Gravy's Cooking Thread

  • Guest, it's time once again for the massively important and exciting FoH Asshat Tournament!



    Go here and give us your nominations!
    Who's been the biggest Asshat in the last year? Give us your worst ones!
T

The Master

Bronze Squire
2,084
2
Best way to get a brand new Vitamix is wait till the road show happens at your local Costco. It is even cheaper than the discount Vitamix offers to their employees. For refurbs, there are various deals online like lanx mentioned.

I don't mind buying frozen fruit, but it is cheaper then breaking it down and freezing it myself (compared to Costco prices for frozen fruit, I've done the math on it for my area). But the wife's Mom has a garden and usually grows too much, so I do end up freezing some. I do the baking sheet thing but not in the freezer, I buy some dry ice and do it Good Eats style. If you're only freezing fruit for smoothies won't make difference at all, but she is usually freezing it for out of hand eating, etc., in which case it makes a huge difference.
 
Lanx

Lanx

<Prior Amod>
66,847
152,783
Never played with dry ice before, googled and theres a supplier a few blocks away, 13 bucks for 10lbs
 
Joeboo

Joeboo

Molten Core Raider
8,157
140
The Master_sl said:
Best way to get a brand new Vitamix is wait till the road show happens at your local Costco. It is even cheaper than the discount Vitamix offers to their employees. For refurbs, there are various deals online like lanx mentioned.

I don't mind buying frozen fruit, but it is cheaper then breaking it down and freezing it myself (compared to Costco prices for frozen fruit, I've done the math on it for my area). But the wife's Mom has a garden and usually grows too much, so I do end up freezing some. I do the baking sheet thing but not in the freezer, I buy some dry ice and do it Good Eats style. If you're only freezing fruit for smoothies won't make difference at all, but she is usually freezing it for out of hand eating, etc., in which case it makes a huge difference.
Click to expand...
We buy the giant ass bags of frozen Strawberries from Costco. They honestly taste better than the fresh Strawberries for about 9 out of 12 months of the year. Holy god, my wife bought some "fresh" strawberries a couple weeks ago and the insides were just completely white, zero flavor at all, they were horrible.

Frozen in-season > fresh out-of-season
 
Sir Funk

Sir Funk

Molten Core Raider
1,251
155
Crone_sl said:
Every single grocery store here sells it. It's just kind of hidden.
Click to expand...
No grocery stores in my area sell it, which is unfortunate. I tried to pick up a few pounds for Halloween cocktails and I had to go to an ice distributor to get any, so YMMV. Alternatively, you can make your own if you have a CO2 fire extinguisher. Just tie a pillowcase on to the end of the nozzle and let her rip!
 
Khane

Khane

Got something right about marriage
20,684
14,447
Sir Funk_sl said:
No grocery stores in my area sell it, which is unfortunate. I tried to pick up a few pounds for Halloween cocktails and I had to go to an ice distributor to get any, so YMMV. Alternatively, you can make your own if you have a CO2 fire extinguisher. Just tie a pillowcase on to the end of the nozzle and let her rip!
Click to expand...
Are fire extinguishers cheaper than buying the dry ice?
 
Khane

Khane

Got something right about marriage
20,684
14,447
Been roasting a lot of veggies lately. Tonight I tossed some brussels sprouts in olive oil with a little bit of cumin, salt and a six pepper rub. Baked for 15 minutes at 425, took em out, added more of the spices. flipped em and finished em for another 5. Came out perfect. Nice crust on the outside and just slightly softer than al dente on the inside.
 
Crone

Crone

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
9,714
3,211
Figured this might be a good as spot as any to post this, to see if anyone has any ideas on meal planning.

It's not a huge effort to meal plan, and create a shopping list from that plan, but I can't imagine there aren't apps/websites that make it easier?

My thought being I find a recipe either through the app/website, or push it to the app/website, and it saves these recipes. Throw out ones I don't like, keep ones I do, in effect creating a recipe database for my family of ones that we like. Maybe add some filtering for protein type, or quick and easy versus involved, etc.

Of course, in the end, outputting it into an easy to use shopping list. I like to shop where I shop, so cross referencing with a stores weekly ads wouldn't be so important, but if 1 store had all your proteins on sale for a week, it would be nice to know.

Anyone use anything like this? Free, or paid.
 
Sir Funk

Sir Funk

Molten Core Raider
1,251
155
I don't have a broad knowledge of the space, so maybe there are better apps out there to do it, but if you sign up forAllrecipes - Recipes and cooking confidence for home cooks everywhere
they pretty much do everything you want. You can add recipes to your Recipe Box by adding a link to another website, adding it from the AllRecipes Database, or creating it from scratch--all sorted by category. It also manages shopping lists and you can add all the ingredients of a recipe to one of your shopping lists, organizing the list by aisle for more efficient shopping. It also cross-references what's on sale near you, but I've never really paid much attention to that feature, so YMMV.
 
Crone

Crone

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
9,714
3,211
Figures the one website that I go to for all my recipes is the same one that would have what I'm looking for. Was just about to hit it up. I like how the recipes box doesn't have to be from just their site.

Thanks for pointing me to that.
 
Sir Funk

Sir Funk

Molten Core Raider
1,251
155
So I impulse-bought the Anova and it arrived over the weekend. Did some steaks on Saturday, chicken breasts on Sunday, and did eggs this morning for brunch. Fucking phenomenal! The steaks were perfect, as expected. The chicken breasts blew me away, though. These were some really really thick chicken breasts, just impossible to cook normally. I bathed them at 140 for an hour and when I bit into one, it was just the most tender, juicy chicken I have ever had. Just plain old salt and pepper chicken breasts and they were a pleasure to eat. The eggs were out of this world too. I cooked a few at 145 for 2 hours and left a few more in for an extra hour after. The ones I pulled at 2 hours were fabulous--just rich and creamy and still quite oozey in the yolk. Just heaven with a piece of toast. The ones I pulled after 3 hours were solid enough to hold their shape, but you could spread it over your toast like warm butter. I have had 6 or 7 eggs today already and could easily pop a few dozen.

Going to make some Juicy Lucy burgers tonight, excited to see how they turn out. Definitely worth the $150 with the spring sale at Anova.
 
Gravy

Gravy

Bronze Squire
4,918
454
Abe, if you're watching, I'm combing the thread trying to find the meat slicer you use. Please link, and I'll keep searching.

Edit: GOT IT
 
You must log in or register to reply here.