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From Recipes

15-minute Creamy Tomato Soup (Vegan)

@JustErin: Unless it says "drained," it means juice and all. In this case, it definitely means with the juice. That's an important component of the soup, so make sure you don't use whole tomatoes in puree by accident!

@Kenji: D-oh! I read it twice and still missed it. Sorry about that.

From Recipes

15-minute Creamy Tomato Soup (Vegan)

Kenji: I make your Cook's Illustrated recipe for this at least once a month, so I immediately noticed the main difference: the original was thinned after blending with 2 cups of chicken stock.

That's not gonna work for a vegan recipe, of course, but I was surprised to see no additional liquid, either water or vegetable stock. Isn't the resulting soup kind of thick and pasty?

From Recipes

Vegan: Crispy Potato, Onion, and Mushroom Rösti

In step one, I think the word "cruncy" is missing an "h," but I am amusing myself at the idea of what "crunky potatoes" would be like.

In step four, where it says to flip the two plates "so the rfösti is not cooked-side up," I think you meant "now cooked-side up." Reading literally, leaving it uncooked-side-up would be putting it back into the skillet on the same side you already browned. Either that or I really don't understand the concepts here. :-)

From Serious Eats

Foodisphere Erupts Over Paula Deen Diabetes Announcement

For all we know, she takes one bite of everything she eats on-screen and lives off steamed broccoli and grilled fish the rest of the time.

Deen said this week that she says "all things in moderation, y'all," but has she ever shown this? I've seen Deen defenders say things to the effect of "she never said this kind of food was all you should eat."

To that, I say, "OK, when did she eat anything else? When did she show anything else?" In 500+ hours of cooking on TV that she's done in the past decade, how much of it was stuff you could eat every day and how much was stuff you should only eat occasionally, "in moderation?"

Actions speak louder than words, and Paula Deen's actions as the only Food Network chef with a built-in deep fryer on her island have said "I eat this every day and I'm just fine, y'all." If she doesn't eat it every day, she'd be disingenuous. If she does and she's known she's not fine, for three full years, and waited to say anything until she could profit from it?

Why should we believe anything she says now?

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Recent Comments

From Recipes

15-minute Creamy Tomato Soup (Vegan)

@JustErin: Unless it says "drained," it means juice and all. In this case, it definitely means with the juice. That's an important component of the soup, so make sure you don't use whole tomatoes in puree by accident!

@Kenji: D-oh! I read it twice and still missed it. Sorry about that.

From Recipes

15-minute Creamy Tomato Soup (Vegan)

Kenji: I make your Cook's Illustrated recipe for this at least once a month, so I immediately noticed the main difference: the original was thinned after blending with 2 cups of chicken stock.

That's not gonna work for a vegan recipe, of course, but I was surprised to see no additional liquid, either water or vegetable stock. Isn't the resulting soup kind of thick and pasty?

From Recipes

Vegan: Crispy Potato, Onion, and Mushroom Rösti

In step one, I think the word "cruncy" is missing an "h," but I am amusing myself at the idea of what "crunky potatoes" would be like.

In step four, where it says to flip the two plates "so the rfösti is not cooked-side up," I think you meant "now cooked-side up." Reading literally, leaving it uncooked-side-up would be putting it back into the skillet on the same side you already browned. Either that or I really don't understand the concepts here. :-)

From Serious Eats

Foodisphere Erupts Over Paula Deen Diabetes Announcement

For all we know, she takes one bite of everything she eats on-screen and lives off steamed broccoli and grilled fish the rest of the time.

Deen said this week that she says "all things in moderation, y'all," but has she ever shown this? I've seen Deen defenders say things to the effect of "she never said this kind of food was all you should eat."

To that, I say, "OK, when did she eat anything else? When did she show anything else?" In 500+ hours of cooking on TV that she's done in the past decade, how much of it was stuff you could eat every day and how much was stuff you should only eat occasionally, "in moderation?"

Actions speak louder than words, and Paula Deen's actions as the only Food Network chef with a built-in deep fryer on her island have said "I eat this every day and I'm just fine, y'all." If she doesn't eat it every day, she'd be disingenuous. If she does and she's known she's not fine, for three full years, and waited to say anything until she could profit from it?

Why should we believe anything she says now?

From Serious Eats

The Vegan Experience, Day 3: I'll Have That Without [X] Please

I'll be looking forward to the incorporation of all those delicious Asian ingredients—misos, soy sauce, fermented black beans, hoisin sauce—and how you manage without the punch of fish sauce and oyster sauce.

(I have to eat low-sodium, so I'm limited to white miso and low-sodium soy sauce, and even those sparingly, so I'm hoping you'll find delicious things that don't require ½ cup of soy sauce or red miso!)

From Talk

Measurements----

In case the OP doesn't know this: If you spoon flour into a one-cup measure and then level it off, you'll likely have right around four ounces of flour.

If you scoop the one-cup measure down into the container of flour and then sweep off the excess, you'll likely have around five ounces of flour.

Cook's Illustrated recipes assume the latter, "scoop-and-sweep" method because they think that's what most people do. Most baking-oriented recipes assume the former "spoon and sweep" method because there's less variation in the weight from cup to cup measured by spooning.

So why weight? Because if you spoon-and-sweep 2 cups of flour for a Cook's Illustrated recipe, you'll have about 8 ounces of flour, not the 10 ounces the recipe expects. You'd need 2½ cups of spooned flour to equal two cups of scooped flour.

And the other way around, too: King Arthur's recipes assume 4¼ ounces of flour per cup. Therefore, a bread recipe calling for 3 cups of flour (pretty standard) is designed for 12¾ ounces of flour. If you scoop and sweep instead, you'll have 15 ounces of flour—18% too much flour. Your bread will be heavy and dense because you scooped instead of spooned.

Other baking books I have say a cup of flour is 4 ounces. Or 4½ ounces. One said it was 5½ ounces, and that messed up my attempts at those recipes until I noticed it.

So, yeah, weight is especially important in baking. If no one you know uses ounces, then you can be the first and have better baked goods to show for it.

Or, if you just can't stand the scale, break it out for some consistency tests. Measure a cup of flour your normal way and see how much the flour weighs. Then put it back and do it again, and again, and again. If you consistently hit an exact number, like 4¼ ounces or 5 ounces, then you can do the math and measure that way. 11¼ ounces would be 2¼ cups if your cups of flour weigh 5 ounces.

Me? I just use the scale and a 1-cup scoop. It's faster than measuring by cups anyway.

From Talk

Food Commercials? Which ones tempt you (or not) the most?

I don't think McDonald's is "greenwashing" as much as saying "look, these were really good ingredients before we did our thing to them."

I read a story in a restaurant industry journal/site a few weeks ago that said this kind of thing is going to be a lot more prevalent in 2012, so get used to everyone telling us about their great ingredients. And not so much about what horrible things happen to them once they leave the packing plant.

From Recipes

Pickled Brussels Sprout Halves

According to this here PDF right here, which comes from the University of Wisconsin Extension Coop series, you should weigh salt for best accuracy. Furthermore, they do the conversion you ask for, and note that 1 cup of Morton's Canning & Pickling salt weighs as much as 1½ cups of Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt. It also says what varieties of salt not to use for home-canned shelf-stable pickles, and may be worth a read for anyone who has any interest in the subject.

(Nothing about adjusting times for altitudes, but we rarely find one source that answers everything, alas.)

From Recipes

Butter Beans with Kale and Eggs

The bean brining step is missing the unit "hours." (I can't brine beans due to sodium restrictions, and using salt substitute is both expensive and, in my tests, unsatisfying as to tenderizing beans. Fortunately, adding 25 cents worth of Kombu makes brining unnecessary and tenderizes the beans without soaking. Yay science!)

What about the carrot and celery? The ingredients don't say to chop them, nor do the directions say to discard them with the bay leaf and thyme. Do you just leave them in the pot to flavor things and then not serve them, as with the halved onion?

From Talk

Pressure Cooker & Electric Stove

I've never used my pressure cooker on anything but an electric stove. It works just fine. You typically do not need a "flame tamer" or other way to diffuse heat on an electric stove, so unless there's a specific recipe you're worried about, don't worry about it.

If there is, share it with us and we'll try to figure it out.

From Recipes

Chicken Vesuvio

OK, I'm not getting something here (so what else is new):

We start with 1/2 cup (!) of olive oil. Some of that comes out with the potatoes and garlic, so let's say we have 6 tablespoons of olive oil left (3/8 cup, missing 2 tbsp from original). Then we cook a bunch of chicken in it, skin-side down, which will render more fat, so we should have somewhere close to 1/2 cup of fat in the pan halfway through step 2.

Then we add 3/4 cup white wine, directly to 1/2 cup of hot oil? And cook it until it reduces by half? First, that sounds hot oil splatterrific. Second, that gives us 1 1/4 cups of liquid (20 tbsp) which we're supposed to reduce by half to 10 tbsp (5/8 cup).

As far as I know, fat does not reduce. So 8 tbsp of that is going to be fat, still, combined with 3/4 cup wine reduced to 2 tbsp in a splatter-heavy process. Are we really supposed to have 1/2 cup of fat and 2 tbsp of reduced wine in the pan before adding the other ingredients back? I mean, for a weeknight dinner, that's a lot of fat (not counting what's still in the chicken and on the fried potatoes and garlic).

Or am I missing something obvious?

From Slice

Survey: What Topping Combination Repulses You the Most?

About 20 years ago, in a themed pizza joint in another state (not the Chuck E. Cheese franchise, but one that was obviously trying for a similar vibe with licensed characters), some friends and I ordered a "bacon cheeseburger pizza."

You can already imagine the tasteless chunks of hamburger from earlier comments. I don't remember any tomato sauce on it, but there may have been. The two nightmarish parts were a) a thick blanket of American and cheddar cheeses (no mozzarella that I recall), and b) the bacon.

How can you make bacon bad? This bacon was already fried before they put it on the pizza and baked it. When the pizza came out, it was topped with shriveled, carbonized black lines of what can best be described as cured pork ashes. It was like biting charcoal. Never again.

From Recipes

Cook the Book: Family Meal Cheeseburgers

It's probably worth noting that unless you divide this into six patties (per the yield), the listed cooking times will not be accurate...

From Serious Eats

The Food Lab: Homemade Mayo In 2 Minutes Or Less (Video)

When I do this, I make it directly in a quart jar. A Mason jar works, but I usually use one of the big jars from Penzey's because I have some. Making it right in the jar you use for storage makes it even better. Be sure to use a jar that's not much bigger than your stick blender's head, though, because if the container is much bigger you don't get the steady stream influx that Kenji describes.

AB's point about storing homemade mayo on the counter was that your homemade mayo is more acidic than the commercial stuff—you can really taste your lemon juice or vinegar. The acid is more effective at killing any bacteria at room temperature, the theory goes, so leaving it sealed on the counter for several hours helps preserve it longer. Then you refrigerate it because, you know, science. (Can you tell I have no idea if any of this is true?)

From Recipes

Great Deviled Eggs

Kenji, I thought the power of the food processor/blender would break apart the molecules in really good olive oil and make it taste bitter. Why doesn't that matter here?

From Drinks

Hangover Helper: Migas Tacos at Veracruz All Natural, Austin

Hangover Helper restaurant/truck reviews may be fun, but you have to admit they're of limited use to anyone who's not hung over in the place mentioned. Can there be some more hints as to how those who aren't in Austin, TX, could use these ideas to improve a breakfast?

From Recipes

Dinner Tonight: Espagueti Verde

Why does everyone always try to roast whole peppers under the broiler when (like me) there's no gas burner?

Cut the top off the pepper. Make a slit down one side and open it up, just like you would for a bell pepper. Remove the seeds and ribs if the recipe calls for it (like this one does) using a chef's knife held parallel to the board. Put the flattened peppers on the tray, skin side up, and broil until charred to desired degree. Proceed with recipe as directed.

No turning, no repeatedly fussing with a hot broiler. If you see them charring unevenly, flip the baking sheet around after a few minutes so more parts are directly under the heating element. And no fussing with stemming and seeding roasted chiles later!

From Recipes

Chipotle Mayonnaise

@Cincinnatti Nomerati: there's no reason you can't use light or fat-free mayo and sour cream if you like the taste. Or fat-free mayo and light sour cream, or whatever else. On their own, the light ones are usually fine and the fat-free ones usually aren't, but in something flavored like this where they're blended with lime juice and chipotle, you may never notice.

(Note: not responsible for bigger pants if you use this trick to put a low-calorie delicious condiment on tons of fried foods.)

From Talk

Why did I even bother asking?

If I wanted to bring a second dish given these parameters and diners, I would probably take some of those good vegetables, roast them, and put them in some nice quesadillas, with each round cut into 10 or 12 wedges so no one has to commit much to try one. With a nice melting cheese, you can roast peppers or asparagus or corn, or add caramelized onions, or whatever looks good and has a compatible flavor profile. You can say "I wanted to roast some veggies and make a cheese dip, but this seemed easier to eat, but I brought the traditional one also in case no one like this." Someone else is probably bringing salsa so that should be compatible.

Be prepared to take leftovers home. Never look, for even one moment, like it's a big deal if someone doesn't try one or doesn't like it. Smile through everything and just say "well, it was a gamble, but I know I like the leftovers if there are any!" and take another bite. It's their loss if their palettes are limited, not yours. They're still family and you love them even if they eat Hormel Potted Meat Food Product™.

IMHO.

From Recipes

Dinner Tonight: Chicken a la Diable

To serve four people, I presume this means four chicken leg quarters, with thigh attached?

In this part of the country, "four chicken legs" means "four drumsticks."

From Recipes

Bread Baking: Long Loaves

Arch—how can you post this lovely recipe and make the same mistake the pizza crust makers do?? *sob*

Don't dust the baking sheets with cornmeal—dust them with more semolina! Cornmeal burns; semolina does not. And you've already got ½ cup of semolina in the rolls themselves, so any toasted semolina on the bottom goes perfectly with the rest of the bread!

(Sometimes I think people will think I hate cornmeal. I don't—it's just not what to use for dusting baking sheets. Semolina FTW!)

From Recipes

Dinner Tonight: Warm Fingerling Potato and Tuna Salad

Wait...the onions, carrot, and celery are just flavorings for the potato boiling water and should be discarded? Because if you drain that pot and use all the contents in the salad, you've also got whole black peppercorns and a bay leaf in your salad...

From Recipes

'My Father's Daughter': Gwyneth Paltrow's Grilled Tuna Rolls

Echoing @redfish. When I have a surprise meal to make, I never have tuna steaks just sitting around in the fridge.

In fact, since I live in a landlocked state, I never have tuna steaks, period.

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From Serious Eats: New York

mdeatherage answered "Call over the manager and ask that the item be taken off the bill. " to How Would You Deal With Restaurant Error?

From Slice

mdeatherage answered "Yes! " to Do you make pizza at home?

From Serious Eats

mdeatherage answered "Produce" to What's your favorite supermarket aisle?

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Quizzes

From Serious Eats

mdeatherage got 50% correct on Quiz: How Much Do You Know About Tofu?

From Serious Eats

mdeatherage got 44% correct on Quiz: How Much Do You Know About Pumpkins?

From Serious Eats

mdeatherage got 66% correct on How Much Do You Know About Peanut Butter?

From Serious Eats

mdeatherage got 60% correct on How Much Do You Know About Barbecue?

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mdeatherage got 66% correct on How Much Do You Know About Watermelons?

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mdeatherage got 70% correct on Quiz: How Much Do You Know About Tea?

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mdeatherage got 55% correct on How Much Do You Know About Condiments?

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mdeatherage got 50% correct on Slice Quiz No. 1

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