quiet1

He's been to a couple of places around here that we are familiar with and neither of them has suffered from what we can tell. The one place had wedding soup and that does taste like they tweaked it - but something like swapping from a heavily salted commercial base to something fresher tasting. (I don't know if they cook it from scratch or just use a better source now.) The other place has a Guy something or other on the menu, but the other stuff is all the same.

I don't think we've ever ordered actual half portions - the closest is probably my mom will sometimes ask for a side to be left off entirely if she feels it will be too much food. (She is also on a low sodium diet, though, and while a piece of meat it fish can usually easily be cooked without much salt added and sauce served on the side, many of the things you get as an accompaniment are pre-seasoned during the preparation process so the kitchen can't do anything about it. Leaving off the offending item solves two problems at once.) We do occasionally have trouble with that request, but usually once they understand it is an actual health issue they are usually more cooperative, and suggest alternatives if they can't do what my mom wants.

The kitchen notebook continues to spread - resident kiddo (housemate's kid) started one yesterday as part of making dinner with his dad. I didn't even suggest it, they thought of it together while reading recipes.

Yes, I'm hoping for input from people with back of house experience like yourself, as sometimes the way things are done in a restaurant kitchen is not how I'd expect based on home kitchen experience, in terms of portioning and cooking order and so on. Usually when we go out if we do want to do a partial portion (because we won't be able to take leftovers home, for example) we try very hard to find something to split between diners at our table so all parts of the full dish are accounted for. For example when my housemate (who is a bottomless pit and never gains weight) goes out with his son and my mom (who both have smaller appetites) then sometimes his son and my mom both have half portions and he gets half of each of theirs, unless his son and my mom agree on something to split between themselves. But that does require people being flexible about what they eat.

'Does it depend at all time of day when stuff is likely to be used versus end up being tossed? Or type of food item?

It seems rude to the kitchen to me, since usually things are pre-portioned and if you just want half it messes up the system. There are some places around here that have HUGE portion sizes, and I do sometimes just ask for half to be wrapped up right away, which usually they have no problem with - the full dish comes to the table so you can see it and make sure it is right, then gets packed up. That said, there are also places that do have smaller portions as an option regularly - they aren't usually the finest dining, but most of them are good food. Often they are located where elderly people eat frequently (one place that has since closed was on the ground floor of an apartment building with a lot of well off but older tenants, and some of them ate there nearly every night) and have the smaller meal options to cater to those needs. Also having size options for certain kinds of steak or similar seems to be relatively common around here in general.

What recipe would you use for something like the raspberry layer?

Hrm, our basement might get too cold. I'll have to rig something up to check. We don't have a pantry so I was hoping the basement would be a good out of the way but accessible place for it. (The garage is under the house as part of the basement.)

Plain steamed Brussels sprouts are not popular, but the ones I did recently where I browned them on the stove went over okay even though I held them too long so they got a bit over-done. (I browned then steamed to cook through, and so holding too long made them get a little more mushy than I'd like.) Cabbage gets a 'meh' - people will eat it but not enthusiastically. We have a running debate as to the best level of cooked for broccoli (I like mine more 'al dente' than everyone else) but it is something that we fairly reliably can make fast and not have it be gross, even from frozen, which is why we default to it so much. (I HATE the texture of many frozen vegetables.) But yes, variety is a good thing, especially from a nutritional perspective as different vegetables have varying levels of the trace bits and pieces the body needs. I don't worry about that kind of thing overly much, but eating the same thing day in and day out seems a bad plan, nutritionally. Plus it does get boring. We've had fairly tasty Swiss chard, but that seems hard to get around here if you are picky about freshness. And most of us aren't keen on spinach unless it is mixed with other stuff, like in an Indian dish or with garlic and cream.

The peas were part of an attempt to have a vegetable like object for dinner that wasn't broccoli. We default to broccoli far too often.

'I use bay leaves for all kinds of things other than cooking - supposedly a couple in the flour keeps bugs out, and likewise in the linen closet. Plus they're a relatively inoffensive 'fresh' smell so I also fold some up in a paper towel or scrap of fabric and put that parcel in things like suitcases before stashing them for extended periods - in theory it might keep mice away, too, but I'm skeptical about that one. Anyway, the Bay Leaf seasoning was a blend, not just powdered bay leaves, but a blend of powdered bay leaves and other herbs and tasty things that was quite popular with a number of people I know as a quick seasoning for meats/burgers/etc. I thought it might be nice to try it and then make it as gifts if the recipe I found online tastes right.

I like to have some stock in small amounts (ice cubes or similar) in the freezer so when I'm doing the 'what looks good, what can I make?' routine and making something up on the fly, I can toss some stock in without delaying the meal too much. But the pressure cooker is my preferred method of making said stock, for sure.

No CSO. (Yet. I feel like it is just a matter of time...) (ETA: The biggest delay other than cost is finding a place to put it. The best location is currently occupied with spice drawer things that contain the house's extensive spice and herb collection and I'm stumped as to where to relocate the spices to that doesn't put them annoyingly far from the main cooking area. I want to keep at least the stuff that gets used all the time where it is easy to grab-and-go instead of needing to get it out and bring it over to the work area. It's driving me nuts.)

I want one in the shape of the paella pan but between the 27 and the size of the larger paella pan, actually, to replace my most frequently used 'sauté' pan. (I like the two handles because I find the long one unwieldy when I want to put something in the oven and the pan is large/heavy, and I don't toss larger pans anyway due to the weight, so the long handle serves no use.) I am already thinking of moving some pans out of the kitchen, though. We have a couple of non-stick frying pans hanging around for eggs and similar, and assuming I can train my housemates in the proper care of the pans, I think everyone is going to prefer the Darto pans anyway.

I'm not sure it competes with those potatoes, but meatloaf and mashed potatoes and lightly minted peas made by my housemate and his son after consulting the various cookbooks they got for Christmas, plus one from Homeroom in SF that I gave them a while back when they'd just moved from SF. Really quite respectable for as inexperienced as they are in the kitchen. (I really recommend the peas, too - they are from the Homeroom Mac n Cheese cookbook and the mint is basically just enough to make the peas taste fresh without making them taste minty as such. Definitely improves frozen peas.)

'My primary aim is ground bay leaf to mix up a batch of Bay Leaf Seasoning since Penzey's no longer makes it and I don't want to fight with grinding my own. But I'm sure I will think of more once I start browsing. I seem to recall thinking Penzey's has not as much in the way of dried chilies as I'd like, also.

Our IP passed the test run. Beef stew tomorrow I think.

'We rarely have wine because we hardly ever finish the bottle. Why didn't it occur to me to make vinegar? how warm does the vinegar need to be while it is 'brewing'?

That reminds me - does anyone have spice suppliers they like other than Penzey's? I need some stuff Penzey's doesn't carry.

Yes, I've had bread with no salt back when I had a bread maker - left the salt out by accident. It was not good. I'm just not sure how much I can reduce it, or other tricks (like reducing the yeast, as @chromedome suggests) to just bring the salt content down some so the bread isn't so full of sodium she can't have anything else with it. She has found a commercial rye bread that is very low sodium for bread - maybe the rye helps?

This thread is rather inspiring me - does anyone know of any good low sodium bread recipes? My mom loves sandwiches but of course bread can be startlingly high in sodium.

I think the issue in San Diego is the not mentioning it up front. It's just not on to spring charges on someone at the end of a meal, even if the charge is trivial.

Do be careful with that trick if you are cooking for other people - I have a shellfish allergy and I wouldn't expect someone to use shrimp paste instead of anchovies (and sometimes chopped anchovies turn up in quite surprising places) so that could lead to an exciting in a bad way dinner party. (I don't go around announcing my allergy to people unless it seems relevant or I'm asked, so a host might not know about the shellfish issue. Depends on the person and the event.)

Same when I lived in England and we didn't get through a whole loaf very fast - I took to freezing loaves in thirds (so a third out, and two thirds in two bags in the freezer) as that typically ended up being a good amount of bread to have on hand without it going stale or, more often, moldy. Use up the stuff that was out, just grab a bag of another third from the freezer to defrost. For ice when I have wanted to have ice but not give up space for ice trays, sometimes I buy a bag of ice cheap and then re-portion it (carefully, because you don't want to get bacteria all over the ice from handling it) into smaller bags that can be tucked into existing gaps and spaces or otherwise stacked up. This often works better than trying to fit ice trays into a crowded freezer.

Raisin bagel w Philadelphia cream cheese. Not exciting enough for a photo.