Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Episode 68: It's the Color Pie! Now with more actual Pie!
103 Plays5 years ago
Welcome back to the Goblin Lore Podcast! For today's episode Alex and Hobbes return to the Color Pie of Sauces paradigm established in Episode 53 and look at recipes and cooking styles! Hobbes makes a startling confession that might just change how we see him forever
____________________________________________
We finally did our 500 follower giveaway at 650 followers! Prizes will be going out soon as we need to limit trips to the Post Office. We will do future giveaways but we hadn't planned beyond 500 followers so will need to regroup!
____________________________________________
You can find the hosts on Twitter: Hobbes Q. at @HobbesQ, and Alex Newman at @Mel_Chronicler. Send questions, comments, thoughts, hopes, and dreams to @GoblinLorePod on Twitter or GoblinLorePodcast@gmail.com.
Opening and closing music by Wintergatan (@wintergatan). Logo art by Steven Raffael (@SteveRaffle).
Goblin Lore is proud to be presented by Hipsters of the Coast, and a part of their growing Vorthos content – as well as Magic content of all kinds. Check them out at hipstersofthecoast.com.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Goblin's Favorites
00:00:31
Speaker
Hello Podwalkers, and welcome to another episode of the Goblin Lore podcast. Today we want to talk about one of Goblin's top three favorite things, food, the other two being rocks and explosions. This episode is... There may be some overlap there, which we will get to. Yeah, there's definitely some overlap there
Sauces & Color Pie Philosophy
00:00:49
Speaker
for Goblin.
00:00:49
Speaker
So, this episode is kind of a follow-up to our discussion on sauces and color pie philosophy, an episode topic that was given to us by our patron Zach at Zach underscore Schwab on Twitter. And for this episode, we want to talk about, rather than specifically sauces and color pie philosophy, we want to talk about some meals and things that Hobbs and I like to cook specifically.
00:01:14
Speaker
Um, we had planned this several weeks ago and now with everybody needing to stay indoors to, you know, avoid the spread of the plague, worked out kind of well that we have, I've been cooking a lot more lately and I assume you two hubs have been cooking more lately.
00:01:30
Speaker
Yeah, I was thinking that this was a perfect episode because, yeah, we're ordering in from restaurants to kind of support some of the local ones that we can. And we're, you know, we're at home and actually finding that cooking, as we know, when I've talked about the show is one of my stress relievers. So things like baking, cooking, these are things that we're doing.
Pandemic Cooking Experiences
00:01:48
Speaker
And this is actually a great episode because we might be talking a little bit about what are some dishes and meals that people might be able to prepare during this time period, you know, like a range of kind of
00:01:57
Speaker
complexity almost, which is going to fit very nicely into the discussion of the philosophy. Yeah. So to kind of get rolling on that before we talk about some specific things that maybe we've prepared, I want to do an opening question and do some
Color Pie Philosophy in Meals
00:02:12
Speaker
introductions. And so basic opening question, let's talk about something we've eaten recently, and kind of where we think that lands. And
00:02:19
Speaker
So I'm Alex, I'm found on Twitter at Mel underscore chronicler. My pronouns are he him. And I want to talk about stuffed pizza from Papa Murphy. Oh my god. Yeah, I love stuff pizza. I've just the idea stuff pizza in general. Yeah. And so like I've gotten pizza from Papa Murphy's a lot. They're taking baked chain that I really like. So you just you get a pizza there, you bring it home, you bake it yourself. So it's usually much cheaper and I really enjoy their pizza. So I never really
00:02:50
Speaker
had this kind of experience until I had moved to Minnesota, actually, this type of a pizza joint. See, and that's why I try to explain it, because I don't know exists, like, where else is it exists, it is definitely a chain, at least around here. Yeah. But so the stuffed pizza thing, we've never done this before, but my roommate and I did this a couple of weeks ago.
00:03:13
Speaker
And it is like a deep dish pizza if you put another pizza on top. I guess it's not really a deep dish because the crust isn't a deep dish. But structurally it looks like that. It's like that height because it's just a normal pizza crust, the pizza, then you put a pizza crust on top of that pizza and then put a pizza on top of that pizza crust.
00:03:34
Speaker
Oh my gosh, it's ridiculous. And so yeah, that's, that's pretty decadent. Yeah. And then we did a meat lovers stuff pizza. So it was like sausage and bacon and hamburger and ham and pepperoni or something. And just this big thing, like normally we'll get a pizza and he and I, you know, we can, we can put away most of a pizza between the two of us. We both had like,
00:03:59
Speaker
I think not even half this thing. We ate this over the course of several meals because it was like one slice and I'm like, I might be full right now. So really, I mean, it's almost like a Midwest version of a deep dish. I mean, yes, that is Midwest, but I guess like a Minnesota version. Yeah. And just without the big thick crust, you just have more meat instead of that. Yeah.
00:04:25
Speaker
Uh, so yeah, I think in like black, red, black, red fits the color pie. And I mean, we're going to get more into this, but why? Because, because that is just all sorts of flavor and grease and calories and deliciousness and no real concern about, you know, any of the consequences. Okay.
00:04:48
Speaker
So I'm HobbsQ. I can be found on Twitter at HobbsQ. My pronouns are he, him. And we actually this past week made a crustless chicken pot pie in the crock pot. So the crock pots are one of my favorite things kind of ever to begin with. I just love this idea of kind of turning something on middle of the day or as long as I have enough time for it and then realizing that I can kind of just have a meal ready for me.
00:05:17
Speaker
A lot of the recipes that we use based on chicken too are great because you can throw the chicken breast in frozen. So if you forget and it's the morning of, we can still easily kind of do this. Like we didn't think about it until we'd been up for a couple of hours already on a weekend day and just had to run downstairs. We had the veggies on hand because we had bought them for this meal and just throw it in the crock pot. And I love crock pot meals, this idea of just throwing everything kind of in there and just that you get kind of this
00:05:47
Speaker
It was also a creamy, decadent kind of meal that I always try to say makes myself feel a little bit better because we put celery, potatoes, carrots, peas, green beans, so we have all of those.
00:06:00
Speaker
And then we have cream of chicken soup. Yeah. That was like when I was young and we used to go to like Chinese buffets and my mom would say, you kids, you know, you never get any of the vegetables. And I'm like, well, this sweet and sour chicken has some green peppers in it, mom. Right. Yeah. That kind of. Yeah. Yeah. Beef and broccoli has broccoli in
Magic's Color Pie Explained
00:06:21
Speaker
the name. Yes. It's right there. It's right there, mom. So yeah. So I think that that is. And I was trying to think of where it fits into kind of the color pie
00:06:30
Speaker
Um, I would say there is an element of blue because of the combination of ingredients. And it's, I'm going to just stick with a blue overall right now. I mean, I think that that is, and we're going to, yeah, we'll talk a little bit more because I have some other stuff that is an other crock pot meals that I think brings in other elements.
00:06:52
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. See, and I think we'll talk about this a little bit, but I think I might see a little, a little white in some of that approach. Maybe not the actual approach. Oh, yeah. Well, yeah. Okay. Well, let's do a review. We need to do a little bit of a review of where we were before because we established this kind of really cool hierarchy that we use in our sauce episode.
00:07:13
Speaker
That kind of was a way to conceptualize the color pie. This is we've done a number of color pie episodes. If you want, we've done color pie and art color pie and food color pie and you know, Joe and I did color pie in villains. I don't. But so we've we've kind of hit on this a lot. But let's just talk about what the color pie is in case there's people listening that may not know. Yeah.
00:07:37
Speaker
So in Magic, where there are five colors, you look in the back of a Magic card, you have five little dots corresponding to those colors. And just the way the game has worked, and it started as a mechanical thing, but then it turned into a story identity thing and has really built over the last 20-plus years of the game's life. But each color has a piece of what it can do.
00:07:59
Speaker
And that's color pie. That if it's kind of its philosophy, how it approaches life and society and things.
00:08:10
Speaker
Then we've kind of taken some of those philosophies and I have these notes from our sauce episode, kind of what I thought each color's approach to sauces would be. And I think food sort of is a culinary thing. Yeah. I mean, we, this is kind of, um, and I mean, there's all the material that may fit into, you know, art and books and things. I mean, we have specifics that go along with
00:08:32
Speaker
food here. But this is kind of stuff that you know, it's a it's a different way to kind of look at this color pie. So when I met with Hunter Pence, the color pie was not something that he was very familiar with. And having these analogies or ways to kind of explain the color pie, I actually think is a great thing to kind of it is the governing
00:08:53
Speaker
philosophy, the governing process by which wizards designs. So being able to understand what that can look like for us or for food cooking, our real world is actually very important. Yeah, and it's it's a hugely significant, you know, talking about lore, because we're talking about the philosophy and the story and the characters and things. But it's also very important mechanically to get a little mellow here. For a moment, you look at some of the most
00:09:18
Speaker
broken and degenerate times and standards, some of the worst environments. One of the big ones, like Mark Rosewater talks about a lot, was affinity during Mirrodin, because it was this artifact thing that had all sorts of artifact pieces, and it could do all of these things with no concern to color.
00:09:40
Speaker
And the color pie, having different colored mana, requiring you to be in white or blue or red to do certain things, is a mechanical constraint for a deck.
Color Pie and Culinary Examples
00:09:54
Speaker
And when those constraints are loosened too much, then you can create ridiculously powerful decks. I know a few years ago, when we had fetch lands in Standard again,
00:10:02
Speaker
that created an environment where everybody was playing four colors because it was super easy to use fetches to build whatever mana base you wanted. And so you need to have trade off. Yeah, that means that's what balances magic. That's what the pie is meant to do. Yeah. And I would think that too, you know, from that male perspective, as you've said, you did a really nice job of chronicling it there. Thank you.
00:10:29
Speaker
So let's go back to our sauce episode. Run us through our sauces.
00:10:34
Speaker
So sauces, well, let's, so let's run through the colors and kind of what I think here. So we'll start with white. That's, that's, you know, Wooburg order. Usually start with white. It's on the top of that little graphic on the back of the card. I think the sauces and food, culinarily for white, that's things that are for the masses, things that are consistent, things that are easy. In that episode, we had ketchup.
00:10:59
Speaker
That's a sauce or not so much a sauce, a condiment, but it fits in that sort of category. Yeah. Yeah. We talked about mustards and your like yellow Heinz mustard versus actual mustard seeds and use of. Yes. And so that's something that kind of fits White's community, that fits, you know, White's philosophy there. We talked about being able to go to a place and know that you're going to get the same thing every time you go.
00:11:26
Speaker
Yes, I in that episode, I had a very, you know, short little rant about like fast food and where it's this place sort of is where it can be a positive thing because it gives people or like chains in particular, but fast food as well. I know what I'm going to get. Yeah, I would expect to get when I don't, it's gonna be pretty shocking to me. So yeah, especially when you know, you're traveling or something like it's nice to build a now okay, this is a thing that with with which I am familiar.
00:11:54
Speaker
Anyway, so then blue, I think is more kind of lots of pieces. You're putting a little more convoluted, maybe putting things together, less natural, more manufactured. They're trying to take the natural ingredients and turn it into something that is different from what was there before.
00:12:18
Speaker
Do you remember off the top of your head some of the sauces that we had in that category? I feel like Bechamel. Yeah, or ones that had a lot more technical elements to it too. Because that was one that was literally...
00:12:39
Speaker
Worcestershire sauce? You told us about how it was actually created by chemists, I believe was the one? Yep. So then we'll go to black. And we did have with blue, sorry, real quick, it is more manufactured. But I'm going to bring in a little bit different today when we talk about meals, because it's going to be also an approach to cooking. And I think we're going to see a little bit of differences here.
00:13:05
Speaker
Yes, and that's one thing I want to try to talk about, and we'll see if this becomes too much of an additional topic, but to talk about approaches to cooking and sort of color pie with that. It probably will. I mean, yes, I'm full on hijacking at some point in that direction. And that was part of my design intention, too, is that we talk a little bit about perhaps what the foods that we want to talk about, what that says about our own color pie approach to cooking.
00:13:36
Speaker
Sorry, yeah, we'll take so black. Black is our kind of black is black can do in magic basically anything with a cost. And we kind of talked about this. This is flavor at all costs. This is decadence. This is indulgent. It is not caring about the calorie. It is not caring about like you just said with your pizza, the fat, the grease.
00:13:59
Speaker
It's about that flavor and getting you that flavor. Speaking of indulgent, I coined that term flavor at all costs in our planning document for that episode and every time I see it or hear it, it just makes me laugh because I'm so proud of that expression. That's neither here nor there.
00:14:21
Speaker
So I think like a quintessential sauce that fits in this category is gravy. Yeah. Yes, it was gravy. That was like definitionally. Yeah.
00:14:34
Speaker
Okay, red, red is what tastes just best kind of reckless abandon. It just hot sauces. Yeah, hot sauces. I mean, we talked about this is just kind of like, it's to punch you in the face. And to just taste good and be kind of that passion that heat, even though that's like our literal definition of red in some ways, but it kind of has that reckless abandon to it more extreme flavors. Yeah.
00:15:07
Speaker
like some really good powerful umami, which actually also fits into green. Yeah, which is, yeah, that leads us to green. It's our natural, natural fewer ingredients. Um, it's highlighting specific natural ingredients. I think we talked about ways to bring out like the flavor of mushrooms, for instance, using a sauce to bring out the flavor of meat is kind of a way to like highlight it or to get it to shine.
00:15:36
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And in context of sauces, meant that kind of in both directions, both a sauce that is just a few things, like a guacamole, I think was one we talked about as a green sauce, not just literally, but also because a good guacamole, from what I understand, I personally am not a big fan of it. But it's, it's just a handful of ingredients, you're not trying to do a lot to it. No, just putting these together. And you want to you really want the avocado to shine, which the avocado on its own is more of a kind of
00:16:05
Speaker
bland or like more of a neutral flavor or I mean there's people that think it is kind of quote unquote flavorless but it is it has a flavor and then you want to use little bits of seasoning or spice to bring that out and you want a good guacamole is not going to be overpowered by onions and tomatoes and all of those things that make it where you can't really where you just have like
00:16:28
Speaker
the avocado being the mash at the bottom. You want it to actually have that as a powerful ingredient. Yeah. But then on the flip side, as you're saying, too, there are definitely sauces that fit that the cooking green methodology where it's the sauce itself is taking out the natural flavor of the steak of the pizza.
Applying Color Pie to Cooking
00:16:50
Speaker
So like, I do might be something that you do, you know, you use that to get some more moisture back into the meat, but it's to highlight the flavor of the meat.
00:16:58
Speaker
Yeah. And like there you're taking the meat juice to add the meat flavor back to the meat. Like that's just straight. You're not manufacturing. Okay. Okay. So now that we have our color pie back in. Yeah. Let's talk about how this might look from preparation of food and ingredients when we're talking about what we like to cook.
00:17:19
Speaker
All right. So do you want to start this off or should I dive in here? I'm going to let you jump in because I am excited. So I'm looking at your list of foods and I'm excited. And just for the listeners, we have not talked past this point. Some of this other stuff we talked and prepped and things a little bit. This next point, Hobbs and I are going to just do it right off the cuff. I did not even give you a list of foods that I may talk about.
00:17:46
Speaker
No, I put mine in the notes, but yeah. So I want to start. But I think it speaks to our general approach maybe when we get there. Speaking of Wubberg, starting with white, I'm going to start with grilled cheese.
00:18:00
Speaker
So this is like one of the simplest, easiest things to make. And I think for the most part that it fits my cooking style. I don't want to have a lot of ingredients. I don't want it to be very involved. If I can use a frying pan and be done with it in a few minutes, all the better. And grilled cheese is perfect here. I think there's actually a surprising amount of depth to it, but you start with just the stereotypical
00:18:28
Speaker
white bread butter, American cheese, that is like as white color pie as you get. At least that's that's my opinion. What do you think about that? I would say so. So I I mean, I will say that grilled cheese is something that can be elevated. And I do like a really good grilled cheese with other stuff. But we eat grilled cheese in this household once a week easily. And we make it basically the same way every single week when we make it in the house. We know what we're getting.
00:18:59
Speaker
You're, you know, we, we're, you know, if we've got an avocado in hand, we're having an avocado, but we still know what it's going to taste like. We, we know how to Brown it. We know how to make it. We get a griddle out. We're good to go. Yep. Cheese meat. We might do some ham. I mean, yeah, sure. You can do like bacon and you can add different types of cheese and you can make it elevated. This is something that just weekly basis, I want to grill cheese and I know what it's going to taste like.
00:19:22
Speaker
Yep. And and for me, one of the things that I love about grilled cheese as a structure is it has a lot of things you can do with it. The basic thing is bread and cheese, and then butter to fry it on a pan. And then you can do anything else you want with it. Back years and years ago, when I was fiddling around with various foods, just
00:19:46
Speaker
willy-nilly when i was when i did my younger days um i your younger days i just like the old man on the cast i'm like yeah alex and you're like for the most part these days i'll have sandwich meat and cheese and just grill whatever i have so in the fridge right now i may do like a ham and swiss grilled cheese um i love provolone and ham makes a great grilled cheese the thing you got to be careful with with ham particularly a cheese like provolone because provolone
00:20:14
Speaker
Does not allow all the extra water from ham to get past it to soak into the bread so When you do two pieces of provolone with ham in between it All of that water is gonna fall out of the ham as soon as you pick that sandwich up just ham has so much water in it Yeah, but so like those are things I would do but I would also do like I did a pizza grilled cheese
00:20:36
Speaker
Okay. So throw that bread on the pan, throw in some pepperoni, throw on some some marinara sauce, throw in some mozzarella, put another piece of cheese on there. Actually, usually provolone because provolone is my favorite cheese. And yeah, I did I did scrambled egg grilled cheese one time when I wanted to combine the first two recipes that I ever learned.
00:21:00
Speaker
You're almost good. I mean, what's funny is I know we're talking magic today, but this is just making me think of like alignment charts. And yeah, there's also this idea from like D&D of to explain this, but also this idea of like is a hot dog a sandwich. Yeah. You're really getting into what is a grilled cheese here. Yeah, what is a grilled cheese and where but see, the thing is, is this is what you'll find with with my cooking. It's usually very basic things. But I love to tinker with stuff. And so grilled cheese is endlessly tinkerable. Yeah.
00:21:29
Speaker
Yeah. So you could switch out the bread. I mean, using a sourdough versus a wheat bread is going to produce a very different sandwich. Yeah. Just even something like that. Something that I'd ever thought of, but I've now picked this up from five guys. So if you ever get a grilled cheese at five guys, they don't have sandwich bread.
00:21:45
Speaker
No. So they take their hamburger buns. Yep. And they'll, you know, grilled cheese, the basically the inside of the hamburger bun goes on the outside, because it creates the flat surfaces to do the actual grilling. And so they just smash the like normal the top and the bottom of the bun together with cheese in between it. So in and out does their grilled cheese in California is basically just their burger without a patty.
00:22:08
Speaker
So it's just like everything else that would go inside and in and out burger. So burger is still the same way that it would be with cheese in the middle. So now that I've learned that from five guys, I will probably be doing that with some of these like Hawaiian buns that I have just smash the top together and grill that some cheese in between.
00:22:30
Speaker
I mean, I really like the grilled cheeses are starting off because this really is a great way to. I mean, especially if we're talking about kind of right now with social distancing and kind of everything going on, like this is one that if you're able to get a couple of ingredients or keep a thing of bread on hand, to me, this is like a very good, simple and grilled cheese to me, even though it's something I eat all the time, is also a comfort food. Yeah. And I'm wondering, you know, like white may be some have an element of comfort in it. Yet we didn't necessarily discuss as much last time.
00:22:59
Speaker
And that's what I was kind of referencing with the pot pie too. I think there's definitely some elements. And a lot of that's going to be, you know, personal and culturally contextual too with what is the comfort food, what is kind of just the thing that you go back to. But yeah, I think that's a good thing. And grilled cheese, one of the things that I like about it too is it uses elements that you can get for other things.
00:23:29
Speaker
So things that you may just have around the house. Yeah. If you happen to, whatever cheese you have, like I've made grilled cheese with shredded cheese, like the normal process is sliced. But if you have shredded cheese, cause you've got some mozzarella for spaghetti and you have some leftover cheese, make a grilled cheese with mozzarella. There's a lot of approach to it.
00:23:53
Speaker
Okay. So that, so your first one kind of, it was a very white food. So I'm going to jump in for my first one here. So I tend to, I actually came from this thinking of looking at your list. I wanted to include more of the stuff that I like to cook when I have the time.
00:24:11
Speaker
because there's a big difference for me when I'm cooking
Cooking Techniques and Experiments
00:24:13
Speaker
with time and not time. And my cooking style greatly varies with that. This is actually something that for me is kind of a comfort food that's quicker to put together and I can make as long as I thought to thaw out meat, which is shepherd's pie.
00:24:28
Speaker
So I my grandmother is from England. I grew up making shepherd's pie and eating shepherd's pie, which if people have never had it is basically a meat theoretically made traditionally is lamb. But, you know, given in America, ground lamb for a lot of people was not something that was as easy to find. It is now with the advent of grocery stores and more specialty places. But, you know, we made it growing up with ground beef, you know, and but it's that with some vegetables,
00:24:57
Speaker
Brown it, make kind of a sauce or a gravy, put it in the bottom of a pan, mash potatoes on top, cheese on top of that, bake it in the oven.
00:25:07
Speaker
But I really like this meal because I can make it fairly quickly, but it has elements of stuff that I just love to do. I love making mashed potatoes. That's one of my favorite things to make is mashed potatoes. So much so that my wife bought me a ricer, which is basically a giant garlic press for pressing potatoes through. And I think this speaks to my kind of general philosophy.
00:25:31
Speaker
It seems like an indulgent tool. Like I'm thinking of this from a cookie perspective, like kind of maybe blackish and that like, I don't necessarily need it, but it makes creamy whipped potatoes by hand. I don't have to use a beater. I could just use a spoon to make it.
00:25:47
Speaker
When I make my mashed potatoes, they have heavy cream, mascarpone cheese, butter. I mean, my general approach to mashed potatoes is they're not healthy. They're not. But once again, back to that, I think the green element to this is that earthiness. It is typically made either with lamb or beef.
00:26:11
Speaker
I use like a bouillon cube that we actually brought back from England, which gets a little bit into kind of the flavor piece to it. But it's just a basic bouillon cube to bring out kind of more of the flavor of the meat. And then we have some earthy vegetables. You know, we usually use corn, you know, peas and very quintessential British. I mean, I think of this as kind of that white green to me. It's it's with black. This is wow.
00:26:38
Speaker
You know what? Screw it. Shepherd's pie is five colors. I mean, I could see instead of the abs and I could see, you know, because there's, yeah, there's definitely elements of you're using a handful of ingredients. Yep.
00:26:53
Speaker
And you're not really trying to work those ingredients too much, though you're putting them together into something different. And yeah, the you definitely are going to flavor at all costs when you're putting gravy and butter and heavy cream. So I will say with gravy here, it's not really I don't really add flour or anything. It's mainly just the bouillon. So it's not like that. That's true. It's not a full day. And it like layers, you know, you like do your meat layer, some vegetables kind of in with that.
00:27:20
Speaker
potatoes and then cheese on top. So I mean, you have like a layered approach to it. Like when you see it, I love a good shepherd's pie when I make it in, I look to the side and I can see each distinct layer before then you like dig in and eat, you like take out a scoop of the whole thing. So Shepherd's pie is actually one of my favorites because you it's very easy to just make those things separately. And then you stick it in the oven long enough to basically brown the cheese and get everything warm.
00:27:46
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Because I suppose if you brown the meat and stuff, most of it's basically cooked anyway, you're just trying to get it to get together a little bit. Right. And warm. And yeah, you throw your veggies in on in with the meat, give them a chance. And yeah, mashed potatoes are already cooked, throw them on top. You're mainly like melting cheese and trying to get some flavor in. Okay.
00:28:06
Speaker
Great, I like that one. So then I'm going to go on to my next one, pancakes. Very appropriate for the state of Minnesota and Prince. Yes, I just.
00:28:17
Speaker
No, I really enjoy pancakes. That is a thing that it took me a long time to realize that this was a mainstay of my diet. I never, it just never occurred to me until I realized that like, I always have pancake batter in my cupboard. Okay. That is a thing I always have on hand. So we're going to be talking here just because I want to get your philosophy. This is pancakes from like
00:28:41
Speaker
A box mix pancake? Okay. Box mix. Okay. Because again, for me, for the most part, it's things that are quick and easy. I'm generally cooking for myself. So things that are scalable, that I can cook a single portion or maybe two if my roommate's around now. And so pancakes are perfect there. I can scale it up or scale it down as much as I need to.
00:29:07
Speaker
Most of these batter mixes are super simple, like water mix, you know, some of, there's some that you do like more waffle mix with the egg and stuff like that. And I actually do have a waffle iron, but I haven't used it for a while. But like pancakes is just so easy to make. And I love pancakes because they absorb syrup really well.
00:29:28
Speaker
But there's also a lot of things you can do with pancakes. I would say not nearly as robust as a grilled cheese because that's just the very loose structure of food. Yes. But pancake, I've done a lot of stuff with extracts and pancakes. Awesome. So can you say a little bit of what you mean with that? I think I know what you mean because I was going to say something about it. Yeah. So I'll put an orange extract or something like that to add a little flavor.
00:29:56
Speaker
One thing that I did do that was a lot of fun, and this is near blasphemy, but I did pancakes without syrup because I put orange, banana, and coconut extract into the batter and then did like ready whip and crushed pineapple, like pina colada pancakes.
00:30:17
Speaker
Cause I was thinking we, we often make, um, we make a lot more waffles here, but usually we make them with a, uh, you know, with a box mix also. And the biggest thing that we talk about is like, how easy to just, we use a little bit of like vanilla extract into our box mix. And just that usually can make it taste way better than, than thinking that it came from just say a box or just a mix. Like it's, it's, it's being able to take something once again. Yes, this is not scalable, like grilled cheeses in a lot of ways.
00:30:45
Speaker
And the reason I asked you at the beginning is because pancakes is another one that there is, you know, there is actually structurally tons of ways to make these from scratch. And that's what I want to kind of get into, or just what you were thinking. Well, and another thing that I've done with this too, that this is a recent touch, because actually this was going back to waffles, because there was a waffle mix for a while that needed some oil for it. So I was trying to figure out what oil to get for these, this waffle mix. And so I ultimately found walnut oil.
00:31:16
Speaker
which A, adds walnut flavor, like this nice earthy walnut flavor to the waffles, but then I discovered I can also use that with pancakes and not put it in the pancakes, but actually put just a little bit on the pan when I put the batter in.
00:31:31
Speaker
Yeah, because and like I used to do this with butter and you get a nice little crisp with butter, but I really like the oil because you get a more of a deeper fried crisp, but especially just a little bit of walnut oil puts that extra little flavor on the one side. And usually then I'll just let the other side not do that because that's a lot of work to put more oil on to flip the pancake onto it. So with this, where would you put that?
00:31:57
Speaker
I don't know, this one I didn't think about at all. Because I love pancakes. I think there's some argument for why because that's. But maybe the way I do it, because like I am literally frying my pancakes and oil, not a lot, but a little bit of oil in there. So there might be some black maybe.
00:32:18
Speaker
Yeah, I actually think that yeah, I think for a lot of kind of what I actually was thinking here with that description of your piña colada that this could be kind of a red.
00:32:29
Speaker
OK, see, I was thinking more blue because that sounds super blue to be like, no, no, I'm not adding fruit to my thing. I'm going to have a chemist turn into a thing. And then I'm going to put that in my stuff. I was thinking more just not the extract piece, but the description of your piña colada one. That's right. The melding of like all of those kind of different flavors, even if you did put some crushed real ones on top with whipped cream. I mean, you it's what tastes best.
00:32:57
Speaker
Kind of that you might not just think about that, you know, like that's true. So I think this is this is this actually, to me, I was trying to think of the where we're going to get read in as a good conveyance for syrup. Pancakes might be pretty red, right? Because it is about kind of being able to. Have this thing that might be sickly sweet to cut through that a little bit, but it's really about getting that flavor no matter if it wouldn't necessarily make sense that you need to have like a pancake on bottom.
00:33:28
Speaker
Okay, so my second one that I am going to talk about is actually something that I am cooking for tomorrow. And that is the traditional St. Patty's Day meal of corned beef and cabbage. So I love cooking corned beef and cabbage, as you could tell.
00:33:46
Speaker
My flavor palette may not seem sophisticated as it comes right now. It's very British and continues to be. But I love this because it goes back to that idea of the crock pot. But I'm going to be bringing something else in and this is kind of where you can kind of take something that
00:34:02
Speaker
Yes, you can make the crock pot like classic set it and forget it type of thing. But crock pots are really just good for slow cooking. I mean, I could do this in a Dutch oven on the stove all day long also. But it's really for a corned beef, it is about that long
Personal Cooking Philosophies
00:34:17
Speaker
cook period at a low temperature, you don't want to overcook the meat, and you want it to fall apart. And the reason that this is important when you come to a corned beef and something like a corned beef and cabbage is
00:34:30
Speaker
I really like corned beef and cabbage with different vegetables in it. You do not want to add all of those vegetables in at the beginning of the day at the same time. This is true of a stew also. So it's one of those things that you can think of. You can make a stew. It's going to be fine if you kind of in the wintertime, you just want to leave it all day. But if I'm making corned beef and cabbage, I want to be home because I have a schedule of when I want ingredients going into the crock pot. OK.
00:34:59
Speaker
So, you know, I don't want my potatoes to be just soggy mush, but they're going to need more time than an onion is. Or carrots, per se. And the cabbage, for instance, goes in very, very late in the thing. You don't want it. If you let cabbage sit all day long, it's going to not be good.
00:35:19
Speaker
And then the other thing is that we, being that it is, even when I don't make this for St. Patty's Day, I do make it with beer. And I love that kind of cooking with stout. We even, our wedding cake actually was a stout cake. And that's one of the things that we've been looking to make during this kind of social isolation.
00:35:38
Speaker
Because we're like looking for what we can make around the house. It's like, wow, we might have a beer. What can we do with a beer? And I think that for us, it's like, oh, let's cook with it. And I like that about kind of cakes and just corned beef. And it's like replacing other liquids with just beer for flavor.
00:35:57
Speaker
So, corned beef and cabbage to me is a clear example. Where it fits in, you know, I think that it's green. I mean, it's very much about the natural ingredients. I guess even the beer itself is actually natural. It is lots of pieces together. There could be some blue, but it's not the manufactured for this as much.
00:36:17
Speaker
No, but maybe there's a little blue methodology and you have specific times to put the specific thing, but it's weird because you're using maybe blue methodology to achieve a green end. Yes. I will say that that is where I'm lying over that one. We've never approached this before and I don't think we should now, but
00:36:43
Speaker
Let's do it now with absolutely no planning. No, with no planning at all. That's our wheelhouse. This is goblins. We're very red in our methodology to record a podcast.
00:36:55
Speaker
I mean, literally, we didn't even schedule the time for this. We're just like, hey, we're both home. Do you want to record right now? And then we'll be recording. But yeah, so is there a difference in color pie philosophy between a gold combination and a hybrid combination that we can translate into our food color pie discussions?
00:37:13
Speaker
Oh, there is. There has to be. We need to think about that. So let's move on to the next move. I've got nothing more to say about that. My brain is already jumping. Okay. So I'm going to go to ramen. Go ahead. Just take it. Otherwise I'm going to be down a rabbit hole.
00:37:31
Speaker
Yeah, so and when I say ramen in when you're in the US, most people think of the instant ramen, like little marochon packs. That's not what I'm talking about. Exactly. I'm talking about like a full ramen soup like
00:37:45
Speaker
Japan, like this is what they do. No, in fairness, I do start with the, you know, 49 cent Maruchan pack because that's where I get my noodles. But this is a thing I did a number of years ago. And actually, I haven't really been back to it. This is like probably the bluest I've ever been when I cooked. I decided because I watch a lot of anime that I was going to make ramen.
00:38:08
Speaker
I wasn't going to look at recipes because, you know, those are other people's versions. I wanted to just make my own version of this type of soup dish. Wait a second. I'm just interrupted right off the bat. Oh, yes. Go for it. This is the most blue you've ever been. And you literally just described red. Look at blue methodologies. So this is very, is it cooking? This particular... Well, I'll get to where the blue happened. Okay. Okay. It started very red.
00:38:36
Speaker
I continued very red, but there's some blue in there. So what I did, and I just started, I bought different, I'm like, okay, so I want a vegetable element, a meat element, and a broth element. And so over the course of months, I made several different versions of this, tinkering with it multiple times, putting spices into the broth. I did a beef broth, or I think I started with chicken, so like fry a chicken breast, do chicken broth.
00:39:02
Speaker
Start with a couple different vegetables like leeks and zucchini. I think is where I started Then I tried a beef version with beef broth Portobello mushrooms and I can't remember what the other vegetable I did beef broth with scallops one time I did some scallops fried very very short like 15 seconds in a little bit of hoisin sauce and
00:39:25
Speaker
was really good. And so that is where I think the blue element was, where I tinkered with and I iterated on it multiple times. I talked to my dad about this because he cooked in restaurants for 20 plus years. One of his pieces of advice too was I was talking to him about some of the spices I put in the broth, some garlic and some ginger and things. And he said, you should take those spices and actually put them with the noodles because I did a quick fry of the noodles before I put them in the broth.
00:39:53
Speaker
He said, because by doing that, then I'm putting the flavor of the spice into the noodle, as opposed to putting it in the broth where it sort of dissipates a little bit. And so especially a thing like this, you tend to eat the noodles on its own elements kind of separately.
00:40:10
Speaker
I will give you blue. I'm just going to let you know. I wanted to follow up because I'm like, so did I justify blue? You justified blue. And I liked what you highlighted here because we're going to be moving into our actionable advice at some point. But this is a time to highlight it because you mentioned starting with the base noodles. And I think that this is one thing for people to be thinking about if they want to just
00:40:35
Speaker
All of your examples to me really read, and I think this is going to get into your philosophy for cooking. There are things that can be done at home pretty simply, not necessarily too expensively. You don't necessarily have to have a lot of things on hand for them if you have a base, but it's also how you can take it just
00:40:53
Speaker
what you have and make it better than typical ramen that you would get in the store for 49 cents a pack. But you can use that as your base to actually make something with developed slaver. And it's I just love that fact, because it's talking about things that people may be able to, if you're not comfortable with, say, finding your own noodles or how you're going to cook them, you know, you can make them based on basically the recipe on the package. And you're just going to do other things to them.
00:41:19
Speaker
to still make it a lot better than just what you buy in the store, the cheap. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there was a time when I used to just buy the like the cheap freezer meals, microwave them for like a minute or two, just to defrost them a little, throw them on a pan, put some spices in it. Yeah.
00:41:36
Speaker
Yeah, that there was a time when that was what I had money for. So that's that's how I did cooking. I'm actually loving the fact that like the way these lists are going because we're going to come back to me and I'm going to be I actually saved my like.
00:41:51
Speaker
So for the last I saved making homemade pasta. I mean, we cheat. And by cheat, I mean, modern conveniences on old classics. So we have a KitchenAid stand mixer that has an attachment to it that rolls the pasta. So we don't have to like,
00:42:12
Speaker
hand roll the pasta or even roll it through like a ravioli sheet roller that you have to do by hand and keep rolling it through. We can roll it through a machine. But making pasta from scratch is actually something that we just started doing in the last couple of years. We don't do it all the time.
00:42:29
Speaker
It's one of those things that this is an example of, like, I like to do it. We eat pasta. I mean, pasta is a staple. Once again, I think this talks a little bit about the difference that we've seen from a lot of these categories, you know, pancakes, box versus not. I don't make pasta every single time we make pasta. That just does not happen. However, we plan it and it's learning about what it took to make pasta has been an experiment for us.
00:42:59
Speaker
And I think that it spoke to the iteration piece to it is that, you know, we made it kind of we found, I think it's a Thomas Keller recipe. It's a famous like, usually like six egg yolks. And my favorite kitchen store, kitchen window in Minneapolis was having one of their big bonanzas. They have these like giant like cooking demos that they go that and they show you all of the machines that you can buy in the store. And
00:43:26
Speaker
have recipe cards that you can pick up for them. And one of those was for this pasta recipe. So we made it just with flour, eggs, what we had, whatever was on there, oil, made it and discovered through learning that like, we actually want a different type of flour. There's what's called type O flour. And it is a type O flour is a flour that leads to more elasticity.
00:43:53
Speaker
in it. So it'll be like double O or O flower. They're Italian milled flowers that's used for pasta making. And part of that is because it's basically how finely ground it is. There's all this stuff to it that's really kind of a scientific method to it. That once again, though, it just allows for a lot more elasticity. So you can stretch that a lot more, which is what you want. We found especially when we wanted to make ravioli, because our first batch of ravioli wouldn't really seal and opened up while it was cooking.
00:44:21
Speaker
recently we redid it now that we're using this other flower and we made ravioli that's sealed perfectly all the way around got a good amount of filling in it and I mean it was just so like when we make this stuff especially with pasta each time it's kind of that we learn something from how we made it before
00:44:41
Speaker
Yeah. That's something funny about that. What? So my dad learned how to make pasta from kitchen window. Oh, that's funny. And he walked me through the process. I did it just once real quick. So I couldn't recreate it on my own. Yeah. But still, like that was fun. We did like homemade pasta made lasagna for my sister's birthday last night.
00:45:01
Speaker
It's like, it's like we've never done the whole like, you can like make your, your flower in the middle and make a spot and then pour your egg yolks in and do the whole thing by hand. Like, no, we're using the modern conveniences. Like this pulse is very, very well in a food processor.
00:45:16
Speaker
we actually once again speaking of my we're revealing a lot because with our ricer we asked for a one year I asked for a food processor for Christmas because the one we had didn't hold a full recipe so we had to like split it and it didn't work well for making the pasta balls so like we like we need a bigger food processor specifically we use it for other things I mean it's but it was kind of one of those like I want to make pasta more this makes it more convenient yeah
00:45:44
Speaker
But but making the pasta part of that goes into then what I if when I'm planning this then is making our own filling for ravioli or and our own tomato sauce like from scratch. So this is just kind of that it's it's a meal that we eat all week long or I mean anytime it's it's something that's very comfort food to me. I mean it's it.
00:46:05
Speaker
We can make spaghetti we throw some meat and we add some extra spices to a can jar are some of our amazing pansy spices are we sponsored by them cuz we should be. How do we get that how do we get on that one i don't know. Hey pansy would you like the sponsor of magic the gathering podcast right across from kitchen window.
00:46:26
Speaker
Oh, they are. Yeah, right. So but you know, we'll add some of their Italian seasoning, which is just very simple, good Italian seasoning and add it to a jar of sauce that works. But if I'm going to be able to like, like, saute and break down tomatoes and let them sit for a while and do that with my pasta that I'm making and, you know, it just. There is a big difference between homemade pasta and pasta. I don't need it all the time. I like both. Yeah.
00:46:56
Speaker
And if I have the time, I really want to make it. I love it. It's fun. Where are you putting the color pie on that one? Where am I putting the color pie? I mean, it's Simic-ish or green blue. And actually, I do think this could be Simic from a guild and not just a...
00:47:15
Speaker
blue-green color, but we're not getting into that today either, because I almost was about to go there. It's the natural ingredients. It is something that I am using modern technology maybe to put it together, which is maybe where the blue comes in. But it's the iteration piece that each time we make this, we kind of are learning from mistakes that we've made in the past. And kind of this is one that I would say, compared to some of the stuff I'm going to talk about at the very end with our styles,
00:47:45
Speaker
I do follow recipes pretty closely for at least making the base of the noodles, because I don't know what to talk about. Like, okay, if I vary the flour a little bit, what's going to happen? Or if I, you know, the base part, the noodle, I know I have a recipe that works. Yeah. Yeah. I think that part is a little more blue, too, because that's one of those things where there's a lot of science behind it. And it's like, if there's too much of this ingredient, the thing doesn't hold together. If there's not enough of that ingredient, you know, whatever,
00:48:15
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. It brings in kind of to the like the baking versus cooking, which we did not neither of us chose a baked, but really, I know. No, no, I don't really bake. See, okay. And I was going to choose at least one baked one. But I would just kind of throw out that baking is fairly blue. And now it's blue X, I would say it's almost always going to be blue. Yeah. And that is because with the chemistry behind it,
00:48:41
Speaker
Yes you can very stuff but you it's very hard to just go off the cuff yes like be able to add in some your pancake example i can add in some extracts and flavors. Yeah but i'm not gonna play around with the mix of you know right whatever things are in there the various powder things that they get right in the box that i don't have to worry about.
00:49:04
Speaker
Yeah. So do you, in order to like segue into talking about our own things, you want, you want a fun little story about how I learned how to make mac and cheese from my dad? Yes. Okay. So boxed, boxed macaroni and cheese. That was, that was up there. That was the triumvirate for me was mac and cheese, scrambled eggs, grilled cheese. Yeah. So when, in your younger days, in my younger days. So when he was teaching me how to make, how to make, you know, craft macaroni and cheese out of a box. Do you know how much milk you put in it?
00:49:34
Speaker
Yes, three tablespoons. No, the correct answer is two glugs. Because you take the gallon thing of milk, you take app off and you turn it and when it goes glug, glug, you've poured enough milk into the macaroni and cheese. And that is what I learned from my dad. Okay.
00:49:56
Speaker
It's funny that you mention this because as we're going to be moving in, my grandmother is, my English grandmother, the one who kind of taught me to make shepherd's pie. And I did some cooking with her when I was a kid. At one point in my life, I was way more just solid blue than I am now, I would say. I mean, I really, even as a kid, I was, I mean, I guess it was like Azorius because I was like,
00:50:19
Speaker
white, I was like rule following and wanting ingredients and wanting a recipe. And so I'm like meeting with my grandmother and we're like, I'm getting out my recipe cards, I'm going to write down these like family recipes. And she starts pulling out the, well, you need a pinch of this, you need a dash of this. Like, what does that mean? How much do I need? Yeah. And that's because that is where I learned that from my dad, like very,
00:50:47
Speaker
I don't want to be bothered with the exact ingredients like, oh, I was doing some online school thing last year, one of the assignments I had to write out a recipe for something. Remember when we were talking about that? I tried to get this recipe for my dad. When you get a recipe for my dad, and he's learned some baking, he's done some other things, so he can follow a recipe.
00:51:11
Speaker
And he can give you a measured out recipe if he needs to. But when you're talking like that, I want to make Mexican lasagna. Yeah. He's going to give you a list of ingredients and that's what you're going to get. Yeah. And so because it's not perfect, you don't need exactly this much ground beef and this much rice. It's especially something like Mexican lasagna, which is exactly what it sounds like. It's lasagna structure with like flour tortillas and ground beef. It's a thing that my dad used to make because he worked at a
00:51:38
Speaker
Mexican restaurant around here that would do that for lunch. And literally, it was how do we use up these ingredients? We put them all together. And so growing up, there was a lot of recipes that were like that. And that has influenced my cooking too. A lot of what I cook is simply what do I have
00:51:57
Speaker
And now I put this together. You are so prepared right now for for for us being at home. I mean, yeah, like this is kind of a like I don't want to shop very often. So what's still in the house? Yes. And and for you know, for me, a lot of it too is what are things that are going to keep because I am not going to use a large amount of it myself. And so if I need six different vegetables, I'm probably not going to make that recipe.
00:52:26
Speaker
because I'm not going to measure out a specific amount of six different things and try to keep these things all good for however long. Yeah. That's just not going to work for me. So I want something that I, things I can kind of keep in the cupboard that keep for a while or something that like take an onion where I can like, I'm taking half of an onion and cooking this in one thing. The other half I can use in the next few days and that's fine. So like one or two fresh ingredients. I think this is really kind of smart for us to be thinking about for people.
00:52:55
Speaker
out there right now that maybe either cooking more for themselves and getting fed up or tired if they're using the same kind of a boxed meal or if they're making the same kind of a thing and they did but haven't really done cooking before is realizing just
00:53:10
Speaker
spices, even just, you know, I would say that 99 cent store spices, you're still going to be getting so much more flavor and just experimenting because you have time in some way. I've been experimenting. Well, we didn't want to go too deep, but like crock pot chili is a thing that I do a lot. And that I've been experimenting with spices a lot. So I've been playing around with like oncho pepper and actually smoked paprika.
00:53:37
Speaker
I've been using those two instead of chili powder lately and get different flavors in there, especially when it sits and cooks for like 12 hours or however long. Those are my favorite crock pot meals are the ones that you can just put, leave cooking in the morning, come home from work and you're ready to have dinner. It is very nice. And the entire apartment smells like chili. That's why I love that particular one.
00:54:05
Speaker
So anyway, I think to me that really gets to I tend to be a little more red. I'm looking for that flavor. I'm not looking to have a lot of ingredients. I don't know. There's definitely some red white probably fits. There's definitely some white element. I want things that are quick and easy. Yep. And consistent.
00:54:28
Speaker
Yeah, flavors to them. But it's you know how to make a grilled cheese sandwich. You have. Yeah. Yeah. And there's there's definitely some blue methodology to some of the things I've done. But I think by and large, it's probably red, white is where I sit. So I am going to say that I was thinking about this earlier today. I tend to now that I am older,
00:54:50
Speaker
I have a green flair, which is the hardest thing for me to admit on this show right now. This is this is so uncomfortable. I think this happened when we did the sauce episode, too. Yeah, very uncomfortable because I had to admit to it because it really is that there is that like when I'm describing Shepherd's pie, it is earthy like that is an earthy meal and it has that.
00:55:12
Speaker
However, I think my approach to cooking is, yes, I am using more natural ingredients, but I do think that I have kind of a blue, red approach. And my red approach comes in, as I was talking about, and you were mentioning with your dad, I if I'm not baking, I don't have set amounts usually.
00:55:31
Speaker
I will look up a recipe. I will use a recipe and that's where my blue comes in. I like to have a recipe. I like to have somewhere to start. I do like kind of the knowledge piece of how I'm putting things together. I want to understand it. Like Alton Brown is probably, I had to pick one culinary person. It's Alton Brown, right? You know, like he's going to be able to tell you how to even deviate. He did a great episode on just chocolate chip cookies,
00:55:55
Speaker
just varying each ingredient and what the differences are. So, okay, if you use butter versus oil, or, you know, if you, you know, like the flour, if you vary the baking soda, just like how you can get different style of chocolate chip cookies, because chocolate chip cookies sound white in some ways, you know, chocolate chip cookies, that's what I would think. But do you want them chewy or crunchy? Do you want them tall or do you want them flat? I mean, so I love Alton Brown for that to talk about the science behind baking and the science behind cooking in general.
00:56:26
Speaker
And I also like to just kind of like throw things in and we'll also be like, well, I wonder what would happen if we used cardamom in this, you know, like into this thing, like, well, that's something that we can vary, put a little spice in, you know, it, we know kind of what it pairs well with. But I think that is my piece that maybe is just, um, it's the tasting the food as you go and just being willing to like adjust and just, but you're not clearly measuring your spices out and stuff like that.
00:56:54
Speaker
And I think that that is, but I do feel like even that is kind of like, it's tasting food to make it better is there's, there's, there's a green element. Yeah. This is the most uncomfortable I've ever been on a cooking on us talking about the color pie. Yeah. Well, you know, you just gotta, gotta embrace it. You admitted it. You can talk about it. That's an important step.
00:57:23
Speaker
And that's our show for today. You can find the host on Twitter. HobbsQ can be found at HobbsQ, and Alex Newman can be found at Mel Underscore. Send any questions, comments, thoughts, hopes, and dreams to at goblinlordpod on Twitter, or email us at goblinlordpodcast at gmail.com. If you want to support your friendly neighborhood gobsmas, the task can be found at patreon.com slash goblinlordpod.
00:57:48
Speaker
Opening and closing music by Vindergarten, who can be found on Twitter at Vindergarten, or online at vindergarten.bandcamp.com. Logo art by Steve Raffaele, who can be found on Twitter at Steve Raffaele. Goblin Lore is proud to be presented by Hipsters of the Coast as part of their growing Vorthos content, as well as magic content of all kinds. Check them out on Twitter at hipstersmtg, or online at hipstersofthecoast.com.
00:58:18
Speaker
Thank you all for listening, and remember, goblins, like snowflakes, are only dangerous in numbers.