Tri2Cook

Surprisingly not bad. I was skeptical of it but I didn't mind it when I actually tasted it. Of course, I am a guy so... My problem with most of the hot dips that sound good is they all seem to call for cream cheese and/or mayo. They're always so rich and heavy that I just feel nasty afterwards and have no interest in making it again even if it tasted good. And just for a little comic relief, straight from the Department of Dumb, I burnt my mouth so bad on some Philly cheesesteak dip that I couldn't eat anything that wasn't soft and not too hot for over 2 weeks and it hurt really bad along the bone just beneath the surface where the burn was for over a month. I'd like to call that a stupid kid mistake but it actually just happened during this last college football season.

That's about as easy to get where I live as the octopus. It's okay though, I wasn't really planning in an Asian direction anyway.

I've seen youtube videos of people using it to make takoyaki but there's zero chance of me getting my hands on octopus before next weekend.

Unless eGullet talks me down, my plans are currently leaning towards the quick and easy. I have a cake pop maker (basically a waffle iron that makes twelve spheres instead of a waffle) that my wife used but I never have. I've had it sitting on the kitchen table while I debate finding a new home for it. On a whim, I looked through the recipe books she had with it and I've discovered a whole world of ideas for bite-sized snacks of the non-sweet variety that can be made in this device. So now I'm coming up with my own idea for things to make in it. Prep doughs and batters and fillings and have them in the fridge, run a batch through the machine when needed (thus having them always be fresh and hot without having to do much in the way of last minute effort or game-time babysitting) and have some nice dipping options that pair well with whatever items I decide to make. I'm still undecided on who I'll pull for in the game. I honestly think Atlanta has the better overall team and wouldn't mind seeing them finish a great season with the win... but there would be something satisfying about watching Goodell have to hand Brady that trophy.

I must have missed where it said the freezer had to be overstocked or in need of defrosting. I have a large chest freezer, a small one we inherited and the freezer part of my refrigerator and none of them are overstocked or even close to full and none of them have any ice buildup. They're not very well organized but there's lots of space. I suppose I have to tap out now as well...

Did an honest no-peek grab and came out with a big package of Italian sausage sans casings. Gonna have to reach a bit with this one and say I'm pairing sausage with sauce because that's pretty much the only way it works out for the same letter thing. Lasagna is the intended dish but it won't be until tomorrow or possibly even Sunday.

My experience has been that some things infuse nicely that way, some things not so much. I've never used the technique for ganache so I'm of no help in that area but I use it for other things involving cream that doesn't need to be heated before use. Ginger works really well for cold infusion. I actually do hot and cold for my ginger ice cream. I cold infuse the cream and hot infuse the milk which is used to make the base and cooled before I add the infused cream.

I honestly wasn't trying to start one, I was just using that as an example when I sympathized with Anna regarding not ordering what a place is known for.

I don't really envision a situation where I'll be there again... but I didn't really envision a situation where I'd be there the first time, yet there I was.

Sometimes the ideas restaurants come up with in the attempt to be zany or different just end up being silly. I learned that lesson. My one and only visit to the seemingly-popular Swiss Chalet (by request during a family trip) saw me completely ignoring the chicken they're supposed to be known for and ordering a burger instead. I still don't know if their chicken deserves it's following or not but I can attest to the awfulness of that burger. If I ever find myself in their restaurant again, chicken it will be. At least if I still don't enjoy it, it won't be due to my bad decision making.

Me too.

I was an adult before I discovered that one. I like it but it doesn't like me... and neither does anybody trapped in a room or car with me later that day. Me too, and sometimes I go all-in with it. A bowl that will probably never appear in the eGullet breakfast thread, pretty it's not. But every now and then I cook some crumbled breakfast sausage, a piece of toast and an over easy egg or two and toss it all into a smallish bowl of buttered oatmeal (I break the toast into bite sized pieces first) , add salt and lots of pepper and munch. Does that confession mean I have to resign my eGullet membership?

I grew up on hot cereals for breakfast. I enjoyed them and that daily routine for many years did nothing to cause me to dislike them. I still eat them to this day, though not every day. I'd never heard of Maltex until this thread but Cream of Wheat, Malt-o-Meal, oatmeal, grits and rice were in regular rotation through my entire childhood.

Me neither but if it was set down in front of me looking like that picture ninagluck posted of her dish, I'd be mighty inclined to dig into it anyway.

In the interest of not semi-cheating again, I took another trip into the freezer and made sure it was completely random this time. One of my wife's favorite things to do was go out in the bush during season and pick the local wild blueberries. So it was no surprise to me that, even without cheating, that's what came out of the freezer. There are gallons of them in there. Even though there's a lot in there, I know they won't last forever so I'm kinda picky about when and what I use them for. But a challenge is a challenge and that's what I pulled out so use some I will. I was trying to decide what to do with them and remembered a recipe I'd been meaning to try so I paired the blueberries with butter and have a batch of blueberry crumb bars in the oven right now.

So I blindly reached into the freezer yesterday, pretended I didn't know perfectly well that I was reaching into the end where the meat tends to congregate and pulled out a package of sirloin steak. Sirloin steak... both start with "s". So I made the pairing ingredient soy sauce... another double "s". Then, in a daring display of innovation and creativity, I decided to make fried rice as the dish. So I cooked some rice so that it could spend a night in the fridge because it seems to work much better for fried rice that way. It won't happen until this evening, gonna be dinner/game food for the late NFL playoff game tonight.

I was thinking more about 3 of Rodgers top 4 receivers being questionable to play but yeah, having a beat up secondary against Ryan with Jones and Sanu isn't a comfy situation either. But Aaron Rodgers is the master at pulling a rabbit out of his hat when he needs one so we'll see. Today's game food is going to play into Anna's freezer challenge thread. Just basic snacks for the early game but the late game is going to be dinner which will be steak and mushroom fried rice based on what I blindly pulled from the freezer last night (sirloin steak). I might start planning the Super Bowl menu today as well.

I haven't thought about Super Bowl food yet, I should get started soon. It'll probably just be me and there won't be a meal that night, the game food will be dinner as well. I'll most likely be drinking water so not much to get excited about there. You may get the Packers in the Super Bowl. I think Atlanta has the more solid offense right now and should be able to take it but it's hard to bet against Aaron Rodgers.

Why should there be judgement? I view my booze preferences in the style of the old StarKist tuna commercials... I don't particularly care about booze with good taste, I want booze that tastes good (to me). If I like something, I'm happy. I couldn't care less if somebody else doesn't approve because it's not what's considered the "right" one to like. Of course, there's often a reason certain boozes are considered the "good" ones. In those cases, the booze with good taste and the booze that tastes good (to me) are often one and the same.

I used 80 proof when I made mine. I followed the instructions here which says "at least 2 weeks, until the peels look pale and the vodka is no longer gaining color or aroma". I didn't worry about additional time for difference in proof, I just started checking at the 2 week point and when I was satisfied nothing else was being gained, I continued with the production. I'm hoping there's no point of diminishing returns regarding shelf life, my batch made 1 1/2 750 ml bottles. I used the 1/2 bottle but the full bottle's been sitting unopened in my cabinet for close to 3 years. Edit: correction - I just read the post in that linked discussion where I posted about making mine... it's been in the cabinet unopened for more like 6 years. Time flies...

The brats with apples and onions is trying to tempt me. I'm honestly very rarely a fan of fruit in savory dishes (no, we don't have to go down the "tomatoes, eggplants, etc. etc. are fruit!" road) but it sounds good anyway. And I love apple butter. Haven't made it in a long time but it's one of my favorite uses for apples just below eating them as is and apple crisp. And even better on nicely buttered biscuits!

Sorry, I missed this somehow. I'll be honest, I went into it not knowing much about the dish. I've never made it and don't recall ever eating it before. It was tasty but I can't say anything about it's authenticity or how good it would be to the taste of those who know the dish. I just did a google search, read some blog posts that came up in the search and picked a recipe. The recipe was 2 lbs stew beef coated in 4 tbsp. flour seasoned with 1/2 tsp salt and 1 tsp pepper. It's then stewed in a sauce made from 1 1/2 c beef broth, 1 c crushed tomato, 2 diced onions, 2 diced bell peppers, 4 minced garlic cloves and 4 tbsp paprika. I sautéed the peppers, onions and garlic, took them out of the pan and browned the meat in batches in the same pan. I then deglazed the pan with the beef broth and dumped everything in a crockpot on low. That wasn't according to the recipe but I wanted to put it on before work and not have to worry about it while I was away all day so a crockpot seemed like the way to go. I adjusted the salt when I got home and wound up adding more paprika. Despite my lack of familiarity with the dish, I felt like it needed it to my taste. It's entirely possible that's just an indictment of the paprika I have on hand.

I'm sure you explained yourself just fine, just my own mind making things more difficult than need be. It does sound much more pleasant the way you intended, I'm not sure I was looking forward to some of the combos that might come from my freezer if I grabbed two ingredients blindly. I'm not even entirely sure what all is in there. I won't know what some things are even after I pull them out until I've opened whatever I have them packaged in. How's that for some quality freezer organization?

My freezer would benefit greatly from this. Not sure if I'd be brave enough to risk two freezer ingredients at once though... I could end up with some pretty Chopped-esque combinations. With my luck, I'd pull out the mini chocolate tart shells and the local walleye I have lurking somewhere in there. That, or the half of a cream cheese pound cake and the smoked elk bones. Now that I think about it, there was a time not all that long ago when I would have been excited about trying to make those things work together in a pleasant manner. What's happened to me?

Beef Paprikas, boiled potatoes and cucumber dill salad in all of it's uncalculated pile-it-on-the-plate-and-munch glory...