/ck/ - Food & Cooking

>>16170372
>Is fish sticks a low status food?
Yes. It's still good though
>I don't want to look dumb when I make dinner for my girlfriend
Make breaded and fried fish fillets, the adult version of fish sticks

>>16079743
>Not caring about this

>>15519339
>He's never had DELMARVA peninsula pizza

>>14735821
Not much these days, they've lowered their quality. Hot subs are good for gas station tier. They used to be better than Subway, now they are worse and that's my barometer of if a sub is worth even wasting the calories on. It's getting close to fall, so if they have hot turkey and gravy or "the gobbler" that's pretty good mostly for the novelty. Salads are actually pretty good but it's a fucking salad. Most soups suck, other than the tomato, but then all you can get with it is a garbage grilled cheese for like $6. Quesadillas aren't very good, but they have that Jack in the Box garbage food that hits the spot at 2am feel. Mac and cheese is good, but you want to add in shitty microwave bacon and now it's like $6 too so fuck that.
>t. night shift rural ER worker and Wawa is the only open place within 15 miles.
>>14735465
Sheetz is honestly mostly even worse than Wawa, they do have decent fried shit though. They make up for lower quality by having a wider menu. Still think that Italian sausage and Brats are the better things they offer since all their subs/sandwiches/burgers are fucking terrible. Also their 'Mexican' section fucking insults me and I'm a basically a fucking Swede.

What other places are there similar? I tried Royal Farms recently on a road trip and thought it was pretty much the same as fast food buckets. The wedges were the worst potato product I have ever eaten in my life though. Can you get the same chicken there at like 3am though? That would actually be pretty sweet, but I'm betting it'd be dry as fuck under the heat lamps for hours.

>>14719230
It's all about buying shit in "bulk". Get in on a Costco mebership with some people or something. You don't even need to go crazy with it, because I understand you don't have a whole deep freezer to store shit in. Buy the qt/ga of full fat yogurt for like 3 bucks each. Add granola and/or fresh fruit or whatever else you like, or buy frozen fruit (or buy fruit on sale and prep and freeze) and do smoothies. BAM, healthy breakfasts for less than a dollar. buy ground beef and breads on sale in larger quantities and freeze what you can, again, understand the limited space, but you save so much money buying 5lb+ of ground beef on sale and freezing it in 1lb bags to use for cheap shit like tacos or Hamburger Helper. You say no beans, but seriously, dried beans/lentils. I'm mostly a carnivore, but I can really enjoy some decent meals made with them, it requires cooking skill and a decent spice cabinet. Shop sales. I just bought out all the Food Lions near me because they had "Swanson Artisan Roasted Chicken" stock boxes for like 75 cents each, when they are normally 3-4 bucks. I got like 20 boxes to use for shit I don't want to waste homemade stock on. I can just cook rice in stock and that's a super cheap satisfying as fuck light meal. Other cheap things is canned tuna, celery, onion, mayo making tuna salad, and using the veggie scraps for stock. Also, bone in thighs are the cheapest regular meat to get, and add those scraps to the stock bag. Bone in pork chops are an underrated meat, most people these days avoid pork (fucking Semites) and the rest think bones are "icky" so it's the best thing most places constantly have on sale. Otherwise, just keep an eye on circulars, and sign up for the online shopping shit, like the scan and go things, because there are so many sales they only apply to that, and not to the normal rewards shit.

>>14595862
I don't do it much at grocery stores other than buying organic produce and saying it's regular (I don't give a shit about organic, but the produce is usually in much better shape). If I'm somewhere like a Target or Walmart, I fucking go to town. I routinely leave there with $50-100 of stolen shit every shopping trip.

>>14478743
You need a good broth base really. Either make your own, or buy bone broth or whatever, that tends to be higher quality and has collagen in it that gives it that depth. Failing that, I know the Swanson Artisan broths are pretty good, but they are more French mirepoix focused. Then it's just toppings. You can do soft boiled egg, scallions, toasted sesame seeds, and maybe fried marinated meat strips as easy adds, or look into chashu pork if you want a project.

>>14361069
Not poster, but it's better than you'd probably think. It's still horrible, but there's something depressingly satisfying about it.