What can you expect in the Food Thread on PF?

[dlgoff]

After eating the best homemade french bread since I was old enough to eat solid food, within the last 6 months I discovered plain white bread. I can't get enough of it. I crave sandwiches made with the stuff. It's soft and smooshy and tasty.

I feel like I'm in the confessional "Forgive me Father for I have sinned".

I eat a half loaf of Honey Wheat at a setting.

 

[turbo]

I eat a half loaf of Honey Wheat at a setting.

That's my father's vice. Toast it and butter it and sprinkle garlic powder on the butter.

My only forays into white-bread territory are rolls for hot dogs.

 

[netgypsy]

We always called regular white bread - "gummy white bread". As kids we would pull out the center of several slices, wad it up into a dough like ball and eat it. The critical attribute of the ball wad was that it had a faint gray color caused by dirty children hands so when you bit out a chunk the interior was snow white. It's still the best for grilled cheese sandwiches. Fried in a frying pan floating in butter. There are two schools of thought on making a grilled cheese - the "load on the mayo" and the YUK, mayo is nasty on grilled cheese. Sometimes we added cooked bacon and tomato slices. YUMMMM

 

[nobahar]

I can't even remember the last time I ate plain white bread... I know I had some in 1979. Beyond that, all bets are off.

I need to know why this date.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I need to know why this date.

Haha, a family thing.

 

[Monique]

I don't. The reason I feel better is that I'm not consuming all of those carbs. I try to get most of my carbs from fresh fruits and vegetables, and milk, and otherwise eat a high-protein diet.

I didn't mean what you eat as a carb replacement, that appears to be your answer. You must eat something for breakfast and lunch, right? Do you cook special meals, or do you eat dinner left overs? Many countries have warm meals for lunch, but in the Netherlands a sandwich with cheese or sandwich meat is the standard. I wouldn't have time to eat a warm meal during breakfast/lunch, I usually eat a sandwich on-the-go.

 

[turbo]

I'm a stay-at-home dad for Duke, so I can raid the refrigerator and nuke some leftovers for breakfast/lunch. Never did the commercially-prepared sandwich thing anyway, though. I was a dedicated brown-bagger, even all through college.

 

[rollcast]

This is a proper breakfast round my way.

The photo isn't mine but that is definitely what an Ulster fry should look like.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I didn't mean what you eat as a carb replacement, that appears to be your answer. You must eat something for breakfast and lunch, right? Do you cook special meals, or do you eat dinner left overs? Many countries have warm meals for lunch, but in the Netherlands a sandwich with cheese or sandwich meat is the standard. I wouldn't have time to eat a warm meal during breakfast/lunch, I usually eat a sandwich on-the-go.

Ah. When I made the big change, the first thing was to go with a high-quality protein drink for breakfast. What has really helped also is that the stores now have nice selection of prepared trays of mixed fruits and vegies, so, unless I'm slacking, those are a constant, any time of day. I eat a lot of cheese, roast chicken, with ~ as much tuna as the government recommends [mercury]. Peanut butter is a constant, often with celery, but sometimes I just take a bit with some sugar-free jelly and have a PB sandwich in a bowl - without the bread. For a long time I couldn't eat peanuts [GI distress] but that seems to be fine now, so nuts are back in the diet. And I still eat a lot of tacos! They can be a very healthy, low-carb meal if prepared properly. And even with fast food, occasionally I treat myself to a lettuce-wrapped burger. Most places offer Atkins-friendly options.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

A whey protein drink, btw.

Another big change is in the use of salt. I don't put any salt in while cooking anymore. I just lightly salt the exterior of the food, which generally provides as much or more flavor than adding when cooking. It is amazing how one's tastes can change in this regard. Foods that I used to love, like bacon, are now almost too much to tolerate. In fact I hardly ever buy bacon anymore - maybe a few times a year. And as a kid I loooooooved Spam sandwiches. Recently I tried Spam and couldn't eat it. It was like eating a salt lick! Bleh! Lately I've even caught myself trying to drown the salt from a pickle by taking very small bites. They taste almost too salty to eat now.

 

[netgypsy]

the lower sodium bacon is quite good. There are several brands who sell it now. I used to love those wax bottles with the colored water in them. YUKKK

 

[alexg]

I've had a bottle of capers in my frig for quite a while. I've used them in various dishes, but now I've found out what they're best with.

Sauteed veal.

Wow, but it was tasty.

 

[netgypsy]

Also chicken breast sauteed. drool

 

[lisab]

Some of my favorite meals are those that border on experiments.

Tonight, it was pasta (angel hair spaghetti) with:

Smoked bacon, cooked & crumbled & set aside
Tomatoes, cooked in a bit of the bacon grease for a few minutes, then -
Garlic
Spinach
Gorgonzola cheese

Toss in the pasta and bacon. Whoa baby.

 

[Moonbear]

That sounds really good, Lisa.

 

[Evo]

Some of my favorite meals are those that border on experiments.

Tonight, it was pasta (angel hair spaghetti) with:

Smoked bacon, cooked & crumbled & set aside
Tomatoes, cooked in a bit of the bacon grease for a few minutes, then -
Garlic
Spinach
Gorgonzola cheese

Toss in the pasta and bacon. Whoa baby.

Sounds incredible. I've been so happy to see chefs return to taste as the number 1 requirement of their food. I see a lot of use of bacon and drippings again.

 

[lisab]

I don't eat it frequently - I'm just a recreational bacon consumer .

 

[netgypsy]

I hear you LisaB about the "recreational bacon user".

This must be the night of spinach and bacon because I just finished sauteing frozen spinach I had nuked until nearly done in the drippings of some beef I had sauteed using bacon, garlic, red pepper and sea salt.

I then added the juice from some leftover Indian cauliflower (water, tomato, garlic, cinnamon, clove, mustard, red pepper, tumeric, cumin, sea salt and yoghurt)

than a leftover nuked chicken thigh chopped

and additional yoghurt.

Instant chicken saag from all leftovers but the spinach.

I'm eating that with vermicelli with cherry tomato sauce as a side.

Sooo good! I love leftovers.

I notice yours has cheese let me grate some pecorino romano on my pasta

Is google sick? I can't get to it??

 

[Dembadon]

I don't eat it frequently - I'm just a recreational bacon consumer .

*rolls eyes* Surrreee. You could quit at any time, right?

 

[lisab]

I hear you LisaB about the "recreational bacon user".

This must be the night of spinach and bacon because I just finished sauteing frozen spinach I had nuked until nearly done in the drippings of some beef I had sauteed using bacon, garlic, red pepper and sea salt.

I then added the juice from some leftover Indian cauliflower (water, tomato, garlic, cinnamon, clove, mustard, red pepper, tumeric, cumin, sea salt and yoghurt)

than a leftover nuked chicken thigh chopped

and additional yoghurt.

Instant chicken saag from all leftovers but the spinach.

I'm eating that with vermicelli with cherry tomato sauce as a side.

Sooo good! I love leftovers.

I notice yours has cheese let me grate some pecorino romano on my pasta

Is google sick? I can't get to it??

Wow, that sounds amazing!

Yes Google is fine for me. I was having trouble with all inner webs earlier but I did that microsoft diagnostic thingy.

*rolls eyes* Surrreee. You could quit at any time, right?

Lol, yes I think you fully understand...

 

[netgypsy]

Google is back working. Weird. All the other websites were fine - even Google news, but not the search engine. I have Verizon wireless internet but don't think they were the problem.

 

[turbo]

I am a recreational bacon user. I don't use bacon to wrap cubes of calve's liver and slices of water chestnuts before grilling. At least not often. Could have been accidental. And the inclusion of crispy-fried bits of bacon in the cream-cheese used to stuff jalapenos? Anybody could have done that! It was a mistake, judge!

 

[Moonbear]

Wow, I like Greek yogurt! I've never been a yogurt fan; it always tasted too sour for me. But, yesterday I saw Greek yogurt in the grocery store in some interesting flavors and was curious to buy a few. The one I tried yesterday was blood orange flavor, and yummy! Today, before mixing the fruit on the bottom in, I tasted the plain yogurt on top. A little sour, but in a good way, not bad way, and not overly sour (no pucker factor). Today's flavor was pomegranate. Tasty, but had real pomegranate seeds in it, not just juice, so kind of crunchy, which is strange for yogurt. Tomorrow I'll try mango.

 

[netgypsy]

Yoghurt sourness is very much proportional to its age as I recently discovered. I have some Greek yoghurt that is two months old. Not green and fuzzy so still edible. WOW is it sour though. Isn't it the conversion of lactose sugar to lactic acid that creates the sour? Have to look it up. Greek has more protein and a greater variety of bacteria supposedly. Dr. Oz sure does recommend it. I find the Cabot brand Greek a bit sticky - stickier,thicker, and more concentrated than Dannon plain for example. People who eat a lot of yoghurt almost never get GI upsets.

 

[Moonbear]

Yoghurt sourness is very much proportional to its age as I recently discovered. I have some Greek yoghurt that is two months old. Not green and fuzzy so still edible. WOW is it sour though. Isn't it the conversion of lactose sugar to lactic acid that creates the sour? Have to look it up. Greek has more protein and a greater variety of bacteria supposedly. Dr. Oz sure does recommend it. I find the Cabot brand Greek a bit sticky - stickier,thicker, and more concentrated than Dannon plain for example. People who eat a lot of yoghurt almost never get GI upsets.

I don't really trust Dr. Oz on much. He seems to have bought into a lot of goofy Hollywood fads. The one I got doesn't say anything about the cultures used, but does claim to ave more protein than regular yogurt. I don't really care about that since I get plenty of protein in my diet already. I almost never eat yogurt and almost never get GI upsets, as do lots of other people, so I'm not sure what relevance it is that yogurt eaters also rarely get GI upsets. It only becomes an issue if you're taking antibiotics.

 

[netgypsy]

i certainly don't trust a lot of the people he has on but he does get some good stuff out to people who otherwise would never listen to any doctor.

Antibiotics will definitely do a job on your GI tract. I've often wondered if they aren't part of the obesity epidemic. The wrong bacteria get killed and others that make you fat, increase in numbers. Brazil is now giving free lap band surgeries because they think it will save the country money in the long run.

From what our family biologists and medical people say, when you eat cultured milk products, if you ingest something with nasty bacteria, they can't multiply because the population is so high already. Supposedly the good bacteria greatly reduce UTI's also. I have no documentation regarding this. I'll have to research it since this is not my area of expertise.

I have a cousin who was with the state department in North Yemen, Lebanon, and who knows where else and he said yoghurt was thought to actually lengthen your life over there.

When I lived in Colombia I found it very strange that all their dairy products appeared to be cultured. The butter, regular cream, milk, all tasted very "cultured". Never did get used to it.

 

[turbo]

I have never gotten to spend a lot of time abroad, but living here 50+ years back was a hoot. We got our milk from a dairy farm that had no pasteurization equipment. Walter once told me as a child that he wouldn't have Holsteins on his farm because they only gave "water" and not milk.

He sold chilled raw milk in the classic quart bottles with the paper caps. My mother and my grandmother used to pour off the cream to use separately or to make butter. Sometimes the old ways are the best.

 

[netgypsy]

That reminds me of visiting my grandfather in a town of 600 people and a pickle factory. I made friends with a girl who lived across the street and they also had a dairy that sold raw milk. She wouldn't even drink pasteurized milk. Said it tasted terrible - almost burned. Their cows were tested every day for TB and I don't know what all. It's hard to believe we are so close in time to a world that had no cars, used horses for transportation, no electricity, no computers, no air planes, no TV, home canning by everyone, outhouses. My great grandfather was captain of a sailing ship that went around the horn of Africa. He actually survived yellow fever and his family sailed with him - wife, kids, wife's brother too. I have a picture of him, his wife and a parrot in a big cage. Technology has just exploded. Hard to believe.

 

[ThomasT]

Anybody have good felafal recipes? What I do is soak dried garbanzos for a day, then grind them up with fresh garlic, fresh parsley, fresh cilantro, fresh onion, salt, pepper, flour and a tiny bit of baking soda, then fry them in canola oil. Yummy.

Then dip them in tzatziki sauce (just Greek yogurt with grated cucumber, garlic, and a tiny bit of lemon juice). Fantastic.

Any suggestions/improvements?

 

[turbo]

That reminds me of visiting my grandfather in a town of 600 people and a pickle factory. I made friends with a girl who lived across the street and they also had a dairy that sold raw milk. She wouldn't even drink pasteurized milk. Said it tasted terrible - almost burned. Their cows were tested every day for TB and I don't know what all. It's hard to believe we are so close in time to a world that had no cars, used horses for transportation, no electricity, no computers, no air planes, no TV, home canning by everyone, outhouses. My great grandfather was captain of a sailing ship that went around the horn of Africa. He actually survived yellow fever and his family sailed with him - wife, kids, wife's brother too. I have a picture of him, his wife and a parrot in a big cage. Technology has just exploded. Hard to believe.

Canning goes back to Napoleon, who wanted a way to preserve food to feed his armies. I started canning food with my mother when I was just a kid, and still use that method to put up vegetables, salsas, chili relishes, etc. I have a truck instead of a horse, but sometimes the old ways are the best.

When I was a kid, I rarely ate any butter that was commercially produced. We had really fatty raw milk, so butter and whipped cream for our wild strawberries and biscuits never came from a store.