Food you make better than the pros

—>“Best places money can buy”

Hmm, usually if it’s “Mexican” and “more expensive” then I consider it “Mexican food for white people”. Not against that and there’s several places I enjoy. But somehow Mexican food tastes better when it’s in a sketchier area with annoying loudmouth cholos in the distance. 😝

You might be on to something here nice but this was in El Paso which is like 80% Mexican descent. L&J's, Kiki's, Avila's are all pretty famous among those very mexicans but one really nice spot Carlos and Mickey's kinda had that wrap, nice as hell place but "Tex Mex" label wasn't a good thing in that town. It may have been for the gringos. Meanwhile if I took them out for Pho which I had no idea what that was until a couple years ago, they fucking LOVED it. Like $5 big ass thing of soup.

The argument is the food is more authentic. What they really mean is it's more comfortable, more to what they're used to.

As far as what I make, I go with mac n cheese. Nothing fancy, but then again I don't go out to eat gourmet mac n cheese.

NAAAASTY

Anything in the breakfast category. I make some hella good scrambled eggs/omelets/pancakes/waffles/french toast/home fries/grits/etc etc. I've very rarely eaten out for breakfast and genuinely thought "Holy shit, this is 10x better than what I've made"

I know there is some psychological tested stuff behind is somebody’s else sandwich tastes better than the one you made. So to me if your breaking even, it probably means your killing it.

I make chili that clearly out does anything you can get from a restaurant in the midwest. It can even hold it's own with most restaurants in Texas. I've won quite a few local, statewide and regional competitions with it over the past 15 years.

Chicken Soup. Except for the noodles, all homemade.

Great especially during cold weather. Wonderful if you have a cold or the flu.

One local restaurant comes close but mine is tastier, theirs is more like bouillon.

Scrambled eggs.

Grilled Asparagus and grilled salmon on a cedar plank. Asparagus, mastered this, with olive oil, cracked pepper, sea salt. Perfectly cooked, still has the right fimness a little char, tender but not overcooked still has a little snap to it. Salmon is season and cooked perfect.

chorizo con huevos . i’ve had many Different interpretation of it. love it!

Garlic bread. Spaghetti with meat sauce. French Toast. Chicken Kiev. Bacon Cheeseburger. I'm a helluva cook.

Waffles; bacon; fried egg sandwiches; I also created a number of casseroles when I was a kid; potato pancakes; kugel; chicken parm; chile

Bullshit IceyHomo You get the best food when you go to the community where they know how to make it old school. In New York, if I want Mexican I go to Flatbush in Brooklyn. For Chinese I go to Chinatown (Manhattan). Cuban? West New York, NJ. (There's no good Cuban food in NYC). Seafood? South Street. Russian? Sheepshead Bay. But when I'm in the mood for curry goat and oxtail I sure as hell don't go to Midtown you fucking asshole. What's wrong with you?

@MisterOrange - with all due respect, if you want good Mexican food, New York is 3,000 miles away from where you need to be.

As far as Americanized Mexican food, there are only 4 states worth considering - the states that share a border with Mexico. But true Mexican food is very different than Americanized Mexican food.

One of my bigger mistakes in life was eating fajitas in Washington DC.

I grew up on a farm/ranch. We had our own cattle. About once a year, we would pick out the best looking steer and put him in the corrals. Feed him ground up sorghum and meal for about 120 days. Then shipped him off to the butcher. So back then it was really hard for me to find a better steak than what I could do myself.
We now rent out the land to share-croppers so no more cattle. I do miss that.

@winex What would you consider the most authentic? Growing up in San Antonio, 2nd and 3rd generation children of immigrants commonly refer to themselves and identify as “Mexican”. So it’s hard for me to draw the line since as far as I can see, it’s not really been drawn in my view.

Also, I have to say that Colorado has some fantastic options too—I was surprised at first.

Red sauce: You'd have to go to a high end Italian restaurant in NYC or Boston to find a red sauce as good as mine. The stuff they make here in NE FL is slop. I make large batches once or twice a month and we deep freeze it for ongoing use.

Other things: Yankee pot roast Chicken and beef gravy Meatloaf Ham and corned beef hash

I cook a lot of other stuff too, but nothing else I can say is absolutely better than the pros. If I had to list everything that Mrs. Dugan cooks better than the pros I'd be sitting here for an hour. I am a decent to good cook and she puts me to shame. The food is very good in the Dugan household.

I think anywhere with legalized weed should have some good food options...

I probably make better tuna salad than anywhere I can get it from. Light mayo, touch of red vinegar, celery, onion, fresh jalapeño, garlic powder, lemon juice, and a dash of black pepper and salt. Gotta get the good white albacore stuff too.

Steaks - unless I’m at fine dining, I find that my steaks at home are better than anywhere else. Like Warrior said key is in the meat. Luckily I’m near a place that gets the whole cow and butchers daily without preservatives. It’s really not too hard to fuck up a good steak.

@winex Agreed, but travelling 3,000 miles for a meal is a bit much. I do the best I can. Lol

Steaks I buy premium meat NY strip or Ribeye bone in the secret is I have an expensive Bar B Cue grill it can cook at temperatures above 850 degrees allows the steak to get a good char and quickly so the meat doesn’t get dried out and remains moist and flavorful grass fed beef burgers also come out excellent cooked on the grill top

@MisterOrange - I knew a guy from New York who wouldn’t eat pizza. He did when he was home in New York, but not anywhere else. He always used to say that it simply wasn’t pizza.

I have the same philosophy with Mexican food. California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas Mexican are all different from each other. All are worth eating. If I am not in any of those states, I’ll just eat something else.

@NiceSpice, if you grew up in the second or third generation of a Mexican family, there is a good chance that what you had growing up was authentic Mexican.

Or, since you are from San Antonio, maybe it was Texican.

I would need to know more to say how authentic it was. All 4 varieties of American Mexican food is good as is authentic Mexican food.

One of my favorite American Mexican food is fajitas. But fajitas are clearly from the Texican branch of food.

so back to the topic of the thread - Meatloaf. First of all, meatloaf should never have tomato sauce brought near it. Instead, put whatever you want in the meat (bread, eggs, onions and parsley are a good combination), then rather than just shaping a loaf and baking it, flatten the meat out, put a few layers of thinly sliced deli ham and a few layers of swiss cheese on it, then roll it up into a loaf.

1. Venison jerky.

2. Fish fry. Maybe I got spoiled growing up with all the meals of fresh caught walleye.

3. Duck. Roasted low and slow with a sage/apple dressing. Gotta be careful of bb’s but it tastes fantastic.

Basically all my barbeque is better. I think the advantage comes from being able to be very careful and precise with a much smaller batch of meat.

And despite all this you fucks still take your favorite stripper out to the Olive Garden

Fair point, Muddy. My next OTC will need to be on a fishing trip and I’ll make walleye.

I have only been to Olive Garden twice in my life. The first was when I was a kid and it first opened in our area. The second was a few years ago because that is where a friend wanted to go for his birthday. Otherwise, I cannot stand the place.

I've been to Olive Garden once. In salt lake City. I was amazed at how good the food was and how the room approached a fine dining experience. My wife's family loves it so I told them. They told me that makes one and that that's not what Olive garden really is.

Huntsman - My family owned a small hunting lodge on a private lake in North Dakota. They taught me to only shoot mallards and the way to roast them was to put an onion inside and cook slow on a low temperature. Goose is too greasy. My favorite wild game is dove.

Nice, Shadow. And I agree that dove is real tasty. And duck is better than goose by quite a bit.

^ I had Pheasant once a long time ago I wasn’t very impressed by the experience My recollection was it was too gamy tasting for my palate