Cook 'n' Tell

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[cook-n-tell]

Hey guys

if you could fill out this quick poll for me that’d be much appreciated! Just trying to get a sense of who my audience is and what you guys do/don’t like

[beyoncesfursona]

y'all baked potatoes are getting me through this broke ass period in my life

10lb bag of potatoes (like 10-15 full meals) - $3, $0.20 to $0.30 per potato depending on size Butter spread - $2 for the whole bag of potatoes, about $0.13 per potato Shredded cheese - $1.50 tops about 10 potatoes (more if you don’t like a lot of cheese) $0.15 a potato Sour cream - less than $1 for about 15 potatoes ($0.13 a potato) For protein, a rotisserie chicken is usually $4 and it tops 10 potatoes, and diced ham is $2 a pack and tops at least 5 potatoes

tl;dr a fully decked baked potato costs less than one dollar and will fill you the fuck up, you might get tired of them after a few days but they’re so much better than ramen noodles and way better for you in terms of sodium and nutritional value

[ms-demeanor]

Remember to freeze any meat leftover if you’re worried about it going bad; cooked chicken is good for 3-4 days in the fridge, but good for 3 months in the freezer. Portion it out in small baggies so you can easily thaw it when you need it.

Other things you can do with a baked potato:

Put pasta sauce on it (a cheap jar of sauce is good for quite a few potatoes)

Mix a fried egg in with it (eggs can be really cheap, usually around $0.20 each? I don’t know I’ve been buying eggs from aldi for like 8 cents each for a year)

Buy spices from the dollar store to mix in with the butter and sour cream

Salsa - you can get a 64oz jar of salsa for $6 and it will keep a long time in the fridge and will top dozens of potatoes and goes really well on potatoes with eggs and sour cream and cheese, that is basically nachos but more filling

Get frozen broccoli florets - it’s like $2 a bag and you use like a handful at a time just warm them up then put them on the potato with a handful of cheese and you have broccoli cheese potato and it’s good and you have eaten a green thing 

If you get a bag of onions at the same time you get the bag of potatoes you can dice onions and dice your leftover baked potatoes and fry them in a pan and crack an egg in that shit and it is incredible (also onions are almost as cheap as potatoes when you buy them bagged and they last a very long time)

[hungwy]

someone invents a recipe > their child loves it > they grow up and replicate it for their own child > their child loves it > they grow up and replicate it for their own child > their child loves it > they grow up and replicate it for their own child > their child loves it > (this continues indefinitely)

[lias-perpetual-crisis]

The funny thing is as a parent you always think, “mine isn’t as good as Nana made it.” But your kid adores it and one day will say “it isn’t as good as my mama made it but the kids like it.”

and on it goes

[moami]

and so love is passed down the chain of generations, on and on, from mouth to mouth to heart to heart

[timeclonemike]

Love is stored in the Multi-Generational Game Of Telephone.

[the-haiku-bot]

Love is stored in the

Multi-Generational

Game Of Telephone.

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

[cook-n-tell]

Creamy Miso Pasta

Preparation time: 10 minutes Cooking time: 5 minutes Makes/Serves: 1-2

Ingredients

1 tbsp red or white miso paste

2 tbsp butter

1/3 cup macaroni or other short pasta, cooked & drained

1/3 cup pasta water

dash of garlic powder

1/2 cup cheese

(optional) 1/2 cup diced cooked chicken

Method

In a small saucepan over a low-medium heat, whisk together the miso paste, garlic powder, butter, and pasta water until the miso paste is dissolved completely.

Still whisking, slowly add in the cheese and combine until smooth.

Remove from heat and stir through pasta and chicken.

Enjoy

Notes:

I'm lactose intolerant, so the cheese and butter I used were dairy free and worked really well.

You can leave out the chicken for a vegetarian option and miso is vegan, so if you want to use the substitutes like I did, it'd be super easy to make this dish vegan friendly.

The pasta I used was also gluten-free, and thankfully miso is also a gluten-free food, so that's another easy substitute to make.

This was definitely a trust the process recipe. I found a few similar ones online and knew I needed to use up some of the miso paste I had in the fridge. Do what I say, not what I do, and taste your dishes when you're cooking them, especially for the first time. I was in a rush and had no idea what my lunch tasted like as I threw it in a container and ran out the door. I'm so glad it worked out as well as it did.

[cook-n-tell]

It’s exams. I’m stressed. Time to Hack A Cake Mix.

Ingredients:

1 pack of the cheapest vanilla cake mix you can find.

1 shot espresso, cold

Handful of mixed nuts, finely chopped. I used walnuts, hazelnuts & pecans

1 tbsp cinnamon or to taste

Method:

Preheat your oven

In a bowl, combine cinnamon with the dry ingredients from the mix

Combine the wet ingredients for the cake mix & the espresso

Combine the wet and dry ingredients using electric beater

Spoon into cupcake tray or Bundt pan

Sprinkle with nuts

Bake until it springs back at you (~10 minutes for cupcakes, ~40 minutes for a cake depending on your oven & the initial mix)

Voila

[cook-n-tell]

ANZAC Biscuits

Preparation time: 5 minutes Cooking time: 5-10 minutes Makes/Serves: ~30

Ingredients

2 cups rolled oats

½ cup caster sugar

¾ cup dessicated coconut

1 cup plain flour, sifted

125 g butter, melted

2 tablespoons Golden Syrup

1 tsp bicarb soda

3 tablespoons boiling water

Keep reading

[ms-demeanor]

I don't know who needs to hear this but you've probably got vegetables in your fridge that are starting to go a little off so you should probably plan on making a frittata or a pot of soup in the next couple days.

[ms-demeanor]

I don't know who needs to hear this but almost every bit of fresh produce you've got that might be about to go off can likely be safely frozen for use later if you want to keep it, and that the amount of waste generated by consumers is a tiny portion of food waste generally and you're not a bad or wasteful person if you forgot your veggies or you weren't feeling well enough to cook.

[ms-demeanor]

Most fruits and veggies have a bit of a texture change when you freeze them, but if you're not planning on eating them raw or in a salad that shouldn't be a huge deal. Onions and garlic lose a bit of flavor when they're frozen, but onion and garlic powder are cheap and can add that back in while still letting you get the texture and bulk of using the real vegetable.

The way I generally freeze fruit and vegetables is:

Get some re-usable silicone storage bags (I like re-usable, but it is perfectly fine to use ziplock bags or whatever)

Wash and dry the fruit/veggie

Slice or dice the fruit/veggie (you're going to want to prep these in some way - thawing a whole onion is a huge pain in the ass, but throwing a handful of frozen diced onion into soup is very easy).

If it's relatively dry - like apples, or onions, or mushrooms, toss the food into a bag and toss that bag into the freezer.

If it's relatively wet - like bananas or squash, arrange the food in slices or chunks on a piece of tinfoil or waxed paper and put that in the freezer, then come back in an hour or so and peel the food off of the paper and put the pieces into a bag, then back into the freezer.

Fruits and vegetables that are really juicy (watermelon, tomatoes, cucumbers) often don't freeze well (or at least they don't thaw well), but can be juiced or pureed and stored for later use (though I'm not quite sure what you'd use cucumber puree for, honestly).

This is ALSO a good place to remember that frozen fruits and veggies are just as healthy for you as fresh produce, and that putting a handful of frozen blueberries in your yogurt or mixing some frozen broccoli in with your mac and cheese counts as getting a serving of fruits or veggies.

[cook-n-tell]

Friendly reminder to sharpen your knives

Your life will be forever changed

[cook-n-tell]

I can now finely dice my cherry tomatoes this fine thanks to my $10 knife sharpener from ikea. Using this knife used to just crush them, now it’s so neat!

[cook-n-tell]

Friendly reminder to sharpen your knives

Your life will be forever changed

[cook-n-tell]

First time making a Flourless Orange and Almond cake and I have to say, it was definitely a success!

Original recipe was by Mon Petit Four, but as I usually do, I made some (rather successful) tweaks such as subbing out half the eggs for my egg replacer. It’s a recipe that would be quite easy to make vegan should you desire it, but it’s definitely one you have to have patience for.

I went into it wary about boiling the oranges for 2 hours, but by the end of it I could tell it was definitely worth it. I can’t wait to make it again, and neither can my family!

[cook-n-tell]

I’m reading through the River Cottage Light & Easy cookbook that I got a year or two ago and I find it kind of funny, being Australian, having to pause and mentally translate all these little things that are just so very British.

Things like, aubergine becoming eggplant, courgette becomes zucchini, which local fish I’m going to use instead of the suggested ones, whether or not cranberries will work as a substitute for gooseberries, just little things that on their own are very little, but adding them up sometimes half the recipes are unusable.

[cook-n-tell]

Sidenote: is pigeon meat easily accessible in the UK?

[cook-n-tell]

I’m reading through the River Cottage Light & Easy cookbook that I got a year or two ago and I find it kind of funny, being Australian, having to pause and mentally translate all these little things that are just so very British.

Things like, aubergine becoming eggplant, courgette becomes zucchini, which local fish I’m going to use instead of the suggested ones, whether or not cranberries will work as a substitute for gooseberries, just little things that on their own are very little, but adding them up sometimes half the recipes are unusable.

[bisexualbaker]

Tips for baking with arthritis and other hand-related chronic pain

With some changes to techniques, a careful selection of kitchen tools, and tips from fellow bakers, the joy of baking can live on.

I luckily haven't had to deal with much chronic pain or hand pain yet, especially with regards to baking (crochet is another story). That said, these look like some pretty solid tips! There's also some in the comments section.

[bisexualbaker]

As this link nears five hundred notes, I'm just... very quietly touched at how many people are sharing it. Whether they need it themselves (or think they will someday), or know someone else who might need it, the fact that all of them are sharing the sentiment of "I want the people who love doing this thing to be able to keep doing the thing that they love" is... yeah. It makes me happy.

[thestuffedalligator]

The main thing I get from Dylan Hollis cooking old recipes is this:

Recipes from the 1910s and the Great Depression are great, and I suspect it’s because they were made by someone with limited resources. But they found a way to make something good, maybe even something fantastic with those limited resources, and they wanted to write it down and share with their friends so that they could also make something out of saltines and potatoes. Recipes from the 1910s and the Great Depression are written down and shared in love.

The recipes you should fear come from the 1950s and 1960s, which I’m pretty sure are written down and shared as a form of McCarthyism.

[jackironsides]

I strongly suspect that the rise in horrifying recipes in the 50s, 60s and 70s is that this is when recipes were being used as advertising. Whether or not the recipe was tasty or even palatable at all was a secondary concern at best to if it could convince a housewife to buy more Chlorox Brand Lard™️ to try it out.

[dinosaurrainbowstarfish]

Interestingly, there has been a resurgence of that exact phenomenon, which perhaps you’ve seen: viral cooking media Meme recipes of unfamiliar origin? Videos of impossible recipes or trick editing? “Life Hacks”? I bet these will be the Horrifying Sixties Recipes of tomorrow, because they are also made to sell attention rather than to inform.

[thatsnicebutimmarried]

At this point, I would like to remind you all of Ann Reardon, and her youtube channel “How to Cook That” where she not only debunks and explains the trickery behind all those “viral baking hacks” but also provides ways to ACTUALLY make those things where possible, as well as a numberbof other delightful recipes, and often has her willing husband taste test the internet’s culinary monstrosities. She’s the hero we need so 50 years from now another Dylan Hollis won’t destroy his microwave or his face trying to make “ ‘this easy 2 ingredient microwave caramel!!!’ that comes to us from 2021 from the channel ‘5 Minute Crafts’.”

[heywriters]

Reardon is also a vocal advocate against Youtube, Tiktok, and Facebook allowing (and borderline encouraging) dangerous videos to become so viral on their platforms. She frequently cites incidents where people were hospitalized, marred for life, killed, poisoned, or accidentally burnt down their homes attempting to recreate tacky clickbait recipes and crafts.

And, like Dylan Hollis, she too recreates incredibly old recipes (usually 100yrs or more) while adding educational background to the reasons a recipe calls for this or that weird ingredient/technique. She also makes clickbait-like videos herself like “Giant Snickers Bar!” or “Holographic Chocolate!” only when you click you get EXACTLY what was advertised. She WILL show you how to make a Minecraft cake or a giant Kit-Kat or a sweet gift from an old snack package. Because Ann Reardon is a professional, wonderful person who believes the world should be better.

[funny-history]

[huffylemon]

[fallen-angel-nightshade]

If you had shown me this site in 2005 I would have asked you if had checked your virus software lately, because this looks like a bad one. I would have clicked away so fast it would give you whiplash. Looking at these sites now, I have to convince myself that they aren't virus laden sites and fight against the pavlovian urge to just navigate away.

[eclecticmasterpiece]

I navigate away anyways because fuck them, there's usually a better site (though they are dwindling quickly). I still can't get over how the internet "as intended" today looks like a malware ridden fever dream from 20 years ago. This is every story I've ever read about an empire that used to be great and has now fallen into turmoil.

[picturesque-about-it]

Beloveds, there is a wonderful website that gets rid of all that crap<3

[crunchbuttsteak]

I use the goons with spoons wiki since it also has recipes without all the bs that accompanies them online.

[mechanical-cowboy-deactivated20]

Thrift stores and 10$ plenty of new reciepes

[cook-n-tell]

So my parents got me a binder for recipes for Christmas and I can’t wait to fill it!

I’m so lucky that the page layout is so similar to my format here on my blog, unlike a lot of others which bug me so much.