/ck/ - Food & Cooking

bean
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Hi guies whats going on in dis thred?

I had BEANS for breakfast, weetbix for lunch, will have BEANS for dindins.

Well BEANed

I buy beans, rice, oatmeal, grits and split peas in bulk every other year and rotate it. Store that stuff in totes so pests won't get to it. This makes for cheaper meals, plus consider it part of prepping too. At least you got some bulk food that is easy to make during a crisis, that is, if you have prepared for grid-down scenarios properly. :)

 >>/54/
It's great that you rotate, even small pantries suffer waste because they don't open things in the order they were bought, and I know that I lost homegrown potatoes because they came in over a long period and I just threw them all in the same bag.

Everyone should buy dried goods in bulk, it's not even prepping you just avoid having no food or paying abnormally high spot prices in the supermarket. 

In terms of storage there are lots of options, some more pragmatic than others. Glass is probably the best option but you're limited by the size of jars, they are fragile and the lids degrade if stored in the damp.

Small plastic barrels are great, they last forever, don't suffer damp, totally pest proof.

Ceramic pots are far better than plastic, but are hard to air seal. People have largely forgotten how to use ceramics.

But there are some hazards Id warn you about that preppers find out the hard way. 
> pressure differential condensation
You can get condensation inside a storage vesles if it's air tight and the temperature drops. This cycle repeats over and over until absorbent foodstuffs like oats start to rot, the rotting creates a deoxygenated environment, very bad things grow in a deoxygenated environment. 
Sometimes you actually want a vessle that's NOT airtight to stop condensation inside it. 
> ergot
> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergot
Almost completely eradicated by industrial agriculture, it makes a comeback every now and then when preppers reject industrial agriculture. 
> mealworms
Pantry moths, wevils, almond moths, corn moths, several related species. 
The eggs are actually in the goods when you buy them so infestations are hard to control. This is one reason people don't store things in single giant barrels. 
I deter them with bay leaves, and i can't find anyone with the balls to say one way or another but personally i find you can float them ( plus their webs and shit) out of dry goods, often they're in somthing which is being boiled anyway, and personally I've eaten them forever without suffering any ill effect.

 >>/59/
> even small pantries suffer waste because they don't open things in the order they were bought

When I buy wholesale foods I come back home and start labeling each package and can by date purchased to keep track of what is older and what is newer. Then I place the newer purchased stuff in the back and older stuff gets pushed to the front, older often rotated into cabinets from my "food inventory" (shelving units with lots of canned foods and totes). Totes are all organized too, beans in one, rice in another, pasta in another one, etc. 

As for
> You can get condensation inside a storage vesles if it's air tight and the temperature drops. This cycle repeats over and over until absorbent foodstuffs like oats start to rot, the rotting creates a deoxygenated environment, very bad things grow in a deoxygenated environment.

That is good to know. Thankfully the totes I have are not airtight, they are just there to keep out pests like rodents and bugs. My "food inventory" is actually stored in the basement where it is kept cooler all year round. When I stock more in my cabinets upstairs I do it with all the older foods I bought, marked by date of purchase.

Another thing some preppers may not know is not all expiration dates are very accurate. Some canned foods I have tested myself can stay good for years after the expiration dates. I once had organic canned soup that was 10 years old, decided to cook it and it tasted just fine. I ate it and did not have any problems. Note that this is NOT the case with crap like SPAM, which an 8 year old expired can once gave me horrible diarrhea after taste testing. I won't buy that crap anymore anyway, too unhealthy and loaded with chemicals.

> The eggs are actually in the goods when you buy them so infestations are hard to control.

I find tiny bugs in rice but like you said, I let the rice settle in water for a while, they float to the top and I filter them out. Plus having a few tiny bugs in there won't kill you anyway. Humans eat a lot worse crap that is processed today.

 >>/65/
> My "food inventory" is actually stored in the basement where it is kept cooler all year round.
Well that's good to know.
> Some canned foods I have tested myself can stay good for years after the expiration dates. 
We be really careful there, because as the nominal shelf life of products is indeed often far less than the edibility of the products, the "shelf life" also indicated that spoilage may not be self-evident.
canned goods are the number one cause of botulism poisoning, and while in the general community this is almost always associated with improper/hillbilly home canning, among preppers eating cached food is a specific issue.

For example over a long period of time the acidity in some foods might not remain constant and thus you could get fermentation and then botulism.
Oils might work their way to the top of a can and exclude the canning liquid for example.

I usually find that "preppers" are the least reliable source of information in almost all cases, usually they've discovered science the week prior, military science, agricultural science, disaster response and aid, medical science etc all exist and there are textbooks you can buy off ebay.
It's not normal to find or access achedemic sources on google, their absence doesn't mean they are in some way hidden or secret. Usually you can become a lay member of your local university for a few bucks to access their libraries, there are text book type resources. Just enrol in a cert 1+2 in agriculture or food science.

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You lil homos fuck with lentils? They sustain you for up to a full 24 hours if you eat enough. You can mash them to make a meat-like substance. Seasoned correctly, you can make meatballs or taco meat with them. Don't follow up a lentil session with blueberry muffins, that's a mistake I made last month. Farts for days.

 >>/109/
> Seasoned correctly, you can make meatballs or taco meat with them
Tell us how.

 >>/110/
Taco seasoning you add mostly powdered cumin, salt, and minced garlic. Chopped onion helps a lot, you could also add parsley depending on how lazy you are. Cook the lentils, mash them in a bowl with a fork, add seasoning and the taco meat is done. It isn't an exact match, but feels less harsh in the stomach compared to using meat, probably due to the fiber. You don't need to pan fry the lentil meat, just use as is. The texture isn't as dense and separate as regular meat. It's its own thing, but better in my opinion.

For meatballs, use cook the lentils, mash with a fork in a bowl, then add spices into the mix before balling. Use oregano, basil, rosemary, thyme, salt and pepper. Add in minced garlic, a bit of chopped onion, a hefty amount of breadcrumbs, and an egg to combine. Ball up meatballs, place onto a baking sheet and bake around 350˚F .

 >>/111/
> texture
I wonder what to do about that.

 >>/109/
Bean neet ate a lot of lentils. I think mostly curry. The yellow and orange ones are the worst, black ones are far better in most non Indian and even the Indians prefer the other kinds.

The secret of lentils is not over cooking them, because you often cook them in water then in a sauce- don't fully cook them in the water if this is the case. 

For tacos kidney beans are best, black beans are good, and even white beans or chickpeas rate over lentils. Try adding half the kidney beans in place of meat, and refrying the second half to make dip.

Eating BEANS

Done jpg
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Today I'm making hanoi fried spring rolls. 
There are three basic steps:
> mix the filling
> roll up the rice paper
> fry them
Some of these techniques might be unusual to you but thankfully it's a forgiving recipe if you know how to fry food safely.

First I'll explain the sauce, you can skip this step if you've bought a dipping sauce for $2. Sweet chilli is fine, soya sauce is not recommended. 

Simply make a 1:1:1 mix of black and gold lime juice, fish sauce, and vinegar. Ideally rice or red vinegar. Then add minced garlic, ginger, coriander, mint, red chilli. Again just use whatever you've got.

Prep jpg
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The main ingredients for the mince vary considerably, but at bare minimum you need
1. Some kind of protien, pork is the most common, shrimp is common, leftovers are entirely acceptable, marinaded tofu works.
2. Filler, usually a mix of shredded carrot, blanched rice noodles (a handful at most), diced mushroom (especially with pork). The key here is not to introduce liquid, the rice noodle will absorb some of don't boil the shit out of it. 
3. Seasoning
Usually garlic, fish sauce (a tablespoon), i use chives, white pepper is pretty standard, salt. Herbs are better added to the sauce or a salad in most cases.

Roll jpg
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Note that I rolled the blenched noodles and carrot in paper towel to reduce the moisture before adding them to the mix.

To roll them we soak the rice paper sheets in a tray until they are pliable. Add them or by one as you use them because rice sheets fall apart if over soaked. 

Don't let the mix be any wider than a Frankfurt, because it's raw and has to cook through before the roll burns.
If you fold the ends in first it helps, and it helps to make the rolls quiet long. They should be water tight as the rice sheet dries out a bit. Don't stack them or they'll stick together.

To fry them a deep fryer works best, a pot is awkward, a wok is good.
Remember the oil will rise the more rolls you add. This tends to be a very smokey business so try on the barbeque or over a 40gal drum fire.

Slide each roll in one by one, cook in batches, don't be scared if there a bit of black on the outside as the paper can bubble. Resist the urge to turn them or the middle won't cook. 
If they stick together don't try to seperate them,  flip them all in one go and they'll seperate after they've cooked. 
Drop the cooked rolls onto paper towel to drain excess oil. 

You will find them kind of oily, chewy, smokey, sour, much like a hanoi gutter fire.
Serve with beer

 >>/327/
Step 1; Spend 20-30 bucks on ingredients at the Asian grocery store to make what is basically Vietnamese peasant food. Does look good though.

 >>/328/
The sauce would be tastier with freshly-squeezed lime juice, no?

 >>/333/
Costs more than sausage rolls by still not expensive. I buy fish sauce by the litre, rice noodles by the kilo, carrots are two dollars a bag

Despite lack of posts, know that the BEAN program is progressing, faster than expected.