Made this recently and it turned out pretty well.

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients

• l lb LightLife breakfast sausage
• 1 medium onion, diced(or mirepoix)
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 to 3 tsp Italian seasoning
• salt and pepper to taste
• 3-4 cups veggie broth
• 2-3 tbsp miso paste
• appox 2.5 lb potatoes, diced into small cubes
• salt and pepper to taste
• 2 cups Next Milk
• 1 tbsp flour

Instructions

• Saute the veggies in oil until soft. Add salt and pepper. Add sausage shortly after starting saute. Add garlic and cook 2 more minutes, or until fragrant.
• Mix miso paste in 1 cup of milk
• Add milk, broth, seasoning and potatoes. bring to a boil and then simmer for 30 to 60 minutes until potatoes are soft. Mash with a masher a bit.
• Mix rest of milk and flour. Add to soup, bring back to a boil, then remove from heat and let thicken.

I've been meaning to make it again since I've only made it once since becoming a plant-mouth. The last time was ok but I tend to obsess over perfecting recipes and after going vegan I've been wanting to port a few of my standbys over. My chili recipe is perfection but I felt my potato soup was still lacking.

A few weeks ago I promised my oldest I would make it for him. And I wanted to test out a brainfart I had for using miso to add some much needed umami since my old recipe used a can of condensed cream of chicken soup that basically carried the entire recipe. Turns out the miso was a great idea.

My kid is a standard picky eater kid and will usually only eat enough to qualify as a meal(we were all kids once and he just wants to get back to playing. I get it lol) but he has 2 servings.

A friend was over as well for a Dungeons and Dragons session and she is a fellow ND but has quite a few food aversions so I made sure to run the ingredients by her and check our food cheat sheet and it was all good. I did check last minute if the fake sausage was ok since she is Jewish and she said yep. She loved it. Wife loved it. Kid loved it and I am pissed because there isn't enough leftover for me to have it for lunch.

I'll try to share my chili recipe when I make it next as well. It's fucking good too.

I recently made a Brunsviger. It's a classic Danish cake type of thing. It might not look the best, but it is delicious!

I used this recipe: http://veganskforalle.dk/brunsviger-efteraarstur/

I can translate the recipe if anyone wants to try making it😊

Potato, carrot and tofu Japanese curry. Super basic but it's got legs. Made about a week's worth of dinners with this batch.

Made some pumpkin muffins and realized how in a lot of my cooking, I don't care too much about uniformity or presentation.

I'm pretty functional about it - like the meal and my previous creations speak for themselves. If I'm making something for a party or whatever, I try to make things look a little better, but I 100% prioritize flavor and texture more than anything else.

Other people who cook/bake, what are your thoughts on visual presentation?

seared flour tortilla

rice

hemp hearts

homemade salsa (just a blend of random local peppers, an onion, garlic, a roasted tomatillo, lime juice)

chili style multi-bean mixture (this one was a treat because we had a lot of fancy shmancy locally grown beans in the pantry, not just the usual bulk): red beans, black beans, pinto beans, tepary beans, vaquero beans, miso, random peppers, garlic, onions, carrots

cucumber for extra crunch

imitation mozzarella (not miyokos or daiya, but if anybody really wants to know I can check the fridge later)

Tonight I'm making one with chili-bbq fried jackfruit.

hahaha

I'm gonna mix it with some peanut butter and lime juice and marinate some shit and see how it do

Actually maybe instead of mixing it with peanut butter I'll roast my own peanuts (or other nuts) and process them together so i can control how sweet it is

Find out in this classic episode of the original Japanese TV Iron Chef (eng. dub)

two things: first the respect given by the Japanese TV show towards the nation of China was refreshing. Two, could you imagine American chefs with huge portraits of Biden and Trump behind their group in the balcony? Yeesh.

I was just given a big pile of sweet potatoes and while I've got recipes like "chop them up into sticks, soak in salt water, and then fry them until I think they're done" and "cube them and boil in curry or other heavily spiced stews for ~15 minutes" that all work very well, that's sort of the limit of what I know for them and I want to actually get use out of them before they can spoil.

So I started wondering about making bread, but every recipe I can find seems to just be "this is literally a cake that's being called bread and it's almost 50% table sugar by volume," but that can't be the extent of options can it? There have to be some savory recipes that just rely on the sugar of the sweet potatoes themselves, right?

Personally, I'm a scrambled egg person. I will mix my eggs without any seasoning in them. I will preheat my shallow cast iron pan with a ton of margarine and water, and let the water start bubbling. I will add the egg mixture into the water. The eggs will cook practically instantly, then after that it's just cooking off as much water as you want cooked off. I'll usually add cheese and green onions, but if I have them I will add crumbled potato chips. (taken from The Bear, great idea) Add salt and pepper at the end

I am not vegan. I don't eat meat everyday, but I'm not even a vegetarian. Being raised as an American with serious auto-immune issues have made me lean towards meat for my entire life. Meat replacements also simply don't work for how I cook, with me always treating the meat flavor as a key flavor that doesn't really have a replacement. I still believe this, I do not really see the value of converting non-vegan recipes to being vegan. Tofu only has the flavor of whatever it's cooked with, so anything meat forward like a pot roast simply aren't going to translate well. However, I'm still working on natively vegan recipes to try and develop food that won't disappoint. Also have to note, this is not made to be authentic. This is made to be more authentic than microwave ramen. I'm not Japanese or Chinese (not conflating the two because "asian", look into the history of ramen), nor am I trying to spend any real time on this. I'm just using ingredients I typically already have. Here's my first results. You can realistically make this in 15 minutes.

#TOOLS: 1 8 inch pot Microplane or fine grater Stove or microwave

#Ingredients:

• Salt

• Dried mushrooms, microplaned

Personally, I can't handle mushroom texture unless I cook them for HOURS. I'll use my microplane to grate these. You really have to do mushroom by flavor though. I used 3 mushrooms of different species for mine though

• 1 bit of ginger, microplaned

Do this to taste with because ginger is a different kind of spice. You could be able to eat pounds of ghost chilies, and that's cool, but ginger isn't capscacin or anything close. Personally? I cry if I eat jalapeno because of the heat, you generally don't want my opinion of capscacin, but love the numbing heat of ginger and szechuan chilies

• Garlic powder (prefer this over real garlic in this case)

Microplaning is way better than cutting in this moment. Why would you actually spend time cutting garlic when you're grating everything else?

• 1/2 cup of coconut aminos or soy sauce

Coconut aminos are a soy sauce alternative I was given as a gift when I learned I am allergic to soy. Thank you Sarah. Coconut aminos are similar to soy sauce, but have less of the extreme saltiness and umami of soy sauce, and leans more on the sweet side. I personally find this to be a better rounded flavor for ramen, and surprisingly find soy sauce way better to add to white people food.

• Green onion

• White pepper

• Smoked paprika

• Seasoned salt

• Canned corn, peas, and corn (can also use frozen)

• Noodles

• Sesame oil

Stovetop Instructions

1. Start boiling about 4 quarts of water. Grind your dried mushrooms, white pepper, and ginger into it. Also add garlic powder at this stage. You can also add some margarine at this step to give your aromatics fat to work with at the start. Let this sit for about 5 minutes to let the ginger and mushroom flavors to develop where they need to be.

2. Add coconut aminos/soy sauce in at this point. Taste for salt, then salt according to taste. Coconut aminos and soy sauce have such different levels of saltiness, so I can't even begin to give you guide wheels. However, I strongly recommend using seasoned salt for ramen instead of plain salt.

3. Add noodles at this point. I use Chinese noodles from the grocery store, 1 brick of the 2 in the pack. These will be done in 3 minutes

4. Start adding veggies. You can use fresh, but I find that there's very little value to using any of these things fresh. I had different cans for all of these, but I know there are frozen bags of peas corn and carrots. Frozen or canned veggies barely even need to be cooked though. Also, canned corn water is literally slurry.

5. Put in bowl after noodles are finished. Garnish with green onion, white pepper, sesame oil, and finely grated ginger if you want the fresh ginger heat.

Let me know what y'all think!

I thought that they pulled salt into the meat and reversed the osmotic pressure so that liquid flows back into it and that's why putting aromatics in the brine pulls flavors into the meat. And I thought they were specifically used on lean cuts of meat to help keep them moist. And I read that they're not typically used for beef because beef usually has enough intramuscular fat to keep itself moist while cooking.

But we've been cooking top round beef and every time the sous chef complains about how dry it is and how it's the cut of the meat and how it lacks intramuscular fat etc etc. So i mention brining the meat first today, but he says it'd make it more dry, because "the salt breaks down cells and once that fluid is released it doesn't go back in"

So what's up with that who do i believe, this guy who is generally knowledgeable or a bunch of internet sources

I forgot how much I enjoy watching cooking videos and now I'm starving.

I'm looking for websites, particular webpages, Youtube channels, etc.

I'm about to google this stuff but I'd still like suggestions to help me just do it and make sauces myself for basic sauces like sweet and sour, tikka masala, butter chicken, curry (many kinds).

I've started to make most of my meals in a Dutch oven. I throw frozen vegetables in there along with some kind of frozen meat and cook it all for ~45 minutes.

The next thing for me to do is make sauces myself.

It's only very recently that I finally cured myself of my Pavlov's Dog habit of buying frozen meals so I could stick them in the microwave oven and hear that ding. The food usually isn't that good and I know even as lazy as I am - I can do better than that.

I fucked this up though, I thought if I just topped the mushrooms with spinach, put the ratatouille on, and then put them back in the oven a couple minutes the spinach would wilt and look good. It didn't, it dried out, next time I'm folding the spinach into the ratatouille and then topping the mushrooms with it. Image is from before they went back into the oven

Nitter

Found a dim sum spot in Flushing I really wanna go to

Nitter

Oh no. Oh nooooo. Oh noooooooooo.

Nitter

Have you wanted to grow mushrooms but didn't know where to start? Here's a relatively easy and foolproof technique that doesn't require equipment or sterilization and can be done in an afternoon.

MATERIALS:
Mushroom spawn - the two types that work well for this are oyster mushrooms (any variety, although given that oyster mushrooms tend to be copious spore producers and the spores are known for causing health problems, sporeless oysters are best for indoors/small spaces) and what's known as bear's head or lion's mane. The latter produces a shaggy ball-shaped mushroom and is enjoying a moment right now because it helps keep nerves healthy. It's also darn tasty and can be enjoyed in stir fries and sushi (if cooked!). Pioppino might also do well in this setup, but I have never tried it. Mushroom spawn can be purchased online. I like Field & Forest Products as a supplier.

Yesterday's News Kitty Litter: made from pelletized newspaper, do not substitute feline pine or other wood-based brands

Guinea Pig Chow: you want pelletized Timothy hay

Dechlorinated Water - Hot water out of the faucet that has been allowed to cool works, so does distilled or filtered water, or tap water that has been brought to a boil and allowed to cool. You need 4 cups per batch.

Newspaper Bags: any tube shaped plastic bag will do. Small mushroom grow bags are available on Amazon and also work well.

A clean plastic tub for mixing (for best results wipe out beforehand with hydrogen peroxide or a 1:10 bleach dilution)

METHOD

Making the artificial log:
Using clean or gloved hands, mix 4 cups of yesterday's news, two handfuls of guinea pig chow, and 4 cups of water until the water is fully incorporated. Add in about a cup of spawn (less works, but it is slightly riskier), breaking up the clumps with your fingers. Scoop the inoculated medium into your bag, tap on the counter a couple times to pack it down, then tie it off.

Spawn Run:
Over the course of the next couple of weeks, the mushroom spawn will colonize the artificial logs, causing the medium to become cohesive and whitish in color. If you see green, powdery growth, you have trichoderma contamination and should discard. Black splotches are mold and also a sign your log is compromised.

Fruiting:
Oxygen is the trigger to switch over from vegetative growth to making mushrooms. Tiny pinheads called primordia will often form in places where there's gaps between substrate and bag; you can look for them and make small x cuts in the bag with a pair of scissors, or you can just pierce the bag in regular intervals on one side. Keeping the bag in a humid environment, placing it in a shopping bag, or misting it regularly can improve yield. Once the mushrooms are mature, you can harvest them (ideally before they drop a lot of spores). If you're growing bear's head, the tips starting to yellow is a sign that the fruiting body is done growing.

A second flush can be obtained by soaking the bags in dechlorinated water for at least a couple of hours. Expect 1-2 pounds of yield from each bag.

WHY IT WORKS

The mushrooms we're growing here are known as white rot fungi and have been evolutionary honed to tolerate wood, a growing medium that most other decomposers hate because it's low in nitrogen and high in forms of carbohydrate that are difficult to break down. White rot fungi are not really used to competitors and are happy to take their time, which means that they can spend years breaking down a log before deciding to fruit. This is disadvantageous from a less patient human cultivator's point of view.

We can speed the process up by offering tastier forms of nutrition, but that will attract faster-growing fungi who can muscle out our target species. Thus, growing mushrooms successfully without contamination requires either an environment more suited to the target mushroom than faster-growing competitors (that is, it is relatively low in nutrients), or a rigorous commitment to ensuring the competitors are kept out of the medium. We take a hybrid approach here: both the litter and the Timothy pellets are sterilized during manufacturing, so we don't have to worry as much about aseptic technique, but the resulting medium is still less nutritious than something designed for high yields, such as master's mix. Keeping the logs comparatively small and using a high spawn ratio also allows the edible mushroom to quickly complete a life cycle before any spores that have drifted in have a chance to get established, with the drawback of increasing cost per unit produced.

COST/MATERIAL CONSIDERATIONS

You're looking at roughly $80 - 100 in materials to get off the ground, with your main expense being the mushroom spawn. A 5 lb bag of spawn should be enough for 20 or so mini logs, so at $5/lb of mushrooms at the high end, you're beating the grocery store or farmer's market pretty handily. This is also a lot to make at once, and spawn does have a limited shelf life (although it can be stored in the fridge for a couple of weeks). High nutrient spawns like rye tend to get chewed through quickly and you can often find your spawn bags fruiting on their own (not necessarily the worst outcome).

If you're worried about waste and not sure where you'd keep 20 newspaper bags full of mycelium, consider splitting the cost with friends or making your own spawn in smaller batches. Spore/mycelium syringes for edible varieties are available online, and the popular and relatively reliable "Uncle Ben's tek" used for Psilocybes will also work for the more licit species of fungi. That's a post for another time, though.

OKAY I GREW SOME MUSHROOMS, NOW WHAT?

Spent logs can theoretically be used to spawn new ones, although the chances for contamination go up and yields can decline over time. They can also be composted or tossed on a log pile to see if you get some mushrooms the natural way.

This guy's channel is great, but it's not all vegan. Plenty of the recipes are though.

I probably need more help than this but it's the first thing on my mind since I'm gonna be walking to the grocery store in the next 20 minutes