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Pollyanna posted:What's everybody use for simple, easy weeknight dinner recipes? I'm looking at the Serious Eats Dinner Tonight listing but it's not always quite what I'd call simple and easy. I'm a boring bachelor. Spatchcock a chicken, baked potato, green beans. Eat a quarter of the chicken, save the other three pieces for dinner Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday then probably order out and indulge Friday.
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Jun 6, 2017 07:03
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Pollyanna posted:What's everybody use for simple, easy weeknight dinner recipes? I'm looking at the Serious Eats Dinner Tonight listing but it's not always quite what I'd call simple and easy. Chef Steps had a video series on the basic meat and two sides formula. Basically sous vide a protein, pork loin chop, steak, fish fillet, chicken, whatever. While that's coming to temp, cook a veg (winter squash, carrot, sweet potato, parsnip, sunchoke, broccoli, cauliflower, whatever) until tender with minimal water and a hefty pinch of salt. puree with a pat of butter, reserve. then make a 2nd side of some sort. Can be sauteed farro, cous cous maybe (hella easy), open a can of hominy, drain, and sautee in garlic butter. Maybe slice some cruciferous vegetables and roast off under the broiler. Anyway, lots of variations and flexibility. some complete examples: https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/pork-chops-carrots-and-romesco https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/sous-vide-salmon https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/sous-vide-chicken-breast https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/crispy-crunchy-apple-fennel-salad-with-walnuts-and-honey etc etc etc Other quick and easy things that I do a lot: spam/leftovermeat fried rice, chilled wheat noodles with chili oil, shredded chicken, and cucumber, mazemen with sous vide egg (I have pork belly made chashu style and sliced in serving size portions in the freezer for dressing up package ramen, etc), pasta things like spag puttanesca (I use sardines instead of anchovies since I can use more for more protein and not demolish the sauce with salt), cacio e pepe, carbonara, aglio e olio, etc etc. Breakfast sandwiches open faced with sunny side up eggs or conventional with scrambled eggs. grilled chicken/steak sandwiches. the humbler hamburger. etc
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Jun 6, 2017 15:30
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Pollyanna posted:What's everybody use for simple, easy weeknight dinner recipes? I'm looking at the Serious Eats Dinner Tonight listing but it's not always quite what I'd call simple and easy. Pasta is absolutely my go-to if I just want something that can be easily knocked up within half an hour. Or stir fry. Otherwise, something that you can bung in the oven whilst you do something else is good. Recently we have been enjoying baked sweet potato topped with cottage cheese and spring onions, with some salad on the side. Chopping a shitload of veg and rubbing it with harissa, then making up some seasoned cous cous is effective and tasty. A shop-bought chicken kiev isn't glamorous but you can cook those up and make some rice and steamed/garlic/whatever veg to have with it. It really depends what sort of things you like/want to eat. Making extra when you make a chilli or curry or something and freezing some for later is also a great way to cut down on weeknight kitchen time, since all you need to rustle up is a carb component. Bollock Monkey fucked around with this message at 20:08 on Jun 6, 2017 |
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Jun 6, 2017 20:04
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Pollyanna posted:What's everybody use for simple, easy weeknight dinner recipes? I'm looking at the Serious Eats Dinner Tonight listing but it's not always quite what I'd call simple and easy. My constraint in the evening is usually time - I prefer to eat as close to 7pm as possible and that usually leaves me just over an hour to cook by the time I get home. So some of my best weeknight easy meals have been: risotto (generally using up the bits of vegetables and whatever meat dish I have leftovers of), baked fish in paper with herbs and butter, chicken curries (made with coconut milk and May Ploy curry paste and whatever vegetables I have in the house), kale & arugula salad, seared duck breast (the longest part there is cooking wild rice in the rice cooker) white fish tacos, skin-on pan fried chicken thighs with veggies over rice (quick gravy made with chicken drippings), and now that it's summer, a steak on the grill. With my pressure cooker, the Columbian "stew" from Serious Eats is great, as is masoor dal. I also take a weekend every month or two and make some things that I can turn into quick weeknight meals like making and freezing a hundred pierogies that I vacuum seal into pack of 4-5; cilantro/parsley pesto that I freeze in silicon cupcake tins, then vacuum seal into packs that I just need to run hot water over to thaw and throw into pasta; a large dutch oven of slow-cooked bolognese sauce that I also freeze into serving sizes for dinner. (It helps that I have a chest freezer for just this reason.) Best yet was the three-day short ribs in sous vide. I did 4 batches of ribs in the water bath at once, had one for dinner, then rapidly cooled and froze the other 3 packages. If I thaw out a pack the day before, then start the water bath as soon as I get home from work, I can have 3-day sous vide short ribs by dinnertime.
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Jun 6, 2017 20:47
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Loopoo posted:Don't overfill a baking dish when making lasagna. Lasagna turned out perfect, but I've got burnt cheese and sauce all over the bottom of my oven which is gonna be an absolute nightmare to clean. 2. Blast that sucker with the entire can of oven cleaner - get the less-toxic stuff that contains significantly less VX (or whatever the gently caress they used to put in oven cleaner that hurt my lungs). Wait an hour, hit it with elbow grease and a bucket of water, delivered via dish-washing scrubby. Regarding weeknight simplicities, my Betty Crocker cookbook has a chapter, "20 Minutes or less" that's about 1/2 chicken and 1/2 tomato-based sauce on some kind of carb. If you have some kind of protein in an easy-to-cook format (chicken breasts or thighs in the frying pan, ground beef in the pan or a casserole, you get the idea) on hand and something vegetable-like you just need a starchy thing to round it all out. My basic meal planning is all about meat / veg / starch, so a quick stir-fry on rice or pasta with tomato sauce and chopped, fried sausage are typical Mon-Thur kinds of meals for me. Really, the priority after "quick" and "easy" should be "don't overthink it" and keep the number of ingredients and the number of cooking utensils to something reasonable. I'm also fond of a big slow-cooker run or 9x13 casserole (e.g. lasagna) on Sunday or Monday that generates ready-to-eat leftovers for most of the week.
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Jun 6, 2017 21:33
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What exactly is it that my local Chinese takeaway is doing to their garlic and spring onions to make them so incredibly delicious? My local takeaway covers loads of things with chopped green spring onions and slices of brownish garlic, and try as I might, I've not been able to replicate what they're doing, my onions are never quite as soft and sweet as theirs, and my garlic is just not right...
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Jun 7, 2017 08:10
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Scientastic posted:What exactly is it that my local Chinese takeaway is doing to their garlic and spring onions to make them so incredibly delicious? My local takeaway covers loads of things with chopped green spring onions and slices of brownish garlic, and try as I might, I've not been able to replicate what they're doing, my onions are never quite as soft and sweet as theirs, and my garlic is just not right... Ancient Chinese secret Pickle the onions in rice vinegar with a dash of salt and sugar, maybe a little light soy sauce as well. and a little MSG never hurt anyone
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Jun 7, 2017 08:46
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GrAviTy84 posted:Chef Steps had a video series on the basic meat and two sides formula. Basically sous vide a protein, pork loin chop, steak, fish fillet, chicken, whatever. While that's coming to temp, cook a veg (winter squash, carrot, sweet potato, parsnip, sunchoke, broccoli, cauliflower, whatever) until tender with minimal water and a hefty pinch of salt. puree with a pat of butter, reserve. then make a 2nd side of some sort. Can be sauteed farro, cous cous maybe (hella easy), open a can of hominy, drain, and sautee in garlic butter. Maybe slice some cruciferous vegetables and roast off under the broiler. Anyway, lots of variations and flexibility. Yeah if you eat at a lot of nice restaurants you start to notice there's that formula to "generic western fine dining" or "modern american" or whatever it's called. A nice protein, some kind of puree or 'mush' like grits or polenta or risotto or something like that, and some veggies or something crunchy. Maybe a drizzle of some special sauce. It's hard to run a fine dining restaurant and you probably can't make it quite as well as pro cooks there can, but its pretty easy to make something similar, especially with sous vide to do the protein. I've had a sous vide machine for like a week and a half and I don't know how or why I went so long without it.
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Jun 7, 2017 09:12
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That's just the Protein/Starch/Veggie trifecta, Hakimashou. Risotto or grits is trendy right now, but last century it would have been steak/fish/chicken, baked potato, and a veg. Soup, salad, and dessert courses vary.
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Jun 7, 2017 11:44
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Liquid Communism posted:That's just the Protein/Starch/Veggie trifecta, Hakimashou. Risotto or grits is trendy right now, but last century it would have been steak/fish/chicken, baked potato, and a veg. Soup, salad, and dessert courses vary. Yep. It just seems that whenever I eat somewhere nice it's become like a game to see what their take is on perching a tasty protein atop a tasty purée festooned with little crispy things and greens on a plate decorated with a colorful infusion or reduction or some even more exotic synonym. I'm not complaining, it's a great formula for a great entree, but I just chuckle and think ah, they know they 'binnis, they've got this poo poo down to a science. Braised Oakdalevale Farms Short Rib. Shishito Mousseline, Pomegranate Sweet Corn Relish, Beaujolais Reduction, Nanogreens ................ 32 Forever. hakimashou fucked around with this message at 12:14 on Jun 7, 2017 |
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Jun 7, 2017 12:02
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I fully admit, I'm a heathen. I don't really -like- fine dining. I'd much rather be eating ribs off of butcher paper in a shack by the highway somewhere in south Texas, or Memphis, or hell in a pinch Kansas City.
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Jun 7, 2017 12:40
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I like it but I really want it to be something new if I'm going to drop the coin on it. Hyper trendy gets old, but the ones ahead of the curve trying new things and pairings are still cool imo
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Jun 7, 2017 13:50
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Any suggestions for whole-grain foods with less of that nutty whole-grain taste? (I'm looking for cooking advice specifically. I already do a lot of baking with whole wheat flour.) I'd like to know about grain varieties that are inherently milder, but would also love to make my supermarket-brand brown rice and whole-wheat pasta more delicious -- or possibly just cloak its taste. I'm just not a big fan of the stronger flavors and slight extra crunch. My partner prefers whole grains, and I know they're healthier, so I eat them all the time; I want to enjoy them more!
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Jun 7, 2017 23:52
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 This brand uses some sort of brown rice variety that almost tastes like white rice, or at least as close as you're gonna get with brown rice. It cooks fast too!
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Jun 8, 2017 00:55
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Gabriel-Ernest posted:Any suggestions for whole-grain foods with less of that nutty whole-grain taste? Bulgur is a whole grain and it doesn't have a strong brown rice flavor. I like buying the fine bulgur, which can be cooked like couscous. It may take some experimentation to get the water ratio right but adding boiling water to it in a closed pan/dish should cook it. Bulgur can be made into tabbouleh (bulgur + lots of herbs and veggies), and kisir (mixed with tomato paste and sometimes pepper paste). Since it's crushed up I think the whole grain nature is less noticeable. Does Hominy/Posole/nixtamal/masa count? That has a distinct taste which isn't like brown rice. Probably because the hull is softened during the nixtamalization process. There's endless things to be done with masa - tortillas, tamales, pupusas. Posole can be made into stews.
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Jun 8, 2017 04:52
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Want to make fresh pizza dough today, went and bought semolina thinking that's the powdery stuff Dominos sprinkles on their pizza crust, but it turns out it isn't. I've also read a lot online and people tend to not like semolina-based pizza dough, ranging from "it's too sticky to work with" to "it's gritty and tastes nasty". Did I make a mistake buying this seeing as I can't use it?
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Jun 8, 2017 19:22
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Loopoo posted:Want to make fresh pizza dough today, went and bought semolina thinking that's the powdery stuff Dominos sprinkles on their pizza crust, but it turns out it isn't. you can use it just not for dough, or at least not in complete proportions. It's better used for short pastas like orecchiete. edit: you can also make rava dosa with it. GrAviTy84 fucked around with this message at 19:34 on Jun 8, 2017 |
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Jun 8, 2017 19:29
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It's better than regular flour to prevent sticking on the peel but rice flower is even better than it. The gluten structure is much more stringy than weblike compared to a generic wheat so it is not the best to make into pizza. Use it for pasta.
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Jun 8, 2017 19:30
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 My first ever pizza was a monumental fail. It's not out the oven yet, but I painstakingly added all these delicious ingredients, only to find it was too sticky to easily slide off the board, despite me adding plenty of oil. So I had to squeeze it and disfigure it to even get it onto the steel baking plate. I'm really gutted, all the ingredients got pushed about, there's probably gonna be a fair amount of burning from where the dough rolled over on itself so the sauce is in direct contact with the hot steel. I'm hoping it's edible afterwards. Any tips to prevent pizza dough from sticking, cause god drat, the pizza chefs make it look easy. Qubee fucked around with this message at 23:05 on Jun 8, 2017 |
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Jun 8, 2017 21:53
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don't use oil on a peel, only oil pans that are also used as the cooking vessel. Grats on seasoning your steel though. You can use parchment paper if you are not going to be using hte broiler to finish.
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Jun 8, 2017 21:55
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Well gently caress, the pizza puffed up really badly in the oven, it looks ridiculous. So future reference, I should take my preheated steel out of the oven and build the pizza directly on it?
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Jun 8, 2017 22:00
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You'll eventually burn yourself doing that. I cant handle my steel for more than a few seconds even with welding gloves. Get a wooden peel or use parchment. Moisture is what causes the pizza to stick to the peel or w/e so until you get the handoff down it may be worthwhile to overdust the dough as well.
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Jun 8, 2017 22:03
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Submarine Sandpaper posted:You'll eventually burn yourself doing that. I cant handle my steel for more than a few seconds even with welding gloves. Get a wooden peel or use parchment. Moisture is what causes the pizza to stick to the peel or w/e so until you get the handoff down it may be worthwhile to overdust the dough as well. Thanks, that's really helpful. And yeah, the steel was ridiculously hot, my oven mitts started smoking. So I took a wire rack out of the oven, balanced it over the sink, and put the steel on that.  Turned out alright, I guess. Made a huge mess in the oven (again!) which is especially annoying considering I just cleaned it after my lasagna incident. I was going to make a homemade tomato base sauce, but I was too tired and caved and bought - what I thought at the time was - a tomato sauce. Turns out it was a sauce for pasta dishes, so it was very watery. The middle of my pizza is a lake. Lesson learned, but I'll definitely be doing this again, next time without all the dumb mistakes.
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Jun 8, 2017 22:17
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Loopoo posted:
It looks like you put way, way too many ingredients on top, definitely too much sauce too. The crust looks too thick, though it's hard to tell from the angle. I like to precook the mushrooms in a pan and let them cool before putting them on, this is because they give up a lot of extra moisture which slows down the cooking process and it also shrinks them down so you can get a better idea of proportions for the toppings.
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Jun 8, 2017 22:26
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I have never made a proper pizza before so watch me act like I know what I'm talking about  but I've heard that pizza (regarding toppings and sauce) is an exercise in restraint. All pizzas I've ever made ended up being doughy and kind of a uncontrollable mound of toppings, when really I should've been using just a sprinkling of toppings.
vermin fucked around with this message at 22:32 on Jun 8, 2017 |
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Jun 8, 2017 22:28
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Both of you are 100% right. I hosed up portion control way too much, mushrooms leaked excess water, as did the peppers. I piled that stuff on like there was no tomorrow. I didn't properly shred my mozzarella so there's big semi-melted chunks of it which is plain unappetizing. I used pasta sauce instead of pizza sauce, so it's waterlogged and soggy in the middle. I feel so bad right now. I wasted a tonne of ingredients on an absolute brick of a pizza that I can barely put a dent into. I also think the amount of dough I made was for two large pizzas... I turned it into one mega pizza which gave me a crust thicker than my arm. I'll exercise my restraint next time for sure, and sweating the high-water veggies (peppers, mushrooms) in a frying pan is definitely a good shout. I'm just bummed out cause this has put me off wanting to make pizza, and I probably won't tackle it again for another month or so. All the negativity out the way, the pizza dough is actually really drat delicious.
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Jun 8, 2017 22:36
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Loopoo posted:Both of you are 100% right. I hosed up portion control way too much, mushrooms leaked excess water, as did the peppers. I piled that stuff on like there was no tomorrow. I didn't properly shred my mozzarella so there's big semi-melted chunks of it which is plain unappetizing. I used pasta sauce instead of pizza sauce, so it's waterlogged and soggy in the middle. Don't beat yourself up too bad! We've all been there! I got so angry at a cheesecake I drowned once it took months before I tried it again. Post back with your results next time either here or in the chat or pizza thread Also, pizza dough makes good pretzel dough if you boil it briefly in water and baking soda and then bake it vermin fucked around with this message at 22:43 on Jun 8, 2017 |
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Jun 8, 2017 22:41
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I'll definitely post updates next time I tackle this
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Jun 8, 2017 23:04
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When I gently caress up a recipe really bad I either never make it again or obsessively make it over and over again until I get it perfect depending on how invested I am in it
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Jun 8, 2017 23:17
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Biggest fuckup wasn't the fact I piled on the ingredients, or let the mushrooms sweat their moisture all over the pizza, or put too much mozzarella, or gently caress up the transfer from board to steel. It was using god damned pasta sauce as the base. It didn't even taste nice afterwards, and it turned the whole thing into a pile of soggy bread. I'm legitimately laughing cause it's ridiculous I even though that would work without reducing it. Funny memory I can look back on, for sure. I was starving, sleep-deprived and not thinking straight. As I was making the pizza and doing all the mistakes, my mind was telling me no, but my body was telling me yes cause my stomach was convinced it'd be delicious. The dough would have been edible just by itself if it weren't for the base, it totally ruined it. If I'd just used everything and had no base (dry pizza) it would have tasted better. I may or may not tackle this again tomorrow with left over dough. Depends how I feel, cause right now I feel like I've eaten far too much junk and should go on a week-long smoothie / veggie binge. Thanks to everyone for the feedback, it was super appreciated. A little goes a long way, I'll keep that in mind. 25g Semolina with 350g plain flour makes a hell of a tasty base, just an FYI. Sprinkling semolina on the steel oven board to coat the crust in it really gave it a Dominos type of vibe. It's got a pleasant bite and chewiness to it, but isn't tough, and it tastes very good and fluffy. 
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Jun 8, 2017 23:22
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Gonna echo using parchment paper to slider it on and off, it's super easy You can use sauce, just way less of it. Sparingly enough that the bread should be peeking out from under the sauce here and there. Steve Yun fucked around with this message at 23:29 on Jun 8, 2017 |
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Jun 8, 2017 23:26
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You know what you did wrong and you have all the ingredients, just redo it tomorrow or this weekend.
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Jun 8, 2017 23:31
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i like nice words
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half the fun of making your own pizza is the trial/error process and eating your own fuckups is still p good
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Jun 8, 2017 23:47
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Pizza thread https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3441635 Tons of recipes, links, photos, tips, tricks, etc. Some quick thoughts: -3 toppings, plus cheese and sauce, MAX -toppings shouldn't really be on top of one another- you want things pretty level -if you've got a particularly watery topping- fresh tomatoes are really the worst culprit- at least heavily salt and drain them half an hour before they go on your pie -fresh mozzarella is always going to produce a lot more moisture than the block stuff- which for Neapolitan pies is ok, but not great on a NY-style/generic pie
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Jun 8, 2017 23:50
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Out of curiosity what material is your peel? I have a wood for building and transferring and an aluminum for removal. I recommend building the pizza as fast as you can once the dough hits the peel. And after each step give the peel a wiggle to make sure the pie is still loose
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Jun 8, 2017 23:50
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GrAviTy84 posted:Out of curiosity what material is your peel? I have a wood for building and transferring and an aluminum for removal. I recommend building the pizza as fast as you can once the dough hits the peel. And after each step give the peel a wiggle to make sure the pie is still loose the wiggle is key
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Jun 8, 2017 23:52
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Speaking of too many toppings, here is a specialty pizza from one of the oldest pizza joints in my home town that people somehow enjoy??? There's mini-shrimp and anchovies buried under the pile of mushy uncooked veggies somewhere in there...
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Jun 9, 2017 01:12
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Hell I'd eat that.
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Jun 9, 2017 01:23
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al-azad posted:Speaking of too many toppings, here is a specialty pizza from one of the oldest pizza joints in my home town that people somehow enjoy??? This looks like something from St. Louis
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Jun 9, 2017 01:23
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Lawnie posted:This looks like something from St. Louis They should stick to making ribs then.
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Jun 9, 2017 06:21
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