blogofjason

[blogofjason]

Fruit will last 3 weeks longer….

Why You Should Keep Fruit In Mason Jars Instead Of The Containers They Come In…….

When you get your fruit home from the grocery store, the first thing you should do is remove it from the plastic containers they’ve come in and recycle them. Next, clean out your sink and fill it with water (you could also use a large bowl). Then, toss in a few tablespoons of distilled vinegar. You’ll then want to submerge your fruit in the water and let it soak for about 10 to 15 minutes. The purpose of this is to get rid of any mold or bacteria on the fruit which is what causes them to go rotten more quickly.

Once the fruit has had a nice soak, remove it from the vinegar water, transfer to a strainer, and rinse with cool water. Leave the fruit out to dry on a tea towel or paper towel. Once dry, transfer the fruit to mason jars and seal up those lids. This is the best way to make your fruit last, particularly berries, which tend to be very prone to mold and bacteria buildup.

And that’s it! Incorporating these few extra steps into preparing and storing fruit can help you eliminate food waste, save money, and keep your fridge stocked with fresh produce for much longer.

[blogofjason]

hi i just created an excel sheet where i can pick a meal and have it autopopulate the ingredients i'll need as a shopping list

i have never felt so smart

[blogofjason]

i mean this in the gentlest way possible: you need to eat vegetables. you need to become comfortable with doing so. i do not care if you are a picky eater because of autism (hi, i used to be this person!), you need to find at least some vegetables you can eat. find a different way to prepare them. chances are you would like a vegetable you hate if you prepared it in a stew or roasted it with seasoning or included it as an ingredient in a recipe. just. please start eating better. potatoes and corn are not sufficient vegetables for a healthy diet.

[blogofjason]

The Dungeon Meshi renaissance is making me want to share the resources that taught me how to cook.

Don’t forget, you can check out cookbooks from the library!

Smitten Kitchen: The rare recipe blog where the blog part is genuinely good & engaging, but more important: this is a home cook who writes for home cooks. If Deb recommends you do something with an extra step, it’s because it’s worth it. Her recipes are reliable & have descriptive instructions that walk you through processes. Her three cookbooks are mostly recipes not already on the site, & there are treasures in each of them.

Six Seasons: A New Way With Vegetables by Joshua McFadden: This is a great guide to seasonal produce & vegetable-forward cooking, and in addition to introducing me to new-to-me vegetables (and how to select them) it quietly taught me a number of things like ‘how to make a tasty and interesting puréed soup of any root veggie’ and ‘how to make grain salads’ and ‘how to make condiments’.

Grains for Every Season: Rethinking Our Way With Grains by Joshua McFadden: in addition to infodumping in grains, this codifies some of the formulas I picked up unconsciously just by cooking a lot from the previous book. I get a lot of mileage out of the grain bowl mix-and-match formulas (he’s not lying, you can do a citrus vinaigrette and a ranch dressing dupe made with yogurt, onion powder, and garlic powder IN THE SAME DISH and it’s great.)

SALT, FAT, ACID, HEAT by Samin Nosrat: An education in cooking theory & specific techniques. I came to it late but I think it would be a good intro book for people who like to front-load on theory. It taught me how to roast a whole chicken and now I can just, like, do that.

I Dream Of Dinner (so you don’t have to) by Ali Slagle: Ok, look, an important part of learning to cook & cooking regularly is getting kinda burned out and just wanting someone else to tell you what to make. These dinners work well as written and are also great tweakable bases you can use as a starting place.

If you have books or other resources that taught you to cook or that you find indispensable, add ‘em on a reblog.

[blogofjason]

is there anyone out there with a nyt cooking subscription

will they send me the chamomile tea cake with strawberry icing recipe

[blogofjason]

Wilt-resist your whipped cream! (A cheat, by Doc)

Okay, the phrase "by Doc" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here--I actually learned this tip from a gal I was competing with years ago in state fair (she beat my ass) and I'm sure other aunts and grandmas know it. But, whomst else on tumblr will deliver it to your eyeballs?

Because you know the trouble with whipped cream and whipped cream frostings is they tend to wilt over time, especially if they have to deal with absolutely any level of heat. A simple room temperature can make your pie or cake look weepy and sad. Your bowl of fresh whipped cream now looks worse than the fuckin' cool whip. Tragedy.

Now, I assume you, erudite and exceptional readers of this blog, are already using powdered sugar/icing sugar instead of standard sugar to make your whipped cream, not only because of greater stability but because it functionally removes the possibility of graininess. This is a "I want to make this whipped cream the night before" tip. Other tips like milk powder, I find, just don't have the same longevity as what's below:

Professionals use gelatin or agar-agar, which I don't like for two reasons: 1) Gelatin is not vegetarian and in the US is often made from pork, so fuck your Jewish or Muslim guests and 2) you have to bloom the gelatin or agar-agar, and it can be tricky to work with, and if you aren't the 'working with high-level mousses and creams often" type, it may be a waste of space in your kitchen.

But gee whiz, did you know there's a very cheap and intensely easy solution for busy housewives to keep her man loving her whipped cream, and by extension, her? Tell her, Don!

Why little lady, it's Jell-O (tm) brand instant pudding mix! Don't tell the ladies at the church bake-off...we won't.

This is the easiest possible way to get nice, stiff whipped cream that holds up for, I think my record is three days. It can also tolerate sitting in a warm room much much better than whipped cream really ought to be able to.

"But Doc, isn't Jell-O, uh, gelatin?"

Jell-O itself is, but Jell-O pudding is actually kosher. I assume other brands are as well, but I don't know this for a fact--so make sure to check the label if you're using a different brand. What's doing the work here is 'modified food starch' which is a stronger version of cornstarch, which I find, added to whipped cream, to require too much to be added, and the texture gets odd.

This is cheap! Your grocery store may vary, but this small box was 99 cents.

This is easy! All you do is add about 1 tablespoon of pudding mix per one cup of heavy/whipping/double cream* and then whip as usual.

It does lightly flavor the whipped cream, which I've never found to be a problem--I use regular vanilla mostly, but french vanilla is nice for banana cream pie, I used coconut cream for the pie I just entered WHICH WON BEST IN SHOW I MIGHT ADD. Chocolate is great for chocolate whipped cream. You're smart people, you got this. The only ones I don't recommend are tapioca (pearls) and Oreo (having about three bits of oreo in the whipped cream looks dirty rather than intentional.)

Go forth, and set your whipped cream on the sideboard with confidence!

*I'm aware these all actually contain different levels of fat, but let's get real here, they are often used interchangeably and only the craziest among us is going to seriously get into "What cream should you be whipping?" discourse.

[blogofjason]

you know that quote "when you have a hammer everything looks like a nail" bc that's how i feel whenever i have a lysol wipe in my hand

[blogofjason]

I’ll admit I’ve sent a 👍 in my time

[blogofjason]

[blogofjason]

Hey when you move out on your own the most important food tip I can give you is “maybe you don’t hate x maybe your guardians just cooked it wrong”

The number of foods I have learned I really like if they’re Fucking Seasoned

The number of foods I’ve introduced friends to that they warned me they’d always hated til I let them try a piece of mine

Also marinade things for 24 hours the second you have your own fridge it is a GAME CHANGER you thought you knew food but you have never met her

[blogofjason]

the best advice i ever got for exercising as someone who literally never exercises (mental illness) is to pick something you don't mind like dancing, swimming, trampoline, jumprope, biking, or walking your dog and do it ONLY as long as it's enjoyable. as soon as you feel too tired or stressed, just stop.

we're not pushing to almost the point of failure like people who train or try to bulk up. we're just trying to introduce a little more movement and teach your brain that exercise can be enjoyable. and slowly you'll be able to do a it a bit more and a bit more.

it's not what most people consider fitness but a little bit of joyful movement is better than none!

[blogofjason]

is there anyone out there with a nyt cooking subscription

will they send me the chamomile tea cake with strawberry icing recipe

[blogofjason]

Are you interested? Are you joyful? Are you having fun? Are you bonding with the people around you? Then what’s the value in competence?

To be effective and miserable is not how to spend your precious time and will. To be focused on your ineffectiveness is to ignore what could actually be making you happy. Allow yourself to enjoy the process of learning, the satisfaction of practice, and even the futility of meeting the barriers of talent.

To fixate on productivity is to harm yourself and squander your life. Let failure and triumph both be irrelevant.

[blogofjason]

Self Care Tips From Tumblr: When you feel like everyone hates you, sleep. When you feel like you hate everyone, eat. When you feel like you hate yourself, shower. Someone out there feels better because you exist. 

instagram / patreon / portfolio / etsy / my book / redbubble

[blogofjason]

[blogofjason]

you know that quote "when you have a hammer everything looks like a nail" bc that's how i feel whenever i have a lysol wipe in my hand