I shredded it on a box shredder and put the plate under the broiler on low.

It’s Walmart Great Value brand sharp cheddar that I smoked with applewood pellets last January.

I want to thank you for having a good faith conversation here.

I fully get what you are saying. But for this meal specifically I wasn’t cooking for myself. This was basically the request of my wife and it had to fit her comfort food ideals. Before she met me she was the kind of person that would eat the same beige meal for months at a time before she got bored with it. She grew up near Amish country in Pennsylvania and is if the people that think mayo is spicy. She had made a lot of progress. It was her idea to put the German mustard on the potatoes.

You can pretty much tell my meal concepts from hers just by the amount of seasoning involved. I make tacos with fresh salsa. She wants nothing green other than starchy pees. I make shakshuka and chili. She wants fried chicken. She always eats what I make and she likes it. But I have to put in beige flood for her too.

And that budget thing is a real pressure. I’m doing a lot less meat and I make more vegetarian and non-American food than most non-ethnic Americas because I love a good loaf of bread and veg based something to dip it in. But my job and metabolism also requires a lot more protein and calories than that makes possible. So it’s all a balance it was only so years ago that I stopped needing 3500 calories a day because I was turning 50 and my metabolism has started to reach something recognizable to most people instead of the 6000 calories I was eating in my teens and 20s. So meals tend to be heavy so that I don’t start dropping pounds. I accidentally lost 38 pounds in 2016 just because I was eating sardines as a snack instead of a whole third meal.

She gets kidney stones. That prevents frequent usage of a lot of different greens. And I live in a food desert where eggplant and leeks are very rare while fancy greens that aren’t kidney stone inducing are almost unheard of even if they were in budget. I have to drive 24 miles one way to get arugula.

Sorry for going on. I’d like to cook different. But her upbringing and my budget combined with calorie needs are several layers of complexity to figuring out what dinner is going to be.

I used a seedy German mustard on the potatoes and onions after I fried them. Oh and about two tablespoons of butter.

Glad to hear it.

They liked long pepper and grains of paradise. But I wouldn’t use grains of paradise on pork chops. Cumin and long pepper sounds good.

Due to comfort food compliance regulations imposed by my wife I’m only allowed to use salt and pepper or, very rarely, curry powder, on pork chops. This one is just salt and pepper.

Any group is what the people make it. Post your stuff. Change the group.

A stereotypical American meal is “meat and potatoes” If either the meat or the potatoes are green, you die.

That’s not true. We are way fattier than pork.

I’m both worried about you and excited about your idea.

https://foodal.com/recipes/soups/cream-of-pistachio/

I save all my canning beans days for when it’s winter and there is no humidity in the house. Fire up a few canners and steam the house while prepping beans for the coming year.

I used to do a potato leak soup all the time but my food desert makes leaks a very rare item.

I have gallons of stock on hand that I have canned myself. I do not believe in using it for when I will be discarding it, things like boiling pasta or potatoes in. It’s too valuable a resource to drain off even if it’s practically free.

No latch for me. I may have seen my dad just once a month for about a year of middle school and then maybe twice a year the rest of the time. I needed 6000 calories a day on the cheap and this ‘snack’ offered 2400. It’s probably impossible to eat 2400 calories in sugared apples in a single setting. That’s probably 15 apples and half a cup of sugar. Or 25 apples with no sugar.

I lived off bacon fat fried potatoes for a long time. I haven’t made them in decades. My after school snack used to be a pound of pasta and a stick of butter with salt and pepper. Haven’t made it since middle school.

I feel like I can feel the texture difference. I haven’t done a double blind test but I’ve always known and confirmed it in the past. Tomatoes are 94% water. That water expands when it freezes and rips apart the fine fibers that would normally stay intact but soften when cooked. It results in a mealy texture I’m not fond of.

And, as mentioned, I really don’t want stuff like this clogging up my freezer. I’ve had three refrigerator and freezer fails in the last 8 years. By canning things I make them shelf stable. No electricity required for storage. No waiting for things to thaw.

I never freeze tomatoes. It destroys the texture and takes up freezer space. We recently won a $100 gift card for groceries. I’m thinking some of that will go to onions, peppers and other fixings for me to can up some salsa. Maybe a light tomato pan sauce on pasta for dinner. That should take care of all of it.

The recipe I used. I made it to letter in order to avoid ruining a comfort food and sleeping on the couch. But I’m all in favor of your ideas. Only after she ate it did she remember that I should have added bacon.

It is absolutely vital for some things. This is definitely one of them