Quarantine Cuisine |OT| : Cooking With COVID19

[BisMarckie]

I have to reheat Chinese food. Cold pizza is the only cold leftover delivery food I like.

[CatsCatsCats]

Oh man, I get 3/4 chub for greased up cold lo mein

[BlueTsunami]

So this is the first time I've baked something from scratch. Used Joshua Wiseman's chocolate chip cookie recipe






These are more on the savory buttery side but in a good way. The sweetness isn't at the forefront as it usually is with cookies. Balanced very well and delicious as hell.

Plan on making his version of orange chicken at some point that uses fresno peppers.

[Pennywise]

These are difficult times for local restaurant owners 

True, because that doesn't look like a selfmade hollandaise.


I went to a farm where you can either pick strawberries or pay a bit more and take one of those pre-picked packs. Season is almost over, at least the farm was nearly out of them :/
Bought 1,5kg and I ate quite a few, I still had plenty left for a decent strawberry cake.

[Nintex]

These are difficult times for local restaurant owners 

True, because that doesn't look like a selfmade hollandaise.

Everything at that restaurant is fresh and self made. It's insane how much effort they put into the food compared to other places. 
It was Bearnaise not Hollandaise

[Pennywise]

Everything at that restaurant is fresh and self made. It's insane how much effort they put into the food compared to other places. 
It was Bearnaise not Hollandaise

In that case I approve.

Alot of places just don't bother with hollandaise or bernaise and serve those bad premade versions.

[Pennywise]

Cheesecake with raspberries.

[skullstorm]

  Oh lord

I baked a rhubarb pie and a blueberry marble cake yesterday but now I want cheesecake too

[Pennywise]

Part deux.

[Bebpo]

I've still been cooking a ton with some real good turnouts (and some nights of nausea from fuckups  :'(). I'll post some good pictures soon. Just haven't been in the mood to be socially sharing right now because it feels like it's so minor in the scheme of the important stuff going on in the world atm (though I still post a ton about videogames so I'm a hypocrite there).

For Father's Day this weekend I got my dad a frozen pizza from Chicago and one from NYC since my parents are mostly quarantined eating food they cook for the last few months and I thought they'd like some good pizza. All the pizza delivery places ship in sets of 2 or more, so I got one for myself of each and received and made the Chicago one from Lou Malnati's.







It was good, but honestly disappointing. I've been to Chicago before and had good Chicago pizza and loved it and there's one place in So Cal called Rance's pizza which does B+ quality real Chicago style pizza.

The tomatoes and sauce were A+
The cheese was good, though not amazing
The crust was....crispy and kinda thin and not a ton of that Chicago cornmeal crust flavor  :'(

I mean the thick deep dish cornmeal crust is what I think of with Chicago pizza and this seemed no more thick than your average California style pizza here. And yeah, the crust was fine but it didn't have a lot of flavor.

Now this is probably because it's been frozen which probably kills/fucks with the crust. I'd be curious to try to get a frozen pizza from Gino's East to see how it compared.

Right now ordering a doordash contactless delivered pizza from Rance's pizza 40 mins away is probably a better Chicago style pizza than ordering a frozen Lou Malnati pizza. Price is probably about the same.

I'm getting the NYC pizzas from Roberta's, and I'll make their frozen Margherita Pizza next week and see how it compares. One thing about the Malnati frozen pizza is that it's as filling as I remember Chicago pizza being. I ate maybe 40% of the pizza for lunch and I feel soo bloated and food coma and good on food for another 24 hours. So including the leftovers, this pizza will last me like 2.5 days of food   

[Bebpo]

So I was making Lobster Rolls from my meal kit recipes/ingredients and they were kind of weird, at least to me.

The lobster meat was already cooked and frozen lobster meat and the instructions were to take it from the freezer and defrost it in cold water for 20-30 mins and then open the package and drain the liquid and then just eat the thawed lobster meat raw with fennel/chives/tarragon/dill/lemon/salt/pepper/mayo in a butter toasted bun.

It toasted good, but I've just never heard of eating meat defrosted from the freezer without cooking it first to kill any bacteria that may have developed. Apparently though they sell cooked crab meat/shrimp meat frozen that you eat raw as well at markets? So maybe it is normal and safe, idk.

I end up in the ER if I get food poisoning because of my gut sensitivity, so this just made me kind of nervous.

[team filler]

they taste better burnt 

[Bebpo]

Tomorrow I'm going to figure out how to caramelize my onions without burning the shit out of them

Why don't you just saute them? Add some butter, salt and sugar and cook for a while on low heat while stirring occasionally and they're delicious.

[skullstorm]

Make a soup and toss the mascarpone in/on it? Tomato soup or something

[tiesto]

Been making these hatch-chile marinated tacos a lot lately:

[Bebpo]

Man, I just cooked the best steak in my life (cooking-wise, not eating-wise, not gonna compare to that wagyu Japan teppan stuff of course) and probably destroyed some stuff in the process.

I have the worst fucking ventilation ever in my Kitchen with one of those shitty microwaves above with a filter fan that does nothing so whenever I cook anything on medium-high the whole house just fills with smoke and my lungs get irritated and shit. Because of this I don't even bother searing chicken breasts anymore and just cook them in the oven. Only thing I really sear is scallops and beef bulgogi but those cook up in a couple mins so the smoke isn't too bad. I use avocado oil with a higher smoke point but can't tell if it helps.

Someone recommended that I try using a lid to contain the smoke, so I tried searing a steak on medium-high, flipping it every few mins until it was medium-rare with a lid on and house still filled up with smoke (like literally the ventilation is so poor it becomes visibly foggy in the kitchen/dining room) and my sinuses/lungs/eyes still got irritated. Also used a recipe I found online that said not to use any oil at all and just put the steak on and use the natural grease/fats.

The steak seared amazing, came out perfect and super flavorful. That lid seems fucked though. Cleaned it a bunch of times with light and then heavy duty scrub and the clear lid is still pretty brown cloudy. Also might've fucked the pan a bit too. I'll see when I cook tomorrow.

So probably not going to make a steak again until I get an outdoor bbq again, but at least it was worth it since the steak came out amazing.

I read somewhere that you can cook it on low 200F in the oven and finish with a short sear or even finish with broiling in the oven to cut down on smoke. So that might still be a possibility.

[Bebpo]

Was talking to a friend and they recommended I look at electric grills for searing stuff without killing my kitchen and pans with smoke. Looked around a bunch and picked up a Phillips Smokeless Grill.

I've been avoiding burgers for the last year because even with a cast iron I feel like hamburgers cooked in a skillet pan just don't taste right. Will try burgers/hot dogs/chicken breast/steak on this thing and see how it goes...