I'm making turkey stock from the carcass of Thursday's roast. It's my first attempt at stock, and I've kind of fucked it up, it turns out. Wasn't supposed to boil it, and I don't have a fine mesh strainer.

But this article reassures me some: http://www.salon.com/2011/01/22/how_to_make_stock/

I've had it boiling for a little over 2 hours now, and it's getting late so I'm gonna have to move along and turn it into a soup pretty soon.

(Pretty excited about this thread!!!)

So I've made my own soups for the last four years, and I don't have a fine mesh strainer. I always used half of the cooking liquid and froze the other half for other dishes. I mostly made chicken soup. I would take a large pot and put a collendar on top, and then a tea towel. I would have to hold the towel secure and hav someone pour the broth and chicken into the collendar slowly, then I would set the chicken aside to cool a little bit before taking the chicken off the bones. But using the tea towel allowed me to make very flavorful broth that had virtually no fat !!!!!

I'm not cooking these days, basically living off fruit and nuts.
 This is one of the best threads ever.

How did your stock turn out?!

Tasted great. I've since added about half a turkey's worth of meat, chopped, and I chopped up all the leftover roast carrots, cauliflower, cabbage, turnip, sweet potato, and tomatoes. I'm simmering it for a bit, it's smelling and looking really good.

I think this week is a Schweinshaxe week... Hofbrauhaus, here I come.

i just realized Fuji apples come from Japan (duh) and are in season, yay!

Fuji apples are lovely. There's something about their colouring that's really appealing (seriously, SERIOUSLY no pun intended, because that's a fucking awful pun).

Had some really good Fuji's recently, they were huge!

Fuji's really are delicious.

CFT: Trail mix is where it's at! Imma get some Soon


Almonds, Macadamias, Cashews, Druid Cranberries, Papaya, Pineapple, Raisins....... makes me happy And lasts me a long time, as well as keeping me full for a long time when paired with a slice of whole grain bread.

I eat Jordans tropical muesli for breakfast a lot. Similar mix of dried fruit, plus oats and stuff. Good energy food, and good for not feeling hungry for a good while, without feeling overly full.

The turkey soup turned out really good btw. It's now mostly frozen in portions.

nice, i'm looking forward to similar excursions. i think you've got a great idea Si, with freezing portions. that's what i'm going to do when i have my own kitchen.
currently, my breakfast is one piece of 100% whole grain bread- half with peanut butter, half with local honey. a banana, a cup of columbia coffee, bottle of water, and maybe a clementine.
the bread is a short, squat loaf, so the pieces are quite wide.

This may seem like an obvious tip, but I've found that my plastic containers (I have mostly rubbermaid "takealongs") last a whole lot better if I transfer the food to a plate or bowl, and then nuke that. I use them over and over and never heat them up beyond a bit of a defrost to get the more liquid things out (if I don't plan ahead and let it defrost by sitting out) and they've stayed like new.

I only use glass.  I throw away all of the plastic my fiance brings into the apartment.  Not using them to reheat is almost as good, though.  I think heating plastic is crazy - you're just asking for weird chemical changes when you heat it up near some of its critical temperatures.  That's simply asking for things to leach into your food.

I've been eating a lot of yellow dal for breakfast. 

This is like a Common Sense 101 class for the socially and educationally inept (me), taught by various shades of Capt. Obvious (all of you)

I've always thought there was something odd with plastic. I knew at a very young age that the bits of plastic in and on my backpack and the plastic spoons in the school cafeteria didn't not come from the earth, and that they couldn't possible go into the earth like the 'wrappers' on my banana and orange, without creating something too horrid for my little mind to comprehend, much less name.

I just don't go out to restaurants to eat. It used to be because of my severe germ/dirty-stranger-hands/public-toilet phobia, but it is rapidly turning into a much bigger reason. I want to be the one who handles my food, and I want to know Exactly what is going into the dishes I consume, and I want to be the one in control of my portion size. I want to choose what to cook my food with, and what parts of the food are used.

I happened to be along with my parents when they stopped at a Panera Bread today, and I did have an ice tea with lemon, but I did not eat anything there. I chose to eat an apple on the way to their house instead.
There is something creepy about hundreds of people, most of whom do not know each other, all standing in lines to order food made by other strangers, waiting in line to pick up a tray of food, it's origins unknown, sitting in extreme close proximity at tables that are crawling with germs and bacteria, dumping their trash, and leaving. Only to repeat the process in a few hours' time.
Maybe it's just me, maybe it's not. Maybe this entire "dining out" thing is fucked up on levels unseen.

Maybe I am craving that Family Dinner idea, but I tend to think there is more fucked up with the food system, than there is fucked up with me.

I got a 250gm bag of organic hulled hemp seed today... tried some, they are tasty.

cft:

Hash browns.

Ok some fools think that any small diced fried potato's qualify as hash browns.

There is only one way to make real hash browns, with an old fashion box grater. 

I've been eating a lot of yellow dal for breakfast.

thats gross man.



aha but I just dont like yellow dal nearly as much as whole.

... and she loves snacking on hole!
... she'll admit it to us any year now!

cft:

Hash browns.

Ok some fools think that any small diced fried potato's qualify as hash browns.

There is only one way to make real hash browns, with an old fashion box grater.

I agree completely. I'm always super bummed when "hash browns" turns out to just be some lumps of fucking potato.

CFT: breakfast several times a week is a BLT with avocado on a bagel and a couple of espressos with a little milk. Usually sets me up perfectly for the day. Today I followed all that with a banana and chocolate chip muffin, and I felt sluggish and lazy most of the day. No more breakfast-desserts for me!

The shredding process makes a whole new flavor

Hash browns are never just small diced potatoes  and fuck all who think they are, to be real requires shredding.

The shredding process makes a whole new flavor

Hash browns are never just small diced potatoes  and fuck all who think they are, to be real requires shredding.

I've tried making them, scallop-style and cubes. Truly, I enjoy shredding them, and squeezing all the excess water out. I find that if I don't, they never get to that golden-brown stage...

You are a woman I could admire. Please stop by the Crazy Lady Saloon in Curtice Oh. and Ill have my friend set you up with some real hash browns.

You are a woman I could admire. Please stop by the Crazy Lady Saloon in Curtice Oh. and Ill have my friend set you up with some real hash browns.

Gimme about a year...

CFT: my dad, bless the man, is roasting a chicken. In a roaster. Coated in.....

Butter. I know- butter makes for the best ever food! I've been lectured ALL day long.

I just don't like it much and I think the elimination of all animal fat from my diet is a good thing.

CF&DT: Yakitori + IPA

Sounds fucking great.

CFT: I dunno about "shocking", but there's some good info here - http://www.livestrong.com/slideshow/546558-the-most-shocking-diet-myths

i am obsessed with cooking food and storing it in portions. i don't know what is wrong with me. also, now i just want some soup. thanks friends.

I was just at a store and I had a nice time discovering all of the storage containers.
I miss cooking so much that I took pictures of all the produce.

There was a very young girl a few years ago that asked an intriguing question. She asked if the freezing process could also cause leaching.

This started a big internet round and round with a lot of claims being made. PETE it seems may be pretty safe but BPA is still being questioned. BPA is the harder type of bottle plastic used in some baby bottles, cycling containers and other containers designed for reuse. Most of the claims against common plastic containers (dioxins ect) have been put to rest, but there is something all the researches do agree on and that is that freezing and thawing cycles accelerates the normal (*) degradation and so may lead to some leaching over time.

"The two best-studied offenders are bisphenol A (BPA) and phthalates. BPA mimics estrogen and has been shown to disrupt hormone and reproductive system function in animals. Research by the National Toxicology Program found a moderate level of concern about its "effects on the brain, behavior and prostate gland in fetuses, infants and children." Phthalates have been shown to disrupt the endocrine system and have led to malformations in the male reproductive system in animals. Studies in humans have found associations between high phthalate exposure and a variety of health concerns including low sperm quality, high waist circumference and insulin resistance." -- Diane Blahut, Woman's Day

(*) anyone remember back in the beginning of plastic containers all the uproar that they would exist virtually forever in the landfills and environment? Well for that reason almost all plastics today are designed to slowly self destruct.

The freezing thing is a hoax.  Diffusion is a heat driven process.  Even if the temperature cycling were to cause the container to break down, it's not likely to leach into the food because the driving force isn't there.

Likewise, the cold temperature works against the mechanisms they use to make some plastics degrade.

That was my first thought. There is no way something like that could be covered up either.