Food Thread - Inforoo Is Full Of Crab

I've been killing the grilled cheese game lately. And no, I don't use Kraft singles.

I use HEB generic brand.

I don't care enough one way or the other to go "never again" extreme.  Bon Appetit, who I sort of trust, somewhat disagreed.  There are superior stocks to Swanson.  Obviously homemade stock (or broth) is what I want flavoring dishes, soup or stew.  The concentrated vegetables were already probably cooked down in whatever I'm cooking anyway.  So I don't really need the extra hit unless I add kitchen bouquet at the end for a little color.  So bouillon, better than bouillon or stock will do.


www.bonappetit.com/story/boxed-stock-or-better-than-bouillon#:~:text=Better%20Than%20Bouillon%20is%20a,for%20months%20in%20the%20fridge.

I made gumbo from scratch tonight for the first time. Which may seem silly to all you Louisiana based inforooers, but I usually stuck to red beans and rice & jambalaya. The roux took longer than I thought it would but hey at least I didnt burn it. Could have gone a bit darker but I did get to the lighter side of chocolate color. I read to use a 2:1 bacon grease/butter mix for the roux, and definitely added extra flavor. I did sausage, chicken, and salmon and the proteins. Maybe next time I can sneak some crawfish in without telling my wife

We've talked about Better than Bouilllon in here before, but it is an addiction. I think I have 5 flavors in my fridge now.  (And I will still sometimes buy boxed, but usually if it's a crazy sale, or I find a discounted one because the box is dinged or something.)

I don't think quality really matters. My mom is a killer cook and she will keep wine around that is a little old and just use it to cook instead of drink. Things still come out delish. I'd get a pinot prigio or sauv blanc. Since you're not drinking it, I'd got straight to the small bottles or "juice boxes" as I call them. (Bota Box Minis)

I know very little about cooking and was curious about this, so I googled red or white wine with bolognese and came across this Reddit thread, which I found interesting. It’s old, but the question posed was specifically in reference to Marcella Hazan’s recipe.

www.reddit.com/r/AskCulinary/s/13kbUZrIJh

Further googling suggests that either can be used, but white wine is appropriate for a traditional Italian bolognese.

Interesting, ya learn something new every day! I've always been a pretty strict adherent to white wine, white meat, 'white' veg, red wine, red meat, red veg, but then again, I also don't do milk and nutmeg in my bolognese either. Panade is for meatballs, not sauce. Total side note, anyone calling a tomato sauce gravy gets me irrationally angry lol

We had that argument a few years ago on here.  In New Orleans, red gravy is a term that is often used for red sauce.  But red gravy doesn't have to be tomato/spaghetti sauce - can be a creole sauce or any other red type sauce.  You can have brown gravy as well though maybe people put brown sauce on their roast beefs elsewhere.

Old wisdom was that red wine went with heavier foods and whites for the lighter stuff (seafood, fish, chicken, etc.).  About 15 or so years ago the new wisdom was that you should drink whatever kind of wine you like regardless of what you're eating.  I still appreciate recommendations, but with quality lighter reds and heavier whites, I don't think it matters that much.

so this was a success! very delicious and layered flavors. it was not difficult, just took a lot of time and intermittent attention to stir etc. it made for a nice saturday, i sat in the den and watched movies, stopping occasionally to go check on it.

the one thing i'll change next time is one of the comments on the recipe suggested using a thick noodle like pappardelle. i think it would've been better with a linguine or even regular old spaghetti noodles, the thickness of the pappardelle was a little overwhelming.

thank you bonzai for the wine suggestion, i was in the store with this $15 glass bottle in my cart, then saw on the end cap a bota box mini for ~$5, grabbed it and it worked great.

Esteban and Co were in town so the fucking around was paused at Hugo's on Westheimer:

Yesterday, for my dad's birthday, I made this white chocolate/lemon cake (minus the collar because fuck that) with a recipe by Hermine from The Great British Bake Off. It turned out really good and I'm proud of myself, and it's kind of funny because it was one of those moments where I could really feel my progress as a baker. I'd done lots of other stuff but really only decided to have a go at trying making more cakes in the past two years or so because it was something I didn't feel good at. I've learned a lot about technique since then (namely, don't overbake and also only let your cake cool for a short time before flipping it out the tin) and, more recently, about the joys of meringue-based buttercreams, which  are like the whipped icing they use on grocery store cakes except they taste good. Cake is fun to try more as a baker because unlike, say, cookies, you often have a lot more room for being creative with flavors and fillings in ways that can often be pretty unusual but that work really well, like, say, white chocolate and lemon.

so, long story short, I had a lot of personal growth and also this cake was very good.

The next frontier though is piping since I am still very shit at that. I would have posted a picture of the cake here but all my fancy decorating tools I ordered only arrived after I finished the cake so it did not turn out pretty. Hopefully you'll have to see a genuinely pretty cake to look at another time though.

Same. I hadn’t eaten a steak since February though I have had a few bites along the way from other people. But I saw that and thought I’m almost never at a gourmet Mexican restaurant. Not even in Texas. So when Pablo said it was his top 3 in Houston of all restaurants, I figured the mole would be up there with the best I’ve had. It was the best. Warm spices, chilis, orange, chocolate - damn it was good. I had to look the other day to see how involved a real mole sauce would be to make. And it’s not complicated - just can have a couple dozen ingredients that get added one at a time in different parts of the cooking process. They had their regular menu and a daily specials menu and the filet was on that I think. Everything we ate was excellent. C doesn’t like mole which is on him but he was over the moon on the empanadas and I think ordered a second helping. The cool thing about those was that the empanada pouches were actually made out of plantains so it almost gave them a Puerto Rican/mofungo type flavor and texture. Nothing but love for that meal which ranks up with Ukiah Smokehouse in Asheville for best meals of the year as well as one of the 3 trips to Iron in Pensacola. It’s always nice to get some shit I’m not getting locally.

thread on reddit about someone being asked to make the green bean casserole for thanksgiving, they are asking for ideas to make it better then the original recipe etc. in addition to needlessly complicated recipes that do their best to dance around the canned cream of mushroom soup, someone in the comments even said "don't make green bean casserole, make green bean almondine instead".

i can't speak for everyone, but if any of you ever come to my house and ask what dish to bring and i ask you to bring green bean casserole, just go get the french's onions and the cream of mushroom soup and mix them together with green beans and put it in the oven. do not show up with green bean almondine or some kind of DIY cream of mushroom that took you seven hours to make.

broadly speaking i think when people ask you to make "the green bean casserole" the "the" is there for a reason. just do the recipe everybody knows and likes. yeah it's not cool or clean or bright but it's the green bean casserole people love it.

Never done it but bacon in the GBC would probably go pretty hard. Other than that, can't think of too many variations I would appreciate. Don't like when there are sliced almonds in it.