Porthos

Working on the cancer one delicious bite at a time.

www.stonebrewing.com My SIL is very enamored of them. In their seasonal releases I like the Smoked Porter and the Imperial Russian Stout, but neither are around for very long.

I use a French press at my FIL's house because I am the only one there drinking coffee. In my experience, and a coworker noted the same thing, it takes more coffee grounds to make French press coffee. At home I use 1/2 cup of coffee in my Hamilton Beach Brew Station to make a carafe's worth of coffee. I have to use a 1/2 cup of coffee in my French press to make about a 1/2 carafe's worth of coffee. I have reason to use the Melita-style pourover coffee making system on weekends when I am doing my ren faire stuff. This style uses closer to the 1/2 cup for a carafe's worth of coffee. ETA: It does take more time than French press coffee.

So Wednesday's and Thursday's dinners were full-on cooking. Tonight was a mish-mash. Browned hamburger then added a couple of cans of Ranch Style Beans, a can of whole kernel corn, then adjusted the seasoning a bit. I sliced up some green onions to go on top and put out grated cheddar and sour cream. Toppings are put on by each diner as they wish. Using a mix I made corn bread to go with it.

We buy 2 pound bricks of unremarkable (Costco Kirkland) sharp cheddar cheese and, using a food processor, grate it into half pound portions that go into ziplocs and then into the freezer. I just did that task and had enough cheese bits left from the mess that I made a 1/2 grilled cheese sandwich and sat down with it to egullet some more. We go through about 2 bricks of cheese a month so I maybe will have to see how much mess there is again in the future. Good sourdough, butter and sharp cheddar, how can you go wrong.

@Anna N That version is slightly different. This is the one I couldn't find by searching: Brats with Apples and Onions From Andiesenji (egullet) 2 - 3 tablespoons butter or lard or bacon drippings Scant 1/2 teaspoon of cumin 4 to 6 brats - depending on size - cut into 1-inch chunks 2 large apples, peeled and cored and cut into chunks 1 large or two small onions, cut into chunks Fresh ground black pepper - 1/4 teaspoon should be enough Salt. Taste before salting after dish has cooked about 3/4 through. 3 cups of apple cider. Heat the fat till it sizzles, then stir in the cumin and allow it to "bloom." Brown the brat chunks in the fat, then stir in the apples and onions. Transfer to the slow cooker and add the cider. Cook on high for 30 minutes then reduce to low and cook for 3 hours or more until ready to serve. I serve this with dumplings, large flat noodles or rice.

@andiesenji has a recipe for brats with apples and onions that I like. I can't seem to find a copy here though. Slow cooker recipe.

Chicken breasts with orange marmalade and balsamic vinegar. 2 1/2 hours at 147 F. Chicken will be cubed when done and the liquid will become a sauce. I will serve it over brown rice accompanied by steamed carrots.

There are 2 fundamental styles of making spätzle. Hand-cut uses a stiffer dough whereas a thinner batter is used with a spätzlehobel. Hand-cut seems labor-intensive and has never interested me.

The spätzle recipe we use comes from this cookbook we bought in Germny in 1980. My DW has a BA in German, I only know a word here or there.

Sauerbraten with spätzle. Years ago we bought a spätzlehobel and it makes preparing spätzle so easy.

This will be fun to watch. I can't play because three times a year I pretty well empty out the freezer to make space; in the spring and fall for my ren faire acquisitions, and a third emptying happens after the American Thanksgiving for the small mountain of cookies we bake for Christmas Cookie Tins. Have fun and i will enjoy watching.

I'm as giddy as a school boy. Three Heavy-duty Kirkland S/S NSF-rated mixing bowls (3 qt, 5 qt, 8 qt) for $3.59! I picked up the Tramontina equivalent of the 3 qt on Sunday for $2.69.

So it's more than sugar. It includes choices that don't add sugar calories. If sugar is the culprit then the law is flawed. And here I thought California, where I live, makes some crazy social engineering laws ...

I appreciate the many and various responses. One thing it did was to point out how my western hemisphere, urban-suburban life influences what I consider convenience food. So I will talk more about how my thinking works, not saying that anyone else needs to agree with me. When I think of raw ingredients it doesn't mean that it all had to from the produce department or the butcher's counter. Fresh frozen veggies** are a major part of my diet. I regularly buy dinner sausages that have been made outside of my kitchen. I have no interest in making my own tomato sauce from scratch. Although I know how to make my own mayonnaise, that is reserved for special meals. I use canned mushrooms or fresh mushrooms as my whim dictates. I am not at all interested in learning to cure my own olives. With that information I will tell you that full-on cooking, in my head, means that I cook a protein, I cook a starch from raw ingredients, I cook fresh or fresh frozen veggies, etc. They may be individual foods on a plate or a one-dish dinner, but the cooking and the seasoning was done in my kitchen. When I pull a frozen pizza out of the freezer and toss it into the oven I have added nothing but heat. Someone else has prepared and cooked the ingredients and I am just finishing the job. A specific comment about veggies. When I am going to steam, season and serve veggies I typically fresh frozen. When I want roasted veggies they will be fresh from the produce department. There is to much residual moisture on frozen veggies and even though they are in the oven they mostly steam. RE: time-shifted cooking: As an example, I normally bake my brown rice in sufficient quantity to have enough for 4-5 meals and freeze the meal portions. When I want brown rice, I nuke a package back to life and then "doll it up" commensurate with the meal it is part of. It is still full-on cooking, just in stages. Hopefully that provides a little more insight into my thinking. Again, your thinking doesn't have to be my thinking. I was just curious how other egullters balance the two. ** I seem to remember Fat Guy talking about frozen veggies often being better than that in produce departments because it was picked, processed and frozen more quickly than the typical time-to-market produce in supermarkets.

@ElainaA What you are descibing is still preparing from raw ingredients, some of the cooking just time-shifted.

It is just the 2 of us tonight. I will most likely make grilled cheeses sandwiches. Boudin sourdough bread, grated sharp cheddar cheese (I like the way it melts better), cooked in butter.

I have been thinking about this for a while and wondered where I fit on the spectrum which I am sure exists. When I refer to full-on cooking it is taking raw ingredients and preparing them, producing a meal. Prepared foods would be canned beans that have been seasoned and are ready to eat once heated, frozen pizzas, etc. or ordering in. We eat six dinners at home each week, scheduling and commitments make the other day drive-thru meals or such. Five of the six dinners are for four adults, one evening it is just my DW and me. When it is just my DW and me we have simpler meals, but generally from raw ingredients. Of the the other 5 meals I typically cook 4 meals from scratch and about once a week go "I'm tired" or whatever and convenience wins. On those days it is either "i'm picking up a pizza" or something simple at home like cutting up a kielbasa, browning it, and then putting in a couple of can of Ranch Style Beans and ladling it into bowls. So that is my reality. I'm curious about my fellow egullters and the typical amount of "Full-on cooking? not tonight!" versus producing a meal from raw ingredients. Anyone wanna play?

In California it is still that way. One of my children needed WIC assistance a while back and it is a very focused program.

An article I read maybe a year ago, written by someone who grew up in a household dependent on government programs, noted that fresh foods were low on the list because they did most all of their purchasing for the month in one trip and food stuffs that were non-perishable were their mainstay. As much as one would hope otherwise for more "healthy" nutritional choices I do agree with you, Anna.

For my goal this wil not work at all. It took 14 minutes in the 450 F oven to get crisp. From raw to crisp only takes about 20 minutes and cutting off 6 minutes of cooking time isn't enough of a gain.

My cooler lost about 1 1/2 inches in 20 hours at 145F. Since I have yet to, except for the bacon experiment, run anything for more than 5 1/4 hours and don't see anything even that long (in this cooler) in my future I will stick with it for the time being. If the bacon experiment pans out I will be using the 28 qt cooler I mentioned upthread since I will be doing 4-6 pounds of bacon. SInce I typically only SV proteins in the 1 to 2 pound range I shouldn't have any issues with size. ETA: Remember that ,my SV bacon experiment is not for bacon in our home but rather for a quicker way to get cooked bacon into a serving Cambro for ren Faire reenactors to have some breakfast.

When I saw the "send pcitures..." post it seemed to me that it was actually meant for daveb per this post:

Bacon has been drained, separated on to paper towels and put into the fridge. Tomorrow morning will be the crisping in the 450° oven test.

Things changed and I was able to start the bacon this afternoon. I have lost 7/16" of water since I started the test about 9 hours ago. Much better setup.