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Anne Whateley posted:If you’re considering average at-home cooking vs. cheapest eating out, I think eating out can win. Stuff like the Wendy’s 4 for $4, Costco’s or BJ’s $5 rotisserie chickens, even if you find a halal cart still offering $5 or $6 for a big dinner, or if you count frozen meals — those are pretty hard to beat unless the at-home version is like beans, rice, scrambled eggs. The only sit in with any ambiance above is Costco. That's the true at home advantage when you're competing with at scale pricing, hot with no transit time. I can see not really wanting to eat in a NYC rental.
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Sep 8, 2023 23:00
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Submarine Sandpaper posted:Have low standards! This is where it's at. My standards are low so I can feed myself on the cheap. Goya beans? gently caress off, I'll buy pueblo lindo beans thank you very much.
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Sep 8, 2023 23:01
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I'm the opposite of this person (which is ok since we all exist on a spectrum). I think I'd get bored buying restaurant food every day. Whenever I go on vacation I get to like day 3 or 4 of eating at restaurants and my will to eat is just gone. Like please just give me some hot dish or something for god's sake.
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Sep 8, 2023 23:06
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Eeyo posted:I'm the opposite of this person (which is ok since we all exist on a spectrum). I think I'd get bored buying restaurant food every day. Whenever I go on vacation I get to like day 3 or 4 of eating at restaurants and my will to eat is just gone. Like please just give me some hot dish or something for god's sake.
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Sep 8, 2023 23:53
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I would have said there is no way eating out will ever be cheaper than cooking, even eating cheap fast food, except that it is easy to waste food when cooking for one -- it's important to do some combination of scaling recipes down or freezing leftovers to rotate back in at a later date. Generally you will spend more buying the ingredients but get significantly more meals out of it. But now, with grocery prices the way they are, I dunno. Maybe it's getting competitive.
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Sep 9, 2023 00:36
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I think restaurant prices are going up too. There's a few fast food places around here that increased all their items by a pretty decent amount when the big inflation hit. Some places didn't though, but it's just inevitable. Same with grocery stores, some places went up some, but some I go to haven't really changed that much. Of course there's lots of expensive traps out there (ie convenience ingredients, premium brands, or "gourmet" foods), and if you want to get a cheap meal you gotta run the numbers. Which is, to be fair, actually a decent amount of mental work and comparable to the cooking itself.
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Sep 9, 2023 01:13
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there's also a middle ground between making things from scratch and only eating takeout. Like you can buy a jar of Rao's pasta sauce and simply add diced tomato and ground beef/turkey to it and boom that's a hearty pasta sauce.
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Sep 9, 2023 01:18
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I mean, if I'm 1. trying to cut grocery costs and also 2. buy pre-made sauce, Rao's isn't what I'm reaching for at the store. That stuff is very expensive.
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Sep 9, 2023 01:57
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I'm glad we found something to nit pick instead of substantive conversation.
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Sep 9, 2023 01:59
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When taco bell folded, quite early, the battle was lost.
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Sep 9, 2023 02:24
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Anno posted:Anyone have any secret ingredients to liven up tomato soup? We have just a huge number of tomatoes and roasting them up with some veggies/herbs/garlic and blending them into a soup is really easy and good, but I suspect people have some tricks to really bring it up a notch. Last batch I tried a spoonful of gochujang and was a bit disappointed. I like a bit of browned butter. Haven't tried with tomato soup but as you add at the end you can try it out with just a bowl rather than the whole batch.
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Sep 9, 2023 08:21
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Started to explore Peruvian cooking and it's pretty bomb. Made this recipe awhile back: https://cookeatlivelove.com/solterito-arepequino/ It requires fava beans. I know of one place that I can get them fresh, sometimes. Beyond that, does anyone know of particularly good frozen or canned brands for fava beans (fresh as possible, not for Ful Medames)? I know frozen is usually best, but the random brand I tried from the Peruvian mart was disappointing. Also I accidentally have two jars of aji panca open right now so if anyone has ideas (besides pollo a la brassa) for it, please let me know. I added it to a salsa I made but felt it didn't really change anything.
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Sep 9, 2023 16:24
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You can also look for field beans, broad beans or even "horse beans" at your local farmers market because they are usually just synonyms for fava. Lima/butter beans would also work really well
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Sep 9, 2023 17:04
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Anno posted:Anyone have any secret ingredients to liven up tomato soup? We have just a huge number of tomatoes and roasting them up with some veggies/herbs/garlic and blending them into a soup is really easy and good, but I suspect people have some tricks to really bring it up a notch. Last batch I tried a spoonful of gochujang and was a bit disappointed. MSG
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Sep 9, 2023 18:20
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I'll add 2-3 tablespoons of white rice to any soup I plan on blending. Gives it a more bisque-like texture. Carrots are also a really good addition.
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Sep 9, 2023 19:08
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[quote="FaradayCage" Also I accidentally have two jars of aji panca open right now so if anyone has ideas (besides pollo a la brassa) for it, please let me know. I added it to a salsa I made but felt it didn't really change anything. [/quote] How about lomo saltado?
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Sep 9, 2023 19:18
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Anno posted:Anyone have any secret ingredients to liven up tomato soup? We have just a huge number of tomatoes and roasting them up with some veggies/herbs/garlic and blending them into a soup is really easy and good, but I suspect people have some tricks to really bring it up a notch. Last batch I tried a spoonful of gochujang and was a bit disappointed. Trader Joes fermented Calabrian chili sauce
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Sep 9, 2023 19:27
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Anno posted:Anyone have any secret ingredients to liven up tomato soup? We have just a huge number of tomatoes and roasting them up with some veggies/herbs/garlic and blending them into a soup is really easy and good, but I suspect people have some tricks to really bring it up a notch. Last batch I tried a spoonful of gochujang and was a bit disappointed.
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Sep 9, 2023 19:38
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guppy posted:I mean, if I'm 1. trying to cut grocery costs and also 2. buy pre-made sauce, Rao's isn't what I'm reaching for at the store. That stuff is very expensive. For what it's worth, my local Costco sells two-packs of Rao's for not much more than the cheap stuff. I dunno if that will last indefinitely; it seems like one path for gourmet brands is to get popular via Costco or other big box stores, then when their contract runs out, switch exclusively to selling at 2x the price through smaller retailers.
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Sep 9, 2023 19:39
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bird with big dick posted:Trader Joes fermented Calabrian chili sauce this stuff is way too good
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Sep 9, 2023 19:46
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Mintymenman posted:blend it all with a little water, then add the puree into a screaming hot pan with 2 tablespoons of oil That sounds like a recipe for a spattery mess
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Sep 9, 2023 20:45
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Only if you add it slowly. The ratio of oil to liquid is so lopsided that you don't get the splatter you do when adding a small amount of liquid to hot oil.
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Sep 9, 2023 21:11
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:For what it's worth, my local Costco sells two-packs of Rao's for not much more than the cheap stuff. I dunno if that will last indefinitely; it seems like one path for gourmet brands is to get popular via Costco or other big box stores, then when their contract runs out, switch exclusively to selling at 2x the price through smaller retailers. Yeah you can pick up Rao's in Aldi now, probably the big supermarkets too.
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Sep 9, 2023 21:23
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Afternoon goons, I rarely ever come into this sub forum even though I cook a shitload! Fidello, flour tortillas from scratch, roasted chickens, homemade Alfredo that whose recipe I took from a goon way back in 2004-2005 in GBS, ANYWAY I've been going into YouTube holes of cooking to expand skills and techniques but mainly watching "You Suck at Cooking" with the fiancee and laughing my rear end off. Any good recs on channels? Really not restricting myself to one ethnic genre as I've self taught myself on how to cook things for myself and friends over the years. I have seen some Cooking with Babbish from time to time and some other videos a guy named Alvin did in his home kitchen that were just done to some chill music. Apologies if this is too general but feedback is appreciated, take it easy!
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Sep 9, 2023 21:30
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Mintymenman posted:Only if you add it slowly. The ratio of oil to liquid is so lopsided that you don't get the splatter you do when adding a small amount of liquid to hot oil. So what is the benefit of doing it with a screaming hot pan?
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Sep 9, 2023 21:57
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Jiro posted:
I really like Adam Ragusea.
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Sep 9, 2023 23:00
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Bluedeanie posted:Okay, I'll bite. Please tell me about your pressure cooker prison hooch Instant pot wine was a meme back in 2018, and everything I read about it sourced this guy: https://foodnservice.com/instant-pot-wine/ Note that I tried to read that page just now and I got full screen ads that I couldn't close, so I gave up. I can't confirm that it's still good. Anyway, I followed the directions: juice, yeast, etc., instant pot time, then I think a week in the pantry in loosely closed bottles. I made it twice, and the first time it was actually not bad. A little dry, but entirely palatable. It was particularly good when made into a cocktail with that year's holiday Mountain Dew flavor (pomegranate something). The second batch tasted like complete rear end. It was so bad that I have blocked the memory of the flavor. I have no idea what I changed, but I'm sure I did something that was off - book, and it was a very bad idea. It was also more expensive that just buying a few bottles of mid grade grocery store wine, so. Anyway, learn from my fail, and don't try to make recipes just because they went viral.
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Sep 9, 2023 23:47
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Tried making Aloo Tiki (basically Indian spiced potato pancakes), tonight, to pretty poor results. The recipe I had suggested shallow frying them, and for whatever reason my oil was just not getting hot enough, and they came out as greasy potato hockey pucks. They also started falling apart in the oil, ending up with this sort of oily potato slurry, by the end. The one or two that actually got crispy were pretty tasty, but they were still incredibly oily. I know there's an Indian food thread, but it's pretty much dead, so I was hoping that anybody with experience making potato pancakes of any kind could tell me what I'm doing wrong. I only cooked up half the batch before giving up, so I was wondering if just putting them in a hot stainless steel pan with a layer of non-stick cooking spray might be better and simpler
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Sep 10, 2023 01:27
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Scientastic posted:So what is the benefit of doing it with a screaming hot pan? A little bit of maillard browning without the splatter, and a much faster rise in temperature. Quite a few traditional Mexican recipes have you rapidly fry off whatever veg puree you're using in oil. I don't have my McGee handy, but you get very different aromatic compound formation depending on rate of heating as well as whether you go to bare metal or lightly oiled. It also helps emulsify the oil into the puree which impacts texture and flavor. But basically it comes down to having been taught that way and experimenting with it until I was happy with the outcome
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Sep 10, 2023 01:41
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null_pointer posted:I know there's an Indian food thread, but it's pretty much dead  Anyways, chances are your oil was not hot enough. Turn the stove up higher. You can do it with non-stick cooking spray if you want but they won't be as tasty or crispy. You can even bake them for the same sort of results.
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Sep 10, 2023 02:39
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Jiro posted:Afternoon goons, Brian Lagerstrom is pretty good, and not too much of a youtube personality if that makes sense.
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Sep 10, 2023 02:43
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Anno posted:Anyone have any secret ingredients to liven up tomato soup? We have just a huge number of tomatoes and roasting them up with some veggies/herbs/garlic and blending them into a soup is really easy and good, but I suspect people have some tricks to really bring it up a notch. Last batch I tried a spoonful of gochujang and was a bit disappointed. Some people have said simmering part of the tomato vine in the soup (prior to blending) helps impart a nice flavour. If you want to give your soup a more creamy mouth feel, you could consider incorporating some bread and olive oil, although that technically brings it into gazpacho territory. It also helps keep the dish vegan, if that's something you ever need to consider. Adding cream can give the same effect. Finishing with a drizzle of olive oil and some fresh basil and cracked pepper also works wonders.
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Sep 10, 2023 02:46
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null_pointer posted:They also started falling apart in the oil, ending up with this sort of oily potato slurry, by the end. The one or two that actually got crispy were pretty tasty, but they were still incredibly oily. Absolutely not. Frying is a nonstick process if the oil is at least 1/4" deep and 350F no matter the pan. That said, stainless steel or cast iron or carbon steel is ideal. Seconding that your oil wasn't hot enough. Also what kind of potato did you use, and how was the texture after mashing - chunky? Starchy? Gummy?
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Sep 10, 2023 03:06
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Jiro posted:Afternoon goons, As stated Adam Ragusea is good, very much in the vein of Alton Brown/Good Eats in the "Here's science to explain why". Tends to have a very positive it doesn't have to be perfect to be tasty POV. Brian Lagerstrom is also good. I think he was/is a professional baker, but does other food stuff. Food Wishes covers a wide selection of dishes, most of it pretty simple technique wise, but Chef John has given me some of my favorite dishes. Ethan Chlebowski is someone else I found recently, and I like his approach. I like Joshua Weissman, for his copy cat recipes, but I also find his baby talk grating. His fans apparently eat it up, and he's very successful, so I can't fault that. Binging with Babish is entertaining, though I've found his actual recipes pretty hit and miss. Like the amounts differ between what his video states and what the written recipe says. B. Dylan Hollis has almost exclusively his Tik-tok shorts on youtube. He's very flamboyant and I've never used the term "extra" to describe a human before, but drat if that ain't the perfect word. His shtick can get old very quick, so probably best in small doses. His thing is going through old cookbooks and typically pulling out the weirdest thing he can find.
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Sep 10, 2023 04:20
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DildenAnders posted:How about lomo saltado? Unfortunately that seems to be aji amarillo.
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Sep 10, 2023 04:30
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Mintymenman posted:A little bit of maillard browning without the splatter, and a much faster rise in temperature. Quite a few traditional Mexican recipes have you rapidly fry off whatever veg puree you're using in oil. I don't have my McGee handy, but you get very different aromatic compound formation depending on rate of heating as well as whether you go to bare metal or lightly oiled. It also helps emulsify the oil into the puree which impacts texture and flavor. But basically it comes down to having been taught that way and experimenting with it until I was happy with the outcome Thank you, I appreciate the explanation, makes sense
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Sep 10, 2023 07:19
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Jiro posted:Afternoon goons, If you can get access to BBC iPlayer (geo-blocked to UK IP addresses) then I recommend MasterChef: The Professionals & Saturday Kitchen. Youtube channels in no particualr order. ThatDudeCanCook - I imagine some would find him annoying but good recipies and technique. Explains why he does things. Chef Jack Ovens - Good everyday meals. Also some meal prep videos if that is your thing. Pasta Grammar - Not one of my favouroites but no doubt Eva knows about Italian cooking. Fallow - Videos from pro chefs in their London restaurant. Refika's Kitchen - Refika is a very famous chef in Turkey. This is her English language channel about Tukish cooking. Middle Eats - Amatuer chef but good recipies. Some times a bit complicated but always worth it. MIddle Eastern. Big Has - Pro chef but easy going laid back BBQ cooking from his back garden.
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Sep 10, 2023 08:22
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Shocking that no-one has mentioned Alex, definitely my favourite YouTube cooking channel
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Sep 10, 2023 09:08
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CzarChasm posted:B. Dylan Hollis has almost exclusively his Tik-tok shorts on youtube. He's very flamboyant and I've never used the term "extra" to describe a human before, but drat if that ain't the perfect word. His shtick can get old very quick, so probably best in small doses. His thing is going through old cookbooks and typically pulling out the weirdest thing he can find. Only listen to this one if you absolutely hate yourself. It's like Epic Meal Time Foam Adventure
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Sep 10, 2023 11:18
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A few not mentioned yet that I like are the following: Pailin's Kitchen - Really solid and easy to follow Thai recipes. I really like her presentation style. Very personable and pedagogical. Rick Bayless - For all your Mexican food needs. Kenji - He doesn't put out viedoes very frequently anymore, now that the pandemic is over, but his old stuff is still there. Chinese Cooklind Demystified - Very good channel for learning about Chinese cooking.
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Sep 10, 2023 13:31
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