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Flyingsod View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 07 2012 at 19:27
Originally posted by iamathousandapples iamathousandapples wrote:

I still can barely find any recipes that don't make me buy a bunch of equipment or ingredients I'll never use again. Wish I could find some


 I'm pretty old school about food. Cast iron skillet, chef's knife, cutting board, mixing bowl, and wooden spoon. There's almost nothing you can't make with that list. Most other equipment are just labor savers or refiners. Def don't buy equipment for a specific recipe, Just do it the manual way with whatever equipment you have. If you notice yourself constantly saying " a ______ would make this way easier" go buy a _______ .
  As for ingrediants just buy one or two you think you'd like and find recipes that use them until they are gone. for pantry stuff you can just buy one thing a month till you're well stocked.

 What kind of equipment do you have now? Maybe some prog chefs can make good suggestions on what to make with it.

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 07 2012 at 19:31
 ^ Quite right--  I'd add a roasting pan


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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 07 2012 at 20:33
I have a cupboard full of junk I've used once and has never seen the light of day since. The pasta machine has never been used and never will be.The electric steamer is no easier to use than a bamboo one you get for a few bucks at the chineese supermarket and for most jobs a hand wisk is as good as an electric one. In general things with power cords should be filed away on the "nice to have" list and forgotten about - they are more bother to clean than they are to use and take up more cupboard space than they deserve. The only gadget that has become indispensible to me is the breadmaker - I could make bread by hand, but it is much more pleasurable to set it up before I go to bed and wake up to the smell of freshly baked bread in the morning than it is to spend spare hours I don't have needing and proving dough.
 
For ingredients I generally adapt recipes to what I have in the cupboard rather than go out and buy exactly what I need - as my confidence in those adapted recipes grows I will slowly increase my larder with the more exotic ingredients - for example over the past eight months I've accumulated a small collection of relatively inexpensive Japanese "essentials" such as nori, bonito flakes, mirin, sake, pickled ginger, panko breadcrums and so have gradually de-westernised my adapted Japanese recipes that called for their use - there was no point rushing out and buying them from the outset if I didn't like what I ended up cooking - crushed crackers served as a panko substitute more than adequately.
 
Often the choice of replacement ingredient to adapt is self-evident, such as using a green-leaf vegetable in place of pak choy or fortified wine (sherry or port) in place of mirin (or reduced white wine and a little sugar in place of sherry), other times you either have to be inventive (see my puerco pibil attempt on the previous page) or simply omit the missing ingredient if it doesn't seem to be essential ... goulash without paprika isn't goulash but the result is still perfectly edible and just as satisfying... chilli con carne without peppers is ragu alla bolognese and you can still eat it with rice or corn-chips if you don't have spaghetti (I'll eat both with mashed potato because I prefer spuds to rice or pasta).
 
However most of the staples you need are perishable and you'll be buying those on a weekly basis anyway - they are not going to be sitting in the larder alongside the jar of dried taragon that's been sat there for the past ten years waiting for the next time you run out of shop-bought tartare sauce and have to quickly make some with whatever ingredients are to hand (mayo, capers, dill pickles, lemon juice and taragon... or partial combinations thereof).
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 08 2012 at 07:11
Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

I could make bread by hand, but it is much more pleasurable to set it up before I go to bed and wake up to the smell of freshly baked bread in the morning than it is to spend spare hours I don't have needing and proving dough.
 


Golly, Dean, if you just needed dough, you could have asked me!  Tongue
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 08 2012 at 07:35
LOL
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 11 2012 at 18:26
Last night Beef Vindaloo with sweet potatoes, microwaved pappadams, rice.
Tonight Falafel, Greek salad, Greek eggplant (made a big batch a few days ago).
Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened...

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 11 2012 at 19:27
Originally posted by Slartibartfast Slartibartfast wrote:

, microwaved pappadams



 Well, you initiated a google response. I'm off to find out wth a pappadam is.
 I won't name my latest meals. If food were music my latest fare was something like the Jonas Brothers.

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 11 2012 at 19:58
I Wiki'd it and it was actually this brand, garlic variety:
The Rabbit mascot on the Lijjat Papad packing

Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened...

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 15 2012 at 18:29
They seem like an Indian version of premade tostada shells. Not gonna go with tonights dinner of Chicken fried steak, hashbrowns, and garlic toast though.

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 22 2012 at 09:48
Anyone know what to do with Mexican Guava? I bought some at the international market and they smell wonderfull. Even If I can't figure out what to do with them I'll enjoy smelling them for a few days till they go bad. I cut one open and man are they seedy. seeds like rocks. tooth breakers. SO I imagine they needs to be pushed through a sieve or something... i dunno.

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 22 2012 at 10:01
As far as I know everything in a guava is edible (including the seeds) and they can be eaten raw much like an apple. They can be eaten with a little rock-salt or sugar according to taste. Or they can be sliced and boiled for 20 minutes then sieved to remove the seeds if you don't want to eat the seeds.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 25 2012 at 06:15
Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

I have a cupboard full of junk I've used once and has never seen the light of day since.


I'll see your pasta machine & electric steamer, and raise you an electric juicer & smoothie maker. There is one thing I bought, though, fully expecting for it to eventually be consigned to the 'dusty-bottom-cupboard' graveyard & that's this mini food processor:



Takes up next to no room, very efficient, very useful & easy to clean (and cut yourself on the blades whilst doing so )

Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

The only gadget that has become indispensible to me is the breadmaker - I could make bread by hand, but it is much more pleasurable to set it up before I go to bed and wake up to the smell of freshly baked bread in the morning than it is to spend spare hours I don't have needing and proving dough


Me too - ironic as this one of those kitchen gadgets most people buy & only ever use once; personally, I use if all the time - excellent piece of kit, so long as you don't mind a hole in the bottom of the loaf.

Jon Lord 1941 - 2012
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 25 2012 at 06:44
Originally posted by Jim Garten Jim Garten wrote:

Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

I have a cupboard full of junk I've used once and has never seen the light of day since.


I'll see your pasta machine & electric steamer, and raise you an electric juicer & smoothie maker. There is one thing I bought, though, fully expecting for it to eventually be consigned to the 'dusty-bottom-cupboard' graveyard & that's this mini food processor:



Takes up next to no room, very efficient, very useful & easy to clean (and cut yourself on the blades whilst doing so )
Okay - I'll grant you that one - I too have a mini food processor and use it all the time... the full-size one has been consigned to the shed because I loath to throw anything away that isn't broken (okay... I keep broken crap too).
Originally posted by Jim Garten Jim Garten wrote:


Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

The only gadget that has become indispensible to me is the breadmaker - I could make bread by hand, but it is much more pleasurable to set it up before I go to bed and wake up to the smell of freshly baked bread in the morning than it is to spend spare hours I don't have needing and proving dough


Me too - ironic as this one of those kitchen gadgets most people buy & only ever use once; personally, I use if all the time - excellent piece of kit, so long as you don't mind a hole in the bottom of the loaf.
I can live with that, though occasionally I do use it to make the dough and then cook the loaf in a normal oven. Have you tried beer (best bitter of course) instead of water... now that's really nice bread - rustic and wholesome. I haven't perfected baked-bean bread yet, just can't get enough "heinz" flavour into the breadmix.
 
One thing that surprised me was those cheap supermarket pizza base mixes (just add luke warm water) - using the breadmaker to mix and need those makes the best pizza I've ever eaten.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 25 2012 at 07:04
Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

Have you tried beer (best bitter of course) instead of water... now that's really nice bread - rustic and wholesome. I haven't perfected baked-bean bread yet, just can't get enough "heinz" flavour into the breadmix.
 

One thing that surprised me was those cheap supermarket pizza base mixes (just add luke warm water) - using the breadmaker to mix and need those makes the best pizza I've ever eaten.


Must try that with the beer, sounds interesting... worth using a little olive oil & some black olives too in a basic recipe; toast the result & eat with a good pate; wonderful.

Never tried the pizza bases though

Jon Lord 1941 - 2012
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 25 2012 at 08:16
Have any of you ever tried a true sourdough  in your bread makers? I picked up a bread machine at the goodwill for cheap for the sole purpose of kneading pizza dough btw.

 I made some agua fresca (fresh water) with a guava. It was pretty damn good but it was only 50 degrees outside so didnt go down well. In the summer I'll be chuggin the stuff I'm sure.

 Another thing I did last night was to add it to some guacamole.  It was pretty damn awesome, it zinged up the flavour without really adding an acidic quality.

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 25 2012 at 08:52
Sourdough is too much like alchemy for me .. or witchcraft Shocked - I know I should try making a sourdough starter but instant yeast is too easy to use and a lot easier to catch.
 
Good to see the guava has graduated beyond being a scented table decoration Approve
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 26 2012 at 01:23
 ^ I've got no excuse since I live in the sourdough yeast culture capital--  sadly I've never tried making it but I'd love to try it with pancakes
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 28 2012 at 07:02
Just made Croissants for the first time... not a complete success but the results were edible and very tasty.  My intention was to make them for breakfast, so I set the bread-maker to make the dough last night so I could (I thought) simply roll out the dough and bake them when I got up... Nope - didn't read the recipe all the way through to the end first - the dough is layered with a pack of butter, rolled, folded and chilled for 30 minutes three times before the croissants are cut and shaped, they then have to rest for another 30 minutes before they can be baked for 20 minutes, which meant we ate breakfast at noon. Also, I should have searched YouToob for  a demonstration of rolling them, because I missed an important step of stretching the triangles of dough before shaping which results in flakier and more elegant rolls. What I cooked was not pretty or photogenic, but they cooked pefectly (not doughy) and tasted like croissants should when served with some reduced sugar apricot jam. Next time I'll do more prep the night before...
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 28 2012 at 07:15
^ sounds delicious. And with cooking and baking we always learn from our errors.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 28 2012 at 07:17
I've largely ignored this thread since the beginning but as I do the majority of cooking maybe I'll pop in more often.
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