mellowtigger: (Default)

I thought I asked this question before, a year or two ago, but I cannot find it. Maybe I just thought about asking?

Where do you buy bulk spices online?

While I very much enjoy Penzey's statement about Republicans, their prices seem extravagant to me. I'm looking for cheaper solutions. I checked Costco, but they don't have much for spices. I spent a lot of time roaming different websites, and I found what I thought was a very good choice, until I reached the point to register on the website and realized that they intend only to commerce with actual businesses, not individuals. I don't know why my legal status makes any difference for shipping a product, but apparently it matters to them.

So... where do you buy bulk spices? I'm stocking up on lots of things, including powdered/dried foods and canned cat foods. More on that topic later.

mellowtigger: (food)

I've said before that Minnesota has a large Hmong population, particularly in my neighborhood. For instance, the big school nearest my house is the Hmong International Academy, and my representative in Minnesota state government is Hmong descendant Fue Lee. I've also previously mentioned this asian lady a few houses south of me who performs back porch ceremonies with jingling bells. She's at it again today. I looked online but couldn't find what holiday is involved here, so maybe it's something relevant only to their household. I doubt they're 4/20 fans celebrating on April 20th.

Meanwhile, I thought it would be fun to describe the foods I've sampled since shopping at the Good Deal Oriental Foods grocery after Aldi's disappearance.

Read more about the particular foods...

Stuff I really like:

  • sherihon: There's a stalk plant called sherihon (or sher-li-hon) that is absolutely delicious. It's like celery but without the stringy nonsense. I buy it frequently for cooking. I bought some today, and I'm going to try planting a few stalks to see if I can get seeds to use each year during warm weather.
  • bok choi: I already knew that I liked eating this plant, but they frequently sell some "baby bok choi" that is even better in my foods. It naturalizes to Minnesota climate, so I already have seeds to use this year.
  • galangal: A surprising wonder, galangal is a ginger-like rhizome that is very woody and very inedible by itself. A slice added to cooking rice and then removed later (like a bay leaf), however, adds a wonderful faint citrus odor to the dish. It's a new favorite of mine that enlivens another boring bed of plain rice.
Stuff that's okay:
  • seaweed flavored chips: I bought a can of Pringles-style Dragonfly potato chips with seaweed. It's not bad. Very subtle. Not much different from plain chips. I'd buy it again.
  • eddoe: This root vegetable looks like a miniature taro root, but I'd say it much more like a tiny potato. Sliced and eaten raw, it definitely has a potato vibe. Cooked, it's not bad either, like a soft potato. I'd rather just use the much larger potato, but eddoe is good in a pinch.
  • pomelo: The pomelo is a huge fruit. I bought the Sanlv red pomelo to try it out. Not an easy fruit to like. Even harder to carve than a grapefruit, it's also much tougher to chew. I'll probably never buy one again to eat fresh, and it doesn't work well by itself with ice and water in a smoothie, but there may be ways of turning this fruit into a very good fruit smoothie combo recipe.
  • kimchi: My favorite breakfast includes spiced-up fermented cabbage, so I thought I'd experiment and try replacing the sauerkraut and hot sauce with just basic kimchi. I bought a glass jar of Yon's Foods kimchi and tried it. It works, but the texture of the cabbage is wrong. Kimchi vegetables are kept in chunks that do not bite well in a sandwich style. Too much of the food comes out unintentionally on each bite. Shredded sauerkraut performs much better. Their suggested recipe does sound very yummy, though, so I might try that meal another day.
Stuff that I don't care for:
  • banan flower: It's just the banana flower before it turns into any kind of fruit. I've found it just to be "meh", nothing special. I can easily live without it. Bananas are a much better use for this plant.
  • fried fish skins: A junk food treat like fried pork rinds, I bought an expensive bag of fried fish skins. Not horrible, but certainly not appetizing either. I'm okay with trying it just once in my life.
  • shrimp paste: Ugh. I bought Tsabmim's Shrimp Paste Noodle pre-packaged meal just to try something new. I strongly disliked the flavor and almost didn't finish it. It's not for me.

So that's recent life here in the warzone. As I keep telling people who recommend that I leave, this place does have its own unique charms. I'm a big fan of multiculturalism.

mellowtigger: (the more you know)

Here's a good example of where my curiosity takes me.

  1. It started with a pun on Mastodon, "Murder, She Roti".
  2. What is roti? Oh, it's an unleavened bread.
  3. What does that leave out? Various leavening agents.
  4. Wait, there's a salt-leavened bread? No, that's a bad name, because there's no salt. It used to be stored in hot salt.
  5. Wait, there's a bread that rises because of hydrogen instead of carbon dioxide? Yes, that bacterium is Clostridium perfringens.
  6. Wait, that bacterium can cause a necrotizing disease, but people put it in their food?! Yes, but cooking destroys the bacteria to safe levels. Apparently. :/
  7. If it's "safe", then how does it cause disease? It affects people who are protein deprived, which inhibits their trypsin production, which apparently deprives them of even more protein.
    1. Wait, eating sweet potatoes does that too? Apparently so, unless you cook them well.
  8. Why is trypsin important in the human body? Because trypsin begins the digestion process of protein molecules in the small intestine.
  9. And... wait, what?! "Human trypsin has an optimal operating temperature of about 37 °C."?
    1. That's the temperature for people living in the civilized world. For people in the USA, that's exactly 98.6 Fahrenheit.

So, I looked around and eventually found this publication.

Most hydrolyses have been reported at trypsin (EC 3.4.21.4) optimum conditions (pH 7.8 and 37 °C).

So... the obvious questions (and I haven't found any answers yet):

  1. Is this molecule why humans evolved a body temperature of 37C/98.6F? If we deviate, then poor nutrition leaves us disadvantaged and subject to evolutionary culling?
  2. What does this mean for our falling body temperature?
  3. Other animals have different body temperatures (scroll upward to see the chart). Do they rely on some other process to kickstart their protein digestion?
    1. I know humans have a weird intestinal digestion process, which is why we can't make use of the vitamin B12-producing bacteria that live in our gut. Other animals, however can use their own internally-hosted bacteria, so we eat their muscles, eggs, and livers to steal their bacteria-produced B12.
  4. Are there some animals with the same temperature as humans, and do they have the same small intestine digestive process that we do?

Inquiring minds want to know.

mellowtigger: (food)

I decided to give up eggs because of the cost. I've enjoyed my breakfast sandwich every morning for months, but 2 eggs per day is costing me as much as my electric bill. So I've bought my last eggs. Eggs are for rich people, apparently, like so much else in daily life.

So today I made my last breakfast sandwich, and I wanted to share the recipe that I've enjoyed so much. The order of ingredients on the bread is also important. It's very quick, about 5 minutes to prepare. I'm linking to some tools I use, because they qualify as essential cookware in my kitchen, unlike most items.

  1. Put 2 slices of gluten-free bread in the Sanyo toaster oven for 5 minutes.
  2. Crack 2 eggs into a Chef Buddy microwave egg cooker. Cook at 444 seconds at power level 3. Power level 4 or higher will result in eggsplosions, so don't do that.
  3. When the toast is done, add a slice of cheese. Placing it here will keep it away from the egg, which would heat up the cheese and slide away while you eat it. Egg launching is bad. Keep the cheese away from the egg.
  4. Grab a handful of sauerkraut, squeeze out the liquid over the sink, then layer the cabbage atop the cheese.
  5. Generously squirt tabasco style hot sauce onto the sauerkraut, where it can drip into the cabbage and hold its position there when you start eating. If you put it between the egg and bread, that sauce will just drip out immediately when you bite, making a mess.
  6. By now the eggs are done cooking. Remove from microwave. Use a knife to stab each yolk and the white between them. You don't want pockets of steam burning your face or mouth when you bite into the sandwich. It hurts. Dump the egg upside down from the cooker onto the sauerkraut.
  7. If the egg is still too hot, then wait a minute before topping with the other slice of toast.

Super easy, almost no mess, very quick, and very tasty.

mellowtigger: (dumb)

I'm hoping for recommendations from people who like their kitchen routine. I have some very specific questions as I try to reduce my food costs even further.

  1. How do you make your own tabasco sauce? I've never tried it before, but Aldi's was out for the 2nd week, and I forgot to check at Cub. I'm considering making my own. What do you think is the best home recipe for it?
  2. How do you make your own sauerkraut? I've tried only once before, and it didn't turn out well. I need the dummy's guide to cheap homemade saurkraut, please. A video guide might also help, since clearly I don't know what I'm doing here.
  3. Do you have a favorite Indian curry spice recipe? I know turmeric is in almost every recipe. Beyond that, I know they're all slightly different, but which one do you like?
  4. What do you recommend for a fresh (not frozen premade food) vegan alternative egg patty that could be used in breakfast McMuffins? I assume it should be something that can be formed into about the same thickness as the 2-egg patty that I've been making for many months. Before you suggest eggplant, I'm not a big fan of eggplant. And if I'd be using it almost every morning in my breakfast routine, then I probably should try to skip all that nicotine anyway.
  5. What do you recommend for a ceramic pan and pot? It needs to be okay for electric stove usage (I currently have gas, but that's a story for another day), and it needs to have a "solid" rim on it. I first tried a ceramic pan a decade ago. I really liked the cooking surface, but the design of the pan had a rounded lip, and it was nearly impossible to keep a lid on that thing. I need something that can hold a lid well too. A quick web search turned up only this product, but I have no idea how it compares to other brands. Also, I'd rather not send money to Amazon either, but I will if necessary.

So... what are your thoughts on my kitchen questions?

Edit 2023 Jan 19: P.S. I found this pan, which is exactly the design I was looking for. Super expensive, though, costing US$180 on sale. I have quality taste, apparently?

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