The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Trivial Pursuits => Sports & Leisure => Topic started by: jay-ell on April 22, 2010, 09:16:12 pm
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So, we have talked a lot about recipes that are epicurean and recipes that are grelicious, but we haven't talked much about regular weekday "I gotta feed this family something" kinds of meals. Stuff that's cheap, takes less than an hour, makes use of convenience foods, and tastes good. Also, relatively healthy (as compared to hot dogs and hamburger helper). Not "diet food," but good nutritious meals like Mom used to make, but perhaps with less cream of mushroom soup.
I read somewhere that most family cooks repeat the same 10 - 15 meals over and over, and I'm wondering what recipes y'all keep going back to in your kitchens. I thought I'd start a thread about it and get you guys to share.
I've made a list of my favorite 14 standbys and stuck an ingredients list (broken down by recipe, omitting stock items like milk, butter, and eggs) in the back of my planner so that when I'm at the grocery store at 11 PM trying to figure out what we're going to eat this week I always have something to fall back on. Here's one of my favorites, super-cheap and super-fast.
Chicken and Apricot Couscous
1 ½ c. chicken broth
1 c. whole wheat couscous
¼ c. green onion, sliced
4 – 6 dried apricots, coarsely chopped
1 large (12 – 16 oz) can cooked chicken breast
¼ c. cashews, chopped
½ tsp. Cinnamon
¼ tsp. Nutmeg
1. In a medium saucepan, bring chicken broth to a boil.
2. Stir in couscous, green onion, apricots, and chicken breast. Cover and remove from heat.
3. Let stand 5 minutes until broth is absorbed. Add cashews and spices; stir to combine.
4. Serve in bowls.
To make it vegetarian-friendly, omit the chicken and substitute vegetable broth or water for the chicken broth. (If you use water, you may want to add a little dried thyme to the boiling water just before adding the couscous.)
This is also great paired with a fresh green salad. It can also be served cold and makes a nice potluck dish.
If you have leftovers, you can make a great soup by heating 1 cup of chicken broth for every 1/2 cup of leftover couscous and stirring them together when the broth is hot. Don't add the couscous before you heat the broth; otherwise the pasta will absorb all the liquid and it will get sort of sludgy.
The best part of this recipe is that, except for the green onions (which are nice but not essential), all the ingredients are nonperishable. So you can stock up when things go on sale and whip this up in a flash when you get home at 5:30 and realize that you forgot to defrost the chicken.
Your turn. Gimmie, gimmie.
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Fried rice. Make your rice ahead and it goes together in 30 minutes including prep.
I like to use mushrooms, onions, carrots, baby bok choi, and chicken (leftovers are great, raw works well too; dice it). It's a simple stir-fry, just cook the hardest stuff (carrots) longest and take the veg out to cook the chicken and use soy sauce instead of salt. If anybody wants a real recipe I'm happy to share but I'm having a hooky day so I don't want to be at the computer too long right now.
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I want my baby bok, baby bok, baby bok-
I want my baby bok, baby bok, baby bok-
I want my baby bok, baby bok, baby bok... choi.
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Oh, yes. I had almost forgotten, I used to make this based loosely on a recipe I found in the cookbook my Mom got me when I was in college. It was called, "Help, My Apartment Has a Kitchen."
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Oh, yes. I had almost forgotten, I used to make this based loosely on a recipe I found in the cookbook my Mom got me when I was in college. It was called, "Help, My Apartment Has a Kitchen."
I own this book. I hate bean dip but the recipe for it from this book always results in an empty bowl at parties.
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When we can't think of anything else we make spaghetti carbonara. Beat a couple of eggs, grate a whole lot of parmesan into it, toss with hot spaghetti the instant you drain it, grate on black pepper and more cheese.
Because we fell in with a crowd of vegetarians in our youth, we made this for years with sauteed onions and peppers added to it, before discovering that it is actually supposed to have PORK. Like a little pancetta or something, just enough to flavor it. Which is a really good idea. But pancetta is not something we tend to have in the house without going to the store, so it is convenient that I am used to doing without it in this dish.
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I use my slow cooker just about every Saturday. I fix it up while Friday's meal is in the oven or whatever.
Pulled pork is so easy. Toss a pork roast (I like tenderloin when I can get it on sale) in the crock pot, cook the shit out of it for 5 hours, shred it, douse it with a whole bottle of your favorite sauce (sweet baby ray's for the win) and cook it an hour more, serve on buns. Maybe toss in some diced onions if you got some handy; otherwise get yourself a bag of slaw mix and some mayo and turn down tha heat.
We're doing this on Saturday.
Meat loaf in the slow cooker? Never tried that. Do you have to make it extra-moist or anything? Or does it make its own gravy?
Pan-fried or grilled steak is so easy it barely even counts. In the spring I like ham steaks, too, with a little pineapple glaze.
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Pulled pork is so easy. Toss a pork roast (I like tenderloin when I can get it on sale) in the crock pot, cook the shit out of it for 5 hours, shred it, douse it with a whole bottle of your favorite sauce (sweet baby ray's for the win) and cook it an hour more, serve on buns. Maybe toss in some diced onions if you got some handy; otherwise get yourself a bag of slaw mix and some mayo and turn down tha heat.
The cheaper pork roasts actually work better for this, in my experience. Boston Butt has lots of marbling that cooks down into luscious gelatin. Loins are too easy to cook the moisture out of -- they're a high heat meat.
We probably have dinner together these days once or twice a week, almost always on the weekend so I have time to cook if I need it.
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The cheaper pork roasts actually work better for this, in my experience. Boston Butt has lots of marbling that cooks down into luscious gelatin. Loins are too easy to cook the moisture out of -- they're a high heat meat.
We probably have dinner together these days once or twice a week, almost always on the weekend so I have time to cook if I need it.
Do you think? I've only used a pork roast once, and I found it pretty dry at the end of the day. It wasn't Boston Butt, though.
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Boston Butt for as long as you can stand to cook it. 10 - 12 hours if you want. I promise.
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One of my jobs is to have three meals on the kitchen whiteboard by Saturday morning each week. Spouse and the oldest Boy come up with the rest. That way the weekend shopping can be planned out and everyone gets some input on meals.
GENIUS. i will be implementing this come the weekend.
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Tangentially related but I don't want to start a new thread. Does anybody happen to have Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian?
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dont forget to have breakfast for evening meal every now and again. easy and rad.
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we eat a lot of pasta with tomato sauce. lately, without meat. Yesterday we had an argument that could have gone real badly, because my roommate questioned why I was buying sauce in a jar. "we can just make our own sauce, and it's so much cheaper."
The response was something like, no, my mom can make sauce that is a lot cheaper, and better. When you make pasta sauce it is like eating hell. SO BAD. I don't understand what he is doing wrong, but it's just like... oily tomato chunks.
but I decided to Shut Up and Eat It. (I still got one jar of sauce, though, and said it was for days that I make dinner for myself.)
the best though is this spaghetti with spicy sausage my good friend makes. that is delicious.
I can't think of any Recipes that I make. Spaghetti Carbonara is my very favorite food, maybe I will make that soon.
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we eat a lot of pasta with tomato sauce. lately, without meat. Yesterday we had an argument that could have gone real badly, because my roommate questioned why I was buying sauce in a jar. "we can just make our own sauce, and it's so much cheaper."
Fresh tomatoes must be a hell of lot cheaper in STL than they are here. A fuck*ng jar of Ragu is about $1.29.
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oh, no, he uses canned tomatoes.
he is just like... weird and prideful about making things "from scratch," but you only get to do that if like, it actually works.
he made meatballs one time, and they did not bind together, and they turned our pasta into just this horrible grey mush that tasted like death. but still if I try to buy pre-made meatballs he gets all "why? We can make them!"
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He's trying, give him credit.
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I dunno. If he was "trying" to drive and crashing into everyone else's car you'd make him stop, right? Learn to do it right before you impose it on other people.
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Life is too short to eat bad meatballs.
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they weren't just bad meatballs, they were not even meatballs. They were a half-cooked slush of meat and fat and rice (?).
Also: he is not allowed to drive my car, because the last time he drove was his driving test 2 years ago.
Whatever, the meatballs were a mistake. The issue is more with his pasta sauce, which he seems to think is great. I am pretty sure the entire problem is that he doesn't measure how much oil he uses, he just dumps a ton into the pot. More tomato paste, less oil, and maybe it would be great.
Lately my go-to meal to make for myself is really simple egg fried rice. Cook up the rice, throw it in a pan with an egg or two, add soy sauce and this weird really spicy oily sauce my roommate gets from the Asian market... delicious. The first time I put in way too much of the weird spicy sauce, and our house smelled like it for half a week. But yeah, this stuff is great.
Other than that, I make a lot of bologna sandwiches.
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how's your homemade pasta sauce taste inev
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how's your homemade pasta sauce taste inev
probably horrible. Which is why I don't cook it and serve it to people.
he feels free to shit on things I cook, so I do not really feel remorse.
(he does not literally shit on them.)
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they weren't just bad meatballs, they were not even meatballs. They were a half-cooked slush of meat and fat and rice maggots.
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Pasta sauce from scratch (well from a can of crushed tomatoes, not from fresh since I never end up using them before they go bad) is so easy.
Sauté some garlic and onions in a bit of olive oil, dump in the crushed tomatoes, bring to a boil and then dump in 3/4 cup of milk with 2 tbsp flour whisked in. Add spices to taste (Fresh basil if you've got it, oregano, ground pepper, a bit of salt, sriracha and crushed red pepper if you like it spicy). Then cover and simmer while the pasta (I like using penne) cooks. If you want meat then cook up some ground spicy sausage and mix it all together. If you're having people over use ziti instead, then after everything is mixed together add in 2 cups mozzarella, dump it all in a 8"x13" pyrex dish, cover with 1 cup mozzarella and then foil over the whole dish and bake for 20 min. @350. Guaranteed crowd pleaser.
My goto easy meal is burritos. I always have rice and beans, then I just have to make sure I have tortillas and I throw in whatever leftover vegetables I have in the fridge. Defrost a chicken breast if I'm feeling ambitious. I always have a block of cheddar to grate in there too. Cheap and tasty.
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damn dude, that sounds so good.
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But, why not just buy a tin can of Hunt's tomato sauce and simmer it with your own garlic and seasonings to taste? That's what I do. Though, admittedly, I have serious issues with handling raw tomatoes. I can't stand them.
I know, Paul. I know.
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But, why not just buy a tin can of Hunt's tomato sauce and simmer it with your own garlic and seasonings to taste?
Because my grandmother would spin in her grave so fast that it would throw the earth off its axis?
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But, why not just buy a tin can of Hunt's tomato sauce
Not even Heinz?
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CALL'D OUT
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Because my grandmother would spin in her grave so fast that it would throw the earth off its axis?
Well, see, that's how my mom "made" tomato sauce, but, of course, neither she nor my grandmother were Italian.
Not even a little bit.
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Doc's Butter Chicken:
Take some chicken, probably whatever was on special. Dice it up real nice, I like strips but you could cube it or whatever size you like.
Cover it in garam masalla powder, the amount you use depends on how strong it is and how much chicken you're using. I usually use about 30 grams of the store bought stuff for 500 grams of chicken. I know this seems like a lot but it's what I need to get the flavour I want, if you like you could use a smaller amount and pre-mix it with the yogurt. Basically you just want to get an even dusting but not encrusted, you can make it up with tumeric, chilli powder and cinnamon to taste if you think you need more.
Now cover it all in plain yogurt and mix it all in together, this is the fun messy bit, keep going until the chicken is coated and the yogurt is an even colour, ideally leave it to marinate in the fridge for half an hour or overnight but you can use it right away if you have to.
Start frying up some thinly chopped onion, garlic and ginger in olive oil or whatever you've got lying around, once the onions gone a bit caramelly throw in the chicken. Once it's browned a bit turn down the heat and toss in some chopped/canned tomatoes and/or tomato paste. Then stir in something like 50 ml of cream. Let it simmer for a while, if you're doing this single handed this is a good time to boil your rice and start shallow frying some papadums (you do have some papadums, don't you?).
After a bit taste your chicken and add tumeric, chilli or cinnamon to taste. Add in any extra veggies you feel like around now too, a bit of potato can be ok, capsicum generally pushes it over the spicy edge for me.
This will produce a fairly sweet, creamy curry, if you want more of a straight curry (or you just don't have them) leave out the cream and tomato as you like, though I think it really needs the tomato paste.
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i was looking at some colonial recipes a few months ago and they all called for cinnamon(and raisins) in their savory dishes.
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Actually, I used to do a thing where I marinated lamb in a cucumber, mint, and yogurt mixture overnight and then grilled it over a super-hot flame to medium-rare. The yogurt gives it a great crust and it's just so moist and mellow. Reserve a bit of the yogurt mixture to serve on the side (obviously, you take out a cup or so before you add the meat). As my daughter would say, "Yummygood."
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Last night I made a recipe I got from AlohaDawg. You take a piece of giraffe and dip it in buttermilk with spices mixed in, and then coat it with instant mashed potato flakes and pan- fry it. I would never use instant mashed potato flakes to make potatoes, but I love this thing.
Tonight, it's Chinese takeout.
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i was looking at some colonial recipes a few months ago and they all called for cinnamon(and raisins) in their savory dishes.
This sort of thing goes back at least as far as the Middle Ages, which is as far back as I have cooked, but I know they didn't make it up then. Something that was so normal for so long - it is curious - I don't know exactly when or why we decided that those things only go in dessert. It's still common in Middle Eastern food but not in the West anymore.
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A friend of mine who is of Indian descent and who grew up in Britain can't abide tasting cinnamon in dessert. She associates it with savoury dishes, and says its like "tobasco in icecream".
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You'll notice that the recipe in the OP contains cinnamon, and is savory. You could certainly throw in raisins as well if you have any, instead of or alongside the dried apricots.
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Y'know, I could hang with the non-natural weights and measures but when you start throwing a little van-local-lingo around with it then it just becomes a pretty word salad, man.
The irony here being that I normally just mentally approximate while I'm making it so I went to the trouble of trying to work out how much I actually use when I typed it up, neglecting the fact that you damn cavemen wouldn't be able to understand it because it isn't in hogsheads and rods.
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hey bartender i'll have a three hundred fifty five milliliter of guinness please
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hey bartender i'll have a three hundred fifty five milliliter of guinness please
Weirdly enough I've been getting pissy about this lately. The classic beer glass sizes in this part of the country is the schooner (425 ml or wiki tells me 15 fluid ounces) and the pot (285 ml or 10 fluid ounces) but a lot of places have switched to pints and half pints in the last few years out of some mis placed colonial nostalgia/desire to wring every last dollar out of the drunken masses. I live in a tropical climate, a pint of beer gets warm way before you've finished drinking it, it's total madness.
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Weirdly enough I've been getting pissy about this lately. The classic beer glass sizes in this part of the country is the schooner (425 ml or wiki tells me 15 fluid ounces) and the pot (285 ml or 10 fluid ounces) but a lot of places have switched to pints and half pints in the last few years out of some mis placed colonial nostalgia/desire to wring every last dollar out of the drunken masses. I live in a tropical climate, a pint of beer gets warm way before you've finished drinking it, it's total madness.
Sounds like you just need to drink faster.
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HALF pint? what is the point of a half pint of beer?
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HALF pint? what is the point of a half pint of beer?
Part of a generous flight?
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Or get used to drinking beer warm, the way it ought be.
It depends on the beer, but yeah. There is a great new (well, relatively new) bar in town with an amazing (by Utah standards) beer selection that has like this iced rail on the bar. It's just kind of gimmicky because if you order like a Belgian beer or an imperial stout served in stemware, it's not going to do any good and shouldn't be ice cold anyway. If you order like a bud light in a regular glass, you should just go down the street and pay half the price and chug it.
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RAEA: BEER IS ALE!
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So it's Wednesday night, and I made a grilled cheese sandwich. It was good, but a bit too buttery/greasy for my taste. Where did I go wrong?
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Did you butter the bread, or the pan? How much cheese did you use, and what kind? Was the bread fresh or stale?
We need details if we're going to analyze your technique.
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Buttered the bread. Shredded (pre-) sharp cheddar. I wonder if I used too much? Bread isn't stale, but not really fresh.
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Buttered the bread. Shredded (pre-) sharp cheddar. I wonder if I used too much? Bread isn't stale, but not really fresh.
Could be that the cheese released a lot of oil/grease. Whitebread though it may be, American cheese melts more consistently than cheddar.
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I use cheddar all the time but shredded cheese sounds like possibly a bad idea. And you mean those packages of cheese shreds? I would not trust those.
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Yeah, I wouldn't advise using shredded cheese in a grilled cheese sandwich. My spouse does it all the time, but I find it leads to overmelting.
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Yeah, I wouldn't advise using shredded cheese in a grilled cheese sandwich. My spouse does it all the time, but I find it leads to overmelting.
IIRC Alton uses shredded cheddar in his grilled cheese.
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ash, how do you deal with california-sized sticks of butter? i don't know if everybody knows this, but they package the butter different there. they're shorter and thicker and don't fit in regular butter dishes. i bought one of those butter bells once but couldn't get into the swing of it.
one way to avoid a greasy grilled sandwich experience is to use clarified butter, just dip one side of each slice of bread in a plate of it like you're half-making french toast; don't let it soak in too much.
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IIRC Alton uses shredded cheddar in his grilled cheese.
Even if he does, let's face it, a lot of the things he cooks nowadays are of the Don't Try This At Home variety.
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SIDE NOTE: Butter is meant to be in a butter dish and sit on a table or counter ready for use unless it is hot as the dickens.
This is one of those battles around the house that I lost long ago. For whatever reason, my wife refuses to believe that the food preservation technologies we've developed over the past few thousand years (pickling, fermenting, salting, candying, rendering into pure fat, etc) have any validity, so the inside of our fridge is cluttered up with butter, pickle jars, salami, and the like. So far the vinegar has remained in the pantry though, so its not a total loss.
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I just like things better cold.
Cool, creamy, sweet-hot mustard on a sizzling, slightly-charred brat fresh from the broiler? Yes please.
I mean, I know you don't *have* to refrigerate snack pack pudding cups, but my kid won't touch them if they're not straight from the fridge, and I can't say I blame him. It makes a difference.
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I keep my butter in the fridge when it gets to the point (now) that it will straight up melt if left out too long. I keep pickles in the fridge because I like to eat them cold. I keep the ketchup in the fridge because I don't use it often and it will go bad eventually if left out. I put the mustard in the fridge when I am wanting to declutter the kitchen table, but otherwise it stays out.
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refrigerating bread is the eight mortal sin
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Yeah, a bad one.
*thhhppppb*
Pudding and potato salad are best warm and fresh. Chilling either of them is just barbaric, like, at a raised by wolves level of barbarism.
Since when do wolves eat potato salad? Or have refrigerators, for that matter?
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since lon chaney first bayed
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Roommate and I have two different bottles of ketchup. Mine stays in the fridge. Because scalding hot fries dipped in room-temperature ketchup just aren't the same.
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Scalding hot fries need to sit in their box a little longer. Pizza burns with salt rubbed in them are not rad.
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Dude, I hope that warm potato salad you're eating is mustard based instead of mayo-based.
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Dude, I hope that warm potato salad you're eating is mustard based instead of mayo-based.
THIS
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Most foods, I either want them refrigerator-cold or thoroughly heated. My palate is somehow related to the McDLT.
Ketchup, fridge. Mustard, fridge.
Peanut butter?
You know, I will put the extra effort into spreading cold peanut butter if it gives me cold creamy peanut butter instead of a lukewarm peanut-flavoured oilslick the consistency of jizm.
I am just that motivated and hardworking.
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Dude, mustard, mayo or lemon based, they all get eaten warm. Here's the secret...make it then eat it.
No sir, I will not. Immediately eating it does not allow time for the flavors to meld. The preparation is not complete until it's sat for a few hours at a minimum. The dressing has to have time to properly permeate the potatoes.
Also, all you people eating cold foods are evolutionary dead ends. As soon as the juice is turned off you'll all wither up.
Me & my warm foods and knowledge of compressor-free food lasting? Me & my GIT will be swinging.
I got that knowledge too, but I choose to use available technology while it's available. I know how to dig a latrine, but I don't shit in the backyard.
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No sir, I will not. Immediately eating it does not allow time for the flavors to meld. The preparation is not complete until it's sat for a few hours at a minimum. The dressing has to have time to properly permeate the potatoes.
This is why I hate the trend of guacamole made table-side. Yes, at a place like Chevy's it proves your guac wasn't made last week and heat-treated to avoid browning but I've been to nice restaurants that used to have really, really good guac that now just tastes like separate ingredients because of this trend. I'm looking at you, Oyamel.
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I got that knowledge too, but I choose to use available technology while it's available. I know how to dig a latrine, but I don't shit in the backyard.
This.
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(http://www.memedepot.com/uploads/0/331_i_can_count_to_potatos.jpg)
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This is why I hate the trend of guacamole made table-side. Yes, at a place like Chevy's it proves your guac wasn't made last week and heat-treated to avoid browning but I've been to nice restaurants that used to have really, really good guac that now just tastes like separate ingredients because of this trend. I'm looking at you, Oyamel.
Oh, I thought that was just a douche move that a lot of restaurants had adopted to justify charging an extra $5 for the guac.
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I bet you guys can figure out that you could substitute 'avocado' for 'potato' up there and get my feelings on the guacamole topic.
I'm not sure I'd be cool with the $5 extra for the privilege, though.
I like me some straight up slices of avocado but I also like to get my guac on. Or make some avocado compound butter. Sometimes it's nice when your avocado plays with the other flavors at the playground.
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you're for "separate but equal" but calling others "potato racists" ash? really? really.
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Ash is a very complex man.
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welp, i sure feel for you buddy.
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Buttered the bread. Shredded (pre-) sharp cheddar. I wonder if I used too much? Bread isn't stale, but not really fresh.
It's Tuesday but it just felt right, so I made a grilled cheese sandwich. Used different bread (white grocery store bread this time, but really good white grocery store bread) and American cheese product. Success! Except that while I love American cheese on a burger, it doesn't have enough flavor for a grilled cheese sandwich, in my opinion. But this tasted exactly as it did when I was 5. I'll have to experiment with different cheeses and better bread now. Once I have the grilled cheese conquered, what next? Seriously, I'm spending way too much money eating out (was looking through my checking account today, FUCK) and need to starting eating most of my meals at home, or bring them from home. And I haven't cooked consistently for like 4 or 5 years. I'm not joking.
Oh yeah, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. Christ I love this beer.
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some guy who is trying to hard to be funny/badass posted these recipes online, and I want to try them:
ake a lesson from the Puerto Ricans. Millions of us have managed to survive in one of the most expensive cities on earth with recipes like this:
Find a supermarket that has black beans on sale. Buy as much as you can. Then buy 5 or so pounds of Carolina rice, a bag of onions, a few bulbs of garlic, and a box of Goya Sazon.
Set 2 cups of water to boil
Dick around on reddit until the water is boiling
Throw in one cup of rice, turn the heat down to simmer and lid that shit
Slice up a small onion
Smash up a clove of garlic
Throw some olive oil or butter into a HOT pan.
Throw the onions and garlic into the pan and fry them till the onion gets glassy. Throw some salt in there.
Grind some pepper in there for good luck.
Toss in half a packet of Sazon and stir till you get a paste. Now you have a ghetto sofrito.
Dump in your can of beans bean juice and all.
Stir that shit up.
Add a pinch of Cayenne pepper so you remember that you have a set of cojones
Set that shit on simmer
Your rice is done.
Throw the beans on top.
Win
You should get at least 2 meals out of one can of beans, and if your lucky you can get black beans 2 for $1. Adding the cost of the Garlic, Sazon and a small onion and you still eat a tasty, hearty, relatively healthy meal for less than $1.
Now. You are a growing lad. You need MEAT
OK, first of all, fuck eating lips and assholes. There is a much, much tastier option that has kept millions of starving boriquas alive for generations: PORK SHOULDER.
In my neighborhood in Brooklyn, Pork shoulder is 79 cents a pound. That's right. 79 cents. A package of hot dogs at $2.50 is more than double the price and has offal and all sorts of vile shit inside.
Buy yourself a nice meaty pork shoulder. 5 lbs should do nicely.
Bring that fucker home and get out a long, thin knife.
In a pilon (that's a mortar and pestle gringo) smash up a few cloves of Garlic, some sazon, some, salt, some pepper, and some oil. Grind it up GOOD. Now you have another ghetto sofrito.
Take your knife and stab some holes in the pig. Twist the knife around so the holes get nice and wide.
Now, take some of your sofrito and stuff it into the holes. Don't be shy blanco, ram it in there. Use the remainder to roughly coat the outside of the pig. RUB IT. CARESS IT. This pig died so that you may eat. Salt that shit all over the outside and crack some fuck*ng pepper on there.
Set your oven for ~300 degrees
Throw the pork in skin side up and WAIT.
It's going to take like 45 minutes a pound...
A warning: The smell is going to drive you fuck*ng INSANE. You have to wait this part out. Farm work is the best cure.
After an an hour and a half, jab it with a meat thermometer, but remember to not rest it on the bone, or you will get a bad reading.
You should be at around 150-160 degrees. Now comes the fun part. CRANK the stove up to 400 degrees. This will give you an orgasmic, crispy skin that will make your pork rinds taste like year old carboard comparison.
At 170 ish? Pull that fucker out, but DON'T carve it up. You need to wait at least ten minutes otherwise all those sweet, sweet pig juices will dribble the fuck out. WAIT.
Congratulations. You just made Pernil. A five pound Pernil should give you meat for at least a week. SAVOR IT BROTHER. SAVOR IT
Edit: Forgot the best and cheapest fuck*ng recipe!!!
TOSTONES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Fuck me. Green plaintains are usually like 5 for a fuck*ng dollar!
Here's my mom's recipe:
Fry up some bacon. Set the bacon aside and save that lovely, glistening fat.
Take a plantain and run a knife down the side and split the skin off without breaking the plantain. This takes a bit of practice.
Slice up the plantain into ~1/3 inch thick slices. Throw them into a bowl of ice water.
You have a fry daddy? You're golden papi. No? Pour around half an inch of oil into a frying pan. Corn oil works best, olive oil smokes too easily. Get that shit hot! Throw in your bacon grease.
Take your sliced up plantains out of the ice water and drain them or even pat them with a paper towel till they're dry.
Fry em up until they just turn golden.
Throw them in the freezer for 10 minutes.
Now, here is where you become a MAN: Get yourself a flat bottom glass and a cutting board or a plate. Throw some flour on there. Smash the plantains with the cup. You may need a spatula to get them off the board...
Fry em AGAIN until they are golden and crispy
Make all three of these things together and you have an incredibly delicious and cheap meal!
Our fridge sucks, and all of the meat I buy goes bad really fast. I need to start buying it the day I'm going to cook it. Damnit.
I just keep buying food that goes bad. I am mostly living on these little noodle things from Trader Joe's, salami sandwiches, and pink lemonade. and pickles.
(and beer.)
I am craving Sierra Nevada lately. But right now I've got half a 12-pack of Schlafly #15 (http://www.schlafly.com/beers.shtml) left. Goddamn I love beer.
I also have a tall-boy of Bud Light with Lime I inherited from a departing friend. Interested/scared.
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Drink that bud after you've already had a few drinks and it won't offend so much. At least it isn't one of those abominations with Clamato added.
On the subject of cheap eats, buy your beans dry and soak them yourself. Shop at the local Asian market for really cheap produce, rice and questionable meats.
Best grilled cheese: wheat bread buttered on the pan side, sharp cheddar sliced from a large block plus julienned sun-dried tomatoes and a generous squirt of sriracha.
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Bud lime is disgusting. My quest for Bud Clamato ended up with a serious rub with the Law.
Miles, pick up this book for cheap and easy bachelor eats: http://www.amazon.com/Man-Can-Plan-Great-Meals/dp/1579546072
(http://images.doba.com/products/474/9781579546076.jpg)
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Bud+Clamato is a bastardization of one of my favorite summertime drinks: a raw oyster, 3 oz of PBR and some cocktail sauce. I could drink those forever.
Feel free to substitute the PBR with a shot of vodka if you're looking to get sloppy.
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Miles, pick up this book for cheap and easy bachelor eats: http://www.amazon.com/Man-Can-Plan-Great-Meals/dp/1579546072
Could definitely come in handy. Wishlist'd.
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tostones are not the way. i love me some platanos maduros. make sure your platanos are just past ripe. soft and pliant, but not mushy. peel them and slice diagonally (about 1/2-inch-thick). fry the slices in 1/3 cup of hot oil on moderately high heat until they are golden brown (a few minutes on each side). i was taught to drain them on paper towels. all the recipes from the internet say to sprinkle them with salt at this point, but thats heresy. i sprinkled them with sugar as they drain/cool.
the bottom one is ideal for this:
(http://karmafreecookingenespanol.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/platanos.jpg)
here is what you get at the end:
(http://www.dominicanflave.com/i//platanos_maduros.jpg)
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We bought that book for The Boy last year and have had him doing a meal a week-or-so out of it just to get him ahead of all those dudes who leave home and eat like shit because Mommy is gone. It's a good starter, but really should be only a stepping stone to real cookery.
Hey man, I eat like shit because I'm lazy. I used to cook for myself, pretty well too, but it's been a while. Why you gotta talking about my moms?
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Relax, you were not the specific example intended. I've got knowledge of enough other folks in meat-space that fit the bill just fine to establish the general category
Oh I'm relaxed, just fuck*ng around.
And great tips, keep them coming people. I'm changing my life as we speak!
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Greenkoolayd, why does your cuisine prefer the rather flat tasting plantain over the sweet and delicious banana? Ive wondered this for a long time.
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The firm starchiness of the plantain lends itself to far more non-dessert applications, yeah?
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So I've just found a great way to learn how to cook. Watch this guy's videos and simply do the exact opposite:
Cooking Hot Dogs and Peaches (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w46Dwh4TMGA)
How to Cook a Cheeseburger Like McDonald's (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAyevvzgQ54)
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So I've just found a great way to learn how to cook. Watch this guy's videos and simply do the exact opposite:
Cooking Hot Dogs and Peaches (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w46Dwh4TMGA)
How to Cook a Cheeseburger Like McDonald's (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAyevvzgQ54)
All the Masaokis videos are gold. Its a shame he took them all down and now were only left with the ones people saved. He is clearly insane, but coherent enough to make hilarious videos. Theres even one non-cooking video where he burns his mail in a toilet so Al Gore won't be able to find him.
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I somehow missed them before now. Every time I think "this is clearly the stupidest thing I have ever seen anyone do" he manages to top that in the next 15 seconds.
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oh no.
he puts the soap on the hot dog and...
no. no.
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So I've just found a great way to learn how to cook. Watch this guy's videos and simply do the exact opposite:
Cooking Hot Dogs and Peaches (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w46Dwh4TMGA)
How to Cook a Cheeseburger Like McDonald's (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAyevvzgQ54)
I didn't watch enough to tell if that guy is for real.
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I made the greatest grilled cheese sandwich ever tonight. It started with a really good sourdough bread painted with olive oil and placed on a hot griddle. We wanted to do it on an actual grill, but it was raining (Hurricane Alex) so we kept it inside. We topped it with a nice mild Cheddar, a firm Swiss, and smoked Gruyere. To compliment the cheese we also added fresh basil, tomatoes, jalapeno wedges, salt and pepper to taste. The Gruyere was the master stroke, so good. Grilled each side for about 2 minutes and there you go.
I got the idea from watching this video (http://video.nytimes.com/video/2010/06/29/dining/1247468118179/actually-grilled-cheese.html). I guess I still haven't had an "Actually Grilled Cheese" like I actually wanted, but it was still fuck*ng awesome.
I also grilled up some eggplant and tomatoes with a little onion and garlic. Oh my god, the simplest things are the best!
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Greenkoolayd, why does your cuisine prefer the rather flat tasting plantain over the sweet and delicious banana? Ive wondered this for a long time.
[[shrug]] it wasnt my idea. i dig bananas a whole lot. i just like platanos maduros as a treat.