Here's part of my nephew's dinner (yes, he's one of those 'here's what I'm eating' Facebook people, but we love him anyway). Seems a waste of a good fire to me, but he says it's good.
The most boring black-bean-burgers in the world! Apparently it was the bland quinoa kind. Making hamburgers used to be an art form, now it's "meh, bread, burger and some cheese will probably taste like food"
I've just made this Nabeyaki Udon. I have never cooked Japanese food before, and had to convert the ingredients from cups and oz to grammes, so I was very unsure how it would turn out. It's incredible though.
And you a Marine You're suposed to drink the blood of your enemies from their freshly harvested skulls ...
I made up for this lack of heavy drinking with the fact that I finished off the whole bottle, the entire carton of orange juice, and a box of those mini-moon pies in one night. Today its Cabernet Souvignon in a metal gobble with vikings on it, at only half-past noon. Snow days are fun.
you realise this marks you out as a potential staff officer ... you know the type who watches the battle with his general from a white tent on a hill while sipping sancerre
Cheese and crackers if I feel motivated. I can't look at food without wanting to shoot somebody lately. Stay out of the food biz if you want to retain any joy in cooking. It took 22 years, but I think it finally broke me.
Cheese and crackers is great! I celebrated the first birthday I had in Japan with EZ Cheeze (whipped cheese in a can), Ritz crackers, and Coca-Cola. Like Taco Bell, the convenience is what makes it horrible, when you have to travel halfway across the city to find the ingredients, it becomes gourmet food. Spoiler If Dandelions had to be grown in hothouses, they would be, and those little puffblossoms would be worth hundreds a seed.
I get asked a lot if I've ever thought about opening up a restaurant or bakery, and I always tell then that the above is one one the many reasons I've never been interested in cooking on a professional level.
The sous vide life continues at the Kelly house! Tonight it's sous vide pork tenderloin infused with maple syrup and coarse mustard, crispy fried potatoes, lemon pepper sauteed green beans. I'm also going to make a pan sauce with apples and the juices from the sous vide bags.
I'm trying to do the same thing, mainly by eating pretty much the same foods every day. I started to think that eating (not cooking, mind you, but eating) had become a sort of hobby. I'd like to get to the point where meals are something I have to do, not necessarily want to do. Fuel, not fun.
I feel the opposite. While I don't watch my calories I am loosing weight, and I spend a lot more time cooking and eating different things now a days! Mainly because I do a lot of things from scratch now a days. There is a lot of beans, lenses and such. I tried to count calories before. Became obsessed and almost couldn't stop. It got really unhealthy, so I'm not really a fan.
If it works for you and your lifestyle as well as helping keep your dietary goals on track, it sounds like a great approach to me! People prioritize all kinds of things; like, I'll drop $200 for a good meal in a heartbeat, but I've never spent a dime attending a professional sporting event. Food happens to be something I'm personally passionate about (to the point where I made it an integral part of my first book), but like any other interest it's going to differ wildly from person to person.
Good policy. Should you ever lose your mind and decide to go the other way, I'd recommend working in one for a year before you took the next step. And then unlose your mind and walk away. That's crazy talk. Kidding.. as for the caloric thing, it's all about moderation. Eat your face off, but don't do it everyday.
Nooooo! [shouts over shoulder] They've got Homer!!! I usually don't do much processed food but that stuff is like crack! And yes, Ritz all the way with that! Whatever works for you, but I'd rather have a little of something fantastic than a lot of something bland any day. I'm very calorie conscious but I don't do "low calorie" food because to me it's boring and flavorless, and it tends to be way too low in protein for me, so it's not sustainable (occasionally I'll do a Lean Cuisine if I'm busy). So, I eat whatever I want but aim for high flavor per calorie, or high protein per calorie, and I count calories and follow portion sizes as a permanent thing. An 80/20 or 70/30 good day/bad day balance lets me enjoy food without freaking out about cheating.
When my university is in session, on weekdays I have a breakfast bar (one of those multigrain supplemented whatevers sold at the convenient store, I'm sure everyone has their own variant) for breakfast, a cafeteria lunch (usually curry and rice), and a light dinner on days I work late. When I finish early, either I'll cook something or Mrs. A and I will go out for something nice and unhealthy, and on the weekends we eat like... Well, we have table manners, but we eat quite a bit, and nice stuff too. Food is a very important bonding thing for us. I wish we were in better shape, but so far we're just keeping it to "middle-aged", not "what the hell are they?" But those dinners together are very important to us, healthy and small food is boring, I save that for the times I eat alone.
I'm actually cooking real food tonight... shrimp tacos with salsa Verde and probably some salad or something... might have a couple of scotches, too... I feel that special thirst coming on. ETA: and the onions out in my mudroom are frozen. That's... that's never happened to me before.
I made a brie and bacon sandwich with cranberry sauce earlier ... I got the worlds supply of Brie at Xmas, even after giving half of it to my mum I've still got a proverbial shit load
You sous-vide types convinced me. Today I ordered sous-vide cookin' stuff from Amazon. When it arrives, I'll use it, and you guys better be right!
It really doesn't get any easier. Think of it like a crock-pot except there's zero evaporation or temperature flux. Most chefs poo-poo it but I think that's because it threatens their "art" by obviating technique, which I can understand to a point, but overall it's a pretty petty opinion. Not that chef's are ever petty or anything... biggest cry-babies of any demographic on earth. I was talking to our executive and sous chef about sous-vide the other night and they went off on epic rants about how it isn't remotely related to cooking in any way. Of course, these two couldn't find their chef coats if they didn't have their names printed on them, but that's par for the course. The trick to dealing with them is to make them feel special and isolate them from as many normal people as possible. Kind of like that floor in the CDC where they keep all the really nasty viruses behind half a dozen airlocks.
I was reading an excerpt from Thomas Keller's Under Pressure: Cooking Sous Vide (excerpt because holy shit that's a $50 cookbook - I think I'm going to see if I can get it on an inter-library loan so I can read the whole thing), and there was an interview with another chef (Cory Lee) who said he initially distrusted sous vide because unlike most other cooking methods, you can't use your senses as the food cooks to gauge progression. I kind of get that having now had my first few forays into it - you just seal everything up, toss it in the water bath and have to trust in the science behind the method that it'll taste good and not give everyone food poisoning. It really is amazing though, and so much more versatile than I'd have ever guessed. I just ordered some 4oz Ball canning jars to make creme brulee in!
