The Cooking Thread
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So, my parents came over to my house for dinner tonight. They don't ever get trick or treaters at their house (1/2 mile long dirt driveways are not inviting) so they come to my house, as I get lots of them.
For dinner I tried my hand at making Fettuccine Alfredo from scratch. It turned out well enough, the noodles were a little thick as I don't have a pasta press. But the Alfredo sauce was super rich and creamy which more than made up for it. I baked some croissants and grilled some asparagus for the sides.
All in all I would call it a success. Though I think I might invest in a pasta press if I am going to keep making pasta.
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@Polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
Today I am downstairs working and the wife is home. Suddenly I hear her screaming bloody murder. I take off running up the stairs to see what is the matter. I get to the kitchen, her eyes are streaming with tears, her face is flush, and she is fanning her face. Before her was a block of cheese she had bought for me and decided to try. Ghost pepper cheese.
I chuckle, cut myself off a slice and take a bite. I really don't know what all her commotion was about. It really wasn't that hot.
That being said, while I like heat I think the reaper peppers and ghost peppers and all of that are highly overrated. All heat, no flavor. Very one dimensional in flavor profile.
Some masochism is sexual. Some is culinary.
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@anotherusername said in The Cooking Thread:
(carefully... the object is to smell it, not to inhale any of the dust)
That's literally what the sense of smell is. Small particles from the object get lodged in your nose.
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@pie_flavor said in The Cooking Thread:
@anotherusername said in The Cooking Thread:
(carefully... the object is to smell it, not to inhale any of the dust)
That's literally what the sense of smell is. Small particles from the object get lodged in your nose.
Yes, but there's a difference between inhaling a vapor and a particulate. The vapor -- off-gassing from the volatile oils and other compounds in the pepper -- isn't terribly spicy. The pepper itself is.
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@Dragoon said in The Cooking Thread:
But the Alfredo sauce was super rich and creamy which more than made up for it.
I believe I've posted it before but this recipe almost gets it right:
I substitute cream for the milk. That base is also what I use for mac and cheese, except no garlic and cheddar (including some Cabot habanero cheddar if I don't expect the kids to be eating it) instead of parmesan.
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@anotherusername I didn't even try to smell it. I don't want it anywhere near my nose, because the one time I actually ate a piece of a real Carolina Reaper, I got a nosebleed from it. This powder might as well be bear spray.
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@mott555 said in The Cooking Thread:
This powder might as well be bear spray.
Spray-on bears! I always wanted some of those…
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@Polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
Suddenly I hear her screaming bloody murder. I take off running up the stairs, gun in hand, to see what is the matter.
FTFY
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@TimeBandit said in The Cooking Thread:
@Polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
Suddenly I hear her screaming bloody murder. I take off running up the stairs, gun in hand, to see what is the matter.
FTFY
Well, yeah, I just decided to leave that detail out. :)
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@TimeBandit
Nobody shoots mice better than this!
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@mott555 said in The Cooking Thread:
@anotherusername I didn't even try to smell it. I don't want it anywhere near my nose, because the one time I actually ate a piece of a real Carolina Reaper, I got a nosebleed from it. This powder might as well be bear spray.
As long as you're not trying to snort it, or inhaling the steam coming off something you're cooking, and you don't touch the lid to your nose by accident, you should be just fine.
You're really more likely to have something bad happen as a result of just getting a few specks of the stuff on your hands and not realizing it than you are by smelling the container.
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@anotherusername said in The Cooking Thread:
You're really more likely to have something bad happen as a result of just getting a few specks of the stuff on your hands and not realizing it than you are by smelling the container.
As a contacts wearer I can attest that there are other hazards involved in the handling of capsaicin heavy food stuffs.
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@anotherusername said in The Cooking Thread:
You're really more likely to have something bad happen as a result of just getting a few specks of the stuff on your hands and not realizing it than you are by smelling the container.
IOW, you'll be fine if you don't open the container
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@TimeBandit Or touch it.
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@anotherusername or be in the same building as it.
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I've had this for a little more than two months, and already it's starting to look like I need to reorder...
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@Polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
@anotherusername said in The Cooking Thread:
You're really more likely to have something bad happen as a result of just getting a few specks of the stuff on your hands and not realizing it than you are by smelling the container.
As a contacts wearer I can attest that there are other hazards involved in the handling of capsaicin heavy food stuffs.
As a man, I can attest that getting capsaicin on your hands and then feeling the call of nature can lead to disaster. Or at least wishing for some ice.
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@dkf
Even mistaking your dandruff shampoo for your body wash is going to give you a bad, bad morning.
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I put about 25 atoms of Reaper powder on a Tombstone pizza last night. It was too much. And I pooped three times this morning and I regret it all. I want to take my pants off, spread my cheeks wide, and fill the bathtub with aloe vera gel and sit in it.
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@mott555 said in The Cooking Thread:
I put about 25 atoms of Reaper powder on a Tombstone pizza last night. It was too much. And I pooped three times this morning and I regret it all. I want to take my pants off, spread my cheeks wide, and fill the bathtub with aloe vera gel and sit in it.
And thus the Cooking thread and the Nope thread are merged and become The Noping Thread
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@mott555 said in The Cooking Thread:
I put about 25 atoms of Reaper powder on a Tombstone pizza last night. It was too much. And I pooped three times this morning and I regret it all. I want to take my pants off, spread my cheeks wide, and fill the bathtub with aloe vera gel and sit in it.
I really didn't need that image in my head but it still made me chuckle.
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@boomzilla Amazon!
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I made this on Monday:
It's definitely bread-like. Unfortunately I only got low carb, not no carb whey protein but I'm pretty pleased with it. It will never replace actual bread but now I can have something like toast with my eggs, or whatever. It's also very expensive compared to bread, but it's also very dense, so it's best with thin slices, so at least it goes a long ways.
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@boomzilla said in The Cooking Thread:
it's also very dense, so it's best with thin slices
That reminds me, I need to try baking holiday fruitcake* with gluten-free flour.
* It's not the ordinary holiday fruitcake that everybody hates. It doesn't have any icky candied citrus peel, only dates and cherries. And chocolate! My ex-wife once said the recipe for it was the only good thing to come from her first marriage (she got it from her ex-mother-in-law).
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@HardwareGeek Fruitcake is probably one thing where gluten-free flour wouldn't make much of a difference. There isn't supposed to be very much cake with the fruit anyhow.
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@anotherusername said in The Cooking Thread:
Fruitcake is probably one thing where gluten-free flour wouldn't make much of a difference.
Cookies seem to work pretty well, too. I've had store-bought shortbread and imitation Oreos®, and both were nearly indistinguishable from the real thing (except by the price!). I don't remember whether I posted about it here, but I made some chocolate chip cookies following the recipe on a bag of Trader Joe's almond flour, and they're really good. I packed the last 2 (of about 3 dozen) for my lunch today, and they're on the "make again, soon" list.
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@HardwareGeek I will have to try that recipe.
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@Polygeekery The recipe as written makes soft, chewy cookies, so if you like that style, you'll probably love them; if you prefer crispy cookies, maybe not. The gluten-free flour doesn't seem to brown the way wheat flour does (or maybe my oven runs rather cool; I should see if my oven thermometer is in one of the boxes of kitchen stuff I haven't gotten around to unpacking), so I baked them a bit longer than the recipe said to get them to look done.
I also recommend the addition of walnuts, but YMMV.
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@HardwareGeek said in The Cooking Thread:
The recipe as written makes soft, chewy cookies, so if you like that style, you'll probably love them
I do. Putting it on the list of things to make.
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@HardwareGeek said in The Cooking Thread:
I also recommend the addition of walnuts, but YMMV.
Why would you ruin perfectly good cookies with walnuts?
I don't dislike nuts, I just don't like them in my food. Walnuts in brownies are the worst. I will spit out every last one (gross, I know).
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QOOC fodder<.small>
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@Karla so I take it you don't like nuts in your mouth?
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@Polygeekery said in The Cooking Thread:
@Karla so I take it you don't like nuts in your mouth?
No, I will eat nuts plain. They just can't be mixed with any other food.
EDIT: Well, except for almonds. Because fuck almonds.
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@Karla I'm not sure how one would do that, but I think I'd rather eat them. Which I am doing right now, as a matter of fact.
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@HardwareGeek said in The Cooking Thread:
@Karla I'm not sure how one would do that, but I think I'd rather eat them. Which I am doing right now, as a matter of fact.
Blech.
Though I do like almond flavor so maybe it is just the texture I don't like.
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@Karla They're not my favorite nuts — pecans, probably, followed by walnuts — but they're one of the free snacks available at work, and the omega-3 fatty acids in nuts are supposed to be good for my HDL level, so I eat them. And Jelly Bellys, which aren't good for my anything.
Also, I bought a bottle of almond extract the other day, but I can't remember now what I had in mind to do with it.
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This is a remarkably good deal. $200 for an outfitted Kitchen Aid mixer.
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@Polygeekery The fuck? Why the deus is a stand mixer that expensive? I've been contemplating looking into one if I'm gonna keep making myself cookies, because I have noodle-arms and using a spoon to mix gets tiring quick, but I don't know if it's worth THAT much.
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@e4tmyl33t The good ones are built like tanks and last forever.
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@e4tmyl33t said in The Cooking Thread:
Why the deus is a stand mixer that expensive?
They are very high quality and they last forever, along with having tons of attachments you can use with them. KitchenAid mixers are absolutely worth it. I am a cheap bastard, but I do not regret buying my KitchenAid mixer 15 years ago because it still works perfectly despite making easily several hundred batches of pizza dough and countless amounts of cookie dough and whipped cream and other such things.
Keep in mind that IIRC I paid ~$240 for mine when I found a Sears store that was closing and having a fire sale. Amazon has that same basic mixer for ~$280. If you enjoy cooking and baking buy once and cry once. Get the KitchenAid and you will not regret it.
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@Karla said in The Cooking Thread:
Though I do like almond flavor so maybe it is just the texture I don't like.
Remember: the best thing that can be done with almonds is to make them into marzipan, and the best thing that can be done with hazelnuts is to make them into praline. And those two nut pastes are firmly in the box marked “kryptonite” for me…
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@HardwareGeek said in The Cooking Thread:
pecans, probably, followed by walnuts
Pecans are nice. So too are cashews and pistachios. But fuck macademias. (A great aunt of mine used to like sending us yogurt-coated macademias every Christmas. Ugh!)
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@dkf said in The Cooking Thread:
A great aunt of mine used to like sending us yogurt-coated macademias every Christmas. Ugh!
It was a polite way to say "I hate you"
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@dkf said in The Cooking Thread:
@HardwareGeek said in The Cooking Thread:
pecans, probably, followed by walnuts
Pecans are nice. So too are cashews and pistachios. But fuck macademias. (A great aunt of mine used to like sending us yogurt-coated macademias every Christmas. Ugh!)
No, Macadamia nuts are great. Especially when coated in dark chocolate. Sadly, my wife is allergic to tree nuts so I almost never eat them.
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@boomzilla said in The Cooking Thread:
Especially when coated in dark chocolate.
That would have been better. Yogurt was not a good combination. Or rather it was fine for the first few ones, and then you discovered that you really didn't want any more for a year and you still had a couple of pounds of them (that aunt never did things in small quantities) and there's nothing really you can do with them once they're like that.
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@anotherusername said in The Cooking Thread:
@e4tmyl33t The good ones are built like tanks and last forever.
Indeed. You need both high torque/low speed and low torque/high speed for it to be a proper mixer you can use for both kneading dough and shredding nuts.
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@TimeBandit said in The Cooking Thread:
@dkf said in The Cooking Thread:
A great aunt of mine used to like sending us yogurt-coated macademias every Christmas. Ugh!
It was a polite way to say "I hate you"
HA! I got that beat. My husband's aunt (whom he doesn't speak to and I've never met) gave my husband's kids chocolate covered bugs for Christmas one year.