what's cooking? part 5: 2017-2027

if i have a cooking goal for the new year which i don't really it would be to convince myself that making dough is not the massive pain in the ass i always imagine it will be.

to that end, i made this basic but delicious galette today: https://smittenkitchen.com/2007/10/butternut-squash-and-caramelized-onion-galette/

and banged out the dough quickly and easily.

just made pasta for the first time. It wasn't so bad. So strange, though, to work with such stiff, barely put together dough. I don't understand why they want you to fold the dough and pass it through the roller a few times to knead again. You let the dough rest for > 1 hour to hydrate and relax. And now you are making it rubbery again? fuckin recipes, man.

Did you use a recipe that was mostly eggs?

13 egg yolks to 5.33 cups of flour

Yeah, I had a hard time when I did all the egg yolks. I also don't like the texture as much as when it's less egg and more water.

This is the dough specifically for the scarpetta spaghet! There's another recipe for "pasta" that uses fewer yolks.

Oh blah. I think my problem when I made that type of dough is that I measured everything. Usually when I make dough for DUMPLINGS! or pasta I just slowly add in the liquid until it seems right. With the egg yolks, i just went for it and I think it was too dry (maybe the eggs were too big). I probably should try again and not stick so much to the recipe.

Too small I mean. I like making orechiette now because it's just semolina and water. That is it.

Yeah, I had to add more water than the recipe said to get the dough together. Next time I'll do it the opposite way and add flour to the liquid I have. I'm not sure it was too dry. It didn't crumble in the roller or easily stick together. It's just a very different dough experience.

I just saw that mcdonalds india has a fried paneer sandwich. <<<My plans for this weekend. To make.

ysi?

intriguing but I don't see it being better than paneer kofta. but I also ate a samosa sandwich at disneyland that sounded great but was pretty meh. we are eating some of the homemade spaghetti noodles tonight. i hope they are at least...ok. will be tragic to waste known good sauce, etc on a failed dough experiment.

is the idea to fry a rectangle of paneer? or is it a crumble? do you fry the paneer or the whole sandwich? many iterations returned by google.

it's a breaded bit of paneer, in a patty form like a filet o fish

that's a lot of cheese
godspeed

Hey ilx,

I made a thing. It was my mom’s recipe for “tuna mac” that involved some kind of fiber enriched pasta shells, tuna fish from a can, chopped up celery, chopped up carrots, chopped up onion, chopped up green pepper, a small amount of mayo and salt and pepper. I only used like one pepper and one stalk of celery, one onion, etc, but it created a huge amount of chopped vegetables. I couldn’t even eat all of this after an entire week.

I do not think this is a “good” meal per se but it was a milestone to make my own dinner for a whole week.

did you eat this every day for a whole week?

Yeah

are you sure? i can't imagine eating week old canned tuna?

good for you. i suck at eating the same thing consecutively and using leftovers.

So the thing is i don’t care toooo much about food. I appreciate a great meal but generally i am fine eating the same thing a lot, as long as it isnt something gross like canned soup. I want to get more interested in food though—its a goal

Not the whole week, just like, monday through thursday. Four days is ok right? My fridge is good. I somehow have great appliances in my apartment

i eat the same breakfast and lunch for 75% of the week but basically require a different dinner every night.

Interesting.

I buy one of three ludicrously expensive salads every day for lunch.

I fear that if i brought lunch i wouldnt get to walk anywhere in the middle of the day. I’d just be chained there for 9+ hours

totally. i work from home 90% of the time which is great at limiting options. today i went to an office in the city and was overwhelmed by the presence of a cafeteria, 6 food trucks, 4 dumb "healthy bowl" and/or salad places, and all the lunch places in chinatown.

Yo i’m all about that healthy bowl

However i went to the cvs blood pressure machine and it said i have hypertension so maybe the healthy bowls are not that great. (Gonna go to the doctor—skeptical of this reading)

It was from this: https://thetakeout.com/fried-paneer-sandwich-cult-fast-food-hit-mcdonalds-1831693084

I am going to try to make paneer from scratch too for this. I have never done it before (plus fresh milk here isn't really a thing but I've seen it recently) so we will see how it goes.

I used to really like putting a can of tuna in my regular tomato sauce pasta. That does seem like a of vegetables. I probably would've done half of each of them and maybe left out the carrot completely (but I am not really a cooked carrot fan, I would never make a mirepoix on purpose). I actually would be fine eating the same thing everyday. I can eat pasta or sushi everyday and never get tired.

Oh no it was all raw vegetables! This was a cold dish

real talk due to a childhood aversion i had never eaten canned tuna until like 2 months ago when i took the plunge with the ortiz brand from spain. that shit is delicious but i'm still never trying any non-bougie tinned fish.

xp wait what? raw onion/celery/carrot? no wonder it was too many vegetables.

Oh, I see. Hmmmm. Well, dumping a can of tuna in any heated pasta dish is fine too. It was an easy way to get some protein.

I bring my lunch to work 90% of the time and eat at my desk and then take walks to run errands or whatever during "lunch." It gives me heart palpitations to think about spending $10 on salad (because I don't want to eat them anyway). Plus one time I got a spinach/steak salad when I worked in the met life building and that led to some emergency running to the bottom of grand central so I could hide out in the public bathroom with the super loud hand dryers. I am still distrustful.

Oh if only it was $10.

My mom used to make a cold tuna casserole but it didn't have that many raw vegetables ( i think just celery pretty much?). But it's probably good for you.

I work near union square and there like a zillion “healthy bowl” or salad places. Most are pretty delicious but $$$$$$, and shouldn’t really be in my budget

Yeah i think traditionally this has more mayo and just celery and onion. But i loaded it up with vegetables so i would eat more vegetables

I don’t know thatttttt much about nutrition but i am a believer in vegetables

I hadn't been back in NY/the US in a year and when I went back a couple of months ago and was working downtown near bowling green I was surprised how expensive everything got in a short amount of time. Like 20-30% more. And all the poke places are ridiculous and expensive.

I don’t know thatttttt much about nutrition but i am a believer in vegetables

imo, this will get you three-quarters of the way there all by itself.

Try adding green olives to the tuna salad, great combo.

Poke is a racket, i agree yerac

as far as lunch today i checked the 4th "healthy bowl" place off the list and it was prob the worst of the 4. i should have just gone back to gene's chinese flatbread cafe and gotten the insanely glutinous xi'an noodles again.

The seasonal miso salad at sweetgreen minus the rice is extreemely good. As is the fish taco salad, subbing in 1/2 romaine for the arugula to get some crunch. I’m financually ruined by these salads though.

It's super easy to make poke (we make it once a week).

I still have never been to sweetgreen. Yeah, I always swap out what I could buy with the money for a salad/lunch with something else. Like a bottle of wine. Or get a manicure.

sweetgreen salads are really good but i hate eating salads for lunch. too many uncooked greens in the middle of the day for me.

I have thought of getting manicures. I bite my nails and i think i might be inspired to stop if my hands looked great

I love uncooked greens

they're great but i can't eat an entire lunch of them