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The Sad Bastard Cookbook

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Re: The Sad Bastard Cookbook

#431

Post by MikeTheRocker »

extragood wrote: post #407
MikeTheRocker wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's interesting because I find home cooking to be very expensive, if you value your time. Cooking for one, the marginal difference between the price of groceries vs eating out is easily outweighed by the time cost of shopping, food preparation and cleanup. Of course if you enjoy cooking it's a different story.

When I was saving for the down payment of my condo, one of the biggest changes I made was making my own lunch, rather than eating out every day. There are going to be regional differences of course, but here in SF, a modest lunch costs at least $20. My average was around $25, or about $6500/year. I adopted "meal prep Sundays" where I make all of my lunches for the week ahead, and the average cost is consistently arou…

I'm going to make some assumptions, so please forgive me if this is not accurate. You said you were in San Francisco and looking to buy property, so I'll guess you were probably a Senior Software Engineer at the time, based on presumed age and Hacker News demographic/location.

The median wage for that position and region is $295,000/year according to levels.fyi [1]. I happen to also live in the same city with the same job title, so I can confirm anecdotally this feels about right. It might have been lower back when you were saving though. Not sure how long ago this was, but let's roll with it.

5200 / 295000 = ~%1.8 of your gross income.

I'm a bit doubtful that you were able to prepare a week's worth of food in just 1.5 hours, including shopping and cleaning, but if so, that's incredibly efficient. Let's assume 16 waking hours per weekend day.

1.5 / (16 + 16) = ~4.7% of your weekend.

So very roughly speaking, we're looking at a marginal difference of saving around 1/50th of your income at the expense of around 1/20th of your free time. Personally I feel that's not worthwhile, and in my case the numbers are actually more stark.

This of course does not factor in the non-zero time to go out for lunch. This could significantly change the calculus. We're also not including non-financial factors which might play in.

[1] https://www.levels.fyi/t/software-engineer/levels/senior/loc...

Re: The Sad Bastard Cookbook

#432

Post by tacone »

nkurz wrote: post #424
danjc wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you sealing the glass jars if not with a metal lid?

Weck jars would probably work: https://weckjars.com The metal clips in the pictures are just to hold the lid on in a water bath. In a microwave you could probably skip them.

You need theml mtsl clips in order to achieve the vaccum. Bormioli Fido and Weck jars have been tested to be effective (YMMV) . What the inventor says is that is not really the metal but also its shape that breaks thwle microwave, after all my own microwave came with a metallic gadget to keep the dish near the grill.

My microwave broke probably for a combination of metal and some food stain on the metal parts of the jar, that is my gut feeling as well.

I am not really advising people to try, but it's a such interesting method that I am finding videos from actual chefs about it.

A similar way of unsupervised but likely slower and less reproducible cooking would be to submerge the jar(s) in a pot full of water and let them sit there for a while. The advantages being able to overcook things (e.g. the meat) if you want to and not risking breaking anything. You would consume more energy though.

Re: The Sad Bastard Cookbook

#435

Post by buggyipadmettoo »

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…

It takes me 1hr 20 mins to debone 6 Costco chickens, portion the meat into 1.5lb bags, throw in the freezer, start the pressure cooker for bones, and clean up (except for the pressure cooker/bone stuff I might do tomorrow)

That’s 66 servings of .25lbs of meat.

Tips: wear gloves, do it while they’re warm, shred by hand. Add salt and lemon juice to taste (and preserve) before freezing.

Re: The Sad Bastard Cookbook

#436

Post by rafabulsing »

haswell wrote: post #396
rafabulsing wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I call this the Reheating Coefficient: how good does something taste when reheated compared to how good it did originally? Stews can sometimes achieve even >1 RC. I find lasagna is really good as well. And then you have stuff like fries which start out pretty great and lose all appeal the second they hit room temperature, never to recover.

> And then you have stuff like fries which start out pretty great and lose all appeal the second they hit room temperature While I agree with the general point, I had to mention that an air fryer can revitalize some things that I used to see as unsalvageable. Fries are surprisingly great after a few minutes at 375.

Interesting, will give this a try next time I have leftover fries!

Re: The Sad Bastard Cookbook

#437

Post by rootusrootus »

generic92034 wrote: post #211
oefnak wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think mostly Americans have that problem...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_obesity_r... And this is only for obesity. If you would include overweight the percentages would be much higher.

This is what I think of every time someone makes an "Americans fat" comment. Sure, that's true, but if you honestly believe a 20-30% obesity rate is good then I don't know what to say. Y'all are headed the same direction pretty fast.

Plus, it varies across the US. In Washington, for example, the rate (while high) is under 30%, while West Virginia is over 40%.

Re: The Sad Bastard Cookbook

#438

Post by rootusrootus »

de6u99er wrote: post #295

I got myself a cooking robot (Bosch Cookit). All I have to do is buy ingredients, follow the instructions on the display, and put it to the dishwasher after cooking. The recipes are easy to follow, very tasty and most of them are healthy.

That looks cool. Cost more than my induction cooktop did, though, and in any case they don't seem to market in the US. I'd like to see it in action. But I'm not spending $2700 to import one just to find out ;-). I guess it's a direct competitor to the Thermomix TM6, which is available in the US and quite a bit cheaper.

Re: The Sad Bastard Cookbook

#439

Post by utucuro »

rafabulsing wrote: post #436
haswell wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And then you have stuff like fries which start out pretty great and lose all appeal the second they hit room temperature While I agree with the general point, I had to mention that an air fryer can revitalize some things that I used to see as unsalvageable. Fries are surprisingly great after a few minutes at 375.

Interesting, will give this a try next time I have leftover fries!

My personal favorite: chopped leftover fries into roughly equal sized chunks, reheat in the pan until they're back in shape, then use them to make a lazy spanish omelette. Mind you, keep tossing and stirring them to avoid burning and add a small amount of oil if the fries are particularly dry.
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