Posts made by GreenFlashlight

@macha Slap them. Become part of the cost of abusing the workforce.

CBD oil really helps my back injury, but my injury is in a place that hurts my shoulder to reach to rub it in. I guess I get to work on my flexibility.

I'm watching a video essay about Love, Simon, a movie about a gay boy coming out. There's a bit where the essayists are talking about how important representation in media is, and for the first time, a horrible thought has occurred to me: can representation be a good thing under capitalism, when that representation is being sold on the market for consumption? Is gayness okay if the audience is okay with it because it provided an acceptable level of entertainment relative to the ticket price?

I suspect the answer is "no ethical consumption" and all that, but I can't shake this sudden fear that representation isn't visibility, but rather commodification.

TIL of the existence of a 3.5 lb, 9-inch Reese's peanut butter cup meant to be cut and served like pie. I cannot convey the depression I am struggling with right now. Like, there's novelties, and there's indulgences, and then there's public vomitoriums, you know?

Not exactly a MU thing, but I love that there's so many good cooks sharing good recipes.

@mietze You have reminded me I'm almost the age my mom was when she started. I need to look into some things.

Are you getting any treatment for it? I hear hormone therapy is wonderful.

@gamerngeek

More Money Than Sense Goulash

2 1/2 lbs beef chuck roast, cut into 2-inch cubes
salt and pepper
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 large onion, chopped
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tbsp paprika
2 tsp crush caraway seeds
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp marjoram
1/2 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
4 cups chicken broth
1/4 cup tomato paste
3 cloves garlic, crushed
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tsp sugar
1 bay leaf

Season the beef with salt and pepper while heating the oil in a large skillet over high heat. Brown the beef on all sides and remove to very large Dutch oven or stock pot, leaving the oil and drippings behind.

Drop the heat to medium. Add the onion to the dirty skillet with a pinch of salt, and more oil if too much of it left the pan earlier. Cook for 5 minutes until softened, then transfer to the pot with the beef.

Add the spices to the skillet, stirring constantly to toast them without burning, about 3 minutes. Add 1 cup of chicken broth to deglaze the skillet, and turn off the burner. You're finally done with the damn skillet. Pour the contents over the beef and onion.

Add all remaining ingredients to the pot and turn the heat up to high. Let it get to a boil, then turn the heat down to low and simmer for 2 hours, until the beef shreds easily with speared with a fork.

Serve over egg noodles.

Goulash is traditionally a "whatever's in the garden" kind of stew, so you can toss pretty much anything in your fridge into it. I've had great luck chopping peppers and mushrooms and cooking them with the onion, for instance. I have to imagine chopped potatoes would go excellently as well, though I haven't confirmed that yet. I know tomatoes would because chopped tomatoes are more authentic than tomato paste, but me, I demand a thick gravy for my stews, so paste it is for me. One day I will work up the courage to toss green beans in there like it's a particularly thick beef and vegetable soup.

@gamerngeek Baby's First Sunday Chicken Roast Recipe

1 bag baby carrots
1 splash olive oil
2-3 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 pkg dried Italian dressing mix
1 bag microwavable steamed broccoli
1 shake of steak seasoning
1 box Stove Top stuffing or equivalent

Preheat the oven to 400. In a 13x9 baking dish, layer a bag of baby carrots. Drizzle them with a splash of olive oil. Lay the chicken breasts atop the carrots. Sprinkle the Italian dressing over them. Bake uncovered for 20-30 minutes, until the centers are cooked.

Follow the instructions on the broccoli, but flavor it with some steak salt, preferably something that have large chunks of cracked peppercorns in it. Also follow the instructions for the stuffing.

Better than Hamburger Helper: One-Pan Lasagna

1 lb. ground Italian sausage
1 tbsp. olive oil
1 small white onion, diced
1 pinch salt
3-4 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 28-oz can San Marzano tomatoes, crushed
1/2 28-oz can of water
1 can tomato paste
Basil and oregano to taste
1/2 box of lasagna sheets, broken into bite-sized pieces
1 lb mozzarella, cubed
Parmesan cheese to taste

In a large frying pan on medium heat, brown the Italian sausage until it's crumbled but still mostly pink in the center. It will cook more later. Slotted spoon, bowl, leave fat in pan. You know the drill.

Add the olive oil to the pan, giving it a few seconds to heat up, before adding the diced onion and salt. Stir and saute, then add garlic. As usual, it's done when it smells done.

Add the crushed tomatoes, water, and tomato paste, mixing together well. Add the basil and oregano, mixing that too. Raise the heat to high, then back it down to low when it starts to simmer. I like to let this simmer for at least 30 minutes before adding anything else because it comes out a little raw-tasting if I don't, but since this is supposed to be an easy recipe, you can skip the simmer and just start adding stuff.

When the sauce is where you want it, mix the broken noodles in, making sure everything is well coated. Add more water at this stage if the sauce reduced too much. Return the sausage and grease to the pan, stirring. Raise the heat to medium to get the simmer going again, then back it down to low once more. Partially cover the pan and let it cook 25 minutes, stirring occasionally to keep the noodles from clumping up.

Take the pan off the heat entirely. Stir in the mozzarella cubes, and allow them to melt in the dish's retained heat. When that's done, top with Parmesan cheese and serve. This dish is mostly for people like me who don't like authentic lasagna, so plan accordingly for people's expectations.

Better Than Hamburger Helper: Haluski

1 lb Polish sausage, cut into rounds; optional
6-8 tbsp butter
1 medium white onion, diced
1 pinch salt
5-8 cloves of garlic, crushed
1/2 head of cabbage, shredded
2 large carrots, peeled and slivered
red pepper flakes to taste
1 lb egg noodles

This is a Depression-era dish, so if you're going tor accuracy, cut the meat and only use 6 tbsp. butter.

Boil egg noodles per directions on the packet. Drain it when done, reserving 1/2 cup of starchy water. Return the still-hot starchy water to the pot with 2 tbsp. butter, stirring it all together into a fairly creamy sauce-coated bowl of noodles.

In a large frying pan, melt 2 tbsp. butter over medium heat and brown the sausage rounds in it, using a slotted spoon to transfer them to a bowl, leaving as much drippings behind as you can. Add another 2 tbsp. butter to melt, then add the diced onion and salt, sauteing until translucent. Add the crushed garlic and stir, cooking for 3 minutes or until the raw smell is gone.

Melt the last 2 tbsp. butter and add the cabbage, carrots, and red pepper, stirring to mix and to help cook. When the cabbage and carrots are soft, add them to the noodles in whichever of the two cooking dishes is large enough to accommodate all that. If you made it with sausage, add that too, and stir it all together until the butter and fat has combined with the butter sauce coating the pasta and thickened it a good deal.

@macha Have you ever used a pumice stone? I like the results and it's presumably less slippery than oil.

"Why I Have Diabetes" Slapdash Noodles

2 tbsp butter
1 head of garlic, peeled and crushed
1 pound pasta of your choice, you can't go wrong, I'm sure this would work even with lasagna sheets
1 tsp each of any Asian-ish sauce you have in your house

The hard part of this recipe is for the pasta to be done at the same time the sauce is ready to receive it. I recommend boiling and draining the pasta before starting to make the sauce until you get the timing down.

Melt the butter in a big frying pan over medium heat. When it's melted and soon to turn brown, stir in the garlic and let it cook for 3-5 minutes, until the raw smell goes away. Now you can add any Asian-ish sauces you have to the mix; I use a teaspoon each of whatever's in the fridge, and none of it has ever turned out bad. Soy sauce, hoisin sauce, oyster sauce, and sriracha if I want a little kick? They all mix together fine! Anyway, stir it into the butter and garlic mixture, then add the finished noodles as fast as you can and toss to make sure everything's coated, giving it maybe a minute to finish up.

Since this recipe is basically impossible to screw up by adding things, play with it! If I have any leftover cooked meat I want to get rid of, it'll go great on this if you toss it in a little sesame oil to keep it from sticking to things before adding it to the pan at the same time as the noodles (krab is my favorite for this). You can add vegetables to the butter with the garlic to make a half-assed stir fry kind of thing; I know for a fact that it's delightful with a pepper you've cored and julienned and a cup or two of shredded cabbage, but broccoli would also go down a treat. I'm sure it's possible to screw up this recipe, but so far, even I haven't managed it. Just be sure to add more liquid to help spread the flavor around to all the extra ingredients you're putting in.

@saosmash said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

honestly i know delivery fail feels like such a fwp thing to complain about but omg sometimes it's just THE LAST STRAW

I dunno, in my anecdotal experience, people don't order delivery when they're in a good mood. They order because they're so done they can't even be fucked to cook food right now, meaning they're already in a bad place.

Still FWP, but valid nevertheless.

Anyone here cook with vegan butter? I picked some up on a whim and it tastes fine, but it sure does seem to make things foamy. Which isn't a problem, just a thing I'm noticing.

@macha Wait, what? They thought you were asking for permission to spend your money to buy your own headset?

@jennkryst Oh, that one bums me out. Dean Stockwell is the kind of actor who's not in a lot of things I've seen, but was a show-stealer in everything I've seen him in. He made Stephen King's author-insert dialogue sound human in the Langoliers.

@macha said in Recipes and Shit:

A lot of my favorite recipes are for slow cookers, and well, reading these, I wanna slink away in shame.

Slow cookers are not just valid, they are honored methods of getting food into people.

GF's favorite weekend stew

2 lbs. stew beef. I find it's cheaper and tastier to buy two pounds of chuck roast and cut it down myself, but this is annoying if you don't have good knives, so no judgment if you buy the pre-cut stuff. Just be sure to give the pieces a checking for tough sinew left on them.
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can cream of celery soup
1 packet powdered onion dip

Brown the beef on all sides in a frying over medium heat. While it's cooking, mix the soups and the onion dip powder in a slow cooker. Add the beef and the drippings to the slow cooker when they're ready. I assume you're probably doing this in batches, but do it all at once if you have a big enough frying pan. Give it all a proper stir.

When all the beef is added, cover the cooker and set it to high for one hour, then low for six hours. Try to leave the house for the last few hours because the smell will drive you wild.

Serve over boiled white rice or my favorite, those boxed noodles at your grocery store that brag about being infused with vegetables. It works surprisingly well.

GF's Favorite Broccoli Dish

1 can garbanzo beans
8 oz. broccoli, chopped to bite sized
8 oz. cauliflower, chopped to bite sized
7 total tbsp. olive oil
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. black pepper
1-2 tbsp honey
Juice of 3 small or 2 large limes

Preheat the oven to 450F.

Open and drain the beans. Rinse them if you're worried about it. Pour them into a bowl with 2 tbsp. oil, the salt, and the pepper. Toss them until coated, then transfer them to a foil-lined baking sheet and cook them for 15 minutes.

While the beans cook, chop the vegetables to bite-sized and add them to the dirty bowl you tossed the bean in. Add 2 tbsp. olive oil and toss, coating the vegetables in the oil and remaining seasoning.

When the 15 minutes are up, move the beans to one side of the baking sheet and spread the vegetables as flat as you can on the other. Return them to the oven for 12 minutes.

While everything is cooking, in a clean bowl, pour 3 tbsp. olive oil and the lime juice. Whisk them together until well-combined, then whisk in honey to taste (I eyeball this because tasting it until it's right is part of the fun). Set aside when ready.

When the 12 minutes are up, the edges of the vegetables should be slightly blackened, and the beans should be crispy like Corn Nuts. Transfer them to a plate or bowl, pour your homemade dressing over them, and marvel.

@too-old-for-this Enjoy!

@ganymede I stopped making it because I can and will drink the remaining marinade straight out of the dish I put the leftovers in, which makes me feel undignified.