Tri2Cook

I pulled a container out of the freezer that turned out to contain meatballs. Not in any sort of sauce or anything, just extras from a previous use. The seasoning in them is Italian in nature so that was the direction I started thinking. Then, in a fit of what I thought was creativity while listening to the cold winter wind blowing outside, spaghetti and meatball soup popped into my head. And, as usual, a quick google check later showed that 10 billion people had already had that idea before me. That didn't stop me from doing it anyway. I made my usual spaghetti sauce but went heavier on the seasoning, thinned it with chicken broth, added the meatballs and let it cook for a bit. While it was cooking, I pre-hydrated some spaghetti noodles that I'd broken into ~1/3's in a bowl of cold water for about an hour and a half. Those went in the pot to cook and it was done. In the bowl with a little olive oil, parmesan and basil and it was pretty tasty. The only problem is I added too much pasta so it's a bit on the thick side for a soup but, fortunately, not to the point where I might as well have just made regular old spaghetti and meatballs. So I paired meatballs with mistake via the pasta overload.

I understand that was the most unhelpful possible answer and was probably well deserving of your withering stare but I do always appreciate a good smartass answer (yes, those directed at me as well)... even if wasn't intentionally done.

While I never feel inclined to bet against anything you say you're going to do (or not do, in this case), I think I know which side of the betting pool my money would have to go on this time. Seeing this thread rise to the top today just helps shine a spotlight on my shame. I had everything ready to go yesterday to make a batch of yeasted waffle batter so it could spend the night doing it's yeast reaction thing. I was looking forward to those waffles for a nice Sunday breakfast. I was going to take a few of my homemade breakfast sausage patties* out of the freezer to go with it. I woke up in the middle of the night with the realization that I went to bed without making the batter. It was somewhere around 2 am and I just wasn't willing to get up and do it then... so next Sunday it is. *I can't speak for all parts of Canada but it's impossible to get anything even remotely close to southern U.S. style breakfast sausage anywhere near where I live. The bland, squashy, joyless tubes of fat and gristle they call breakfast sausage in the local restaurants and grocery store aren't the slightest bit tempting. I need flavor, a nice touch of heat and plenty o' sage in my breakfast sausage.

I took your advice, read through every thread on the subject that the search function found for me and came to a conclusion. The one common thread to all of the sous vide corned beef discussions is that nobody really agrees on much of anything. But that's probably a good thing because it leads to a large number of suggestions with accompanying information regarding the result using that person's preferred method. So I have some ideas in mind for how I want to approach this now. I try my best to steer people away from that idea. The idea that food safety has a direct correlation to how difficult an ingredient is to pronounce. There are a lot of completely natural and safe ingredients or ingredients derived from completely natural ingredients that don't just roll off the tongue when trying to pronounce them. I don't in any way try to tell people how to eat or how to decide what to eat or not eat, it's just that particular phrase in regards to food safety has been a pet peeve of mine since they started using it as a marketing gimmick in commercials.

Sounds good to me... I don't require a heart-shaped steak but I'd prefer it over a heart-shaped box of chocolates. Edit: sorry dcarch, as nice as that looks, I'd prefer a heart-shaped steak over heart-shaped tofu too.

So just out of curiosity, if we're using sous vide to precisely control what happens to the meat during cooking and don't need the abundance of fat and collagen found in the more traditional cuts to avoid ending up with jerky, is there any down side to using something like a top sirloin roast for corned beef? I mean, other than price. Let's pretend that part doesn't matter just for the sake of discussion. Just to be clear, I'm not asking for brisket substitutes. I can get chuck/blade and other roasts no problem and I know what I'm asking wouldn't work too well for more traditional cooking methods. I'm just curious about using cuts from further up the chain while we're already being scientific and controlling with the cooking anyway.

Yeah, It's that deciding part that I'm working on. I'm trying to decide in my head which result sounds better to me so thanks for the encouragement and sharing your temp preference. P.S. Just for the record, I do very much enjoy steamy winter windows and cooking smells filling the house but I'm willing to forego that in the pursuit of a better result.

The Reuben is on the short list of my all-time favorite sandwiches... I like them slathered in butter and pan cooked like a grilled cheese but I doubt I'd turn my nose up at an unbuttered, baked variation. Edit: had to correct this post, just realized there's no sauerkraut... my apologies for accusing it of being a Reuben. The wedge salad had to be the creation of a restaurant prep cook... "I could spend time picking through this head of lettuce and tearing it into bite-sized pieces or I could just remove the core, cut it into a few quick wedges, convince the boss it's cool and innovative and go for a coffee break."

Open the Campbell's can, plop it into a pan, fill can with water (milk mellows it too much), add to pan, heat, add pepper to taste and a small piece of butter. While it's heating, butter bread and toss it in a pan, top with cheese and another slice of buttered bread. Brown on both sides to your liking. Soup in bowl, sandwich on plate, dunking recommended but optional. Adding the pepper and butter are the "perfecting" part.

I saw them on You Gotta Eat Here a few nights ago. Not that that means anything, just remembered it when I saw your post.

$250 million would be a pretty bright prospect for my future. They're accomplishing what I'd bet is the goal of 90% or more of all small independent inventors/manufacturers... to be bought out by a bigger company for serious money.

Football (NFL and U.S. college) is pretty much the only sport I get into enough to follow consistently. I'll watch the occasional baseball, basketball or hockey game and a couple of the higher profile golf majors if I don't have something else I'd rather be doing but I don't follow any of it in any serious manner. I always catch as much as I can of the Tour de France and the Giro d'Italia but they don't always cooperate well with my work schedule. But Saturday and Sunday during the season tend to be dedicated to football... and food to watch the games with.

I'm not particularly a fan or hater of either team, I was mainly pulling for Atlanta because I'd like to see Julio Jones get a Super Bowl to go with his college national championship (been a loyal Bama fan since I was a youngster, I enjoy college ball just as much as pro... maybe even slightly more). Gonna be eating leftover game food tonight, hopefully it will help me cope with the knowledge that it's going to be 7 months before football returns.

So much failure... Atlanta throws away a 25 point lead and I was so full from the mini corn dogs that the Jamaican beef patties never made it to the oven. Guess I know what's for dinner tomorrow.

I wish I'd thought of deviled eggs. I like them but I never think of them when planning stuff like this. The above mentioned cake pop maker isn't going to get the job of baking the mini Jamaican beef patties. They didn't shrink as much in the oven as I guessed they would. With the dough wrapper, they're too big for the gadget so the oven will have to take over. I'm still going to try the mini corn dog things in the cake pop maker but I'm not 100% sold on the idea of corn dogs being baked instead of deep fried. We'll see how it goes.

Stuffing in a waffle iron topped with leftover turkey and gravy and some cranberry sauce on the side is pretty tasty too.

So the bite-size Jamaican beef patties are a definite. I mixed a couple pounds of ground beef with some fresh bread crumbs, an egg, habaneros, garlic, green onions, fresh thyme and a spice mixture of salt, pepper, allspice, curry powder and cayenne and, because it's something I like to do with sausage and meatball mixtures, a little MSG. I was going to cook the meatballs tonight but I've decided to give it an overnight in the fridge to let everything get friendly with each other. I also mixed some minced habanero, minced garlic, thyme, salt and lime juice into some sour cream to serve as a dip for the patties. Tomorrow I'm going to cook the meatballs, cool them, wrap them in puff pastry (purchased) and they'll be ready to go for game time. The mini hot sausage corn dogs don't require much prep work, just mix the batter and I'm going to pre-brown the sausage pieces even though they're fully cooked because they taste better that way. I probably won't make anything else. I have some pickles and pickled beets in the fridge that can serve as something to break up the meat-and-bread richness and a dessert, I think that's more than sufficient for just me and the kid. She's not at all interested in the game but she'll help eat the food.

I wasn't planning on doing a dessert until I saw the beauty German Chocolate Cake RobertM posted in the "Daily Sweets" thread. After that, it had to happen. I'm not a big cake eater in general but I love the frosting used for that cake. Then it occurred to me that this was my offense so I called an audible and made a big pan of nice, fudgy brownies that I then topped with an overkill amount of the German Chocolate Cake frosting. Probably going to be richness overload... but the Super Bowl is once a year so that's okay.

Who originally said it and why it was thought they were unmelted doesn't really matter. My point was that chocolate chips are formulated to hold their shape in baked goods but they do indeed melt. And the magic in real chocolate chips isn't via special ingredients, it's via a lower cocoa butter content. Lower cocoa butter content = increased viscosity = less tendency to flow. Combine that with it being cradled by and somewhat insulated by the batter or dough or whatever and they keep their shape. As chromedome said, compound coatings (which covers your butterscotch chips and peanut butter chips) contain fats other than cocoa butter and can easily be formulated to stand up to some heat from baking without running everywhere.

Nope, not trying to sell anybody on the idea of the cake pop maker. I wouldn't buy it for myself, I bought it originally because my wife wanted one. I'm still leaning towards giving/donating it, and the assorted accessories and supplies that go with it, to somebody who will put it to good use... after the Super Bowl. Edit: Now I'm wondering if the electric fondue pot gets hot enough to deep fry the bite-sized corn dog things... I've never actually had a baked corn dog and picking the healthier option isn't really part of the equation for this menu. I'm kinda liking the idea of cooking everything in these seldom used kitchen gadgets that are taking up space in the kitchen.

If you're looking to read about or be inspired by classy or fancy or even elevated Super Bowl grub, you'll probably be happier avoiding my posts. One of my current ideas is to make the filling for Jamaican beef patties but mix all of the seasoning items into the raw meat instead of cooking it. That way I can make meatballs with it, bake them off, wrap them in dough when cool and toss them in the fridge. Then during the game I can just drop them into the cake pop maker I mentioned above and let them bake. I'm also considering a corn dog batter seasoned with onion and jalapeno that I can scoop into the cake pop maker, insert a piece of pre-browned smoked sausage and bake. I can get semi-locally made smoked sausages that are more spicy than the average "spicy" grocery store offerings that I think would work really well for this. I may add something else that doesn't involve the cake pop maker (two types of meat in bread seems more than sufficient) but it would still be something similarly simple and not requiring game-time effort. Maybe a soup in the crockpot or something along that line.

They generally tend to hold their shape when baked. If you mess with them fresh out of the oven, you'll find that they are indeed melted. But they hold their shape and when they cool it will appear as if they never melted. If you're saying they were hard and not at all melted straight out of the oven, they may be brown and chocolate flavored but they weren't chocolate.

I know I'm supposed to be an adult but I have to admit it took a bit of effort and reminding myself I'd just be making more work for the mods to convince myself to keep any sordid or seedy comments to myself. But to answer the question, I have never eaten animal genitalia and probably would not if I knew that's what I was being served. I'd like to give a good reason why not but I don't have one. Some ideas just don't appeal to me with no logical explanation available to give. I've never eaten brains. I've heard people say they're good and I'll take their word for it but... no thanks. If somebody offered me bunghole broth or Kentucky fried sphincter, I would politely decline. I have no interest in experiencing "mountain oysters" either. I'm not saying there could never be a situation where I'd be hungry enough to eat whatever was available to eat but until such time, I'll continue to pick and choose what sounds appetizing to me.

I understand what you're upset about but again, morally wrong and illegal are frequently not one and the same. To call it stealing or plagiarism would be to call it illegal, which this (as described) is not. Calling it morally wrong is a completely different argument. Maybe of equal importance to you but probably not so much to the person making the money. There are probably moral objections to be found regarding a large percentage of the completely legal ways people make money. The only real recourse for moral objections is to not support the person, company, etc. in question.

Looks pretty exciting to me. I'd be happy to have that sitting on my kitchen table right now... of course, it'd be missing a big slice. Edit: see what you've done, I've made a note to make one of these Saturday. I wasn't planning a dessert for Sunday's Super Bowl menu... but now I am.