Salon post: January 18

[jenett]

Good morning!

Topic of the week
What thing have you learned or done recently that's brought you joy? (Or at least a certain amount of pleasure. Doesn't have to be a peak joy experience.)

Alternately, related to what I'm up to, do you read Tarot? (Or use them in other ways?) Do you have a favourite deck? What's your approach? (Other oracle methods also welcome. We are an inclusive discussion here!)

Not interested in either of those? As always, whatever other topics people want to talk about very welcome. Start a thread, see who joins in.

A useful tool
melannen put together a bookmarklet (based on one by astrolat) that allows you to quickly share links on Dreamwidth and that will check to see if you're linking to a locked DW post. Instructions on the bookmarklet over here It'll create a new DW post, autofill the subject line, and then you can edit or add other commentary.

What I've been up to
Unpacking. I got all my books on bookshelves last Sunday, labelled them a couple of days ago (and now I need to go through and update my locations in LibraryThing. That's a longer project).

Tonight is for finishing tidying up the living room and cleaning before I have witchy students over tomorrow. (For a class on Tarot.)


Useful notes
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Comments are welcome whenever you get a chance - even if that's hours or days later. Feel free to jump into whatever sub-threads intrigue you. More discussion is the point of the salon posts!

Got a question you're trying to sort out, or a thing you'd like to discuss? Lots of thoughtful interesting people with a wide range of interests show up here! Feel free to ask about things you're thinking about or trying to solve, as well as other kinds of chat.

House rules:
This is a public post, feel free to encourage other people to drop by, just note the 'if posting anonymously, include a name people can call you in responses' rule.

1) Consider this a conversation in my living room, only with a lot more seating. I reserve the right to redirect, screen, and otherwise moderate stuff, but would vastly prefer not to have to. Keeping conversations SFW is appreciated.

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3) If you've got a question or concern, feel free to PM me.

Comments

[warriorinside]

You know what? If free time is a thing, but you want to cook? Get yourself an Instant Pot or a crockpot, depending on what you like and what your lifestyle looks like. Crockpots are a blessing for single people like myself - and there are books and books of crockpot recipes EVERYWHERE. Throw it all in the crockpot and out you go, and when you come back that night, dinner is hot and ready.

There are some rules for what works well in a crockpot and what tends to screw up, and not everybody who writes these recipes knows the rules!

1. The one way you can burn it is to not include enough liquid. Doesn't take a huge amount but there has to be some.
2. Veggies go on the bottom, then spices, then meat, then liquid.
3. Speaking of spices, crockpots amplify dried spices. This is especially true of hot spices. Consider cutting hot spices in half the first time you make that recipe in a crockpot.
4. Some things should be added with no more than an hour left to go in the cook time. These include: pasta, anything dairy, and fresh herbs and spices. (Dried can go in at the beginning.)
5. Personal recommendation: because canned goods are already cooked, they tend to get mushy in a crockpot. Fresh is your best choice, then frozen. Yes, you can throw dry beans in a crockpot, and no, you don't have to soak them first! Just add double the liquid they call for because the beans will absorb it.
6. There is NO! number 6. ;)
7. You can do roasts and pulled meats for BBQ in a crockpot, but if you do, you need some fat, otherwise it will go stringy and tough. If working with a super lean meat like game, add say a quarter pound of bacon for every pound of meat you're working with.

Hope this helps and gives you an avenue!

[cjsmith]

Thank you for those notes! I would never have thought there was a correct layering for stuff in a crock pot.

I have one soup I can do well in the crock pot. :) (I do find I have to soak AND boil the beans ahead of time, but I have Bad Gut Reactions to beans that haven't had all the life cooked out of them.)

I am laughing so hard at number 6 right now. :) :)

[warriorinside]

There is, because veggies tend to take longer to cook than meat does, so you put them closer to the heat source.

If you need to soak beans and then put them in the crockpot, canned beans should work great for you. Try both and go with what works best for you.

Glad I could help!