Ask HN: Hackers who cook
Which kind of inspired me to start working on project to follow someone and get inspired by their – meal plans, shopping patterns, recipes, hacks, tips etc (Another inspiration [4])
I am trying to find hackers who cook at home on a regular basis (even if its only 2-3 times a week).
If you cook, some questions:
1. Why do you cook? Is it to save cash or is it recreation? Or something else?
2. Do you plan ahead? Like a weekly meal plan?
3. What kind of things do you cook usually?
4. Do you follow any diet? Atkins, Slow Carb etc.
5. Do you have any life hacks, tips to be more productive as a cook?
Disclosure: I run Cucumbertown (http://www.cucumbertown.com/), the Tumblr for cooks.
[1] http://www.producthunt.com/posts/new-york-times-apis
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=cdavis565
[3] http://cooking.nytimes.com/
[4] http://www.reddit.com/r/EatCheapAndHealthy/comments/2gutuk/26_2021_1592_grocery_list_meal_plan_and_recipes/
Edit:
Seems like this was taken off the homepage for some reason. The comment rate’s coming down.
Thanks a lot for the encouraging comments. A short but exciting Q&A. If you can help me out more, please reach me on cherian@cucumbertown.com
211 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 242 ms ] thread2. Every sunday, we choose 4 to 5 recipes to make (and shoot for ingredient overlap) for dinner. Then basically, some staples for breakfast. We use Plan To Eat (www.plantoeat.com) to do all of the planning and shopping list generation
3. Weekend dinners and lunches are usually 1+ hour dishes. Weeknights are usually ~20 - 30 minute dishes.
4. My wife likes to lean Paleo, but for health reasons, I have to eat relatively vegetarian. So, somewhere between those.
5. Plantoeat.com has been really useful for us. (but look forward to whatever you're doing on cucumbertown.com :-))
We try to keep a 1-week meal plan, but it's very hit or miss. We're happier when we have the meal plan.
We start from a protein and work from there; we hit our butcher once a week and grab a couple whole chickens, some braising pork, and some beef. We have some staple meals built out of those things.
Unless fasting is a diet, nope; we try to cook more green vegetables and less starch, but we're not religious.
My biggest productivity hack is bulk-packaged deli cups.
It's like having an infinite supply of small, light bowls with tight-sealing lids.
2. No. I live next door to two different upscale grocery stores (talk about luck). I just go nextdoor daily.
3. What kind of things do you cook usually?
4. I eat little junk food. I have a milk allergy. I also eat a lot of meat. This is due to having powerlifting as one of my hobbies.
5. I eat a lot of tacos, steak and rice, chicken. etc. It is easy and fast.
I do think buying/cooking in bulk will save money but that's harder to plan for and I don't have many recipes to cook in bulk.
I eat simply. One thing I love is wholefoods preseasoned chicken. It's about 2.99 a pound and serves 3 meals (2 dinners, and my lunch for the next day).
I should also note I eat around 3100 calories per day.
edit: I should also note. cooking for more than 1 meal at a time brings my average cost per meal down quite a bit. Even if it is only 2 meals.
Personally, I want to start planning ahead and making large meals on Sundays that I can save. I'd also like to start cooking larger meals and freezing "quick-meals" I can just defrost when I'm in a hurry. I find veggie burritos are cheap, easy quite filling, and almost always produce leftovers. tortilla + rice + beans + sauteed onion and bell pepper + burrito toppings = deliciousness
If you're looking for some delicious recipes to try, my Swedish cousin-in-law is quite into healthy cooking. Should be something for all budgets: http://meandmyfood.blogspot.se/
2. I plan what types of meals I want to eat the following week while at the grocery store. This week I wanted Pulled Pork, Quiche, and Chili so I worked around that. I'm hankering Butter Chicken and a solid steak so that'll likely happen next week. Side dishes like the vegetables are often just whatever I want and try to keep things original; there's much less planning in this aspect.
3. My diet staples will always be Chicken, Eggs, Greek Yogurt, Stir Fry, and Bananas. The rest sort of comes and goes as I get cravings or need variety.
4. No brand-name diets. I just track calories and adjust for what I'm shooting for at any moment. Currently cutting weight at ~1lb/week (TDEE-500cal)
5. My only time-saver tip is really to have your counters clean before you start and clean as you go so there isn't a giant pile of dishes at the end.
I like to cook because you always ship.
You can't sit and obsess about it forever. That's liberating. Once you embrace that, it allows you to experiment.
2) I have 5-6 different "recipes" or meals that I know how to cook and usually I cook these one or more times during the week. But generally I decide on my way back from work, with not much planning.
3) I cook lots of curries. Indian curries with tomatoes, chickpeas, onions, coconut milk, rice, garlic, chilis. Thai curries with brocolli, coconut milk, garlic, etc.
4) I am a vegetarian.
5) My absolutely best life hack for cooking, is doing together with someone. Cooking with a friend, or even for a friend, is so much more satisfying and rewarding than doing it alone. If you struggle to cook meals for yourself; team up with a coworker, friend, girlfriend or whatever!
On a serious note -- kitchens need to have a door (and not be connected to dining rooms or living rooms without doors). That way smell stays in the kitchen and escape through a separate kitchen-to-street ventilation system.
We try to plan meals for the week and then do a big grocery run on the weekend, and I'll stop by the store after work if we run low on something.
We have a few meals that we run through on a rotation; making pulled pork in a slow cooker is pretty easy. There's a mustard marinated chicken dish that we both like. There are a few pasta dishes I can whip up from memory; we also make simple stuff like fried rice on occasion as well.
Neither of us follow a diet; we're still at the stage of our lives where trying to make generally balanced meals (protein, vegetables, fruit) is enough to keep us pretty healthy.
The only real life hack I have is that it's worth the time to memorize a couple recipes that taste good and are easy to make. Don't worry too much about cooking time; one of the pasta dishes I like to make has to simmer for 3 hours or so, but it's really easy to let that sit on the stove and just check on it a couple times an hour to make sure it isn't burning. Cooking isn't an active process where you have to be paying attention to it and devoting cycles to it every second of the process.
Do you have recommended recipes?
I doubt it would win any BBQ competitions, but it's dead easy to make and is pretty delicious. We don't bother making the pancakes that the website recommends; we just grab some rolls from a bakery.
We don't make nearly as much use of our slow cooker as we should, but we're definitely looking for more recipes too. As we move into winter, we'll probably start trying to make stew, etc in it.
Grab some type of beef roast (I usually get either chuck or round), and two cans of Campbell's french onion soup. Throw it in the crock pot on low over night (about 7-9 hours should do it) and you have delicious tender roast beef and gravy that will feed one person for 3-4 days, all for 5 minutes of prep.
Throw in some veggies if you like (pearl onions are really good, and I personally like mushrooms in there as well as they pair well with meat and soak up the gravy/soup mixture). It also goes without saying that if you can make your own french onion soup, it would turn out even better, but that does away with the whole 5 mins of prep stipulation. :)
If you want to get really fancy, look up a Brazilian dish called feijoada. Most recipies call for it to be cooked in a pot or a pressure cooker, but I convinced my girlfriend (who is from Brasil) to try to cook it in a crock pot, and it turned out being one of the best things I have ever put in my mouth. It's a real bitch getting all of the stuff to make it, but it is utterly fantastic and definitely worth the effort.
2. No. Usually I start with "what sounds good?"
3. Primarily Mexican and Italian dishes and lots of salads.
4. Keto.
5. Learn to use a knife properly.
2. I don't, but my partner does.
3. Slow-cooked meats, fresh veggies, broths, fermented foods (e.g. yogurt, sauerkraut, kimchi, buttermilk).
4. We attempt a gluten-free, grain free diet, with no processed foods (especially sugars), full fat oils (e.g. olive, coconut, lard, butter, ghee), no seed oils (e.g. canola, corn, safflower). If we do have grains or legumes, we always soak them in either whey, water, yogurt, or buttermilk.
5. We are members of three different cooperative food organizations: a grocer, a buying club, and a farm. We have a massive chest freezer filled with grass-fed cow parts (steaks, hearts, bones, livers, etc.), a Vitamix blender, a Hamilton Beach slow cooker, two Le Creuset dutch ovens, an Excalibur 9-tray food dehydrator, and three cast-iron skillets.
But yes, it's cheaper, better, and with a podcast on, downright enjoyable.
2. I buy some special ingredients with certain meals in mind but there's base stuff that doesn't spoil easily and I simply keep it around: condiments, eggs, bran, olive oil,
3. Last night I made inferno omelette[1]. Though I cut down on ingredients and used only jalapenos and didn't bother grinding the beef. There's also a great weekend breakfast I stole from Gordon Ramsey[2].
I try to do what's in season so greek salad in the summer, baked apples in the fall and so on.
4. I try to keep the meals low carb but not really when it gets in the way.
5. Put on a podcast when cooking and it's like going to a lecture. But you get to eat afterwards.
[1] http://chefinjeans.com/2012/05/31/cooking-for-single-men-inf...
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUP7U5vTMM0
Home canned brandied diced apples. Tastes as good as it sounds.
Another one you can't buy in any store at any price is home canned peach and rum sauce, which is pretty much pureed peaches and rum.
(edited to note the above two are right out of the Bell canning book, nothing exotic)
I'm well aware neither is very paleo or good for me, but given the effort required to prepare them, its a great special treat.
On a slightly different tangent I find it hard to find fajita chicken meat that is marinated the way I like it, with 1:1:1 ratios of orange, lemon, and lime juices. Why? I don't care if its right or wrong, I just know it tastes really good at those ratios!
The best stir fries I've ever had have been just "stuff from the fridge" all dumped in.
2. I have a good sense at the supermarket of what I have and what I need.
3. Stews and soups, seared meats, pastas, rice and stir frys, and salads and sandwiches, tacos and nachos, occasionally sushi. Oats and eggs for breakfast, fruit and cheese/crackers for snacks.
4. I prefer meats and veggies and fruits.
5. a) The basic mirepoix (celery, carrots, onions) adds a good base to many dishes. Prepping it takes ten minutes. Throw into a pot or pan, saute, and start adding other ingredients. Potatoes and rice and meats and it's an easy stew with water. Adding other veggies and meats without water is an easy stir fry. b) I try to grocery shop only every two weeks. It forces me to finish things in week 2 that need to be finished.
Happy cooking!
Probably the biggest time burn is the "JIT food inventory", leading to a grocery run probably 4+ times per week. I've become too spoiled on fresh meat and fish. :)
1. I cook for several reasons: (a) I am sick of eating the same food every day. The smell of noodles (and other fast food) makes me sick; (b) I get to save money if I cook myself; (c) I can experiment and control my inputs
2. Yes, I usually open one of several cooking apps on my iPad and pick several meals that I will cook this week. Then, I make a list of what ingredients I will need and go to the market so buy everything cheaply.
3. I live in Uzbekistan, so I try to cook food that I wouldn't normally find here. This includes seafood, steaks, and soups.
4. I try to eat lean meat-- chicken and fish (plus salads). That lead to a better health and I can see my abs now. Once a week I treat myself with beef steak or Uzbek kabab (BBQ). Needless to say that I don't drink soda and I don't eat ice cream.
5. Just Do It. Get yourself an iPad app. I personally use Photo Recipe and Cookbook.
PS: I tried cooking for 5 days ahead but my food tends to spoil. So now I only cook for 2 or 3 days ahead, depending on ingredients.
2) I ballpark what I might want when grocery shopping but generally make serious plans for a meal for several people.
3) Sous vide chicken is currently popular. Grilling and smoking meats is the second most popular food prep I do, with baking or pan-frying fish a third.
4) No but I stay away from red meats, pork, and carbs because I feel better not eating them (so chicken fish and vegetables are most of the menu with some grains).
5) I'll agree with others - cooking is a fun event for friends to participate in.
2. I usually shop for 3 days in advance.
3. Baked chicken, veggies
4. Low carb, high protein
I don't follow any diet, but my preferences are meat-heavy, carb-light, with a light-to-moderate amount of vegetables, so vaguely similar to Atkins/Paleo diets.
A couple of my favorite meals: Roast salmon with a raita-like sauce, sometimes with pesto pasta; whole roast chicken with potatoes in the same pan; pork chops with sauteed onions and Golden Delicious apples; steak with mushrooms and onions; risotto.
No real cooking hacks, other than to have good equipment and buy quality ingredients, and paying attention to the little details.
2. Sometimes, but often it's adhoc based on ingredients on hand.
3. Whatever is fresh and in season.
4. organic and local.
5. Think about the second meal you will get from your ingredients. Leftovers from a roast chicken can go in to chicken enchiladas for example. Some herbs like sage, thyme and rosemary are incredibly easy to grow. (and hard to kill) Fresh herbs make a huge difference in flavor and aroma.
2. No. Just run past the store on the way home.
3. Flavor of the week. My standard is Quiche Lorraine, but I obviously don't do that all the time.
4. No.
5. Get a cookbook that is very restrained when it comes to ingredients.
Other then that, there are "student cookbooks" (differ on country).
2. I try to make plans, but they rarely work. I need to be more diligent about my planning.
3. It usually involves chicken and vegetables.
4. Not really.
5. For me, it's all about timing.
I find the physical, analog, informal nature of cooking helps balance my otherwise too-logical, too-digital life. I love working on my technique. Chopping vegetables is my Zen activity.
2. My wife and I try to do a weekly meal plan so we can do most of the shopping on the weekend. In practice, we often forget. Fortunately, we live really close to a few grocery stores, so quick frequent trips aren't too bad.
During the week, we tend to do easy stuff (breakfast for dinner, grilled cheese, burgers, burritos, etc.) since time is limited between I getting home from work and the kids going to bed. We do bigger cooking or try new recipes on the weekend and often have friends and family over.
3. This summer I've done a lot of grilling. I'm still learning, so I tend to iterate on a small number of areas instead of trying lots of everything. Grilled whole chicken, breakfast, burgers, salmon, and steak are our go-tos. I make a decent bibimbap but it's a lot of prep work. We aren't very adventurous because we have young kids, but they do enjoy eggs en cocotte and some other random stuff. I make the best croque madame I've ever had.
4. No. My wife and I did a Whole 30 a while back, but usually we just try to eat something from all of the food groups. The Whole 30 was generally awful, but it did get me to realize that carbs have a net negative on my diet, so I try to reduce those now -- less baked goods and desserts mainly.
5. Take notes. I learn a lot every time I try a recipe, but I don't make the same thing ten nights in a row. If I don't write down what I learned, I won't remember when I make it again two months later. So, now, I keep notes for each recipe I do. I have the recipe (with my latest revisions) and then a series of "lab notes" describing what I did each time, how it came out, and what adjustments I should make.
This has been hugely helpful. I have a handful of things now that I feel are "mine" and are much better than the original recipe I found. Seriously, my grilled "thirded" chicken is off the hook.
Some other basic but really good advice:
- Mise en place! Clean and organize before you start putting stuff on the fire!
- Put a wet paper towel under your cutting board.
- Keep your knife sharp and work on your technique.
- There are youtube videos for everything. I can cube an entire watermelon in < 2 minutes now and my diced onions could be used as a measuring tool.
Don't ever put knives in the dishwasher. Ever. I have proof after a visiting family member put one of my very sharp knives in the dishwasher and there are three visible nicks.
2. Watch videos. I watched a lot of Jacques Pépin. He's my hero.
3. Practice. Focus on good technique, not speed. Speed will come naturally.
4. Seriously, make sure it's sharp. Hone frequently.
Big knives are easier to cut with. Move the food around and pull the knife towards you through the food, so your dominant hand is just repeating the same slicing motion (which also reduces the likelihood of cuts). Some foods like to be cut a particular way, pay attention to the grain and try to stay at right angles to it.
Speaking of carrots, use a potato-peeler.
If you're thinking of getting a knife-set, instead, consider spending your money on a single quality chef's knife. If you later find you need a different type of knife for some particular task, just get a cheap one, but your chef's knife should be proper quality.
Also, I'm going to echo darkarmani's advice (well, it should be a decree), to never ever put your good knives in the dishwasher. Ever. Keep them out of there.
I usually use a paper towel to wipe off some other thing while I'm cooking so then I just reuse it under the board.
> works far better for large cutting boards
My cutting board is decently large and I haven't had any slipping problems. I have stone countertops that have a bit of texture, to it seems to grip pretty well.
I use the paper towel as the discard pile (i put the towel half-under the board). Then when I'm done i just crumble it up and wipe down the counter.
Shrimp Etouffée
Potato and Leeks au GratinWhat's this good for?
2. In my head when I'm shopping. This is good because it's easy, but doesn't do much for expanding my repertoire.
3. Generally meals prepared stove-top in one or at most two pans.
4. Nope.
5. If you're making up dishes, less is more. Don't add a huge variety of ingredients just because you have them. Pay more attention to temperature and timing than quantities of ingredients. If you over-salt a sauce, dump in two halves of a raw potato. Don't buy store-ground beef; instead, pick up a london broil cut and grind it at home.
2. Most of the time, I will plan my meals the same day that I cook them. If I'm making something complex, or with ingredients that are more difficult to find, I will plan ahead.
3. Indian, Thai, Vietnamese, Mexican, and French are my most common major types.
4. I try to be healthy, but find myself slipping back into the 'snack at night on high carb/high fat diet'.
5. Learn how to make your own stocks, memorize some basic flavour combinations that you love (ie - canned tomatoes and stock are a major base), and always follow recipes precisely the first time that you cook them.
A deeper dive than that? Chinese, Middle Eastern, Indian, Mexican... turns out a lot of cultures like to eat variations of chicken and rice.
4) I'd guess I go for the mediterranean diet? Though all that means is that I use olive oil and eat lots of nuts...
5) Soak your dry beans in the morning. You can store tons more if you buy them dry and soaking them is a lot less hassle if you do it before work - you'll have beans ready for dinner when you get home. (Chili, beans and rice, daal, three bean salad, vegetarian tacos, lentil soup are all suddenly much easier to make....)