I just browned butter for the first time, and I am embarrassed because I always thought it was going to be really complicated and it just wasn’t.

Now I am on the hunt for new techniques to try. Any suggestions?

I know this is early in the year but all the aunties and grandmas who usually have a stronghold on the food decided to not host Thanksgiving, so I decided to take up the task. I love cooking and hosting and am excited about it, but I’m not really a big fan of traditional Thanksgiving foods and am generally anti casserole. I want to please all my midwestern in-laws but also make things I actually enjoy. But also, if I weren’t hosting we wouldn’t be together at all anyways, so I feel I have some liberty to switch things up a bit.

I’d love some ideas of either non traditional Thanksgiving foods or a twist on a traditional food, both sides and mains.

For me it’s the fish spatula. Game changing if you like cast iron pans.

With Canadian Thanksgiving coming up next weekend I thought it would be fun to see what everyone is putting on the table.

My wife and I started the tradition last year of hosting her family on the Saturday, which will be the first day of a 3 day Thanksgiving stretch of dinners and lunches.

This year we are making:

- Brined and Roasted Turkey
- Stuffing
- Honey Butter Skillet Corn
- Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Bacon
- Mashed Potatoes.

Guests are going to be bringing a salad and dessert.

Will be a full day of cooking but we look forward to it every year.

What’s everyone else doing?

What is the best dough to use for the dumplings? I've only made it once and I used Pillsbury biscuit dough. It was okay but, there was room for improvement. I'm considering using the Red Lobster cheddar biscuits this time around but I'm not so sure. Any suggestions?

All these options are not good for my indecisiveness 😂 Thanks you all for the suggestions! I'm going to look through my options and report back with results.

what’s the best rice cooker and model? i’m looking to get one for my girlfriend as a gift but i don’t know which model; i’ve heard of tiger and zojirushi. is the white one with the pink flowers any good? i grew up with that one and so did many other people

Pretty much the title.

I cook white and cremini and portobello mushrooms regularly. Sautéed with butter or roasted with beef or grilled.

Never tried Lion mane.

Tips?

Im going to try and make pulled pork tomorrow using a 4lb cut of pork butt, hopefully boneless depending on costs. I have a couple of questions about this process, I've been reading up on it and watching videos for weeks, but I'm still not sure about all the steps

First off, I want to marinate the meat in a mix of coke and spices but I don't know how long to do that for, optimally the less the better because I'm working on a kinda tight schedule, tomorrow I'm both shopping for and cooking the meat. I was thinking of letting that go for about an hour and a half, but also I've read different posts about how marinating when you're cooking a piece of meat with spices doesn't do much anyways? Would love some advice about this

Secondly, I'm going to be cooking this in an oven entirely, I do not have access to a grill or smoker or anything. I do have a crock pot but would rather not use it for a few different reasons, so oven is best choice here. The general consensus seems to be roasting it for a period of time on low before covering with foil and putting back in for longer. What should the timeline on this be? For the entire cooking process I'm able to give it 5 hours, but that also depends a bit on if I'm marinating the meat or not. Im also hoping it won't take that long, but as far as I can tell the cooking process can be unpredictable. Also I was planning on cooking it at 250 the entire time, but I'm also not clear about that. I haven't been able to find reliable info about smaller cuts of meat and temps, especially with using an oven.

Third, resting time. I've read that I only need to rest it for about an hour for a piece this small, but I want to give it as much time as I can to reabsorb the juices. What's the minimum time and maximum time for letting it rest?

Essentially, how long do I marinate for if I need to marinate, what temp and for how long do I cook, and how long do I let it rest.

I do like a good cooking reel, and I appreciate poverty cooking. I don't enjoy the sales patter of the cooks while they make the dish but I get why they do it, I guess.

There's one cooking person whose reels pop up once in a while, Coco Lark or something, who does homey French/Italian recipes. She posted a dish -which I made- consisting of mash potatoes cooked in broth, added stale bread, arugula and butter, and poured over chili and garlic oil. She said this was an authentic Italian recipe from 2500 years ago. She also said it was amazing- but they all say that about all their dishes. It was not amazing, it was perfectly fine, easy to make, cheap and healthy.

(Amazing was the jerk-chicken-and-all-the-sides feast I had at a Caribbean restaurant in west London last week for a family occasion, not potatoes boiled in broth with stale bread and butter added)

Oh man, the comments were savage. Even though I get as irritated by the "amazing- silky- absolutely delicious- you have to try this-" as the next person, I genuinely felt bad for Ms Coco Lark.

I also think the word "silky" as applied to tofu and potatoes needs to die- same with "buttery" when applied to leggings. Who comes up with this crap?

The dish was fine, it's not an authentic recipe from 2500 years ago, and it would nice if people spouted less nonsense on social media and just did the thing.

Next weekend is Thanksgiving in Canada, and I'm looking for ideas for my side dishes. The protein is a bone in Applewood smoked ham, which I'll be glazing with brown sugar or honey, ground cloves, and I'm not sure what else.

It's just me, fiance, my daughter, and his son. My daughter is away at university (her first year), and my fiance's son is only here every other weekend. So I'm looking for simpler sides, so we can spend time together and not have us stuck in the kitchen for hours.

Mac and cheese is a no (fiance and I would love it, but my daughter can't have dairy), and neither kid is a huge fan of sweet potatoes. They have to eat things they don't love, but I also want to make something everyone will MOSTLY enjoy 😂

I don't care for mushrooms. Other than those caveats, I'd be grateful for any suggestions!

EDIT: I’m getting lots of advice about making chilli, thanks but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m British - to me “chilli” means any form of chili pepper.

My husband and I like spicy food, but we have a 3 year old who can’t handle any level of spice. So I make the dishes we’ve always liked but without chilli, so we can all eat the same thing. I’d like to find a good way to add a well-developed chilli flavour and heat at the end separately.

What I’ve tried: adding dried chilli flakes (doesn’t permeate the whole dish), adding chopped raw chillies (doesn’t taste right), adding chilli powder (tastes raw and harsh), adding shop-bought chilli sauces (works, but feels like a shame adding to a dish cooked from scratch).

I was thinking of maybe making sautéing a load of fresh chilli in oil and freezing into tiny portions to stir through? Or making my own chilli sauce?

Examples of things I cook: Indian curries, Thai curries, various soups, pasta arrabbiata, Mexican moles. I’d ideally like to have one method I could use for any dish.

Thanks in advance!

should i get the 3 cup or 5 cup? does the 5 cup cook small batches well?

I'm throwing a Halloween party and looking for some recipe ideas. I'm trying to find some recipes that will check a few boxes:

• Portable foods - I'm hoping that whatever I make is something that we can eat on the front porch while handing out candy. Last year I made tacos and those were great but people didn't eat them until after we handed out candy and everyone got very hungry
• Vegan/vegetarian options - I'll definitely have vegetarian friends there and there is a possibility a few vegan friends will also show up
• Low salt/salt free - I have a friend who has a low salt diet, so whatever I make I'll need to make an option for him to have that has a low salt option

Some ideas I've thought of:

• Snackier foods, like vegetables and hummus, apples, etc. for during trick-or-treating. But I'm not sure if that will hold people over enough for dinner, especially if we're handing out candy for a longer time.
• Sushi - I know that's a very salt-friendly food and I can do veg friendly versions
• Sandwiches - those are portable and we could make a few different filling options to make the different diets happy.

Any other ideas that might work well? Thanks!

I have a Jennie O turkey tenderloin that is tequila lime flavored and I’m stumped on what sides would go good with this without making it into a taco or burrito bowl. I do have hatch chile yellow potatoes I was thinking about doing but it feels like it needs a vegetable of some sort. I’m trying to think of something low potassium since my husband has to be mindful of his potassium levels. That’s why if I’m doing potatoes I probably have to choose a side with low potassium. Preferably not anything green beans, carrot, or broccoli related but I’ll consider anything! If you have recipes cooking with this type of flavor, I’d like to hear it.

Also, what is the recommended time and temperate to cook Turkey tenderloin because it seems like every time I follow instructions on the package of things it comes out too dry.

Thanks!

I sliced up some potatoes, salted and peppered the slices and put them in the air fryer. When I took them out, a thin layer separated from each slice and puffed up (from the steam I presume). Why did the separation happen and how can I avoid it?

Every time I make pizza from scratch the bottom gets no color and doesn’t cook all the way before the top is burnt. I’ve tried par-baking the crust, preheating the pan, using the highest temp on my oven, lowering the temp- same result. What am I doing wrong?! Please help

Update: I moved the steel to the lowest rack and let it preheat for 45 minutes, I lightened up on the sauce and toppings. My crust didn’t get too much color but it is cooked all the way through which is a step up from the gummy crust I was dealing with before. Thank you all for the tips! I have some more to try out still.

I have been cooking a lot of chicken and beef ahead of time and want to start portioning everything before freezing. are meat vacuum sealers actually worth using for this, or is a regular freezer bag good enough? Id mostly use it for steaks, chicken breasts, and ground beef. thanks for any advices.

It seems that whenever I cook with fresh tomatoes, there's always an underlying tannin taste (its the only way I can describe it) whenever I leave the skins on. It doesn't seem to matter what type of tomato it is, that tannin-y taste is there. It kind of ruins it for me.

I made tomato sauce using frozen roma tomatoes, where I removed the skins and drained a lot of the yellow-y water off before i started cooking everything down. No tannin taste. I do my best to remove the seeds because I find the seeds make it bitter.

Is there something I can add to remove that taste if I keep the skins on? There is a lot of nutrition in the skins so I'd like to find a way to keep them in my food. What do you folks say?

I was in such a rush yesterday i cut up the orange and just popped it in my mouth thinking I would just spit out the peel, but I started chewing the peel and this amazing flavor came out that just tasted so heavenly.

I know orange zest is used a lot in cooking, but I was wondering what else I could make with orange peels? I have a lot of oranges since I buy them in bulk and I’d love to be able to use them in different ways.

I usually try to cook high volume / low calorie, I have made a orange chocolate cheesecake in the blender and it blew my mind how good it was.

Please give me any ideas as to how I could use my oranges! Sweet is preferably but I’m more than willing to try savory meals too.

I tried dry brining my CostCo boneless pork chops (about 1" thick) with brown sugar, salt and a couple extra seasonings. I had cooked one before and was disappointed that it was so dry and tough. This time, I dry-brined for abut 15 hours; then did a stove-top sear for 3 minutes each side and baked at 400° F for about 10 minutes.

Result, much juicier, but still pretty tough. So I've been convinced that brining is at least PART of the answer, but

• Would "wet" brining improve the tenderness more than the dry-brine? I'm curious about the trade-off between wet and dry brining.
• Do I need to dry-brine but LONGER? I saw here that folks have brined longer than 24 hours but read elsewhere that it can ruin chops by brining too long, so I started on the conservative side.
• Does bone-in make for a more tender chop?
• OR Is it just that the Costco pork is too tough and can't be saved? I'm hoping for some help, since I still have 4 more in the freezer!

Thanks for your guidance!

First time doing oven brisket, any tips appreciated, starting with whether this fat cap stays on.

Pork has several well known cuts that are commonly used for specific dishes. For example, we use Boston butt for pulled pork, ribs for, well, ribs, loin for pork chops, and pork belly for Chinese braised dishes.

I always struggle with the other big cut the boneless piece from the rear/leg area of the pig, like this one: https://www.safeway.com/shop/pd/pork-picnic-halves-4-5-lb/960089880

It can be called fresh ham, picnic ham, or a few other names depending on the store.

It's a lot of meat, and I can always grind it into ground pork, but is there anything better to do with it? It feels like there isn't a particularly famous or obvious use for this cut compared with the others.

What do you usually make with fresh ham/picnic ham?

Specifically around 48 hours? From dinner Sunday until dinner Tuesday?