The Cooking Thread:
5 minute toast in the toaster
so you prefer black too?
Once you go black, you never go back.
-
@Luhmann said in The Cooking Thread:
@accalia said in The Cooking Thread:
5 minute toast in the toaster
so you prefer black too?
no. but on 110 Volt toasters don't toast as fast as they do at 220 Volt.
-
-
@Zerosquare said in The Cooking Thread:
Yes, but on the other hand...
-looks at the picture-
yeeeup.
-scratches my belly-
thar's yer problem. some idjit made yer toaster outta fooking dinosaur goop.
-
@accalia I was recently one of the targets of a monologue by a family member who'd read a book scaremongering that lots of other things (like sand and iron) are finite resources.
-
@PleegWat said in The Cooking Thread:
@accalia I was recently one of the targets of a monologue by a family member who'd read a book scaremongering that lots of other things (like sand and iron) are finite resources.
well..... sand is a finite resource.... sure there's assloads of the stuff, but so much of it's not suitable for the uses we want it for. that's actually starting to be an issue for construction. but like.... we're not running out of it so much as it's just gonna get harder to use as we're using up the naturally produced stuff faster than natural processes make the kinda sand we want so we'll have to create artificial ways to do it.
and iron.... yeah that's finite, but honestly it might as well be considered infinite. we'll run into a lot more other limiting factors before we run out of iron.
-
@accalia said in The Cooking Thread:
and iron.... yeah that's finite, but honestly it might as well be considered infinite. we'll run into a lot more other limiting factors before we run out of iron.
Simple. Just drill a hole to the Earth's core and pump it out; it's already liquid. (Note: I said simple, not easy.)
-
@HardwareGeek said in The Cooking Thread:
@accalia said in The Cooking Thread:
and iron.... yeah that's finite, but honestly it might as well be considered infinite. we'll run into a lot more other limiting factors before we run out of iron.
Simple. Just drill a hole to the Earth's core and pump it out; it's already liquid. (Note: I said simple, not easy.)
or just find iron nickle asteroids and deorbit them and pick up the pieces from teh craters.
-
@accalia "Here's a nickel, kid; go buy yourself a better asteroid." (And a better spell checker. )
-
-
@HardwareGeek said in The Cooking Thread:
@accalia "Here's a nickel, kid; go buy yourself a better asteroid." (And a better spell checker. )
We used to call them tyop's or accalia's.
-
@accalia said in The Cooking Thread:
no. but on 110 Volt toasters don't toast as fast as they do at 220 Volt.
220V toasters have higher resistances than 110V toasters. Get that wrong and one way will hardly heat up at all, and the other way will demonstrate a magic smoke event.
-
@dkf said in The Cooking Thread:
a magic smoke event.
As opposed to an ordinary smoke event when you toast the bread too long.
-
@HardwareGeek said in The Cooking Thread:
@dkf said in The Cooking Thread:
a magic smoke event.
As opposed to an ordinary smoke event when you toast the bread too long.
4 hours in the slow cooker?
-
@loopback0 said in The Cooking Thread:
@HardwareGeek said in The Cooking Thread:
@dkf said in The Cooking Thread:
a magic smoke event.
As opposed to an ordinary smoke event when you toast the bread too long.
4 hours in the slow cooker?
It shouldn't need to be said, but in case anyone wonders, no you cannot toast bread in a Crock-Pot. The temperature doesn't get high enough to cause a Maillard reaction in the starches and sugars in the bread. At best you would end up with really flavorless croutons. Most likely you would end up with gross paste as the moisture in the bread would evaporate and then condense on the lid and run back down. Instead of being relatively evenly dispersed in the bread it would end up concentrated on the outside.
If you want to replicate the results without expending all of the energy just take a piece of stale bread and sit it in a plate with a few teaspoons of water. It should yield substantially similar results.
-
It’s another straya day!
It sorta collapsed a bit while putting half a kilogram of decorations on, but seems to be pretty decent inside:
Maybe next year I’ll manage the perfect pavlova. Tastes fine all the same, of course.
-
@kazitor said in The Cooking Thread:
It’s another straya day!......It sorta collapsed a bit while putting half a kilogram of decorations on, but seems to be pretty decent inside.......Tastes fine all the same, of course.
It still looks pretty. Maybe not perfect, but perfectly presentable. While you're pointing out the "mistake" to people they are likely asking for another piece.
For some reason it reminds me of what I was taught about baking cheesecake. The perfect cheesecake will not have cracks in it after baking. They don't hurt the flavor, they're just not aesthetic. So if your cheesecake cracks just dust it with crushed up graham crackers and no one will ever notice.
-
@Polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
The perfect cheesecake will not have cracks in it after baking.
The perfect cheesecake has an experimentally-determined half-life in the order of nanoseconds (before I eat it!) so there isn't much of a chance to observe whether it has cracks in the surface or not.
-
@dkf said in The Cooking Thread:
The perfect cheesecake has an experimentally-determined half-life in the order of nanoseconds (before I eat it!) so there isn't much of a chance to observe whether it has cracks in the surface or not.
I'm not big on sweets and desserts. They're just not something I seek out or generally crave. But my kids think that I have a sweet tooth because if there is cheesecake in the house I will eat the entire thing within a day or two.
I've never given the slightest shit if a cheesecake is cracked either.
-
@Polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
I'm not big on sweets and desserts. They're just not something I seek out or generally crave.
Speaking of, one thing I hate about the "gourmet cupcake" craze that started several years ago is that those cupcakes are 75% icing by volume and 95% icing by weight, and the icing is always incredibly rich and cloying. I just can't do it.
For those in saner areas of the world that may not be affected by this idiocy, this is what I mean:
I've had cupcakes served to me that have way more icing than that. I'm not even certain how you're supposed to eat one. You can't bite it, and cupcakes should be able to be eaten by hand.
I mean, I guess you can, but then I end up with icing in my beard and crumbs all over the place.
-
@Polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
the "gourmet cupcake" craze that started several years ago
-
Would have called it a Polish taco. Pollaco?
-
@boomzilla said in The Cooking Thread:
Pollaco
Considering the similarity to the derogatory term "Polack", that might be similar to calling a taco a "spic sandwich".
Not that I would find it offensive, but let's acknowledge that is a pretty poor barometer.
-
@Polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
Considering the similarity to the derogatory term "Polack", that might be similar to calling a taco a "spic sandwich".