Jolt Country

Here's a handy thesaurus for those of you turned off by epicurean elitists that want you to believe that you can't be a chef formidable without owning half a Williams Sonoma retail outlet.

* Wanna make a stir-fry? You don't need a wok! Use a normal frypan, and put it over a burner smaller than the diameter of the pan. You can shove the things that you want to cook slower over there. Use frozen vegetables in a bag, rather than spend $25 on them all separately in the produce section. Make sure pan has a lid, turn heat on low, throw in some meat and a tasty sauce. Easy.

* Melted peanut butter with a couple spices added makes a nice peanut sauce.

* WHY WOULD ANYONE NEED A POTATO MASHER WHEN THEY CAN USE A FORK, THEIR FIST, A HAMMER, OR A TELEPHONE BOOK TO ACHIEVE THE SAME RESULT?

* Just cook your rice in a goddamned saucepan already. You don't need a rice cooker, jackass.

* If it's going to make the difference between trying to cook and not to be intimidated by all the fresh herbs and spices you need, just buy a few dry spices. Garlic and ginger taste almost as good from an Island Spice jar, and some spice mixtures are absolutely faboo.

* Fuck the recipe. A recipe is a good guideline for when to add ingredients or how long to cook the final product. If it says add eggplant, but you like broccoli, use that instead. If you hate onions, don't put it in. Like basil? Add some. Don't be such a mindless sheep.

* Reinvent a common, boring dish like spaghetti by simmering the jar sauce and adding a few spices like oregano, basil, onion powder, a little sugar, or add some cheese.

* Hate to cook? Have a beer, glass of wine or highball while you're in the kitchen. The only difference between a clueless futz and a sophisticate is their BAC.

* Always have a backup plan. That way, nobody is pissed or upset if the recipe fails. It's just an excuse to have a pizza.

* You can double or halve a recipe based on how many people are there. Also, for a dinner for 2, make enough for 4. Recipes' serving sizes are similar to the serving sizes anywhere else, i.e., ridiculously minimal, and are also based on the assumption that you'll be making appetizers or side dishes. Better to have the rest as a leftover than not have enough.

* The internet is your friend. Have a half can of tomato soup in the fridge, cheerios, and some soy sauce left over from the chinese you had last week? Google tomato soup +cheerios +soy +recipe and see what you get.

* Don't be surprised if it sucks. Just because grandma's Schezuan Cheerio recipe is a treasured heirloom in whatever housewife's family that website belonged to doesn't mean that grandma knew what the fuck she was doing. She was raised during the Depression, and her Momma beat the shit out of her if she didn't clear her plate. She got married when she was 19 to get away from home and had her hair done like all her friends every 10 days for the rest of her life. She went through 2 world wars, she's scared of life, and can't be expected to have any taste whatsoever.

* You don't have to be complicated. You ever see anyone turn down a plate with a steak, a potato, and a vegetable on it? Me neither. Steak is probably the easiest thing in the world to cook.

* Instead of 2 cups water, add a can of Campbell's chicken soup broth, and the rest water. Or, a can of broccoli cheese soup, bisque, split pea or whatever you like. A can of soup over rice with some chicken or a potato thrown in is yummy.

* Potato chips are an acceptable side dish.

* In multi-person households, whoever cooks doesn't have to lift a single finger to clean afterwards. Know how much more fun cooking is when you know you don't have to take care of that mess?

* Watching your figure? Instead of rice, use bean sprouts as a base. Make a spicy dish that tastes strongly enough that you don't need meat. Use a GFG. Grill some vegetables dipped in olive oil. Buy smaller potatoes.

* Once a week, fuck your figure.

* Once a week, go out.

Vitriola wrote:* Wanna make a stir-fry? You don't need a wok! Use a normal frypan, and put it over a burner smaller than the diameter of the pan.

Hey, this is a great tip. However, it requires that the frying pan you use is a cheap, Walmart-bargain-bin piece of shit made out of tin cans they found in the dumpster. Any pan with a decent, heavy bottom will convey heat to the entire surface, no matter how big the burner is.

* WHY WOULD ANYONE NEED A POTATO MASHER WHEN THEY CAN USE A FORK, THEIR FIST, A HAMMER, OR A TELEPHONE BOOK TO ACHIEVE THE SAME RESULT?

Because anyone might actually want to eat mashed potatoes that they didn't have to pry out from between their teeth with the corner of a waxed playing card? Maybe that's it.

* Just cook your rice in a goddamned saucepan already. You don't need a rice cooker, jackass.

As much as I hate to do so, Curry Expert has to agree with this. What does a rice cooker do? Well, it heats up water and cooks rice. What does a saucepan do? Well, it heats up water and cooks rice. Anyone you find who has purchased a rice cooker, do them and the rest of the world a favor and take a flamethrower to their faces. Then carefully place the rice cooker in the proper waste receptacle.

* If it's going to make the difference between trying to cook and not to be intimidated by all the fresh herbs and spices you need, just buy a few dry spices. Garlic and ginger taste almost as good from an Island Spice jar, and some spice mixtures are absolutely faboo.

Oh, indeed. Also, instead of bothering to properly cook a filet mignon in a port demiglace, go ahead and buy a large sack of "Freddy McHeifer's Beef in a Bag" and chuck it into the microwave for a few minutes. Hey, you can barely taste the difference!

* Reinvent a common, boring dish like spaghetti by simmering the jar sauce and adding a few spices like oregano, basil, onion powder, a little sugar, or add some cheese.

Whoa, slow down there. You're giving us way too much to think about. Onion powder AND sugar? That's crazy talk. Also, explain to the crowd how "oregano" and "basil" have magically transformed themselves from an herb into a "spice". We're all waiting in rapt fascination.

* Hate to cook? Have a beer, glass of wine or highball while you're in the kitchen. The only difference between a clueless futz and a sophisticate is their BAC.

Hate to cook? Here's a better idea. Stay the fuck out of the kitchen so the rest of us unwary, innocent victims don't have to try to choke down any of your spitefully prepared garbage. Let the Curry Expert, or some equally skilled cook (which, if you find one, let me know) take care of business, and get out of my face.

* Always have a backup plan. That way, nobody is pissed or upset if the recipe fails. It's just an excuse to have a pizza.

One fool-proof backup plan is to learn what the hell you're doing before you set knife to cutting board, pan to flame. A lot of people forget this step, which is why a lot of other people haven't had a decent bite to eat in years that they haven't personally put together out of sight of the rest of you incessant meddlers.

* The internet is your friend. Have a half can of tomato soup in the fridge, cheerios, and some soy sauce left over from the chinese you had last week? Google tomato soup +cheerios +soy +recipe and see what you get.

Also helpful is rooting through your own, and your neighbors garbage bins, looking for scraps of leftovers, animal feed, soggy newspaper. Just chuck it all in a pot, warm over a medium flame, and garnish with parsley. Jesus CHRIST, this is why I never go to dinner at other people's homes. "Oh, Curry Expert, thanks for coming over, here, here's a big steaming plate of garbage."

* Don't be surprised if it sucks.

After reading the rest of your post, believe me, I won't be.

* You don't have to be complicated. You ever see anyone turn down a plate with a steak, a potato, and a vegetable on it?

If you offered it to me, I'd turn it down, turn it around, and jam it into your mouth until the capillaries in your cheeks burst.

Steak is probably the easiest thing in the world to cook.

The perennial song of the really horrid steak cook. To think, cows are being slaughtered and butchered at farms, only to be slaughtered and butchered again in kitchens by people who think they know how to cook.

* Instead of 2 cups water, add a can of Campbell's chicken soup broth, and the rest water. Or, a can of broccoli cheese soup, bisque, split pea or whatever you like. A can of soup over rice with some chicken or a potato thrown in is yummy.

Or if this is the level of taste you've acquired, why not save time and just gnaw on the end of a summer sausage all day?

* Potato chips are an acceptable side dish.

This pretty well says all you need to know about the author of this "guide".

Use a GFG.

George Foreman, and his grills, have done more damage to the average quality of home-cooked meals in this country than anything since Minute-Rice, and I'm working on building a seven-foot-wide version of it so that when I track him down, I will be able to grill him whole, and watch his voluminous fat drip off the side into a large vat labeled "Foreman Lard", which I will then cool in an industrial-sized refrigerator, and then infiltrate grocery stores late at night and secrely replace all the jars of "Crisco" with George Fat.

* Once a week, go out.

For you, I'd recommend a hell of a lot more often than that.

Vitriola wrote: * Wanna make a stir-fry? You don't need a wok! Use a normal frypan, and put it over a burner smaller than the diameter of the pan.

Of course, you won't have sloping sides, and your frying pan is probably designed to hold rather than dissipate heat. So everything's gonna come out kind of soggy. But that's OK, because....

Vitriola wrote:Use frozen vegetables in a bag, rather than spend $25 on them all separately in the produce section.

...your veggies are all soggy and English <b>anyway</b>, because you were a Cheap Shit, so it doesn't matter. You could <b>boil</b> them rather than stir-frying them and you'd never know the difference.

Vitriola wrote:* Melted peanut butter with a couple spices added makes a nice peanut sauce.

True.

Vitriola wrote:* WHY WOULD ANYONE NEED A POTATO MASHER WHEN THEY CAN USE A FORK, THEIR FIST, A HAMMER, OR A TELEPHONE BOOK TO ACHIEVE THE SAME RESULT?

Because a potato masher is like $3, and isn't as labor-intensive as a fork, or as messy as a fist, a hammer, or a phone book.

Vitriola wrote:* Just cook your rice in a goddamned saucepan already. You don't need a rice cooker, jackass.

Of course, for $30, you can have a device to which you add X cups of rice and 2X cups of water, press a button, and then come back any time more than 30 minutes later. You never have soggy rice, you never burn rice to the bottom of the pot, and you don't have to devote any attention whatsoever to how the rice is doing while you cook the interesting parts of the meal. Jackass.

Vitriola wrote:* If it's going to make the difference between trying to cook and not to be intimidated by all the fresh herbs and spices you need, just buy a few dry spices. Garlic and ginger taste almost as good from an Island Spice jar, and some spice mixtures are absolutely faboo.

If it's going to make the difference, then you're too much of a pussy to be in the kitchen. Garlic and ginger taste <b>nothing like as good</b> when dry. However, many spices are OK dry. But dry and fresh herbs often have completely different characters. It also makes a difference, if your recipe says, "dry-roast this, then crush it" if you do that versus just using the powder from the spice rack. Sometimes it's not enough of a difference to justify the extra hassle, but don't pretend that you <i>aren't</i> cutting corners, because you are.

The same goes for fresh versus canned or frozen vegetables. Don't delude yourself that it doesn't make a difference. It may, however, not make enough of a difference to be worth the extra effort. That's your call.

Vitriola wrote:* Fuck the recipe. A recipe is a good guideline for when to add ingredients or how long to cook the final product. If it says add eggplant, but you like broccoli, use that instead. If you hate onions, don't put it in. Like basil? Add some. Don't be such a mindless sheep.

On the other hand, it helps to have some basic idea of how to cook before you start doing this. Bearnaise sauce made without shallots and tarragon isn't going to be bearnaise sauce. Some things you can omit or vary with impunity. Some you can't. Experience will let you know which is which. However, amounts of ingredients can usually be varied by a factor of two either way before weird things start happening. Unless you're baking. If you're baking, exact measurements <i>do</i> count.

Vitriola wrote:* Reinvent a common, boring dish like spaghetti by simmering the jar sauce and adding a few spices like oregano, basil, onion powder, a little sugar, or add some cheese.

There you go with your onion powder again. Sheesh. Tonight, in fact, we're having pasta. With a jar sauce, because we're lazy. I'm starting by frying some sausage in a pan, and once it's releasing fat, I'm going to stir in chopped onion and garlic. Not powder.

Then I'll add the browned sausage, garlic, and onions to the sauce, toss in some spices, probably add a little balsamic vinegar, and let it simmer for a while. This will be a bazillion times better than plain old sauce-from-a-jar and take little additional effort. Chopping onions and garlic is not exactly hard. Because I'm lazy, I'm going to grate the cheese and add it to the served pasta, because cheese makes the sauce sticky and therefore makes the pot harder to clean.

This is one of those cook-almost-every-week recipes, because it's <i>easy</i> and not bad. Sure, it's cutting corners, but not every night has to be a gourmet experience.

Vitriola wrote:* Hate to cook? Have a beer, glass of wine or highball while you're in the kitchen. The only difference between a clueless futz and a sophisticate is their BAC.

Hate to cook? Then you're a fucking Philistine. Go to Macdonnoze.

That said, I heartily agree with the sentiment that you should get drunk before and during cooking.

Vitriola wrote:* You can double or halve a recipe based on how many people are there. Also, for a dinner for 2, make enough for 4. Recipes' serving sizes are similar to the serving sizes anywhere else, i.e., ridiculously minimal, and are also based on the assumption that you'll be making appetizers or side dishes. Better to have the rest as a leftover than not have enough.

Yes, except that, again, baked goods do <i>not</i> scale linearly. Well, cookies do. But not things like cakes. Cooking times for roasts pretty much <i>do</i> scale linearly with weight, but cookbooks tend to assume you're starting with the meat at room temperature, not fridge temperature. This is a good way to get salmonella if you're roasting a turkey and trusting the cookbook rather than the little pop-up thermometer.

Vitriola wrote:* The internet is your friend. Have a half can of tomato soup in the fridge, cheerios, and some soy sauce left over from the chinese you had last week? Google tomato soup +cheerios +soy +recipe and see what you get.

rec.foods.recipes is also your friend. Google carries it. This also works if, for instance, you want lamb vindaloo but don't have an Indian cookbook.

Vitriola wrote:* You don't have to be complicated. You ever see anyone turn down a plate with a steak, a potato, and a vegetable on it? Me neither. Steak is probably the easiest thing in the world to cook.

Especially if you're Vitriola, cooking steak for Jonsey, in which case you go get some old shoe leather, and bake it at 450 for about six hours. That's the way he likes it, you know.

Vitriola wrote:* Instead of 2 cups water, add a can of Campbell's chicken soup broth, and the rest water. Or, a can of broccoli cheese soup, bisque, split pea or whatever you like. A can of soup over rice with some chicken or a potato thrown in is yummy.

Also, try cooking your rice in milk, with slivered almonds thrown in.

Bruce

Why... Bruce! I think I have finally found a friend here. Or, at the very least, someone who doesn't make me want to vomit up last night's tahdeeg.

I'm going to kill you two sons of bitches with my bare hands. I'm going to rip your tongues out and hang them on my mantle as trophies. I'm going to go treasure-hunting within your sternums and pull out intestines like their taffy.

After doing so, how would I best serve them?

Chilled?

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:I'm going to go treasure-hunting within your sternums and pull out intestines like their taffy.

After doing so, how would I best serve them?

Chilled?

Are you planning on consuming them yourself? Because given what we know, we'd have to suggest baking at 450 for about six hours.

If, on the other hand, this is for <i>company</i>, well, then, you'd best do a number of things.

First: rinse the intestines. A lot. I mean, <i>an awful lot</i>. Get the Foxfire cookbook or something and look at how you prepare chitlins. You <i>don't</i> want to serve your guests something that, quite literally, tastes like shit. That's a <b>big</b> <i>faux pas</i>.

Second: Intestines really are better casings than they are a main dish. Perhaps you want to make sausage out of us and pack it in our intestines?

Third: No? Hmmm. Perhaps cut them into half-inch lengths, bread them, and fry them, as if they were calimari. In fact, that'd be sort of cute: instead of "Rocky Mountain Oysters" you'd have "Rocky Mountain Calimari."

Bruce

bruce wrote:Especially if you're Vitriola, cooking steak for Jonsey, in which case you go get some old shoe leather, and bake it at 450 for about six hours. That's the way he likes it, you know.

Like this quote? Laugh it up, funboy. It's going to be on your tombstone.

I can't believe you miserable trotts are gumming up the works for me. Let's take a nice little stroll into Q&A land.

Q: Happy to be here, Jones! How you doin', A?
A: Fine! Now let's get to it!

Q: Very well... A, how many women cooked for Jones besides the one he's currently with?
A: Besides his mother? Ack-ack-ah-ah-ha-ha-ha!!!

Q: Blahha-hahahahaha!
A: ROfflrollrol-hahahahahah!

Q: Nyaaah-hahahahahaha!
A: Aquahahahahaha!

Q: SNeeeR!!! HaHahhahahahaha!
A: Ho ho ho ho ho ho ho!

Q: ...
A: ... heh

Q: .... oooh
A: ...

Q: ... titter.... titter...
A: ... chortle.... chortle....

Q: BWA-HAHEHAHAHAHAA!
A: BAAAAAA-HAHAHAHAHAH!

Q: ....
A: ... oooh, my Luftwaffe.

Ruin this for me, and I'll have both your heads.

Curry Expert wrote:Hey, this is a great tip. However, it requires that the frying pan you use is a cheap, Walmart-bargain-bin piece of shit made out of tin cans they found in the dumpster.

Sometimes one has to make doo with what one is provided with, and since this guide's target audience is that sort which is more likely to buy Safeway 'King Soopers' Brand Safeway dinners, be drunk by 12:30 pm, not have alot of money to buy expensive ingredients or eat out all the time, not have enough time to cook, think they suck at it, fear it, or are afraid of turning into a bitter simulacrum of an internet food gourmand, this is probably the type of 45 year old hand-me down they got from their mommy when they got their first apartment that time they tried that college thing.

Curry Expert wrote:Because anyone might actually want to eat mashed potatoes that they didn't have to pry out from between their teeth with the corner of a waxed playing card? Maybe that's it.

It's not like lumpy gravy, in which the lumps are flour. It more like the exquisite tongue experience you get with a nice homemade chocolate chip walnut cookie, or clam chowder.

Curry Expert wrote:Oh, indeed. Also, instead of bothering to properly cook a filet mignon in a port demiglace, go ahead and buy a large sack of "Freddy McHeifer's Beef in a Bag" and chuck it into the microwave for a few minutes. Hey, you can barely taste the difference!

Of course you can taste the difference, if you are experienced with more complicated dishes, or have a taste test and have a bite of one after the other, or are paying any attention at all to what you are shovelling into your mouth. This does not, however, mean that jar spices are bad, horrible, or vomit inducing, and also does not mean that a large pouch of a gourmet spice mix can't be absolutely tasty. This guide is not for those like you, Curry Expert. You are beyond help.

Curry Expert wrote:Whoa, slow down there. You're giving us way too much to think about. Onion powder AND sugar? That's crazy talk. Also, explain to the crowd how "oregano" and "basil" have magically transformed themselves from an herb into a "spice". We're all waiting in rapt fascination.

Yeah. What he said. the point of this tip, however, was that you can have a different dish without really having a different dish, get it? I was suggesting a list of things one could add to a sauce to make it a new experience, and my use of the word or would hopefully let the commoners realize that one does not have to add ALL the suggestions.

Curry Expert wrote:Hate to cook? Here's a better idea. Stay the fuck out of the kitchen so the rest of us unwary, innocent victims don't have to try to choke down any of your spitefully prepared garbage. Let the Curry Expert, or some equally skilled cook (which, if you find one, let me know) take care of business, and get out of my face.

Curry Expert may have had the savant luck to be born with the ability to astound a party of 25 after the local Democratic Committee meeting with his tasteful and elegant repast, but as EB has yet to shelve a decent Microsoft Cooking Simulator 200X and many people own dogs, the rest of us have to dip their culinary toes into the water by trying out a few easy pieces of slop and learn their way around the kitchen while getting some constructive suggestions. Fear not, Curry Expert, you will not be invited to these humble wastes of your time.

Curry Expert wrote:One fool-proof backup plan is to learn what the hell you're doing before you set knife to cutting board, pan to flame. A lot of people forget this step, which is why a lot of other people haven't had a decent bite to eat in years that they haven't personally put together out of sight of the rest of you incessant meddlers.

Although some to most of us broke our cooking cherry by eating some sort of fried worm of earth when we were 4 and had the sagacity to sautee it in the perfect mixture of ground pepper lemon garlic, the rest of have to 'learn' how millions of generations before us learned, which is to try a passel of recipes, see who dies, who throws up, who lives, and kill anyone who seems dispossessed of reason or proper religious humility after a meal.

Curry Expert wrote:Also helpful is rooting through your own, and your neighbors garbage bins, looking for scraps of leftovers, animal feed, soggy newspaper. Just chuck it all in a pot, warm over a medium flame, and garnish with parsley. Jesus CHRIST, this is why I never go to dinner at other people's homes. "Oh, Curry Expert, thanks for coming over, here, here's a big steaming plate of garbage."

I believe that is what I said, yes. Thank you for clarifying.

Curry Expert wrote:

Steak is probably the easiest thing in the world to cook.

The perennial song of the really horrid steak cook. To think, cows are being slaughtered and butchered at farms, only to be slaughtered and butchered again in kitchens by people who think they know how to cook.

By all means, do tell me how one could fail to please by going to a store, buying a nice, horribly expensive cut of meat, broiling it for x minutes a side, and putting it on a plate? Anything else would be an insult to said bovine. Flavor, season, or slather if you must; I recommend gorgonzola. Curry Expert would probably like you to smother all hint of texture in choice beef with A-1 or perhaps puree said cut in a blender and suck it out with a straw, but I stand by my original helpful hint that a slab of juicy meat on a platter can't fail to please.

Curry Expert wrote:Or if this is the level of taste you've acquired, why not save time and just gnaw on the end of a summer sausage all day?

Ah, yes. Thank you. Those sausages that are always left over after those horridly crinkly Christmas baskets that crinkle and crinkle and suffocate the cat until you slap the person that likes to save all wrapping paper folded into little squares for next year and throw it out yourself with the 3rd empty bottle of wine consumed that evening do not have to go to waste! Enjoy them on crackers, or in a nice gumbo. Here's a quick gumbo recipe: 1 sliced Christmas sausage, 1 package Ramen noodles without their choice of seasoning, some rice, some green things-whatever you have is fine, and some 'gumbo' seasoning put in a pot with Campbell's 'chicken' soup broth. Simmer until thickened.

Curry Expert wrote:

* Potato chips are an acceptable side dish.

This pretty well says all you need to know about the author of this "guide".

We like a good starch around here every once in awhile. That hot tub just sweats all the salt right out of one.

Curry Expert wrote:George Foreman, and his grills, have done more damage to the average quality of home-cooked meals in this country than anything since Minute-Rice...

The GFG is alot like money and religion's effect on a man: it brings out either his sterling qualities, or gives self-justified vent to his most vile. The GFG allows for faster yet non-scorched cooking, is easier to clean, is fun and cheery to look at, does not splatter grease and fat up upon one when one checks or adjusts his prey, and stores easily in a cabinet, behind a closet, or under a bed! And reasonable self-moderating and non-addictive personality type should be able to use the GFG without any harmful side-effects.

Curry Expert wrote:For you, I'd recommend a hell of a lot more often than that.

Take it up with the management.

Vitriola wrote:Sometimes one has to make doo with what one is provided with

And I'm sure you do, honey. I'm sure you do.

bruce wrote: Of course, you won't have sloping sides, and your frying pan is probably designed to hold rather than dissipate heat. So everything's gonna come out kind of soggy. But that's OK, because....

Vitriola wrote:Use frozen vegetables in a bag, rather than spend $25 on them all separately in the produce section.

...your veggies are all soggy and English <b>anyway</b>, because you were a Cheap Shit, so it doesn't matter. You could <b>boil</b> them rather than stir-frying them and you'd never know the difference.

Frozen vegetables will not have the nice snap you get with fresh, but let's face it: vegetables are expensive, and some of us do not eat alot of meat. Without overcooking, and on a lower heat, one can make a nice stir-fry cheaper and less time intensive with less prep, and if those things, money and time, are what keep people out of the kitchen, I would hate that they would just go out and get some Taco Bell rather than something a little more healthy and tasty.

bruce wrote:Because a potato masher is like $3, and isn't as labor-intensive as a fork, or as messy as a fist, a hammer, or a phone book.

Cooking for 2 people does not require a bushel of potatoes, and therefore it really isn't more time consuming to fork mash 2 potatoes than use a masher. Plus, I like the added texture. It's soul food people, stick-to-your-ribs fare we're talking about, not prissy French lighter-than-air delicate we're going for.

bruce wrote:Of course, for $30, you can have a device to which you add X cups of rice and 2X cups of water, press a button, and then come back any time more than 30 minutes later. You never have soggy rice, you never burn rice to the bottom of the pot, and you don't have to devote any attention whatsoever to how the rice is doing while you cook the interesting parts of the meal.

Boil water, add rice, cover, and either turn down heat all the way to the lowest setting, or remove from heat completely. Leave it alone for 20 minutes. Has never been soggy, not once. Where's the burning, or the ADHD-proof intricacy there? For $30 I can get 2 CDs or 2 bottles of wine, and not have to move all that shit everytime I change locations.

bruce wrote:If it's going to make the difference, then you're too much of a pussy to be in the kitchen. Garlic and ginger taste <b>nothing like as good</b> when dry. However, many spices are OK dry. But dry and fresh herbs often have completely different characters. It also makes a difference, if your recipe says, "dry-roast this, then crush it" if you do that versus just using the powder from the spice rack. Sometimes it's not enough of a difference to justify the extra hassle, but don't pretend that you <i>aren't</i> cutting corners, because you are.

These hints are all about cutting corners without overly compromising the taste of a meal. If you want a museum-worthy meal, go out and support a local restaurant. If you want to eat healthy at home and are cheap, broke, drunk, lazy, agoraphobic or have young children, this is the wisdom for you.

bruce wrote:The same goes for fresh versus canned or frozen vegetables. Don't delude yourself that it doesn't make a difference. It may, however, not make enough of a difference to be worth the extra effort. That's your call.

Exactly. I would hate to see someone not cook because they fear a bombastic reprisal from the likes of some chichi extravagant.

bruce wrote:On the other hand, it helps to have some basic idea of how to cook before you start doing this. Bearnaise sauce made without shallots and tarragon isn't going to be bearnaise sauce. Some things you can omit or vary with impunity. Some you can't. Experience will let you know which is which.

My advice was for those more likely to want to switch the bernaise sauce itself with Worcestershire or creme de leiche. I think anyone able to read this in English would know that Bernaise sauce is a self-contained entity. Using recipes will tell you how to cook. it is much easier to see a recipe that says cook this chicken with a few vegetables in some kind of sauce for 45 minutes at 375, than to have to figure out how many pounds of chicken they have, add in the fact that vegetables and sauce might need a slightly longer time, and get their calculator out. A scientific one that does exponents, of course. A recipe with a couple substitutions will probably require the same cook time, will also tell you how to thaw and prepare the meat, might even give some substitution advice, and be easier to follow from step 1 until the end. You get the hang after awhile of the basics, without having to look them up separately.

bruce wrote:There you go with your onion powder again. Sheesh. Tonight, in fact, we're having pasta. With a jar sauce, because we're lazy. I'm starting by frying some sausage in a pan, and once it's releasing fat, I'm going to stir in chopped onion and garlic. Not powder.

Onions to me feel like I have tinfoil between my teeth. I dislike the texture. If I can use a powder and save the added step of sauteeing my onions until they are soft and pliable, I will do so if the powder in question is to add a hint of flavor, and is not the stripper-in-the-cake ingredient that the main point of the dish is.

bruce wrote:This is one of those cook-almost-every-week recipes, because it's <i>easy</i> and not bad. Sure, it's cutting corners, but not every night has to be a gourmet experience.

My point exactly. You work up to gourmet, you don't start there. Just like you don't start masturbating when you're 8 by buying a RealDoll, you don't start coking like you want to work the Presidential Banquet right off the bat.

bruce wrote:Hate to cook? Then you're a fucking Philistine. Go to Macdonnoze.

Hate to cook? Are you sure? Relax, try something easy, have a drink, and don't give a shit what some highfalutin' regalite on the internet says.

bruce wrote:Also, try cooking your rice in milk, with slivered almonds thrown in.

One does not know if you are being facetious or not. But that sounds yummy.

I'm not being facetious. It's a tasty way to make rice.

Also: <i>vegetables</i> are expensive? They're a lot cheaper than <i>meat</i>. [EDIT: Except for <i>shoe leather</i>.]

Bruce

bruce wrote:I'm not being facetious. It's a tasty way to make rice.

Also: <i>vegetables</i> are expensive? They're a lot cheaper than <i>meat</i>. [EDIT: Except for <i>shoe leather</i>.]

Bruce

My point. Say one does not eat alot of meat, prefers not to fill up on rice or pasta, but has the bulk of the meal be vegetables and doesn't want to be leave the table feeling empty? That's alot of vegetables. That being said, I buy fresh vegetables, but only because it's not my money. Yet.

Buying enough vegetables to adequately feed 2 people is more expensive than just getting a pizza, just making spaghetti, just cooking a bunch of rice, just getting Taco Bell, or just eating pudding for dinner. Which is why alot of people don't eat alot of vegetables.

Vitriola wrote:Ah, yes. Thank you. Those sausages that are always left over after those horridly crinkly Christmas baskets that crinkle and crinkle and suffocate the cat until you slap the person that likes to save all wrapping paper folded into little squares for next year and throw it out yourself with the 3rd empty bottle of wine consumed that evening do not have to go to waste!

This from the bitch who wrapped up my ninth grade Christmas present (http://tinyurl.com/29jkg which appears to be a collector's item now, incidentally; I'll have to retrieve that from Wisconsin when Dad dies this month) in the most noisy ass, crinkly mylar wrapping paper in the world, forced me to open it in the middle of 9th grade social studies class amidst cried of everyone yelling out how we were lesbo lovers, and then yelled at me for not saving the paper?

Vitriola wrote:I buy fresh vegetables, but only because it's not my money. Yet.

"..after we're married, I'm going to put us on a diet of water and thin gruel, so I can spend all of <s>his</s> <s>our</s> my money on Death-Metal T-shirts and Hentai! Mua-ha-ha-ha-ha!"

Bruce

I was referring to the fact that I hope to have a job soon, but that works too.

Although anyone who spends money on porn wouldn't have the skills to get a job on a rice paddy, let alone in Colorado.

Vitriola wrote:Although anyone who spends money on porn wouldn't have the skills to get a job on a rice paddy, let alone in Colorado.

Why spend money on porn when there's all that free porn on MAME?

itgirl wrote: (Catmopolitan) which appears to be a collector's item now, incidentally

Really? I gave it away to someone's sister last year. At least, I think I did. Maybe I'll wrap that one up for you too this Christmas. IN LAYERS OF INTESTINE YOU UNGRATEFUL CHIT.

Mmm, mmmm, love them chitterlings. http://tinyurl.com/2v5vd