MetsFan5

This topic is a great, yet very sad read and shines a light on things I personally was unaware of. So what can the average person do? I cook a few times a week and otherwise leave "dinner" for my husband and I to pick on whatever we feel like (Campbell's Chicken and Stars in my #1 comfort food) and or eat odds and ends. Most of my grocery stores ask for donations towards various local soup kitchen type organizations but I can't imagine my odd $15-20 a month really helps. Any suggestions how to truly benefit those in need v. paying the exhorbinent salaries of some of the better known charities? What should people be doing to make a difference on a local level if possible?

@blue_dolphinWhat's EYB? Looks good to me.

I'd never ask for a half portion of a dish. I think it's rude. No one is stopping you from taking half the meal home. It also puts an added stress on the kitchen and the waitstaff. If you want a half portion would you only tip half, or would you tip full price and then some for the inconvenience of your special request?

Can an you share more about these dishes? The bottom one especially looks great.

@ElsieD how were the meatballs? They look and sound amazing. On my to do list!

Chris every single time I see that hash I get immediately hungry. I love corned beef hash (corned beef though not so much). It's great in an omelette. In college my roommate and I would always go to the local diner on weekends and order "dog food omelettes" because they look awful but tasted great!

See if you have a Blimpies nearby. They are gooood!

@Tri2Cook please forgive my ignorance-- is your grocery store so limited that you can't have a made to order sub (sandwich) at the deli case? I'm sure some of their employees work hard and are cognizant of health code regulations. Personally, I don't buy the pre sliced deli meats, I have them sliced to order and to my preference of thickness. Or thinness as it applies but at the very least I know then when it was sliced and what brand it is.

I simply cannot abide by subway. From the horrible, smelly bread to the pre- sliced bottom of the barrel cold cuts and the employees with little to no concern for cross contamination I honestly don't think I have ever eaten there. I've been there but won't eat there. Grocery stores make better sandwiches- at least they can be made to order with name brand cold cuts.

You guys are champs. I have central A/C and keep my home at 63 degrees in the summers (which are thick with humidity) and I still don't like to turn on the oven.

Making sauce for a sausage lasagna (please excuse my filthy range):

@teonzo those caper fruits are generally refered to as caper berries in the US and aren't that hard to find. My old roommate and I would eat them by the jar on a weekly basis! I love them.

My golden retriever Loves them too. But she can demolish one in about a half hour.

Sorry but anything government funded and paid by tax payers is going to have limits. We don't live in an egalitarian country. (Assuming people contributing to this conversation are from the US, as these are US programs). I've lived on ramen type of poor and now have a nice life. Soda shouldn't be covered.

An Italian POW in the US? I'm confused.

Oh @HungryChris those scalloped potatoes look perfect on a cold and snowy night!! Anticipating this storm and having been somewhat eaten out of house and home during the holidays (and accidentally leaving my second refrigerator door open for TWO DAYS) we have little to eat until our grocery delivery arrives tomorrow. So last night we ordered a pizza to eat tonight. Pizza reheated in a pan on a gas stove is better than pizza delivered. The bottom gets crispy, the cheese hot and oozy and it takes mere minutes from fridge to pan to plate. It was an easy and fast dinner while watching the adbomination that is "Neighbors Two". Maisey enjoyed the pizza crust fairy visiting her.

Oh the irony of my having not cooked in ages. I had my inlaws at my home during Christmas for 8!! days!! I made a sausage lasagna, beef stew, and Christmas dinner. (steaks, roasted red potatoes and roasted green beans and Marsala mushrooms) and my husband made breakfast EVERY DAY. We eat a proper breakfast maybe once a month. My MIL also ordered those insanely over priced WS crossaints which I admit were very good. Going to 3 stores to find the appropriate recycled parchment paper I could have passed on. As nice as it was to keep busy I crashed HARD once they left. Like didn't leave the bed for 20 hours and slept for 19 of those hours and the came down with a stomach bug then a cold. I hope all of you who had a less than ideal holiday season are feeling ok and made it through unscathed.

Thanks for the info. It is useful! I do not trust myself at all in the kitchen, having left the second fridge's freezer wide open (there way have been booze clouding my judgement) and I just lost a ton of food. Not at all happy. So I'm the type who fucks things up when I I am going by the book!

See, I'm learning here. I leave all the protein cooking to my husband because 1- the BGE is his thing and he is vastly better at grilled than I and 2- despite knowing I should use thermometers and "trust my instinct" when cooking meat, I just don't. Even if it's a chicken breast. So maybe this is something I should look into- especially if I can use it as I might a slow cooker-- put things together and walk away and do laundry and clean, etc. I am a bit OCD about food safety. I call my husband the human garbage disposal- he will eat week old left overs-- they make me gag-- having an undiagnosed gastrointestinal disease. So thanks to all for breaking this down for me because it seems like something worth looking into. And I know there are threads to help with cooking if I try this. I also trust myself not at all, so I'd probably buy a food saver, an immersion circulator, bags and a proper vessel (I haven't amassed enough pots and pans to give one up or that I think is large enough) and hold my breath and dive in. I really appreciate all your input. (However if you want to make fun of the NY Mets? You'd be hard pressed to critic my (yes MY) team in recent years!)

Does proper SVing not require and immersion circulator, bag sealer, bags and a proper vessel for the water bath? That's my assumption but it could very well be erroneous.

@HungryChris -- that dinner sounds perfect. Two of my favorites- shrimp cocktail and Caesar salad!

I love Chrissy Teigan's so I am biased. I haven't read more than a few pages but it has recipes most home cooks could come up with. All of them are simple. The pictures are gorgeous. Sometimes I like cookbooks to read them. Bourdains's "Appetites" references a food board where someone freaked about using a fork to stir scrambled eggs on a non stick pan. I am curious as to what board that was.

Lord I think most of our gifts were culinary based. A light for the big green egg,. BGE cookbook, Adam Perry Lang's "Serious Barbecue", Chrissy Teigan's "Cravings", Anthony Bourdains's "Appetites" (along with Kitchen Confidential and Medium Raw as my husband hasn't read them), a Breville toaster oven, a T-fal non stick 13 piece set of pots and pans, dish towels, oven mitts, pot holders, William Sonoma croissants (more for my inlaws than us but they are good), and the Ray Kroc book. A nice haul. Oh a we bought ourselves a 5 qt Kitchen Aid mixer in Cinnamon.

Just bought a 5qt Kichten Aid mixer for $250 in Amaxon prime in the color "cinnamon". It looks very pretty on my countertop. My inlaws gave us a check to by one two xmases ago since we traveled across the country and lugging it home was completely impractical. Well, I know my MIL will look for it as it will be my inlaws first time at our home (that we own not a rental) so we finally bought it. Now we just have USE it.

Interesting article. I stalk my Amazon wish list (mainly so if I buy somethings on it for my husband's an delete them)but discovered I am getting this item: Breville BOV450XL Mini Smart Oven with Element IQ