How to Eat

[heynhay]

happy holidays all. I won’t be silent about what i saw today, December 8 at 10:06am on I-74 West.

[how-to-eat]

Roasted curry cauliflower with taco salad.

I got a fiesta lime hot sauce from a company called tastefully simple (MLM think Tupperware but sauces and spices) and it made a really good dressing for it. It's not too spicy and has a nice acidity so it's usable in amounts that can coat the whole salad.

Definitely on the pricier end though as far as sauces I buy go, so I'm not sure I would have tried it if I hadn't gotten it as a near expiration freebie.

This was a fun one to make because my guest for the night is currently on a low carb diet. And carb conscious consumption is generally not something to cross my mind.

The salad was made with seasoned ground turkey on top of romaine lettuce, with some crushed Fritos for texture. I did cook the turkey in bacon fat but overall the lack of carbs and fat meant it wasn't the most satiating meal I've ever made. Next time the addition of avocado and sour cream would probably help a fair amount with that.

[how-to-eat]

After failing to find circular wonton wrappers at the store I used egg roll wrappers to make veey large pot stickers.

The filling was, ground turkey, cabbage, carrot, garlic, and ginger.

I've found that grinding my own turkey at home while including the skin results in a much fattier turkey than you can buy in stores, and as a result is easier to substitute for ground beef and pork without significant difference or sadness in flavor.

[how-to-eat]

Lo mein noodles for dinner tonight.

I really appreciated that the recipe I used provided lots of notes on substitututions they knew were likely to be targeted. I subbed in spaghetti noodles and used all regular soy sauce instead of dark soy sauce. I also used chicken broth instead of water and cooking wine. In all it had carrots, green pepper, shredded lettuce, onion, and I had a leftover grilled chicken quarter and some grilled zucchini that made their way in there too. Great little dish to use up a bunch of odds and ends.

https://www.recipetineats.com/lo-mein-noodles/

[how-to-eat]

Ham and bean soup made with a ham hock. Honestly the best bowl of soup I've ever made and it really only requires chopping the onion and carrots.

Im trying to get more into using beans. They're super cheap and feel like a massive staple of the American diet that has been forgotten by so many of us in favor of more meat heavy foods.

[how-to-eat]

Banana bread! Because every time I buy bananas they sound great in the store but then they rot on my counter for a week untouched.

[how-to-eat]

Tried cracking an egg directly into the pot of boiling ramen instead of taking time to boil one separately.

The short noodle cook time meant it was more like a poached egg, but it was still good.

[how-to-eat]

Ground turkey tacos.

Right after Thanksgiving turkeys went massively on sale and thanks to the new freezer I got over the summer I was able to take advantage of it. I bought 8 turkeys for less than the pack of toilet paper I also bought that shopping trip and as needed defrost and grind one up with my stand mixer attachment.

[how-to-eat]

Today's lunch is a bowl of miso soup with a turkey sandwich. This weekend I took a trip to a local bakery for breakfast and got a city loaf to enjoy this week. Better bread really does a lot for a sandwich.

[how-to-eat]

Toasted sandwich with turkey, cheddar cheese, avocado, tomato, and mayo. And some leftover miso soup from dinner the night before.

I always love making sandwiches with toppings but man keeping the kitchen stocked for it feels annoying sometimes.

This week though I happened to score three avocados for 99 cents out of the discount vegetable bin. No idea why they were in there they weren't even fully ripe yet. But with the cost of avocados lately it was an absolute steal.

[how-to-eat]

An easy one pan baked chicken, potatoes, and green beans meal.

From this recipe

https://therecipelife.com/italian-chicken-green-beans-and-potatoes/#recipe

Italian seasoning packets provide the seasoning and it's always better than I expect it to be.

I only needed to bake mine 45 minuted instead of an hour and used Yukon gold potatoes.

[kragehund-est]

many cooking videos have those gimmicks like "$5 ramen vs $50 ramen" or "elevating your cooking" where the only thing they emphasize is using stupidly expensive ingredients. it's discouraging when you're an aspiring chef on a budget getting told the key is to just spend more money.

well my advice is that you look at some of the techniques they use on the "fancy" ingredients and literally just use them on your cheap ingredients. maybe you aren't deglazing your pan with fancy wine, but a splash of water will work. making a stew, cook the meat and onions first THEN add are the other ingredients. use both minced garlic and garlic powder together for a more complex garlic flavor. toast your dollar store spices. people have been making delicious cheap foods for thousands of years by understanding these tricks.

[fuckingrecipes]

Good technique and understanding cooking principles will allow even a home cook to create restaurant-level meals for far less than the cost of buying that same dish.

Additionally, looking to recipes from other cultures may give you some inspiration to try new flavors, or preparing ingredients in ways that you hadn't thought of before!

[agoldfishnamedgail]

Sortedfood on youtube does a ton of “how to stretch your budget” content. They have a lot of budget based challenges or tips/tricks. And even went so far as to let the “normal” untrained chefs have an unlimited budget and a trained chef have a £2.50 per portion limit and make the “same dish” and it consistently showed that just throwing money at it doesn’t actually make the thing that much better. There are some ingredients worth the splurge when you can. But it’s only worth it when it adds to the dish. The difference between extremely cheap, mass produced ground beef and ground beef from the butcher shop is huge. The difference between the butcher shop stuff and fancy ground sirloin etc. is hardly noticeable and often tastes so different that you’ve changed the dish too far.

Buy the best you can afford and learn which items are worth the extra cost when you have it.

Also, learn about flavor profiles and which ingredients contribute to them. Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat by Samin Nosrat is great for this. The book breaks it down well and then also has experiments where you can pull the different flavor levers. No amount of money will do more for your food than knowing when you need a quick squeeze of citrus juice, or a spoonful of miso, or a little squeeze of honey, etc.

[how-to-eat]

Egg roll in a bowl. A relatively quick and easy dish that can be made with a lot of variation.

This one was made with carrot, cabbage, ground turkey, and a teriyaki sauce. But typical recipes for it include carrot, ground pork, cabbage, seasonings like garlic, ginger, and soy sauce. I start by with making a basic teriyaki sauce out of water, soy sauce, brown sugar, ginger powder, garlic powder, corn starch slurry, and a squeeze of honey.

While the sauce is cooking I start a pot of rice cooking then brown the ground meat and add the carrot to it once it's mostly cooked. After that I add in shredded cabbage along with a little water to generate steam, then put a lid on it to get the cabbage to wilt down quickly. When the cabbage is cooked down I add the teriyaki sauce and then crack some eggs into a corner of the pan to scramble. During the whole process I usually end up seasoning with salt, pepper, and more ginger and garlic powder to taste and then serve over top of white rice.

[how-to-eat]

Definitely not a good looking dish, but for how quick and little cleanup it was it's getting a card for an easy weeknight meal.

Dressed greens and tuna pasta with lemon sauce.

Referencing this recipe

https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/tuna-lemon-and-caper-sauce-15310

I personally left out the capers and instead of adding olive oil just didn't drain the oil from the canned tuna. I also didn't bother with any of the extra heating instructions just mixed and added to the pasta once drained. Next time I make it I'll probably just add everything straight into the drained pasta instead of mixing in a separate bowl like I did this time.

Now don't get me wrong it wasn't a mind blowing dish, but it was quick, easy, cheap, and I'm still happy to eat the leftovers. Though the smell from the tuna was definitely strong it's certainly not a microwave at the office dish.

[how-to-eat]

Chicken Cesar tacos since I didn't have tortillas big enough to do a full wrap.

Frozen chicken patties are such a convenient item to have in the freezer. Cut up they go perfect on top of lots of different things like macaroni, salads, and in wraps, but when I don't have the energy to even put that together theyre good on their own or on bread.

[how-to-eat]

French toast with breakfast sausage and acorn squash for dinner.

[how-to-eat]

French toast with breakfast sausage and acorn squash for dinner.