quiet1

I admit, if the meat was good quality I'd buy that as a joke gift for my ex-vegetarian housemate. He'd get a kick out of it.

Hm. If I made pasta and salted it, I could better control exactly how much sodium ends up in the finished product, which would work better for my mother...

The benefit to a cut-to-order service would be I could specify what I needed for what I had planned. Slices, fine dice, etc. For general purpose these days I do buy the pre-chopped sometimes, although my skin is much better so usually I chop my own as I need them unless I'm doing a huge batch of something. As far as freshness, if you're calling yourself a vegetable butcher I'd better be able to pick out exactly what vegetables I want you to chop for me, same as I'd be able to select specific pieces of meat at the butcher and have it ground.

I might use such a service for certain things - onions bother me a lot so when I had psoriasis near my eyelashes I used to ask family or friends to chop a bunch of onions for me and I kept them in the freezer so I could use them as I needed. Worked fine for cooking with. (Psoriasis = raw skin, raw skin + tears = owwwwwwwwww.)

Yeah, we usually have someone home because of people working from home a lot, so there may not be someone watching it but there is likely someone who could be asked to go restart or pull the food and stick it in the fridge or whatever. Even the housemate's kid could give it a poke if he was home.

'What quantities did you use? I couldn't find anything with measurements.

Well, but starch isn't the only thing in potatoes, or other vegetables for that matter. Yes, you have starch, but you also have the nutritional profile otherwise of the potato or the broccoli or... So it is a way to add variety there. Especially with kids probably.

They seem like they'd be best as part of a blend of tots to reduce the overall potato intake - same serving size, but some are broccoli or whatever. Then you'd still have a normal vegetable or salad along side.

'The trouble with starting it from work is it has to sit out ready to go until then. That's what puts me off using the timed start function on things that have it. Someone needs to figure out how to keep the ingredients at a safe temp until cooking starts.

Not in my area yet, but when I lived in England and was basically stuck at home with my disabled husband (he couldn't be home alone and going out with him was a multi-person production not wasted on groceries often) the online grocery delivery services that started up were a huge benefit. Occasionally we got something odd, but overall it worked out well, and it was nice to not have to rely on asking people to pick something up while they were doing their own shopping, since when we'd do that we tried to keep it to stuff easy to grab, not fresh produce that requires picking out good specimens, etc. I can see the one issue for me being that with the delivery I did still like to go to the store on occasion to browse and see what was up - online it can be difficult to find the information you want (or impossible, in the case of feel or smell) and that meant I rarely bought stuff from delivery that I didn't already know about. New varieties of produce and the like would wait until I went to the store myself.

I have a bag of chicken parts in the freezer waiting to be turned into stock. Last time I did it in the slow cooker I ended up with super tasty stock, and this time I have the Instant Pot which will make even tastier stock if it performs the way my pressure cooker did in England. I may have to bite the bullet (I've been putting it off because it is a lot of work to prep everything and then put away the stock after and my energy is not what it could be) and get that done so I have a better base to work with. For tonight's potato experiment, in order to get chicken broth that had a nice strong taste, I actually used the broth from a container of matzoh ball soup from the deli. I'd rather eat that as soup, though. Can you give an example of a sauce you'd make low fat or fat free? You mean like a pan sauce, or something more complicated? I went to the local grocery store today - nothing in the way of edible looking fish unless you want it pre-breaded from the freezer (and to be honest I don't know how edible that is, you just can't see the fish so you can't tell) but I picked up a couple of jars of baby food to try adding to things for flavor and variety. (A single jar of apple and apricot purée is much easier to experiment with than making the purée from scratch first, is my theory.) I'm thinking pancakes for now, but hopefully I will be inspired. Annoyingly, everyone who makes prepared foods is on the 'fiber is good for you' and 'look, we use Real Ingredients' trains right when I would really like a fiber-free not-actually-cheese-at-all packet of macaroni and cheese or something similar. Foo.

I conducted an IP trial today for dinner, a riff on @Anna N's mention of doing mashed potatoes milk and everything all together. I wasn't doing a large batch so I put cut up potatoes, a touch of milk, a touch of butter, and some chicken stock in a glass bowl and put that on the trivet above some water in the IP. High for 12 min with quick release wasn't quite enough, for some reason. Next time I'd try 15. Also, I over-estimated the amount of stock needed so I ended up with something more like potato soup than mashed potatoes. However it was pretty tasty potato slop. Definitey something I will try again, especially while I am on this stupid restrictive diet. Next time I may actually aim FOR potato soup and put some onion and carrot and celery in also (just a little) since with the pressure stuff does cook to mush if you leave it go long enough. I find it difficult to get good potato soup around here and not everyone in the house likes it, so being able to make a bowl or two just for me would be very nice.

Matzoh ball soup from the local Jewish deli with some saltines crumbled in. Tasty but I doubt my ability to survive on it long term. Host's note: this topic survives long term! Click here for the next installment.

Keep in mind that everyone is likely to tweak the traditional cuts just a little depending on variables like personal preference (hand size and similar factors), knife size and style and weight and material, items most commonly chopped (if you chop way more carrots than anything else, your style is going to develop into something that works really well on carrots even if it isn't as perfect form for other things), work space available, potentially even cutting board types, etc. If you went into all of our kitchens and looked at folks who are good with knife skills, you'd probably see a decent range of similar but not identical knives (even within something like a Western style chef knife, the different models are not shaped exactly the same) and a similar range of similar but not identical styles and techniques that are probably all based on a core technique like a rock-chop, but have been tweaked over time by the individual. (Heck, I know I don't chop exactly the same when I feel good compared to when my wrist and hand arthritis is acting up, because I can't move my wrist and hand the same way.)

I made pancakes with Lactaid (which is cheating a bit but seems to be ok) and those are pretty successful as an edible meal, although I'm sure I will get bored of them eventually. I could try waffles too I suppose. I need some kind of flavoring to add other than maple syrup. I have some Small Hands Raspberry Gum Syrup for the home bar, would using that as pancake syrup be too ridiculous? My mom suggested making 'carrot cake' pancakes by adding some carrot purée to the mix, I might try that too. (Pancakes are extra handy because it is easier to limit myself in portion size as I'm also supposed to be eating smaller meals more often and I'm usually a one big meal and some snacking kind of person. The pancakes I make usually reheat well in the toaster so I just plate a couple of small ones and then refrigerate the rest for a quick meal later.) Tomorrow's planned experiment for dinner was going to be ground chicken stir-fried with fresh ginger, scallions, and a tiny sprinkle of diced water chestnuts for crunch, probably with rice, but we may be going to a hockey game instead. (Heck knows what I will eat there. Maybe I should try to smuggle in some cold pancakes...) But I was thinking sort of along the lines of a dumpling filling type flavor profile. ETA: I want to thank everyone who has chimed in so far. This is really helping to get me thinking of stuff I CAN eat and how to be creative about the restrictions, instead of eyeballing pizza commercials mournfully and being sad about bacon. (And we don't even normally HAVE that much pizza or bacon!) So thanks a bunch.

Not up to that at the moment. I wonder if there are any vegetable purees other than tomato that might add something, though. I'm sure the color would be alarming, but a bit of blended avocado might give a nice creaminess?

Per dinner thread, tonight was pasta with a chicken patty and a tiny amount of pesto. Stomach didn't care for something but I am inclined to suspect the chicken, not the pasta, as Cream of Wheat is consistently fine. Any ideas for making pasta tastier without a lot of fat or acid or dairy?

No photo, but chicken patty made with ground chicken and pesto, with bucatini pasta with a little more pesto. Pretty uninspiring, chicken ended up dry, and my stomach wasn't thrilled. Heated up leftover tomato based meat sauce for housemate and kiddo with more bucatini, that looked tastier but got eaten too fast for photos.

I tend to leave off fish because I am quite fish inexperienced - I don't like salmon (it always has a weird aftertaste for me) and I'm allergic to shellfish, which means we don't go to fish restaurants much so I don't have a lot of opportunity to try other fish preparations. (With new stuff I often like to taste it first somewhere to get an idea of what it should be like so when I'm working at home I can adjust timing and so on as necessary, or have an idea of if a recipe would work or be awful.) Around here most places that have good fresh fish are seafood places and I know in theory they could watch for cross contamination, but in practice it seems like asking a bit much of the kitchen given how much shellfish is on the menu, so I just don't go to seafood places. One day they will have a magic pill for shellfish allergy and I will do a seafood tour. With that said, I am open to suggestions for easy 'foolproof' fish recipes to try. I used to have one for tuna that involved marinating it in an olive oil based marinade then searing, but I lost it in a move. But I recall it came out nicely and was a little resilient to cooking times because of the marinade. (It wasn't greasy, just didn't get all dry if you blinked at the wrong moment and it got a little overdone.) Garlic is okay in very moderate amounts, salt is fine, pepper again in moderate amounts (no cracked pepper crusted stuff), hot spices (chilies, etc.) are the same - a touch is okay it seems like, but anything actually spicy is out. Anything strongly acidic is mostly a no - basically I have to be super gentle to my stomach. I did think tomatoes were out but I've found sources saying cooked tomatoes might be okay if they aren't too acidic, so I could try maybe a pasta sauce light on the garlic. Eggs are okay-ish - if I do mostly egg white with like 1 yolk per omelette that is okay, but too many whole eggs is too much fat. I'm also really missing texture since most stuff that gives you that nice fresh crunch is out. Maybe breadcrumbs? Though typically they have a fair bit of fat to get a good crunch, don't they?

Following my pre-Christmas illness, I am stuck on a low fat and low fiber diet for a few weeks while my stomach decides to stop being offended by the fact I got a virus. (I didn't even get food poisoning this time and it's made me extra paranoid in the kitchen, this whole experience is No Fun and I have it pretty mild.) I am BORED. When I was feeling particularly bad I didn't care and just had chicken and rice or chicken and a skinless baked potato a lot, but now I am starting to feel better I'm also starting to feel like I will go nuts if I see one more bland plate of chicken and rice or noodles. But I can't think of anything else that I'd be allowed to eat on the diet. (I'm going to start having dreams about pizza soon, though.) So, anyone have ideas/suggestions/good recipes that meet requirements that might get my brain going? The rules are low fat (lean meats, tiny amount of oil, etc. healthy fats like avocado are ok in moderation), low fiber (no whole grains, vegetables and fruits must be cooked to death and not full of indigestible stuff like seeds and skin), and no dairy. (Well, no lactose, so I cheat a little with like a small amount of Lactaid milk in pancakes and the like.) I'm sure there is plenty I can do that isn't chicken and rice, but I think there is sort of a 'don't think of a pink elephant' effect going on where all I can think of is all the tasty things I can't have.

This is exactly why my paring knives are Froschner - I'd rather easy to sharpen and fast to dull than a paring knife that stays kind of sharp a long time but isn't really sharp and is a bear to sharpen.

My larger Darto seems to be getting seasoned by sheer force of persistence, although it isn't the lovely even almost factory-like finish some folks manage. It is, however, AMAZING. I get a fantastic sear with it on meats, now that it is better seasoned it works nicely on eggs (although this is still a work in progress,) and tonight I used it for pancakes with just a drop of oil to start, and they browned and came up beautifully. I am in love. I do find the weight a little unwieldy, but it's worth it for the results. My housemate might grind the edges of the handle a little, also - they're a little sharp. (Not like they'd cut you, but they are so squared off they dig in unpleasantly when handling the pan in certain ways, especially for him - might be a function of how you grip the pan and hand size?) If I get a larger stove so I have more than one decent burner, I might have to get another pan so I can have two going at a time for bigger dinners with steak or similar. Still, these pans seem to handle crowding pretty well - my other frying pan steams everything as soon as I get more than two steaks in the pan, even if there should be adequate room for three. (Not large steaks, obviously.) The Darto does three no problems.

This thread is so inspiring, although I haven't been able to participate due to after-effects of the illness that stuck me in the hospital before Christmas. I'm on a Bland and Boring diet for another couple of weeks yet, it isn't inspiring. (Low fat, low fiber, no dairy, no hot spiceiness, no strong acid... Housemate and kiddo had spaghetti sauce and ravioli from the freezer for dinner and the sauce smelled so good I was tempted even though I know I'd regret it.) I did discover that adding a good chicken broth in a small amount to a baked potato helps make up for limited butter, but I'm getting pretty bored of stuff like chicken and rice.

Stove envy here too.

'I want something like the Braising Skillet on the Borough Furnace page, but not for that kind of $$$. Anyone seen something similar elsewhere?