Posted on 05/29/2020 6:22:30 PM PDT by Jamestown1630
We recently went looking online for a wok - we wanted to try and become expert at stir-frying. It surprised me that everything we liked best was sold out everywhere. Then, I realized that lots of people have been stuck at home and doing more cooking for themselves. (I saw a recent cooking video on YouTube, in which a man stated that he had gone all over to find simple 8-inch layer-cake pans, and they were sold out everywhere that he was able to look; and I noticed last weekend that the baking section in my grocery – flour, sugar, baking mixes, leavening agents – was almost bare.)
We finally found a nice wok, and went through the process of curing it. We haven’t cooked in it yet (busy week) but we did some shopping for ingredients. In the process, I found in the local health food store something called Chinese ‘Forbidden Black Rice’, which I’d heard about but had never tried.
This rice is amazing! and the strangest thing about it is that it tastes like it’s full of butter, right out of the pot – with no butter added. It’s also lower on the glycemic index than ‘regular’ rice, and very rich in antioxidants and other nutrients.
I first tried this in a traditional ‘Carolina Rice Steamer’, which is sort of like a double boiler; but it took forever. You may be able to do it in an electric rice steamer (I pitched mine when it broke down) but I would suggest doing this on the stovetop as you would do brown rice.
The product we purchased was not ‘sticky’; so I’m assuming it’s the one referred to in this article as the actual Chinese Forbidden Black Rice:
Grace Young is one of the best instructors I’ve found on stir-frying; her various books are full of history, traditional Chinese culture, and information, and the recipes are very interesting and different from the heavy food that we call 'Chinese' in restaurants in the US. Here is her video on seasoning a new carbon steel wok:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZjkTPWBOf8
And here is her blog, with her recipe for Sweet and Sour Chicken:
http://www.graceyoung.com/recipes/sweet-and-sour-chicken/">
I saw this cooking-coloring book for kids, on the Dover website today; it looks like a great way to keep the young ones occupied and also learning a skill that will be valuable throughout life:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZjkTPWBOf8
-JT
Your sauce looks great!
Our dinner This evening, includes carrots that we grew in our garden. Some of them are funny looking. Lucky thing we have a rabbit. He will gladly eat any carrots that we don’t want.
The toasted sesame oil is the secret. It gives a lot of depth to the sauce.
Not quite a wok, but the wife and I made Char Sui today.
Here is one recipe
https://youtu.be/MPZ5fw35bc4
I love stir fried foods. I am still trying to learn some of those Ancient Chinese Secrets for creating that particular flavor. I don’t have a Wok yet, just a large, deep skillet with a glass dome cover.
Once in a while, I make something stir fried that tastes quite nice, except usually, it’s too greasy.
I’ll eat some of it anyway, but my stomach gets even later on.
How much oil do you generally use in an average sized Wok or skillet? OR do you simply spray some oil on as needed?
The baking section of the stores I have been in has been bare for months now, along with the TP.
You’d think that people were done hoarding the stuff by now.
I made Hot and Sour Soup a couple days ago, my first attempt. It turned out very good. I have had my share from various establishments in So Cal. and my very Hot and Sour opinionated Wife thought it was excellent, she won’t touch the stuff otherwise.
I found the recipe at The Wok’s for Life website. This first batch was pricey as I didn’t have much of the ingredients but I now have enough extra dried mushrooms, Dried Lily flowers and dark Soy sauce for two or more batches.
DAWN POWER WASH -new dish washing soap
Cleaning after cooking. Still searching the shelves for this new DW liquid. Have any found this on their grocery shelves, and if so, what do you think of it? Where did you find it? Walmart or another super market?
The last new product DAWN introduced, power de-greaser, was suburb in removing the grease, making clean up a breeze.
While searching for more information on Dawn power wash, this life hack was found to assist in stretching this higher cost soap and saving a few cents. It might be of interest to some.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc83Mcac0KY
I made mini corn dog muffins for the holiday. Super simple and addictive. Much cheaper than store bought.
1/2 C melted butter 1/3 C sugar 1 egg 1 C buttermilk (I used some very watered down canned evaporated milk) 1 C corn meal 1 C self rising flour (add leveling if using AP flour) pinch salt 1.5 packages of franks cut into 5ths Mix the batter. Cut the franks into 5 pieces each. Spray mini muffin tins. Pour in one T batter to each muffin. Put one piece of meat into each. 375 oven for 10 minutes. Makes about 60 mini muffins.
I went into a panic a couple weeks ago when nothing I needed was in stock at either of the nearest grocery stores a few towns over. I ended up ordering for curbside pick up and requesting every size of every brand of every variety just to get anything. I ended up with too much sugar and flour products but at least I have something and that will last.
Opened the self rising flour first since it has a shorter shelf life than AP.
LC has gone out the window since I’ve nixed any fresh produce that can’t be cooked, peeled or washed well. Can’t get much fresh produce at the store anyway. Squash is practically nonexistant. Got some tiny little old limp wrinkled calabacitas (zuke related) that should have been tossed in the dumpster rather than sold. That was all they had and they were limited to 4. One chayote squash was rotten, too. Not happy with the order at all. Looks like they have zukes today (no calabcitas) but a limit of 2 and a limit of 4 for crookneck. But they said those were in stock when I ordered them two weeks ago but they were cancelled. Who brings home just 2? No other squashes available.
It took a massive order from two stores just to get a small percent of what I wanted. Most of what I got was from playing the get every size and be thankful no matter what it was. Like I got Bisquick, which I absolutely hate but better than no flour product whatsoever. Or settling for spaghetti noodles rather than elbow for mac n cheese.
Can’t get any fresh meat package larger than 1 lb. and the price is ridiculous. Of course, limited to 4 packages, period. No disinfectants whatsoever since Feb. or first of March. No cat treats (guess it all came from China no matter what the package said). Only flavor of canned cat food is chicken. And that’s the better grocers a few towns away. I haven’t even tried our normally Venezuelan style empty shelf store.
I got rid of a wok decades ago. It took up too much cabinet space when a skillet works just as well.
No rice at stores here.
I still have mine, too, but didn’t like it one bit as a kid. Grandma’s 1950s red Betty Crocker Cookbook was and is the best. I have hers and use it regularly.
The best cookie recipe in the adult BC book is the “filled cookies”. Great way to use up old preserves. It’s like pop tarts but waaaay better.
That’s not the right word. “Hoarding” is saving everything and never using it. “Prepping” is keeping enough to last through whatever disaster be it war, a pandemic, a job loss, an illness, etc. I “keep the pantry full”.
Who wouldn’t eventually use the last square of tp? Haven’t seen an expiration date on tp. Flour, corn meal, masa, salt, baking soda and sugar will last forever, if stored properly. Baking powder is supposed to expire but I’ve used some that’s well past the date that worked fine.
Egg drop soup is dirt cheap and most should have the ingredients on hand. It’s really good, too.
Uh, no. All that youtube lady did was water down the Dawn to nothing more than the cheapo dish detergents. Big whoop, it foams straight from the bottle.
I used to use Ajax dish detergent but in Feb. got fed up with how watered down it had become that it didn’t finish one sink of dirty dishes. I grudgingly bought some expensive Dawn hoping it’d last longer. It does, but barely. I still have to wash greasy pans separately with straight Dawn to get the grease off.
OK, I bought 4 big jugs of Dawn for the virus stay home (that’s not “hoarding”, no expiration date and it will be used at less cost today than in 6 months). I still haven’t finished the first jug and all dishes are handwashed.
Never heard of the new power wash. A power wash is a steel pad and broken fingernails here.
Baking powder keeps indefinitely in the freezer, so I hear.
I called P&G once years back and asked how long a shelf life something like laundry detergent had, and the lady told me *Almost indefinitely*.
I’m presuming that’s true of many soaps.
Does Imperfect Foods deliver to your area? https://www.imperfectfoods.com
I’ve had really good luck with their produce. The oranges especially have been amazing! And the carrots have been crisp, sweet, and as thick as my arm! They’ve also had meat more reliably than in the stores, although make sure you read the description carefully because they also sell meat-substitutes, and the names they give them can fool you.
Their potatoes and cucumber tend to get bruised in transit, so I stopped ordering those. But for the most part we’ve been really happy with what they send.
I always figured a nuclear powered wok was important to successful stir frying.
Broken nails! If there were but ONE REASON for auto D/W this would be it. Another broken just today! Must be that hard water! :-) Looks as though an on line order to WM for shipping will be the only way this will be found. After going to approx. 4-5 WM stores, seeing none on their shelves, just gave it up today.
Those steel pads used back in the day. “Brillo Soap Pads” They weren’t bad just out of the package, but used a few times, enough to cause rust - they would leave little metal slivers in your hands and fingers! OUCH!
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