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What have you been eating, drinking, and cooking?
What food and drinks have you been enjoying (or not enjoying) recently? Have you cooked or created anything interesting? Tell us about it!
What food and drinks have you been enjoying (or not enjoying) recently? Have you cooked or created anything interesting? Tell us about it!
About a month ago, we went on vacation to Hawaii. We tried SPAM musubi, not expecting to like it but to try some local food. I've made it at home like 3 times since.
Spam is surprisingly hated for what it really is. It's similar to a hotdog and people guzzle those down, yet spam is apparently disgusting to most people I've asked. My mother's culture doesn't have that prejudice so I grew up occasionally eating spam, but I didn't find my love for it until a few years ago when I tried spam musubi and spam fried rice. Now my husband always asks forme to cook spam fried rice. Apparently other types of meat in fried rice are inferior to spam fried rice. You get a really pop of salt and flavor with eat bite, although you have to be careful not to overseason with spam.
Also, apparently there's a spam museum and we've passed by it a couple of times on road trips. Next time we head down that way we are absolutely stopping to pick up some unique flavors!
I grew up vegetarian so spam was just never an option, however as an adult i occasionally do enjoy spam. My wife grew up eating spam and pickles and spam sandwiches often, so she's shared that love with me. I do agree that spam fried rice is delicious, however I would argue that lapcheong (Chinese sausage) is the far superior protein choice in fried rice
Okay, I will agree Chinese sausage is the superior meat. I actually used to eat these as snacks growing up, and a few years ago my mom started making her own and they are so freaking delicious. I may try making them myself this year when the weather is right. Unfortunately the closest store that sells them is 40 minutes away in an area my husband hates driving so we rarely have them. But spam is available everywhere so that's why it's become our protein of choice for fried rice.
Very fair! I hope you have some time to make them, I haven't personally looked into it at all since we are lucky enough to live like 15 minutes from a very well stocked Asian grocery. Sausages are actually one of the few things I haven't gotten around to trying to make on my own, never had a good grinder for them. It was on our wedding registry but nobody went for it :(
I don't think it's all that surprising. Unfair though it may be, I think the idea of meat in a can or pot just generally repulses a lot of people. Having had plenty of Vienna sausages, canned fish, and potted pâté as a kid, I don't feel the same way. But to each their own. People who aren't at least willing to try canned/potted meats before jumping to conclusions about it are missing out though, IMO.
My issue with that is that the same people who refuse the idea of meat in a can often still eat meat in a can with no issues. Like my husband, I had to convince him spam was fine and that he should give it a shot because he was hesitant over canned meat. The same man eats cold chef boyardee beef ravioli out of a can and loves canned soups, meat included. Those who claim it's because it's "mystery meat" or heavily processed then turn around and eat hot dogs and deli meats with gusto. I think it's unfair, and personally it seems like it's cultural foods that get this treatment most of the time.
Yeah, a lot of the complaints about certain foods being "gross" very likely do have a racial or cultural prejudice element to them. But to be fair, the unfamiliar is often scary to people, no matter where they grew up, so I'm sure that's a big part of it too. E.g. Chef Boyardee is familiar to many North Americans, and there is a likely sense of nostalgia attached to it. So despite technically being a type of potted/canned meat, they probably don't think of it as gross. Whereas someone who grew up in Denmark likely views potted/tinned fish the same way, and sees Chef Boyardee as being gross.
I do wish more people taught exploring unknown foods as being fun, rather than playing up the eww gross factor. My mother being Chinese I ate a lot of things that were considered odd to Americans, especially as Asian food wasn't as popular as it is now a days. I got bullied at lunch to the point that I eventually stopped eating lunch at school, because I hated school food and hated being bullied for my food.
On a more positive note, I've seen some parents make food from other cultures a fun way to bond as a family before. One of my first jobs was as a waitress at a sushi place. I had a family come in that introduced themselves as "stereotypical white southerners" that had no clue what they were doing. As I was talking to them I learned that every week they went to a restaurant and tried something new. The kids were never forced to try it, but encouraged to and apparently they were good sports about it. They ordered less than ten dollars worth of food because they admitted they were nervous about eating raw fish, but were fun and awesome to work with. I still remember them, because I always think that if I did have kids that's how I'd want to handle food and cultures with them.
Yeah, bullying at school towards kids who have lunches that don't meet western standards is genuinely terrible. A significant portion of my friends are Chinese, Japanese, and Thai, and they experienced similar bullying at school too. So I'm sorry you had to go through that as well. :(
Even as a young kid I personally loved a lot of their snacks and foods though, and would often trade my own lunch items (like Jello pudding) for theirs. And I still regularly eat sesame, seaweed, red bean, etc snacks to this day. :)
My parents were that way, which I am super grateful for since it's allowed me to experience so many wonderful dishes and cuisines over the years. I'm Canadian born, with parents of Italian and British ancestry, but I grew up eating all sorts of different cuisine from around the world thanks to them making a point to expose me and my sister to them. Some of my earliest, and fondest memories are of going to Dim Sum with my mom, going out to Japanese Steak House and Sushi restaurants for special nights out, Indian restaurants, Thai, Filipino, Jamaican, etc.
Their rule was always that we didn't have to eat all of something if we didn't like it, but we did have to at least try it first before we could say we didn't like it. And they also always made sure to order at least one new dish we hadn't tried before, every time we went to the same restaurant. All of which is why I appreciate so many different types of cuisine, am still pretty adventurous with my food, and still regularly eat most of those cuisines/dishes to this day.
And now my sister is passing on the tradition with my nephew too... although it's a bit of a struggle since he is super picky (like his Dad). ;)
We've been to the Spam museum in Northern Iowa. It was a fun little road trip. I wouldn't go too far out of your way for it, but if you are driving from Minneapolis to Des Moines, it's worth a stop.
We did it on a fun road trip vacation. We also did the mustard museum in Madison, WI, and that place was a blast!
That museum is just a couple hours from me. I'll have to check it out!!
I don’t eat it often but a Spam sandwich with lightly pan-toasted bread, kewpie Mayo, cheese, and a seasoned tomato is absolutely bomb
I'm diabetic so I need to eat mostly low-carb, and I'm the kind of person who can settle on one or two things I like and eat them pretty much every day. My go-tos lately have been chicken salad quesadillas and sandwich wraps, since both are super easy to prep ahead of time and low-carb tortillas taste identical to normal ones.
For the chicken salad: I'll buy a pre-cooked chicken and shred up the meat, mix it up with about 2-3 diced celery stalks, 1 shallot onion, 1/2 cup sliced almonds, 1/2 cup bacon bits, 2 tbsp lemon juice, about 3/4 cup mayo, 1 tbsp dijon mustard, chives and a little dill. One batch kept in the fridge lasts me a couple of weeks of quesadillas with hot sauce and shredded cheese.
For the sandwich wraps: I'll make 3 at a time with whatever deli meat is on sale at the grocery store, shredded onions (seasoned with a little salt & pepper), sliced cheese, ranch, hot sauce, and spinach/mixed lettuce. Throw one of them right in the toaster oven, and wrap up the other 2 in the fridge for the following days.
ChatGPT gave me a recipe for a bunch of leftovers I had in the kitchen (fridge and pantry) and it ended up being really good!
Creamy pasta with turkey hot dogs, spinach, broccoli and mushrooms.
-onions
GPT is surprisingly helpful with recipes. I made the best meatloaf I've ever had by adding yellow mustard (I know but trust me) to an existing recipe.
It's often much more helpful than the ad-ridden google results we get lately.
Just be careful using ChatGPT for anything as it simply lies. It doesn't have taste buds, has never tried cooking or has a clue what anything food related actually is. All it does is parse text and tries to interpret what it thinks it's seen together and maybe should go together.
If it parses pineapple and pizza together, it will tell you it's amazing and you may not be in pineapple pizza fan club. It could also say that chocolate spread with pickle onions is amazing with marzipan because it parsed text of some pregnant woman craving it.
So yeah. Pinch of salt when taking advice and recipes from bots.
oh absolutely! I generally cook with my grandma senses. I couldn't think of what to make so putting in the base ingredients I have is nice. I just wish there was actually a place where I can put in every ingredient I have and the place can parse it for recipes that already exist with the ingredients I've got and not try to include all of them.
This one has been fun to use for a long while now: https://www.myfridgefood.com/
I hope it's of use :)
*Edited and changed the link, the old site I thought it was seems to be no more.
TY! I tried that one, but there aren't enough clicky buttons for all the things we have/don't have.
I'll give it another try though, since it's coming with an actual recommendation!
Eating lots of conservas. It's been too hot to cook in my condo so these are a treat and fun to shop for different ones online.
I saw reference to tinned fish in a cheese shop last year and you inspired me to just pick some up online from Fishwife. Do you have any recommendations of what to pair it with? Aside from childhood tuna, this will be my first experience with it.
My go to is pickled red onions, roasted red peppers, hot sauce and just plain crackers
I tried making peanut noodles for the first time with stuff from the local supermarket, no special orders required which was great. Cooked a package of udon noodles then mixed creamy peanut butter with garlic, soy sauce and lemon juice and served it with water chestnuts and sugar snap peas. So good! I'm whiter than salt but love east Asian food so it was a fun deviation from my meal prep rut.
I make this often for weekly meal prep. It’s so satisfying!
Here’s the recipe I use:
https://www.tablefortwoblog.com/cold-spicy-peanut-sesame-noodles/
Here’s my version of the ingredient list which has weights measured - it makes prep super easy. Just dump the ingredients in the blender, turn it on and you’re done.
I substitute maple syrup for brown sugar often, and vegetable oil instead of roasted peanut oil and never really notice a difference. I use whole wheat spaghetti as well as that’s what I usually have on hand.
I had some Japanese curry blocks that were close to the Best By date, but the only meat I had was ground beef. So I made ground beef curry to go over lentils and barley (I'm trying to eat healthier) and honestly it worked better than I expected, though I'm certain I didn't get as much flavor out of the beef as I could've.
Not as good as beef or chicken curry with nice solid chunks of meat, but it's not a bad low-key meal with minimal prep and cooking time.
I just got back from vacation a week and a half ago - 2 incredible weeks in Rome and Paris that involved way too many michelin restaurants - and on my flight home, started feeling off. By the time I got home that night, my partner had tested positive for COVID and the next morning I was sick as fuck. I spent five days living on broth, gatorade, and painkillers, then slowly started re-incorporating small bits of food. I'm still not able to eat much at once, my stomach's too shrunken and sensitive, but I've got a fridge full of summer stone fruit, berries, and sandwich ingredients. We'll see how it goes over the next few days.
Meal prep for this week was Ethan Chlebowski’s Cilantro Avacado Pasta salad:
https://www.ethanchlebowski.com/cooking-techniques-recipes/64x2p40qpmc7vo9vl6q7wagy8wzjn3-dnsgn
It’s my second time making it and man…something about it just checks all the right taste checkboxes.
I also made some focaccia and tried to recreate the mortadella sandwich from All’Antico Vinaio. Results are good but could be better.
https://pinabresciani.com/mortadella-sandwich/
I think this is a good opportunity to make sure everyone is aware that low-carb/keto bread and buns are GOOD now. I cannot tell the difference between it and normal bread and it's available almost everywhere now for maybe a dollar more than sara lee.
What brand do you recommend?
My pepper plants are full of fruit so I have been roasting shishito peppers and pickling jalapenos. My basil plants have exploded so Pad Kra Pao has been at least 1 dinner this week.
Vegetable slop - mixed veg with spaghetti sauce and olive oil.
Cheese Sticks
Protein shakes
I'm fat so I'm working on losing weight.
CICO worked for me. I didn't change my diet, per se, I just weighed absolutely everything and logged in an app.
Portion control made one hell of a difference. As did upping my water intake. I'm 28lbs down in 5 months.
Anyway, good luck on your journey.