Let's talk recipes -- are you as random as I am?

[pepperhead212]

That looks super yummy @pepperhead

...but what is crema in a jar? Only “crema” I can think of is espresso foam......

Crema is something that I keep almost all the time in the fridge, for Mexican dishes - their version of crème fraiche, and I just make it in a pint mason jar. That's why I said I had it in a jar! lol Just put 1 tb buttermilk in a pint of heavy cream, shake it up, and let it sit at room temp until it thickens, often up to 24 hours. It keeps until I use it up, due to the sourness, which is less than that of sour cream. But the buttery flavor is better than sour cream, due to the heavy cream.

[applestar]

Thanks! Adding to my notes of new and fun tricks to try in the kitchen

[pepperhead212]

@applestar Here's that crema, ready to go in the fridge. As you can see, it gets very thick, and even thicker, once chilled.
Crema, after 20 hrs of curing at room temperature. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

[imafan26]

I made nishime for New Year. It is pretty traditional. I used pork instead of chicken because it is o.k. and I had pork in the freezer. I started looking for ingredients a couple of weeks ago. I could not find renkon in cans. I found the nishime frozen vegetable mix. Not my favorite, but it is convenient. The hasu (lotus root) was available this last week, but since I got the frozen vegetables, I passed. I just got the gobo yesterday so I made the nishime with pork, konbu, konyaku, carrots, daikon, aburage, the frozen mix that has araimo, carrots, renkon and a little gobo, and more gobo. I was going to harvest the araimo in the pots, but I repotted them last month and they started growing so the mother bulbs are actually shrinking. So, much for that. I'll make pork and taro with them later. I only have to wait about 5 months for the araimo to mature. I make my sauce more traditional but I use the low sodium soy, a packet of broth from ramen noodles, sugar, and I cut the added salt. My mom makes her nishime with kikoman shoyu and she puts a lot of it and sugar (almost equal amounts) in hers plus the salt. It is more like soup. It is good, but too hard on my stomach. That much soy upsets my stomach big time. I saved half of the gobo to make kimpira. I used two of my super chilies from the yard for that. What I am not having are the other traditional things. No sushi, no sashimi, no kanten. (Well, there is still time for that, but maybe not). No mochi, because we did not pound mochi this year. I do have a kado matsu for this year by the door. I did buy a Chinese roast duck prior to Christmas and I froze some of it, so I have that as well.

My sister asked me for some cilantro and green onions because my BIL is making pastele stew.

I am skipping the family gatherings for the holidays. It is just me and the cats. I did not get them any fish for new year. I may go out tomorrow. Even though it is Saturday, so many people will have leftovers for days, so the markets should be relatively slow. I was not going to brave the lines before the holiday. Normal years, the lines are long, this year, the lines went around the block and then some. My cats are just glad the fireworks are mostly over and any day is special if they get fried fish. Most stores will be closed today or on a limited schedule. Walmart, Sam's Club, and Costco are closed, but the some of the chain stores will be open.

I cleaned house two days ago and did the laundry. I do have trash to take out but it can wait. I cooked the nishime yesterday and I already had cooked rice in the frig. i fed the worms yesterday. No cleaning today, except the robot vac doesn't know this so it will probably still do its thing. It is wet and windy outside so I am not going to do much there either. I have learned from past experience it really is bad luck to do any big projects on a holiday.

[Vanisle_BC]

Tonight's dessert will be Cranachan but instead of honey we'll use Glayva for a more interesting flavor. Oh, and the raspberries have been steeping in vodka, but that's another story.

Damn, these rum & eggnog are good!

[Vanisle_BC]

Speaking of random-ness; my grannie's standard measures were (from small to large):
A pickle, a puckle, a mickle and a muckle.
Her scones were delicious.

[applestar]

Thanks for the photo of crema @pepperhead. And @imafan has been describing familiar special dishes for the New Years ... and I didn’t know any of what @vanisle had described, but convenience of modern tech — all I have to do is highlight any word or phrase I don’t know, and select “look up” for an instant popup window list of definitions or description.

We opted to RELAX this year — NO STRESS being our theme. So we actually didn’t do any of the specialty cooking other than random things we felt like making.

I did buy some packaged/vacuum packed cut mochi — I ordered them just before Christmas when they were still plentiful — and they arrived shortly before NYE ... and I had bought instant harusame soup 5 flavor set for my Mom as well as another set my DDs. I had no idea how they tasted, but I had the soup delivered to my Mom last week.

We took some of the mochi from the package along with nori and green tea and a single-serving in-a-glass sake to my Mom at her assisted living home today. (We were allowed to visit for 30 minutes outside on the porch (after filling out a health questionnaire and a temperature check) — it might have been up to 40°F today — my girls and I were prepared wearing double layers of pants and multi-layers of shirts and sweaters under our winter jackets; my mom came out bundled in winter coat and two scarves and hat and gloves .... We were all wearing masks and the staff implored me to make sure to stay the requisite 6 feet away on opposite ends of two round porch tables butted up against each other.)

Mom said they had served appetizer selection dinner last night and special breakfast today — so really she’s been getting more fancy eats than we have been LOL. But she seemed really happy to get the mochi and sake ...just a bit of reminder ... and I told her to try putting the microwaved mochi in the soup. (I imagine she will put the sake, soup, and the green tea in front of my Dad’s picture to “share” with him before enjoying it.)

DH made honey-brined turkey, I had smoked salmon sandwich with baby brie, and my home made hummus, .... what else? Oh we froze the remaining bagged mandarin oranges we bought last time so they wouldn’t go bad on us, so I had one of those thawed, etc. etc.

...And to see just how good or bad the result would be, I made some of that instant harusame soup and added a toaster oven toasted mochi in it. I also added some torn up nori. It was pretty good for a mid-night snack. Hardly a fancy NY celebration material, but I would have enjoyed it when I was living at the University dormitory.....

[digitS']

... I have been migrating towards coconut milk based desserts due to varying levels of milk sensitivity.

I imagine that simply substituting different types of "milk" for cow's milk cannot be considered equivalent for taste, texture, etc. However, even a limited intolerance can be a problem when using recipes. For one thing, being willing to buy a quart of milk and using it a cup at a time in a recipe may mean throwing out half a container because you haven't made anything else in a couple of weeks that calls for milk.

DW and I use a milk substitute - her in coffee, me in breakfast cereal. It is available in the fridge. I'm reluctant to substitute it for cow's milk - I suppose that doesn't make me as "random" as some cooks . Am I just too cautious?

There are quite a few canned evaporated milk recipes. I don't find powdered milk in recipes. Both would make more sense to have on a shelf than refrigerated milk, seldom used. Or, substituting soy or almond milk, where we thought we could get away with them ... any advice?

And, why can't I find online recipes using milk powder? Mixed with water, is it really not that much different from whole milk?

Steve
who grew up with milkcows, for Pete's Sake!

[applestar]

If you are willing to pay extra for them, and don’t mind the slightly different flavor (which you probably would not if you accept dried milk and canned milk) you can get milk in single serving UHT packaging (8oz), which are shelf-stable until opened.

The ones I’m most familiar with come in cases — Horizon Organic and Organic Valley — and are available for whole milk, 2% milk, and chocolate milk. I see them on same shelves as (where I get/have bought in the past) single serving UHT packaging almond milk, soy milk, and rice milk.
— eta — at our local Whole Foods, Horizon Low Fat milk in these packages is 1% milk, and they also have “Strawberry Flavored Milk”

I used to get them (and juices) when my DD’s were toddlers and somewhat older, and needed to snack and drink in the car. Brings back memories about how the 3, 4, to 7 year olds were experts at poking the little bendy straws in those — all I ever had to do was confidently hand the unopened juicebox, etc. back to them as I drove — and my Mom when riding with us, used to INSIST ON HELPING by taking them away and doing it herself ... and INEVITABLY spilled the drink.......

[Vanisle_BC]

In the interest of minimizing trips to the stores we've been buying our cartons of milk two at a time and freezing one until needed. It works fine. If you don't use much you'd likely want to divide it into smaller containers before freezing. Sadly this doesn't work well for cream which 'breaks' when thawed.

[Vanisle_BC]

Random, or just adventurous? .... For years I've thought about making chocolate-coated cheese cubes but somehow never got round to trying it. So this Xmas I did. I'm really pleased with the contrasting sweet-sour-bitter sensations. 'Blue' cheese with semi-sweet choc is the best!

[imafan26]

I reconstitute powdered milk for things like cereal, and recipes. If it is something like a custard or a creme pie, alfredo, or bechamel sauce then I do have to buy milk or cream. I usually get the evaporated skim milk if available instead of cream. It doesn't make enough difference for me to know it and it saves on fat and calories. Unless, I can come up with some scrambled eggs, French toast, bread pudding, or some other things in the same week or so, I also have to end up throwing the rest of the milk or cream away. I can't give it to the cats either, they are lactose intolerant and so am I.

[Gary350]

Best part of having garden vegetables in the pantry & freezer is eating them. LOL. Best part is also growing them it is FUN. This morning breakfast is, sweet bell peppers, onions, German sausage, potatoes, biscuits, blackberry jam, coffee. I like cooking garden potatoes but we finally ran out of them. We are out of garden onions too but still have garlic. We still have plenty of green & red peppers in freezer. Sometimes I cook other sausage there are several kinds of German sausage, several Polish sausage, several Cajun sausage. Sometimes bacon or thin cut breakfast style pork chop. Sometimes omelet. I never cook beef I don't like it, lamb or goat would be good if I could get it. This morning I cooked, sweet bell peppers, onions, sausage with soy sauce and a little bit of the hot spicy chili powder I made a few days ago, potatoes, biscuit, blackberry jam, coffee. I get so tired of eating the way I absolutely must eat to keep my blood sugar good, I need variety & different flavors. I do a lot of play it by ear cooking especially for breakfast.

This new camera drives me nuts. Light bulbs in the house look like white light but camera sees some of them as RED color light photos are red. Same problem outside any direct sunlight is bleached out so white can't tell what the photo is.

[imafan26]

I have been watching a lot of you tube at home. I watched this video comparing rice cookers. The winner was an Aroma insulated rice cooker with digital controls. Now, I had to agree with a lot of the commenters. No. 1 how could an aroma beat out the zojirushi for cooking rice. It makes the best quality rice if you are fussy about that kind of thing. It could only lose out on price because it is 2 to 7 times the cost of other rice cookers and takes more than twice the time to make a pot of rice. The people conducting the test were not rice eaters and I suspect their testers weren't either because they talked about the value of having a rice cooker around if you only eat rice once or twice a month. I also seriously doubt that their definition of good rice is anything remotely close to those who eat rice every day. They also defined good rice if it was tender and fluffy. And to top it off, they said the most important accessory was the cup!

The zojirushi has a lot of functions for different kinds of rice and it can slow cook rice for over an hour. It can do other things like saute (not very well). It has a round bottom so for the zojirushi measuring the correct amount of water is a must, as the two finger method won't work. But it does cost about $200

The Aroma for most people is not even the second best cooker. Tiger is what most people here have as a second choice for an insulated cooker. It is made in Japan and is well known to be a quality cooker. Aroma is made in California (the owner is Chinese). Who do you think knows rice better? Americans or Japanese?
The Aroma sells for about $50. The tiger with simple on off lever sells for about $70-$80. A multifunction Tiger sells for about $130.

If you eat rice regularly, you know that almost any rice cooker can make good rice if you buy a good quality of rice and get the ratio of water to rice right. Flavor can be enhanced by adding the Jasmine, sake, or pandan flavoring and it does matter if you soak the rice overnight , wash, don't wash ( I am not talking swishing, I mean actually rubbing the rice between your hands. P.S. don't forget to save the rice water to water your plants especially honohono orchids). How much water you use depends on the type of rice, but also is it is new crop or second crop rice. The only way you can actually do that is to use the first pot of rice from a new bag as a test to figure out how much water you need. New crop rice uses less water. Different types of rice use different amounts of water and have different textures and "fluffiness" when they are done. A rice cooker like zojirushi has a tighter seal so it loses less water so it needs less water to start with. Normal rice cookers are steamers and need more water because it is designed to release steam.

What this test did not mention was that the fancy cookers zojirushi and even the Tiger, don't last long. Digital components and if you use the keep warm function a lot will shorten the life of the cooker in daily use to anywhere from 6-8 years.

I have a really old fashioned. Well almost old fashioned. I did have a Toshiba that you had to put water in the outer pot, but that was a really long time ago. I have 2 rice cookers, a 10 cup and a 5 cup cooker. It is known that rice cookers do have minimums in terms of rice that they can cook well. A 5 cup rice cooker does not make good rice unless there is at least 1.5-2 cups of rice. Any thinner and you will get a rice pizza.

I do have an Aroma, (I prefer Toshiba), it is at least 20 years old. It may be older. I used to use it daily, but now I don't eat a lot of carbs and I don't like to cook too often so I make 4 cups of rice at a time and cook my rice and boil a few eggs while I am at it about once a week. The eggs and rice will last about 4 days. Some weeks I don't make rice at all, and I don't use the keep warm function. So, this has extended the life of my cooker quite a bit. Twenty years though, of daily use is not unusual for this type of rice cooker. I don't remember what I paid for it but today's price it would be around $15. That is less than a dollar a year, can't beat that kind of durability.

The 5 cup Aroma has a simple mechanical lever/switch and it cooks for about 20 minutes, it does not have any fancy functions besides the keep warm function, it is not insulated, and it makes perfectly good rice if I get the water to rice ratio right. And if I lose the cup, which happened when my husband lost the cup down in the disposal and decided it was a brilliant idea to spear it to get it out. Totally ruined the cup! But any cup will do as long as you don't exceed the cooker's capacity and you use the same cup or two fingers to measure the water. P.S. A rice cup is less than a cup. The cooker will make up to 5 cups of cooked rice but there is only about 3.75 cups of raw rice that actually went into the cooker.

I thought about it. My unfancy rice cooker can do a lot of things the fancy cookers can do without the extra cost and fancy buttons, up to a point. It did come with a steam rack, so it could always be used as a steamer. When I cook rice, I regularly put raw eggs in the shell on top of the washed rice and make boiled eggs for the week. Vegetables can also be steamed on top of the rice in the same way. If you want to make jasmine rice or flavored rice, I can add the pandan, lemon grass, miso, or broth instead of water. Jasmine rice uses less water so it has to be cooked differently. Sweet rice has to be soaked overnight. I also make hapa rice (half brown and half white rice), I don't like brown rice, it spoils fast and is denser. Sweet rice can be mixed with the regular short grain rice and soaked overnight and it gives it a softer texture. Sake and less water is used for making sushi rice. Usually it is better to make sushi rice on the range as it does a better job than the rice cooker since the rice does need to be drier and the sake helps to soften and preserve the rice longer. Instead of water, dashi or broth can be used. Long grain rice ( it is really a grass), is tasteless and does not absorb flavors well after it is cooked so it is better cooked with a broth. Besides steaming vegetables, boiling eggs, and substituting for the water, tamago gohan is an easy meal to prepare in the pot. I simply add the egg to the hot rice as soon as it pops off and cover it to let it finish for 15 minutes.

I decided to make a one pot meal with my simple no frills cooker. It had to be able to cook in the 20 minutes the cooker would be on, because it has no timer or temperature settings.

I used half a breast from a Costco rotisserie chicken(cubed), reconstituted dried shitake mushrooms, some of the mushroom water,one packet of hondashi, dried shrimp (ebi would be better. I used Filipino dried shrimp which is less salty. Ebi is pretty pricey at $23 lb), a tablespoon of oyster sauce, a tablespoon of soy sauce, 3 packets of truvia mostly to cut the bitterness of the soy sauce, a tablespoon of sake, 1 tablespoon of mirin, 5 oz. of frozen mixed vegetables (still frozen), and 3 (rice cup) cups of short grain rice. I used 3 cups of mushroom water. I actually should have used less water. I did not squeeze out the water from the mushrooms, so I should have counted that as the water as well and did 2.5 cups of water instead. I put it all in the pot and pressed turned the cooker on. 20 minutes later, it popped off, and 15 minutes after that it was ready. The rice was a little mushier than it should have been because I ended up with total water being more than the 3.5 cups I intended. It is also new crop rice, so I probably should have cut the water by a half cup more. It tasted pretty good. It has enough salt for me with all the salty ingredients, but other people would probably want to add more salt than I did. Rice absorbs a lot of the salt. The rice was less mushy the next day after the rice had more time to absorb more of the water. I will be eating this for at least 6 meals.

[Gary350]

I have been watching a lot of you tube at home. I watched this video comparing rice cookers. The winner was an Aroma insulated rice cooker with digital controls. Now, I had to agree with a lot of the commenters. No. 1 how could an aroma beat out the zojirushi for cooking rice. It makes the best quality rice if you are fussy about that kind of thing. It could only lose out on price because it is 2 to 7 times the cost of other rice cookers and takes more than twice the time to make a pot of rice. The people conducting the test were not rice eaters and I suspect their testers weren't either because they talked about the value of having a rice cooker around if you only eat rice once or twice a month. I also seriously doubt that their definition of good rice is anything remotely close to those who eat rice every day. They also defined good rice if it was tender and fluffy. And to top it off, they said the most important accessory was the cup!

The zojirushi has a lot of functions for different kinds of rice and it can slow cook rice for over an hour. It can do other things like saute (not very well). It has a round bottom so for the zojirushi measuring the correct amount of water is a must, as the two finger method won't work. But it does cost about $200

The Aroma for most people is not even the second best cooker. Tiger is what most people here have as a second choice for an insulated cooker. It is made in Japan and is well known to be a quality cooker. Aroma is made in California (the owner is Chinese). Who do you think knows rice better? Americans or Japanese?
The Aroma sells for about $50. The tiger with simple on off lever sells for about $70-$80. A multifunction Tiger sells for about $130.

If you eat rice regularly, you know that almost any rice cooker can make good rice if you buy a good quality of rice and get the ratio of water to rice right. Flavor can be enhanced by adding the Jasmine, sake, or pandan flavoring and it does matter if you soak the rice overnight , wash, don't wash ( I am not talking swishing, I mean actually rubbing the rice between your hands. P.S. don't forget to save the rice water to water your plants especially honohono orchids). How much water you use depends on the type of rice, but also is it is new crop or second crop rice. The only way you can actually do that is to use the first pot of rice from a new bag as a test to figure out how much water you need. New crop rice uses less water. Different types of rice use different amounts of water and have different textures and "fluffiness" when they are done. A rice cooker like zojirushi has a tighter seal so it loses less water so it needs less water to start with. Normal rice cookers are steamers and need more water because it is designed to release steam.

What this test did not mention was that the fancy cookers zojirushi and even the Tiger, don't last long. Digital components and if you use the keep warm function a lot will shorten the life of the cooker in daily use to anywhere from 6-8 years.

I have a really old fashioned. Well almost old fashioned. I did have a Toshiba that you had to put water in the outer pot, but that was a really long time ago. I have 2 rice cookers, a 10 cup and a 5 cup cooker. It is known that rice cookers do have minimums in terms of rice that they can cook well. A 5 cup rice cooker does not make good rice unless there is at least 1.5-2 cups of rice. Any thinner and you will get a rice pizza.

I do have an Aroma, (I prefer Toshiba), it is at least 20 years old. It may be older. I used to use it daily, but now I don't eat a lot of carbs and I don't like to cook too often so I make 4 cups of rice at a time and cook my rice and boil a few eggs while I am at it about once a week. The eggs and rice will last about 4 days. Some weeks I don't make rice at all, and I don't use the keep warm function. So, this has extended the life of my cooker quite a bit. Twenty years though, of daily use is not unusual for this type of rice cooker. I don't remember what I paid for it but today's price it would be around $15. That is less than a dollar a year, can't beat that kind of durability.

The 5 cup Aroma has a simple mechanical lever/switch and it cooks for about 20 minutes, it does not have any fancy functions besides the keep warm function, it is not insulated, and it makes perfectly good rice if I get the water to rice ratio right. And if I lose the cup, which happened when my husband lost the cup down in the disposal and decided it was a brilliant idea to spear it to get it out. Totally ruined the cup! But any cup will do as long as you don't exceed the cooker's capacity and you use the same cup or two fingers to measure the water. P.S. A rice cup is less than a cup. The cooker will make up to 5 cups of cooked rice but there is only about 3.75 cups of raw rice that actually went into the cooker.

I thought about it. My unfancy rice cooker can do a lot of things the fancy cookers can do without the extra cost and fancy buttons, up to a point. It did come with a steam rack, so it could always be used as a steamer. When I cook rice, I regularly put raw eggs in the shell on top of the washed rice and make boiled eggs for the week. Vegetables can also be steamed on top of the rice in the same way. If you want to make jasmine rice or flavored rice, I can add the pandan, lemon grass, miso, or broth instead of water. Jasmine rice uses less water so it has to be cooked differently. Sweet rice has to be soaked overnight. I also make hapa rice (half brown and half white rice), I don't like brown rice, it spoils fast and is denser. Sweet rice can be mixed with the regular short grain rice and soaked overnight and it gives it a softer texture. Sake and less water is used for making sushi rice. Usually it is better to make sushi rice on the range as it does a better job than the rice cooker since the rice does need to be drier and the sake helps to soften and preserve the rice longer. Instead of water, dashi or broth can be used. Long grain rice ( it is really a grass), is tasteless and does not absorb flavors well after it is cooked so it is better cooked with a broth. Besides steaming vegetables, boiling eggs, and substituting for the water, tamago gohan is an easy meal to prepare in the pot. I simply add the egg to the hot rice as soon as it pops off and cover it to let it finish for 15 minutes.

I decided to make a one pot meal with my simple no frills cooker. It had to be able to cook in the 20 minutes the cooker would be on, because it has no timer or temperature settings.

I used half a breast from a Costco rotisserie chicken(cubed), reconstituted dried shitake mushrooms, some of the mushroom water,one packet of hondashi, dried shrimp (ebi would be better. I used Filipino dried shrimp which is less salty. Ebi is pretty pricey at $23 lb), a tablespoon of oyster sauce, a tablespoon of soy sauce, 3 packets of truvia mostly to cut the bitterness of the soy sauce, a tablespoon of sake, 1 tablespoon of mirin, 5 oz. of frozen mixed vegetables (still frozen), and 3 (rice cup) cups of short grain rice. I used 3 cups of mushroom water. I actually should have used less water. I did not squeeze out the water from the mushrooms, so I should have counted that as the water as well and did 2.5 cups of water instead. I put it all in the pot and pressed turned the cooker on. 20 minutes later, it popped off, and 15 minutes after that it was ready. The rice was a little mushier than it should have been because I ended up with total water being more than the 3.5 cups I intended. It is also new crop rice, so I probably should have cut the water by a half cup more. It tasted pretty good. It has enough salt for me with all the salty ingredients, but other people would probably want to add more salt than I did. Rice absorbs a lot of the salt. The rice was less mushy the next day after the rice had more time to absorb more of the water. I will be eating this for at least 6 meals.

I love this information, now I have learned several new things about rice I did not know. I am no rice cooking expert but I have noticed rice in the new bag seems to cook different than rice in the old bag. Cooking good rice is like cooking good bread it needs the correct amount of salt for good flavor. I was told salt keeps rice from being sticky & adds flavor. A lady from Vietnam snowed me how to cook rice on the kitchen stove and that is how I cook it every time, my rice cooker stays in pantry it has not been used in 15 years. Rice usually cooks almost perfect with 1 cup of rice & 2 cups of water, 1 tsp salt. Be sure to rinse rice 2 times before cooking. Sometimes I add 1 tsp of butter to rice when cooking. I bring rice & water to a boil, turn stove down on low 10 minutes then turn stove off 10 minutes. Rice should be cooked perfect. We don't eat rice every day, I cook it only when we make oriental stir fry or India food. I buy Jasmine rice in 5 lb bags the Vietnam lady said, only buy jasmine rice. This new rice is cooking much better than the rice that had been in the pantry for a whole, 2 cups of water is perfect, the older rice needed more water. I think a person needs to cook rice often to know how the rice they have cooks. Our kitchen is very small it is easier for me to cook rice on the stove there is no country top space in the kitchen for the rice cooker. I watch videos of India cooking they cook 1 cup or rice in 10 cups of water with lots of salt, boil water 20 minutes then pour off the water. They put hot cooked rice in a straw basket to drain away all excess water rice stays in basket for a while, I have not tried this. I like to cook oriental stir fry the correct way but wife wants to cook vegetables 20 minutes so vegetable are very very soft. I think I paid $12 for my rice cooker long ago it makes good rice if I get the correct about of water & salt mixture. Sometimes I put broccoli & other vegetables in with the rice when it cooks. Sometimes I put things to the water when cooking rice to add flavor, soy sauce, chili powder, onions, garlic. The Vietnam lady showed me how to make stir fry sauce but I have gotten lazy it is much easier to buy stir fly sauce flavor is much better than it was years ago.

[Gary350]

I love this information, now I have learned several new things about rice I did not know. I am no rice cooking expert but I have noticed rice in the new bag seems to cook different than rice in the old bag. Cooking good rice is like cooking good bread it needs the correct amount of salt for good flavor. I was told salt keeps rice from being sticky & adds flavor. A lady from Vietnam snowed me how to cook rice on the kitchen stove and that is how I cook it every time, my rice cooker stays in pantry it has not been used in 15 years. Rice usually cooks almost perfect with 1 cup of rice & 2 cups of water, 1 tsp salt. Be sure to rinse rice 2 times before cooking. Sometimes I add 1 tsp of butter to rice when cooking. I bring rice & water to a boil, turn stove down on low 10 minutes then turn stove off 10 minutes. Rice should be cooked perfect. We don't eat rice every day, I cook it only when we make oriental stir fry or India food. I buy Jasmine rice in 5 lb bags the Vietnam lady said, only buy jasmine rice. This new rice is cooking much better than the rice that had been in the pantry for a whole, 2 cups of water is perfect, the older rice needed more water. I think a person needs to cook rice often to know how the rice they have cooks. Our kitchen is very small it is easier for me to cook rice on the stove there is no country top space in the kitchen for the rice cooker. I watch videos of India cooking they cook 1 cup or rice in 10 cups of water with lots of salt, boil water 20 minutes then pour off the water. They put hot cooked rice in a straw basket to drain away all excess water rice stays in basket for a while, I have not tried this. I like to cook oriental stir fry the correct way but wife wants to cook vegetables 20 minutes so vegetable are very very soft. I think I paid $12 for my rice cooker long ago it makes good rice if I get the correct water & salt mixture. Sometimes I put broccoli & other vegetables in with the rice when it cooks. Sometimes I put things to the water when cooking rice to add flavor, soy sauce, chili powder, onions, garlic. The Vietnam lady showed me how to make stir fry sauce but I have gotten lazy it is much easier to buy stir fly sauce flavor is much better than it was years ago.

I have no clue what the typing error did to this but I don't know how to fix it????????????

[Vanisle_BC]

We don't have a rice cooker. Small kitchen and already too many 'gadgets' but I do love my el-cheapo mandolin for slicing & 'juliennes'. The plastic bit that holds the vegetable broke (hard plastic always breaks) and I made a wood one. Next favourite device is my oriental cleaver which I use for nearly all cutting & chopping. And a serrated knife for slicing bread. Oh, and the bread machine itself - for kneading the dough, not baking it. But I digress, as usual....

Rice I cook in a pot with twice as much water although I sometimes fry it - often in butter - before or after boiling. Instead of water, for flavour there's chicken stock, apple juice etc; you name it. If you want the rice fluffy one 'secret' is to drop the dry rice into already-boiling water. I seldom rinse or wash rice before cooking it. We often have a 'pilaf' - rice boiled then fried up with onion, garlic, any & all chopped veges - even some apple, raisin, whatever you like. I'm not sure if this should really be called pilaf.

Food is good!

[imafan26]

If you are making minute rice or some other type of loose rice, it can be done that way. When I went to visit a friend on the mainland, it was hard to find short grain rice. It was also really strange to me to put butter on rice until.... I put gravy on the rice and the gravy fell off and the rice remained white. That's not rice to me.

I have a small counter too as I have a galley kitchen. In my picture that is the most countertop I have. The other side of the sink is the dish rack and I have about 15 inches of counter space on either side of the range. I can't even roll out a pie crust without getting an imprint of the sink and I have a cutting board that can span the sink when I need to cut anything up.

Most people here eat rice everyday, sometimes more than once a day. You eat a lot of potatoes and I buy maybe 3-5 potatoes a month, and they may still rot before I get to use them. The rice cooker is not a luxury but a necessity here. A lot of people actually don't know how to cook rice without a cooker.

You should always consider the first pot of rice from a new bag of rice a test batch. A new bag of rice can be a new crop or second crop. Some bags will say new crop on the bag, but only people who know rice will know what that means. If you don't make a lot of rice, or steam anything then yes, a coffee maker would be a better choice for your counter. Note: I don't have a coffee maker or a toaster on the counter, because I don't use them everyday.

Thai and Vietnamese usually soak their rice overnight. If you are making glutinous rice or sticky rice, you have to do this or it won't cook right. The rice is put in these cone shaped bamboo baskets and steamed usually in a wok. I tried steaming in my wok, but I have a carbon steel wok, not a stainless steel wok and that will rust if it is used to boil water. Rice can be steamed in a bamboo or aluminum steamer in cheesecloth instead.

Cooking rice on the stove is a little messy, but it is actually the best way to get perfect rice every time as long as you are patient. You can add more water or cook the rice longer over low heat to get the perfect rice, but you will have to know when to turn off the heat and let the carryover cooking finish the rice. Some people like the bottom of the rice burned. In my house, if you burned the rice, you threw it away, did not tell anybody you did that, and made another pot. Sushi rice is often made on the stove because it has to be cooked drier than normal and usually, it is made with a better quality Japanese rice and not Calrose rice.

I have a lot of gadgets too and most of them are in the bedroom because there is no room for them in the kitchen. I have a couple of mandolins. I think I have one similar to the one you have. I have a lot of knives, but my problem is I don't know how to sharpen them properly. I use mainly a nutmeg grater for spices and a box grater for everything else. I don't use the mandolin too much because it is very sharp and hard to clean. I have more than one mandolin. The best one is a wooden one with a screw adjustment. I have a plastic one too that is easier to clean, but it tends to bend and slide if there isn't a kitchen towel under it. My favorite tool is a vegetable peeler, only it is nearly impossible to find the triangular metal peeler with built in grater anymore. The plastic substitute I have has a nasty habit of dropping the blade.

[Vanisle_BC]

Do you put cream in your Alfredo sauce? I've read that the famous Alfredo whipped up a sauce with just butter in the hot starchy water drained from the pasta. If you're a purist I guess you'd call that 'real' Alfredo. I've tried doing it that way but sorry, I have to have cream in it. That must come from being accustomed to the creamy fettucine A. in a restaurant I used to frequent. If you're cream-averse I suppose you could add cornstarch or such, but, yuk!

[imafan26]

I tried something new today. Well, new for me. I saw a recipe on Youtube for cheeseburger mac and cheese.
It was a quick recipe, so just up my alley

In a large pot I heated salted water boiled a lb of elbow macaroni until tender,
In the meantime, I fried bacon, one medium chopped onion, 6 cloves of minced garlic, and 2 celery ribs chopped, until the onions and garlic were transluscent. Seasoned with A1 sauce, Jack Daniels BBQ sauce, Italian seasoning, Garlic salt, Chef Prudholmes meat magic, and two packets of Sazon. I had to set it aside as I only had a 10 inch skillet so it was too small to put anything else in it. I sauteed lb of ground beef in the skillet with black pepper. The macaroni finished before I finished browning the beef. I drained the macaroni and put it back into the dutch oven. I put in the sauteed vegetables and meat, added one can of diced tomatoes, one can of tomato paste, ketchup, mustard, mushrooms, 1 cup of water, and three packets of truvia (I use truvia or splenda instead of sugar for most things or I use honey). The sugar is mainly to cut the sourness of the tomatoes. I don't like that. Stirred in 2 cups of grated sharp cheddar cheese and heated it through until the cheese was melted. It was really good, but next time I won't add so much salt, the salted pasta, ketchup, BBQ sauce, A1, Meat Magic, Sazon, garlic salt, cheese, and bacon is a salt overload for me. Still a great meal in about 30 minutes and there is enough left for at least 6-8 more servings. It took 2 pots and a collander, but it was easy cleanup.

[imafan26]

I have not been out to the store for a couple of weeks so I am eating out of the frig, freezer and garden. I found a bag of 15 bean soup mix. I put the beans, the last two stalks of celery, carrots, my last onion, garlic, and a cottage roll in the crock pot at 7 a.m. I was going to add more vegetables and maybe some sausage. In the end, there is already a lot in the pot so I just opted for a can of diced tomatoes, that was way back on the table, and a lemon that surprisingly was still good. I have no idea how long it has been there. I put that in at 1 p.m. The beans are done and they were put in the crock pot without soaking. I did have to throw something moldy in another bag I did not recognize away. The soup will be ready around 3 p.m. I will probably still be eating this for another four or five days. Since I am out of onions and I only have a few potatoes left, I will have to go shopping soon.

[Gary350]

I have not been out to the store for a couple of weeks so I am eating out of the frig, freezer and garden. I found a bag of 15 bean soup mix. I put the beans, the last two stalks of celery, carrots, my last onion, garlic, and a cottage roll in the crock pot at 7 a.m. I was going to add more vegetables and maybe some sausage. In the end, there is already a lot in the pot so I just opted for a can of diced tomatoes, that was way back on the table, and a lemon that surprisingly was still good. I have no idea how long it has been there. I put that in at 1 p.m. The beans are done and they were put in the crock pot without soaking. I did have to throw something moldy in another bag I did not recognize away. The soup will be ready around 3 p.m. I will probably still be eating this for another four or five days. Since I am out of onions and I only have a few potatoes left, I will have to go shopping soon.

We started 15 bean soup last night after dinner. We bought a ham yesterday wife cut off a lot of meat then froze it in several small zip lock bags. She left about 1 lb of ham on the bone to cook in a pot all day. We soaked 1/2 of the 15 beans in water over night. We saved the other 1/2 bag of beans for another day. We usually make corn bread with beans but can't find any in the pantry so I sliced up some Hard Bread. I like to cook beans like my mother & grandmother they cooked it until most of the bone dissolved into the soup. Wife likes to cook it her way so we followed the bean recipe on the bean package & only cooked the bone a few hours then removed it. It turned out very good. Next time I want to add vegetables.

[pepperhead212]

I made a delicious soup today in the IP - a white bean and kale soup, that I started by cooking a ham bone (something I had marked in the "use first" group, in all that freezer food. I pressure cooked it for 90 minutes with water to cover, just a little salt, some asafoetida (I do this all the time, instead of whole onions, which are discarded), fresh bay leaves, a large sprig of fresh sage, and some black cardamom (adds a unique, smoky flavor) and whole cloves, in a tea ball. I strained the scraps out, and discarded - no flavor left, anyway! - and skimmed the oil off.

Then I pre-cooked the pound of beans using the Milk Street method of pre-soaking in baking soda - to 6 c water, 2 tsp salt, and 1/2 tsp baking soda, add 1 lb dried beans, set to manual/pressure cook for 5 minutes, and when done, release pressure manually. Remove beans and strain, then rinse with cold water: let drain.

After this, on regular sauté mode, I sautéed 1 medium onion, chopped, in about 2 tb olive oil, for 5 or 6 minutes, stirring occasionally. While cooking, I minced the 6 cloves of garlic with about 2 tb of fresh sage leaves, and added this, and a generous tb of tomato paste, and cooked it for the last 90 seconds, stirring constantly. Then I added the just under 6 c broth, the beans, 10 oz diced beef kielbasa, 2 tsp Spanish smoked paprika, a generous tb of morita flakes (more smoky flavor, plus I can't have enough heat!), then adjusted for salt, and let it come to a boil, then turned off. Then I covered it, set at manual/pressure cook for 17 minutes. When done, I let the pressure release naturally, then mixed in 12 oz (weighed before steaming and freezing) frozen, chopped kale and 1/3 c red lentils (for thickening), and I re-set the manual/pressure cook to 5 minutes, and after cooking, and releasing the pressure naturally, it was done!
White bean and kale soup in IP, after first pressure cooking. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Chopped frozen kale, before adding to the soup. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Finished soup, after a few more minutes pressure cooking, after adding kale. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Finished white bean and kale soup. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

[Gary350]

That bowl of beans looks very GOOD. I want to make that recipe with Navy Beans. Have you noticed Navy Beans taste much better than great northern beans.

[Gary350]

This morning I am tired of eating same thing every morning to keep my blood sugar good all day so I started looking in the fridge to see what left overs I can find. I found the left over ham & 15 bean soup and decides to have biscuits & gravy with ham in the gravy. I put a serving of 15 bean soup with pulled pork ham in a colander to drain away the juice. After gravy was made I stirred in the ham & beans then poured it over the 2 biscuits. It does not look very good but I blind person will love it. It tastes very good and a bit larger breakfast than I wanted, I ate it all.

WHO remembers the 60 year old slang name for, chipped cream beef, that no one these days would say in a restaurant. LOL.

[pepperhead212]

Gary,

Navy beans do have a little more flavor than great northern, as do cannellini beans. But the GN are available much cheaper, at least around here (Navy beans are one I have not found in that Indian supermarket, where they have huge bags of beans, really cheap), and the beans are a minimal amount of the flavor, in these kind of dishes that I make.

I always eat leftovers for breakfast! After all, what could possibly wake you up better than something with a generous amount of heat? And almost all of my leftovers have heat!

[Gary350]

Gary,

Navy beans do have a little more flavor than great northern, as do cannellini beans. But the GN are available much cheaper, at least around here (Navy beans are one I have not found in that Indian supermarket, where they have huge bags of beans, really cheap), and the beans are a minimal amount of the flavor, in these kind of dishes that I make.

I always eat leftovers for breakfast! After all, what could possibly wake you up better than something with a generous amount of heat? And almost all of my leftovers have heat!

Your right Navy Beans have very good flavor, some items are hard to find it has to do with your geographical location and what people in your area are accustom to buying, stores stock items that sell. Our Walmart does not sell dry Navy Beans but they sell Navy Beans in cans 50 cents each. Kroger sells dry Navy Beans 1 lb bag 68 cents. I bought a bag of grocery store dry navy beans and planted them in the garden about 30 years ago. I planted grocery store dry red kidney beans in the garden once long ago too. My India food cook book does not have navy beans in it. I'm not sure what group of people eat navy beans. I have seen Navy Beans in a few YouTube videos for very few Mexican recipes and some German recipes. When I had a travel job 1973 restaurants in Wisconsin & Minnesota area had navy beans. The Military serves navy beans, I wonder why, small beans cook faster than large beans? Beans are very easy to grow but when they cost 68 cents per lbs I don't want to grow them, too much work.

[imafan26]

Soup sounds good in the morning especially when it is cold.

[pepperhead212]

I knew I'd have a craving for Thai curry, after talking about it on another forum, so I got my oldest chicken and a pound of Thai beans from the freezer last night, along with my last cup of red curry paste, and thawed them in the fridge overnight. And I had all that butternut squash I had to use up (I had to cut a bad part out of one, and it was too much for this!), plus some mushrooms I had to use. Thai curry is something that I can put just about anything in, and it's still delicious!

This one has about 24 oz chicken, 22 oz of cut up butternut, 2 onions, cut into large chunks (something I put in most of these curries, for the sweetness), 16 oz frozen Thai red long beans, about 12 oz creminis, cleaned, quartered, and pre-cooked, plus the standard Thai curry ingredients. This was a lot - 40 oz of coconut milk, though 8 oz is cooked down, for that initial frying of the paste in the coconut oil.
Lime leaves, fish sauce, palm sugar, Hanoi Market chiles, and red curry paste, for Thai curry. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Thai long red beans, butternut, and onion chunks, for Thai curry. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

A cup of the coconut cream, cooked down to separate, and caramelize some. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

A cup of red curry paste, cooked in the coconut oil for 4-5 minutes. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Chicken and everything except the butternut, cooking 10 minutes. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Finished Thai curry, after cooking the last 15 minutes with the butternut. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Thai curry, served around a mound of jasmine rice, mixed with millet. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

That jasmine rice and millet mix is what I've been doing since trying to reduce that jasmine rice in my diet. I tried a number of grains; however, all but the millet drowned out the aroma of the jasmine rice. I soak the millet first for 25-30 minutes, then add the jasmine rice, and cook in the IP in rice mode - 12 minutes on low pressure. This is sort of brownish, only because I de-glazed the pan I pre-cooked the mushrooms in, and used that for some of the water.
Jasmine rice and millet, 1:2, steamed together in IP. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

[imafan26]

Looks good. It reminds me of Evil Jungle Prince.

[Gary350]

Homemade BBQ Baked Beans

I have a quart jar of saved seeds from Blue Lake Bush beans from 2019 garden. I'm not growing anymore blue lake beans so I decided to cook some to make BBQ baked beans. Soak white beans over night then pressure cook beans 1 hour to make them soft. Recipe is mix to taste good. 1 pint cooked white beans usually Navy Beans in a can. 1 medium onion sliced & diced. About 6 T spoons of BBQ sauce. About 4 or 5 T dark brown sugar. 1 T catsup. 1/2 tsp black pepper. Bring beans to boil mix well, simmer about 30 minutes then taste beans. Adjust flavor, add more BBQ sauce and or Dark brown sugar to taste if needed. Flavor is best if you use good BBQ sauce like, Kraft Mesquite Smoked Flavor BBQ sauce. Beans are extra good baked in the oven about 30 minutes.

We had BBQ bake beans & garden corn & coleslaw for dinner. No room for coleslaw on this tiny paper plate, go back for more beans & coleslaw.

[pepperhead212]

Today I made a version of Cuban black bean soup in the Instant Pot, though with some non-traditional ingredients. And I used a combination of pressure cooking the beans initially, then slow cooked it with the remaining ingredients added. No ham hocks, but I had a chunk of leftover ham in the freezer (that I usually use in Jambalaya), so I diced that up for it. I started in the sauté mode in the Instant Pot, with chopped onions and frying peppers in olive oil. Then I added some garlic and tomato paste, cumin, and smoked paprika, and stirred it a couple of minutes, then added the water. I added a pound of black beans, salted it lightly, then set the IP for manual, 15 minutes, and shut the lid. After it cooked, and the pressure released naturally, I removed the lid (the beans were not quite done). Then I added the ham, 1/2 c black quinoa, 1/2 c red lentils, and some morita powder (to add some heat, plus a little more smoky taste). Then I simmered it on slow cook/high, for about 1 1/2 hours, adding some chopped mustard greens with 1/2 hr left. I mashed a bit of it to thicken it, and served it with a little crema.
Chopped mustard greens added to Cuban black beans. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Finished Cuban black bean soup, with a little crema added. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

[imafan26]

It looks so good. Unfortunately, that is not what I had for dinner. I had a mixed green salad and 3 oz of roast pork. I just have to imagine it was something else.

[Gary350]

Your recipe looks & sounds good cold weather is a good time to cook & try new recipes. Wife & I have never had good black beans in any restaurant so we never order them anymore & we never cook them at home. If we could eat good black beans just once maybe we will be inspired to cook some at home. I don't like black eye peas or Great Northern beans either. I don't know how Great Northern beans became so popular when Navy Beans are so much better. Most of the time we get very good Lentils in Greek restaurants but 1 Greek restaurant has terrible Lentils. I tried cooking lentils at home but I need a better recipe. If you read history of black eye peas they were grown for animal feed in the 1800s, when slaves leaned to cook them so good they became very popular. I like good beans I could eat them for every meal.

[imafan26]

I used to grow cowpeas or pink eyed peas as a cover crop. I had a couple of pounds of seed. I don't know how to cook them either, but I have a friend that likes them.

[pepperhead212]

I made a delicious dish today, Keema - a traditional Indian dish: Garam Masala Spiced Ground Beef. (also made with goat, lamb, and other meats). I saw this recipe in the March/April Cook's Illustrated, and I knew I had to make it when I saw it! I made this using some ground venison (these friends are the ones that gave me the venison) in place of ground beef, and everyone who tried it loved it. And I got a really good compliment from my Indian lady friend, when she said that she hadn't tasted any keema that good since she was visiting a relative in Moga - she always thought that they had some ingredient that we couldn't get over here! The only unusual ingredients out of the 18 would be the Kashmiri pepper, and black cardamom. What it probably was was the method, using whole and ground spices, rather than just a store-bought garam masala - even homemade garam masala would be different, as in this, the whole spices are cooked in the oil, giving a different flavor. We had it with some dal, some naan, and some raita she had made earlier, and she put in the frozen peas when we reheated the keema.
Whole and ground spices, for Keema. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Whole spices and onions browning in oil for Keema. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Ground spices added to the cooked ground meat, for the Keema. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Chopped up tomatoes and yogurt, added to the seasoned meat for the Keema. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Keema, not quite finished cooking, with a little liquid left to cook off. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Finished Keema, before adding the peas (I did not have any, but my friend did). by pepperhead212, on Flickr

[imafan26]

It looks delicious.

[Gary350]

Today I sliced 1 medium potato thin with our hand crank slicer, sprinkle salt on potato then cook it in our hot air flyer. It tastes like factory made potato chips, NO oil and no cholesterol. We never tried cooking sliced potatoes before this hot air fryer is fast. We are trying not to eat factory made cooking oil. I got my 6 month doctor check up Friday my cholesterol is down from 186 to 120.

[applestar]

Here’s something simple — I tried an “onigirazu” which is gaining some attention — lots of recipes and instruction on YouTube of you search with that word. It’s like a Japanese “onigiri” made with rice, nori wrapping, and filling... except it is not squeezed into a traditional ball or triangular block. Instead, the rice and filling are folded into a sort of a rice sandwich. (“onigirazu” means NOT squeezed)

No need for lettuce since the sheet of nori is plenty for the veg, though you can of course add anything you want. I made over-easy egg with ham onigirazu, with home-made celery-sea salt over all, avocado oil mayo on the ham, ketchup on the egg, and Shichimi (7-flavor) hot pepper powder on the cut surface. YUM!

— sorry I didn’t realize it was so out-of-focus

...should’ve taken a photo — the color contrast alone would have made a pretty picture — I made another one with perfectly ripe avocado slices slathered with soysauce thickened and lighter-colored with a good blob of wasabi. Sprinkled with toasted white sesame seeds all over and then folded. Oh YUM!

[imafan26]

Is the onigirizu like a folded nori sanwich? I found it on youtube. They called it a kimbap sandwich. Kimbap is Koren sushi. The laver is usually thicker and chewier. I don't think they roasted it on the one I had. Instead of sushi-su they use sesame oil. When I saw the video. I though it was genius. I never would have thought to cut and fold nori like that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHlvZCVBiPg