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It's my partner and I eating dinner most of them time. I usually just plate stuff in the kitchen and then we eat in the dining room. On the occasion we have other people over I'll do it family style. We have a bunch of corningware I've been picking up cheap at thrift stores. It's nice to have a bunch of matching dishes to serve out of the times we do it.
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Jul 28, 2021 15:40
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I've commandeered the dining room table for my workspace as I now work from home. Since it is likely now permanent (Yay! No more 3-4 hour round trip commute!) I should probably either put another desk in the spare bedroom that is my wife's office (she worked from home for a while doing covid work for the state public health dept. and is in grad school) now that she's back at the emergency room full time so we can use it as a dining room table again and not eat in the living room nightly. General practice is we serve up food in the kitchen and eat in the living room. I cook and I ask her if she wants me to make her a plate or if she wants to serve herself. I usually make her a plate.
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Jul 28, 2021 23:29
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Thumposaurus posted:It's my partner and I eating dinner most of them time. I usually just plate stuff in the kitchen and then we eat in the dining room. Eating together is an important part of our relationship, so we try to do it every day - breakfast, lunch, and supper - unless some work thing or other commitment gets in the way. Even if we're sitting on the couch watching Netflix while we eat, we're together. It feels weird every time we end up eating a meal separately. She does the laundry and some other house-cleaning tasks, I do the dishes. We don't have a dishwasher, it's me at the sink. I don't mind washing dishes, I suppose I have a fairly minor hang up about washing my hands and I like dishsoap and water at the upper limit of my tolerance for hot. One more dirty dish doesn't even register for me, I just put on some music and kind of zone out, I like the mechanical routine of scrubbing plates and whatnot. I'm also curious what the norm or some kind of typical/average situation is. I'm a bad roommate because I hate most people so I tried to avoid having flatmates as much as I could. This means I lived in tiny one-room bachelor pads for a good chunk of my time at university, and my home was chaos and mess most of the time. I like to think I'm better now. EDIT: and I do the majority of the cooking, probably about 3/4 of suppers are cooked by me, though breakfast is each-our-own and lunch is most often last night's leftovers.
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Jul 29, 2021 02:00
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I eat dinner with my wife but not always lunch (during COVID). I'm trying to remember what I did in college. I don't remember eating together with my roommates very much, I had 2-3 friends in the apartment. Not sure how we were able to all cook dinner separately in that tiny kitchen. I lived in a house with 2 other randoms first year of grad school and I ate dinner with them zero times. We just kind of avoided each other. I was a summer student at a university and I was put up in some dorms with a dozen other students. We actually ate together a decent amount while there; I was one of the older students and could actually cook so I would often cook up some dinner for everyone. Not like every night but like a couple times a week. The AC was busted in the dorm kitchen we had access to, so it was always swelteringly hot in there. But it was just the 8 or so students so we could do communal meals without much issue. I was also old enough to buy the booze, good times. I remember baking a big ham since I got one on sale at the supermarket for like 50 cents a pound or something like that. One of the other groups came in and was commenting on how good my turkey looked lol.
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Jul 29, 2021 03:27
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Serving dishes are only for parties. If it's just some close friends, a partner, or myself, the pot or pan it was cooked in counts as the serving dish.
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Jul 29, 2021 15:09
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It was interesting when I realised that at some point a switch had flipped in my brain and I went from not caring at all about the mismatched random dishes I had to wanting matching ones.
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Jul 29, 2021 15:53
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My roommate owns the condo we live in and the kitchen isn't huge, so we both use her dishes. They are like these multi colored plates with a black ring around the edges and I hate them so much. It just makes food so much less visually appealing than white plates.
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Jul 29, 2021 17:20
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I both covet nice dishes and fear to use them. Corelle it is.... Maybe someday...
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Jul 29, 2021 18:26
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I also used to be afraid of using "the good [x/y/z]" but now am all about making regular use of them
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Jul 29, 2021 18:31
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Happiness Commando posted:Serving dishes are only for parties. If it's just some close friends, a partner, or myself, the pot or pan it was cooked in counts as the serving dish. Agreed. You can always claim it’s “rustic”
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Jul 29, 2021 20:14
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We have a lot of vintage "diner china" made by Homer Laughlin or Hall for everyday use. It's nice, indestructible, and comes in a variety of sizes/colors. We lucked out and found a huge stash of it from a thrift store that probably came from the old Walter Reed hospital in D.C. It's marked with the logo of the army medical corps. Before that we had an old set of blue willow my partner has had for years we were using as our everyday stuff. We also have a pile of pewter plates and bowls and stuff that are fun.
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Jul 29, 2021 20:29
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There's a few things that get serving dishes. Sometimes I'll get ambitious and make up some banchaan to go with lettuce wraps, in which case there's a lazy susan with ramekins and sauces and the whole shebang, but more often than not its just plated in the kitchen. I've got a good amount of matching china from the wedding, but the large dinner plates are just a random assortment. Thankfully they're all solid colors, those multicolored ones Veni was talking about would make me crazy.
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Jul 29, 2021 21:27
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You guys talking about home made ginger beer earlier sounded fantastic so I decided to make some myself. One question though. The only yeast I could find just labeled as active dry yeast was in a big jar, so I went for some of the packets which are labeled "fast acting yeast" which sounds like it's just supposed to work faster for baking. Will this cause any problems with making ginger beer? Also the recipe I found only calls for 1/8th tsp of yeast. Is that normal? Seems like so little. thanks.
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Jul 29, 2021 23:13
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idk about the first answer but yeast grows exponentially, it's probably a smaller amount to give you a teeny bit of a headstart on not exploding your bottles lol
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Jul 29, 2021 23:23
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veni veni veni posted:You guys talking about home made ginger beer earlier sounded fantastic so I decided to make some myself. One question though. The only yeast I could find just labeled as active dry yeast was in a big jar, so I went for some of the packets which are labeled "fast acting yeast" which sounds like it's just supposed to work faster for baking. Will this cause any problems with making ginger beer? you'll be fine with that yeast. i made a batch last weekend, and it was pretty good. in the past i tried a recipe using more yeast and a longer ferment, and the end result was awful - all the sugar was consumed and it tasted like water that had somehow been killed. one day it might be fun to get some fancy brewer's yeast and shoot for a more developed beer, but for something that takes like five minutes of work its quite nice.
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Jul 29, 2021 23:33
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Chard posted:you'll be fine with that yeast. i made a batch last weekend, and it was pretty good. in the past i tried a recipe using more yeast and a longer ferment, and the end result was awful - all the sugar was consumed and it tasted like water that had somehow been killed. haha I'm glad I didn't indulge my constant compulsion to put more stuff in than the recipe requires then. I didn't have any spring water on hand so I used tap. Hopefully that doesn't kill it or anything but I guess I'll find out in a few days. Denver water is generally great though and I don't think it's too heavy on Chlorine or anything, so fingers crossed.
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Jul 30, 2021 02:00
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Yeah your brew will be farting happily in no time. I do want to get some good brewers yeast because I think it can get too yeasty flavored sometimes using the bread stuff.
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Jul 30, 2021 05:36
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Guildenstern Mother posted:Yeah your brew will be farting happily in no time. I do want to get some good brewers yeast because I think it can get too yeasty flavored sometimes using the bread stuff. The thing about brewing/winemaking/etc. yeast is it's as close to single-strain as the producers can manage, while bread yeast is a lot less strictly controlled. And because of the foibles of beer/wine/cider/etc. fermentation, most yeasts intended to produce alcohol don't ferment every single bit of sugar, or only do so to a certain percentage, or take longer to do it. Those kinds of yeasts also tend to have much higher nutritional needs (trace minerals, free nitrogen, etc.) than bread yeast, which pretty much just cares about having sugar. Beer and wine yeasts especially are also far more temperature sensitive. All of that means that producing ginger beer or whatever else with a dedicated booze-producing yeast is actually a lot more fiddly than using bakers' yeast. Yes, you'll get different flavors from different yeast. But if you get one that needs a ton of nutrition and drop it into a nutritionally void solution that bread yeast does fine in you'll get a lot of off flavors. If your kitchen is kinda warm and you use a yeast that likes working at lower temperatures you could get something tasting vaguely of banana, or clove/cinnamon, or movie theater popcorn butter, or canned green bean water, etc. Feel free to experiment, but definitely consider reading about the yeast you intend to use.
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Jul 30, 2021 16:25
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bartolimu posted:The thing about brewing/winemaking/etc. yeast is it's as close to single-strain as the producers can manage, while bread yeast is a lot less strictly controlled. And because of the foibles of beer/wine/cider/etc. fermentation, most yeasts intended to produce alcohol don't ferment every single bit of sugar, or only do so to a certain percentage, or take longer to do it. Those kinds of yeasts also tend to have much higher nutritional needs (trace minerals, free nitrogen, etc.) than bread yeast, which pretty much just cares about having sugar. Beer and wine yeasts especially are also far more temperature sensitive. All of that means that producing ginger beer or whatever else with a dedicated booze-producing yeast is actually a lot more fiddly than using bakers' yeast. Yes, you'll get different flavors from different yeast. But if you get one that needs a ton of nutrition and drop it into a nutritionally void solution that bread yeast does fine in you'll get a lot of off flavors. If your kitchen is kinda warm and you use a yeast that likes working at lower temperatures you could get something tasting vaguely of banana, or clove/cinnamon, or movie theater popcorn butter, or canned green bean water, etc. Feel free to experiment, but definitely consider reading about the yeast you intend to use. That’s fascinating. (Not being sarcastic).
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Jul 30, 2021 17:26
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I petted a frog  The frog did not like it
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Jul 31, 2021 05:09
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I threw a big birthday party and a 4th of July party while COVID cases were low Grilled for the 4th of July for the first time in forever and now I got the grilling bug again Now that COVID’s back I’m gonna invite friends over to eat grilled foods on the patio, 15 feet away Fuuuuuck, grilling is so fun
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Aug 2, 2021 03:24
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Steve Yun posted:Fuuuuuck, grilling is so fun 
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Aug 2, 2021 12:04
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My family is kind of an odd one out for dinner time. Unless we're eating out (not that often even pre-COVID) or at someone's house, we eat separately. I'm usually at my computer and the gf and kid are upstairs watching tv. We have a hard time agreeing what to watch and we also don't have a usable dining room table currently. It's not that we don't like spending time with each other, it's that two of us are introverts that spend a lot of time at work interacting with people, so we recharge on our own. Her mom still doesn't understand it and was flabbergasted that I went to a concert without my gf, since she didn't like any of the bands.
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Aug 2, 2021 12:30
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I can't recall where in GWS I asked this, but months ago I asked how to get better at roasting vegetables and got answers and I figured I'd come by months and months later and say:  Success! It's easy and delicious and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants more cool veggies
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Aug 7, 2021 20:42
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That looks very tasty  Any advice that particularly worked for you? I’d love to have enough of a general understanding to just chuck sliced veg in the oven without having to google what temperature and time every time
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Aug 7, 2021 20:49
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Hawkperson posted:That looks very tasty Cut mixed veg so it's approximately the same cook times for the diff veg (you can think of it as having to make the pieces roughly the same weight if this helps), put them all in a big mixing bowl and toss them with olive oil, salt, pepper, thyme, rosemary if you want, that kind of thing. Throw it on a tray like you see in that goon's photo and bake at 400F on the middle rack, should take around 40 min depending on what you've got going on and your oven.
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Aug 7, 2021 21:19
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Hawkperson posted:That looks very tasty To duplicate what I did for the photo: - oven to 450F - slice zucchini and sweet potatoes into chunks - I forgot to toss the veggies so I just put oil and garlic bits on the foil itself and used a slice of sweet potato to spread it - put in for 7 minutes, then another 7, decided it was done - ate, was delicious. seasoned with a little salt as well!
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Aug 7, 2021 21:45
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VelociBacon posted:Cut mixed veg so it's approximately the same cook times for the diff veg (you can think of it as having to make the pieces roughly the same weight if this helps), put them all in a big mixing bowl and toss them with olive oil, salt, pepper, thyme, rosemary if you want, that kind of thing. Throw it on a tray like you see in that goon's photo and bake at 400F on the middle rack, should take around 40 min depending on what you've got going on and your oven. StrixNebulosa posted:To duplicate what I did for the photo: That's quite the spread in times. I'm also a noob at roasting veggies, the main factors here are 1. the chosen vegetables (spuds take longer than zucc? I guess?) and 2. the small difference in temperature. Right?
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Aug 9, 2021 01:44
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I was guessing to be honest but yeah I usually do yams, potatos, etc which will take longer. I honestly just look at them to see when they're done. I do think it's around 40 min at 400F for me.
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Aug 9, 2021 01:47
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Yeah, the bigger and more dense the chunks, the longer it’ll take. Sometimes I’ll take a layered approach if I want to make mismatched vegetables but not want to dirty any more pans. Like start potatoes at 400, then 15 minutes later add broccoli, then 10 minutes later add onions. I go by look and poke. Roasting very rarely comes down to the minute, they’ll be cooked and ready to eat way before they burn. How dark you let them get is a matter of preference.
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Aug 9, 2021 04:16
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To be honest I'm generally roasting some kind of meat on top of a bunch of veg instead of just the veg by itself.
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Aug 9, 2021 04:18
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I've got a beef roast in the slow cooker on top of a pile of onions, and a Kent pumpkin* I was planning to roast tonight - the beef should be done in about 2.5 hours so this is less about asking any of you for advice and more just putting out my ideas and leaving room for a trip report. * It's a squash to us Norte Americanos. Aussies call every winter squash a pumpkin. The grocery store had chopped up a bunch of big green-and-grey pumpkins into quarters, meaning I don't need to get out the Little Bonk to break it open. Little Bonk is our 2-lb rubber mallet that lives in a kitchen drawer and has a million uses, like pounding on the back of the big knife when it gets stuck part-way through a very large vegetable. Basically, I'm gonna slice up the pumpkin, cut off the rind, and roast it with a little olive oil and salt and maybe some paprika or something (we have a lot of paprika right now, I'm trying to put it in all sorts of things). I like the suggestion to just look at it every so often.
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Aug 9, 2021 08:00
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Yeah, roasting vegetables is usually a pretty easy way of cooking as they’re pretty tolerant. There’s a big range and time between just cooked and burnt. I also do the layered approach, with longer-cooking items (roots etc) going in before things like broccoli. Zucchini takes about longer than one expects because of the high water content. I usually cook at about 180C. You can add all sorts of spices, flavourings, eg some garlic cloves, vinegars, garam masala, harissa etc. (Red peppers or tomatoes with a mix of balsamic, harissa and oil are fantastic).
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Aug 9, 2021 10:40
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Roasting makes drat near every vegetable I like better. There are other ways I'll use stuff, but carrots, broccoli, sweet potatoes, acorn squash, asparagus, all that poo poo is better with a lil brown on em, and in some cases a whole different flavor provide from wet methods. In the case of stuff with just a hint of natural sweetness, it really brings it out. Roasting vegetables owns and it kinda makes me wonder how some things like asparagus would work in an air fryer.
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Aug 9, 2021 11:45
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signalnoise posted:Roasting makes drat near every vegetable I like better. There are other ways I'll use stuff, but carrots, broccoli, sweet potatoes, acorn squash, asparagus, all that poo poo is better with a lil brown on em, and in some cases a whole different flavor provide from wet methods. In the case of stuff with just a hint of natural sweetness, it really brings it out. Roasting vegetables owns and it kinda makes me wonder how some things like asparagus would work in an air fryer. Agreed! Roasting asparagus is great but griddle pan is even better.
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Aug 9, 2021 12:41
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I've found the best way to roast sliced zucchini is to crank the heat right up to 200 fan/220 no fan - lay out a single layer of 1/2 thick slices on an oiled tray. They take about 10-15 mins with a flip at the halfway mark. The high heat means they get nice and browned before the cell structure breaks down and the slices shed aaaaalll the water. I find that if they aren't browned before that point, it'll be another 20 minutes until they dry off enough to keep browning.
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Aug 9, 2021 13:01
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I just discovered Penzey's spices ground rosemary, and now I want to roast all of the veg. When I can't find fresh rosemary, I tend to find the dry stuff sharp and hard to moisten up. I am currently drowning in (giant, not pickling size) cukes from my CSA - I have done the yoghurt cuke salad, taboulhi(sp) with quinoa, tons just sliced with salt, and cuke and cheese sandwiches. Any other suggestions? It's just 2 people and we have 5 in the fridge right now ... In addition to zucchini and a fat bag of tomatoes on the counter. Bumper year for them...
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Aug 9, 2021 18:48
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Slice and make fridge pickles or kimchi
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Aug 9, 2021 19:05
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Yep, I made sweet pickles and kimchi with all of my extra cucumbers this year. This is in addition to having cucumber salad 3-4 nights a week.
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Aug 9, 2021 19:39
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I made a casserole today. The prep-work took me like an hour. All I did was dice the ingredients. 
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Aug 9, 2021 20:13
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