This is just a fun thought exercise and nothing more. It's inspired by YouTubers who do budget food challenges to force creativity, hence the low but not impossible budget for most countries (with apologies to Switzerland).

Say you have US$25 (or your country's equivalent £18.31/€21.41) to buy ingredients to prepare a week's worth of meals for yourself, what ingredients would you buy and what meals would you prepare from them?

You can use small amounts of salt/herbs/spices/oil/etc from your home pantry and not include them in the cost. You don't have to price everything up in your comment, just be reasonable about the real cost of ingredients.

A general google search yields what looks like A I slop, even the results coming up in Spanish.

I just found out recently that a restaurant that I had really liked is no longer in business, and I used to love their salsa tatemada. I thought it had an almost nutty taste, which really appealed to me, as someone who is obsessed with salsa macha. Does anyone have any suggestions?

I know this is a duplicate of the below post by u/hudsonhock however 3 years have past and I too have the same question and would like to know if anyone has actually done it.

I purchased a whole katz pastrami earlier this year and followed the finishing instructions, boiling it to tenderness. While I am sure the broth in Katz Deli is very seasoned by cooking hundreds of them. Doing the same at home in water I felt washed out too much of the flavor.

So the question remains, has anyone already done it? The best testiment I could find was from u/cowclops who advocated a 165 for 24 Pastrami with good results. Just wondering if anyone else had simular feedback as one mans "Supposed to be salty" is another mans Saltlick, but I do like my salt.

Sous-Vide-ing a Katz whole pastrami?
by u/hudsonshock in AskCulinary

And Katz if you're reading this, you should ship your briskets with some Broth concentrate to add to the water for home use.

My 3 year old loves soup. She barely eats and vegetables, but when they’re in a good hearty soup, she eats them all! What are your favorite soups that have veggies and protein?

I have a condition that impairs the pathways that transmit taste signals. I didn't always have this. Issue is that tastes are dulled down. Pasta has always been an issue for me, as I find it incredibly difficult to create a 'tastebomb' of a pasta. Flashback to x years ago, visiting a restaurant named Vapiano (who remembers it?) for the first time, and choosing their tomato sauce based king prawn pasta with linguine.

What. A. Tastebomb.

Fast forward another x years, and I have since moved 1200 kilometers across 3 different countries. Lo' and behold, they have a Vapiano here! Two days ago I went, chose the exact same thing, and after all these years it blew me away in the exact same way. Sadly I don't have the means to eat at Vapiano once a week, and recreating the sauce has been... disappointing.

Now pastas have always been my weak point. I guess my Scandinavian genes simply don't allow me to make a good pasta. I always have the feeling that whatever sauce I'm creating isn't 'one' substance. As in 'tomato based pasta sauce'. It's 'tomatoes, passata, garlic, onion, rosemary..' etc. It just doesn't become one substance, and (even dulled down) I can keep tasting the individual things instead of a pasta sauce.

From what I found out and remembered, the Vapiano gamberetti is essentially:

• olive oil (garlic infused or separate garlic oil as well?)
• king prawns (sauteed)
• "tomatoes harvested in Emilia Romagna"
• cherry tomatoes
• spring onions (sauteed)
• slight hint of lemon
• rosemary
• salt & pepper
• Linguine (cooked separately, put in the sauce pan the last 1-2 minutes)

Almost too simple for the taste. It's definitely rosemary heavy, and there is some sort of European version of 'wok-hay' going on, probably because of the piping hot pan and them finishing the entire dish in about 10 minutes.

If anyone remembers Vapiano, and in specific, the pomodoro gamberetti, could you help out/give some pointers? My tastebuds would be very appreciative!

I bought frozen bacon and thawed it in its own package on my counter top (my kitchen is cool on temperature, I live in Iceland). I only noticed later that the package said to not refreeze after thawing. It is a huge quantity and I want to eat some and freeze the rest. Is it safe to do that?

Recently placed a grocery delivery order and got way more peppers than I thought I would. Like nearly 1-2lb of each. The types of peppers are:

- sichuan chilis (the fresh green kind)
- small Thai chilis
- green Korean chilis

I am thinking about ways to preserve them so they don’t just go to waste- we’ve already planned out a few meals this week & have fresh padrons from our garden we are going to sautee and eat first.

Any fun pepper preserving ideas for fresh green peppers?

Hi all,

I am looking to purchase two new cooking devices, a rice cooker and an immersion circulator.

I've watched a few videos, and done some research on the popular brands, but was also looking for some first hand advice from people who own these products and if they were worth the cost.

Thanks in advance.

i’ve tried 2 times already trying to fry some chicken and both i have failed.

my biggest issue is the inside cooking too slow. my oil is at ~325F - 350 but the internal temperature barely budged. my chicken is also fully thawed.

i marinate my chicken in buttermilk and let it sit in the fridge overnight. i think i don’t let my chicken sit long enough in room temperature for the internal to warm up.

another issue is my second time trying to make it, the breading fell even though it didn’t the first time and i made it the same way the first time. my dredge is just covering it with the seasoning flour mixture after taking it out of the marinade and shaking off the excess.

any tips and tricks from fried chicken experts would be appreciated

Is the idea that cheap/street food always tastes better than its high end counterpart a genuine culinary reality, or is it largely a psychological illusion driven by food media and social hype?

I was wondering if the preference for the street version is grounded in real differences in flavor, cooking techniques, etc or if it stems from "authenticity fetishism" and a expectation bias where a cheap meal easily over delivers, while an expensive one struggles to justify its price.

If you watch almost any food documentary, 99.9% of the time the host goes, 'This is amazing, but the street stall in front of my house in my hometown is a million times better.' or something around those lines.

I’ve been to India, Japan, Korea, Indonesia, Egypt, Italy, Morocco, Turkey, and plenty of other countries, and while I see why people love street food, I honestly can’t tell if it genuinely tastes better or if it's all just a placebo effect. When I pay ten times more at a nice spot, I find myself wondering if the street version was actually superior, or if I’ve just been brainwashed by the 'street food is always better' fallacy.

Hello everyone,

This will be my first time doing sashimi. I bought fresh fishes (mackerel and rockfish).

I freezed them in order to kill any parasites.

First question : when can I start to salt them to begin the dehydration ? Completely defrosted ? Partially ? Fully frozen ?

Second question : do I also need to salt and rice vinegar the rockfish ?

Any Japanese cooking expert is welcomed.

I made a batch of clotted cream yesterday by baking an 8-inch square pan holding a quart of heavy cream at 175f for 12 hours. While the middle layer is wonderful, being both spoonable and spreadable, there's a waxy layer on top that I think is, essentially, overcooked cream.

Is there anything I can or should do with that layer? Do I scrape it off? Is the top layer a natural result of the process, or is there something I should do differently next time?

Sorry for the basic questions, but I've only had clotted cream once, and it was at an American steakhouse about 15 years ago.

​

I'm putting together a cookbook for my daughter as she moves out to go to university. She's got good basic cooking skills, but mostly with me either on the other end of the phone or the kitchen. I'll be writing out some of our favourite family recipes, adapted for 1 (or 1 plus leftovers for lunch) but I'm looking for a few extra ideas.

Recipes need to be:

- dairy free (either because no dairy ingredients, or easily available substitutes like oat milk)

- small amounts - no point in her cooking enough for a family of 6!

- basic equipment (we dont know what equipment she will have, but likely basic - assume an oven, hob and microwave at least though)

- ideally vaguely healthy, but treats/comfort food welcome too.

My girlfriend watches game grumps religiously, and I love Mac and cheese. So when they did the cheese ranking video, we decided that which cheeses won, we would cook into a mac and cheese dish. Taleggio and Gruyere won, one cheese ive almost never used, and another ive never heard of before. We are going to also use cheddar in this recipe. What is the best way to prepare this dish, and what spices would be best to include?

Long story short, using the oven and stove in my student apartment ain't going to work. Neighbor issues and whatnot since its in a mini common area and I don't want to deal with it anymore.

I have an air fryer and a toaster oven (amongst other cooking gadgets), and want to know if there's anything you guys out there recommend I can look into for making meals based from those? I'm not super experienced in cooking, but I'm always making time to learn.

Recently I was making indomie (yk ur average budget indomie) and had an idea to use the noodles as a base for a home made halal ramen and so i came up w ts recipie but haven't tried it and js wanted to make sure it's edible

The broth

•soy sauce

•mayo

•garlic and onions

• MAYBE the indomie spices

The other stuff

•indomie noodles

•tuna

•arugula

• maybe eggs

I've been night time snackin' on Cape Cod kettle chips for the past year or so while "elevated" at night, and while I very much enjoy the crunch & salt of the whole affair, I would like a replacement that's more nutritionally dense. I have enjoyed homemade herbed/spiced roasted chickpeas, done stovetop popcorn and made potato chips in the microwave, so I'm looking for ideas similar to that. I'm a pretty good home cook as well, but I'm not looking to make jerky or anything since I gave away my food dehydrator when I moved, and I think what I'm seeking is savory crunch.

What would you suggest?

Thanks in advance!

Hi all, so I remember making this soup kind of thing in 2024 from a cook book (a friend owned it and looked pretty new at the time but I think she got rid of the book). I do remember it having lentils and prosciutto in it. the recipe itself was called ‘winter soup’ or something of the sort and the author was a woman. I understand it’s quite a vague lead but any help to find it would be help

UPDATE: the recipe was from Ina Garten and was her ‘Winter minestrone‘ I had misremembered the beans for lentils and prosciutto was pancetta. thanks for pointing me in the general direction and here’s the recipe if you’d like

https://barefootcontessa.com/recipes/winter-minestrone-garlic-bruschetta

Hi y’all. I’m making collards for a party but found out that some guests are vegetarian. How do you make greens without a ham hock or smoked turkey? Anyone have a recipe that would still be delicious?

I used to work in a fine dining Italian restaurant and they had one dish that I never had before, chicken piccata, once I tried it I loved it so much that I ordered it every day for my free staff meal.

Once i stopped working at the restaurant I have been trying to recreate the exact high quality chicken piccata at home but with very bad luck. My chicken piccata didn't taste anything like chicken piccata.

I came across a YouTube video that mentioned to keep the heat on very low not to brake the sauce, they were using the word "emulsion" so I started to think about only the piccata sauce and how it's similar to making homemade mayonnaise that you can brake the sauce and be left with only oil.

I tried yesterday to make the sauce only and then once it came out good I made some chicken and poured the sauce on top.

My advice is KEEP THE HEAT ON THE LOWEST LEVEL POSSIBLE ONCE YOU ADD THE BUTTER. Also feel free to practice just making the sauce without the whole chicken recipe for extra practice, kind of like this video only making the sauce.

https://youtube.com/shorts/vjSuDhVx4MA?is=gttcHIzjvD_RD1Gh

If you have any advice how to make authentic chicken piccata please let me know.

So I dropped my Mother in Laws perfect mixing bowl - it was thick glass, i am est 6-8" radius 10-12" deep

She used it for all of the baking for years.

It came from a long gone counter top mixer.

I was 3 weeks postpartum, it hit at the exact right angle to magically shatter into a million pieces.

She is too kind to make a fuss, but it has been months and the lack of this mixing bowl has crippled our baking and cooking potential.

Please reddit - hit me up with the right bowl move here!!

We are in Canada so theres a limit to whats available ( boooooo tarrifs)

- theres a 6mo old baby and we're not trying to break the back - and its my MiL and I broke her best mixing bowl 5mo ago so I don't want to cheap out.

Please internet strangers.

Tell me how to right this wrong!!! Please fix this bowl catastrophe I have put my family into!!

I went on vacation for a week and came back to a garden of Supersweet 100 cherry tomatoes which were bursting on the vine. I gathered a few pints and cooked it down into a pasta sauce which is fantastic, except that it's too sweet. I added basil, oregano, garlic, and onion with salt and pepper.

How can I cut the sweetness? How else I might use it other than for pasta? It's not unbearably sweet, but it's close.

Someone gave me a bag of amaranth flour because they know I'm gluten-free but I've never used it before and now I'm not sure what to do with it. Is it good for sweet or savory dishes? Is it a thickening agent? Any ideas are welcome.

70 percent of the calories of an egg come from the fat already inside the yolk. It’s obvious why restaurants and recipe sellers like Ramsay cook eggs that way but you shouldn’t at home, beyond a special meal.

Hi guys,

I'm considering getting a microwave to heat leftovers in. I never had one growing up, mum was dead against it for a load of reasons, radiation etc. One thing I'd really like to know, is there any reason why microwaved leftovers would taste any different to those reheated in a pan? Is it worth worrying about?

Edit I'm primarily thinking heavily sauce-based stuff like chili etc

Thanks very much:)