I've been thinking about getting into cast iron cooking. I need a new skillet, and I've seen recommendations for cast iron, but some things seem daunting:

• Seasoning. How bad is it really? Did you purchase a pre-seasoned pan and just cook with it? Do you re-season occasionally? How often? What oil do you use? What is your process?
• Cleaning. How do you clean your skillet? Soap and water? How do you know when you are done cleaning? What materials do you use?
• Unknowns. What did you not know until you started cooking with cast iron? Any surprise benefits/costs?

Have any of you used cast iron, then returned to Teflon or stainless steel after being disappointed in the experience? What are the biggest differences between cooking with cast iron and other materials?

Considering that non-stick manufacturing poses environmental risks, and iron may provide a net positive effect for folks needing more iron in their diet, it seems like this is a natural way to go.

By sandwich, I am excluding "the Shaggy", where you just pile every good thing you can think of on.

I mean what is your favorite traditional sandwich, such that you could say the name to a stranger and have a reasonable chance of them knowing what fillings you are thinking of.

You may include candidates which are not not universally be considered a sandwich, such as hot dogs, quesadillas, burgers, etc. So long as you genuinely beleive it to be superior to all other sandwich forms.

My current shortlist of candidates, as examples:

1. Grilled Cheese - Simple, easy, accessible to the masses

2. Bahn Mi - A Vietnamese sandwich of a split baguette with kewpie mayo spread, stuffed with marinated grilled pork, cucumber, carrot, and sliced green pepper.

3. Italian Combo - An informal sub combination typically consisting of salami, capicolla, and some form of cheese, mozzarella being used as a default .

You can choose your own metric for what makes for a superior sandwich and may consider any standard toppings for the sandwich like mustard/mayo to be included.

Hi all. I'm interested on hearing about recipes you've come up with yourself, whether completely from scratch or variation on an existing one. Maybe you were lacking an ingredient one day, and subbed one that changed the recipe in a good way. Maybe you tried a dish at a restaurant that you love and attempted to recreate it at home. Maybe you had a bunch of leftover ingredients you didn't know what to do with, so decided to throw them all together and pray for the best. Or maybe inspiration struck suddenly one day for a perfect dish, and you gave it a shot. Would love to hear the backstory of the recipe if you have it. I'll start.

Cincinnati style daal. The family chili recipe growing up was cincinatti/skyline style chili. I've thus always preferred my chili without beans, and I love the depth of flavor cincinnati style chili has. My family even likes to use ground turkey meat because we think it absorbs the flavors of the spices better than beef does. When I moved to the UK, I suddenly had access to excellent Indian food, daals now being one of my favorites. One thing that immediately struck me about daals was the depth of flavor in them. The lentils serve to add texture and some creaminess, but the spices in it are the highlight of the dish. In fact, this kinda reminded me of my family chili. I began wondering, could I make a daal but with the spices from my family chili? This would be pretty nice, as turkey is kinda hard to find outside of christmas time here and lentils are a good low-cost protein. Well, it turns out the cooking process for daal and my family's chili are pretty similar, so I took a black daal recipe from dishoom and tried subbing the cincinatti chili spices for the spices in the daal. Many of the other ingredients between the two recipes are similar. And it's come out pretty good! I'm still refining it, it lacks some umami without the meat, but I think the next batch will be great. Serving it with naan and cilantro, instead of spaghetti. Always with shredded cheese and chopped onions of course.

Filipino Dip. One of my favorite recipes to make is chicken adobo, so easy to make and it's delicious. I usually have some chicken and sauce left after making a batch, and one day it occurred to me that there was enough sauce left I could dip a sandwich in it. Huh, that's kinda similar to a french dip. So I shredded up the remaining chicken, toasted a baguette, and sauteed a bunch of onions to add to the sandwich. It was absolutely delicious, and what I will be doing with my leftover chicken adobo from now on.

St Patrick's Day Ramen. So, this year I decided to make my family's St Patrick's Day meal. Kinda hard to do in the UK, as corned beef is really not a big thing. (Yes, I know they have the tinned version, no, it's nothing like the real deal). But I corned my own beef, and then braised it in red wine, and invited friends over to share. Afterwards, with all the corned beef gone, a friend and I were looking at the braising liquid. There was a ton of it left, and it tasted frankly delicious. My friend pointed out that it reminded him of a ramen broth, and so an idea was born. I bought some thinly sliced beef from the local asian grocery store, and assembled the ramen with it, the noodles, cabbage, thinly sliced green apples (I know it seems weird, but it's used in the family cabbage recipe), and pickled garlic/cucumbers made from the leftover corned beef brine. It came out delicious, and will definitely be doing it next year.

Oven roasted brussel sprouts and carrots. This came from a restaurant near me that unfortunately closed. They would make the most amazing, crispy, roast brussel sprouts and carrots served with a tangy, smokey dressing. After it closed, I would dream of these brussel sprouts, and I tried googling recipes to find something similar with no luck. I knew only a couple of things: that the head chef was Peruvian and said on the menu it had inspired this dish; there was mezcal in the dressing, likely providing the smokey component. So after researching Peruvian recipes, I've come up with a vinaigrette that's as close as I can remember: bragg's cider vinegar, juice from one lime, olive oil, salt and black pepper, and a splash of mezcal. If available, add a touch of aji amarillo paste. May need to add a little sugar for a hint of sweetness. It took some time to figure out a crispy brussel sprout too, as home ovens can't get as hot as a commercial kitchen, but also finally found an oven roasting recipe I was happy with.

Looking forward to hearing everyone elses recipes!

A little less than a year ago, I asked for your recommendations on bread maker tips, tricks, and recipes, and thought I’d give a small update.

The bread maker I bought is functionally the Breville Custom Loaf, rebranded for the local market (“Tramontina by Breville”). I paid R$3069 for it. It was on sale: the same machine now sells for anywhere between R$2991 to R$3690. (These equate to about 565USD then and 594USD to 732USD now, considering contemporaneous exchange rates.)

My +/- weekly recipe eventually settled upon via much trial and many errors comes from an amalgamation of various sources, by now mostly lost. In the summer, I have to halve the recipe and make bread twice as often, or the maresia / damp sea air makes it mould before we can eat the whole thing!

I have also not tried to make anything but this exact bread since I started. My dreams of raisin buns are as of yet unrealised. Next year for the end of the year, I plan to make panettone in it, as we don’t plan to travel.

My unhalved recipe is:

• 450ml water (filtered, cool)
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 4 cups 100% whole wheat / integral flour
• >1 tsp demerara sugar
• <1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp (freezer stored, instant dry) yeast
• ~3/4 cup walnuts, in pieces, raw, unsalted, to fill the “automatic” dispenser on the machine (sometimes the bulk goods shop by me is out of nuts. the bread is better with nuts, but fine without.)

Cost wise, this breaks down to:

• 500mL olive oil : R$25 (0,75/loaf)
• 1kg flour : R$7 (3,17/loaf)
• 1kg sugar : R$10 (0,05/loaf)
• 1kg salt : R$4 (0,02/loaf)
• 100g walnuts : R$10 (12,50/loaf)

I didn’t include the yeast in the breakdown because I have yet to buy any. The 1kg package of yeast I purchased four years ago to make pizza and kept in the freezer since is still going strong. At present, a kilo of yeast costs ~R$23.

Without nuts, my cost per loaf is R$3,99, while with nuts, it’s R$16,49. My local supermarket sells a (frankly inferior) and much smaller (350g) “100% whole wheat” loaf for R$25.

Having kept incomplete records, I believe for most of the year we have made a loaf about every five days: let’s pretend means over the past year, I’ve made 70 loaves at about a 50/50 split of nuts or no-nuts, so let’s put my total cost of making bread as R$716,80. If we buy bread, it’s an every-other-day occurance, so R$4562,50 spent on bread in a year. Adding the cost of the bread maker to the mix, if these were real figures, we would have saved R$776,70 so far, just in this year alone.

And it has served us well, with some slight oddities!

The first is based on the machine: never once in the usage of the machine has the “automatic” dispenser of nuts automatically added the nuts at the proper stage. I have read the documentation, and I can find no explanation. At present, if I want nuts added, I have to remain at home when the maker is going, as it screams something awful (buzzer) when it’s “going to” add the nuts, and then I run along and poke open the dispenser door with my finger until the latch opens and the nuts dispense into the awaiting dough. If I know I won’t be home, I don’t add nuts, because otherwise, I will come home to a nice loaf of bread and a small dispenser of lightly warmed nuts. (Heh.)

The second is that my recipe is not as good when I have to halve it! In the damp season, I had to throw away a few half-loaves, as mold loves my poor little bread, and the bread does not survive well in the fridge. But splitting the recipe (and altering the settings on the bread maker to reflect, which is itself an imprecise science) has yet to lead to a smaller version of my usual recipe: what comes out is a biscotti-shaped, flat, dense, but still edible loaf. I’m still figuring it out!

All in all, thanks to everyone who encouraged me in the previous thread, and let this be encouragement to anyone else on the fence to try out a breadmaker!

Hello,

I'm into self-hosting and when my daughter (elementary school) started writing her own recipe book, I kinda went "She is young, she shouldn't be doing this in paper form" and I started looking around for a solution for kinda non-existing problem.

I stumbled upon Mealie, which is server that can be used in docker and is self-hosted recipe book/website. It seems like you can come in and say like "I have these ingrediants, what can I do?", it also seems to be able to generate shopping lists based on your selected recipe, you can use checkboxes when bringing all the ingredients on the kitchen board/table/top (non-English native speaker here) and so on.

It seems like the right software for me, but before I delve into it, I wanted to ask if someone else possibly runs such service for themselves at their home. Is there somebody who is using something like this? It doesn't have to be Mealie, specifically. But it should be server-side service, not some smartphone app. I know there are other such services, which are also open-source, but I forgot the names, sorry.

Thanks for any relevant answers!

I've always made rice in a pot on the stove and that's served me very well but I also like to steam vegetables, dumplings (usually from frozen), and eat oats for breakfast. After a bit of research, I've determined that I'm in the market for a rice cooker, an appliance I have never owned and have 0 experience with. Like most kitchen gadgets, I find that the market is oversaturated with options and my attempts at research have led me to some wildly different conclusions. Do I stick with brands I know like Cuisinart or KitchenAid? Do I spring for the fancy Japanese brands? Or do I cheap out and then upgrade when the device burns out? How large of a volume do I need? Are the fancy steamer inserts worth it? What if I want to steam rice and veges in one go? And so on

For my personal use case, I make rice 3-4 times per week easily. I need to be able to make enough rice for 4-6 adults max in one sitting. I would like to make a decent amount of dumplings in one go, say enough to get 4-6 adults started while I steam a second round. I want to be capable of steaming veggies and making oats. I want it to have a removable insert for cleaning. I'd like it to be fairly easy to use. Are these common wishlist items for a rice cooker? I am really not sure

Beyond my use case, I'm interested in what people own and use. Do you use it often? Any regrets? What other foods can I make with this gadget?

Edit: I appreciate everyone who has weighed in so far. I did want to add that I prefer not to add an instant pot. Not to discount anyone's experience but I have had bad luck with them (I've had a pair that burned out in the warranty period, one on its first use) and already have a slow cooker and pressure cooker cooker I am very happy with. I know they're amazing and do all kinds of different things but I'm interested primarily in a rice cooker that can handle a few extra tasks

For context, I live in the tropics and get a lot of sunlight for most of the year outside of monsoon season.

I was recently chatting with some coworkers and one of the mentioned baking cookies on their dashboard during the summer, and I remember my brother mentioning doing that when he lived in Arizona. That is something I could probably do here, but we always keep a sunshade up in our car so it isn't incredibly hot when we get inside.

This got me thinking about solar ovens since I remember seeing a video of someone using one to cook online awhile ago, and I was curious if anyone here has one or has any experience using one and if it was worth it or if they would have any recommendations.

There's a lot of stories of people getting off caffeine and documenting the changes and benefits they experienced. But I'm wondering if anyone has gotten on caffeine as an adult and could share what benefits, if any, they gained. For reference, I've never consumed much caffeine and have been debating doing so. In terms of actual work and school, I've never found the need. But, I'm generally a bit lethargic/slow paced by nature (have trouble getting up in the morning, inefficient with my time especially when I don't have much going on) and maybe a light jolt and ritual in the morning would be worthwhile.

Food highlights for the year?
Favorite meals?
New baking breakthroughs?
Hilarious cooking disasters?
New restaurants in your area?
Delicious snacking?

Let us know how all about your food for 2025 and what eating/cooking/baking/snacking was like for you.

Sadly, I think I need to reduce my coffee intake. I only ever had a cup a day, but I've always been in to light roasts... roasted within walking distance of my house*... super fancy shit. Anyway, I'm trying to nail down some health things, so coffee has to go for a time.

I am now a tea person. I don't really like it, but I need something like that in the morning. I've started with Lapsang Souchong. This is pretty much the only tea I've ever had. I don't have any dairy in my diet, either, which seems to be a big part of tea-life.

Any top tips for getting into tea? I was just mocked for weighing tea... I guess that isn't as important in this scene.

* not joking about this :)

edit: thanks everybody! the first round of teas are:

• Lapsang Souchong
• Hojicha
• Irish Breakfast
• Margaret's Hope

so far so good!

These days, it's been difficult for me to figure out what to make for dinner. I scroll through recipes on TikTok and various other recipe pages that I've come across, but I can never seem to figure out what exactly I want to make. It gets to a point where I just give up and eat out somewhere... which is a convenient option but not very cost-effective especially for someone who's going on one year post-grad and trying to make more home-cooked meals.

Do you plan your meals throughout the week? How far ahead do you plan out what you're going to make? Do you meal prep and, I guess as an extension of this topic, how does one start getting into the habit of meal prepping? Would love some help trying to get back into the rhythm of cooking.

A few years ago I started shopping at Lidl and came to really like their bakery.

I noticed over time that their bagels became smaller.

Smaller than the bagels at Giant supermarket, and two real bagel shops I eventually found. Currently "everything" bagels at Lidl are 79 cents each. At the real bagel shops "everything" bagels are $2 each.

The Lidl bagels are smaller, the "everything" bagels don't have salt or nearly as much. I like them better than the bagels from one of those two "real" bagel shops.

Thankfully, the smaller Lidl bagels have fewer calories!

I remember a few years ago I saw several articles about bagel places scooping out some of the bread for people watching their weight.

Duh, they should have just made them smaller.

The Lidl bagels are still large enough to make decent sandwiches.

Hoping this fits, because... well, it is about eating.

I swear my mouth is more sensitive to physically hot temperatures than other people's. I burn the roof of my mouth with pizza multiple times a year while others with me can eat it just fine, and I have burnt my tongue on metal spoons just as often. Just last week my mom asked if I was going to eat my soup because I'd been sitting at the table for 5-10 minutes, and I was waiting for it to cool down because the spoon had already burnt my tongue. I even use a disposable plastic spoon for eating ramen, but obviously that's not good for the long-term.

So we tried to look for silicone spoons to use for eating... except apparently they might not exist? I can find silicone cooking ware, baby spoons, and some really hideous spoons that have a weird shape I automatically loathe, but not a single regular-shaped spoon for eating. Cursory research suggests some other non-metal silverware sets exist made of materials besides silicone, but I have no idea where to begin.

So, can anyone recommend some spoons that aren't metal and made for dining?

Hey Tildes food crew!

I made some olives 3 years ago and kind of a "set it and forget it" situation. And well, I forgot them for too long. It's been 3 years now and I've only found them because I was looking for jars for a new batch. I opened them up and didn't hear any "hiss", they smell good, there is no sign of mold (on the 2 good ones I'm keeping, we did lose one jar to mold), and I did a small taste test and they tasted olive-y and good. They have been in a cupboard for the entire time and I'm happy to share the recipes if that is helpful. The olives in each were slit to facilitate faster edibility. They both have a 5% brine, one with red wine vinegar and the other with balsamic vinegar.

I know we have quite a few crafty, homesteady, foody folks here and would appreciate any advice you can provide! Just making sure they are still safe to eat! Thanks!