Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Ive never heard of people using agave to cook. But, I thought agave's characteristics were widely known? Thats what tequila is made of, no? I thought I read somewhere that the agave was used in some ancient religious practices. I could be completely wrong. Maybe I made it up, but I could have sworn I read it somewhere.

i love this thread! this is the best thread ever!! When i was a kid, we had a brown refrigerator, avocado green wallpaper with yellow flowers, and our apartment had a built in bottle opener. I remember the Woolworth's lunch counter, and it was my favorite thing, because that was the only time I ate outside the house.

I remember the sunday laws, and how the whole family actually hung out together and had dinner together.

I remember when old grannies would give me candy when i was walking on the street with my mom, and there was no question about its safety.

I remember the only place we bought meat was from a butcher shop.

me too, me too! I'm in the same situation. I need food, and lots of it, so this is what I do:

I try to make a pot of rice and portion it out for a few days. I'll eat white rice and sauted vegetables, or I'll make some kind of stew to go with the rice. Its very filling. If I have left over rice, I freeze it until I have some accumulation of left over rice to make vegetable fried frice.

Fruit : I always buy fruit. Anything thats on sale. Whole pineapples, melons, berries, etc. I cut up fruit, portion it, and its a great and filling snack.

Yogurt: I guy a tub of plain yogurt and theres lots you can do with it. I usually just blend the yogurt and some fruit and have it as a smoothie or just eat it as yogurt. You can do this on the weekend, and it will keep for a couple days without any problem.

Make a pot of chili and you can portion that and eat with rice, chips, bread, or just by itself. I also do this with soup.

Snacks: Ive been making a lot of pita chips. I can season it and flavor it anyway I want, so I have a variety. Cut up Vegetables are of course always great. I keep some at work, and just take it with me when I leave for school. Lessons the morning load. I keep packets of oatmeal, nuts, crackers at work. I try to eat late in the afternoon, and I find that I will be less hungry later on. Sometimes I'll just go home and eat a piece of fruit or some yogurt and I'm good. I also made some sundried tomato and basil hummus. you can eat it with crackers or spread it on a bagel. It will keep in the fridge for about 5 days. With the left over chick peas, I made a bean salad. When cheese is on sale, i cut that up, portion it into little zip lock bags and it makes a good snack for me.

We have a bunch of busy searious eaters here, i see.

I only read food blogs. I dont even read the news. I would rather stay home and cook (even though I'm not good), than hang out with my friends. I'm in serious trouble.

My regulars:

not eating out in ny
dinners for a year and beyond
FP daily
Peabody
cooking for engineers
my wooden spoon
chowhound

thanks for all the great suggestions! i'm making my second batch today. =)

When I was little we spent long, hot summers in the country (upstate NY near the Conn border). My mother, who was English (a war bride) loved new vegetables, especially "baby" ones, and got us all excited about tiny carrots, etc. Most people thought this was weird. At farm stands, she would beg local farmers for tiny potatoes -- the kind that now sell for five bucks a pint. They would shake their heads at this crazy lady and go out back to get little potatoes from a barrel where they had thrown them -- intended as dinner for the pigs!

Fructose is the natural sugar found in most fruit and honey, I imagine agave nectar is mostly fructose. Sugar is sugar and its bad for you to eat much of it, much as we all love it. I dont think there is really that much difference between honey, agave syrup, sucrose and HFCS, apart from that fructose doesnt always give the sharp insulin spike that glucose from sucrose or HFCS might.

@dbcurrie et al - I totally agree. I wasn't expounding on the virtues of "natural" forms of sugar at all, just trying to point out that there are differences. As I said, it's still sugar, and it still has to be a "sometimes" food (as Cookie Monster would say).

I share your disgust for the marketing of the word "natural" -- it's entirely unregulated, unlike "organic" or even "reduced fat." Whenever a food company comes to pitch a "natural" product to me (I'm a food editor at a magazine), I always make it a point to ask what natural means to them. After all, arsenic is natural, but I don't want it in my food!

Hah, I've never done that. I have a few in my yard and I'm actually quite fond of them. In fact, a good friend of mine who is alarmingly botany-minded is working on a design of an agave in full bloom for a tattoo.

I think agave nectar was big during the low-carb craze because it has a low glycemic index. However, I looked on the label and noticed it had the same calories as honey. I like honey and I'm not low carb, and I eat sugar, but in moderation, so I was never part of the 'agave craze.'