what's cooking? part 5: 2017-2027

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

If i spent less money on food and had beautiful hands, i’d probably be happier

I eat salads at work (that I make) otherwise I get too sleepy and it forces me to eat salad.

Yeah try a mani/pedi. It's very nice. I make my spouse go sometimes for his feet. I usually can only do one or the other because I get aggravated about how long it takes.

treesh, if you can eat the same things every day, you can assemble salad like those for like $3 each probably. i don't so much anymore but used to roast some vegetables, put them in a container, then keep one of those 1 lb containers of field greens in the fridge, then in the morning put the vegetables and the greens together with whatever meat, shredded beef, chicken, or tuna. and i have a couple of these dressing containers https://www.amazon.com/OXO-Grips-Salad-Dressing-Shaker/dp/B003L0OOR6 which i only spilled in my car one time. better to put dressing in at the time of eating because the salad greens will wilt otherwise.

^^^ Yeah, I think I posted about what I buy at TJs to make my salads for the week. And then I put grey poupon on it only as dressing. Which sounds weird, but it's really good. Or maybe that is just me.

congrats, Treesh. That is a good start.

Yerac sammich looks otm.

Scarpetta spaghetti was great with the homemade noodles, but the difference was very subtle. The noodles are whiter, smoother, and cook for less time. The flavor is different but also milder than the all semolina dry noodles. It seems to be more about texture. Anyway, I was thrilled that it worked out on this first try. But I think homemade pasta probably matters more for something like ravioli.

Oh nice. I prefer fresh pasta just because I like the texture better. It's probably because I like things on the doughier side. But fresh pasta is super quick to cook. You did the sauce with the infused oil too?

I don't have any breadcrumbs to coat the paneer (if I manage to make it) but I do have some quinoa flakes (cereal) am thinking about using that instead. The last time I was in London last year I had this super good, huge paneer wrap for maybe 5 quid. It was so delicious. I think about it a lot.

treesh, Rome wasn't built in a day. you're just laying the first foundations.

xp yes, on the quick to cook. I think i did 2.5 minutes from frozen. Also did the infused oil. We really love that sauce with 50/50 canned and fresh tomatoes. Thanks again for getting us hooked.

I am interested in your paneer adventure. I've made it before and it was quite simple. I think the only possible mistake would be scalding the milk as you bring it to boil. I've only made quite crumbly paneer for kofta. I wonder if getting the solid brick comes simply from more time in the cheesecloth or what.

speaking of kofta i was perusing a big Yucatan book the other week and it turns out a lot of Lebanese emigrated there @ some point so there was this Kibi de Papa recipe - mashed potato gets mixed with mint, bulghur, oregano, orange zest, chiles, a few dry ingredients (flour, baking powder) formed and then fried. i have never eaten a kibi before but am gonna make these someday soon
finally got my gas turned on after a week without and am gonna be a little boring and make split pea soup cuz it's easy and comforting

xpost we have been quite lazy and only doing the canned tomatos, but so easy once you have a system of wandering away and coming back to stir down.

xp I've also never eaten a kibi but fried potato, risotto, etc balls are generally good

gonna make a bold claim here but imho most spherical foods are good

i agree. also cool names like kofta, kibi, and strangolapreti

albondigas is a cool word

speaking of kofta i was perusing a big Yucatan book the other week and it turns out a lot of Lebanese emigrated there @ some point so there was this Kibi de Papa recipe - mashed potato gets mixed with mint, bulghur, oregano, orange zest, chiles, a few dry ingredients (flour, baking powder) formed and then fried. i have never eaten a kibi before but am gonna make these someday soon

this is extremely my shit, might need to peruse this book somewhere

dang that sounds delicious

i'm ~94% certain it was this book: https://www.seriouseats.com/2014/04/cook-the-book-yucatan-by-david-sterling.html
found it @ my local library and i'll try to remember to confirm. i already have a HUGE desire to visit Mexico and the book only added to the where/how long. i made a simple pot of beans from one of the recipes that called for caramelizing onions, adding cumin and oregano, chile (i used chopped habanero), and i subbed liquid smoke for bacon since i don't eat land animals, and that got added to the cooked beans (i used pintos cuz they're my fave, but recipe called for blackies). tha little variation elevated beans to out-bloody-rageous heights. made a rice dish (from book) to go with it that, again, was slightly different than i'd ever prepared rice and both of them combined was absolutely A+.

albondigas is a cool word

― ( ͡☉ ͜ʖ ͡☉) (jim in vancouver), Friday, January 18, 2019 11:38 AM (ten hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

albóndigas, por favor