Are we talking like a 2005 Ford ranger or a 2024? F350? Because there is no standard size for a pickup truck.
I didn't say anything negative about pedantry. I said there's a difference between it and the abuse of the language.
I think that sums up the whole conversation here. A few people that are determined to interpret anything said in the most negative way. Even if they have to make stuff up.
I've stated my position. This is a volunteer community. People can participate or they can opt not to. I did something my way. You can do something your way. If you choose to complain instead of contribute, that's up to you.
Mixer makes it easy.
Good thing there weren't dozens. Not even a dozen.
It's a challenge. Not a contract. I can't accommodate those who want more regulation on their life. I can't believe you have spent this many days obsessing over this. I processed the criticism and determined that I'm okay with the idea that some people can't figure out how to do a basic cooking challenge without detailed instructions. I'm under no obligation to cave to criticism that is inconsequential. Nothing of value is on the line here.
This is a cooking group. Not my group. Anyone that feels there should be a cooking challenge filled with exacting rules is free to create one with their exact preferred wording.
You can try to insult my ego all you want. Let's see if that projection works out for you. I spent about 30 years having a narcissist tell me how much ego destroys people. Eventually their ego and whatever else was still in their body was silenced and everyone they knew found peace.
Because I noticed that the titular character is often irrelevant to the absurdist anti joke dadaism that is the typical Heathcliff comic.
I never peel the potatoes. They are always skin on between the boil and the hand mixer they are soft and hard to detect. But they do contribute to nutrition, texture and add variety of color in a tiny amount.
I do stock instant potatoes. They come in handy when you don't want to deal with 15 to 25 minutes (induction vs direct heat) over a pot of boiling water when the humidity is already too high in the house. I'm not a fan of the granuale texture but sometimes I just deal with it.
I'm all about roasted garlic, cream and rosemary but the wife says no.
Mass-produced product from a grocery store that requires nothing but heating and serving.
Big plates are hard on my wife when she does the dishes. Disability sucks. But, yeah. I should use bigger plates
The picture: mashed potatoes and corporate meatloaf. Meatloaf was free.
Cost per person: $1.50
Of course the corporate meatloaf is just a side dish. The meal is mashed potatoes. My first "you are in charge of x" when growing up was to make the mashed potatoes. This served me well as a teen because I could make gigantic batches to insure that I wasn't going to starve eating whatever the other course was even if it was extremely low calorie 90s recipes. Between my brother and I we could easily eat three or four pounds of potatoes in a single sitting. There were never any leftovers.
The copper clip contacts on my main burner died again. I think this is the 5th time it has happened. I've replaced the burner. I've replaced the socket. I've replaced the wires. At one point I even had to replace the controller switch and the oven element.
But DIY appliance repair is cheaper than a new oven. Except this time I didn't have a new socket and wiring clips handy.
Then a friend said "do you need a stove?" Yes. I do. It wasn't my brand but I knew that anything not GE would have parts that should work well enough. I have a Kenmore. He had a Whirlpool. Close enough. $15 in gas later I had their stove in my driveway.
I had to do some modifications to the mounting bracket for the element but I swapped it out. I also took the opportunity to replace the wiring harness. But now I have extra wiring, four comparable switches, four replacement burners, and a temperature probe. Unfortunately the oven elements were not compatible.
With all repairs done I had to test it. I have hamburger buns. I have processed cheese food slices. I have mayonnaise. I have a workable test.
The test was successful.
Replacing any single part of a non glass top electric stove is cheaper than replacing the whole thing. You can watch YouTube videos. You probably have an appliance graveyard in your town that will sell you any part you want for dirt cheap. Or you can call an appliance repair company that will charge you $75-$115 to show up plus whatever the part costs, which might not be in stock because they refuse to keep any inventory these days.
If you have a glass top or gas stove your situation may be very different.
Cooking cheap isn't just about the food. It's the equipment.
Cost per person not including gas money: 67¢
I'm thinking about turning the scrap oven into a smoker.
Onion, broccoli, green beans, chicken, noodles, sauce.
Cost per person, $1.30
You have roasted barley, an orange bell pepper and a well-stocked pantry. What are you making?
This is a hard mode challenge.
Shiitake, green beans, broccoli, onion, carrot and pad noodles. A very light lo mein sauce of hoisin, soy sauce, sesame oil, rice vinegar, sugar and red pepper flakes. Some avocado to top it.
I may have put in too many veg. Didn't even have room for any cabbage.
Cost per person $2.10
There are a few cats in my house that I don't legally own. Jackie is one of them. She came in as a foster with her sister and I was never able to come anywhere close to taming her. And there is also an extreme lack of feral cat colonies to relocate cats like her to.
So she lives here. But we don't own her. She's technically in the custody of a local rescue.
She has free reign to go outside whenever she wants through the cat door and come in whenever she wants. Every once in a while we will have to trap her in the bathroom to give her any worm medication she might need.
It's rare for me to see her on this side of the house. As soon as she sees me seeing her she runs and hides. My wife tells me that she can give her a little bit of petting as long as she's filling the food bowls.
Otherwise she is a ghost cat. A thing normally seen out of the corner of your eye. Not something you observe.
I accidentally had my scale set to the wrong increment when I measured my flour for the pizza crust. So I had to add more water until I got something usable.
I used it as an excuse to make a bonus pizza with smoked mozzarella, a tiny chunk of pepper jack and a jalapeno.
Base cost of pizza is $2.77 each. Toppings are practically free. Except that bell pepper. I bought it at 68¢ and have used it in three different meals. But today I saw that if I replaced it it was going to cost me $1.27. The price has doubled in two weeks.
Meanwhile red, yellow and orange bell peppers are "just" $1.54. and the three pack of those colors was just $2.40. A rare and infuriating case where green bell peppers are more expensive than the more time intensive riper versions.
Sorry this isn't exact amounts but I just winged it.
Cook it in two parts.
Saute some chopped onion in oil at a slightly higher heat until it's not just translucent but got a bit of browning on it. Add some minced garlic, cardamom, a two inch stick of cinnamon and half a teaspoon of cumin seeds. Saute those for maybe 30 seconds. Add rinsed basmati rice, water and a heaping teaspoon of turmeric. Stir the whole mixture. Pop the kid on and crank the heat to high and cook rice as normal. Once it's cooked the cardamom and cinnamon stick should be sitting on top. Remove them and throw them away.
Dice up a chicken thigh and give it a good coating of curry powder. Chop up a bell pepper (your choice of color but probably not green unless it compliments your particular curry powder). Grab maybe 2/3 cup frozen peas. In a medium high heat skillet or wok heat some oil with a high smoke point like peanut oil and . Toss in the chicken and bell pepper and cook until the pepper is soft and the meat is cooked and has some browning on it. Add on the peas and continue cooking until they are done.
Serve the two things next to each other or with the chicken mixture on top of the rice.