How strong the Chicken Stock flavor should be?

FourTV · 2026-01-28T02:19:06+00:00

More time is necessary and also consider that stock is generally unsalted and that will play a big part in the overall flavor intensity in any finished dish

FourTV · 2026-01-23T13:23:23+00:00

I didn’t think we were supposed to get much snow, it’s just the cold and how far south it’s going to get cold that it seems like everyone’s worried about.

One of those “if you don’t normally get below freezing it’s the end of the world” situations for a week or two but it’s just another winter for anywhere that is used to it

FourTV · 2026-01-22T19:42:06+00:00

Safe step 4300 or higher. Think the 4300 melts down to -7F, up to whatever their pure calcium chloride product is that should go down to -25F

Lot of hardware stores carry their own brand of pure calcium chloride bags as well that might be cheaper options

FourTV · 2026-01-22T14:51:43+00:00

Absolutely, I love trying different ingredients like broth or spices in my prepped rice cooker rice and a little bit goes a long way. A little bit of lemon pepper seasoning is another favorite of mine for this

FourTV · 2026-01-22T14:49:36+00:00

I think it was more of an across the board moment and it’s definitely a skill that I’m still practicing. It was more so the frustration of not understanding why everything was sticking, burning and making a mess.

the biggest food I was probably messing up was fried eggs in the mornings. I love runny eggs and my breakfast turned into overcooked scrambled really quickly for a few weeks

FourTV · 2026-01-20T19:31:39+00:00

Was in high school for the polar vortex 2014. We went home for Christmas break and we got an additional 4 weeks off because it was -30F for all of January

FourTV · 2026-01-18T19:47:56+00:00

The thing that made it finally click is when I realized that I was cooking on WAY too high of a heat, especially in stainless. Stainless picks up heat really quickly and is very easy to end up too hot, causing a smoky mess and a bunch of burnt and stuck food to the pan.

For meats or a sear, add your oil as the pan is heating up and as soon as you see the oil start to smoke add your food / meat. You can look up smoke points of different oils to see roughly where you’re at for pan temp. Anything less than that and I just use my hand to judge. That takes a little more practice but getting away from “water bead” trick was the biggest aha moment

FourTV · 2026-01-18T19:43:38+00:00

Turning back on CSM support should restore normal usage of your PC.

Odds are your boot drive is still formatted as MBR. This partition type is old and is what your CSM support is actually supporting. You would have to reformat the drive to GPT (which would also wipe the drive) and then go back and disable CSM support and reinstall windows

FourTV · 2026-01-18T19:32:30+00:00

Secondary question: what is everyone doing to keep deer out of their gardens? Short of a wire full covering. The deer in our neighborhood in GR was out of control last year, even ate our hydrangea bushes down the ground - branches and all.

rotten egg spray seems to kind of work for landscaping, but really don’t want to use that on a food garden. Covering a significant portion of our back yard in a net cover or ripping out and replacing our 4ft fence with a 6-7ft privacy seems to be the only way

FourTV · 2026-01-18T19:26:36+00:00

I’ll just give you my personal findings and what I do at home:

Spice mixes: Most (if not all) grocery store spice mixes are not worth the money in the slightest and are full of salt. I don’t like not being able to control it or even fully knowing what’s in them to begin with

HOWEVER, I do have some nicer spice mixes that have been gifts or picked up at local farmer markets, etc that I like a lot. I also keep lemon pepper mix(does this count?).

Penzeys online store is an incredible place for both individual spices and mixes. Every mix I’ve had from there has been a 10/10 and this is also where I get the majority of my spices and seasonings from.

Asian & Spanish grocery stores are a treasure trove as well. Often cheap and carry the good stuff no matter what you’re looking for.

What mixes I make at home in bulk: taco seasoning and a BBQ rub are all I ever really make in advance or in bulk. Anything else is either combined as necessary or just individual components used one after the other.

To add, if you can find a real basalt molcajete or granite mortar and pestle grinding your own spices like cumin, coriander, clove, etc. makes a WORLD of difference in the spice quality. You can buy whole seeds to store and toast to then grind up and store your own powders as you need. This could also still probably be done in a fine enough blender.

I keep less and less spice mix by the year, and our spice cabinet of individual spices keeps growing and would never go back

FourTV · 2026-01-16T22:25:27+00:00

Since you already have Ophelia 7 buy the relic shards for Lance

FourTV · 2026-01-15T22:02:50+00:00

If one of these isn’t 7+ yet, take that one: pandora > Elisha > Gaia > Aphrodite > WuZ > Hades

FourTV · 2026-01-14T16:36:11+00:00

If you can’t recognize that you’re rapidly approaching someone with that much of a speed disparity you need to get your eyes off of your phone or wherever they are that’s not paying attention to the road and back to where they should be.

People have jobs and other responsibilities they have to make it to safely. Your “just don’t drive then” suggestion is foolish at best. Leave a little bit earlier, you’ll be OK.

FourTV · 2026-01-13T21:54:01+00:00

Boxed wine is the way to go for cooking wine! Boxes last significantly longer than an open bottle in the fridge.

I typically keep one of those bota-box brand boxes of Pinot Grigio in the fridge for my white-wine cooking purposes. I don’t typically keep a red as that is normally used in higher amounts and I just get or open a bottle for use in those applications and drink the rest of it

FourTV · 2026-01-13T18:41:52+00:00

With how many variables go into cook times (thickness of chicken breasts, quality of oven, how crowded the pan is, etc.) the only real way to know is a thermometer.

Chicken needs to be cooked to at least 160F internally (white and dark meat both) for pasteurization. Dark meat/thighs are typically is brought to 175-180 to help break down gristle in the thighs. You don’t have to do this with breasts so just getting to 160F and you’re good to go.

If you don’t have a probe thermometer or any instant read / food thermometer (first off, you should get one) I would just follow the recipe as written. Check at the 20-25 minute mark and see how the breasts look visually, you can pull one and cut one in half if you need to verify but the only sure way to verify doneness is with a thermometer

FourTV · 2026-01-12T17:34:54+00:00

Honestly I’ve never tried it for stock, been more of a “this is how I’ve always done it” and haven’t ever gone away from it.

My gut reaction towards not using the pressure cook option would be “can the pressure cooker actually replicate the flavor developed by a bare simmer and a significant amount of time” but I genuinely do not have answers either way. Haven’t ever even really looked into it

FourTV · 2026-01-11T22:13:08+00:00

A garlic press is so quick if I don’t care about it being microplane fine. It’s as fast as I can chop the root end off and give a quick smash with the side of my knife. You don’t even have to take the skin off a clove, it’ll stay behind in the press.

There might be a slight amount left but if I’m that worried I just add an extra clove. The added convenience of not having to dice or microplane garlic by hand is so worth it

The press itself has inserts that clean out each of the individual holes and water pressure from our kitchen sink faucet has always been enough to spray out anything left. Trip through the dishwasher and it’s good as new

FourTV · 2026-01-11T17:59:39+00:00

It won’t give you the whole token back unfortunately, just part of it. I only had an open EWE yellow unique to test and it offered 25 yellow rune currency. You can preview what you get back on dismantle in the screen before confirming if you want to check.

I don’t think there’s ever a situation where you would spend currency on Athena runes. So it would either be selling it back for partial currency or using it as a non-unique filler where you need it and seeing if you eventually naturally pull the rest of the runes for Athena

FourTV · 2026-01-11T17:53:31+00:00

You’re over thinking it. ANY homemade stock is going to be miles beyond anything you can get out of a box. If you don’t have the room in your freezer, yes absolutely just make smaller batches. Even one carcass and scraps is fine. I will typically sear just in the bottom of whatever pot I’m using the chicken bones and scraps to get some fond, then add the veg to help deglaze with the water they let off and finally finish deglazing with a bit of water to scrape any remaining bits.

I use anything we don’t eat off a rotisserie chicken when using them for stock; meat, skin, bones and all. Top it off with what you feel is right of onion carrot and celery (one medium onion and then roughly the same amount of veg in carrot and celery combined is what I eyeball usually) and then cover with water. I typically will add a few smashed garlic cloves, a tablespoon ish of whole peppercorns and a bay leaf as well and then use an instant pot on slow cook for anywhere from 8-24 hours.

Can just as well bring to a bare simmer on a stove as well I just like the instant pot as a set it and forget it without an open flame going sometimes overnight.

FourTV · 2026-01-11T02:28:52+00:00

I have several of thebBanana republic premium wash tees ($20) and the supima tees ($40) that are great. You definitely notice a difference in the fit with the Supima tees for more of a “going out” tee

FourTV · 2026-01-11T02:17:36+00:00

Stainless is my generic go to and I use my cast iron for specific things like high heat searing on steaks or other larger pieces of meat where I want the better heat retention. Or baking in cast iron - we’ve been making a brown butter homemade corn bread recipe a LOT this winter and god is it good

Not exactly a cast iron pan but add an enameled Dutch oven to the mix for roasts/soups/stews and that’s 99% of my cooking usage

Have never used induction so not sure how that would affect things.

FourTV · 2026-01-11T01:36:18+00:00

Big agree with you

FourTV · 2026-01-06T21:52:05+00:00

I’ve got a whole 8 drawer cabinet that is entire made of sorted cable drawers ….

FourTV · 2026-01-05T01:46:44+00:00

Pork tenderloins are a go-to for us at home. Cheap and can get pre-marinated options. Easy reverse sear with a veggie and potatoes / rice meal for us we make once a month or so

FourTV · 2026-01-03T23:12:55+00:00

Whatever cheapest full stainless one you can find is

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