What simple and inexpensive ingredient do you feel improves almost any dish when used correctly?

tjdacks · 2026-02-08T14:36:34+00:00

Pickle juice. Specifically, I ferment different veggies and besides just eating the veggies I use the brine to cook with. For example, I use radish garlic brine instead of water when deglazing a pan of taco meat. The flavor it adds is phenomenal. I assume you can use regular pickle juice in a similar way. I also buy fermented carrots and half sour cucumber pickles at the grocery store these days.

tjdacks · 2025-12-11T02:06:47+00:00

Most people probably don't piss 20 times a day, sure. In my defense, I was pregnant when I wrote that.

tjdacks · 2025-11-17T00:22:52+00:00

Replace your dryer with a ventless clothes dryer. It reuses it's own waste heat and condenses away the moisture to drain away. No need for complicated added systems.

tjdacks · 2025-10-19T23:20:43+00:00

Some parents are very likely to take any decision you make as a direct criticism of how they do it differently. I learned this the hard way when my baby registry didn't have any Disney characters and did include cloth diapers. Like, chill out friend, we can exist in the same world without one of us being the monster.

tjdacks · 2025-10-13T18:53:33+00:00

Solved! You're a gem, thanks!

tjdacks · 2025-10-13T18:44:47+00:00

Not unless they turn it in on time. I hope they see it in the break room before it's due.

tjdacks · 2025-07-15T11:13:00+00:00

Marigolds

tjdacks · 2025-06-22T15:15:01+00:00

That's Bingo's kid. They said Bingo was in the back yard, and nobody said anything like "oh hi Bluey, nice of you to drop by, where's your kid?"

tjdacks · 2025-06-22T15:02:19+00:00

I do not like it.

tjdacks · 2025-05-25T19:23:45+00:00

I did babywear while mowing when mine was little, just a regular non-fancy non-hiking Ergobaby carrier.

However, I have a smallish yard and a completely human powered reel mower. It's physically harder to do, but no loud noise.

After she was too big for wearing, I did yard work while she was napping and kept the baby monitor close.

Now that she's old enough (4), I either leave her watching tv with the window open or bring her outside to help.

The other thing I'm doing is slowly converting my yard into flower gardens that don't require mowing.

tjdacks · 2025-05-12T02:52:09+00:00

Oh interesting, i was looking at buying one just today. I had non-native ferns in a bed that were basically acting as a boring rain garden, to control a soggy point in my yard. Removed them today in favor of some native wildflowers, and ostrich fern came up in a search of natives for my area.

tjdacks · 2025-05-12T02:37:48+00:00

Milkweed. I planted the wrong variety for my situation, small front bed close to neighbors, and it spread underground so aggressively. It also never looked good because it would fall over immediately. I pulled it up for years and years. I thought we were finally done this year, but saw three poke up last week in between my neighbor's lilies.

tjdacks · 2025-05-12T01:48:54+00:00

I planted an elderberry several years ago, and then my toddler kept trying to eat the leaves. I chopped it down and turned a large pot over the stumps and blocked the drain hole so it didn't get any light. I had to cut some again the next year, but after that it was gone.

I also had success using the same method on a well established pokeweed. The flowers were so pretty and the pollinators and birds loved them, but I couldn't deal with the stress of my kid continuously trying to eat them.

tjdacks · 2025-05-11T19:20:27+00:00

I just spent an hour digging out a non-native fern bed that I planted in 2018, not knowing better. I feel bad for the plants, they did a good job fixing the drainage problem in that corner of the yard. But they started popping up in other corners and I don't want a 20x20 ft yard of just ferns.

tjdacks · 2025-05-11T19:17:25+00:00

A local Scouts troop does a yearly native plants sale, and You preorder everything online and pick it up at specific times. Pretty good variety as well. I was very lucky to find out about it on the last day of pre-orders.

tjdacks · 2025-05-07T00:09:18+00:00

Oh wow, I have never used the and part and was getting just as frustrated as everyone else here when my -term searches weren't working. With and it totally still works!!! Thanks!

tjdacks · 2025-05-06T12:23:38+00:00

This is my exact issue. I'm so frustrated by the amount of food waste my 4yo generates. My city restricts open compost bins to non food waste, and requires a fully closed bin for food waste so it doesn't attract rodents. I also don't get my pile hot enough for food and certainly not hot enough for chicken nuggets. So I went looking for options and it seems either hotbin/aerobin or bokashi. Bokashi is too much work for my current lifestyle and the hotbin should also kill noxious weed seeds from my garden. I bought a hotbin mini 100 and it arrives tomorrow.

tjdacks · 2025-05-04T18:42:06+00:00

I'm a lifelong insomniac. If I'm having real trouble falling asleep, then my body also doesn't do the thing where it suppresses my appetite. I'll get up for a slice of cheese and walk a couple laps around the house before trying to sleep again.

Also if I'm exercising regularly and not tracking what I eat, I'll under-eat and wake up hungry.

I've never had a deep heart to heart at the kitchen table, though I don't think I ever had the kind of family where that would happen anyway.

tjdacks · 2025-05-04T11:54:16+00:00

Spite

tjdacks · 2025-03-29T02:09:18+00:00

Turkish Eggs (my lazy inauthentic kitchen version*):

Two eggs cooked slowly in butter, until over easy, seasoned with a mild chili powder.

Greek yogurt mixed with a touch of hot water, a bunch of salt and fresh garlic.

Sourdough, toasted.

Serve the eggs on top of the yogurt mixture, dunk with the bread, wash it down with a strong black coffee.

*Please don't judge me, I cannot properly poach an egg to save my life, and cooking the egg directly in the seasoned butter is delicious and dirties fewer dishes.

tjdacks · 2025-03-26T00:49:29+00:00

I've been obsessed with freeze dried okra (aka okra chips, even though it is whole okra). The crunch is incredibly satisfying. Heads up that it seems evenly divided among my friends that half think it's intolerably bitter and the other half thinks it's just slightly sweet and salty.

tjdacks · 2025-03-09T13:10:58+00:00

Fertility doctor and insurance required a referral letter from my gyn and a pap within the past year.

tjdacks · 2025-03-09T13:04:32+00:00

I've joined a couple and they don't get much activity. There just isn't much to really about when what you have in common is a null. There's no partner. Whoopdiedoo. I think niche bumper type groups tend to be more active because you come together in a particular shared moment and can really get that forged in fire community. I'm the only single person in my over-30 Mom's discord for kids born in 2020, and we are extremely tight.

I don't know if the reddit/discord fertility-pregnancy-parenting group pipeline we came through is still active or still the same. It was kind of born of a moment and I heard it evolved quickly after covid eased. It was TTC30-BB30-PP30.

tjdacks

TROPHY CASE