Gravy's Cooking Thread
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Guest, did you like the last podcast notification?? Well here's the second one, and for the third podcast! Yep. This Thursday 8-8-24 at 7pm Central
Go here to check out his podcast thread for info on topics and links!Go into the FoH discord and find the Happy Time Fun Hour channel and give it a listen!
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If we have leftover cream I stand at the fridge around 3 am and chug it while I weep about poor life decisions.
chaos
Buzzfeed Editor
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Cream is way more expensive than that here, but not expensive enough to really make a difference. I have only made homemade alfredo sauce once and it didn't turn out too well, imo. It was perfectly serviceable, but I can't remember the exact issue with it. I do know that it suuuuuuuuuuuuuucked for leftovers, the sauce basically separated in the fridge so you were pretty much eating pasta with some butter and cream on it.
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Alfredo is easy enough to put the ingredients together, but to get the texture just right, and the flavour balance just as you'd like it takes practice.
Noodleface
A Mod Real Quick
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Gravy
Bronze Squire
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True enough. If we bring pie, we bring homemade whipped cream and people go nuts for it because they are so used to eating that Cool Whip.
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Try bringing a home made pie with fruit picked off your own trees AND hand whipped cream. People treat you like food god.
Lanx
<Prior Amod>
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i gave up trying to be fake italian and just use prego, i don't have time for tomato reduction!, plus prego has a 2 year shelf life, easy to keep a few 16oz jars in the pantry.
i also just received a 12k grit whetstone, is it needed? no it's not imo, i mean it does put that much of a finer edge on my knives, i was able to de-gourd a watermelon with just a chefs knife. (usually i'd reach for the cleaver for a bit of weight) it was really like slicing butter.
i mean i would keep it in my sharpening repertoire just b/c.
btw if anyone wants a cheap/sharp out of the box knife for 8bucks theres this brand
Amazon.com: Deba-Style Flexible Thai Knife (#171), Kiwi: Kitchen Utility Knives: Kitchen Dining
some thailand brand knife, it's really sharp from the factory (i was only able to make it a bit sharper imo, but the edge they give you is really good).
my wife likes it b/c it's super light, hell there's almost zero weight to this thing, and thin, thin to the extent that my point was bent, had to reshape it.
i've been buying various knives off amazon just to see which knives are good for family/friends. everyone wants a sharp knife but no one wants to go through care and maintenance.
i mean they all have horror stories, knives just thrown in a drawer, thrown in the dish washer, cutting a pear on a ceramic plate, making that clang/clang (i had already corrected the pearing knife the night before)
i'm thinking i could just give them this knife, it'll be the sharpest factory knife they'll get.
i mean of course, shuns come just as factory sharp, but a gyuto/chef knife shun is 10x the price. (and actually more work for me since it's vg10 steel)
i also just received a 12k grit whetstone, is it needed? no it's not imo, i mean it does put that much of a finer edge on my knives, i was able to de-gourd a watermelon with just a chefs knife. (usually i'd reach for the cleaver for a bit of weight) it was really like slicing butter.
i mean i would keep it in my sharpening repertoire just b/c.
btw if anyone wants a cheap/sharp out of the box knife for 8bucks theres this brand
Amazon.com: Deba-Style Flexible Thai Knife (#171), Kiwi: Kitchen Utility Knives: Kitchen Dining
some thailand brand knife, it's really sharp from the factory (i was only able to make it a bit sharper imo, but the edge they give you is really good).
my wife likes it b/c it's super light, hell there's almost zero weight to this thing, and thin, thin to the extent that my point was bent, had to reshape it.
i've been buying various knives off amazon just to see which knives are good for family/friends. everyone wants a sharp knife but no one wants to go through care and maintenance.
i mean they all have horror stories, knives just thrown in a drawer, thrown in the dish washer, cutting a pear on a ceramic plate, making that clang/clang (i had already corrected the pearing knife the night before)
i'm thinking i could just give them this knife, it'll be the sharpest factory knife they'll get.
i mean of course, shuns come just as factory sharp, but a gyuto/chef knife shun is 10x the price. (and actually more work for me since it's vg10 steel)
In the last five years I've had some cream go bad on me once. I took a two week vacation and forgot about it. Maybe that is an issue for some people, but even indulging in homemade whipped cream once a week will use it up before it goes bad. If you cook Italian or French food? Forget about it, you'll run out a week or two before it spoils. Granted everyone is different in what they cook, maybe that is true for you. Properly wrapped parm won't go bad if you keep your hands off it (most cheese spoilage is because of people touching the cheese and transferring bacteria and mold spores, either wear gloves or only partially unwrap it so you can handle it without touching it).
@Chaos: I usually make a simple roux as part of the alfredo making process. You have to add the butter anyway and it thickens faster (no waiting for it to reduce) so it costs you a little time on the front end and you make it up on the back end. Also makes the texture perfect every time. Making a roux is a basic skill imo.
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I just took delivery of 100 pounds of local, grass fed, roasts and steaks. My meat freezer is stuffed to bursting. I'm so excited I can hardly stand it. I might even try sous vide somma dat.
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In choosing mine I just looked at the efficiency numbers and found the best one with a brand name I recognized. I ended up with Whirlpool freezers, and have been very happy. I try to keep them quite full, so I never have issues with them icing up.
Crone
Bronze Baronet of the Realm
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I wanted a huge 20+ cubic foot one, but I couldn't pass up the 7.5 cubic foot one that Costco had for $200? maybe $249. It was a great deal. I'm glad I got the smaller one, because we don't have too much to freeze. Never went in on a whole cow or nothing. Brand name I hadn't heard of before, but it has worked really well for the last 2 years.
I started with consumer reports ratings and efficiency numbers, then checked customer reviews for a fairly large sample size of failure rate. I also ended up with a Whirlpool (though partially that was because I get a family member discount because my wife's Father's new wife works for a subsidiary).
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I have three chest freezers. I know it sounds crazy, but I grow so much of the produce that we eat, and I hate canned fruit and veg. By the end of harvest, everything is full, and we have awesome food all winter.
You know, in addition to recipes in the first post, what do people consider to be essential skills? There is the old adage that it is all about time, temperature, and salt, and the modern restaurant quality recipe catechism is always salt, fat, acid. But realistically cooking breaks down into a lot more than that, each skill is tiny and probably takes like 5min to learn, but you need to know what you're missing.
Cutting an onion.
Making a roux.
Honing a knife (and knowing when honing isn't enough and it needs to be sharpened).
How to deglaze a pan.
I need some perspective here, I've gotten to the point where they aren't distinct categories anymore.
Cutting an onion.
Making a roux.
Honing a knife (and knowing when honing isn't enough and it needs to be sharpened).
How to deglaze a pan.
I need some perspective here, I've gotten to the point where they aren't distinct categories anymore.
chaos
Buzzfeed Editor
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I still keep meaning to add more recipes in the first post and keep forgetting.
I would say making a roux, cutting vegetables in general, braising, making a sauce. That was one of the revolutionary things about watching Alton Brown, realizing that you can make a sauce very simply just about any time you cook meat. Crazeballs.