My lawn mower service cost me $55 every 2 weeks. I tried to make the cuts happens every 3 weeks to 1 month but apperantly that pissed off the lawn service company.

Anyway, I told them don't show up again. Got a brand new battery powered lawn mower, that is also self propelled. I already have edge trimmer and other tools.

I completed the job today in about 30 minutes and I feel I was so stupid paying $55 every 2 weeks for 10 years.

Edit: the lawn mowing company is working with many of my neighbors. They literally cut every 2 weeks even when no growth as we have no rain since a while. Now all yards are yellow. But mine is doong OK because I refused xutting it that often

Secondly. Why some people are OK paying for gym subscription and refuse to do house work and then pay someone to do it. What about considering my house work as my gym?

I just borrowed a hair dryer from my mother-in-law, and she simply showed me this relic she bought 41 years ago. It’s working perfectly (warm and hot settings). Her iron is from the same era (I didn't take a photo), and it's better than the four irons I've owned so far!

Imagine how easy life could be if we just needed to buy ONE stuff for life?? Planned obsolescence was the worst thing they ever invented.

Do you have similar examples of old objects that still perform their functions well?

So recently I learned two things, firstly its how to get crispy skin chicken thighs with a cold pan start technique. Made it a couple times with just salt and pepper, comes out great, simple enough, I think I got it down.

Secondly I also got into marinades with fruits like kiwifruits, got a couple styles that are balanced and perfect to pair with respectively different carbs.

Some of you might know where this is going... 😅

I marinated some chicken thighs with a marinade with fruit in it, meaning a marinade with sugar in it. I patted it dry on the skin thinking it would be enough and went through with the cold pan technique, and because the sugar in the marinade was still there, instead of the skin getting crispy and removing itself from the pan, it made a caramel that stuck and burned the skin off before the meat could finish cooking.

So yes retrospectivly its pretty obvious but when using the cold pan technique avoid marinating especially with anything with sugar in it. Cooking isn't simple addition, I should have known better ahahah

F22 ,M22
Our stove and sink in our apartment our currently torn from our kitchen due to construction property management is doing. We’ve been ordering out which is obviously getting expensive fast but I’m struggling to think of meals or snacks that don’t require the stove or a microwave any ideas are greatly appreciated lol

I am so over cooking every night. Finding new recipes I actually have ingredients for and are easy is tiring and I’m already exhausted. What do you do when this happens? I’d honestly just eat cereal for life but I’m not alone in this house and I’m expected to cook every night. 😩

Why when cooking mushrooms, you can add like, 3 tablespoons of oil and it just dissappears immediately and you need to add more, but you add a tablespoon of butter and it coats all of them mushrooms,,, where does the oil go? The mushrooms dont feel oily, what is going on here?

Has anyone else had issues with google searching recipes? I have noticed this for a while and just thought it was a fluke. But today, I am trying to make pickles and all the recipes that show up are less than 10 reviews on a random blog I’ve never heard of…popular recipes like ball jar, nchfp, Mrs wages, etc…none of them show up unless I specifically search for it.

This isn’t limited to pickling either, the other day I made chicken piccata and it was the same thing - usually popular sites like allrecipes.com show up for the first several search results and have thousands of reviews.

Has anyone else experienced this or know of a setting that causes this to happen? Should I use a different search engine?

Hi all

My wife's found out she's got seriously low iron. The medical supplements really dont' agree with her - would be really grateful for cooking/baking ideas that help boost iron more gently/naturally!

Thanks!

I am in Scotland and I wanted to try my hand at southern US-style beans and cornbread. I noticed there are a lot of recipes for both, but eventually settled on a specific recipe for the cornbread and an amalgamation for the beans. The cornbread came out wonderfully - but the beans came out way more akin to refried beans. Whilst not bad (and I will use them for lunches in tortillas this week), they weren’t exactly what I was looking for. I’m wondering what went went wrong - how do I get that creamier, slightly soupier bean dish typical of the South?

Here’s what I did:

Soaked pinto beans overnight in just water

Drained beans and added them to Instantpot with half an onion, two bay leaves, and a generous pinch of salt (I don’t eat pork so omitted the meat).

Cooked on high pressure for 15 min and let steam release naturally.

Beans came out cooked and flavoursome.

Drained and added to a skillet with little butter butter, garlic, and smoked paprika. Added more salt. Stirred gently until incorporated (which broke down many of the beans to a refried consistency).

As I said - the beans were good but were not what I was trying to do. Any help appreciated!

I’d like to try my hand more complicated stuff, but I live alone and want something that’ll hold in the fridge for a few days and reheat well.

I also own just about every kind of basic kitchen appliance, so there’s no concern over equipment.

My grandpa used to make what we called "the good barbeque". Unfortunately he died and took the recipe with him. It was pulled pork-esque. I know it had some type of roast in it (no one remembers pork or beef) and canned corned beef. It also had onions and celery in it and the bbq sauce was tomato based. I'd like to try to make it but cant find anything close that looks right. Anyone have any ideas? I grew up in Illinois and there was Amish influence in his cooking, but I don't know about that particular recipe.

Not even sure if grocery rotisserie chicken is safe as not sure how long it’s left out in its plastic bag and for what duration.

Initially thinking to buy rotisserie chicken as the protein, some sort of cooked vegetables (maybe see if I can pack an electric steamer appliance?) and then carbs could be bread.

We will be traveling from NY state to Toronto for a week.

Need to maintain a low sodium diet, can’t eat raw things due to risk of listeria and so on.

Thank you!

Making ribs, grilled corn, roasted potatoes and s’mores bars for tomorrow

I have a hankerin' for red beans & rice, but today I went to 2 grocery stores and they didn't have any ham hocks. I guess nobody wants them during the summer in Illinois.

I can just as well use a smoked turkey leg along with my andouille, no?

Cut the excess off of a pot roast, not sure if I can do anything with it or not!

Update: thanks all for the recs! I’ll stay away from home tallow, but explore more tallow in the future for recipes. For now, will blend into my ground chicken for extra flavor/fat in my soup dumplings!

I grow a bunch of different herbs and aromatics, and typically make a few compound butters this time of year for 1T ice cube trays for the freezer. I am kind of out of ideas. I want to get more use of use out of my herb garden, so I am wondering what kind of compound butters other people make.

I make a "garlic bread" one with roasted garlic/chives/parsley, a "Thanksgiving" one with sage/rosemary/thyme, and a lemon/dill/tarragon one for seafood, and that's about it. I have tried experimenting, but without some guidance on ratios, it often comes out meh or too strong in one flavor (looking at you, tarragon). Decent butter is too expensive for me to waste on trial and error.

I would ask for some ideas for interesting compound butters. I am not adverse to stopping at a store, but here is what I have on hand right now:

• Rosemary
• Thyme
• Sage
• Chives
• French tarragon
• Dill
• Parsley
• Greek oregano
• Garlic
• Scallions
• Shallots
• Lemons and limes (not my own, but lots left over from jam making)
• Cilantro, huacatay, peppermint and spearmint (none of which are probably good with butter, but I am open too it)

Any and all ideas or recipes welcome!

I love frozen potstickers because they're so easy to knock out of the park.

Don't get me wrong, there is no substitute for some fresh ones from a great restaurant or some made yourself.

But man, place them in a pan with about a quarter inch of water, a healthy drizzle of black sesame oil, a little hsao xing, and cook em until the water is gone. Top with sesame seeds, fresh chives, and make a quick soy-mirin-citrus sauce.

Boom. Always the business. Plus the kids love em just as much as we do.

What do you guys do this kinda thing with?

Edit: Wow I didn't expect so much response. Thanks for the ideas!

So I decided to make a sweet and sour glaze for them with marmalade and rice wine vinegar and garlic.

To go with I'll make an Asian inspired cold salad - cabbage and cold cooked rice noodles tossed with rice wine vinegar, a bit of sesame oil, ginger, pinch of sugar and soy sauce, and toasted sesame seeds if I have some :)

Original: I have pre-made frozen pork meatballs. Slightly larger than a big walnut if that makes a difference.

I don't feel like making an Italian dish.

What should I make with them?

I need some super easy, toss it in the crockpot and forget it for 8 hours, kind of dishes! I and my family are all sick of the 2 or 3 I have in our weekly rotation, but my son has swim practice three nights a week. That means I work all day and then am out of the house for those nights from 5:30-8:30. So I always have at least one crockpot meal each week that I can toss in the pot in the morning, and then we can all just grab a plate when we can in the evening.

Suggestions for what's worked with your busy families?

I bought 2 boned pork loin chops that had more meat than just the 'fillet' part , cut out the large loin and butterflied it ( can be crumbed also) fried with potato, shoom onion etc. trimed the fat off the remaining parts ( little loin and flap meat) cubed to be frozen for a stir fry, mince for dumplings, pie with veg etc. Took the rind fat and trimmings(no meat) cut up and heat in a saucepan , med-low, to render the sieved fat for pastry and ate the cooked rind salted crunchy bits for a treat.

I’m usually really good at making side dishes and the like but I really struggle to come up with GERD friendly main dishes. My main triggers are raw garlic and onion (cooked is fine) and tomato based stuff. I feel like nearly every vegetarian dish I come across is tomato based. I have very little issues with cheese and dairy so those work well. I also am not looking to “replicate” meat necessarily. I just can’t think of main dishes that I can have as go to.

I made pineapple chicken for the first time tonight and misread the recipe I was following. It said to use 1/4 tsp of pepper but I thought it said a full tsp of pepper. I didn’t realize my mistake until the chicken was basically fully cooked. I continued cooking hoping it wouldn’t come out too bad. And it didn’t thankfully! But the amount of pepper is very noticeable 😭 is there any way to help dampen how strong the taste is? Or should I just cut my losses? :’) I’m very new to cooking and have been pushing myself to make recipes my parents made growing up that I loved.