Blog Archives
Food 101: Basic Guacamole
In my experience guacamole seems to be one of those foods that most people either love or hate. Some people are happy with any guacamole, but others take it much more seriously. There was even a huge social media blow-out (Guacamole-gate) when it was suggested that a guacamole that included peas could be superior to others. Personally I’m more on the traditional side of guacamole things. A good basic guacamole is a culinary multi-tasker. You can set it out as a dip at a party, put it in a burrito, on a sandwich, or use it as a topping for quesadillas, chicken, etc.
Guacamole can range from super basic to super loaded. With this post I’m going to go over how to make a super basic guacamole and then add some suggestions to amp it up a bit if desired. There’s really only 3 ingredients you need for your most basic guacamole: avocado, lemon or lime juice, and salt. Once you have this base you can easily decide on other ingredients to add in to give your guacamole a different taste to fit the occasion. Or just eat it as is. Whatever suits your mood that day.
The line-up
Cheat Codes: Homemade Tortilla Chips
Tortilla chips are a party snack classic. They’re strong enough to hold up dips of pretty much any kind, but mild enough in flavor to let said dip shine. And yet they also have enough of their own flavor to be yummy eaten on their own. Tortilla chips bought at the store are usually pretty good (though some are better than others. Perhaps we’ll have a snack report comparison about it one of these days), but tortilla chips at Mexican restaurants are usually even better. That’s because most places make their chips fresh from scratch. And is the case with almost all food stuffs, fresher is better.
Making tortilla chips from super scratch involves making tortillas from scratch. While probably awesome, making fresh tortillas is a bit too much work for this particular application. That’s why this is a cheat code; it’s halfway between totally from scratch and straight up store bought.
Luckily, despite soft tortillas from scratch involves multiple ingredients and special equipment, making tortilla chips only requires three ingredients and standard kitchen equipment.
Cheat Codes: How To Substitute Buttermilk Using Vinegar and Milk
Buttermilk is a weird concept. It’s milk that’s cultured with bacteria to curdle it slightly, making it kinda gross and blorpy, but actually good for you and better for certain types of cooking. It originally was made from the leftover milk when butter was churned, letting bacteria build up to acidify the milk and thus curdle it. In plainest terms, it’s really just a controlled version of spoiled milk. Obviously it’s not the same as leaving milk in the fridge for a month and having it taste like hot-ass and sponge, but both the old-fashioned butter churning way, and modern day cultured way result in milk that’s been curdle due to high amounts of bacteria in it.
Oh boy! Yum!
But actually, I should stop kidding around, buttermilk actually plays a really big role in foods like cake and waffles. It transforms pancakes from good to legendary. It’s ironically become somewhat of a luxury item today, despite the fact it’s not very dissimilar to yogurt. If you can find it at your local grocer and don’t mind shilling out the extra money for it, go for it! But if not, there’s a way to simulate it at home pretty easily.
Spices 101: What is curry powder? Garam masala? Curry leaf?
Over the past couple of years I’ve really become a hardcore fan of curries. The flavors that come out from combining the amazing blends of spices they employ are out of this world. Best of all, they’re easy. Throw a bunch of shit into a pan and 40 minutes later, there’s a complete meal which smells like upper class India. Unfortunately there’s this odd misconception people seem to have about curry in general. For most of my adult life, my mother has expressed her distaste of Indian food because she “can’t stand all the curry they use in their food!” She’s somewhat come around from that perspective from eating my cooking, but alas there are still a lot of people out there who believe ‘curry’ is some sort of single mystical spice from a far-off land. If you’re not aware, curry seasonings actually encompass a great deal of different spices such as cumin, chili powder, turmeric, etc… But there isn’t actually one single spice called “curry”.
Son of a bitch!
Food 101: How to Make Basic Frosting
I am very particular about frosting. I find a lot of frostings to be too sweet and often times are piled on too thick on cakes. Then there’s also the frostings (generally I’ve encountered them on store bought cakes) that don’t have much flavor at all but are weirdly artificial and greasy in texture. No thank you. This means that I pretty much have to make my own frosting if I want it to be to my tastes. Fortunately basic frosting is really easy to make at home. We’ve covered basic icing on the blog before, but while some people using “icing” and “frosting” interchangeably to me they are different things. Icing is more thin and glaze-like, whereas frosting is more thick and fluffy. This is primarily due to the addition of fat in the form of butter. Icing is mostly just sugar and milk, while frosting has sugar, milk, and butter.
This is a good place to mention why making your own frosting is better than using the kind that comes out of a can. While flavor-wise store-bought can frosting isn’t terrible, its ingredients aren’t really great. In order to be shelf-stable it tends to be full of things like hydrogenated oils, corn syrup, preservatives, and artificial flavors and colors. Even if you’re someone who is anti-butter I would think one ingredient you don’t like is better than a whole list of potentially sketchy ingredients.
The Poor Couple's Food Guide 
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