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[Ulfarr]

I'd advise against thawing the dough in the microwave. I've burned bread twice in the microwave in less than 1min and both times the bread got burnt in the inside while the outside was just fine. Now, the very low initial temperature of the frozen dough might help with preventing that, but to me that would be too risky.

Putting it the oven to thaw, might activate the leavening/kill the yeast in the outer layers, while the inner ones are still frozen. There is also a possibility that the dough will get too dry. Depending on what you'll end up making, these aren't necessarily problems.

Another alternative would be, to put in lukewarm water. It would take more time  and you'll have to find a way to prevent direct contact with the water but it should be gentler. I think wrapping the dough tightly in something like cellophane would be enough.

[scriver]

I've never really tried it myself, but a common thawing trick in my family household if you don't have a water proof package was to not just put it in water directly, but to put the frozen thing in a bowl, and then let the bowl float in water. We had a lot of metal cookware in my family though, it just struck me that it might not work as well with plastic bowls.

[Frumple]

Today was good results. Boil-in-bag brown rice, seasoned with curry powder and black pepper about half way through the cooking, then two patties worth of crumbled up hamburger, seasoned with my normal chili powder/paprika/pepper mix and a bit of cane syrup, a bit of butter, some bacon bits, and a couple slices of shredded-ish swiss cheese added to the rice once it was cooked. Took maybe 15-ish minutes to cook, probably less than 700 mg of sodium between the lot of it (cheese and meat was around 400-ish, bacon bits would add less than 200, nada in the rice or seasonings or syrup).

Tasty, filling, fairly cheap (meat and cheese the worst of it, of course), quick, not incredibly terrible for you... is good. Do beef and rice fairly often 'cause it's easy, but this is the first time in a while I've added seasoning while the rice was still boiling and actually went through the effort of putting in swiss instead of the pre-shredded (saltier) stuff I got. Worth the lil'bit of extra effort, heh.

[Frumple]

Git bumped, food thread!

Today is good, too. Fried potato... soup? Chowder? Stew? Something. It looks like thick soup or chowder, but there's no milk, just butter and cheese, so... anyway.

Airfried diced potatoes (2, russet) with black pepper/paprika/chilli powder seasoning mix and olive oil (360f for 21 minutes), then put in pot, covered to top of potatoes in ~50/50 unsalted chicken broth and water, and boiled at about half strength for another 25 minutes, adding ~2 servings of butter (something like two tablespoons, I think?) and some parsley at the 10 minutes remaining mark, then a bit of shredded cheese at 7/5/3 minutes remaining, along with a couple slices of shredded up honey smoked turkey at the 3, stirring occasionally.

Topped with some bacon bits, and it's... well, it's good. Not hard to make, either. Probably be better if I had, like... milk or something to make it a proper chowder or whatever (and maybe peeled the potatoes; it's good as is, but I think the texture'd be a bit better with something else done to the skin), but heck, it's good enough.

E: ~2 weeks later, frumple has discovered what happens if you add some brown sugar to buttered pepper/curry beef ramen and it is amazing. Put in slightly too much, but it's just. Nearly perfect. Almost the exact blend of savory and sweet that's basically my favorite taste in the world. Slightly less and it'll be right on target and I might have to stop cooking it out of fear of never eating anything else.

Exact makings... did cup of unsalted chicken broth and cup of water for base, once it started boiling added a serving of unsalted sweet cream butter and generous amounts of curry powder and black pepper. Boiled for 4 minutes (mostly due to starting the timer a bit before it actually started boiling), then put in bowl with ~ 1/3rd a seasoning packet and about as much brown sugar (recommendation, 2/3rds to 1/2 the amount of sugar to beef seasoning). Dumped in some diced up chicken nuggets for meat and it's just. Almost the platonic form of "frumple's favorite noddle dish".

I've been experimenting off and on with putting brown sugar in stuff lately, and apparently I really need to keep doing it because results so far have been "okay" to "I might consider murder if you try to take this from me".

[zhijinghaofromchina]

After the millitary training for almost 18 days , I want to share ome kind of food that comes from my hometown which makes me feel a little homesick ，the salted potherb mustard soup ， which is also called "盐齑汤" in Chinese.
You choose the best potherb mustard, then salted it for several weeks , when it all finished , using it with some eggs , some peas and some little meat in your pot to make a pot of warm soup , believe me , words fail to express its wonder .
Idioms spread in my hometown that "one day without the soup , one day sour in your legs !"

[Rolan7]

That sounds really tasty!

We have "asian markets", which are grocery stores which sell foods from India to Japan and everywhere in between.  That's a LOT of kinds of food, but my favorite is "pickled mustard".  It's actually fermented but it's called pickled mustard.  It comes in plastic packages and often has a spicy sauce.  I put it directly on plain rice and it adds a lot of flavor and nutrition!  There's a turnip green version too and I like that even better sometimes.

This sounds similar to your salted mustard soup.  Mustard greens are amazing, and usually underappreciated here.  Maybe I'll try putting mustard greens in soup instead of putting it on top of rice!

[Caz]

After the millitary training for almost 18 days , I want to share ome kind of food that comes from my hometown which makes me feel a little homesick ，the salted potherb mustard soup ， which is also called "盐齑汤" in Chinese.
You choose the best potherb mustard, then salted it for several weeks , when it all finished , using it with some eggs , some peas and some little meat in your pot to make a pot of warm soup , believe me , words fail to express its wonder .
Idioms spread in my hometown that "one day without the soup , one day sour in your legs !"

What is potherb mustard? Mizuna? It's similar to rocket?

[zhijinghaofromchina]

What is potherb mustard? Mizuna? It's similar to rocket?

That was just a kind of vegetable that you might not eat outside China , one kind vegetable that was like the greens .

[Frumple]

Eh... between commerce, agriculture, and chinese diaspora in particular, you might be surprised. At this point there's not many countries out there that actually have foodstuff that hasn't escaped to other borders. There's specialty grocery stores for most major immigrant populations in or near most population centers of much note, assuming the whatever hasn't actually become a normal food for the general population.

Mustard greens (Brassica juncea specifically, checking) are common down here in the southern US, but it's probably a different sort than whatever pothead mustard is, in particular, heh.

[Caz]

What is potherb mustard? Mizuna? It's similar to rocket?

That was just a kind of vegetable that you might not eat outside China , one kind vegetable that was like the greens .

this?

[Caz]

Vegetable fried rice is goood. Especially when I started making it with TVP (soya flour crumbles)

Rehydrate the TVP in stock, soy sauce, honey and sriracha. The honey is important to get it to brown.

Squeeze out excess moisture. Fry in oil until it starts to char. It can take awhile. I add smoked paprika and garlic powder, and more soy sauce if it needs.

Put aside. Heat a frying pan with oil, fry chopped onions until cooked. Chopped garlic, chillis, ginger. Crack two eggs into it and scramble. Add whatever other veg you want, I just did frozen mixed (peas, carrot, sweetcorn). Add soy sauce, MSG. Add the TVP, however much you want. Sesame oil at the very end.


Could prob live on this stuff tbh.

[zhijinghaofromchina]

Hoping that you can have a nice day in the Mid-autumn Festival , which happened on the day after tomorrow !
Our school give each one of us a mooncake . To my surprise ,this piece of mooncake is as "hard" as a stone ,I should say that it can even "crack the nuts" !
But when I eat it to be truly it is very tasty and soft ! It makes me think of the bread that the northern European eat , which is also very hard .

[Loud Whispers]

Happy mooncake festival! All the mooncakes I've ever had were soft and sweet. I don't like the egg filled ones as much as the bean ones though

[Frumple]

Every time I see someone reference mooncakes, I spend a few moments thinking they're talking about moonpies (because they actually sell the latter where I'm at in a notable amount of locations, i.e. basically everywhere they sell food) and being remarkably confused. They're... not wholly dissimilar (they're both pastries with a soft inside!), but they are very different.

Though considering the wikipedia page on both of them has a link at the top to the other, I'm apparently not the only one that gets the two mixed up.

E: Better part of a week, but whatever.

In today's episode of "Simple Obvious Shit I Should Have Tried Years Ago", we have diced gala apple with honey and cinnamon.

Verdict: It's pretty good, but I'm having trouble even telling the honey is there... might not have used enough, or it could just be 'cause the honey's somewhat old and has started to crystalize, dunno. Pretty sure it'd be just as good without, so... yeah. Next time, I think I just try dousing it in cinnamon, maybe figure out how to do some sort of cinnamon glaze or something. Any case, it's a nice noontime snack.

[Frumple]

Okay, it's been like three weeks. Bump!

Today, I'm doing for the second time something I'm pretty sure is just. Good. Not "good to me because my tastebuds are weird", but actually friggin' good.

Beef and potato sorta'-hash (no onions, 'cause I loath onions, so not technically hash), made from curried garlic potatoes with butter, hamburger seasoned with chili powder/black pepper/paprika (one of my usual meat seasoning mixes, I just pre-mix it about 1:1:1 in shakers these days) and a bit brown sugar, finished off with some low sodium ketchup.

Making:
Dice preferred number of potatoes (2 smaller side, russet, this time -- I basically cut them into 16ths long-ways and then about the width of the smaller side of those stereotypical pink erasers), season well with curry powder, garlic powder, parsley, and a bit (serving or less) of olive oil. Airfried at 400F for 20 minutes. Will smell amazing.

While potatoes cooking, do meat. However you prep it, crumble up thawed and cook at about medium heat, season well with the chili powder mix (I haven't been actually measuring, but it's usually two patties in a small-ish cooking pot -- about what comfortably fits a pack of ramen, basically -- with the seasoning mix covering like 80-90% of the top of the meat) and comparatively lightly with brown sugar (somewhere between half and 1/3rd the chilistuff), stir well and cook for, like... 10-15 minutes or whatever, just until it's done. Remove from heat and all that jazz.

About when the meat's done, the potatoes will probably be finishing. In eating bowl, put in about a serving of melted butter. Once done, dump the potatoes in the bowl. Stir well, get a nice coating on the potatoes. Add meat, stir up again. Drizzle fairly lightly, but consistently across the whole thing, with ketchup (or preferred seasoning, whatever). Final stir.

Devour, for it will be good. Onion or other vegetable-y people would probably do great adding whatever plantstuff they enjoy. Hash dishes are, like. Just really simple, really solid foodthings. Nobody fed me enough of this stuff in my youth.