Lol, thanks. Our Saturday outing got cancelled, possibly postponed, but we did decide to go with pizza pockets on the next outdoor event. I think only veggies would need to be sliced or diced, which would be done beforehand. Pre-sliced pita pockets, jars of pizza sauce, big bags of shredded mozzarella, and precooked pizza topping meats are all available at either Walmart or Sam’s, along with those big square pieces of foil. Gotta make onsite time as pain free as possible, eh! 
Hamburger patties in foil. Add vegetables, onions, etc, seal the foil, stick in coals.
We also did pineapple upside down cake in foil packs.
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Anybody here know what a pressure canner is, and where you can get one?
I found several by doing a search on amazon.
@Nabiki - thanks! You’re the best! 
Ookwife’ll be happy to know where she can source one from
Pressure canners are awesome. It allows you to can things that aren’t acidic enough for water bath canning, and apparently they also cook meals really quickly.
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A story for Discworld freaks with a recipe for… noodles. No, not Noodles the dog, but noodles that you can eat.
Noodles, from Interesting Times by Terry Pratchett!
Interesting Times was a strange book for me. As a mixed Chinese person, it was simultaneously funny and awkward to read through the pastiche of Chinese/Japanese tropes, while at the same time cringing at how accurate some of the satire was. Like anyone who grew up eating orange chicken and General Tso’s, Rincewind had some learning to do about traditional “ethnic” cooking:
Besides, he liked Hunghungese food. A few refugees had opened restaurants in Ankh-Morpork and Rincewind considered himself something of an expert on the dishes. The one huge room was thick with smoke and, insofar as this could be determined through the swirls and coils, quite busy. A couple of old men were sitting in front of a complicated pile of ivory tiles, playing Shibo Yangcong-san. He wasn’t sure what they were smoking but, by the looks on their faces, they were happy they’d chosen it.
Rincewind made his way to the fireplace, where a skinny man was tending a cauldron. He gave him a cheery smile. ‘Good morning! Can I partake of your famous delicacy “Meal A for two People with extra Prawn Cracker”?’
'Never heard of it.’
'Um. Then … could I see a painful ear … a croak of a frog … a menu?’
'What’s a menu, friend?’ Rincewind nodded. He knew what it meant when a stranger called you 'friend’ like that. No- one who called someone else 'friend’ was feeling very kindly disposed. 'What is there to eat, I meant.’
'Noodles, boiled cabbage and pork whiskers.’
That actually sounds really good, if you understand that “pork whiskers” is also another term for moo shu pork, and the boiled cabbage would be the superior Napa cabbage, rather than whatever flavorless dreck they have in Ankh-Morpork. And the noodles! The noodles would be handmade, if the proprieter had any good sense at all. I’ve developed quite a palate for noodles and pasta of any kind, and there’s nothing that can replace that lovely bouncy springy texture of freshly made noodles.
Of course, there are many types of noodles. Ramen is the Japanese moniker, but Chinese noodles are a vital part of my heart and soul. Japanese ramen, after all, is a descendant of the OG Chinese noodles. These noodles are specifically the ones made with wheat, not rice, not starch, just wheat. I also prefer the kind with the distinctive golden hue and egg-like taste, because they hold up better in strong soups, and you can absolutely taste the amount of fucking effort it took to make.
Packet ramen noodles are thin, flimsy little imitations of the real thing. They’re reasonably good, but NOTHING compared to the heft and bite of hand-kneaded noodles, the kind that soaks up the soup but has its own unique flavor. The kind that stays strong for the slowest eater, retaining its shape and strength while being bathed in the strongest of soups.
However, this can be an acquired taste. The husband prefers regular egg noodles over this, so before trying this recipe out and destroying your muscoskeletal structure, please seek out a good (and by good I mean authentic) ramen/noodle shop and try the noodles first. When I was a little kid, my mom would buy noodles from the noodle guy (seriously), and behind the shop counter was literally a dude with a giant oar pounding the shit out of the dough. THAT is kind of output you need to make your own noodles.
This recipe was adapted from Lucky Peach, but Lucky Peach assumes a lot of things about your average home cook. For example, I do not own a pasta maker. I know exactly one person with a pasta maker, and they can’t remember where they put it. Furthermore, when I attempted this recipe, the dough wanted to split all over my limited counter space, my apron, my elbows, my hair, and my cats. So I did some trial and error and refined it for your average poorly-equipped home cook, because aren’t we all?
On the plus side, the ingredients are cheap and easily available. In my experience, finding noodles of this quality is impossible, so it’s quite a relief to know that, with sufficient cursing and weeping and strained muscles, anyone can make tasty Asian noodles!
INGREDIENTS:
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½ cup baking soda
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3 cups all-purpose flour
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½ cup warm water
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½ cup cold water
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1 large ziploc bag (gallon or bigger)
METHOD:
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Preheat oven to 250F. Evenly sprinkle a foil-lined baking sheet with the baking soda, and bake in the oven for 1 hour. Pour baked soda into airtight container.
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Mix 4 tsp of baked soda with the warm water in your biggest mixing bowl. When the soda has dissolved completely, stir in the cold water.
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Slowly stir in the flour, until you get some kind of horrendous pile of resistant dough blobs that refuse to adhere.
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Pour dough into ziploc. Push out most of the air by leaving it slightly unzipped and pressing the air out. Don’t zip it up all the way. Using your elbows, husband, large animals, etc., knead the dough in the bag for 5 minutes, until it slowly starts to come together.
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Zip up the bag, and rest the dough at room temperature for 20 minutes, it deserves it. Before kneading again, unzip the bag slightly. Knead again for another 5 minutes, until it has combined and turns visibly more yellow. It will come together! Keep the faith!
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Place finished dough in the fridge for 1 hour. Sprinkle flour over a clean work surface and all over the dough and rolling pin. Cut the dough lengthwise, so you get 5 long portions. Roll out one portion at a time.
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When you can’t roll it any thinner, slice half inch proto-noodles off, and roll THOSE out individually. Repeat until all the dough is now noodles, or when you lose sensation in your arms, whichever comes first. If it sticks, sprinkle flour.
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You can keep excess noodles in a ziploc in the fridge. Ready your noodle soup or stir fry ingredients at this juncture.
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When you are ready to cook, boil up a big pot of water. Drop the noodles in when the water boils, and cook for 2-3 minutes until they have that lovely springy bite. Drop them in a colander and rinse with cold water. Done!
You have no idea how homey this felt. With a simple soup and vegetables, these noodles brought me back to a time when I could just go to any little noodle shop and have some other asshole make my noodles for me, because holy shit this took a lot of work. But the flavor! The bounce! The beautiful golden color! Enjoy your noodles, my friend, because you truly deserve it.
Linky to the original :
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My homemade noodle recipe is similar, but there is no baking soda and there is a bit of salt. I don’t have a pasta maker either.
A trick on kneading the dough. Since it’s in a plastic bag, just put that into another one, and step on it while you’re doing dishes or something. Let your weight do the work.
I also cheat and roll out the dough into a thin, flat piece then fold it over and over, then cut it into noodles.
We actually got one as a gift but have yet to use it.
OK, technically we own two which sounds a bit decadent, but one has been used for metalworking clay and is not food-safe. The other was a gift for my wife’s good mixer, and we just need some quiet time at home to mess with it.
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I don’t have a stand mixer either. Just a hand mixer. Which I’m going to break out tomorrow because I’m going to make myself a cake.
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The stand mixer is a big ‘space commitment’ and it’s annoyingly heavy… But it’s really good for certain bread recipes.
Surprisingly some of my favorite are actually the overnight ones that don’t do much in the way of mixing or kneading, though: They just require a few ‘mix’ efforts over a couple hours during the rises.
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I’m so hungry. I’m waiting for my meatloaf and potatoes smothered in my special barbeque sauce to get done.
Note to self: Don’t wait until 3PM to realize that you’ve had nothing but a banana and a cup of coffee.
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I love my stand mixer. I got the ice cream maker attachment on a deep discount sale and have made an absolutely wonderful chocolate mint ice cream (with fresh chocolate mint from my SIL’s garden) and a delightful raspberry sorbet. Which reminds me - I should break it out this weekend and make a new batch. It’s also supposed to be good for shredding chicken or pork, but I haven’t tried that yet.
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WhaaaaAAAAAT?
What kind of techno sorcery is this? What brand? I’m going to engage the internet searchbot right now.
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KitchenAid.
This is the one I have (got it brand new in the box at the local pawnshop):
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That’s the same model as my wife’s, or nearly so. Same color, too!
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I made a batch of cookies last night. My little 35+ year old electric hand mixer gave up the ghost halfway through. I need a new one. 
Good thing I don’t use it much and can mix by hand if necessary.
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I’m experimenting in the kitchen today. I’ve always wanted to try amazake, so I got some koji rice from Amazon and am making my first batch.
I’d also like to try it with sake kasu, but I haven’t been able to find any that will ship to me except for on Amazon or directly from Japan, and both options are ridiculously expensive.
It blows me away how hard it is to find reasonably priced stuff that is basically waste from other processes, specifically nuka (rice bran) and sake kasu (sake lees).
The amazake is a success. I like it. Sweet and kind of creamy. I can see why they say it makes a good addition to a smoothie.
This is the recipe.
[URL]https://www.justonecookbook.com/amazake/[/URL]
This is the koji rice.
[URL]https://www.amazon.com/MIYAKO-Malted-making-Sweet-Pickles/dp/B00MHKRZ0Y/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?crid=1G0QQHRE0F06Q&keywords=koji+rice&qid=1678590259&sprefix=koji+rice%2Caps%2C242&sr=8-3[/URL]
The two pack will make 4 batches of the recipe above. One batch looks like it made about two weeks of amazake if I drink some every day.
Anyone want to give this a try? Sweet potato coffee in the U.S. Civil War, because when you really need coffee, you really need coffee.
Actually, this one I might give a try with a substitution of turkey for beef.
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