quiet1
-
Posts
635 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Store
Help Articles
Posts posted by quiet1
-
-
20 hours ago, Smithy said:
The Hatch chiles were roasted so they were soft, but they needed to be peeled and seeded. They were almost the right heat level for us, although we might have enjoyed the "Hot" batch. Based on last year's "hot" chiles from Hatch, I'd been leery of that label.
I pulled out the Instant Pot Mini and made a batch of pinto beans.
When the beans were done, I gave the pot a quick rinse, then put a film of oil on the bottom. I began layering corn tortillas with a mixture of chopped chicken breast, the chopped chiles and diced onion, then more layers as one would a lasagna dish. The chicken had been seasoned with cumin, oregano and a couple of other spices I've forgotten. I put about a cup of chicken broth into it: typically, my attempts at this have come out wet because of too much liquid, but I had more layers of tortillas than usual this time and not as much chile juice. The whole lot was topped with cheddar cheese, and left to pressure cook for half an hour while I did something else. The "set it and forget it" aspect of the IP is a lovely feature.
Dinner. The IP concoction was dry because it had too much tortilla for the other ingredients. This was rectified at the dinner table with sour cream and salsa from home. Sour cream and cheddar on the beans was pretty darned good, too. I really liked the chunkiness of having cubed the chicken to 1/2" - 1" instead of a finer dice.
The beans tasted good but not as soft and creamy as I'd have liked. The next day, I simmered them with extra water for at least another hour. It's amazing how much water those beans can take!
‘I wish to know more about this tortilla lasagna IP concoction. It sounds right up our alley.
-
6 hours ago, BeeZee said:
As I was the one who originally posted, I will update to say that I will not be having a guest with gluten issues, so I no longer need suggestions, but thanks to all.
Now I’m curious anyway though.
If I try the experiment I will report my findings.
-
1
-
-
On 1/29/2018 at 7:25 AM, weinoo said:
NYC apartments - as you know, you gotta use every little nook and cranny and square inch.
We’re not even in NYC or an apartment and I use that space.
Ours isn’t quite 6” though due to a doorway with trim, so I stuck some command tool holders on the side of the fridge and it’s where the broom and Swiffer and dustpan live. Not on show but very handy to grab.
I have so much drawer envy. So organized. So nicely sized. Our kitchen has cabinets from ~1950 and the drawers are absurdly shallow.
-
2
-
-
I can’t sign up yet (need to discuss w the family) but some things I’d be interested in possibly, as a chocolate-newbie type person who hasn’t been to previous events:
1. Chocolate choosing/tasting (if it can be arranged) - I find it kind of intimidating to venture away from stuff I can get my hands on locally because I don’t make enough that anyone is going to give me samples to try in advance, and buying a lot of small amounts adds up fast in both cost and amount of chocolate hanging around the place. But if I buy one type at a time I find it difficult to really compare taste/behavior from one to the other. (I mean, you can make notes, but I think especially for taste/smell it’s much easier if you have them there together and can go back and forth if needed.) Also, even if you decide on something new to try, they don’t all behave the same way and some might work better for certain applications than for others, etc. So a class/workshop providing the ability to sample a lot of options and discuss in the group, and then also some discussion on when you might use what or what tricks might help with certain products, etc.
2. Packaging. Possibly not as much fun as playing with food, but when giving chocolates away and especially for selling them, how things are presented can make a big difference. I know there’s standard packaging types most people use, and completely custom is often cost prohibitive for small scale, but perhaps some kind of discussion on how to make the easily available stuff look spiffier? Label design critique?
3. Some kind of create-an-item “Chopped”-esque thing to see what people can come up with to use an interesting ingredient or ingredients? (I’m not thinking a competition or that everyone would make different things necessarily - it could start with a variety of things and then people propose ideas and then possibly only a few of those ingredients actually get used,, depending on practicalities? Purpose would be mostly to get people thinking/talking about new flavors and combinations and techniques, rather than about the production of finished pieces. Although obviously something finished to taste at the end would be good, though I suppose that need not even be finished chocolates. Or someone could volunteer to take on making something in advance using some/all of the selected ingredients, and then those would be the tasting items for the workshop?)
-
4
-
-
14 hours ago, Anna N said:
But I think the original problem was providing gravy for someone who was gluten sensitive. Someone suggested separating out enough gravy for that person and thickening it with cornstarch. That is what I would do. But I would not thicken all the gravy with corn starch.
There’s gluten free flour these days that claims to be substitutable in many things. We have a bag atm as it happens, I could do a quick test I suppose. (I do the roux method.)
-
17 hours ago, MelissaH said:
The last few times we've eaten at Chipotle, we've been disappointed. It seems like as they've expanded, they may have lost some of their QC, leading to the uneven results we're experiencing of late. That said, I think they're still better than Qdoba or Moe's or Fajita Grill (the only one like it in our town and god forbid I get hauled there). I tend to stick with the menu items they've always had, rather than the new stuff that appears periodically.
Last time we were in Rochester, we looked at the Chipotle, looked at each other, and instead headed across the street to a Chipotle-like Indian-ish restaurant called Naan-Tastic. Right now, I think it's a one-off rather than a chain, but I wouldn't be surprised to see it expand in the future. The general concept is about like Chipotle: you choose the general format for what you want (burrito, bowl, or naan taco), and then you choose each component (base, protein, sauce, extras, and finish). We enjoyed it, and should we find ourselves in the neighborhood again, we'd return rather than hitting up the Chipotle. The big difference between the two, apart from Mexican vs. Indian, is that there are a TON of choices. I always thought the genius of Chipotle was that the options are limited (although there are still a LOT of ways to mix and match them to get something you like), which in theory should make it easy to consistently turn out the product you expect to get. I wonder if not just the geographic expansion but the menu expansion is at the root of the issue we've tasted.
That Indian-ish place sounds like exactly what my SO would LOVE. What a good idea.
-
30 minutes ago, dtremit said:
This is designed for commercial kitchens -- and this single-burner format is very common for restaurant use. They can be moved around and put where they're needed. Likewise, most commercial kitchens use 208v/240v for larger appliances. I wouldn't read too many limitations into the design.
A typical breaker for a home range is 50A @ 240v, which theoretically gets you 12kW -- though in practice most cooktops are limited to a bit under 11kW.
As an example, the center burner on this Samsung cooktop is 3.6kW, same as the Panasonic, but the total wattage is 10.8kW.
Oh, sorry, I meant in general. The main reason we don't have an induction range at home is the number of burners issue. I tend to cook multiple meals at once so I run out of space on a 4-5 burner cooktop and we don't have the counter space to have a lot of extra burners sitting out. So right now we have a gas range and I do have a single stand-alone induction unit that I can move around and only have out when I need it.
-
On 11/8/2018 at 4:27 PM, btbyrd said:
The problem is that queso is an inherently unnatural product, and Chipotle is wedded to only using "real" ingredients (for better or worse). Thankfully, their guac more than makes up for their queso.
Every time I visit one of Chipotle's competitors, I'm disappointed. Moe's and Q'doba just aren't as good; they have too much behind the counter that they cared too little about. Muddy tasting rice. A million mediocre sauces and salsas. These places never tried to brand themselves on the quality or provenance of their ingredients because they can't. Variety may be the spice of life, but it's the death of quality in a fast casual dining establishment. Chipotle does more by doing less. They should take that queso off the menu.
Our local Mexican place makes queso dip with sour cream, the right sort of Mexican cheese (which I am blanking on at the moment, it’s white and of medium density - not crumbly but not too soft - and plain the flavor isn’t super exciting,) and sometimes a sharper/stronger cheese (honestly I think they use up bits they have around that will melt,) and hot peppers. Nothing inherently unnatural there unless the cheese is a very stealth Cheez Food[tm] product. Maybe the right stuff in bulk is cost-prohibitive?
-
8 hours ago, Chimayo Joe said:
Chipotle probably added queso to their menu because their main competitor Qdoba has it, and people were asking for it. I've never had Qdoba's either.
I'm less likely to go to Qdoba, but when I do, my preferred order is loaded tortilla soup(Qdoba used to call it Mexican Gumbo.) It's been a long time since I've been there, quite a while since I've been to Chipotle, as well. I looked at Qdoba's menu a couple of minutes ago and noticed they have smoked brisket as one of their meat choices. I don't recall seeing that before, but I may have just forgotten what Qdoba offers.
The Chipotle queso is so gross they need to figure something else out immediately. It is nasty.
-
1
-
-
2 hours ago, blue_dolphin said:
There's a topic devoted to discussion of this over here with a link to a video review. I haven't seen anyone in the group actually reporting that they've used one yet.
Edited to add that I don't have any counter area with access to an outlet that also has enough headspace to use this since the "fryer" lid is hinged and needs to stand up in the open position when you are using the pressure cooker so it's a no-go for me.
Ah-ha. It isn’t mentioned by name so it didn’t come up in the search. Interesting lid arrangement. I will have to think about where we’d put it.
-
Has anyone gotten one of these?
-
1
-
-
Anyone have a Ninja Foodi? I tried searching here but my search foo is apparently not working today.
I have a friend who has one who gets a lot of use out of it, and my mom is quite intrigued. But I'm not sure as we already have an Instant Pot we don't use nearly as much as we should.
-
I am quite intrigued by the idea of an induction range that could handle all pans.
That said, the biggest drawback for me is the number of burners, which is related to the available power in a house, so it seems likely anyone will do anything to fix that anytime soon. (I mean, I'd be willing to pay for an extra high-power outlet in my kitchen so I could plug the range in twice, but I'm probably weird.)
-
I was going to say I hate funny designed knives, too. It sticks in my mind because we went to a very nice place on Friday that had funky modern knives and they were uncomfortable to hold and use, and misbehaved when you tried to set them down. The waitress managed to flip one onto the floor.
We use Liberty Tabletop ourselves. The pattern we gave is the Champlain which is not at all my cup of tea in style but felt the best of everything we tried in the hand. (I have arthritis in my hands, I’m finicky.)
Overall I prefer knives that have some bulk to the handle. Not huge, but I find very thin ones (like you get at inexpensive restaurants) unpleasant to use also. If you need to put any pressure on them at all they dig in.
-
3
-
-
7 hours ago, Thanks for the Crepes said:
I agree with this. We need protection from food fraud and adulteration for profit from unscrupulous vendors. This has always happened, is happening today, and I believe it is a great service that our government provides in ensuring the safety and purity of our food to the limited extent that is even possible. At least the dirty players have some motivation to stay within the lines of decency.
I also agree that the person who burned themselves at the drive thru with hot McDonald's coffee is ridiculous. Should the rest of us who can be more careful with hot drinks suffer through our mornings with lukewarm coffee because of this developmentally challenged person? I also don't like that we can't buy unpasteurized cheeses here. I probably wouldn't even like 'em, because I'm not a fan of stinky cheeses, but they have been produced for thousands of years and as far as I can tell, no one has been harmed by them. It is a complex issue. I think we can all agree that we need to keep baby formula free of melamine that tricks the tests for protein into registering higher. I think some folks were executed over that one.
The bolding on the word supplement in pastrygirl's above quote is mine. Did ya'll know that the FDA does not test, or really regulate in any meaningful manner, dietary supplements? I didn't until I did a little recent research on vitamins that I need for bone repair. I tried to find out if the vitamin and mineral supplements added to food like breakfast cereals, breads, and Eggo waffles are tested and regulated by FDA, but apparently I was unable to word my query correctly to return any meaningful info. Does anyone know if supplements added to food are ever verified?
Bottom line is that especially with dietary supplements even with the FDA here, which does not oversee those, consumers should be especially vigilant when purchasing any supplement. You have to do your own research. That's why apricot kernels belong with the supplements and not the snacks, IMO.
Apparenty the coffee thing isn’t as clear cut as it sounds, but I haven’t read about it myself in forever.
The supplement industry is, however, utterly ridiculous and SHOULD be regulated better than it is.
-
11 hours ago, Duvel said:
Again, must be a regional (cultural ?) difference. If I buy my meat here in Hong Kong, last week in Spain or in my hometown in Germany, there are no signs nor oral warnings about safe handling or cooking temperatures. Maybe because if I buy a pound of raw minced pork the vendor can assune that I know how to process it - or in the case of buying it in my hometown, how to enjoy it raw with onions and a rye roll ...
(but then again maybe in these places nobody gets sued from a customer who can claim he got sick from a piece of meat that he prepared wrongly ?)
In both the UK and the US signs reminding people about proper cooking are not uncommon, and usually there’s something on the package in addition if you get it from the shelf. (Stuff packaged for you from the butcher on request doesn’t get the same kind of labeling.)
As I understand it, they do that sort of thing because they’ve found that reminding people about such things actually distinctly reduces the rate of food poisoning, which means less drain on society (lost working hours, etc.) So it’s not just because they are afraid of being sued, it’s because it does actually improve the social situation to help people minimize mistakes in food prep. I don’t see the problem with that - people being sick and dying from easily preventable issues is wasted resources, if you look at it pragmatically.
-
6 hours ago, Duvel said:
I was under the impression we are talking about foodstuff here. Are you typically finding the drain cleaner you serve as a snack next to the other juices ?
How about 50% alcohol solutions, packaged irresponsibly in a regular bottle with a funny pirate on the cover ? How about salt that is dyed pink to make it more attractive ? How about produce that is indigestible (at best, if not worse) if not cooked ?
I just can speak for myself here: if I go to the shop I buy what I want to buy, not what is in the same shelf. If I eat somethIng or serve it to my family I do it because I know what it is. Rum, nitrate salts and dried beans are found in my household. I can handle all of them because I know how to, and that's why I bought them ...
‘My impression is that they are essentially claiming that they aren’t a foodstuff but more akin to a medication or supplement in terms of how they are meant to be consumed from this company. So perhaps drain cleaner isn’t the best example - one of the stomach meds I take looks and smells quite a lot like candy, would it be okay if that was on the shelf right next to almost identical packages of things that actually are candy? It is sold over the counter so they wouldn’t be dispensing illegally or anything, but if someone consumed a whole handful at once I’m sure it wouldn’t be any good for you.
There HAVE been debates in the past about using things like cartoons in advertising for certain products. Cigarettes used to have a whole thing with cartoon camels. And dried beans aren’t exactly easily edible unprocessed (unless you like to break your teeth?) and being pink certainly doesn’t make the salt taste less salty so people use heaps more of it. I don’t think those are quite the same as putting something that MUST be consumed in tiny amounts to be safe in the same packaging and on the same rack as something that can be safely consumed by the handful, especially not when the dangerous thing (apricot kernels) can very easily be eaten in quantity.
I’m not saying don’t sell them, I’m saying package things appropriately to help people not make mistakes. Because people WILL make mistakes, and I don’t see how we benefit as a society from people dropping dead because of easily prevented mistakes.
Should there not be signs up around raw meat about safe handling and proper cooking temperatures? Someone can look all that up.
-
1
-
-
1 hour ago, Duvel said:
Yeah, right. For foodstuff ...
If I buy a product that I put in my mouth I think I should make the decision consciously. Meaning I know what I am buying and eating. If not, just leave it in the shelf. This "I did not know this is searingly hot / semitoxic / highly caloric" card is something that is very, very unsettling to me. If you eat it it is your responsibility to make sure you can digest it. Blaming the producer / vendor / server is unique to a certain mindset (dare I say culture) and in most of this world certainly met with the same disbelief that I am trying to convey here ...
P.S.: This is not meant to offend anyone personally. I just feel very strong about this ...
So if they were selling drain cleaner in a bottle that looked like just another flavor of juice, on a shelf with nearly identically packaged juice, that would be just fine?
I think there’s a pretty big spectrum between essentially the ultimate “buyer beware” and “consumers have no responsibility at all.”
-
3
-
-
6 hours ago, Allura said:
One of the things we're warned against when writing technical manuals is to use warnings "judiciously." In other words, don't put so many that people start to ignore them. If the product is unsafe to consume in a large quantity, it should have a gigantic warning on it. OTOH, "hot product is hot," is stupid. The proliferation of the latter is a problem.
I think there are also cues that can be used to help people notice warnings, when we’re talking about product packaging. The pictured packaging looks identical to something you’d find on a rack for snacking - I’d expect to see walnuts and pecans and almonds and so on in very similar packaging. If they’re intended to be consumed 1-2 a day as a supplement, like a vitamin, then packaging them like a supplement - bottle with a pseudo-pharmaceutical label and clear doseage information for example - gives fairly strong cues that you should perhaps read the info on the bottle, you know?
-
I think it’s quite reasonable to say that selling them and packaging them in the same way as snack nuts - making it easier for someone to purchase without noticing the label or grab the wrong bag by accident - is a bad idea. If they’re being sold and consumed as more of a supplement/vitamin type thing, the packaging could reflect that and encourage people to think about rate of consumption just through package design.
-
4
-
-
4 hours ago, Lisa Shock said:
He's also not sanitizing the surface the debris was sitting on, so he's leaving a lot of bacteria behind. And, yeah, touching all those surfaces creeps me out.
I love that people here notice this sort of thing, after years of trying to explain to people about proper cleanliness and spreading germs in a more medical environment. It makes me feel like the world isn’t a completely stupid sort of place. (Especially after watching too much tv cooking. Don’t lick your fingers and then go back to what you were doing, omg!)
-
2
-
-
8 hours ago, gfron1 said:
We won't be equipped for that level of allergies. Because we are 100% locally sourced (minus a handful of spices) and 100% made in house from scratch, allergies are relatively easy to accommodate, but anyone who can't be in the same air as other diners is not something I'm prepared for. I know of many other great restaurants that I'll happily recommend to them.
That’s totally reasonable. Most good restaurants I’ve encountered seem to be pretty good about allergies - not just managing but saying so clearly when they can’t. I was just wondering how much planning and thought goes into that sort of thing. For me personally, I’d probably feel reasonably comfortable if I could be on one end and had a couple other people with me to set up as a buffer, given you aren’t a shellfish-driven menu. Places with a very high percentage of shellfish dishes on the menu I usually just don’t bother with because it seems like asking for trouble. And the communal tables I’ve avoided in the past were seating on both sides so it’s harder to create a reasonable barrier using people in my party. Which to some extent is paranoia, but I can get pretty freaked out about possibly having an allergic reaction even if I don’t actually have one, and I figure no one else wants to deal with an allergic reaction either, so I go with it.
Would something like “can we have the end” for that reason as a request when making a reservation be considered a reasonable request?
-
With diners all sitting in a row, how would you anticipate handling food allergies? I always ask to have my own table because that way I don’t have to worry about accidental contamination from someone sitting next to me (I had a reaction once from someone eating shellfish at the same table) and a table seems simpler than arranging communal seating so I have space or am on the end.
(I’ve only been to a handful of places with communal seating, though, and they all had individual group tables also, so we just had to wait a bit longer.)
I’m asking in part because maybe it’s a problem restaurants are more familiar with dealing with than I think?
-
17 hours ago, Chris Hennes said:
I don’t know that such a thing is possible — it’s always going to come down to taste. I think the 2% salt most of these recipes call for is perfect, whereas @JoNorvelleWalker thinks it’s far too much. Obviously you can make bread without salt at all. So I can’t see any way around experimenting with it.
When I’ve accidentally made bread without salt in the past, it just came out tasting and behaving entirely wrong, it really wasn’t worth even trying to recover it with the right sandwich ingredients or some such. That’s the kind of disaster I’d hope to avoid - I’m willing to tolerate some flavor/behavior change, because I would be leaving out an ingredient, I’d just like to avoid extensive experiments that produce something basically inedible. I’m expecting to do some experimenting, but preferably with some notion of what will likely work out okay first.
I’m thinking perhaps there are ingredients or methods that handle less salt better, also? There is one hard to find commercial bread that’s quite low sodium for bread - it’s a very dark brown, and I think it’s a variety of rye bread. (The color is quite distinctive so I don’t actually recall what it says on the package since I never look at the packaging.) But it obviously turns out acceptably with much less salt added than other types of bread, and I’d wonder why. Flavor? Behavior of different flours? Etc. I suppose the Modernist books do at least likely talk extensively about flour/grain types?
Beef Wellington Novice
in Cooking
Posted
I find the prosciutto kind of melts away and mostly acts as containment assistance for keeping the duxelles where it belongs and not soaked into the pastry. I think bacon would be too thick, though.