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Beo posted:Hah, that's actually where I get my shrimp I get the 12 oz bags of precooked ones and just thaw out 8 or so of them and toss them in whatever I'm cooking if it fits, I think I'm digging it more than chicken breast for protein. Presuming they're the same price, there's no reason at all not to get the raw shrimp. They cook in a couple minutes and will have moderately better flavor and much, much better texture than the precooked variety.
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Jan 10, 2013 04:38
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rj54x posted:Presuming they're the same price, there's no reason at all not to get the raw shrimp. They cook in a couple minutes and will have moderately better flavor and much, much better texture than the precooked variety. This is true. I hate precooked shrimp, since it always feel stiff and rubbery when I eat it. I can't even heat it up or else it just gets tougher. Raw shrimp cook in a minute or two, or in 10-15 minutes in rice, soups, and the like if you add them in right at the end. The best example I can think of is my jambalaya recipe. I take the stockpot off the heat and add the thawed raw shrimp in at the end and let them cook in the residual heat for 10 minutes before serving. They always taste almost buttery, and have a sort of "pop" to them that reminds me of biting into a soft grape. It's amazing.
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Jan 10, 2013 07:26
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I detest shrimp, but worked in a seafood department in a hoity grocery for two years. Two things: 1. Pre-cooked shrimp are for people who want an excuse to eat shrimp sauce. 2. People who buy "fresh" shrimp from the counter are the laziest assholes on the planet. It's the same thing as the frozen stuff from the freezer. I mean exactly the same: we took bags from the freezer and thawed them, then put them in the case. I made a point of doing this in front of customers, but I don't think they ever got it. Thawing method: 1. Set the bag of frozen, raw shrimp in the fridge and let it thaw. Time: a day-ish. Issues: Takes a good while, and shrimp go bad pretty quickly. One day might not be completely thawed; two days might be stinky. 2. Fill a big bowl with cold water, dump shrimp in, let sit. Stir once in a while. Time: 2-3 hours. Issues: Not as fast as #3, but this is probably the best option. 3. Force-thaw - big bowl, dump shrimp in, run cold water over them constantly until thawed. Time: 20-30 minutes. Issues: Very wasteful of water, tendency to lose a few shrimp from the bowl, damages the shrimp-flesh pretty badly.
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Jan 10, 2013 16:25
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TheNothingNew posted:2. People who buy "fresh" shrimp from the counter are the laziest assholes on the planet. It's the same thing as the frozen stuff from the freezer. I mean exactly the same: we took bags from the freezer and thawed them, then put them in the case. I made a point of doing this in front of customers, but I don't think they ever got it. I've never seen frozen head on whole shrimp in a bag so that's why I usually get them from the counter. Related, if you're not getting whole shrimp, you're basically paying more just for someone to throw away the best parts of the shrimp for you. Suck a shrimp head, unf. All those shells and heads can also make killer stock for paella, bisque, chowder, whatever. But yeah. Most fish is frozen on the boat it was caught on and comes in the back door of grocers and restaurants frozen.
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Jan 10, 2013 17:07
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TheNothingNew posted:2. Fill a big bowl with cold water, dump shrimp in, let sit. Stir once in a while. This is just my own opinion, but I've never heard anyone say to do #2 there. In fact, I've always heard you were never supposed to let the water sit and stagnate. I think it has to do with germs growing or something. Every single set of instructions for water thawing shrimp has said to use a very small trickle of running water to thaw the shrimp. Like, literally just a bit more water than a drip. I've always thawed my shrimp that way, and it never seemed to damage the shrimp at all.
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Jan 10, 2013 17:18
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Also, I'm not sure how the slow trickle method is all that wasteful (maybe a gallon of water total) or how it damages the flesh. Anyway, that's the best way to thaw shrimp.
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Jan 10, 2013 17:29
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What's the problem with thawing shrimp in a bowl without tricking water if you intend to use them within four hours? I miss the old "Is this safe to eat?" and "Biggest kitchen fuckups" megathreads. My parents were extremely lax on food safety, and that's where I learned basically all that I know of it.
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Jan 10, 2013 17:54
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Nothing wrong with it I don't believe. Just slower. And frankly, by the time you get the shrimp home, your 4 hour clock is already ticking. I'll happily buy red meat on its sell-by date and use it a week or two later, but I don't gently caress around with seafood.
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Jan 10, 2013 17:56
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Pester posted:What's the problem with thawing shrimp in a bowl without tricking water if you intend to use them within four hours? It's against the law in foodservice in my province. You need the trickle to ensure that it stays in the safe temperature range. That said, it would probably be fine to do it at home.
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Jan 10, 2013 18:23
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rj54x posted:I guess it depends on where you live. Adding up all the costs, venison costs me about $1, maybe $2 / pound. However, around here there are plenty of landowners (within a half hour of home) who are more than happy to let you hunt on their land for free if you ask nicely. Afterwords, hang the carcass up in the garage and process it yourself - the only real costs are tags and ammunition (the latter of which you shouldn't need too awful much of unless you're taking wild potshots all the time). The average size of the deer varies, too - the few times I've gone in upstate New York, or down in Kentucky, the deer were generally much smaller than they are here (NW Ohio, SE Michigan). Yeah, that's what I do. This year I bought a hunting license ($35) and bought three deer tags (totaling about $60). I hunted on some dude's land, my dad just asked if I could and he said sure. So for less than $100, I now have enough meat in my freezer for me, my fiance, and my roommate for an entire year. My dad and I process the deer ourselves. All you need is a sharp knife, some butcher paper, and maybe buddy who will let you borrow their meat grinder. You don't really have to have any butchering skills to cut up a deer. I think I got maybe 125 lbs of meat total. So 75 cents a pound or so? Plus I shot it myself. Ethical meat consumption and all that jazz. Even if it cost more than buying meat at the store I'd still hunt deer.
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Jan 11, 2013 03:47
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Well I know a lot more about shrimp than I did before, I will certainly get the uncooked stuff next time, I'm just glad it gives me another cheap healthy protein.
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Jan 11, 2013 04:04
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GrAviTy84 posted:I've never seen frozen head on whole shrimp in a bag so that's why I usually get them from the counter. I've never seen whole shrimp for sale. Huh. Flash Gordon Ramsay posted:Also, I'm not sure how the slow trickle method is all that wasteful (maybe a gallon of water total) or how it damages the flesh. Crap, I misremembered. #2 is supposed to be a cold trickle. #3 is with the faucet on full-blast. Sorry, it's been ten years.
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Jan 11, 2013 06:23
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TheNothingNew posted:2. People who buy "fresh" shrimp from the counter are the laziest assholes on the planet. It's the same thing as the frozen stuff from the freezer. I mean exactly the same: we took bags from the freezer and thawed them, then put them in the case. I made a point of doing this in front of customers, but I don't think they ever got it. Not if you live near the coast. Also, doesn't it have to be labeled as "previously frozen"? I always make sure to check for that. Shrimp however holds up very well when being frozen CUE GOOD EATS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nh7K0rRY1LU
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Jan 11, 2013 16:09
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Saint Darwin posted:Not if you live near the coast. Also, doesn't it have to be labeled as "previously frozen"? I always make sure to check for that. If I remember correctly most shrimp is frozen on the boat, you probably only get fresh fresh on the gulf, or whereever else shrimp comes from. So yeah, the raw stuff in the counter is just thawed. I've always wanted head-on shrimp, but I swear I've never seen them. (I think I learned this from good eats too)
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Jan 26, 2013 02:22
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The Asian market I go to has head on everything, I would check there.
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Jan 26, 2013 05:46
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OlyMike posted:If I remember correctly most shrimp is frozen on the boat, you probably only get fresh fresh on the gulf, or whereever else shrimp comes from. So yeah, the raw stuff in the counter is just thawed. I've always wanted head-on shrimp, but I swear I've never seen them. (I think I learned this from good eats too) Find a Korean BBQ restaurant - every one I've eaten at has head-on shrimp on the menu 
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Jan 26, 2013 05:54
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Ulysses S. Grant posted:Find a Korean BBQ restaurant - every one I've eaten at has head-on shrimp on the menu Nice, there's a ton nearby, I will definitely check it out, I love the hot pot of random stuff, the whole octopus is the best. I'll try for whole shrimp next time. Thanks!
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Jan 26, 2013 06:23
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Ok, goons, I need a bit of help. For the past few months, I've been going to a food pantry once a month to supplement(read: pretty much replace) my grocery shopping. They've been pretty good to us, as they always give us a decent supply of meat and non-perishables for the month. I've run into a problem of surplus though, and I'm not entirely sure how to best deal with it. Through the months, we've acquired 3 medium sized chunks of ham. The kind that's off the bone, and looks like it was once football shaped, then cut into quarters. It's precooked, sealed up with some juices. We've also got a staggeringly large collection of canned vegetables. These range from sliced potatoes and carrots to mixed veggies to cranberry jelly. I've also got a decent amount of concentrated vegetable stock paste. I don't ever cook with canned veggies. Like, at all. I find the texture to be uniformly mushy and the taste muddled. I'm trying to come up with something that will make them more appetizing. I'm thinking some sort of ham and vegetable... soup, maybe? I don't know. If anyone has any suggestions for recipes, I'd love to hear them. We've probably got a dozen cans of vegetables that I'd like to start working through.
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Feb 18, 2013 22:04
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neogeo0823 posted:If anyone has any suggestions for recipes, I'd love to hear them. We've probably got a dozen cans of vegetables that I'd like to start working through. I usually use canned veggies for my shepherd's pies. It's sort of a mushy dish anyway, so it doesn't bother me. What kinds of canned veggies do you have? I have some canned spinach that was left in my cupboard from Christmas and I have absolutely no idea what to do with it besides having Popeye over for lunch.
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Feb 19, 2013 02:06
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Grok posted:I have some canned spinach that was left in my cupboard from Christmas and I have absolutely no idea what to do with it besides having Popeye over for lunch.
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Feb 19, 2013 02:17
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GrAviTy84 posted:I've never seen frozen head on whole shrimp in a bag so that's why I usually get them from the counter. If you want the heads, yeah, but those were probably frozen on the boat and thawed too.
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Feb 19, 2013 02:22
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Grok posted:What kinds of canned veggies do you have? For the first time in a long time, I took a full inventory of the canned goods we have in the pantry. The results surprised me a bit. apple juice concentrate 2 applesauce(unsweetened) 7 apricots 4 beans black 1 beans kidney 5 beans navy 1 beef ravioli 2 beef stew 1 beef with juices 2 (what the hell?  )chicken 3 chicken and dumplings 1 chicken broth 1 cranberry sauce 3 cream corn 1 evaporated milk 1 fruit cocktail 4 green beans 3 mac-n-beef 1 mandarin oranges 2 mixed veggies 7 peach slices 1 pear slices 2 peas 1 pineapple chunks 2 pineapple slices 2 pork and beans 1 pumpkin 2 sliced beets 1 sliced carrots 4 sliced pears 1 sliced potatoes 4 soup chicken noodle 1 soup cream of chicken 1 soup cream of mushroom 1 soup tomato 3 soup vegetable 1 spaghetti and meatballs 2 spinach 1 tomato sauce 8 tuna 4 turkey gravy 3 yams 1 That's every can of food we have. The mess wasn't organized until now, so I didn't even realize we had 7 cans of applesauce just laying around.  As far as spinach, I generally hate the canned variety. We used to have a bunch more cans, but I insisted on trying them in a bunch of recipes to see how they would work out. The answer was "terribly". Each can infused the dish with the taste of the smell of canned spinach, even after washing the spinach and heavily seasoning the dishes. I love the fresh stuff, but canned is like Satan's bowel movement.
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Feb 19, 2013 20:07
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As someone who volunteers weekly at a food pantry, PLEASE bring back any canned goods you really don't think you'll use. My pantry recently switched over to a "Choice Method" where people can pick the groceries they want to take rather than getting a bag o' whatever, and it's really helped to see that people are getting groceries that they will use and not collect dust. Before doing that we had to put out plastic rubbermaid tubs for people to drop their unwanteds into and others to sort through, because almost everyone had something they didn't want.
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Feb 19, 2013 20:15
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EVG posted:As someone who volunteers weekly at a food pantry, PLEASE bring back any canned goods you really don't think you'll use. I completely plan on it, yeah. Our pantry has a 1-visit-per-month rule, and they generally give the GF and I about 5 bags of groceries per month. The only things we tend to buy now are perishables, like milk, fresh veggies, some breads, etc. etc. We're hoping to not have to rely on the pantry anymore in a few more months, and when that time comes, we'll be donating back all the stuff they gave us that we never used.
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Feb 19, 2013 20:21
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Anyone got some decent, cheap recipes for pasta sauce? I'm looking for alternative over jars of the Classico premade stuff.
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Feb 19, 2013 23:25
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Crushed tomatoes + garlic + basil + more basil on top after they've gotten to know each other for a while. In fact imma make that right now.
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Feb 20, 2013 00:31
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This is my favorite quick(ish) and cheap tomato sauce ever. I like to throw some fresh garlic in too.
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Feb 20, 2013 01:23
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neogeo0823 posted:That's every can of food we have. The mess wasn't organized until now, so I didn't even realize we had 7 cans of applesauce just laying around. Slow cooker chili was the first thing that jumped out at me with all of those canned beans. And I can eat tuna on everything, but tuna casserole is pretty good. Corn pudding maybe? That's the only thing I know to do with creamed corn that tastes like real food. If you're like me and don't love canned soup by itself, I'm a big fan of just throwing some rice, the soup, and sometimes some meat in a bowl and eating it with crackers. Here's something I've been meaning to try with cranberry sauce. Oh! And cream of mushroom plus green beans equals green bean casserole! I love the "make a list of what you have and then try to make meals based around it" game. It forces me to try things and be frugal at the same time.
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Feb 20, 2013 02:30
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Grok posted:ideas Those are some good ideas. Ideally, I'd like to find something to make that involves the massive amounts of ham we have and the various vegetables. I know in the past, I've diced ham and pineapple slices, put them on a frozen cheese pizza with bacon, and made Hawaiian Pizza before. That was pretty delicious. Would a fast soup even work for that combo? Concerning the cream of mushroom soup, we have a rice cooker with a steamer basket. We cook rice, and halfway through add a bunch of broccoli and onion to steam. Once it's done, put all that in a pan and add cream of mushroom soup and water until it's the desired thickness and serve. It's pretty delicious and cheap as hell. My gf likes to make chicken salad with cranberry sauce in it. She likes it, I'm kinda weirded out by it.
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Feb 20, 2013 03:11
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neogeo0823 posted:Those are some good ideas. Ideally, I'd like to find something to make that involves the massive amounts of ham we have and the various vegetables. I know in the past, I've diced ham and pineapple slices, put them on a frozen cheese pizza with bacon, and made Hawaiian Pizza before. That was pretty delicious. Would a fast soup even work for that combo? When I have loads of leftover ham I like to make pasta with basil pesto, ham chunks and pine nuts if I can afford them. You could throw diced ham in all sorts of pasta dishes though. I also like to make fried rice which will be easy with the rice cooker and you can just add whatever veg you like (you don't have to make it 'traditional' fried rice). Omelettes are another option for mixing ham and various veg, as is bubble and squeak.
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Feb 20, 2013 12:56
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Use the ham with the cans of beans (and if you have more left buy some bags of dried beans) and make ham and bean soup
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Feb 20, 2013 17:21
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Eggie posted:Anyone got some decent, cheap recipes for pasta sauce? I'm looking for alternative over jars of the Classico premade stuff. Heat some olive oil, add herbs (oregano and basil are what I use) and garlic (crushed, minced, whatever), fry until garlic is golden. Add passata and simmer for... a bit. It's dead easy and freezes well. When I make it it probably costs, at most, 30p per serving. You can do the same thing with tins of tomatoes, I just prefer the texture of passata and you can stick the carton in the fridge if you don't use it all.
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Feb 20, 2013 18:31
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henkman posted:Use the ham with the cans of beans (and if you have more left buy some bags of dried beans) and make ham and bean soup Got any good recommendations for recipes? It's been really cold lately, and I'd love to make a good soup.
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Feb 20, 2013 20:44
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Cut up the ham and boil it in water (taste the ham and see how salty it is and if it's not too salty add some to the water) to make stock, then add whatever beans you want, some garlic, some onion. Then whatever seasoning you like. I'd do some pepper, some cumin, thyme and sage. The ham itself has a lot of flavor so a good ham and bean soup doesn't need a lot stuff in it
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Feb 20, 2013 22:20
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neogeo0823 posted:Got any good recommendations for recipes? It's been really cold lately, and I'd love to make a good soup. I mean, the quintessential poor southerner's Monday meal is boiling Sunday's hambone in beans. Period. Anything you can think that would enhance those flavors is only going to help. Honestly, if I ever start forcing myself to eat beans, it would probably be that kind of meal. 50 cents of beans and a bone I wasn't really going to use anyway.
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Feb 20, 2013 22:27
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What do you mean forcing yourself to eat beans? Beans are the bomb.
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Feb 20, 2013 22:30
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neogeo0823 posted:My gf likes to make chicken salad with cranberry sauce in it. She likes it, I'm kinda weirded out by it. That sounds really weird. Will you share her recipe so I can force my boyfriend to eat it?
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Feb 20, 2013 22:31
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Grok posted:That sounds really weird. Will you share her recipe so I can force my boyfriend to eat it? When she gets home, I will. I know there's nothing crunchy in it, and it's got a decent amount of mayo to it. EDIT: gently caress it, I texted her about it. she said "there really isn't a recipe. It's chicken, some onion powder, pepper, salt, and mayo. You put the cranberry sauce on it, not in it." Welp. neogeo0823 fucked around with this message at 22:52 on Feb 20, 2013 |
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Feb 20, 2013 22:44
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henkman posted:Cut up the ham and boil it in water (taste the ham and see how salty it is and if it's not too salty add some to the water) to make stock, then add whatever beans you want, some garlic, some onion. Then whatever seasoning you like. I'd do some pepper, some cumin, thyme and sage. The ham itself has a lot of flavor so a good ham and bean soup doesn't need a lot stuff in it Sorry to double post, but this sounds really good. Think it'd go well if I made veggie stock instead of straight water, and maybe added some bay leaf to it as well? How long would you let it simmer for, considering the beans are canned? neogeo0823 fucked around with this message at 22:59 on Feb 20, 2013 |
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Feb 20, 2013 22:57
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neogeo0823 posted:Sorry to double post, but this sounds really good. Think it'd go well if I made veggie stock instead of straight water, and maybe added some bay leaf to it as well? How long would you let it simmer for, considering the beans are canned? Definitely. I only suggested water since this is the "poor" thread and water is free. Since the beans are canned and already cooked you would really only have to simmer it until they're heated through but doing it longer will only make it taste better
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Feb 20, 2013 23:06
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