@BESW mainly its more the realm of something between candida/white tongue issues. I'd like to see if some variety might help before having to resort to any particularly stringent dietary changes.

@Skyler Kimchi

@Skyler I'd be careful with apple cider vinegar - Its entirely anecdotal but my mom had a very bad reaction to it. Its fine in a dish, but try not to down tablespoons or shots of it on an empty stomach ;p

@BESW how do you know if you have too much histamine, or trouble retaining bacteria?

I don't have any experience with it, so I'd hesitate to say. I just know those are among the reasons for biotic diets, but that each reason needs a slightly or drastically different diet.

ahh k

@BESW I am starting experimentation with yogurt making. Anecdotal or not, I'd love to have any data you acquire on cultured dairy products and well-being.

Cultured anything, actually.

Hmm. We used to make yogurt when I was very young, but we haven't had the spoons for it recently.

had the spoons? Is that literal or an idiom?

You probably already know that most store-bought yogurt is dead from the pasteurization, and not very useful for either gut bacteria or making one's own.

@BESW Of course I know :) I don't buy dead yogurt unless simply for taste.

Spoon theory provides a metaphor for the energy of daily living.

Live or dead, yogurt is one of the easiest-to-digest forms of dairy, so that's nice for a lot of people.

@BESW Neato! TIL something I'll use from this day forward :)

I like to use Greek yogurt instead of milk in baking, and it makes a nice base for dressings too.

@BESW Yep :)

Though, lately I've been using aquafaba instead of eggs.

And that led me to experiment with replacing milk, egg, and oil with pumpkin puree in baking.

But that's tangential.

@BESW I have not gone there, but it's on my list

My family cooking is increasingly low-dairy.

@Jolenealaska It works very well! And if you already use canned beans, it's effectively free. Which is nice.

We've not yet gotten acquafaba to work

What are you using it for?

we tried a basic merangue. kinda went flat

Ah. I haven't tried any fancy whipped-egg things with it yet.

We've been using aquafaba in bread, muffins, burgers, pancakes, that kind of thing.

ahh

I think we used commercial egg replacer in bread

Black bean aquafaba adds a nice flavor to corn bread.

most of our baking's not needed eggs, ever.

so no need for replacements ;p

Yeah, we've been using various egg alternatives for years--baking soda and vinegar, chilled suspension of flax meal, etc.

@BESW I don't use canned beans at this point because dried beans are a big part of a life experiment I'm playing with these days. I have wondered more than once if I cook up dried beans (particularly garbanzos) in my pressure cooker, the cooking liquid is aquafaba. I haven't even gotten to the Googling stage, though.

I'm pretty sure that'd count, yeah.

I've had awesome success with baking mixes by replacing all the liquid (egg, water, oil, milk) the box calls for, with pumpkin puree.

Pumpkin brownies are excellent.

We'd use dry beans a lot more, but... spoons.

hah

@BESW my mom basically avoids almost anything that comes in a can...

Other than emergencies, and maybe canned tomatos or pasta sauce... rarely

Cooking these days is a balance between easy and healthy, and we're cutting a lot of corners we didn't before.

(Also, living on an island, a lot of stuff is only available canned at prices we can afford.)

@BESW kinda oddly, stuff's available here because we're an island that happens to be a transhipment hub (and singaporeans are food crazy)

Ah, yeah. We'd be more like that except for the Jones Act.

ugh

Oh wait...

(Makes recycling a massive pain too.)

Did you you guys get hit by a hurricane?

No, we're the other island United States unincorporated organized territory.

._.

'Merica, what the heck? ;p

but yeah, I suppose that wouldn't help

(Though Puerto Rico has a commonwealth constitution, and Guam doesn't, we're still better off than, say, American Samoa.)

On the bright side, I get fresh calamansi for my pink rangers.

ah!

good news. My memory is as bad as I remember it to be.

[amused]

Hey @JourneymanGeek I've got a question for you (although everybody here but me probably knows the answer, so just shout it out :)

Two of these: amazon.com/gp/product/B001DBF07I/…

to make two workstations, both with a USB keyboard and mouse.

on one PC?

Will both workstations work simultaneously to control the action on one PC?

errr yeah

and you only have one cursor/input typically

errr? Want an example?

Typical is almost never a priority with me

So, one "workspace", one cursor/keyboard input

so its like one or the other

You want to control a single cursor with whichever mouse you happen to be near, yes?

^ that would work

@BESW YES

And typing the same way

lol

I was overcomplicating it ._. ;p

@Jolenealaska it definately will work

Workable in theory. In practice it'll range from easy to "I have ripped patches of my skull bald" depending on your particular setup--OS, drivers, etc.

YAY! :)

I've never done it with two USB inputs, but I've done it with one USB and one bluetooth.

generic, cheap simple keyboards and mice

I pretty regularly run that kinda setup cause dog ;p

Mine's usuallly wireless (for both) and wired.

My recent nightmare is trying to get a PC-specced PS game controller to work on Mac OS X with a Wined PC port of an Xbox game.

ow

Yeah, well. If you understood that, you know more about these things than I did when I started the project.

lol

Oddly, its more horrible when you read it from the rear.

(cause console ports suck. On wine... OS X OH MY....)

Lesson of the day: don't cook brownies in muffin liners.

Now I've got a bunch of pumpkin puree, so for dinner I'm taking leftover spaghetti and making a pumpkin sauce for it.

@BESW great idea

It's a pretty straightforward cornstarch-and-(almond)-milk base with garlic and onion, seasoned with soy sauce, crushed red pepper, and ginger salabat, and the pumpkin mixed in toward the end.

If I'd had any mushrooms I probably would've added those too.

@BESW the ginger for that bit of „zing“ that brings it from bland to exciting?

The red pepper helps too. [grin]

But yeah, ginger gives it a bit of depth and warmth.

Oh, I missed that...

And I just add ginger to pretty much anything that looks like it could stand to have some.

(Still waiting for the caffeine to kickstart my brain.)

Fair enough.

It’s 1:23 PM here...

I ‘m afraid I might be fighting an uphill battle today. Brain-wise.

But I have to go back to work before I can go home and tackle dinner, which incidentally will also feature pumpkin. Soup, in my case.

(Or perhaps not so incidentally. It is autumn, after all.)

I also have half a pumpkin in the fridge

and today Amazon delivered something I have been needing for some time but put off buying - a potato/spätzle press

I think I'll experiment with making a pumpkin puree with it. Or maybe potato-pumpkin mixed.

Cool.

seriouseats.com/2016/10/… Wow...

@BESW Really? I make mini brownies all the time using mini muffin pans and liners... maybe it depends on the recipe?

Those are espresso brownies :P

I've definitely heard of doing it too, never tried though. Wonder if the issue was maybe softer/gooier ones that stick to the liners, instead of crisping up enough for the liners to pull off?

That makes sense. Mine are pretty dense. I don't think they even have any leavening.

@Catija [takes notes]

@BESW I make three varieties of brownie in addition to the plain - mint, espresso, and spicy (with cinnamon and topped with a red hot) :P

(Both used pumpkin instead of water, oil, and egg.)

yesss chili powder

If I have time today I'm going to make Tassajara juice muffins.

Chili and chocolate are a great combo.

...I need to get some more baker's chocolate so I can make my spiced bitter chocolate drink.