BF2S Forums Cooking with Macbeth

Aren't there apps you can download that suggest meals based on what's in your fridge.

I am not confident to cook meat at this moment. I will probably try doing something with the mixed veggies tomorrow. Should I steam them or boil them? Which one preserves the nutrients? I need to maintain my precious bodily fluids.

It should also be said to wash vegetables before use. A head of cabbage is probably going to have trapped dirt. Not exactly "triple washed and ready to eat."

Mac, you can practice cooking thin cuts of meat. There's going to be little mystery as to how cooked through it is. Just follow the instructions for bigger cuts though. Get yourself a meat thermometer you can jab in to see if it's up to temp.

Points -

• A mixed pan of stuff can still be a bit of work if you don't want mush. Wash the vegetables, cut the stems from the leaves/florets, chop the stems into similar sizes, cook longer than the leaf parts, though shorter than root veggies.
• Try adding a couple eggs to a pan fry.
• Learn how to make rice (not difficult) or get a rice cooker (even easier). Use a lot of brown rice.
• Salt & pepper are easy to start with. Also grab some lemon pepper (or learn to zest a lemon), oregano, chives, optionally anise (for the rice).
• Grow your own herbs. Some don't require much work or any kind of green thumb, and it's going to be way cheaper than buying the dried stuff in in those little glass jars.
• Learn how to process ginger. Get yourself a garlic press (takes up less space than a pizza cutter) so you don't split your palm open trying to crush a clove with the flat of a knife like a youtube chef. Blade flat and wooden mallet can work too.
• Keep in mind that different cooking oils have different smoke points. Use a higher smoke point oil if you're putting the heat up very high. Ignore dated warnings about "unhealthy" avocado, canola, sesame oil. That's just big vegetable oil's propaganda.
• If you like Asian food try to find yourself an area Asian market to shop at. In my experience in a Puget Sound area Koreatown, better savings/selection on a lot of stuff than regular American supermarkets. Slightly more $ for fresh produce. Mirim, soy sauce, s&s, dried noodles.
• Watch some youtube videos on food safety, familiarize with the concept of cross-contamination. An amateur can make a lot of easily avoidable mistakes. You don't want food poisoning. Those Kitchen Nightmares episodes where Gordon retches at the sight of a fridge or a countertop, yeah. Don't store/process food like that or in filthy conditions. Keep meats in the meat drawer. Probably better to not slap your dripping bag of steak on top of an item you won't need to cook. I can't believe how many grown adults ignore this common-sense stuff.
• Find out if you have the kinds of pans you need to season/condition (carbon steel, iron). I like non-sticks, it's my weakness. Do not approach a non-stick with a metal utensil. It will get scratched by proximity.
• I see you have a knife block. Better option than a cheap-o magnetic strip imo. But knife blocks can harbor bacteria, especially if you put your knives away wet. (Carefully) wash knives before use. Learn how to take care of them. You're 30, and constantly on our backs about us not being married, like you're a grandchild-sick mother of a 22yo. If you're going to be an American Dad with one of your work subordinates, you need to know your way around knives. It's a rule.

Ask advice from someone who better knows what they're doing. I never went to culinary school, I watch videos. There are things I understand in principle that I am not well practiced at (breads). Plenty more I need to learn about.

Last edited by unnamednewbie13 (2022-04-15 11:06:59)

pirana6 wrote:

Just take a head of lettuce and tear it into bite-sized pieces then cut up whatever veggies you like (also into bite-sized pieces) and boom: salad.

The real fun is the bonus goodies: Hard boiled eggs, beans (garbanzo, pinto, black, etc), crumbled cheese.


You can also do a veggie stir fry: Make white rice then in a separate pan just fry some bell peppers, broccoli, carrots, whatever you like to eat.

Do we need to tell Macbeth to wash all the veggies thoroughly before making a raw salad?

When I cook for myself I stir fry everything. The carbonisation adds to the flavour.

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2022-04-15 17:00:41)

Pro-tip - Wash some vegetables with salt water, eg broccoli.

Plain water won't encourage some bugs, slugs and caterpillars, to loosen their grip.

uziq wrote:

macbeth what is that cooker? isn't that thing older than the contiguous united states?

i have a lot of questions about your grocery picks, but, first and foremost: why the hell is there a food brand named after the spanish painter Goya?

oh wow. You don't know about Goya. I am not surpirsed. It is a famous Hispanic food brand in the U.S. Newbie, Ken, and maybe DesertFox has probably heard of them?
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/10/business … index.html

Goya Foods, Inc. is an American producer of a brand of foods sold in the United States and many Spanish-speaking countries. It has facilities in the United States, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Spain. It is under third-generation ownership of the Spanish-American Unanue family, and is headquartered in Jersey City, New Jersey.

They have a line of canned beans that are good. I didn't buy any since, from what I understand, canned stuffed needs to be avoided.

The Goya products were in the Spanish food isle. That is also where they have the Catholic candles and where I found the Pope.

If Trump had a single ounce of subtlety he could've just kept a bag of Goya wafers on his desk rather than use his office to shamelessly brand-promote to that extent. Could've been like Reagan's jelly beans. How many jelly beans did he sell to conservatives, I wonder?

^ on frozen, canned. Certain canned foods can be really high in sodium, and some brands really like to lay on other preservatives. I would in fact recommend more canned/frozen stuff to a guy trying to get off the TV dinner train. Probably a bit like dieting, diving ears deep into too much work can probably be tiring and result in regression and a fridge full of rotting produce.

Hopefully we don't get pics of Mac's rotting veggies within ~2-3 weeks.

e: @mac, learn to freeze, maybe get a vacuum sealer once you start getting into meat prep

If you're like 5'9" 150 lbs is like an ideal BMI 22.

I'm not being critical to be hurtful, but that is a boring salad. If you make too many more like that, you'll get bored quickly and go back to old eating habits.

Try using some dark leafy greens like kale, baby spinach. Julienne some carrots. Snap peas. Try cutting the tomato in eights and then halving them again for better bite sizes. You're not cutting slices for hamburgers. Try some onions and (canned!) chickpeas. Broccoli, kidney beans, peppers, nuts, sesame seeds. Avocado oil, or balsamic vinegar. Diced apples, peel/chop some oranges (canned mandarins are good here). Not listing all this to put into one salad, just some ideas for ingredients.

In other news, I saw a 3080 on Amazon I think for like $1000.

I also have Goya olives that I bought with the intention of eating as snacks.

I could get a big salad bowl, put the olives, and tomatoes all together and see what happens?

That's a good deal on the 3080. GPU prices are better now. NVDA stock lost a third of its value once GPU demand went down.

I will give a try to canned chickpeas. I like hummus but never had chickpeas.

Also, what brand frozen veggies should I buy? I think I subconsciously picked the Goya frozen ones. The only other brand I remember seeing was ShopRight brand. There must have been other brands. What do you buy?

I will try to eat through this stuff before it goes bad over the next week spring break. I am off from work for the next week for Spring break. I usually eat breakfast and lunch at work. The food is homemade and the prices are basically very cheap since it is school food.

Uzique wrote:

christ you eat school food everyday omfg lol

The quality of the lunches is actually pretty good. I was tempted to take a picture of one earlier this week and post it here because of how well it looked and was balanced. The teacher cafe has a salad bar, and a lady who does sandwiches and wraps. You can buy coffee and get breakfast and lunch there for cheap. Imagine paying $2 for something that would cost $6 or $7 if you bought it from a local small business. I am a regular at the teacher cafe. It is actually a great place to not only hang out with and network with other teachers and also lady support staff. That is where I met the lady security guard and the new substitute teacher.

I figured it all out. I will wow the MILF with my fresh produce.

SuperJail Warden wrote:

I wish I bought bananas. I like those. Good snacks or light breakfast.

Don't they have fresh fruit at your school?