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[Sheb]

After a bit of googling, looks like it's a total myth. It doesn't affect the fridge at all and doesn't hurt the food in any way. In fact, it's worse to wait for it to cool, because then it will spend more time at room temperature, where bacteria thrives.

Thanks, uncle Google!

The only reason to let it cool to room temperature first would be to save energy.

[Rolan7]

On your head be it!
http://nonadventures.com/2013/10/12/frigid-dare/

[Sappho]

Czech Christmas Potato Salad!

I may have posted this already in the past, but I still want to share.

It's a bit late to make it in time this year, but it's great any time of year anyway.

This is half of the Czech traditional Christmas dinner (which they eat on the 24th, and open presents after - not the 25th). Recipes vary from family to family, but this is the one I use. Yum.

Phase One: Boiling Stuff
-In a big put, put about six whole, washed but unpeeled potatoes (medium-sized, not the huge ones you get in the US), 2 peeled and trimmed carrots, 2 peeled and trimmed parsley roots, and about 1/4 of a peeled celery root. Some of this stuff might be tougher to find in the states, but it's worth it - don't substitute the stalks of the parsley and celery or it won't work at all.
-Cover the veggies in water and boil until soft - it took about 20-25 minutes for me. Just keep checking. Poke 'em until they're soft.
-Meanwhile, hard boil 5-6 eggs.
-Once everything is done, strain it and let it cool down for a while.

Phase Two: Cutting Stuff Up
-Cube all the vegetables into small cubes, maybe 1 cm, or about half an inch. Throw them in a big bowl (or two big bowls).
-Cut up the eggs real small, too. Mix those in.
-Dice up 3-4 sweet pickles/gherkins. NOT dill. Don't even THINK about dill. Don't ruin this. SWEET ones. Then mix those in.
-Dice up some yellow onion. It doesn't take much - I used about two tablespoons, diced. Mix that in there too.
-Add some mayo. A few spoons? However much you think is right for potato salad.

Now comes the hard part. This is going to be difficult, but you can do it: put it in the fridge, and walk away.

You CANNOT eat it until the next day, or it won't taste like much of anything. You have to leave it at least overnight before you eat it - make it in advance. The longer it sits, the better it tastes (until it goes bad - do not let this happen!).

Now I'm off to eat some leftover potato salad. Mmmmmmmmm potato salad. Happy holidays to all!

[Solifuge]

My very first Turkey. Crusted it in rosemary and parsley from the garden, butter, and some other herbs and seasonings. Stuffed it with carrots, onion, celery, apple, and lemon. Roasted under a tinfoil tent at 350F for 3 hours, basting it in chicken stock every 45 minutes or so. Uncovered and cranked it to 400F for the last 2 hours to brown and get it up to temp (170F to 180F). It came out really juicy! Apparently the basting helps reduce the surface temperature, to let you get the inside up to temp without drying out the outside.

P.S. Also made like a bazillion cookies. Due to circumstances, was baking from like 4am to 9am. It was stupid, but the Snickerdoodles and Lemon-Raspberry Shortbreads were totally worth it. When I'm more well-rested, I'd be happy to share any cookie recipes anyone was interested in.

And now, I sleep forever. Goodnight, and happy holidays all!

[Sappho]

Looks gorgeous! And I hereby request cookie recipes, especially snickerdoodles.

[Sirus]

I bought this variety pack of hard cider today. Six different varieties, supposedly, but it doesn't do much to describe what each one is.

I mostly got it because I wanted some hard cider for tomorrow, but around here you can basically only buy it in six-packs or extremely large bottles that I don't feel comfortable consuming in one sitting. At least with the variety pack, if I decide I hate any particular flavor I won't have five more bottles of it to get rid of.

[Arx]

I've been meaning to post my competing potato salad recipe for ages, but forgetting. Made some this evening, though.

It's a heck of a lot simpler, in large part because it's mostly potato.

Cube an appropriate quantity of potato for whomever you are feeding. The quantities I use are based on feeding ~7 people (which takes anywhere from 6 to 14 potatoes depending on the harvest...), but they can be tweaked up or down easily. You can peel or not peel the potato, depending on the skin quality and your preferences.

Cook the potato. I do it in a microwave for great convenience, which takes a little over ten minutes.

While that's happening, combine in a blender (food processor? American is weird) an onion, a handful of fresh mint (you can be pretty generous with the mint), a little less than a teaspoon of sugar, a pinch of salt, and a healthy quantity of mayonaisse. My family does it as ~four heaped soup spoons, so maybe 5 or so tablespoons? Dunno.

Blend that all thoroughly. It should have texture, but there shouldn't be chunks or whole mint leaves or anything. Leave it to sit while you deal with the potato, which may entail draining it if you boiled it, or draining if you rinsed it to cool it, or... I usually just rinse the potato to cool it off if I'm making supper, but for special occasions my family is usually organised enough to cook the potato early and let it cool by itself.

Once the potatoes are dry and preferably cool (I doubt it makes much difference), combine them with the sauce. At this point, the salad is tasty and edible, but if it's left to sit it will improve - especially overnight, in the same way as Sappho's recipe. The flavours in the sauce mix better and the potato takes on the flavour.

Some people include hard-boiled egg in this. I'm not a fan, personally, but it can be done.

The fact that I cook by eye and not by measure maaay show a little in these directions.

[Helgoland]

No making the mayonnaise yourself? Awwwwww.

Also, a guy told me about the simplest student meal of all times. And it doesn't taste half bad either:

1) Take potatoes.
2) Boil them. No peeling necessary.
3) Put them on your plate and cut them into pieces.
4) Pour salad dressing over them.

Sounds disgusting, tastes great. The peel is left on for a more interesting mouthfeel. And do use the more expensive salad dressing - it tastes much better.

[penguinofhonor]

That sounds like potato salad, but without making the dressing yourself. Though potato salad generally has a very basic mayo-based dressing; depending on what you used it could end up quite different.

[Sappho]

Holy crap delicious soup with almost zero effort.

1: Cut up and sautee an onion in olive oil, in the bottom of a large soup pot.
2: Dump in 1/2 cup each of: dried pearled barley, dried green split peas, dried yellow split peas, dried green lentils.
3: Fill the pot with water (maybe 2 liters?) and bring to a boil; skim off the foam as it appears.
4: Add 1-1.5 cups each of frozen sweet corn and frozen soup veggies (easy to find here and contains finely chopped carrot, parsley root, sliced leek, and some other herbs; if not available to you, chop some carrots and parsley root when you do the onion and sautee with it, add whatever other spices you want), plus a single veggie stock cube.
5: Cover, reduce temperature so it's just boiling; check it now and then and stir it up.
6: After around 90 minutes, add 1/2 cup dried red lentils (you can do it earlier, I just prefer not to let them completely disintegrate).
7: 20-30 minutes after that, you have soup. Best soup.
8: Eat soup.

[Rolan7]

*drunk hour*
Sardines in soybean oil are freakin amazing, for requiring no preparation.  Kinda wish I didn't use them up yesterday and day before.

But actually dry beans are right up there!  Frozen beans were very disappointing, had to cook 50 minutes to make them palatable.  That's enough simmering time to make dry beans palatable, so why not!

Lentils are, of course, the undisputed cheap-bean.  Mix with any grain, get a protein, pretty delicious really!  And OH so CHEAP!
These were blackeye peas plus green beans ("snaps", as we call them here in SE USA).  Same idea though.

So yeah... rice plus beans, complete protein.  Or rice plus fish if you're feeling a craving.  Or, if you really jones for it, a burge or chicken sandwich.  'mnot about to present a moral argument against meat eating, just saying, it's EXPENSIVE.  And that literally means it's hurting the planet more.

Gotta have greens though, too.  For drunk laziness I suggest V8.  It's mostly tomato- and you gotta be careful, too much tomato causes depression!  But it has a lot of other stuff too.  Random vitamins and minerals and whatnot.
Get the low sodium kind, if you can.  Add salt if you must, and wean yourself down.  It's pretty tasty plain, but that's just how my mom brought me up.

Spinach is also choice.  One option is a "spinach salad".  IE a bag of spinach, and then you eat the spinach.  Iron intake: solved, and it's actually a pretty nice snack.  Leaves are pretty chewy.
Baby tomatoes are a more expensive option.  Though remember:  nightshade bad

"hardmode" is drunk stew.  If you have some shit in your fridge, odds are you can throw it in a pot and boil it and get something your numb tongue won't object to - and may even be nutritious, if you've planned ahead (don't rely on drunk self to plan).  Chop that shit up, put it in the pot, cover and simmer for an hour - et voila, rock soup.

If you prefer it a little thicker, add some flour at the start, or halfway along.  I've had a bag of King Arthur flour for maybe 3 years now, it NEVER goes bad.  Just sprinkle a bunch in to thicken any soup into stew.

This is the point where I'd say "I'm hungry", but let's be honest- at this point, I only hunger for expired grapejuice.

[Rolan7]

The thing with the oily-sardines, is that a grain-bean diet will inevitable result in a craving for meat.  (oily) fish not only satisfies that need, it tastes fucking amazing if you've gone without for a little while.

The body knows what it needs.  Holding back for a little while pays massive dividends when you consume the thing in question.
Same applies to alcohol, natch.

[Reelya]

Started losing some weight recently (trying to go frow low 80s to 75kg), it's been more noticeable since I made two changes.

I discovered roasted salted Edamame, so now I have those instead of potato chips when I need something crunchy. They're amazing: 100g pack has 40g(!) protein, so 1 pack a day helps me meet my protein intake requirement, which I really have trouble meeting mormally, and they're really filing.

Additionally, I sometimes buy ginger beer softdrink (the nice version), and I was starting to feel like those more often, since it's summer here, and they cost $3.50 at the 7/11 nearby, so I started buying the supermarket-brand unflavored soda water and drinking that with a splash of this real-ginger cordial. Way less sugar and it's still had just as much satisfying fizziness. So i got some more flavors now, but of nice cordials that come in glass bottles and have interesting flavors.

[Neonivek]

Ok I have a question for this thread... a weird one.

I seem to just universally dislike Dimsum (the saddest are the Steamed Buns because they look sooo delicious! but don't taste good at all)...

Just really bad tasting boiled meat inside sticky sweaty wrapping or foamy stale wrapping...

Do I just dislike Dimsum?

Or is this like the Sushi Scenario where storebought Sushi is just terrible... (and I've had restaurant Dimsum... I mean they COULD have just cooked storebought)

The only Dimsum I ever liked was my brother's Tofu Wontons... But those were VERY atypical.

[Parsely]

I seem to just universally dislike Dimsum

Do I just dislike Dimsum?

I think you might dislike Dimsum.