[Mac and Cheese: Defining and Pushing its Boundaries]

We nearly always make mac and cheese with spirals but sometimes bowties or whatever. And typically with smoked salmon. And Colby cheese.

 

Hoity-toity Rockpool restaurant in Melbourne uses some sort of rich smoky bacon-adjacent porky meat in theirs.

 

Gochujang and peanuts sounds delicious.

[Dinner 2023]

On 4/30/2023 at 8:41 PM, Duvel said:

 

In Germany during Spargel season the white phenotype reigns supreme. 
 

The green one is available year round (imported), typically smaller and predominantly used as a side veggie, while the white seasonal one is the main.

 

The green phenotype is much cheaper to produce, because you don’t need all that extra work to keep the sunlight away (grown in covered earthwalls until ready, dug out and cut manually, …). Green asparagus can be grown in a regular field and machine-harvested.

 

 

How long is spargel season? Any chance I'll get to try some in the second half of May when I'll be in Europe?

 

Interesting about the mechanical harvesting of green asparagus. When I lived in an asparagus growing area in the US it was all hand-harvested, predominantly by hispanic workers. Still it was cheap enough to pickle.

 

[Food Funnies]

Precocious Little Shit Reckons This Isn’t Real Carbonara

“At Mitch’s house, his Dad grates fresh Parmesan in a bowl and uses real guanciale instead of whatever this white muck is."

 

[Hoarding Ingredients - suffering from Allgoneophobia?]

On 9/9/2017 at 5:12 PM, liuzhou said:

Chinese food stores and supermarkets have this insane habit of stocking something, having it sell out within days or minutes, then never restocking. I have a pet theory that they just think it messes up their shelving arrangements.

 

"People just come in here and empty that shelf I spent 10 minutes filling up. Why can't they just let it be? Don't get that stuff again!"

 

Or maybe the stores are just hoarding their stock

[Hospital Food]

My local private hospital has actually stepped up their food game. Order what you want when you want (subject to dietary restrictions) 6:30 AM to 8:00 PM. Had an early tea since they had been starving me all day so had an evening snack. At the last minute added a piece of carrot cake that was seriously good and nice looking to boot with whip cream, pumpkin seeds, and edible flowers on top.

[Kitchen Things I Can't Believe I Didn't Know About]

Love my canning funnel. Which reminds me, I thought I swiped a pyrex powder funnel from the lab at grad school but I haven't seen it in decades. I do have a plastic funnel with a suitably wide (insert whatever the bottom part of a funnel is called).

 

One of the best things about my canning funnel is that the bottom is designed to fit into mason jars to just the right fill depth so you know when to stop. Brilliant little detail.

[Eating Western Food in China]

Aside from the weird bun it would be an Australian burger with 'the lot' if you added beetroot and maybe pineapple

[What Are You Preserving, and How Are You Doing It? (2016–)]

3 hours ago, Senior Sea Kayaker said:

 

This intrigued me as I've always done fermentations where the CO2 is vented so I ran some rough numbers using conservative estimates for the sugar content of the peppers and the equilibrium point of the reaction.

Based on a 2% sugar content you should expect approximately 10 liters of CO2 from a Kg. of starting material.

Curious to see the how your fermentation progresses.

 

 

 

interesting. It's been a few weeks and the ferment has slowed down to almost nothing. I can't remember the starting weights but it must have been less than a kg. I've seen photos of bags that looked ready to burst and that's why I made mine so big until I get the hang of it. I would definitely do this again for a long ferment without much liquid. 

[What Are You Preserving, and How Are You Doing It? (2016–)]

First try fermenting some peppers for hot sauce. Vacuum sealed with 3% by weight salt. You can see the bags are puffing up with carbon dioxide from the ferment. I left lots of extra bag so don't think it will need to be vented and I don't plan on finishing it until July. One bag is Hungarian hots and the other Hungarian hot plus jalapenos. 

 

[Dinner 2023]

Not ready for the roast chicken thread but I think it turned out pretty well, except the skin was a bit anemic. Dry brined in the fridge for about 6 hours. Served with carrots and smashed potato roasted in olive oil and brussel sprouts and beetroot roasted in whatever dripped down from the chook. Threw the potato and carrot in a pot of cold water and when it boiled, I put the sprouts and beetroot in a strainer in the water. Then they went in separate pans with the chicken on a rack. Everything into a cold oven and turned onto 205 C fan-forced. There was quite a bit of steam in the oven and the chicken was very moist. Next time I'll turn it to top heat + fan sooner.

 

Surprisingly, everything was done at about the same time and even more surprising at about the time I was aiming for.

 

 

 

[What Are You Preserving, and How Are You Doing It? (2016–)]

1 hour ago, Shelby said:

NO

 

But you all know I'm a tomato skin-a-phobe  

 

The idea is that the skin is processed down so its presence isn't noticed but maybe that doesn't affect your phobia

[What Are You Preserving, and How Are You Doing It? (2016–)]

Tomato sauce. No photo because it looks like tomato sauce. I tried two cheater methods. First set I quartered and cored then simmered and blitzed in the blender without removing the skins, then reduced down to sauce. Second set I didn't simmer first, just blitzed then reduced down. The second set maybe didn't liquify as well but I think it will be fine. Anyone else leaving the skin in your sauce rather than removing it?

[Tell us about the popular foods you’ve never tried]

On 3/26/2023 at 1:19 AM, liuzhou said:

Mexican food.

Too much c⊘rn and I'm not a lover of cooked cheese.

 

There's a huge amount of Mexican food that has nothing to do with corn. In fact I can't recall ever eating Mexican with corn except corn tortillas and tamales. And there's a lot without melted cheese - fajitas, carnitas, tacos, mole, menudo 

[Tell us about the popular foods you’ve never tried]

On 3/27/2023 at 12:46 AM, gfweb said:

Poutine and it's Jersey cousin, disco fries, is classic drunk food or stadium food...meant to be eaten with a plastic fork.

 

I've only had Tim Horton's poutine and I'm not sure that counts. But I maintain an HSP - Halal Snack Pack is the best variation of stuff on chips

[Tell us about the popular foods you’ve never tried]

On 3/25/2023 at 7:20 AM, gfweb said:

My 30 y/o daughter has never had a McD's hamburger

 

I was trying to go through life without eating a Macca's burger but there was a flood in the city where I was living and we were out sand-bagging and a van racked up and handed out burgers. I do go to McDonald's sometimes but usually get chicken

[The Humble Squeeze Bottle]

Can't your recycle squeeze bottles of something else from the store?

[The Humble Squeeze Bottle]

On 4/1/2023 at 2:38 AM, btbyrd said:

But there's always blue painter's tape, the official label maker of the Guild of Culinary Professionals.

 

Bonus points if you fold over a tab on the tape for easier removal

[Gardening: (2016– )]

1 hour ago, TicTac said:

Second time this winter that the curry leaf plant is flowering.  Produces the most amazingly intense seeds!  
 

 

What do you do with the seeds?

[Gardening: (2016– )]

A couple of my butternut pumpkins. I have a fair number more including some I don't expect to get ripe. All look kind of weird - stumpy instead of the classic shape. The one at the top with no seeds to scoop, I assume is a hybrid because I didn't know you shouldn't plant them near zucchinis. No seeds to scoop. "It's not a bug, it's a feature"

 

[Gardening: (2016– )]

19 minutes ago, kayb said:

My father always contended one should plant one’s garden on Good Friday. I will not make that this year.

 

Good Friday seems problematic since it moves around. And most of my American friends are complaining about late snow so probably good to wait.

 

Here they say don't plant tomatoes until Melbourne Cup Day (Big deal horse race that is becoming less of a deal but is still a public holiday in my state). With climate change it seems I can sneak them in earlier. I do need to think about my winter crops though. I'll be gone for 6 weeks in May and June so it will have to be something that can be neglected. 

[Gardening: (2016– )]

I haven't been good about starting seeds except for things like parsley, coriander, and shiso that self seed. That and the patch of lawn that is quite nicely being taken over by warrigal greens (you might know it as New Zealand spinach - darn kiwis trying to claim everything!). I did start some basil that looked rather sickly but we managed to get enough to keep us in pesto for the summer. And I did start one pot of coriander late in the season. It was somewhat successful - got a fair bit of pretty small plants (maybe too many seeds for the pot) and they bolted when just a few cm high. But did make some nice peach salsa with it.

 

But I have some pole beans that got away so I have them drying, and I may try roma tomatoes. I wasn't planning on planting tomatoes this year but I bought a damaged punnet of med size round things for a dollar and I have two volunteer romas. The romas got far too leafy but didn't get any blight in spite of being abused and mostly laying on the ground so I think it might be worth starting some from the rotting ones I found underneath. 

[Cleavers]

2 hours ago, chromedome said:

Seeing it caused me to realize that I have a perfectly good hatchet, which in fact was in my office (long story) at the time I saw that post. Should I need to chop bones at any point, I think I'll probably just give my hatchet a good wash and use that.

 

Mine is more of an intermediate between a hatchet and an axe that you can barely get two hands on. It somehow ended up staying with me after a summer doing mineral exploration up north and was ideal for smaller trees and sharpening claim posts. I did however have it sharp enough to shave hair off my arm. I suppose I should get the bit of rust off in case I need it for food.

[Cleavers]

I think there are bone cleavers and bone cleavers. I have my father's cheap-ass cleaver he schlepped back from Asia for some reason. I took the chips out of it with a file and then promptly put a new one in with a pork bone, so it's chicken only (not that I do that much). I'd say for me any hard bone calls for the hacksaw, which is slow but doesn't leave chips, just some ground bits that are probably good for you.

[How do you measure and handle your pasta?]

I cook a whole pack and have leftovers

[Absurdly, stupidly basic cooking questions (Part 2)]

On 3/24/2023 at 9:37 AM, blue_dolphin said:

 

I bought some fresh ones when they were specifically called for in a recipe. I thought they tasted fine but not significantly different from the dried ones. I wanted to plant a tree when I had my lawn removed.  My landscape designer rolled her eyes and told me they get too big.  In reality, nothing I plant tends to get very big so I may look into it again!

 

Someone on here (@andiesenji?) has a whole hedge. I wouldn't worry about them getting too big. They sucker so just chop off anything that gets too big. They also grow slowly, at least to start - took forever to get mine big enough to plant in the ground. A wattle fell over and took most of mine out a few years ago but I'm back to way more than I need.