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The Sad Bastard Cookbook

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Re: The Sad Bastard Cookbook

#271

Post by bravura »

CSMastermind wrote: post #243
maerF0x0 wrote: post #150

When It's really bad I just buy multiple costco rotisserie chickens, some frozen veggies, put food on plate, microwave, cover in sauce, eat. Add in premier proteins, fit crunch, and clif builders and you can shop for like 2 weeks in a single run and not die. My "I cant be bothered" template is the following. is essentially pick one from each category * 1/2 LB (225g) veggies * 1/2 LB or 1 fruit * 1 protein * Caloric l…

>Would love recommendations for other sauces that allow me to squeeze a nationality of cuisine over my template to make it taste like that country's food (kinda). Yeah I got you: We're going to use two different basic techniques. The first is extremely simple: throw everything into a blender and then blend until your desired consistency (normally smooth). Mexican: Combine tomatoes, jalapeños, cilantro, lime juice, an…

Don't forget salsa verde. Trader Joe's salsa verde if you don't want to make it yourself. It has only 10 calories per serving.

Re: The Sad Bastard Cookbook

#272

Post by stakhanov »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #267
random_upvoter wrote: post #100

Any non-wealthy single person faces an uphill battle to both 1. earn a living 2. take proper care of themselves. In the Middle Ages people invented a rather neat solution for this problem: go live together in a big building, work together, pray together, cook together and call it a monastery.

It’s a culture problem, not an economic one. Cooking delicious dirt-cheap meals is easy, and doesn’t take an unreasonable amount of time out of your day. We’ve just had a few generations of western parents not teaching their children to cook anything. So when those people realise they have to figure out how to feed themselves, they simply don’t know any reasonable ways to do it, even though plenty exist.

> Cooking delicious dirt-cheap meals is easy, and doesn’t take an unreasonable amount of time out of your day.

...depends on what you find "unreasonable". The internet is full of delicious "10 minute" recipes or "30 minute" recipes or whatever, but that doesn't count the amount of time you spend at the grocery store, cleaning your kitchen, washing your kitchen towels, (un)loading your dishwasher, etc.

The reality for me is that I spend maybe 10 hours each weekend shopping for groceries and pre-preparing things that I need to have on hand in the freezer/fridge to even be able to cut the workload to only an hour on a weekday. This adds up to 15 hours a week, so it's maybe half the hours I spend each week being truly productive at work. By some measure, that's actually a lot.

And I don't do it because I enjoy doing it. I do it, because I'm forced to. And I don't think my expectations are unreasonably high either: Not living in a major city and spending a ton of money on eating out, and not wanting to fill my body with additives from processed foods is basically what's forcing me.

Re: The Sad Bastard Cookbook

#273

Post by zdragnar »

stakhanov wrote: post #264
VoodooJuJu wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We had other solutions for a while too: get married and have one person do the more-than-fulltime job of homemaking. But that role disappeared because corporations needed more cheap worker-units and politicians needed more GDP, so they rode each others' coattails to eliminate that role. With each homemaker now a worker-unit, there are twice as many worker-units but employee costs are the same, household income is the…

> We had other solutions for a while too[...] There were more solutions besides monasteries and marriage. My grandparents, living in a small town in a rural area of Austria maybe 50 years ago, had a large family. That town's teacher was single, and it simply wouldn't have been economical for her to do her own cooking, so she had a deal whereby she paid my grandparents so she could come over every day to have dinner w…

Regulations around selling food are far more brutal than "ride sharing". It varies by state in the US, but generally speaking unless you keep your income below certain dollar amounts and stick to things like jam and pickles, you need to operate out of a commercially licensed and inspected kitchen.

Far better to do as hoc, personal arrangements than try to scale it into a fully fledged market.

Re: The Sad Bastard Cookbook

#274

Post by slothtrop »

bob1029 wrote: post #191

The trick for me is to apply engineering to the kitchen. You can actually enjoy really elaborate meals if you simply make more each time and utilize pyrex+freezer. Why make only 6 servings of spaghetti when there's still 50% free space available in your instant pot? (that 'max fill' line is but a polite suggestion :D) Planning ahead, logistics, etc. can make all the difference in the world. Imagine spending one hour…

This is increasingly difficult as you have more mouths to feed. Not only would you need to produce a very high yield, you need the space for it.

The balance for us is to make only 2-3 separate dinner meals per week and have leftovers. That way we have some variety but don't have to cook every night (plus when we do cook, we don't mind spending the extra time for a delicious meal. If you're cooking on a time constraint you want a super-fast one-off).

Breakfast for me is a solved problem, I just have overnight oats with fixings. Lunch is whatever, usually eggs, legumes, sardines, tofu.

Re: The Sad Bastard Cookbook

#275

Post by AmericanChopper »

stakhanov wrote: post #272
AmericanChopper wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a culture problem, not an economic one. Cooking delicious dirt-cheap meals is easy, and doesn’t take an unreasonable amount of time out of your day. We’ve just had a few generations of western parents not teaching their children to cook anything. So when those people realise they have to figure out how to feed themselves, they simply don’t know any reasonable ways to do it, even though plenty exist.

> Cooking delicious dirt-cheap meals is easy, and doesn’t take an unreasonable amount of time out of your day. ...depends on what you find "unreasonable". The internet is full of delicious "10 minute" recipes or "30 minute" recipes or whatever, but that doesn't count the amount of time you spend at the grocery store, cleaning your kitchen, washing your kitchen towels, (un)loading your dishwasher, etc. The reality for…

> And I don't do it because I enjoy doing it. I do it, because I'm forced to

You sound like exactly the sort of person I’m talking about. I’d spend a maximum of 2 hours per week grocery shopping, and I can make dinner at a couple of dollars per portion in 15-30 mins with no prep. I’m not sure what anybody could be forcing you to spend 15 hours per week doing.

Re: The Sad Bastard Cookbook

#276

Post by hombre_fatal »

didgeoridoo wrote: post #261
mrob wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The importance of the "max fill" line in an electric pressure cooker depends on what you're cooking. If you're cooking legumes, you should respect it, because they can foam and make a huge mess if you try to cook too much at once. But I've never had a problem cooking steamed vegetables past the line.

In my experience, going past the max fill line is mostly a problem when using the “rapid pressure release” on a recipe with lots of liquid. Pressing the release button can emit a a superheated geyser of soup with enough force to hit the ceiling.

What's nice is when this happens by itself while it's cooking and it spackles your counters, cabinets, and maybe even ceiling with salsa and food debris while you're away.

Re: The Sad Bastard Cookbook

#277

Post by MengerSponge »

didgeoridoo wrote: post #261
mrob wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The importance of the "max fill" line in an electric pressure cooker depends on what you're cooking. If you're cooking legumes, you should respect it, because they can foam and make a huge mess if you try to cook too much at once. But I've never had a problem cooking steamed vegetables past the line.

In my experience, going past the max fill line is mostly a problem when using the “rapid pressure release” on a recipe with lots of liquid. Pressing the release button can emit a a superheated geyser of soup with enough force to hit the ceiling.

When the timer goes off and the cooker switches off, the contents are still under pressure. That pressure shifts the liquid's boiling point, which is why pressure cookers cook hotter. If you vent the pressure vessel, the liquid inside will rapidly boil as it dumps that excess thermal energy to steam and your kitchen. It'll carry bits of liquid and cooked food with it.

Another thing you know but may not have connected: this is exactly the same process that can make water "explode" if you reheat it in a microwave.

Re: The Sad Bastard Cookbook

#278

Post by amluto »

denkmoon wrote: post #268
amluto wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you upgrade to a Breville Control Freak (not cheap, but cheaper than your new kitchen) and you get used to it (it require recalibrating your concept of how to use a stove a bit), you might find that you never use your new stove in your new kitchen. The Control Freak has: Better heat control. (That’s the entire point. It smokes essentially everything else in the market.) Painless preheating. Put on your pan, turn i…

Holy crap. That is an insane price. Seems like it's priced for commercial use. I've had a thought in the back of my head to use a temperature probe like that in a temperature control loop on my induction cooktop, could probably do it with an arduino but I also don't want to make my kitchen an electronics project. Is there nothing like this that is priced reasonably?

It’s NSF listed for commercial use.

A startup called Njori is trying, and mostly failing, to compete.

Re: The Sad Bastard Cookbook

#279

Post by bob1029 »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #275
stakhanov wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cooking delicious dirt-cheap meals is easy, and doesn’t take an unreasonable amount of time out of your day. ...depends on what you find "unreasonable". The internet is full of delicious "10 minute" recipes or "30 minute" recipes or whatever, but that doesn't count the amount of time you spend at the grocery store, cleaning your kitchen, washing your kitchen towels, (un)loading your dishwasher, etc. The reality for…

> And I don't do it because I enjoy doing it. I do it, because I'm forced to You sound like exactly the sort of person I’m talking about. I’d spend a maximum of 2 hours per week grocery shopping, and I can make dinner at a couple of dollars per portion in 15-30 mins with no prep. I’m not sure what anybody could be forcing you to spend 15 hours per week doing.

I think you will find an extreme range in mastery in the kitchen, just like you will find it in programming, blacksmithing, construction, plumbing, or literally anything else.

In most cases, the master craftsman is orders of magnitude more efficient than the apprentice. Solving problems without any tools. Solving two or more problems at the same time (hint, hint). Etc.

The best way to approach this discussion is to respect it as a skill issue and come to terms with that reality. I think we could find a lot of constructive advice to share in this environment.

Attitude also helps. If you have the right mindset, it is a lot easier to overcome these concerns. If I really want to keep eating home-cooked meals and enjoying all of the benefits that go along with it, I would absolutely find a way to optimize these activities. At some level, you have to want it. No one is going to hand you the convenience being advertised throughout this thread. For example, I get my ass out of bed at 530AM and arrive at the grocery store as they are opening so that I can avoid crowds and get in/out in store->home in ~25 minutes, but only if I do it at the right time of day. If I wait to go when everyone else does, it will take at least an hour.

Re: The Sad Bastard Cookbook

#280

Post by mhb »

coolvision wrote: post #52

My food for when I can't be bothered is pasta with canned pesto sauce (+optional parmesan). Can eat it every day. Another a bit more involved option is pasta with checkpeas: https://www.seriouseats.com/pasta-e-ceci-pasta-with-chickpea... What's yours go-to recipes?

Chili crisp can be used to good effect on many items. Including ice cream.
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