What do your meals look like (show me pictures)....

acpgee

A monochromatic Germanic dinner. Salt beef pulled out of the freezer from a batch cooked sous vide 2 months ago. Air fried roast daikon and store bought sauerkraut from a jar. My hack for easy mash: prik large potatos with a fork to prevent explosions, microwave 5 or 6 minutes until soft, cut in half and place cut side down in a potato ricer and press. Remove spent peel from the ricer with a fork after each half. Mix with butter, milk and salt to taste and warm up in the microwave when you are ready to eat. I love not having to peel potatoes.

Adventurista

I was shooting for crockpot peppered beef, but turned into stoup @ the moment, may make it a stew depending on if i add thickener. Had planned to serve with rice, but so much liquid, now thinking of serving in a mashed tater well.

Flavor developing nicely from bell peppers and sweet onions, (hack can diced tomatoes) and just added variety spices which will cook in. Homemade broth.

acpgee

@Adventurista
My mom used to add finely grated potato cooked to a pulp as a thickener for curries if that is something that is a more sympathetic flavour profile than a roux.
I tried to a no soak version of the Cantonese sticky rice today on the one hour setting and it was mostly fine. There were a few scorched areas at the bottom of the rice cooker. I need to try this again on the 40 minute quick setting to see if that is what is causing the problem.

Adventurista

Ty @acpgee , yes. Went with a cornstarch slurry. Do you tend to use a rice cooker? I do well stove top with white rice, but brown or wild blends are a bit difficult.

mjbnj0001

acpgee wrote: »

@Adventurista
My mom used to add finely grated potato cooked to a pulp as a thickener for curries if that is something that is a more sympathetic flavour profile than a roux.
I tried to a no soak version of the Cantonese sticky rice today on the one hour setting and it was mostly fine. There were a few scorched areas at the bottom of the rice cooker. I need to try this again on the 40 minute quick setting to see if that is what is causing the problem.

I usually stock a box of quality instant potato flakes in the pantry - used for this purpose as a thickener, often in slowcooker dishes, as much as a quickie side (as a side, they do need some doctoring up for best results, lol).

acpgee

Adventurista wrote: »

Ty @acpgee , yes. Went with a cornstarch slurry. Do you tend to use a rice cooker? I do well stove top with white rice, but brown or wild blends are a bit difficult.

I use a rice cooker. I resisted buying one for many years because I objected to their ugliness but when a Chinese colleague introduced me to the cute Xiaomi model I was smitten. I regularly make brown rice and quinoa in it as well as various types of white rice (basmati, par boiled, sticky, sushi). My batch cooking buddy says my rice has a fluffier texture than what she achieves on the stovetop.

I do not use all the high tech features of my model. I only use the dumb manual menu which has four settings (default 1 hour, quick 40 minutes, 1.5 hour for congee, keep warm for up to 12 hours) although I did have to program in the location altitude when I first set it up. If you are willing to use the smartphone app to operate the rice cooker there are different settingss for 50+ types/brands of rice.

If this one breaks down, these days there are other good looking rice cookers out there. The Muji rice cooker is very pretty and has the advantage of control buttons in English, though it is more expensive than the Xiaomi. Muji is a design led discount store in Japan, similar to Target in the US, Flying Tiger in Denmark or HEMA in the Netherlands.

Here is Mimi (my rice cooker has a name because she makes cute feminine tinkling sounds when ready).

acpgee

@Adventurista
I am attempting satay again tonight and made sticky rice for nasi inpit, those Malaysian compressed rice cubes. This time I soaked the sticky rice overnight and ran the default one hour program. Absolutely no scorched/dried areas at the bottom. I have yet to try no soak with the 40 minute program, but the conclusion thus far is soaking improves the result, but is not strictly necessary. It means tossing a few bits of dried slightly scorched rice from the bottom of the pot that don't affect the taste of the rest of the batch. That said, the Chinese are so thrifty that there are traditional recipes for using up those scorched/dried up bits of rice. If I remember correctly they involve puffing them up in the deep fryer.

Veta2018

I made this mango salad. It taste better than it looks.

mjbnj0001

cmsienk wrote: »

I see your sandwich was on gluten-free bread. Gluten-free bread here in Connecticut is RIDICULOUSLY EXPENSIVE - $6 for 5 slices of g/f sourdough bread, $7.99 for a 2 g/fskinny baguettes, $8.49 for 4 g/f bagels. I make most of my bread items from scratch because of the price, but I've yet to make a sandwich bread. ...
@Susanna527, I'm sorry, I didn't see this until just now! (I stopped posting food pics back in January.)
I wish I had the time to make my own bread from scratch. There's a bakery near me that sells a 48-hr. fermented sourdough that I'm able to eat with no problem. I pick up a loaf of that from time to time. My go-to gf bread is actually a store brand (Kroger 7-grain) bread. It doesn't fall apart when used for a non-toasted sandwich and actually tastes like bread. $5.79 for a 14 slice loaf.

I employ, usually, a "no knead" method of breadmaking that requires about 10-15 minutes of manual activity in a 3-4 hour period from "start" to "end of bake." It's a pretty straightforward process that I have employed for about 6 yrs now, for about 80%+ of our consumed bread products. Lately, since New Year's, I've been trying my hand at an extended process for "hybrid sourdough" needing about 20 minutes' activity across an 9-13 hour timespan (8-12 hour countertop room-temp fermenting stage). I have yet to let it ferment longer. The lack of additives, dough conditioners and such from commercial bread manufacturing seems to help my wife's gut. For me, it's just plain tasty and robust. Disregarding energy costs (and I further economize by piggybacking bread baking to follow an oven-cooked dinner entree), I estimate $2/loaf give or take, factoring in the increasing costs of flour. for MFP recipe macros computations, I average 20 slices/loaf. For most breads - loaves, foccaccia, rolls, pizza dough - there are minor variations of process, but the same basics apply. Homemade english muffins, flour tortilla, pita require more variation. Pic is a recent 'batch" of whole wheat - for efficiency's sake, I usually make 2 loaves at a time, "one for now, one for the freezer." I have made as many as four at a time during the holidays. 2nd pic is part of a holiday spread where I baked a boule loaf (it is a product of the 3-4 hour process; the hummus is homemade from dried chickpeas, and is served plain, savory and with a sweet/hot flavoring); charcuterie and other finger foods accompanied as well. BTW, Recent research also indicates that freezing bread converts a portion to "resistant starch," further lowering the glycemix index/load. The pics were seen in prior postings in this thread.





(Edited)

Added a pic of the fermented "sponge" used for those two loaves above. Look carefully, you'll be able to see the bubbling fermentation.

mjbnj0001

acpgee wrote: »

@Adventurista, @mjbnj0001

Apologies for being alarmist.

As I mentioned earlier, my reference about Japanese produced rice containing talc came from my 1980 first edition of "Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art" by Shizuo Tsuji. It was the first comprehensive Japanese cookbook published in English. I guess that would be comparable to using Julia Child as my reference for French cooking.

Googling for articles in a cursory manner, scientific papers on Japanese rice and talc date from the 70s. The most recent paper I found linking talc coated rice to stomach cancer in Japan was from 1978. I did find a later blog article saying that after Ralph Nader campaigned to ban US imports of talc dusted rice, manufacturers switched to dusting with cornstarch or other flours in the 80s. There was a warning for coeliacs to read labels regarding the dusting agent.

Thanks. I did a little probably similar research following the original posting, and saw that talc is not used in the US. Most of my rice is domestic, and I'm now taking measures to reduce arsenic, which is our problem here. I wouldn't know when eating out if the rice was domestic or not, so I presume all the sushi I ate up to the 80s or so could've had it, but there's nothing to be done now about it. You can't fix what's behind you, only what lies ahead.

acpgee

Chicken satay with the trimmings and sauteed spinach.
@mjbnj0001
I am sure that sushi restaurants would have known to use the "polishing" technique for washing Japanese sushi rice. It involves rubbing the rice grains against each other, and pouring off liquid repeatedly until the water runs clear. Shizuo Tsuji warned that rinsing under the tap in a colander was not an adequate wash for Japanese sushi rice, with the exception of Nishiki brand.

mjbnj0001

Simple tonight (Monday). Savory turkey burgers, perched on slices of the whole wheat hybrid sourdough I've previously posted, with cheese and side veg salad. MFP computes this plate to be approx. 913cal, 70g protein, 43g fat (cheese! my downfall), 60g carb (with 14g fiber).

SafariGalNYC

Breakfast:

🍳 Cauli rice, mixed veggies, chicken breast, egg, avocado

🍸 red kale, açaí, collagen, blue & blackberries.

60 grams protein, 560 cals.

acpgee

Spaghetti with vodka sauce and meatballs pulled out of the freezer. Szechuan aubergine salad and coca cola glazed carrots.

haileybeckmann01

Yum yum yum

haileybeckmann01

& two more from this week

😋

acpgee

Friends from Edinburgh popped in for dinner. Made gai yang and pomelo salad.

CarolGaGal

sebjude

42g Carb
26g Fat
77g Protein

Broccoli 3 small pieces, sweet potato 1, onion 1, cherry tomatoes 5, white eggs 2, avocado slice 2, chicken kebab 75g, stake burger 112g, a bit of Parmesan, olive oil and pink salt!

mpat81

Lunch <300 calories
Baked sweet potato topped with grilled pineapple, poblano and onion