The Week-Long Party continues!
Dec. 26th, 2018 07:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
capri0mni
The party kicked off here with some ice-breaker questions about favorite things.
You can go back and answer as many questions as you'd like, and maybe ask a few of your own. I hope, by the end of the week, to have a library of recommendations for YouTube Channels and videos, books, and songs. Check it out. You might find some new favorites!
A party also needs snacks and treats. We can't have an actual snack table through the Internet, but we can share recipes.
So: Here are a few more questions:
1. Do you have a sandwich combo that you like, but other people would think is really weird? If so, what is it?
2. How sweet is your tooth? Or do you prefer savory treats?
- If you prefer sweet, do you prefer things like mints and hard caramels, or do you prefer creamy things, like chocolate, and custards?
- If you prefer savory, how spicy do you like things? How salty? Do you like popcorn? What's your favorite topping?
3) Have you ever "invented" a recipe that turned out really well, in your estimation? Would it be simple for someone low on (metaphorical) spoons to do? Care to share?
1. I actually like peanut butter and chopped or shredded cabbage, like you'd do with coleslaw (but without the coleslaw dressing). Don't look at me like that! It's kinda like peanut butter and celery, but I like cabbage better than celery, so...
2. I definitely have a very sweet tooth. And I prefer creamy things like chocolate to hard candies based entirely on sugar, like lollipops. But I also like savory things: moderately salty, and rather spicy: ginger, garlic and hot pepper will almost always make me happy.
3. Invented recipe: Cheesy, spicy, sweet potato:
Stab a medium to large sweet potato several times with a fork, and microwave on high for 6 to 8 minutes, or until you hear the steaming and whistling like a tea kettle subside. Let cool until you can handle it easily, and peel off the skin (which I find easier than trying to scrub the skin clean), mash together with shredded cheddar cheese (I buy mine pre-shredded) using a fork, and add a few drops of your favorite hot sauce to taste (The microwave actually makes hot spices taste hotter, so you might want to add less than you normally would), and reheat the whole thing until the cheese melts and gets gooey.
Takes longer in time, because of cooking/cooling time, but yes, if you have your cheese already shredded, this counts as one of my low spoon recipes.
Have you ever invented a recipe that turned out really well?
no subject
Date: 2018-12-26 11:22 pm (UTC)2. I think I prefer creamy things, certainly not hard anyway. I like dark chocolate, marzipan, anything with ginger...
However I often crave something savoury; Indian snacks are my go-to for that.
3. I make up meals a lot, but they're generally just variations on curries or stir-fries etc, nothing wildly inventive.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-27 04:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-27 01:53 pm (UTC)2) I haven't had Marzipan in ages. I wish, on all those cake decorating video channels, that they'd use marzipan instead of fondant when covering their cakes. The result would look as good -- and taste much better!
I'm a savory fan, myself
Date: 2018-12-29 11:44 pm (UTC)3 tbs peanut butter
2 tbs rice vinegar
1 tsp garam masala powder.
Mix it well and it's great on noodles or dipped with apples/carrots/ or ....
Re: I'm a savory fan, myself
Date: 2018-12-30 12:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-27 03:40 am (UTC)I like sweets and savories.
In sweets I don't like hard candies except butterscotches. Other than that ... I like chocolate bars and chocolate covered wafers and fruit snacks and coconut and jellies (They don't make classic Chuckles any more! I found something else under the brand name and they were the wrong shape).
In savories I like salt, not spice. My current favorites out of what's in the vending machines at work are nacho Bugles and white cheddar Cheetos.
When I can't decide whether I want sweet or salt, I get yogurt-covered pretzels.
Day 1, question 7
my naym is pall
and do i seme
to hav a favrit
tumbel meem
i spose ther's wun
stuck in my hede
i rym the cow
i rym the brede
no subject
Date: 2018-12-27 01:22 pm (UTC)My grandmother Josephine's favorite treat was vanilla ice cream with those super thin salted twig pretzels. But when she'd mention it, people would look at her like she had three heads.
Now, when I see yogurt covered pretzels, I think: Josephine's last laugh (though she never laughed at people).
no subject
Date: 2018-12-29 09:28 am (UTC)Absolute peak meme combo for my tastes, found on tumblr (credit jchthys):
my name is Georg,
and in my cave,
ware no one goes
unless theyre brave,
and all around
the spiyders crawl -
i eat the bugs.
i eat them all.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-29 03:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-29 09:11 pm (UTC)Meme cross-pollination can go in any direction, of course - I remembered, after going to bed, that I should also have included the other offspring of Georg and cow: average cow liks 0 bred per year. Bredlik Cow, who lives in France and liks over 10 000 bred each night, is an outlier adn should not have been counted.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-29 09:25 pm (UTC)I LYK THE BREDE is THE BEST!
Date: 2018-12-29 11:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-27 04:09 am (UTC)2. i have developed a chocolate allergy (whyyyyyy MCAS whyyyyyyy), but i still do prefer sweet things. with that and the no dairy, i'm somewhat limited by what sweet things i can eat but there's a cake we've been making lately and also there's always sorbet.
3. i mostly adapt recipes or work off of a basic how to, like "how to make a one pot chili, with room for alterations based on what is in the fridge."
no subject
Date: 2018-12-27 01:38 pm (UTC)2. Chocolate and dairy allergies? Argh! How are you with tree nuts? Because I find almond and cashew butters to have that creamy mouth feel I crave, sometimes.
3. *nod* I like basic "Dump and stir" recipes.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-30 07:23 pm (UTC)2. it's mcas so it's not true allergies but intolerances. and yeah i can do some nuts (cashews, yay) but not others (almonds, pistachios).
3. dump and stir is about what i can do these days. also like, waffles and muffins.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-30 08:47 pm (UTC)3. Waffles!
no subject
Date: 2018-12-31 12:52 am (UTC)waffles :DDD
no subject
Date: 2018-12-31 01:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-27 04:57 am (UTC)1. I'm not sure. I like fairly plain sandwiches.
2.I like sweet things a lot. I am a chocolate girl.
I do also like popcorn & make it with butter & salt at home.
3) Have you ever "invented" a recipe that turned out really well, in your estimation? Would it be simple for someone low on (metaphorical) spoons to do? Care to share?
I "invented" gingerdoodle cookies. They are like snickerdoodles but with ginger instead of cinnamon. They are cookies from scratch, so not super low spoon. Unless you are lucky enough to have a stand mixer.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-27 01:12 pm (UTC)2. Dark Chocolate, or Milk?
3.Ooh! I love ginger! I think it's my favorite spice.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-28 03:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-28 01:23 pm (UTC)Ha! I feel that!!
(I'm a dark chocolate fan, myself, too).
no subject
Date: 2018-12-29 02:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-29 12:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-29 05:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-28 09:41 am (UTC)I like nana sweets: barley sugars, blackballs and so on! And crystallised ginger. And I rather like chocolate, but only the nice dark sort; nobody pinches my treats because I have the least sweet tooth of the household. I am not a fan of popcorn.
My banana loaf recipe probably counts as invented; I must have got the basis from somewhere, but it's all mine by this iteration. I like it because it doesn't need any sweetener; my sister's variation involves sugar and baking powder, but I like mine unsweetened, dense and solid.
"Nana" sweets
Date: 2018-12-29 11:46 pm (UTC)Re: "Nana" sweets
Date: 2018-12-30 07:04 am (UTC)I wanted to browse around Wikipedia's page on blackballs to learn a bit about their history; I was surprised to discover that Wikipedia doesn't even know they exist and they seem to be endemic to New Zealand! Here's a link to a lolly shop with a page of nana-style confectionery: blackballs, fruit balls, aniseed drops, pink smokers, butterscotch. That's labelled as the "Old Fashioned" category - perhaps it's just that these were the type of lollies available when my nana was young.
Gaah, I want to suck on something aniseedy now.
Re: "Nana" sweets
Date: 2018-12-30 09:42 pm (UTC)My favorite local apple is a Haralson, designed for the short Minnesota growing season. Very crispy, very tart. When you're choosing an apple, what do you go for?
Thanks for the candy link--very appealing colors.
I'd love to share the tea I just had: "Luscious Licorice" tea--Licorice, cinnamon, anise seed, orange peel, chamomile, cloves--50-50 with ginger root. The back of my head is floating in a pleasant fashion.
Re: "Nana" sweets
Date: 2019-01-02 12:21 am (UTC)I do know I'm not a big fan of the Pacific Rose/Pacific Beauty/Pacific Queen apples. They tend to be overly sweet, with a flesh texture I don't enjoy, and they go brown faster than I can eat them. And maybe it's that Royal Galas are so plentiful and popular that I devalue them, because a good Gala can be really nice, but they just don't excite me as much as a Braeburn.
Re: apples (and a dash of anger)
Date: 2019-01-02 12:36 pm (UTC)How can it be legal to copyright a variety of food -- and a living thing, to boot? Grr.
So I enjoy Galas and braeburns on their own...
Re: apples (and a dash of anger)
Date: 2019-01-02 10:14 pm (UTC)I found myself down a google hole reading about the New Zealand Apple and Pear Marketing Board, the dissolution of which allowed individual growers to trademark and market their own apples rather than submitting to the decisions of the collective. And so far as I remember, apples didn't have those irritating plastic stickers on them before that time!
Re: apples (and a dash of anger)
Date: 2019-01-02 11:34 pm (UTC)%&$@!!*&! Neoliberalism!
and re: tea-
Date: 2019-01-02 12:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-29 12:38 pm (UTC)Oh well, maybe this time will stick.
We were members of a vegan food co-op when I was a teenager; we weren't vegetarian, ourselves, but much of our diet was homemade bread, with a mix of whole grain and refined flours, brown rice, and beans and we also raised our own chickens for eggs and grew most of our own vegetables. So buying the beans, brown rice and flours from the co-op in bulk just made sense.
Also, my mother's favorite dentist was in New York City, right next to a hotel catering to Japanese businessmen, so when she had a dental appointment, she'd go in early, and have breakfast in the hotel's restaurant, and that's where she was introduced to the joys of miso soup.
She came home and made her own variation, using miso as a sort of bouillon, with tomato paste, ) had mixed veggies (carrots, bell peppers, bok choy, etc. and whole wheat/soy flour noodles -- basically: your salad idea in soup form.
She also had a dish of kale sauteed in oil with lots of hot pepper and garlic, and cashews, and then, she made a sauce to pour over that out of diluted tahini and miso. We'd cook the brown rice with bits of left over meat from another meal (chicken bits from a roast carcass, or slices of left-over beef), with diced onion and bell peppers, and serve that with the kale and sauce. ...It was a very brown meal (except for the kale), but in the cold of winter, it was so-o--o good!
no subject
Date: 2018-12-30 07:07 am (UTC)All those meals sound yummy! Tahini makes a fabulous sauce for all sorts of things - not just with falafel.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-30 12:55 pm (UTC)Some day, I'd like to try making a variation on peanut butter cookies, but with tahini, instead of peanut butter.
We store our tahini in the fridge for just that reason
Date: 2018-12-30 09:44 pm (UTC)Re: We store our tahini in the fridge for just that reason
Date: 2018-12-31 12:24 am (UTC)I'm so lucky to have watched my mother cook
Date: 2018-12-29 11:50 pm (UTC)But it gave me an intuitive confidence--I can just throw stuff together and know it will be tasty.
The recipe I'm proudest of is Carrot-Cumin-Carrot salad, detailed
https://jesse-the-k.dreamwidth.org/47902.html
It's pretty low-effort and can be made in stages; it keeps for a month; it's a sure hit at a potluck, and it's free from common allergens.
Re: I'm so lucky to have watched my mother cook
Date: 2018-12-30 07:10 am (UTC)To clarify, are you steaming the whole onions?
Re: I'm so lucky to have watched my mother cook
Date: 2018-12-30 09:47 pm (UTC)I have a 1000watt microwave:
frozen pearl onions (and edamame) nuke around 5 minutes in a closed dish with a spoon of water
carrots for around 4 minutes with water then drain
beets around the same time, but I do them separately so the whole dish doesn't turn beet-colored.
Re: I'm so lucky to have watched my mother cook
Date: 2018-12-30 12:47 pm (UTC)I think that was her clever strategy to get me past my finicky eating bent: if I'd helped make the dish, I'd be more likely to eat it. Though some things had to wait until after I left for college, and she wasn't sitting across the table daring me to eat something.
PS: I've put that salad in my memories :-)
Re: I'm so lucky to have watched my mother cook
Date: 2018-12-30 09:49 pm (UTC)I'm lucky that I grew up around so much variety that I'm bold, food-wise. I chowed down on squid and fish and lamb when I was four (we lived in Greece).
So who sat across the table when you were in college, and what did you discover then?
Re: I'm so lucky to have watched my mother cook
Date: 2018-12-30 10:28 pm (UTC)No one who knew my history of not liking _X_. so they couldn't have an I-told-you-so moment (A battle of wills is a powerful thing).
and what did you discover then?
Raw tomatoes and cooked carrots (it was totally a texture thing).