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Idle Food - Cooking!

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This isn't directly about cooking but it is about growing food.  I use green onions fairly often in a lot of the Chinese dishes I make.  I got tired of constantly needing to buy them so I finally decided to try growing some of my own.  I'd heard before that you could supposedly place the roots in a glass with water and they would continue to grow if exposed to sunlight.  After about 2 weeks of trying this, I can confirm it totally works.  I chopped off the top part and left about an inch or so of the root, then placed it in a clear glass with some water and left it on a window sill.  They started growing within the first day.  I've changed the water every few days and now have a couple of full size pieces and some more that are continuing to grow.  It's a handy trick if you use green onions a lot like I do.  I'll add some pictures when I get home.

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Yeah, it works. But standing water on the other hand just doesn't work in Florida, so I have to slum it and buy like three bunches of green onions every time I go to the store.

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Yeah, better watch the quality of that water. Don't want those succulent rods feeding on rancid juice.

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Of course, on my first visit to these forums I manage to gloss over worthwhile discussion here and the gaming forum entirely and go straight for the thread about food, while hungry. I apparently hate myself. 

 

YoThatLimp - Have you made chili yet? If not, you should. This is favorite base recipe, and I adjust the ingredients on the fly and it always turns out good.

 

For example, I might skip the tomato sauce and juice and go straight for a few cans of Mexican stewed tomatoes that I've briefly run through the blender/food processor (not too much, so it's still kinda chunky), and I like using a mix of red and white beans instead of just red. I'm working up the courage to add beer to the recipe one of these days, but I am incapable of making a small batch of anything in a crockpot and I'm scared of ruining that much food. I also usually just add extra peppers, celery, and spices to make it a little lower calorie/fat and also go further. Frozen chili still has a shelf life, but you can freeze it into single serving bags and eat off of it for at least a few weeks. When I have them on hand, I'll also sometimes toss in a can of green chilies from Trader Joe's.

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I use a similar recipe for chili, subbing stuff as I feel.  The one thing I always do though is use ground turkey instead of beef.  In general I don't much care for turkey (I find it too dry) but turkey chili is great.  I also sometimes cheat and add a jar of salsa to it.

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Yeah, I think chili is one of the few places where I feel like I can use turkey in place of beef and it's still pretty good. I tried it once in sloppy joes and... well... none of the flavor really absorbed and the sauce pretty much just rolled off the meat like somebody had sprayed it with RainX first. 

 

Also, if you have a smoker, smoked turkey is amazing. My husband smokes a couple of turkeys for Thanksgiving every year. It's never dry, the flavor is always really good, and the leftovers are so, SO perfect in chili. Anyone who has the yard space for a smoker and doesn't own one is missing out.

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A chili that starts with ground meat and which at no point includes actual chilis is a joke. I mean I literally thought that article was a joke at first.

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The Flatlander chili one? It's got bell peppers in it, which are a joke in the world of chili peppers, but they still technically qualify. Anyway, yeah, it's tasty on it's own but like I said, the recipe is best as a base. You've gotta other varieties of chili peppers if you want any sort of heat because the spices alone don't really do it. 

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A chili that starts with ground meat and which at no point includes actual chilis is a joke. I mean I literally thought that article was a joke at first.

 

Nothing wrong with ground meat in chili.

 

(The thing that is wrong with that chili is that its photo shows it over pasta, which is dangerously close to Cincinnati "chili")

 

e: Are you talking about the one I linked? Literally the paragraph after the ground beef is the instruction to add chili peppers.

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Cincinatti chili is gross but chili over pasta is really good.

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(The thing that is wrong with that chili is that its photo shows it over pasta, which is dangerously close to Cincinnati "chili")

 

I had no idea it was called Cincinnati Chili.  There's one place in KC where that is the specialty, and it's the only place I've ever seen it.  That restaurant is like stepping back in time, feels like it was opened 50s and hasn't been updated since.  I just thought it was some old type of way to serve chili that no one else did anymore. 

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Cincinatti chili is gross but chili over pasta is really good.

 

Disagree, sir! I make it occasionally and it's delicious. I really like cooks illustrated's recipe (sadly paywalled).

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I'm making Cincinnati chili tonight just to spite you all.

 

Hey listen what you do in the privacy of your own home is no business of mine, and doesn't hurt me.

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I actually have nothing against Cincinnati chili, in reality, but as someone who grew up surrounded by it, it is far inferior to the Good Shit. I also naturally associate Skyline Chili with Cincinnati because... it originated in Cincinnati. And it actually is gross as hell.

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I'm really sorry to say this, but sometimes i just can't imagine enjoying US food.

This is the 2nd google image for Cinncinnati chilli:(


CincinnitiChili2.jpg

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