Do you like soup? Here is a super super easy soup I like, made from canned pumpkin.
Put 3 cups of the broth of your choice, 3/4 cup of milk, and a pat of butter in a pan and bring to a boil.
Lower the heat to medium and whisk in one can (the smaller size, the kind you would use to make one pie with, not two) of pumpkin, 3 tablespoons of brown sugar, and a half teaspoon each of chili powder, ground cumin, and ground coriander.
Simmer for 15-20 minutes, and add salt to taste.
It's nice to put a little grated cheese in the bottom of the bowl, if you have some.
I have a spreadsheet ready to go. I'm thinking maybe I can create four weeks of three meals apiece, together with shopping list, and print those out, and just practice those weeks until we're sick of them.
Sautee garlic and onion, add prepurchased tomato sauce, half a hot pepper and a red pepper (and any other veggies you want). Combine with pasta. It's better than just store-bought sauce, without being more work. For added tastiness add some goat cheese.
Various Asian foods where the key ingredient is a few spoonfulls of some sauce that comes out of a jar. E.g. Thai curries (thai curry paste, onion, ginger, coconut milk, and whatever ingredients you want over rice) or Chinese black bean sauce stifries (black bean paste out of a jar, plus garlic, ginger, soy sauce makes the sauce, and then combine with whatever veggies and tofu you want and add either noodles or rice).
Basically find things where the hard part can be bought in a jar, and then add roots (onion, garlic, ginger) and whatever fresh veggies you have.
This lentil and black bean chili is very simple and tasty; it's from Weight Watchers. It takes closer to 40 minutes, though.
4 is understandable, but requires a kind of familiarity with cooking to pull it off without a lot of thinking. I need to have a system in place that's a lot more concrete, right now.
Other super-quick dinners:
- a frittata, with whatever odds and ends of leftover pasta and/or vegetables I have hanging around at the end of the week. I can give you the method if you need/want one.
- this black bean and corn salad is surprisingly good and genuinely speedy, and you can put it in hard taco shells to make it feel more like a main dish.
- Fried rice. This requires making/otherwise acquiring extra rice earlier in the week, because you need cold leftover rice to make it work, but then it is very quick to throw together, especially if you use frozen vegetables. Would you need a recipe for this, or is the basic idea enough?
- Grilled cheese sandwiches.
- Egg salad sandwiches.
Grilled cheese is a good one. And it's easy to branch out into slightly more complicated options (put a tomato slice in, add lunchmeat, etc.).
Not to mention if you want it to be fancier you just buy nicer cheese.
Grilled cheese (or at least toaster oven cheese) is in current rotation, but egg salad sandwiches are very good.
Wouldn't mind an explicit explanation of the fried rice. Just put a little oil in a pan, get it hot, and put the rice and veggies all in together? With soy sauce?
For a long time my basic building blocks were
1) Flour Tortillas with cheese, (lots of) garlic, rice, and optional veggies/salsa.
2) Pasta with olive oil, (lots of) garlic, cheese, and optional veggies
3) Rice with stir fried veggies/meat.
All are pretty simple, all take longer than 30 minutes if you can't set the rice cooker in advance (but you can start rice when you get home, do something else for 20 minutes, and then start work on dinner).
The first two can easily work with frozen peas as the veggie, which is nice. Without veggies the rice/pasta dishes may be slightly on the "empty calories" side of things but they're way healthier than most pre-packaged food.
The one tip that might be helpful for you is a thought about meat. I cook with meat frequently, but tend to use small quantities and treat it as a way to add flavor rather than a main ingredient. For that purpose bacon really can be one of the better choices -- particularly if you're buying high quality organic bacon. Cook up 2-3 slices (for the 3 of you) and then cook broccoli or collard greens in the bacon fat.
That also takes longer than 30 minutes because you have to add 10 minutes to cook the bacon, but it's simple, doesn't require a lot of attention, and matches the amount of time it takes for the rice cooker to make rice.
Pasta with butter and sage. The trick is to make sure the sage gets crispy. Particularly good with ravioli and gnochi, but it works with plain pasta as well.
Carbonara.
Pasta with butter and parmesan (doesn't get easier than this)
Pasta with leaks and sausage cooked in butter
Pasta with spinach, feta, hot pepper and bacon
Pesto
Lentil soup with a little bit of bacon and/or sausage. Use those little french green lentils.
Split pea soup
Couscous cooked with broth, add some cooked veggies and sausage.
Risotto - takes a while but you can make a lot and serve for a couple days.
Quiche. If you can get half way decent pre made crusts this is no effort at all.
Also, I know you prefer non meat centered dishes, but braises can be easily scaled up and then you can eat them for days. I made oxtail with white wine and tomatoes last weekend and it served for four meals. Tripe is also great. Marcella Hazan's recipes work very well.
Also meat centered but very simple and tasty, chicken breast stir fried with parsley and garlic - chop up chicken, coat with flour, salt, pepper in a plastic bag, drop into a hot pan with butter and olive oil together with chopped parsely. When almost done turn off the heat and add minced garlic. Both hot and sweet peppers can be added as can fresh or dried herbs (if dried, add to bag with flour). Rice cooked with butter, garlic, and stock works great with this.
Leftovers.
If you have a few hours on like a Sunday, make a bunch of stuff all at once. Like, meat and a pan of veg roasting while you have a slow cooker going while you stir fry some stuff. I like to then alternate microwaved sweet potatoes and salad as a side.
But this is perhaps not what you're looking for? I dunno if this helps.
I highly recommend the crock pot. You can start a meal in the morning and it will be reAdy when you get home. The following cookbooks are also helPful
Not your mothers slow cooker
Everyday food: great food fast
Cooking for the week
Cook once, eat for the week
The last 2 focus on cooking up a batch of stuff that is then used all week in various dishes. There are also a bunch of cookbooks that have 5 ingredients and 15 or 30 minutes in the title. They are pretty straightforward.
Buy a canned ham, slather it in grape jelly, chuck it in the oven at 400 for a half hour, boom, done.
Sometimes it's important not to listen to me.
The foodies will slay me but...
Ravioli Lasagne
Bag of frozen ravioli (20 oz. or so)
Jar of pasta sauce
8 oz. bag of shredded mozzarella
Preheat oven to 425. Lightly grease a baking dish. Start with a thin layer of pasta sauce, then layer frozen ravioli, sauce, and cheese until the pan is full, ending with a generous sprinkling of cheese. Bake 30 minutes, or until lightly browned and bubbling.
You can shred your own mozzarella, of course, and even make your own sauce, or add your own random bells and whistles (a layer of lightly sauteed veggies or sliced cooked Italian sausage, etc.). But if you buy frozen ravioli, bags of shredded cheese (store in freezer), and pasta sauce when it happens to be on sale, you have a cheap and filling meal waiting for you in the freezer/cupboards any time.
The foodies will slay me but...
Cannibalism: the ultimate locavorism.
Chop zucchini (however finely you want), onion (anywhere from just a little bit up to as much as the zucchini), garlic. Sautee the onion until it gets a bit soft, add garlic and zucchini, also add cinnamon (to taste, probably more than you think you'll need), salt, and red pepper flakes (optional). When the zucchini starts to soften, add pine nuts and currants. Once all of that is stirred around and warm, remove from heat and mix with prepared couscous.
This is also tasty the next day. Also very tasty with the addition of chopped lamb sausage.
The following cookbooks are also helPful
I know this makes me sound like a total idiot, but cookbooks have enough...start-up costs? something like that - that I never get around to opening and using them more than once or so.
Cannibalism autosarcophagy: the ultimate locavorism.
17 totally made it onto the spreadsheet.
Let me get in my sitcom-character lines by saying that you could solve this problem entirely by eating more meat, which is fast and simple to prepare. And that you can get organic, grass fed stuff shipped to you easily online, even if it's hard to find locally. And that having a high glycemic carb like pasta as the centerpiece of most of your weekly meals is a terrible idea.
Having given that genuine but almost certainly unhelpful advice, yeah, just get a slow cooker and make lots of stews.
How about scrambled eggs with stuff in them? That was the first meal I learned to cook (with cheese and tomato mostly). I also really like scrambled eggs with curry powder mixed in.
Brothy Asiany Soup:
Bring chicken or beef broth to a boil.
Add some chopped cabbage and chopped onions. (Both of those chopped so that they're in long slivers.) Not that much -- it's a brothy soup.
Add udon noodles or frozen potstickers.* (We use the pork gyoza from Trader Joe's.) Boil until they're done.
Serve with sriracha and sesame oil at the table. Sliced hard boiled egg makes a nice addition as well.
*If we have leftover meat from another meal (pork works best), we'll chop it in strips and mix it with a bit of barbecue sauce before we put it in the fridge. Then we'll use just udon in the soup, and add the meat right before the end, just long enough to warm it up.
Halford what's your e-Bison hookup?
The garlic + currants + pine nuts combo is a good flavoring for many things, worth keeping around. (With currants and pine nuts in the fridge, they'll keep pretty much forever.) Very good with sauteed greens.
I mostly just buy at farmers markets or Whole Foods, but my buddies at Lindner Bison will hook you up with shipped bison from their ranch if you call them, and I've heard good things about grassfedtraditions.com which has a real online store. Helps to have a big freezer if you're ordering meat shipped in.
You guys get organic meat shipped to you? From semi-locally-ish? I know of a couple organic farms around here, but it's always an extra trip, and thus seems like a perk to be added in once I've got a routine going.
I was thinking I'd just pile up meat five feet high on our porch and make sure to eat it all by spring.
Sites like Eat Wild list places by state.
http://www.eatwild.com/products/index.html
And that having a high glycemic carb like pasta as the centerpiece of most of your weekly meals is a terrible idea.
As opposed to what?
A little quick googling from the IPhone suggests that there's a place near you called Green Grass meats that not only ships but offers free delivery in the "Austin Area."
Buck and I do a lot of variants of what we refer to as bean glop. Because talking about food like that makes it more appetizing. Start with having cooked a big piece of meat a while back, and eaten most of it (maybe a chicken carcass, maybe a hambone with meat on it -- that kind of thing.) Throw it in a pot of beans, cooked like you cook dry beans, with whatever other vegetables and spices seem appropriate. Eat some of this the night you make it, and freeze the rest, failing to label it so that unfreezing it is vaguely surprising ("Oooh, this is the time you put in all those cloves. Maybe less cloves next time.")
It's a couple of hours of simmering on a weekend to make it, but then it's in the freezer for another couple of meals.
||
I sent out an email seeing if any math students wanted to do some baby-sitting on the side, and one student wrote back "I would be more than willing to watch your precious baby!" That turn of phrase is totally cracking me up. It just sounds so sarcastic.
|>
As opposed to what?
To things that take longer to digest, and won't mess with your blood sugar so dramatically.
33 -- lean grass-fed meats, vegetables, fruits, seafood, and nuts. Works for me, anyway.
37: But this is about weight loss, not health, yes?
36: actually, that sounds creepy instead of sarcastic.
Maybe you don't feel a need to change a breakfast routine, but I make steel cut oats in the crockpot every weeknight. Takes me 4 minutes of set-up the night before and tasty breakfast is ready whenever my housemate or I get up.
Oats, raisins, nuts, cinn and nutmeg, OR
Oats, raisins and a lot of vanilla
in a milk/water mixture. Cook on warm all night. I do that for all the cold months and it hasn't gotten old. And the house smells good. Soak the crockpot all day; start over.
36: Heebie, I'll watch them on Skype, and totally call you if something looks weird.
37: But this is about weight loss, not health, yes?
For me it's more a question of not having a sudden drop-off point when I MUST EAT SOMETHING NOW. Breakfast is the worst for me. If I had Megan's breakfast, I would be hungrier an hour or so after I had eaten it than if I hadn't eaten anything.
So far I've got two complete weeks and have written up shopping lists, and a handful of ideas. My criteria is "would I think it was easy to improvise if I lost the recipe?"
A meat-and-potatoes meal really does sound easy. I'm just really most interested in minimizing the number of variables of the routine, and adding in shipping or extra locations seems not-minimal.
To things that take longer to digest, and won't mess with your blood sugar so dramatically.
Why?
Lentil soup is also pretty fast. Chopped onions, a carrot (chopped fine) cooked in olive oil until soft, add the garlic, then a bag of lentils and water or stock to cover, simmer for forty minutes or so until the lentils are soft, throw in a box of frozen chopped spinach and some tomato paste and cook until everything's hot and mixed, and serve with some bread.
And that's all pantry staples barring the frozen spinach, which you can keep around for a while.
43: Don't worry about hunger. If you took Megan's breakfast, you'd be lucky to ever eat again.
I can make oats enough for everyone, Moby. There's plenty of room in the crockpot.
Simple Lentil or Split Pea Soup
tldr: follow the instructions on the bag
Split peas and lentils are awesome because they come in several colors (so you can do a "different" recipe without bothering to actually learn a new recipe) and cook relatively quickly without soaking.
Because I hate inaccurate recipe times I will admit up front that this is more like a 40-45 minute meal if you have decent kitchen skills. In a pinch, you can skip the onion step entirely, and start by adding beans and water. On the other hand, this is a one-pot meal, so cleanup will be relatively simple.
First fry some chopped onion in a *large* pot (see below) with a little bit of oil, until it's at least somewhat brown.
Next add a pound (usually bags are 1 pound) of split peas or lentils, some salt, and 7 cups of water. Bring to a boil, then simmer until the beans are as done as you like. Some people like the texture of separate beans, others prefer to cook it until the beans break up into a paste. If the excess water is all soaked up and the soup tastes too dry, you can add some more water and cook it some more.
Serve with pepper, maybe some toast.
Here are some optional improvements - I suggest you use at least one:
1)After browning the onion, add some chopped mushrooms and brown them, before adding the lentils and water.
2)Add some chopped carrots, early in the cooking.
3)Add chopped tomato, canned is just as good as fresh since you're cooking it anyway.
4)For split pea soup, fry some bacon or turkey bacon (no extra oil needed). Take it out and break it up into pieces, then add it back after the onion. This should work for any sort of cured meat.
5) Throw in 4 or more bay leaves.
I second anything involving pasta, so I won't add my pasta recipes; I'm sure you're more than capable of looking up variants yourself.
Saute some chopped onion, carrots, maybe garlic in a big pot. I sprinkle some chicken pieces with salt, pepper, turmeric, maybe cumin, and toss that in with the onion etc. Then dump a cup of dry rice or quinoa over the top, toss in 2 or 3 cardamom pods, and fill with about 3 cups liquid -- I usually do broth, maybe some white wine if the spirit moves me. Cover, simmer for 15-20 minutes. If it's too watery once the grains are cooked, just simmer a little longer with the lid off. I don't see why you couldn't just skip the chicken if you wanted to.
If I had Megan's breakfast, I would be hungrier an hour or so after I had eaten it than if I hadn't eaten anything.
Even with nuts in the oatmeal? They should have enough fat to buffer the carbs and not make your blood sugar spike quite so badly. OTOH if there's one thing I've learned over the past couple of years it's that everyone's biochemistry is different.
I used to make a vegetables-n-pasta thing quite often: chop maybe half an onion, a bit of garlic, a summer squash of some sort, and whatever else you want (a tomato, a pepper, some broccoli). Stir fry in some olive oil. You can finish off with red pepper flakes if you want. Meanwhile, cook some pasta; I like linguine. Drain the pasta, add the veggies, and I like to add maybe half a cup of cheese, cubed -- usually Monterey Jack, but grated Parmesan would be good, too. The cheese melts and makes it all quite nice.
Or, a super-inauthentic curry I learned from a Kiwi friend in grad school: put some rice on to cook. Meanwhile, saute some garlic, onion, and some of the same kinds of veggies as above, plus, if desired, some cut-up chicken breasts. Add some Thai curry paste and either a can of stewed tomatoes or a smallish can of coconut milk.
Even with nuts in the oatmeal?
Yeah. I can have a piece of toast with breakfast if I eat it with peanut butter or cheese, but oatmeal somehow just makes my stomach into a bottomless pit.
I think cooking them in milk helps too. But if Blume says she feels hungry, she feels hungry.
Get a chest freezer. Make large batches of things like soups or other things that freeze well. Freeze in appropriate family-meal sized portions in ziploc freezer bags (5-6 bags per recipe). You cook for a weekend, a lot of the recipes have things in common (chopped onions, etc.) that you can prepare in bulk, and you have meals for a couple months that just need to be thawed and heated in a pot.
Some options that work for this- minestrone, lentil soup, african peanut stew, black bean soup, as well as some non-soup things that you put in a casserole after thawing rather than a pot and bake briefly- baked ziti (freeze prior to the baking part), homemade mac and cheese. I think we documented some of those here.
It is sad! Because I love oatmeal. I still occasionally eat it if I am going to be at home and can have a second breakfast mid-morning.
Perogie are a good, quick meal. I like to cook a couple of onions in oil and butter. Then open the finest, frozen perogie and cooked them as the onions finish.
I'm looking forward to making dinner this week. I just got white lentils, millet, red quinoa, celeriac, and beets. Yum.
61: I fucking love pierogies, but they're absolutely horrible for me. And now thanks to your comment I have a craving for them.
Also: the food wiki still exists! If anyone wants to access and post/read things, feel free! ybwwwe.pbworks.com, click "request access" to request access.
White lentils and red quinoa?
Isn't that a little affected?
Stupidly easy/tasty spinach-lentil-rice curry-ish soup: toss some oil in a soup pot, when hot toss in one onion, some garlic (like 3 cloves), and some ginger (I like a lot, but at least 1 tbs). Sauté. Next throw in a can of diced tomatoes (the 14oz smaller kind) and curry spices (or just curry powder): I like cumin, coriander, cayenne, tumeric, and fennel. Cook a bit (10 mins or so). Now blend this -- if you are going to make soup a lot, a stick (aka immersion) blender is an invaluable and relatively cheap investment! Add like 4 cups of water and 1/2 c of rice (I use brown basmati) and a 1/2 of lentils. Bring to a boil, cover, lower heat and cook long enough to make sure your rice is cooked (20 mins or more -- really the lentils take less time and could be put in later, but I don't mind them mushy, so I just toss the grains in at the same time). When done add a thawed, squeezed out packet of frozen spinach, a half cup or more chopped cilantro, and a cup of (I use half-fat) coconut milk. Heat through. Remove from heat and stir in 1/4 c of fresh lemon juice. Salt as you wish.
I'm so hungry, I can't even spell.
I've never had white lentils, but red quinoa is different (to my taste buds, at any rate) than the norm.
A way to make fried rice:
Get your ingredients chopped or out of the freezer and ready next to the stove.
Heat up some oil in a big pan until it's sizzling hot, then add vegetables and/or meat (frozen peas and green onions are best kept out until later, but other stuff is nice to give a little sear first). Add chopped garlic and/or ginger, too, if you feel like it.
After a couple of minutes, add the rice (and frozen peas if you're using them). Saute until heated through. Keep the heat high and keep the food moving.
Add a glug of soy sauce and mix it in well. Sesame oil if you want it. Crack a egg into the pan and mix it into the rice until it doesn't look shiny/damp anymore. If you want to include chopped green onions, it's nice to add them right at the very end, here.
Stop cooking and add salt and pepper to taste.
Also, given your current state of frazzledness, I recommend a big nonstick pan for the job. Yes, a well seasoned wok is great, but I don't think you're going to dislike what you make in a nonstick pan, and cleanup and everything else will be much simpler with nonstick.
Heebie's endorsement of 17 is the only clue to her desires!
The most obvious things to suggest had been soups/stews, especially with beans, since you can also use them for burritos or tacos, or on top of potatoes (the leftover black bean or lentil soup thickens after the first day). You can even make thickened black beans or lentils into veggie patties (add an egg and bread crumbs, or bulghur wheat), browned/warmed in a skillet, with whatever veggies on the side.
If casseroles are desired, homemade macaroni and cheese can be pretty quick and simple, and nutritionally dressed up with the addition of, say, broccoli.
Tonight my roommate made a big pot of beans with bay leaf, carrots, onions, and herbs, and a loaf of sage soda bread, and I made millet. Dinner in 10 minutes. I love living with people.
Dinner in 10 minutes.
Not from the point of view of all the players in this dinner-making drama!
Things I make that are very simple:(cleanup often being the important advantage)
Put some broccoli in a bowl, salt and add olive oil.nuke for a minute, stir, repeat
Nuke potato for a few minutes per, then ten mints in toaster oven at 450
Roast chicken drumstick, then put in bowl with bbq sauce and srirach. I lake my own sauce, most just taste like sugar, but that's not really necessary.
Many of these suggestions don't seem much easier than what is consider a full meal. And I think people in general over rate ever impose of changing the macro shape of meal variations, instead odd changing the minor component flavors/spices
And I think people in general over rate ever impose of changing the macro shape of meal variations, instead odd changing the minor component flavors/spices
yoyo, typos I can work with, but come on now. We have grammatical standards here, and you're approaching gobbledty-gook.
Have we already talked about the miracle of cast-iron skillet pizza?
Make some pizza dough (or buy a frozen pre-made ball of dough at the store). In either case, take out of the fridge and let it sit at room temperature all day.
At dinner time, put a cast-iron skillet over high heat and leave it there for, like, 10 minutes while you quarter the dough and roll/stretch each quarter into a mini personal sized pizza.
Have all of your other ingredients standing by the stove: a bowl filled with a small can of plain tomato sauce (not pasta sauce) into which you've stirred a pinch of red pepper and black pepper, and a bowl of shredded mozzarella (optionally mixed with parmesan).
Put your open rack in the very top position, and turn your broiler to high.
Now: lay the first dough circle into the very hot pan. Quickly! Spread one large tablespoon of sauce over the dough. (Less sauce than you probably think you need.) Sprinkle on the cheese. (Less cheese than you probably think you need.)
Wait just a minute until it's obvious the dough is cooking (perhaps it will start to bulge around the edges). Transfer the pan under the broiler. Wait 45 seconds. Rotate the pan 180 degrees. Wait another 45 seconds. Remove pan from oven, remove pizza from pan.
Repeat with the other three pieces of dough.
Enjoy.
Have we already talked about the miracle of cast-iron skillet pizza?
Make some pizza dough (or buy a frozen pre-made ball of dough at the store). In either case, take out of the fridge and let it sit at room temperature all day.
At dinner time, put a cast-iron skillet over high heat and leave it there for, like, 10 minutes while you quarter the dough and roll/stretch each quarter into a mini personal sized pizza.
Have all of your other ingredients standing by the stove: a bowl filled with a small can of plain tomato sauce (not pasta sauce) into which you've stirred a pinch of red pepper and black pepper, and a bowl of shredded mozzarella (optionally mixed with parmesan).
Put your open rack in the very top position, and turn your broiler to high.
Now: lay the first dough circle into the very hot pan. Quickly! Spread one large tablespoon of sauce over the dough. (Less sauce than you probably think you need.) Sprinkle on the cheese. (Less cheese than you probably think you need.)
Wait just a minute until it's obvious the dough is cooking (perhaps it will start to bulge around the edges). Transfer the pan under the broiler. Wait 45 seconds. Rotate the pan 180 degrees. Wait another 45 seconds. Remove pan from oven, remove pizza from pan.
Repeat with the other three pieces of dough.
Enjoy.
I forgot the key step where you double-post. (I mean, the recipe is good, but not THAT good.)
Many of these suggestions don't seem much easier than what is consider a full meal.
But she wants full meals, for a family, just easy ones.
One of the things we have in the rotation, especially in the summertime, are chocolate blueberry protein shakes. A cup of milk, 1-1.5 cup frozen blueberries, a heaping scoop of basic chocolate whey, and 2-3 Splenda packets.
My "fast" repertoire includes this vaguely quesadilla-like thing:
Saute one chopped onion until soft. Add a can of black beans. Cook for a while; stir and smash some of the beans to make it thick. Add random cooked chopped veggies or meats or some herbs and spices (I often use a bunch of epazote) here.
Heat a large flour tortilla in a matching-size pan, dry (I usually heat both sides of two tortillas here). Put half the bean glop in it, top with shredded cheese and the other tortilla. Flatten it as necessary, heat until cheese is melted, slice into quarters and serve, with sour cream and hot sauces. When done, repeat with the remaining bean glop.
Separately, given a blob of pizza dough in the fridge (possibly store-bought frozen dough which has thawed), you can totally go from zero to pizza in 30 minutes. Tip: Tomato sauce for pizza can just be canned tomatos and spices tossed in a blender; no cooking required.
Back from shopping. This week's winners were:
1. Spaghetti, per 4.1, and spinach
2. Black bean and corn salad from 7.2
3. Egg salad sandwiches a la 7.5, and green beans.
But I plan on bookmarking this thread.
You spelled gobbledy-gook wrong.
I tried it both ways, couldn't decide, and took a flyer on it! I really wanted that "t" in there, I guess.
this takes some prep but not much attention and is a way to make slabs of tofu that taste good. i've converted skeptics:
squeeze the water out of the tofu by wrapping it in a bunch of paper towels and sticking it under something heavy for 15+ minutes. slice pressed tofu in slabs about 3/4" thick. i use firm or extra-firm tofu.
mix soy sauce, sesame oil, sriracha or other hot sauce to taste, and chopped/pressed garlic. maybe a little sugar or orange juice if you like sweet. cover the tofu in it. it can marinate like this for a while or you can cook it right away.
cook in a hot non-stick skillet until browned, flipping once. or grill.
general timesaver tip: use chopped garlic from a jar!
Heebie, do you and Jammies have basic black bean and lentil soups under your belts?
The last few times we've had this thread, people have emphasized having pantry items stocked. It sounds like you guys might not really have that pantry-stocking habit in place.
Heebie, do you and Jammies have basic black bean and lentil soups under your belts?
Not really. I mean, I feel like I could easily perform the recipes here, but I don't have a go-to soup that I already make readily.
It sounds like you guys might not really have that pantry-stocking habit in place.
I think we've got a sound supply of non-perishables. Mostly from having cooked isolated meals many times and buying pantry items one meal at a time. We've got the assorted spices and oils and flour, etc.
Sautee garlic and onion, add prepurchased tomato sauce, half a hot pepper and a red pepper (and any other veggies you want). Combine with pasta. It's better than just store-bought sauce, without being more work. For added tastiness add some goat cheese.
Nothing against your recipe - I made virtually the same thing last night - but how is this not more work than store-bought sauce? Am I a barbarian for sometimes microwaving sauce from a jar and glopping it onto pasta?
My current solution is a half-pound of pre-packed chicken salad from dear Whole Foods, which I have in pita.
A classic food thread.
90: Hm. Well, I cook with dried beans, which require soaking and then cooking, which can take a while. I don't really have a recipe for making black bean soup with canned black beans.
Lentils don't really have to soak (though they come out differently, more plump, if you soak them, and then cook quickly, in like 20 minutes). LB's recipe for lentil soup at 46 is the basic outline.
Let us know if you want more detailed instructions for lentil soup, or black bean soup. Maybe someone makes black bean soup from canned beans. I really recommend having those two in your repertoire.
35 lb is good. I make lunches ahead for the week. And always really simple bean soup. Chok bean in crock pot, add spices and fat and sour.
I don't like raisins so much as dates, but cinnamon, and allspice is good.
PROTIP, always put the spice powder into a fat.
"And that having a high glycemic carb like pasta as the centerpiece of most of your weekly meals is a terrible idea.
As opposed to what?"
Well I would suggest vegetables. I don't think high gi is intrinsically bad, more a marker of emptiness. but wheat is pretty bad, even compared to other grains. If I cook a bland carb for dinner to be covered in a flavorful sauce, I always choose legumes or potato. Grains are for keeping you peasants from rioting.
Beans require one of several options.
1. lots of time
2. Crock pot
3. Pressure cooker
4. Get split, hulled ones at the indian grocer. I like channa dhal and masoor dhal
Options 1-3 need the pre soak. Which requires organization, tho not much time.
Its easy to make a bunch ahead, and if you don't use them for leftovers, freeze.
Caned beans are really bad.
I don't mind jars of mariners, tho the only instance I use it, on pizza, I add more herbs and garlic.
I don't mind jars of mariners
Just use them promptly or they develop a rime.
But she wants full meals, for a family, just easy ones.
Does that just mean not restaurant style multi course meals, shaving veg into curlicues, &c?
I feel like I've left this kichari 'recipe' here before, but basically, boil 1 cup of mung dahl in quite a bit of water; once it's boiled long enough that it's starting to break up add 1 cup of of quinoa and 2 more cups of water, and boil for 5 more minutes than simmer for 7 or 8 until the quinoa is all unfurled. Right around when you add the quinoa, also add some ground ginger, turmeric, salt, black pepper, and ground garam masala (or powdered cinnamon, cardamom and cloves) and whatever frozen or canned vegetables you have handy. Add a dollop of ghee at the end and serve with chips, hot sauce, and/or bbq sauce.
My other super fast one is frozen vegetables sauteed with soft tofu and Thai Kitchen 3-min rice noodles.
I just remembered an easy, incredibly simple, and tasty meal from this summer.
I was experimenting with different spices to use on cabbage and ended up discovering that curry powder worked surprisingly well.
Chop head of cabbage
Saute (medium heat or a little under) with oil (or bacon fat, see previous suggestion), salt, and curry powder.
Add just a little bit of soy sauce (to add umami, you don't want it to taste like soy sauce).
That's it. It can be a complete meal if you're really feeling minimal.
I've never really seen the point of soaking beans, it just speeds up the cooking a bit. I guess environmental reasons, since you use less energy. In any case, both split peas and lentils cook quite a bit faster than most beans.
Caned beans are really bad.
Which is why they're caned.
I'm watching "worst cooks in america". Sort of fun but definitely not useful
Maybe someone makes black bean soup from canned beans.
I do! Because I have no foresight. Saute garlic, peppers, and onions, add canned black beans and some vegetable broth, juice of a lime. You can throw half into a blender and then add it back, if you like thick soup. Fry an egg, drop the egg in the bowl of soup. Very easy, pretty good.
This aglio, olio e pepperoncino style thing can be ready in 15 minutes, easy, but only works if you like a lot of chilli heat in your food. I like it a lot and cook it for myself at every opportunity (i.e. if I happen to be alone at home for dinner). My wife, on the other hand, refers to it, or at least the sardine version, as "your slop" - as in "should I bring something back for you, dear, or are you having your slop tonight?" Nonetheless, I'll give (rough) quantities for two.
-Boil water, add salt and a little olive oil, and enough penne for two.
While that cooks:
-Either have two cans of sardines (in olive oil) opened and drained, or chop a head of broccoli into little florets and steam till just soft.
-Crush three cloves of garlic and chop four or five birdseye chillies (or more); saute in maybe five tablespoons of olive oil in a frying pan on medium heat, until slightly toasted.
-Add the sardines (breaking them up) or the steamed broccoli to the frying pan, and toss.*.
-Drain pasta, return to saucepan and add contents of frying pan.
-Serve into bowls, salt (heavily, in my case), eat and sweat.
*low hanging British fruit, obvs.
I've never really seen the point of soaking beans, it just speeds up the cooking a bit.
teraz, what language are you speaking? With dried kidney beans or chick peas or white/navy beans, or any number of less usual beans, I think it's quite desirable to soak them. ? I'm sure you can just cook them from rock-hard status onward, but -- thinking now about what would happen -- I think the cooking time takes so long that they lose their integrity, and you wind up with mush.
I'm completely surprised here.
Lentils and split peas don't need to be soaked, nor do black beans if pressed, so much.
The Cult of Rancho Gordo's standard line on soaking is, sure, if you have the time, but don't let not having soak dissuade you from cooking the beans. They just take longer; they don't come out worse.
they don't come out worse.
Have you tried this?
I had the impression that they'd lose their integrity, by which I mean that their skins would split apart, and you wouldn't have whole beans, but rather mush. As I said. If you're making something that doesn't mind being mushed, a soup that's designed to be semi-pureed, that's fine, of course. Otherwise I cast a wary eye at the cult of Rancho Gordo.
The Cult of Rancho Gordo can afford that stance because their beans are so tender. Beans that are older, larger, or thicker-skinned need soaking to cause even penetration of liquid, and soaking also helps break down the starches that make some people gassy.
106 gets it right. I've seen it with my own eyes! Tasted it with my own mouth!
109 captures my next thought. Thanks. If your beans are so fresh (and thus quite expensive) that you don't need to soak them, that's great. Otherwise skipping the soaking is going to be troublesome.
Except for the small lentils, I don't think I've used dried beans for anything but crafts.
112: Yeah, well, we all know you're weird, Moby.
Thanks to this thread I am having oatmeal with nuts and dried fruit for dinner and it's delicious!
113: For my legume needs, I mostly eat peas (frozen with tiny onions), baked beans (canned), pinto beans (from Chipotle), and hummus. But not at the same time.
Most of my dried legume consumption is made up of peas, lentils, black beans and white beans and about half the time I make the latter I'm turning them into a puree. However, I've never had much trouble with the beans falling apart before they're thoroughly cooked in spite of the fact that I long ago stopped soaking and use standard issue supermarket beans most of the time.
You _can_ check out cookbooks from the library or just spend an afternoon really going over them at barnes and noble to see if they would be helpful. It's the phd in me; I always think every problem will be helped by having a useful reference work.
116: Okay. Peas and lentils don't need soaking, and black beans don't necessarily; for the rest, soaking isn't much of a burden. Anyone who wants to cook the heavier, harder, thicker-skinned beans without soaking them is welcome to.
and thus quite expensive
They are?!? Who knew.
i love this recipe for pasta with greens + ricotta. easy, efficient use of pots, really delicious as written. you can use any tough green you happen to have.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/12/health/nutrition/12recipehealth.html
119: I thought they were, but I don't remember the details now.
Does that just mean not restaurant style multi course meals, shaving veg into curlicues, &c?
I never make restaurant style anything, but some dinners I make take half an hour or less, and others take an hour or more, because there is lots of chopping or lots of simmering or extended baking, or some combination.
easy, efficient use of pots, really delicious
Like that!
They are?!? Who knew.
$5/lb is expensive for beans, as you must know.
I didn't know that! I've never bought beans that weren't canned before. I'm not surprised, but I am largely incompetent in such matters.
If your beans are so fresh (and thus quite expensive) that you don't need to soak them, that's great.
The ones I get at my co-op bulk section are crazy cheap and as fresh as the Rancho Gordo ones. I still get RG for the variety, but I get all the standard ones at the co-op.
I'm not surprised, but I am largely incompetent in such matters. myself have never actually bought the RG ones before.
It's the phd in me; I always think every problem will be helped by having a useful reference work.
Heh. The phd in me holds that I must get through life by re-deriving solutions from scratch because I'll inevitably forget what I read.
My old survival rations were a thing I called Rice 'n Shit (grated dried feces optional). Start cooking rice. If you're feeling fancy, add an amount of bullion cubes appropriate to the water used cooking the rice. Halfway through, add frozen vegetables of your choice. Maybe sliced hot dogs if it's payday.
But yes, beans are your friends. I'm currently microwaving lentils and rice (one pot) in scrap bin stock with onions, garlic, garam masala, sage, and other spices I don't remember.
Recipes that can be made in about 30 minutes, with all or mostly pantry ingredients:
Chickpea Curry with Coconut Rice
Coconut Red Lentil Soup (for when you wonder what to do with the rest of the coconut milk from the above)
Ethiopian Yellow Pea Stew
Easy Meatless Red Posole
Moroccanish Lentil Soup derived from The Best Recipe
Creamless Creamy Tomato Soup - so much better than canned, I have converted all my friends
Our two-person fast-meal staples, from most to least brainless:
1. Pea soup. Cook 3 c frozen peas in 2 c bouillon, 5-10 minutes, until just tender. Puree. Split between two bowls, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with black pepper, garnish with grated or shaved Parmesan. Serve with bread.
2. Spinach and egg soup. Simmer a 10-oz. package of frozen spinach in 2-3 c chicken stock or bouillon. Add a dash of nutmeg, and salt and pepper to taste. Beat an egg with ~1/4 c freshly grated Parmesan. Tip the egg into the soup, stirring as you go. Cook 2-3 minutes, just enough to cook the egg. Serve with bread.
3. Bacon, leafy greens, polenta, and egg. In a large skillet, start frying bacon, 1-2 rashers per person. Wash a bunch of dark leafy greens and slice into broad strips. When a little bacon fat has rendered, add greens, salt, and garlic. While the greens cook, combine 1 c milk, ~1 t sugar, 1/2 t salt, and ~2 t butter in a saucepan and bring to a bare simmer. The bacon and greens should be about ready; scoot them over to the edge of the skillet and crack two eggs into the middle to fry. Back in polenta town, SLOWLY pour 1/3 c cornmeal into the milk, stirring continuously. Keep stirring polenta to thicken it up while the eggs cook, another couple of minutes. Serve everything in a delicious pile, polenta on the bottom and egg on top, and break the yolk to let it run all through.
(3a. Leafy greens, polenta, and egg. Skip the bacon; cook the greens in olive oil with a little extra salt. Saves ~5 minutes.)
That is a seriously red tomato soup.
129.2: I'm exactly the same way. My life would work much better if I could deduce the solutions to my problems from a short list of axioms.
1. Chop a large head of broccoli into slivers.
2. Mince a couple of cloves of garlic.
3. Melt two or three anchovies in a little oil while you're doing 1 and 2.
4. Fry the garlic in the anchovy oil with a generous handful of raisins and optionally pine nuts, pistachios or whatever you've got.
5. When the garlic is done, add the broccoli, squeeze a lemon over it, cover and steam till it's as soft as you like it.
Serve with spaghetti. The great thing about this is that apart from the broccoli it's almost all store cupboard stuff.
If meat is allowed, then stir fries are an obvious solution. Ten minutes tops. Plus maybe 5 minutes of prep, depending on how lazy you are.
Why do you need meat for a stir fry?
12 Pasta with leaks
Oh you mean lassange?
Pasta puns, ladies and gents. I'll be here all weak.
Those who forget the pasta are doomed to reheat it.
140: In the South, the Pasta isn't al dente. It isn't even Pasta.
I saw a bumper sticker yesterday that started "Peace Begins in the Kitchen" -- maybe some of you have seen it and know what the rest of it said, but I thought it should have gone on, "So don't fight over recipes!".
Or else maybe, "So, just do the dishes yourself!"
||| Hurrah for Unfogged! Big big thank yous to all who provided suggestions for getting rid of my viruses! bob, apo, gswift,etc -- I believe I ran every one of the anti-viral programs you folks suggested, and finally my computer is working again! As Pauly says, you guys are the best! ||||
Why do you need meat for a stir fry?
Well, I'm only speaking for myself of course, but I find veggie stir fries unsatisfying. But that's because I tend to find any non-soup meal without meat unsatisfying.
All the bean talk reminded me that even my incompetent kitchen skills managed to put together this fantastically delicious kidney bean curry in about 30 minutes.
Beans! Beans! The magical fruit! My comments are like farts!
Wait. That didn't rhyme, like, at all. Crap.
I'd eat anything from you guys. If you know what I mean.
Mom made chicken last night. It's the BREAST!
HA HA HA! You know where chicken breasts come from? It's the CHEST!
HA HA HA!
Sorry I couldn't comment, but my mouth was full. I need to go brush my teeth now. Mom bought me new toothpaste. It's the CREST!
Moo shoo vegetables:
Buy bag of "broccoli slaw", sauté in sesame oil (if feeling ambitious, start with some ginger and garlic"
In separate skillet, scramble 2-3 eggs in sesame oil .
When slaw soft, add mung bean sprouts and oyster sauce. Maybe a little rice vinegar and/or mirin (if feeling ambitious).
Add eggs, mix well.
Top with more mung sprouts, and soy. If ambitious, chopped scallions.
Can put on rice, or not.
20 minutes, tops.
Salmon burgers and sweet potato fries:
Mixed canned salmon, frozen spinach (thawed and squeezed dry), onion, lemon, and egg. Put into patties, cover in bread crumbes. Skillet-fry in olive oil (not too high heat).
Put on whole grain buns.
Serve alongside frozen sweet potato fries. (or, if ambitious, slice sweet potatoes into fries, light coat oil, bake at 400 for 20-25 minutes.
Whole thing: 30-40 minutes.
Slaw:
Slice napa cabbage very thinly (for slaw texture, of course); optional: other veggies (carrots and peppers work well)
Mix: olive oil, acid (rice vinegar, lemon, lime, other vinegar, your choice), salt, pepper and other spices, maybe some mayo (very little needed) or some buttermilk.
Mix just prior to eating.
Use spices to fit cuisine. Eating burritos? Add cumin and chili powder. Indian? Curry works nicely. Use yogurt instead of mayo. Chinese? Ginger, some soy, Szechuan pepper. Thai? Cilantro. Goes with anything.
Takes 5 minutes.
Yam/chirizo fajita
Cut sweet potatoes or yams into strips, lightly oil, bake at 400 for 25 minutes. Alternative: nuke them into a mush, add salt and pepper.
Slice some red onions thin. Cover with lime juice. Let soak while cooking.
Saute pablono or Anaheim peppers, add chorizo (can use fake/seitan chorizo here).
Serve all three on whole wheat tortillas with feta or crumbly Mexican cheese.
Serve with mexi slaw.
25-30 minutes, tops.
Migas:
Scramble eggs. Add tortilla chips or toasted corn tortillas cut in strips. Saute jalepenos (or milder pepper) in oil, turn down heat. Add egg mix, cook slowly until through. Serve with salsa and some veggie. Slaw again?
Fennel and cucumber salad.
From Bittman's fairwell minimalist list.
Chop fennel. Chop celery. Add a little oil, lemon, salt and pepper. Toss. Serve with ribbons of parmesan cheese. Or, for a meal, add butter beans (canned).
Fennel and cucumber salad.
From Bittman's fairwell minimalist list.
Chop fennel. Chop celery. Add a little oil, lemon, salt and pepper. Toss. Serve with ribbons of parmesan cheese. Or, for a meal, add butter beans (canned).
I know it's minimalist, yet I feel something is...missing?
The cucumber is more hauntingly present in its very absence.
You think that's haunting? You should try the onion thing.
It's a little-known fact that shallots were originally developed by vegetable breeders in response to the great Shetland Pony Colic epidemic of 1854.
yes. Fennel and celery salad.
But cucumber would work well in addition or instead.
phred reminds me that Bittman's Minimalist columns are worth the look. Here's a link to the complete set.
So that ATM post was closed to new comments huh?
I bet the geebies could stand to have more KASHA in their diet. Kasha is great.
I'm just going to damn well continue the conversation here, because that was fascinating.
Can you point to a useful review of the infectious agent literature, Moby? Is it Toxoplasmosis or are there other possibilities?
Yes, I would be interested in this as well. Please Lord let the infectious agent not be bacon.
I've really been liking Bittman's Food Matters cookbook (from the library) and do use the How to Cook Everything app quite a bit.
My go-to meal with those constraints would probably be an omelet, maybe with leftovers inside or maybe something cooked/cut fresh. If you're not worried about flipping perfectly, they're easy, satisfying, and quite fast. A few eggs, a splash of milk, salt and pepper, butter in the pan, and then whatever you want on the inside.
161: I just wanted to do "deca-Kobe" and have actual work to do. I haven't heard of anything but Toxoplasma being investigated, but I'm six years out of the loop and I would guess that there are many. Torrey is the big name behind the toxo stuff (and probably one of the people Bentall is talking to in his head as he writes). If it is toxo, we'll know soonish (as far as science goes). The original idea started before toxo was known. Somebody noticed a relationship between season of birth and incidence of schizphrenia and went from there.
I haven't heard of anything but Toxoplasma being investigated
Wait, the thing you get from cats? Is this a conspiracy by Big Dog?
161: I'm just going to damn well continue the conversation here
Imagine an Unfogged thread going to 1,000 ... forever.
165: Crazy cat ladies explained!
I ban myself (also 167 -> this).
The last time I was at a conference on this sort of stuff, with various researchers presenting work on schizophrenia, I had the impression that a lot of these things were a lot more tentative re: the genetic basis of schizophrenia. However, that was 7 or 8 years ago, so I'm hardly super current. Anyway, Bentall's take in ME isn't to deny that various schizophrenic symptoms may indeed have a biological basis, but rather to deny that particular evidence held to support the reliability of schizophrenia as a distinct diagnostic category are weak. ME really isn't as fluffy as that guest blog post. Doctoring the Mind, on the other hand, is more of a slightly woolly hand-waving 'here's some cases I'd like to discuss' sort of a book.
I have to go and teach a class in advanced hitting people, but will be very interested to catch up when I get back.
I mean, science-wise, things have shifted since I last looked at things. The cites on the Wikipedia page are nearly all from after I left. But, policy-wise, the same fights have been continuing. There are those who want to keep the concept of mental illness constrained to a limited group of conditions that can likely be traced to biological origins and those who take a more expansive view. The former group tends to think most about someone with an IQ of 90, vivid psychosis, and a few state hospitalizations on the resume. The later group and think of how to keep him from being institutionalized. The later group, being more open minded about these things, is likely to think about a wider variety of people. Neither is really wrong (at least not since the psychoanalysts started going for evidence-based stuff), but given the scarce resources, I think the former approach is likely to be more needed.
170: Are all Scots qualified in this kind of instruction?
165: to be fair, it's also spread in raw meat.
(dunh dunh dunh)
I had the impression that a lot of these things were a lot more tentative re: the genetic basis of schizophrenia.
They are very tentative in the specifics. But, 40% of the people who have a monozygotic twin with schizophrenia also have schizophrenia. On the other hand, only about 7% of people with another sibling or a parent with schizophrenia have schizophrenia. In other words, there are clearly multiple causes (or you'd have 100% concordance for the monozygotic twins), but one of those causes sure looks a great deal like a recessive gene.
I can't find the figures quickly, but last I heard the fraternal twin rate was lower than the monozygotic twin rate and higher than the "other sibling" rate, suggesting that what happens in the womb matters.
You know, I bookmarked this thread so that I'd have all these great recipe ideas in one tidy space.
So the curried sweet potato soup recipe I had on tap for this thread is right out, then, is it?
Here's a review article:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16095840 which claims Toxo in humans is not subclinical, with a cite to a study detecting lower IQ and lower educational attainment for Toxo-positive individuals.
Clearly more people are infected with Toxo than develop schizophrenia; looking at these individuals and at the brain chemistry changes of other infected mammals, as many groups are in fact doing, is the way to go.
You know, I bookmarked this thread so that I'd have all these great recipe ideas in one tidy space.
They haven't gone anywhere.
Clearly more people are infected with Toxo than develop schizophrenia
Yes, but still don't let pregnant women change the litter box.
They haven't gone anywhere.
But the space is becoming less tidy.
Inevitable with a litter box, really.
Just to be clear, there are proven toxo risk factors for pregnant women. These have nothing to do with schizophrenia.
Obviously this means no more cat recipes.
litter box
Sure, the article I linked suggests public health approaches to feral cats. I'm just saying that getting at the underlying biology is easier by looking at a large and varied population rather than at just the most severely affected tail.
Skimming some abstracts, it looks like most mouse knockout work so far points to variation in immune response, which makes sense but quickly gets too complicated for me to think about.
165: to be fair, it's also spread in raw meat.
Which is easily prepared, though not, perhaps, right for the Geebie family.
Sure, the article I linked suggests public health approaches to feral cats
I really wish that idea would spread. And the people who feed pigeons in the parking lot of the store by my house could stop that also.
Somehow I knew that Moby's solution would involve killing animals.
I'd be fine with not feeding them.
My colleague found the cutest little cuddly kitten outside our building today. I really want to take it home. But now is really not the right time for a kitten.
Although your office does have mice...
We got the kitten to eat the mice. We got the mice to eat the fleas. I don't know why we have the fleas. Perhaps we're gross.
That's a good idea. If you serve mice without kittens, what's the point?
Curried Sweet Potato Soup, very simple, takes about 45 minutes? Maybe an hour.
Ingredients:
a couple of yellow onions
sweet potatoes
white potatoes
several cans chicken broth, or bouillon, or just water
Curry powder
frozen corn (optional)
Equipment:
soup pot
immersion blender or regular blender or just potato masher
knife, of course
Procedure:
Dice one large onion, or two medium, or three small. This is onion-heavy.
Wash and chop into 1-inch cubes an equal amount of sweet potatoes and white potatoes, approx. 1/2 lb. each. (Can also use parsnips, turnips, squash, though I've never tried)
Saute the onion in olive oil in the pot, on low, for about 10 minutes, until translucent. Stir in 2 tsp. Curry Powder and cook 1 minute. It will smell fantastic.
Add chopped sweet potatoes and white potatoes, stir around a bit to coat (this will be dry at this point), then add cans of chicken or vegetable broth, or water plus bouillon (chicken or vegetable), or just water, to liberally cover the potatoes.
Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer, partially covered, until potatoes are tender, about 20 minutes.
The potatoes should soft enough to be breaking apart by now: puree in batches in a regular blender, or use an immersion blender right in the pot to gently pulse until the soup is pureed, or just use a potato masher in the pot. Add more water/stock if it's too thick. Pepper and salt as desired.
Optionally: stir in 1 cup of frozen corn. Garnish with sour cream or plain yogurt or fresh cilantro or toasted almonds or pecans, or not.
This will thicken tremendously as time goes on: freeze leftovers, or just add more water when reheating the next day.
Since it's so starchy, best served with a toothsome/crispy salad to complement.
Skimming some abstracts, it looks like most mouse knockout work so far points to variation in immune response, which makes sense but quickly gets too complicated for me to think about.
A lot of this is because those are things you can knock out [in the context of a lab, where the mouse is not continually exposed to infections and parasites] without ending up with a dead or extremely frail mouse.
Oh, I add in support of 194 that this apparently has 65% of the US RDA of Vitamin A, 23% of Vitamin E, and 20% for Vitamin C.
Yay!
199: That's if you eat the whole thing like a snake would. I'm not an animal. I'm going to gut and skin it.
Catching up, I also have to say I like how Moby became all informative all of a sudden. Tell us interesting things more often, Moby!
re: 174
Yes, I was aware of those studies. I'd need to relook at the Bentall book, but at the time I read it, I remember being fairly convinced by his scepticism* re: some (but not all) of those results. However, at this point I'm talking pretty ex-recto, since it's been a good while. At one point I thought I might write my doctoral research on philosophical problems in psychiatric nosology, so I read a lot of the literature [both philosophical and psychiatric, orthodox and heterodox] but then I changed tack slightly, so my reading is very definitely out of date.
* which if I recall was not scepticism about the claim that there's a heritable element in the incidence of certain symptoms, or symptom clusters, but scepticism about the extent to which those results reinforce the diagnostic reliability of schizophrenia as classically conceived. The results being, iirc, arguably commensurable with other quite different nosologies.
re: 172
I'm specially qualified* in francophone bashing people, under a little known codicil to the Treaty of Corbeil.
* really, I'm barely qualified, as I have the lowest instructor qualification in Frenchy boot-heid application.
Oh, one more quick and simple meal for Heebie:
Rice and (canned) red kidney beans, topped with chopped/diced raw vegetables, aka "Gonzo Meal" after the friend I learned it from:
rice, preferably brown
2 cans kidney beans
veggies: tomatoes, red or green or yellow peppers, yellow squash or zucchini, red or white or yellow onions
cheese, probably cheddar
sour cream (optional)
Put 1/2 cup or 1 cup of rice on to cook (rice roughly doubles in quantity once cooked, so 1/2 cup will get you 1 cooked, 1 cup will get you 2 cooked). I generally make 1 cup (=2) but have some left over.
Put canned kidney beans in a pot on the stove, on medium, to warm through -- if you wish, first rinse off in a colander the gooey stuff the beans come in, and warm them in water.
Chop/dice and make little piles of the raw veggies: tomatoes, peppers, onions, squash. Grate cheese.
To serve: once rice is done and kidney beans are well-heated, pile some rice in a bowl or on plate, put some hot kidney beans on that, sprinkle some cheese on that, then sprinkle each of the veggies on top, in layers. Top with sour cream if available and desired.
The original version of this called for a layer of cooked ground beef and diced radishes, and salsa.
Benefits: complete protein (rice + beans), minimal cooking, utter variability as to the veggies. Throw some chopped scallions on there if you have them. Or radishes. Or raw broccoli florets, chopped fairly small. Substitute quinoa for rice (this changes things a bit -- chop the veggies smaller).
Every time my household makes this, I burst out: Hey, this is really good! Something about the crunchiness of the veggies against the rice'n'beans. Leftovers are excellent in a tupperware, at room temperature, the next day.
re: 205
Sounds nice. I make something similar, but I fry the rice in a little oil [after the onions have sweated a bit], top up with stock, and then add the beans during cooking, to make more of a pilau/fake-pilau, then chuck the veggies in at the end [or on top after cooking].
I saute a half or whole diced onion in fat with salt, pepper, and cumin, add some garlic (probably a clove or two worth) when the onions start to get translucent. Drop in a bunch of sliced jalapeno. Then add about 8 oz dry quinoa and stir/toast it a bit, until you start smell a little toast. Drop in a can of black beans, top up with stock until the mixture is a little loose. Plop in a couple of chicken thighs. Cover and allow mixture to come to a slight boil, then reduce heat and simmer.
When the mixture is a very thick step, you're done. Spoon into a tortilla, it is delicious.
203: It seemed from my brief reading that he was going beyond criticism of the genetic research (which has problems - the weakness of the dx alone causes issues) and pharma research (which is what I know best and where I found him least balanced). He asserted that mental problems, even the severe ones, were the result of non-medical life events. I can't square that with what I've seen. He also was clearly trying to paint an falsely reductionist portrait of research into biomedical causes/tx. This type of work can be useful, I suppose, as a corrective. But, it isn't something that I am going to look into now that I've moved on.
Yeah, my housemate likes to make it as a heated-through concoction in a large skillet. It's a different beast. The 'raw' version, onions and veggies uncooked, no herbs or seasoning, or fat (in the form of cooking oil, at least, though there is the cheese) has its points: it winds up similar to what's popular in restaurants here as a "taco salad", sans lettuce. Very fresh-tasting. I think that's what I like.
Both approaches to more or less the same ingredients are fine. I'm frequently surprised, though, by how much I like foods that are *not* cooked.
207.1: Also, the start of the process for making Thorazine.
Re 208
Yeah, I'm not going to engage in a wholesake defence but his book is a lot more nuanced than that. I don't doubt it's less than perfect but he doesn't present a simplistic nature v nurture dichotomy I don't think. Personally I don't doubt that many mental illnesses have an 'organic' etiology but I don't think anyone can deny that in many cases we don't know what they are and other cases there might well not be one.
145: The other recipes on Smitten Kitchen are also quite good, and there's a section of quick recipes in the recipe index. I especially like the shakshuka (eggs poached in a spicy tomato sauce), which is also fast and tasty.
I just made a roasted red pepper soup to which I added some KASHA and it was damn tasty.
Comity then.
Very disappointing. I had visions of Moby's homicidal rage turned toward human animals (the most dangerous game!) versus ttaM's otherworldly knife fighting skills. It was going to be like Lincoln v. Shields! Only better!
And instead we end up with milquetoast comity? No wonder our empires are in decline.
the most dangerous game!
I wonder when people first encountered that story. I think it was 8th grade for me. Maybe 9th.
7th. The version on the original Fantasy Island telemovie was much better than the story.
ARI'S BACK WHOAH ARI WHERE'D YOU GO?
Most Dangerous Game: 9th Grade.
I can't even remember which thread this belongs on: Megan!
I still haven't encountered the Most Dangerous Game story. But I have seen the not very good 1932 film version.
My only exposure to it was in the film Zodiac.
Saw it staged as a play. In the fifth grade.
Same day we saw An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, and The Fall of the Housemof Usher. Might have been sixth, actually.
Okay, I haven't read the follow-up conversation, but even though there are different clusters of symptoms, doctors do basically just use the drugs to treat the symptoms and frequently add more on when they don't work well enough.
The atypicals are great. Clozaril is fabulous for a lot of treatment-resistant stuff. Unfortunately you need the weekly (then later monthly) blood tests. Some of the others aren't as great as people hoped in a lot of ways. Zyprexa is known for causing huge weight gain and inducing metabolic syndrome. Most people with major mental illness in the public system die of heart disease and/or diabetes, some of which is partially caused by the medications.
A very popular diagnosis is schizoaffective disorder which basically is used to mean "Crazy undifferentiated." I wish that it were not so.
217: I've only seen it on Gilligan's Island.
228 was me.
Also, the weight gain thing is a problem for the new antipsychotics. When I last looked at this, there seemed to be a trade-off between the risk of TD and diabetes, excepting Clozaril where you had the whole liver thing.
the most dangerous game!
Answering Charlie Sheen's texts?
"Feed the Geebies" to what, you monsters.
230: The existence of FB has allowed me to learn that my grandmother has strong opinions about Charlie Sheen. I might have never known.
The existence of FB has allowed me to learn that my grandmother has strong opinions about Charlie Sheen. I might have never known.
Well, Stanley, when two people no longer love each other, they sometimes can't stay together. It was over between Charlie and Nana, and that doesn't mean Charlie never liked the clay ashtray you made for him.
Sheen did try to use the clay ashtray as a dental plate, but he was in a real fix at the time.
You monsters. I was going to name my son Clay Ashtray.
You should have your grandmother watch Hot Shots. That always improves my opinion of Charlie Sheen.
Strong negative opinions, or is Nana on Team Hookerbeater?
The Hookerbeaters were an honorable Dutch family. There is no need to drag their name through the mud.
And, really, I think it's clear that Men at Work (the film not the band) should be the go-to Charlie Sheen reference.
At least he steered clear of The Mighty Ducks.
240: Wolverines! Why do you hate America?
Why do you hate America?
Well, for starters, it's reading things on wikipedia such as "As of 2010, Sheen was the highest paid actor on television, earning $1.8 million per episode of Two and a Half Men." But in fairness, I'd support paying him twice is much if he would agree to take Nic Cage to a farm where the two would live out their years in solitude, appearing never again before a camera. They could even raise camelids or something.
Growing up I viewed "Most Dangerous Game" as a kind of a pron for boys (Lord of the Flies a bit too). Don't tell mom you've read it (or at least let on to her what your attitude and fantasies were when you read it).
A more recent guilty pleasure of mine was a '90s reworking of it called Surviving the Game. Because I'm old and racist, I only realized upon looking it up just now that the main character was played by Ice-T.
243: Actually, I was merely suggesting that Red Dawn should be the canonical Charlie Sheen reference.
I disagree. I'd forgotten that Sheen was in it. Red Dawn is a Swayze movie above all else.
246: Yeah, that is the argument against.
For some reason, I have Red Dawn and The Deer Hunter filed away in the same mental drawer. It possibly stems from watching them both for the first time only in the last year, so maybe the effect will fade.
244.2 Fantastic movie. So bad.
248: The Deer Hunter is an ostensibly anti-war film that's really pretty right wing; Red Dawn is an ostensibly anti-Communist film that's really pro-Sandinista.
Red Dawn is an ostensibly anti-Communist film that's really pro-Sandinista.
You just didn't like Jeb.
I have conclusive proof that Red Dawn objectively sucks. I saw it at the exact right age, 15, and I fell asleep in the middle. This was at an age where I thought that Conan the Barbarian was the greatest movie ever, and the fact that it didn't get nominated for Best Picture by the Oscars proved that the Oscars was a big joke.
After I saw Red Dawn, I wanted to shoot a Cuban and the feeling lasted for weeks. The only other time I've felt that way is when I got stuck listening to the Miami Sound Machine for two hours.
251: no, no. Red Dawn is to American foreign policy in the Cold War as The War of the Worlds was to the British Empire - it's a story whose message is "How would you like it if someone richer and stronger than you came along and treated you like you've been treating those poorer and weaker than yourself?"
That's why the Cubans and Nicaraguans are there - to really rub in the message that this is a film that turns the tables on the US. No sane man would think that the Russians would really need Cuban help to invade Colorado, for heaven's sake.
No sane man would think that the Russians would really need Cuban help to invade Colorado, for heaven's sake.
Maybe the Cubans were just for linguistic support, for the reëeducation campaign that was to teach coloradeños how to say the damn state's name properly.
On second thought, deploying Cubans for the purposes of Spanish-language instruction might be hilariously misguided.
"¡Aquí estamos en pleno Colora'o!"
My two cents as a lousy cook living in Japan:
If you have any way to get to a Japanese food store, go for nabe. You can make your own stock or buy the bags of soup stock (which may or may not be available in US?). Then you basically just chop up a bunch of ingredients, put them in, boil, and eat.
Curries are also very good if the only thing you want to bother with is chopping up the ingredients and cooking them.
Finally, if you have access to kimchi, you can make a very easy stir fry with pork slices and sesame oil.
http://www.japanfoodaddict.com/pork/pork-and-kimchi-stir-fry/