VGS Cooking Club: The Fast Food Inspired (Jan 2024)

[PII | 1,886]

1 hour ago, RH said:

Correct, though I still drink coffee and  some seasonings which are mostly plant derived, get a pass.  Otherwise, yes, I only eat meat.

In fact, my son today told my wife "Dad's a Nageve".  She asked what that was and he said "Vegan backwards, because Dad only eats meats.". Lol.

Very interesting.  How long have you been eating in this manor and is there any kind of meat you don't eat?  Or any kind in particular that you do eat really consistently?

[RH | 4,915]

3 minutes ago, PII said:

Very interesting.  How long have you been eating in this manor and is there any kind of meat you don't eat?  Or any kind in particular that you do eat really consistently?

I mostly stick with chicken, pork and beef.  I can (and would) eat veal, venison and certainly seafood.  The reason I don't eat seafood is two fold, though.  First, my wife can't stand it so only I eat it in the house and, second, I'm not near the coast and I do NOT like non-fresh sea food.

I've been doing this since October.  I did take a break for Thanksgiving Day and Christmas time for a couple days.  Christmas was going to be one day, but we were all sick so we had a lot of prepped food for Christmas day and because we all had the flu, that was stretched out for a few days.

The main reason why you eat just food is for keto reasons.  There are keto diets that allow a lot more and the biggest limitation is to basically cut out sugars and carbs.  However, converting just to meat also helps change the way your body processes fats and it greatly reduces joint inflammation.   And I've seen this.  I've had back and joint pain for the past decade.  I also was in a really bad car wreck as a kid and I have a few pins in my back and three vertebrae are fused together. This has caused back issues in the past, and from frequent running in my younger adult days, my knees are torn up.  Well, eating just meat has made me feel about 10 years younger.

And I've lost weight.  Back when I started, I was going to the gym each day and I'd run and lift. Well, I threw my back out right before I started this diet, so I stopped going to the gym while I recovered... and never went back.  I've lost about 20lbs now, and though it's slow, I keep losing weight.  I'm not big, either. I weighed about 175 when I started and I'm now down to 155.  When I was married I weighed about 130, and I was skinny but healthy.  I've also subsequently been to the doctor for blood work and a check up. I have another one Monday too, but so far my blood work has come back better than it's also been in several years, and I eat a pile of bacon every day.

I could go on more, but feel free to Google a "Carnivore Diet".  It's not for everyone, and almost everyone who advocates for this type of lifestyle highly suggests being monitored by a doctor.  Everyone's bodies work a bit differently, so it might not be for you.  My doctor I'm seeing on Monday is a functional doctor and I haven't seen him since I started this. I trust him and he might recommend I tweak the diet but in the past several months, I've been hesitant because it's been quite beneficial to me.

[PII | 1,886]

IHOP, Eat Your Heart Out!

So this variation on my standard pancakes all started last night when I was looking online for a quick easy dipping sauce recipe for some chicken.  Oddly, almost every recipe I looked at had ingredients but no quantities.  How the heck are you supposed to know how much of each ingredient?  I eventually found something ok but not before finding one that said: "Jalapeño Jelly" so I was like: "yum" and clicked on it.  Anyone who's ever tried to look up a recipe knows how this goes.  It always starts with a bunch of superfluous fluff about how much the author's nieces and nephews love this recipe or how great it is to eat while on a yacht in the mediterranean in June or some other nonsense no one give's a rat's bunghole about when they're just trying to find a recipe they can make at a moment's notice.  So anyway, after scrolling through a mile of fluff and advertisements I finally make it to the ingredients list for "Jalapeño Jelly" and the first ingredient is this: "1 10oz Jar of Jalapeño Jelly."  I'm like: "Shit, is this for real?  If I look up meatloaf is the first ingredient going to be "1 well sculpted loaf of seasoned meat?"  So I set about improvising my own Jalapeño Jelly by grating/chopping the peppers and combining them with raspberry jelly.  The recipe wasn't completely unhelpful.  It also said to include creole mustard and apple cider vinegar.  Anywho, I ended up making a Tonkatsu sauce for the chicken which was pretty good and not really knowing what to do with the jalapeño jelly until this morning.  Usually when I make pancakes I add chocolate chips and blueberries but since I didn't have any blueberries I put a few dabs of the Jalapeño Jam in instead.  I also took a spoon and put some dabs of batter over the jam because otherwise it tended to get sort of hollow and or burn if left totally exposed.  Anyway, it turned out pretty good although I wish the Jalapeños I'd selected had been spicier.  Either they were a bit weak or my tolerance has finally become such that I can't really detect such a low heat level very well anymore... 

[PII | 1,886]

20 minutes ago, RH said:

I'm not near the coast and I do NOT like non-fresh sea food.

I thought you lived in South Carolina for some reason...

[Link | 2,714]

2 hours ago, PII said:

Are you stating that you eat meat exclusively?  As in no Vegetables, Fruits, Grains, Dairy, Fungi etc?  Just Meat?

My brother does this too. No grains or dairy, I can understand. No fruits or vegetables, I find counterintuitive to healthy eating. But he swears by it  

[RH | 4,915]

2 minutes ago, PII said:

I thought you lived in South Carolina for some reason...

I live in NC (grew up in SC, though) and I live about an hour from the mountains.  The coast isn't far.  You can get good seafood around here, but not always.  It's the "not always" that I'm worried about.

[RH | 4,915]

Just now, Link said:

My brother does this too. No grains or dairy, I can understand. No fruits or vegetables, I find counterintuitive to healthy eating. But he swears by it  

Well, that's the crazy thing, many Doctor's do too.  The key is, you're getting your body into a state of ketosis and it's like starving yourself of carbs because, well, you are.  Meat can contain all of the nutrients and minerals that you need and when you're in ketosis, your body processes meat related fats very differently.  This is how I can eat a ton of "bad cholesterol" and according to my blood work, it's still looks great.  The body puts itself in a different balance and processes the food you eat differently.

On the flip side though, when people do go on this diet, some people start to have extreme responses when they go off.  Nothing truly terrible but I've heard of some people eating a potato chip and the next day they felt like they were hit by a train, with the flu.  I've not experienced that, but my wife has because she's more likely to pick up a kernel of popcorn from the kids bowl, or eat half an Oreo.

[PII | 1,886]

9 minutes ago, RH said:

It's the "not always" that I'm worried about.

I guess I can relate.  I used to eat fresh Oysters all the time and now if I get 6, two of 'em will be good, not very good, just good; 2 will be meh and 2 will be quite bad so it isn't even really worth it.  Maybe I just gotta find a better place/time to get 'em...

[Gloves | 11,790]

59 minutes ago, RH said:

Well, that's the crazy thing, many Doctor's do too.  The key is, you're getting your body into a state of ketosis and it's like starving yourself of carbs because, well, you are.  Meat can contain all of the nutrients and minerals that you need and when you're in ketosis, your body processes meat related fats very differently.  This is how I can eat a ton of "bad cholesterol" and according to my blood work, it's still looks great.  The body puts itself in a different balance and processes the food you eat differently.

On the flip side though, when people do go on this diet, some people start to have extreme responses when they go off.  Nothing truly terrible but I've heard of some people eating a potato chip and the next day they felt like they were hit by a train, with the flu.  I've not experienced that, but my wife has because she's more likely to pick up a kernel of popcorn from the kids bowl, or eat half an Oreo.

I honestly just like cake and pretzels and stuff too much. A meat only diet sounds appealing, but I'd miss all the tasty things I can make otherwise.

[JamesRobot | 5,806]

We got McRibs at home.

McRib at home:

[Link | 2,714]

Egg LncMuffin
BEC+LTO

This is a brioche english muffin. I never heard of that before. It's delicious.

 

[Kguillemette | 1,545]

13 minutes ago, Link said:

Egg LncMuffin
BEC+LTO

This is a brioche english muffin. I never heard of that before. It's delicious.

 

One of my favorite sandwiches. A diner I used to work at called it the BELT

[PII | 1,886]

On 1/18/2024 at 6:34 PM, Link said:

This is a brioche english muffin. I never heard of that before. It's delicious.

I don't know if I've had brioche or not, but now that I've looked it up it sounds really similar to Challah which I used to eat a lot.  My friends and I used to make French toast out of it so it was basically egg bread infused with more egg and so-so-SO-so Good, but also dangerous.  My buddy once plopped into a chair at the end of the work day with a loaf in hand and proceeded to eat the whole thing without much effort...     ....and got a belly ache.

[fcgamer | 4,729]

Here's my attempt at Mos Burger. Actually usually when I go to Mos I'll get nugs instead of fries, should have done the same here.

[PII | 1,886]

On 1/23/2024 at 10:29 PM, fcgamer said:

Here's my attempt at Mos Burger. Actually usually when I go to Mos I'll get nugs instead of fries, should have done the same here.

That's a Rice-bun Burger, correct?

[fcgamer | 4,729]

35 minutes ago, PII said:

That's a Rice-bun Burger, correct?

Yes!

[PII | 1,886]

So this is what I actually planned on doing.  The pancake thing just happened to happen when it did and I thought of IHoP.  A while back I was saying to a friend that there hasn't been a Hardees where we live for like a quarter of a century and he informed me that Carl's Jr. is the same thing as Hardees.  Who knew?  I had no idea why such a thing should be and I still have no idea but the important part is that there was one not too far away and one day, driving nearby, I thought it would be a good idea to stop and get a Mushroom Swiss Burger for old times sake.  So once again here is something I've been intending to do for like 2 years now and hadn't gotten around to so thanks to whoever it was that came up with this "fast food inspired" idea that kicked me in the pants.   I wanna say it was Ritchie....

Anyway, here is the new and improved PII version of the Mushroom Swiss!  The main improvement is that I used Hen-Of-The-Woods Mushrooms instead of the typical baby portobellos.  If you haven't ever had these I would strongly recommend.  In my opinion they are second only to Morels in terms of being a great "Gravy Mushroom."  Pretty much the only thing I do with it is make Mushroom gravy using a beef broth.  The one thing I could have done better is to have used thicker slices of Swiss Cheese.  I don't know what I was thinking slicing 'em thin.  It still added the perfect compliment to the mushroom gravy and meat, it just needed thicker slices for optimal cheesiness.  At any rate, I really enjoyed this one so I'm def gonna be making more of these.  Not sure if I've ever made a burger and fries before that didn't involve Catsup or mustard or mayo or barbecue or some other typical ready made sauce...

I also learned something from a friend the other day that I feel like I probably should have already known.  When you make fries, in addition to oiling the pan a bit you've gotta take a brush and brush some oil onto the fries and then sprinkle a little salt in order to approximate deep frying.  So I did this little bit extra and they are so much better than just baking them w/o the oil.

As luck would have it I made "Creamy Apple Cole Slaw" earlier tonight because I had a half a head of cabbage and some old apples that needed to get used up.  Good accompaniment but also a major Uff Da! moment because it occurred to me I should have made Fish Tacos during Taco month and while I hear that not everyone goes for it, I def consider good slaw to be an important ingredient in a proper Fish Taco.

Ok, I'll stop yappin now.

[Jeevan | 8,912]

imagine not knowing Carl's Jr. is Hardee's, jk I didn't know at first, but I did work at a Hardee's as a kid @PII

The sauce came in a bag

Edited January 27 by Jeevan

[RH | 4,915]

4 hours ago, PII said:

So this is what I actually planned on doing.  The pancake thing just happened to happen when it did and I thought of IHoP.  A while back I was saying to a friend that there hasn't been a Hardees where we live for like a quarter of a century and he informed me that Carl's Jr. is the same thing as Hardees.  Who knew?  I had no idea why such a thing should be and I still have no idea but the important part is that there was one not too far away and one day, driving nearby, I thought it would be a good idea to stop and get a Mushroom Swiss Burger for old times sake.  So once again here is something I've been intending to do for like 2 years now and hadn't gotten around to so thanks to whoever it was that came up with this "fast food inspired" idea that kicked me in the pants.   I wanna say it was Ritchie....

Anyway, here is the new and improved PII version of the Mushroom Swiss!  The main improvement is that I used Hen-Of-The-Woods Mushrooms instead of the typical baby portobellos.  If you haven't ever had these I would strongly recommend.  In my opinion they are second only to Morels in terms of being a great "Gravy Mushroom."  Pretty much the only thing I do with it is make Mushroom gravy using a beef broth.  The one thing I could have done better is to have used thicker slices of Swiss Cheese.  I don't know what I was thinking slicing 'em thin.  It still added the perfect compliment to the mushroom gravy and meat, it just needed thicker slices for optimal cheesiness.  At any rate, I really enjoyed this one so I'm def gonna be making more of these.  Not sure if I've ever made a burger and fries before that didn't involve Catsup or mustard or mayo or barbecue or some other typical ready made sauce...

I also learned something from a friend the other day that I feel like I probably should have already known.  When you make fries, in addition to oiling the pan a bit you've gotta take a brush and brush some oil onto the fries and then sprinkle a little salt in order to approximate deep frying.  So I did this little bit extra and they are so much better than just baking them w/o the oil.

As luck would have it I made "Creamy Apple Cole Slaw" earlier tonight because I had a half a head of cabbage and some old apples that needed to get used up.  Good accompaniment but also a major Uff Da! moment because it occurred to me I should have made Fish Tacos during Taco month and while I hear that not everyone goes for it, I def consider good slaw to be an important ingredient in a proper Fish Taco.

Ok, I'll stop yappin now.

 

51 minutes ago, Jeevan said:

imagine not knowing Carl's Jr. is Hardee's, jk I didn't know at first, but I did work at a Hardee's as a kid @PII

The sauce came in a bag

Weeeeeell, I got news for both of you to clarify that story.  Yes, Carls Jr. (a West/Mid-West brand) is the same company as Hardee’s out East.  BUT, it is NOT the Hardee’s of +25 years ago.

I remember the transition very well because it was my senior year of college and it was quite abrupt but the original Hardee’s chain was, I think, going bankrupt.  Carl’s Jr. bought the entire chain and basically killed everything about Hardee’s that made it Hardee’s. They temporarily shut down every store, refurbished the restaurants, dropping the Brown Blue and Orange Color scheme, and then re-launched with colors that matched Carl’s Jr. but just kept the old name and source their menu and food from CJs sources and not the original Hardee’s.

They sort of locally marketed it like “big, good chances are coming to Hardee’s” and, to be honest, it was an improvement.  But to make the switch more palatable and not as jarring, I think they kept a few, original Hardee’s menu items for a little while, like The Frisco Burger.

IMHO, original Hardee’s wasn’t as good as McDonalds but was on par with Wendy’s and more preferable than Burger King.  After the rebrand, Hardee’s was better but the prices were higher.  As a guy in college, this was a big deal and paying an extra $1.50-2.00 a meal was a lot. I’d say the upgrade was a wash in changing my opinion but they did have one menu item that kept me going in every time I passed by one half-way between Athens, GA and my college town—Sliders!

For having a premium, FF priced menu, the slider was something like Crystal/White Castle burger but these things had real, teeny meat patties.  Those other mini burger joints gave you scab-like squares of “meat”, but not those Hardee’s sliders! They were full, mini-burgers with a little ketchup and mustard, and I think they were $0.75 each! I’d get three of those and call it a meal and that worked well on a tight budget!

But all that to say, if you’ve not eaten at Hardee’s in +25 years, then though the name exists still, that chain is dead.  Carl’s wiped the character and nature of that restaurant of the face of the planet when they bought it and at this point you probably won’t find more than a small head-nod to the original Hardee’s menu and even if that exists, it’s probably similar but not the same.

[Jeevan | 8,912]

4 hours ago, RH said:

 

Weeeeeell, I got news for both of you to clarify that story.  Yes, Carls Jr. (a West/Mid-West brand) is the same company as Hardee’s out East.  BUT, it is NOT the Hardee’s of +25 years ago.

I remember the transition very well because it was my senior year of college and it was quite abrupt but the original Hardee’s chain was, I think, going bankrupt.  Carl’s Jr. bought the entire chain and basically killed everything about Hardee’s that made it Hardee’s. They temporarily shut down every store, refurbished the restaurants, dropping the Brown Blue and Orange Color scheme, and then re-launched with colors that matched Carl’s Jr. but just kept the old name and source their menu and food from CJs sources and not the original Hardee’s.

They sort of locally marketed it like “big, good chances are coming to Hardee’s” and, to be honest, it was an improvement.  But to make the switch more palatable and not as jarring, I think they kept a few, original Hardee’s menu items for a little while, like The Frisco Burger.

IMHO, original Hardee’s wasn’t as good as McDonalds but was on par with Wendy’s and more preferable than Burger King.  After the rebrand, Hardee’s was better but the prices were higher.  As a guy in college, this was a big deal and paying an extra $1.50-2.00 a meal was a lot. I’d say the upgrade was a wash in changing my opinion but they did have one menu item that kept me going in every time I passed by one half-way between Athens, GA and my college town—Sliders!

For having a premium, FF priced menu, the slider was something like Crystal/White Castle burger but these things had real, teeny meat patties.  Those other mini burger joints gave you scab-like squares of “meat”, but not those Hardee’s sliders! They were full, mini-burgers with a little ketchup and mustard, and I think they were $0.75 each! I’d get three of those and call it a meal and that worked well on a tight budget!

But all that to say, if you’ve not eaten at Hardee’s in +25 years, then though the name exists still, that chain is dead.  Carl’s wiped the character and nature of that restaurant of the face of the planet when they bought it and at this point you probably won’t find more than a small head-nod to the original Hardee’s menu and even if that exists, it’s probably similar but not the same.

I didn't work there till 1999, apparently 1997 was buyout, I was 16, but thought it was only Hardee's, didn't find out till later about cjs

[PII | 1,886]

8 hours ago, Jeevan said:

8 hours ago, Jeevan said:

imagine not knowing Carl's Jr. is Hardee's, jk I didn't know at first, but I did work at a Hardee's as a kid @PII

The sauce came in a bag

Alright, so the cat's out of the bag and y'all know I'm not an expert on fast food.  I guess I'll live.   But what's the significance of    "The sauce came in a bag "   ???  Don't all fast food joints issue various sauces in little squeeze bags?

@RH That was an Epic History Lesson.  Well done, sir.  I guess I was under the impression that there were still a few actual Hardees lurking around somewhere, but a full on buyout makes more sense..

[Jeevan | 8,912]

16 minutes ago, PII said:

Alright, so the cat's out of the bag and y'all know I'm not an expert on fast food.  I guess I'll live.   But what's the significance of    "The sauce came in a bag "   ???  Don't all fast food joints issue various sauces in little squeeze bags?

@RH That was an Epic History Lesson.  Well done, sir.  I guess I was under the impression that there were still a few actual Hardees lurking around somewhere, but a full on buyout makes more sense..

probably, there was no significance really, sometimes things came in cans lol 

[PII | 1,886]

6 minutes ago, Jeevan said:

probably, there was no significance really, sometimes things came in cans lol 

Oh, I see now.. I think.  Well, I didn't think they were making that gravy from scratch, fresh, right there at the restaurant.  

Now I can't help wondering if there are other food items that people particularly miss from other defunct FF Franchises....

[JamesRobot | 5,806]

Bacon egg and cheese McMuffin courtesy of my McMuffin robot.

[Link | 2,714]

Well, I couldn't make it to the store today, so instead of this month's meat loaf, I had another go at fried chicken. I wanted to try a few things. @BlackVega sorry for too many pictures and words but I'm experimenting and documenting, man. Also, where've you been? Haven't seen you in here in a while dude!

I tried 3 different things.

Mainly I wanted to crunch up the cereal smaller. After dumping it out I found that squeezing and mashing the bag wasn't very effective. I started crumbling between my fingers, which was slow. Then I realized a mortar & pestle would be great for this, and got most of it to a fine powder.

I had been doing some reading and heard about using mayonnaise to stick the coating. That seemed interesting. Ultimately, i wanted to try 3 different things:
 - Corn flakes coating (I used Special K) with mayonnaise, baked
 - Egg / flour / breadcrumb coating, deep fried. (normal style fried chicken)

I forgot what the 3rd thing was so I just recombined my options and went with
- Egg / corn flakes + breadcrumb coating, baked
It's a good thing I forgot.

The mayo is tasty and unusual for fried chicken (which is funny because it's eggs and oil), but it makes a terrible coating that comes right off on any surface, like a baking sheet or a prep board. I did not expect this, but it's no surprise. Who the hell came up with this?

The traditional version was hell in a home kitchen. I could not get the oil temperature to stay consistent at all. It was constantly fluctuating and I wasted a lot of time trying to keep it steady. The slightest adjustment on the stove burner would send it too far in the other direction, no matter how careful I was.

I applied all coatings two or three times. The third version was the best! Both egg-based coatings worked way better than I expected. The deep fry was quite overdone and I would not do this again without a dedicated fryer with digital temp control. (I used to have one that I got at the thrift store, but it conked out on me after the third use. I was learning how to make good crispy fries from scratch at the time. If I still had it I would have done some fries for this thread.)

Somehow, all of the recipes I read in researching this were far too long on the time. I went shorter than recommended, and when I checked the internal temp they were all well over the proper 165°. Amazingly, the meat (breast!) was not dried out. Only other issue was I would definitely brine the meat if I do this again. The best coating tasted good but all of them needed some salt in the flesh.

I actually took I took way less pics than I thought. I could swear I took more in process. One I really planned to show was the seasoning I used in the coatings - 7 herbs & spices, just like Colonel Sanders! Salt (does that count?), pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, parsley, oregano, green onion. And I had 4 dredge stations set up - egg, flour, bread crumbs, cereal.

But here's what I got.

Deep frying at home. In researching I learned that shortening is the oldschool southern way, and that coconut oil adds flavor. Since the latter is (relatively) healthy and I have both on hand, I went half and half. I also read that fried chicken was invented in either west Africa or Scotland, which is funny because that is quite the disparate pair of regions. My other takeaway is the whole corn flakes thing is way less amazing than the talk about it says it is. Not a big deal at all, not super different, and not worth the effort.

Before and after cooking. Left to right and top to bottom are in the same order - fried in oil, baked mayo coating, baked egg coating.