Idle Food - Cooking!

[Mangela Lansbury]

Wait, people don't use salt? Do you all not use pepper either? Stuff tastes so bland without it!

I eat a lot of salad, but that still gets covered in salt, pepper and olive oil. Those 3 things go into practically everything I make.

I never use salt as a main seasoning! I use pepper and olive oil and garlic, usually. If I ever use salt in a dish, it's generally sparing use just to get other herbs and spices to effervesce and come out a bit more.

[Badfinger]

I drop my salt intake every now and then and after a few weeks you realise that processed foods have a whole lot of salt in them.

That said, my friend asked me how i made such tasty food one day, and my two word answer was "good seasoning".

 

I eat a lot more cleanly now than I used to in my early adulthood. If I ever pig out and have a bunch of greasy delivery food, the thing that hits me the most isn't the hideous fat content, it's all the salt in the food. I wake up all dehydrated the next day.

 

If I had to choose a single thing to season food with forever, it's salt. That's kind of a duh answer but it's true!

[Gaizokubanou]

@Twig, I'm sorry to report that my search for cinnamon added tea is not going well.  Asked my family members and they all gave me this bewildered look.  Still looking though.

[Twig]

Haha, it's fine. Don't work too hard, I wasn't expecting to get a definitive answer!

[Mangela Lansbury]

If you augment a standard chai recipe, you'll end up with a very cinnamony tea. You could also try boiling cinnamon and ginger for an hour or two or more (maybe a slow cooker?) and then adding more brown sugar than you think is appropriate. I had a Korean friend make a warm tea-like drink like that once. It had done additional stuff in it that I can't remember... I can ask about it.

[Griddlelol]

I never use salt as a main seasoning! I use pepper and olive oil and garlic, usually. If I ever use salt in a dish, it's generally sparing use just to get other herbs and spices to effervesce and come out a bit more.

 

I've heard that once you stop having salt, you adapt and a tiny amount is enough. I just love it so much I couldn't live without it for the time needed to adjust.

 

I honestly don't watch my salt intake at all. The last time I had my blood pressure tested I was in the super "athlete level" which wasn't indicative of my fitness level, but just a genetic predisposition to having no blood pressure issues. My family has loads of shit illnesses, but not one incidence of heart attack (or cancer for that matter).

It's been a while, but personally I think coffee, caffeine in general and stress have a much stronger effect on my blood pressure than the salt I eat. I can see the veins in my arms pop out when I get stressed or binge on coffee. It's a nice little feed back signal.

 

Sodium has gotten a pretty bad reputation, but it's a vital part of body function, it's just when people eat shit foods all the time, or move from a hot country to a cold country, it can cause a problem.

 

I put cinnamon in my coffee when I have time to make it via a moka pot. It's great. Embarrassingly I got the idea from an episode of "Two and a Half Men" I once had the misfortune of watching. 

[Cordeos]

I want to buy a Mortar and Pestle for spice smashing, but had not realized how many different materials were available. I am leaning towards stone since I like the feel and heavier seems better. Is granite best?

Second question, I love the site https://food52.com/ it is the best formatted food site/blog I have seen, however I can always use more recepies, what are others favorite food sites?

[tabacco]

http://seriouseats.com is pretty good

[Dewar]

Depending on what you're grinding, I have generally preferred volcanic rock Mortar and Pestles. The roughness makes it easier to grind down larger or harder things like basil, garlic, sea salt, etc. The disadvantage of that is if you're really powdering something, it can be tough to get it back out of the bowl due to all the nooks and crannies. 

[Cordeos]

Depending on what you're grinding, I have generally preferred volcanic rock Mortar and Pestles. The roughness makes it easier to grind down larger or harder things like basil, garlic, sea salt, etc. The disadvantage of that is if you're really powdering something, it can be tough to get it back out of the bowl due to all the nooks and crannies. 

 

Probably mostly for spices, I lean towards jack of all trades kitchen tools since I don't have tons of space.

[Dewar]

Well, on a jack of all trades note, one of these big ones can be used to make dips and such with avocado, tomato, and other such things that a blender might not quite do the trick on. 

 

http://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/3983806/?catalogId=80&sku=3983806&cm_ven=Google_PLA&cm_cat=Shopping&cm_pla=default&cm_ite=default&gclid=CjwKEAjwueytBRCmpOyZ2L-xrG8SJADwH5c6AG8DrSu2sZW05DUG6Vfy6NNN0GoJVxp-GeiN3K_wLhoCN0Pw_wcB&kwid=productads-plaid^84645142423-sku^3983806-adType^PLA-device^c-adid^45527541703

 

But yeah, if you're looking for a small kitchen, granite is probably what you want.

[Mangela Lansbury]

While we're talking about it, what kind of mortar and pestle would y'all recommend for saffron? I always feel like I lose half of it because I can't recover it from the mortar and pestle, and it's such an expensive thing for me to feel like I'm wasting.

[Badfinger]

I love Serious Eats! Recommendation seconded.

 

I also really like Food Gawker. It's an aggregator, but it came out before they were really popular and I think it really does the whole idea right, as creators are the ones submitting. Curated, amazing pictures, well organized.

[Bucket_of_Lizards]

Seeing the hot dog fried rice reminded me of this chowhound thread entitled What do you do with "Hot Dog Water"? Some suggested uses for the vile broth include hot dog water risotto, hot dog shaved ice, hot dog water oatmeal, and hot dog water martini

[Griddlelol]

I spent a good 26 years loathing pickles/gherkins. I now can't get enough of them. I put them in every salad and sandwich I make now. 

 

They also go great with soy sauce which I suppose is obvious since everything goes with that. 

[acl5d]

So after hearing about San Marzano tomatoes for so long, I finally tried a recipe with them (for the curious, this one here).  I used one bag of these mini Marzanos from Trader Joes - which were a huge pain to peel, being so small - and one large can of Cento brand peeled San Marzanos.  I expected to find a can of peeled tomatoes, maybe with some juice for preservation.  I also expected them to be somewhat firm because everywhere I read talked about how canned tomatoes are packaged at the peak of freshness.  What I found, however, were some very very mushy peeled tomatoes floating in basically tomato puree.  Is that normal, or did I get a bad can?  If that's how they're supposed to be I might just skip the cans from now on.

[dibs]

That's what canned tomatoes are. The recipe says you should cook them down for a long time until it has all thickened, so them starting out like that shouldn't have put you off really. Did you cook it yet?

[Badfinger]

Fresh tomatoes shouldn't be firm. Fresh tomatoes are soft and juicy. If you have firm (like an apple) they are not ripe, or under ripe.

 

Here is an easy way to peel tomatoes if you'd like to continue to use fresh ones.

 

Just make an X on the bottom of your tomatoes and throw them into a pot of boiling water for no more than a minute. Fish them out with a slotted spoon, plunge them into a bowl of cold water (or an ice bath), lift them directly back out, and peel back the skin with a knife or your fingers. It will slip off like a charm.

[acl5d]

That's what I did, it was just a pain because I had the mini ones, so there was a lot more peeling-per-yield-of-tomato-flesh involved.

[Badfinger]

Gotcha! I've never used or seen mini San Marzano tomatoes.

[Griddlelol]

I've noticed a lot of people (at least say) they hate tomatoes, but love tomato sauce on things. I'm not talking ketchup, but people who love marinara sauce on pasta and pizza or love bolognese made with tomatoes. 

 

I wonder what causes that weird disconnect. Maybe it comes from what you said Badfinger - that people eat unripe tomatoes.

 

Tomatoes are fucking delicious. Best fruit and secret best vegetable. 

[jennegatron]

As a person who doesn't like tomatoes very much, but I very much like tomato sauces, it's in part a texture thing. The chunks of cooked tomato have a very distinct texture. I'm also pretty sensitive to food textures, and they can be hard for me to eat.

[Badfinger]

If I had to guess, it's a texture issue. I love tomatoes, but I've certainly been put off when you get one that's really grainy. I'd rather have an under ripe tomato than one that's all grainy and bad textured.

 

A lot of tomato sauce is also loaded with sugar and many tomato-disguising flavors.

 

 

^^^ Oh hey some confirmation!

[Twig]

Tomatoes are fucking delicious. Best fruit and secret best vegetable. 

Counterpoint: good tomatoes are fucking delicious.

 

Bad tomatoes can ruin my whole meal. 

 

I'd just rather not take the risk most of the time, to be honest.

[osmosisch]

Picked a couple kilos of blackberries from our rear hedge today. It's gonna be a pie-bakin' day.