My wife Ioves a good boil. Best one she ever had was when we were in New Orleans. Due to my fish and most seafood allergy I'm pretty cautious about it. I can eat shrimp, crab and lobster so you think I'd be safe but NOPE.

Made some pasta carbonara today because I had the day off. Man I love that dish and it's so easy to make. Was lazy and used bacon but when done correctly NOMS

Crawfish get you Foos? Some boils also may be using clam sauce.

Can't eat crawfish or clam. So unless we're making boils ourselves, not worth the risk.

Ah, crawfish is in most US recipes. So yeah that would the scary one.

So glancing at my evolving weekly shopping trip, visually looking into my cart it looks more like an adult shopping list than what it used to be, which resembled a teenager whose parents went out of town. Might need to meal prep the night before because even if I got a list, I'm still mostly raw dogging these aisles.

One of the most realistic cooking videos from an old Italian lady making pizza. No complex or precise methods here.

My wife does most of the cooking, so I have little to add here, but in light of all the talk about pasta, I did come up with one hack.

To make a really good pasta sauce you normally let it simmer for hours.
Most pasta sauces are generally a 50/50 blend of pork and beef mince, but we use mostly beef.

My wife discovered this and it is incredible.
When sautéing and sweating down the vegetables at the beginning of the cook, add a jar of organic bone broth to the vegetables.
If you do this, you can produce a sauce in about an hour that tastes like it was cooked over 8 or so.
Gives the sauce a really deep and rich taste, probably because it creates that rendered fat flavor.

Bone broth is likely replacing the gelatin from the pork reducing. Also short ribs, pork shoulder cubes or sausage generally is used instead of ground pork. At least in Italian gravies. Beef is mince, meatballs or beef chunks.  Pork bone is generally the key flavor people miss in this sauce.  

Believe it is Kenji that gives a recipe for baking the sauce to create a super rich version.

But one thing you will find quickly with this style sauce is no two people ever make it the same way.

Personally I do really like caramelized tomatoes that much, or a lot of fat in sauce, so I do much faster sauces.  Generally make them two to three times a week with just canned tomatoes and some herbs and seasonings with whatever meat is around.  I also add very little water as I do not use a lot of gelatin stuff.

Watching all these boil videos and man it's so weird seeing them put then in alive. I know that's how it is, but reminds me of the classic Jeff Foxworthy skit. "Get back in that pot right heah!" I dunno as good as it looks I dunno how you can just eat these crawfish. Baby lobsters? They just look like roaches.

Do not have to put them in alive, but that is the freshest you can make it.

Watching the vids hope you are noticing that this is really not a hard meal to make at all.  Also pretty cheap as the cost is in the seafood, which you can scale it to what you can afford.  Sausage, taters and corn are all cheap.  So cost is in the whatever seafood goes into this.

Right now I'm just trying to scale it more towards a single person amount. Enough for leftovers, but obviously these videos are more for like 10+ people. Trying to get into the habit of not using everything and focus on freezing meat to reuse. Each week has been adding a new simple dish and maybe trying to perfect what I did the week before. Then pad out the week with regular processed stuff. Meat is pretty expensive in the food budget, but that's only because I'm buying everything for the meal. There is a certain element of fullness I feel that I don't with say fast food or cans of soup. Obviously the former wants me to not be full. I can't tell if I'm eating too much or if if it's just more filling. Cuz like with frozen stuff I'm just if I'm not feeling it it goes into the can. With cooking I feel more compelled to eat it. Not that I'm not wasting a bunch, but it takes practice. Have been trying different noodles rather than spaghetti as breaking those in half scattered them all over the kitchen floor. Might be better off just having them cook half into the pot and then add the rest than trying and snap them like chopsticks.

Scale it on what you plan eat in a sitting and how many nights you want to eat for.

So like if you only want to eat half a corn and half potato per sitting then use two ears of corn and two red potatoes. Then get a little bag of crab, a smoked sausage and half a bag of large shrimp, saving the rest for a second batch. Season with old bay. Can do this now on the stove with a normal large pot, rather than a giant stockpot as well.

And yeah meat is expensive. We been using turkey sausage rolls for a lot of shit.

For spaghetti you can get spaghetti already broke in half. Or just add into a pot that is hard boiling and it will rapidly become soft enough to put into the pot properly. This is what I do, I never break it anymore. Zita is great to use as well. As are elbows.

Super, easy pasta meal is elbows, with tomatoes and some sort of ground meat. This is the basis for American Chop Suey. From here can add anything to it or make swaps. Want chili mac, add chili powder and cheese. Want a more italian version, add onions and herbs. Can swap sauce for diced tomatoes for a chunker style. Want the sauce very smooth, used puree. Want it is cheesy, toss a layer of cheese on top to finish it. Infinitely versatile meal. Add what veg you like and whatever meat you have you want to use.


Another cool easy meal is unstuffed peppers. Same base as above but swap elbows for rice. Can top with cheese, stuff cabbage or peppers, and alter it up the same way. Use instant rice to make it easily. I cannot eat peppers due to reflux but make it with onions.

Changed my pizza up. Stopped using sauce, and instead having using petite diced tomatoes. Gives it a far more artisan feel and is actually better IMO than blending them. Cook out a lot of the water first. Not a bad thing from cheap ass grocery store staples.

So these pizzas I been pounding out for $5 bucks I just found out at priced locally at min $30. Was stealing topping ideas and noticed how fucking expensive a basic Detroit pizza is. Twice the price of a normal pizza despite being perhaps the easiest pizza to make at home, since you do not kneed it, or have to really form it.

This week's new recruit is via a newly purchases crockpot. Beef stew we shall see how it plays out. Just dump it all in the pot right? But ya gotta be proactive and I can't imagine prepping this before a workday.

@ness, coat the beef chunks in seasoned flour, and give them a quick sear in a hot pain with oil before they get put in your crock pot. It will make a world of difference, promise.

Mar 12, 2023 17:52:16 GMT Foos said:

@ness , coat the beef chunks in seasoned flour, and give them a quick sear in a hot pain with oil before they get put in your crock pot. It will make a world of difference, promise.

Too late for the searing, but I did coat it in flour as that's what the directions asked for. If I'm not happy with it I won't cut it off the menu, but try that next time to see what's different.

You can sear or not. Searing gives a better flavor. Otherwise the recipe is dump it all in and wait. One of the easiest meals you can make after chopping up everything.

Also you know things are done when the potatoes like start to fall apart. Sometimes it takes longer or shorter than recipes so you kind of play it by ear.

How do you handle leftovers here? Fridge and then put it on low for an hour to reheat? Does the warm setting do anything but keep it at a stable temp or would that be an option for reheating? I think I can get 4 bowls out of the batch, so 2 atm and 2 tomorrow (similar to my pasta output).

Mar 12, 2023 20:45:17 GMT @ness said:

How do you handle leftovers here? Fridge and then put it on low for an hour to reheat? Does the warm setting do anything but keep it at a stable temp or would that be an option for reheating? I think I can get 4 bowls out of the batch, so 2 atm and 2 tomorrow (similar to my pasta output).

Microwave to reheat. Warm is just for serving after it’s done cooking.

I feel full. Send halp.

Holy shit, @ness I thought you were all about the takeout food.

Mar 12, 2023 21:04:39 GMT Lony said:

Holy shit, @ness I thought you were all about the takeout food.

I still eat it, just a little less often now. We all can't live on the Boyardee like KING KID.

I reheat on the stove but can microwave.

Proud of you @ness

What went in your stew? My go tos are:

Beef
Potatoes
Rutabaga
Carrots
Onion
Peas

I go simple with beef, potatoes, carrots, onions.

I don’t even know where to get a rutabaga.

Sam bought a rutabaga from the bodega after meeting Kenny Omega as he was playing Sega.

I googled crock pot recipes.