#i'm not sure how breading and frying full bits of chicken would go

[misas-lights-out-rem-sleep]

Idk how to add bullets but also

- You can also try roasting or broiling vegetables. To roast, dry them, coat them in extra virgin olive oil, salt and whatever herbs (rosemary and thyme and pepper are the easy go-tos when you're newer to cooking), and then heat on high in a skillet or a cookie sheet for however long some site says or until you check them and they look crisp. To broil them, do the same but with the broil setting on your oven.

- Italian seasoning is just rosemary, thyme, oregano, basil, and garlic

- Roasted potatoes will taste crispier if you boil them first and then roast them.

- GET A SALAD SPINNER!!! I use my salad spinner every single day for all of my produce. It will make drying fruits and vegetables and such so much easier. Sure maybe it won't fully dry them out enough for a crisp fry but it'll definitely reduce the amount you'll need to towel dry it, and it absolutely will dry it enough for ramens and salads and literally anything that doesn't involve adding oil

- Any vegetables you have about to go bad, add them to a Ziploc bag. When that bag is full, you will have a variety of vegetables to make a delicious soup. To make a soup, heat up some broth, or add bouillon cubes to water, or make your own stock

- chicken bones can be used to make chicken stock. I'm too lazy to type all the ingredients out RN and it can vary a little based on what you want so just look up a chicken stock recipe and use up your chicken bones too

- Adding romaine lettuce or green onions to a dish will give it some crunch and some green. A little bit healthier and now it's crunchy. I noticed a local restaurant adds romaine lettuce to their golden curry so I started doing that too. And then I started adding it to everything because it's so crunchy. And green onions look so nice on top of everything.

- Don't get your cookware from big retailers like Walmart if you can avoid it. Go to HomeGoods or Marshalls or Goodwill or something. It's so much cheaper and they usually have prettier styles too and also fuck Walmart and fuck Sam's Club and fuck Target. Also your friends or family members might be looking to toss their old cookware and appliances out. My Lodge Dutch oven (lodge is a reputable brand for reliable cast iron products) came from HomeGoods, and our cute Japanese artstyle cat bowls. Our air fryer and toaster oven and most of our pans came from shit friends and family were otherwise planning to toss

- Cornstarch slurry. It means add cornstarch and cold water together in a small bowl and then add that to the dish. I use this for everything. I thicken my stews. I thicken my peanut satay. I thicken my jams. I thicken everything with it. Allegedly flour works too but idk

- Stir fry 101: Use leftover rice. Cold rice will fry nice and crisp while fresh, warm rice will get soggy and gross. Use MSG. Use dark and light soy sauce, if you don't know what this means just get some soy sauce that's advertised as just soy sauce the way you always would, and then also go to your local Asian grocery store and try to find anything called a "Seasoning sauce" or something like that. A lady once told me how she used to run a local Chinese restaurant and she used Golden Mountain Seasoning Sauce and I have been listening to that ever since. Add eggs. Add random frozen vegetables. Add mung bean sprouts if you can. Sprinkle baking soda on your chicken (idk if this works for other proteins because I'm poor and not wasting what little shrimps and beef when I know my chicken stir fry is already a banger). Cook everything separately and then toss them all back in together towards the end.

- it's okay to not be 100% homemade. Frozen shit is okay. Try to get some frozen shit that can be a bit versatile. Pre-made frozen breaded chicken can be eaten as a chicken patty sandwich or turned into a chicken parmesan or added to a stir fry or put on top of some curry or a salad or whatever. Popcorn shrimp can be dipped in buttermilk and fried and then tossed in the sauce for bang-bang shrimp and then taste delicious over some ramen. Don't get super finished premade meals like a completely made lasagna where the most you can really do to make it less premade is toss some herbs on it.

- Add broth to everything. Boiling pasta? Toss a cheap bouillon cube in there. It'll give you pasta a nice meaty taste. Same with potatoes and such. Also reuse your broth. After making some ramen, scoop all the ramen out, pour in as much broth as you want. Then instead of pouring the rest out, add some creamy peanut butter, chili garlic, garlic powder, soy sauce, mirin, whatever the fuck you want really and make that into a nice delicious peanut satay. Pour that over your ramen too, or put some in the fridge for later

- Watch food videos. Watch the people who don't use a bunch of gadgets and gizmos. I love watching those YouTube food channels where they're out in the snow cooking fish they just caught or in a field somewhere making a roast in the dirt. I'll try to link some channels I love here. It'll teach you how to cook without getting sucked into endless gadgets. You do not need a specialized tool for chopping garlic or boiling eggs unless you have a very specific issue like not having a stove but loving boiled eggs every day. Some channels I love:

The first one is a family from Azerbaijan and they also show their dogs and cats and rabbits and ducks and cows and sheep and every video is so peaceful and beautiful and also teaches cooking sorry I'm giving them an extra special recommendation because I love watching them so much

actually yknow what, no. this is not being limited to discord, yall get it too.

some general cooking tips (in which there is a brief senshi posession):

moisture is the enemy of crispy skin. pat dry with paper towel, and if you have the time and spoons, give a thorough but even coat of baking powder and let sit uncovered in your fridge overnight. this will dry out the skin nicely. for pork belly, create a tight foil boat so that only the skin is showing, and cover in salt to draw out moisture, repeating a couple times if necessary.

furikake seasoning, for the fellow rice lovers, is just nori (seaweed), sesame seeds, sugar, and msg/salt. you might have most if not all of these things already in your kitchen.

chai spice mix is just cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, cloves, nutmeg, & allspice.

pumpkin spice is just cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and ginger.

to cure your own bacon, you only need water, white and brown sugar, and a non-iodized salt - himalayan pink salt is not iodized, if you cannot find butchers curing pink salt. from there, you can add any seasoning/flavoring you want.

the truly adventurous may cook their rice in green tea for a fresh clean taste.

you can tell if a fish is truly fresh by their eyes - clear and bright is fresh, while cloudy is older or potentially has been frozen.

it's cheaper to buy a large block pack of ramen from your local asian market and repackage the bricks into sandwich bags, than to buy a box of individually packaged ones such as maruchan or top ramen.

when buying meat, look at it's fat content - more fat marbling usually means more tender + flavorful.

you can save onion skins and other vegetable scraps to make your own broth with. you can also save bones for this. mix and match ratios to create your ideal flavor.

bay leaf will always make a soup or broth taste better, but Watch Out (they are not fun to bite into on accident).

msg is, in fact, not The Devil, that was just a racist hate campaign against the chinese and other oriental races. it's literally just a type of salt. it is no more dangerous to eat than any other type of salt.

washing your rice is important because it not only improves flavor and texture by removing excess starch, but it also helps reduce any residual pesticides or dirt, or even insect fragments (please remember that rice paddies are essentially giant ponds that all kind of things live in and swim around. you should also be washing all your produce in general.)

please salt your cooking water for pastas, it just tastes better and you will be happier for it.

boiled potatoes are also improved by salt water.

if you hate vegetables, please consider trying them fried in butter or perhaps bacon grease. it is healthier to eat them fatty than not at all.

healthy food does not in fact have to taste miserable. thats a lie. they are lying to you. free yourself from your blandness shackles. enter a world of flavor.

[aniseandspearmint]

*looks at the chicken i took out for dinner*

*looks at empty bottle of oil my brain dead self PUT BACK IN THE CUPBOARD*

heck

*googles if i can fry chicken tenders in butter without it catching fire*

okay okay thats doable

[trans-yllz]

at the risk of sounding like a weirdo....i just saw your grocery store post and it looks like a lot of veggie items? are you vegetarian? i'm trying to be but i'm a bit lost when it comes to food (where i live it's very difficult to be anything other than a meat eater lol) so i'm wondering if you could maybe share some of your favorite staples that you consistently get. thank you so much!!

hi anon sorry it took so long for me to answer this! but yes I've been vegetarian for about 13 years now! you said not eating meat is difficult where you live, and I know that what brands are sold where is always different so I'm not sure if these particular things would necessarily be available to you, but in the scope of like. meat substitutes, morningstar and simple truth both make really good stuff, and tofurky is the only good vegetarian sandwich meat I've had lmao

I usually always have veggie burgers and fake chicken strips/nuggets in my house because you can literally just microwave them with little to no additional effort. there's also rlly good fake meat crumbles for things like tacos and such and rlly good veggie sausages

as for vegetarian foods that aren't a substitute for a meat thing tho - baked veggies are rlly good and easy to make! I like cauliflower and brussel sprouts most. you can just stick them in the oven on high heat in a baking pan w oil, salt, and pepper and you're pretty much set. smoothies are also a go to esp in the summer time. I eat a lot of sandwiches too lmao. if you like yogurt that's a rlly good source of protein! cheese is also a good source of protein and easy to add to things. eggs as well if you like those. veggies like spinach, collards, and kale are all rlly good for iron but I don't like most of them 😔

without meat your consistent meal staples are probably going to become potatoes, bread, rice, and pasta/noodles but I'd say potatoes and rice are definitely the most versatile! as for like. full meals my top five (in no particular order) are probably stir fry with tofu, tacos, baked potatoes w side vegetable and/or meat substitute, home made mac n cheese (I can post my recipe if you'd like 😌), and pasta with salad or some kind of roasted vegetable on the side. vegetarian soup is also p easy to make but I don't like most soups (sorry souptuals)

I know that if you're going out to eat a lot of places don't have very good veggie options esp if you live somewhere that doesn't have a lot of vegetarian/vegan people but there's a lot of really good vegetarian lebanese food and I've found that most thai and chinese restaurants will have at least a few good vegetarian things there. diners are also usually a good place to go out to eat if you need vegetarian stuff

it's going to take awhile to get used to and find the food that you like and works for your body esp if you usually eat meat All The Time but after awhile it won't even be something you think about anymore. I know a lot of people will sort of slowly ease into being fully vegetarian by cutting certain kinds of meat out every few weeks or months so that's also something to consider if you think that it would help!

I will also say that it's probably also a good idea to keep an eye on your iron and how your energy levels are. it's really easy to get an iron deficiency if you're vegetarian/vegan especially if you're also someone who gets their period. if it ends up happening it's usually fixable by just taking iron supplements but its an important thing to look out for so it can be handled appropriately if it becomes an issue!

anyway I hope that this was helpful to you and good luck! if anyone else has some suggestions feel free to reply w them I'm a pretty picky eater so the scope of foods I eat is already smaller lmao

[comingfromastatechampionasshole]

Question about your fried chicken recipe. I think I'm doing something wrong, because when I fry the chicken, the breading comes off in the process or burns like crazy. How do i prevent this?

It could be a couple things! It’s hard to know without watching you do it, but here are some ideas. 

For burning: 

Oil is too hot. Use a thermometer to make sure it stays around 365-375. I can fry chicken without a thermometer but this isn’t a universal skill. 

For falling off:

A little bit is always going to come off, but this sounds like a bigger problem, for which I have a few ideas:

Pat your chicken dry before putting it in the wet egg mixture. It may be too wet and not letting the egg adhere. 

Slow down your steps! The fried chicken recipe is an old one, and I’m constantly learning more and more about how PEOPLE cook versus how I cook. My recipe is written for people who can move FASt in the kitchen--I really need to rewrite it, people who can move as fast as that recipe is written for already have their own recipe for fried chicken--and in some ways it’s not practical for beginners/low-medium. 

So! I would pat dry your chicken, do the dipping into the wet and then dry, and then put it on a rack or parchment covered cookie sheet for 30 min to let the egg dry on there. heat your oil while that’s happening. This should help both problems! The drier egg mixture will stick better, and when you full attention can be on one thing at a time, you’ll be less likely to burn!