Food And Things To Make

[bitchesgetriches]

Hi Bitches! I have a fun food story I think you'll like.

So I recently discovered there's a produce rescue in my state that purchases unsold wholesale produce at the border to prevent it from being tossed in the landfill. They then sell it off at hella cheap prices. You don't get to pick what's in your box, but, uh. It's 70 pounds of produce for $15, you get what you get and if you're like me you will figure out what to do with it rather than let it go to waste.

Anyway, my last box included an absolutely insane number of Persian cucumbers. So I decided I'd try something I've wanted to try for years, because if I wrecked one or two in the process it wasn't as big a disaster as if I'd tried it with expensive store bought ones, and...

I can make my own glatt kosher dill pickles now, and holy crap, Vlasic can eat its heart out. Mine are crunchier, more flavorful, better-cut and kept perfectly good food from being thrown away, doing them with my produce box meant they were about 1/8 the price, and also pickling is very easy but people think you're amazing and fancy if you pickle your own stuff.

Also if anyone is in Arizona and wants in on this action, it's called Borderlands P.O.W.W.O.W. (Produce On Wheels WithOut Waste) and you can find them here. Here's what my last box looked like:

I should note that's what's left after I split the box half and half with a friend.

HOLY MOTHERFUCKING SHITBALLS THIS IS AMAZING!!! Thank you so much for sharing this extremely frugal win AND telling the rest of us how to get in on it. With grocery prices the way they are, this is sure to keep a lot of people from going hungry or missing out on necessary nutrition. I encourage everyone outside of Arizona to look for similar programs in your state! (Though I suspect it's mostly only applicable to border states.)

Also, drop that super crunchy pickle recipe, baby.

Here's more advice:

How to Shop for Groceries like a Boss 

You Should Learn To Cook. Here's Why. 

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[prismatic-bell]

YOU HAVE ASKED FOR PICKLES AND YOU SHALL RECEIVE You will need a 32-oz GLASS jar with a screw-on lid. Please note the glass part is really fucking important. We're about to be pouring hot liquids and also pickle brine by its nature will leach crap out of plastics. I reuse storebought sauerkraut jars because I know they're good for holding pickled foods, but mason jars were also literally designed for this. Also please note that if you do this and then put the lid on and put it in the fridge right away, it'll vacuum-seal itself. Which isn't the least bit necessary, but is extremely cool and makes me feel like a boss, 10/10 recommend. INGREDIENTS:

--1/2 cup white vinegar

--1tbsp white sugar

--1 1/2 tsp kosher salt

--grab a bottle of dried dill and just kinda hang onto that

--4-6 ice cubes, or you can use 1/2 cup of cold water if you're afraid of eyeballing cooldown times (I recommend the ice tho)

--cucumbers 1) slice your cucumbers into coins. I used just under three Persian cucumbers and repeated the experiment later with about 2/3 of one of those giant-ass English cucumbers that's as long as your arm. You will almost definitely have to eat a little bit of unpickled cucumber. Or put it on your eyes and pretend you're at the spa with Oscar Isaac handing you a fruity drink with an umbrella, I'm not the boss of you.

2) layer the coins into your glass jar, with a pinch of dill between each layer. Your layers will probably be flat-ish, not actually flat. This is okay and normal.

2a) (some people will say to just dump a teaspoon of dill in there and call it a day. You can do that. I think layering it helps to provide stronger pickles, but it's your kitchen and your pickles, you get to call this shot.)

3) heat your vinegar, sugar, and salt, stirring gently until everything is dissolved. I've never had mine go as far as boiling, but it does get pretty hot, so watch your hands. Congratulations! You've made brine. (Yes, it's really that simple.)

4) put your jar on top of a potholder, paper towel, or trivet--basically you just want a layer of neutral between your about-to-be-hot jar and your cold counter. Pour the brine slowly into the jar. "Slowly" here just means "in a steady stream you can control without dribbling all over the place."

5) put in your ice cubes ONE!!! AT!!!! A!!!! TIME!!!! I cannot emphasize this strongly enough! This isn't one of those "and if you don't remove the souffle at exactly 37.542 seconds at precisely the speed of 1/28th miles per hour then it will collapse" things, but it is an "if you let the brine cool too quickly you will crack or even shatter your jar" thing. You don't have to move like a snail, but please. One at a time. A second or two is all it needs before the next one goes in, but it does need that second or two.

6) put on the lid and stick it in the fridge.

7) shake it once a day. There is no precise timing on this. It just makes sure any cucumbers that've gotten too cozy-cozy with each other get fully dilled and brined.

8) after three days, you have some damn fine pickles. Also if you want some of the most sinful veggie topping ever for grilled chicken breasts, do this with sliced red onion and carrots, and just swap white vinegar for rice vinegar and dill for about one inch of grated ginger. I refuse to take responsibility for any noises you may make in front of your in-laws and regret as a result, but they'll probably understand anyway once they also taste the onions.

[foodffs]

[foodffs]

Easy Taco Soup (Stove Top, Crock Pot Or Instant Pot)

Follow for recipes

Is this how you roll?

[ishouldmakethissometime]

I LOVE taco soup!

[tooquirkytolose]

My fellow American hobby bakers, demoralized by egg prices and scarcity and how you will make the American apple pie or the chocolate chip cookie, fear not. I have spent many years turning regular baking recipes vegan for my corrupt and traitorous sister who last week ate a salmon cream cheesed roll. There are many, many substitutes for eggs including but not limited to:

Mashed banana: best added to compliment flavors of whatever it is you're baking (peanut butter, chocolate) make sure it's MUSHY and ripe

Apple sauce: again, best with complimentary flavors (cinnamon, brown sugar) use unsweetened and have the rest as a snack

The big boy champ, ground flaxseed: flavorless, though it does darken your batter/ dough a bit. Bags found next to cornstarch and almond meal, etc. Instructions on how to use right on the bag! Make sure to let the flaxseed water combo sit in a separate bowl until it has the consistency of mucus 👍

Now with all of these you MUST add a bit more leavener, they don't have the lil bit of lift eggs give, so make sure you add a touch more baking powder. Sort of ok for brownies and cookies if you want them a bit more dense but KEY for cakes, quick breads, muffins and other things like that or she is gonna be SQUIDGY 🫡

[laughingfate]

I've got one that works very well in most cookies, cakes, muffins, quickbreads, and similar. It came out of the Student's Vegetarian Cookbook circa 2004,and I've been using it when baking for friends who are vegan, have egg allergies, or just when I've run out of eggs ever since.

Ingredients (per egg you're replacing)

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

2 tbs flour (gluten free flour blends work just fine)

3 tbs water

Combine dry ingredients in small bowl. Add water. Stir well and not be alarmed when it fizzes up. Add it to the thing you are baking immediately -- do not make in advance.

[purplesaline]

If you need whipped egg white alternatives, believe it or not you can use the liquid from a can of chickpeas to replicate the effects of meringue!

[finnglas]

^ If you need to look up recipes for that last one, search for "aquafaba."

[sirfrogsworth]

"UV camera" is probably an inaccurate name. The camera is just expanding the spectrum it can capture to include UV.

The camera is still capturing the rainbow but it also captures a little bit into the purple. The more light reflected, the brighter the overall image. But if light is absorbed, it won't contribute to the brightness of the photo.

And since the sunscreen is absorbing a lot of UV light, their faces expose much darker.

You aren't actually seeing any UV light. Just the absence or presence of it making things lighter and darker. To see only UV light you'd need some kind of false color representation like predator vision.

A whlie back I was restoring a photo for a client and noticed a few people in the photo looked like they were donning black face makeup.

This didn't make a lot of sense because it was a team photo of an Australian rugby team from the 1930s and not a racist minstrel show.

And when I did my corrections, it turned out he was just a regular Aussie white dude.

I was initially very confused as to what was going on. But then I remembered modern lenses have special coatings to help filter out UV light that would affect the image. Lenses in the 30s did not have that technology and some film could expose beyond our visual spectrum—picking up a little bit of UV and infrared light.

Melanin absorbs UV light. Some white people have more than others. And so the young man in the photo appeared much darker than his teammates. In real life he was probably of similar complexion or a bit more tan. Maybe even sunburned.

It's also possible he was using rudimentary sunscreen. It was invented in the late 20s and I'm guessing athletes who were in the sun all day would be some of the first to be interested in sunscreen.

Another interesting effect caused by expanded spectrum cameras or black light photography—super freckles!

They are just dense spots of concentrated melanin.

Light is neat.

[ellipsus-writes]

Just in time for Valentine’s Day... 💔 

Ready to break up with Google?

So are we!

We’ve rounded up a bunch of privacy-centric alternatives for everything Google.

Check out the full list over on the blog!

- The Ellipsus Team xo

[mollybeenoel]

© Deanna Talerico

[fuckyeahchinesefashion]

How to wrap chinese jiaozi饺子 （dumplings）

[ishouldmakethissometime]

What is this sorcery?

[spaceshipsandpurpledrank]

[daily-deliciousness]

Baked cheddar pesto egg boats

[internationalemeteorologie]

Oozy

[tattodo]

Vía: gakkinx

[evangelinar]

Model - Layla Pollock

[hoscos]

Planning some tattoo for my skin @vincentflouretphotography captures @ninoulicious 

[thefrogman]

Hey Froggie! I need to take better product photos indoors. I have a decent camera, and great success shooting outside, but I really hate being at the whims of the weather when I need pics of new items. Most of what I shoot is small (under 1 foot long, often 6” or less), and I’m setting up small staging areas with little props for them. I have a couple tabletop lights with tracing paper covers to diffuse them a bit, but I struggle getting enough light. If I only have space and budget for one big floor light, is there a model or brand you’d recommend looking at for maximum lighting returns?

I've been struggling with some health issues and don't have a lot of energy. But I did want to give you a few quick suggestions and hopefully if I feel better in the future I can answer more in depth. I've been wanting to make a post about this with cheap lights and basic equipment and shooting my own examples, but the energy has eluded me.

Without a budget it's hard to give a recommendation for new lights, but COB (chip on board) video lights can be found for around $100-150 these days. I would say 2 of those with a "bowens mount" would be able to do just about any product photography with no trouble. The bowens mount allows you to apply photography grade reflectors, diffusors, soft boxes, etc. Neewer is a budget brand that makes surprisingly sturdy equipment. It's an investment, but you will find working with proper lights will make things a lot easier.

That said, I have used ordinary desk lamps with great success. Better lights are easier to work with and much more convenient, but light is light. I was just playing around with my mom's red stapler that she liked because it was red and didn't realize it was from Office Space.

I used desk lamps, diffusion material, and also... a smartphone. And while it was a bit of a pain in the ass compared to my old studio setup, I was really surprised with the results.

I do miss my studio though.

But I'm hoping to rebuild it soon.

My point being... having better lights isn't always necessary and you may find it does not improve your situation much without changing a few other important things.

First, if you shoot with a tripod you can increase your shutter speed and even if the lights aren't very bright, they can still work. You just need to be sure you are in a very dark environment and the lights for your photos are the only ones affecting the exposure. You don't want light from a window or overhead light mucking things up.

But I think your biggest issue is how you are using diffusion. Tracing paper is actually great inexpensive diffusion, especially for gradient lighting. (Savage Translum or Lee Filters 216 white diffusion would be the professional equivalent). But by attaching it directly to the light you are limiting your options greatly. I would create tracing paper panels that you can move closer and farther away from your lights. Just create some kind of DIY frame so you can stand them up vertical and move them around your lights. Or you can just hold the diffusion in front of the light if you need to. Make the panels as big as your space allows.

By seperating the diffusion from the lights you can play with moving things closer and farther apart. Move the light closer for a harder light source. Move the tracing paper panels closer to your subject for a larger light source. The permutations are endless and a lot of fun to experiment with.

Just remember...

Bigger light source = soft light Small light source = hard light Light close to tracing paper = short gradient Light far from tracing paper = long gradient

When using the tracing paper, remember the surface area of the paper is your light source, not your actual light. So the closer you move that surface to your subject, the bigger and softer the light becomes.

So to summarize, make your room really dark, put the camera on a tripod, get the tracing paper off the lights and see what you can come up with.

Also, here is a Karl Taylor video where he uses only desk lamps to do a high end wine bottle photo. His "scrims" or diffusion panels are huge and you can build your own much smaller. They only need to be that big if you start taking photos of bigger stuff.

And this is his video on diffusion material which might be helpful too.

[this-old-stomping-ground]

[peoplegettingkindamadatfood]

bringing yet another culinary horror from the russian internet here

3_rublya, well, i wanted to bake a duck for New Year. Just before the New Year’s Eve it suddenly turned out that there are no whole ducks in the store, just the parts. I made the strategic decision to buy a bunch of duck parts and cook them. At home, I got upset that I won’t have a whole duck, and I tried to restore the duck from breasts and legs by sewing them together. At this point it turned out that each tray I bought had not two but three legs, so overall there were six, five of which were left ones. While I was sewing the duck together, I stained it with the food dye my sister spilled while making pryaniks (the pryaniks were good, by the way), and the duck started looking like it has gone moldy or expired. I couldn’t stand for this injustice and entirely covered it with dye to hide the stains. And then I also shoved some celery and oranges up its ass, just because I could.

Written by zapivaet i zaedaet, today at 15.28

[laurbyboom]

Alright kids, tonight we’re having bright fucking blue Ludwig The Accursed for dinner

[ishouldmakethissometime]

The true abomination is baking this directly on the oven rack.

[insomniac-arrest]

There is no good way to be a Christmas-hater. The only social scripts we have for a Christmas-hater is someone being converted into a Christmas-lover through the power of magic or love or terrifying ghosts. Also, people assume you are just the most unfun guy in the world.

I need a cool fun guy Lover social script for being a Christmas-hater where we learn the lesson of being ourselves and true to our most genuine inner life. Which is hating the holiday so so much.

[insomniac-arrest]

you do have the right to not be any fun in general, but also the option to be very fun and cool and chill and not wrangled into holiday cheer in order to be those things. like a beautiful stallion that cannot be tamed.

"Other people are happy, don't ruin this for them," fair enough! But have you considered my soul yearns for the full spectrum of emotions during this time of year. like a beautiful stallion also that tramples on shit with her hooves