How To - Online Recipes

I'm back! Last week was busy and I kept thinking about how I needed to write my blog post for the week and then the next thing I knew it was Wed again already. Eek! But, missing one week doesn't mean it's time to pack up and go home. It just means I'll strive to do better in the future.

Here we go! This week I am giving you a little peak into how my brain works. The other day I was looking for a recipe for a spicy peanut style salad dressing and as I was analyzing my options I thought to myself "Hey, if I document this, it would be good for the blog!" Cooking in general is also a great topic for the blog. It's something many of us do every day without much thought, yet it involves a lot of math and science when you stop and think about it. Ingredients combine to form something entirely different than any of the ingredients. That sure sounds like chemistry to me! And, I learned fractions from baking with my mother and then couldn't understand why many kids were confused when we learned them in school. Cooking also involves a lot of intuition and creativity making it a great for involving your whole brain. Also it's fun and when you're done you get to eat (hopefully) delicious food. yum!

Today's post, however, is more about analyzing and processing recipes than actual cooking itself. You could easily apply this thought process to things other than cooking. It just happens to be really useful for getting the most delicious food possible out of the chaos of the internet. There are a lot of sites out there with a whole lot of recipes and it can be more than a little overwhelming. Which one do you use? How do you know it will be good? Etc. etc. etc. So, I present to you the 5 C's of getting the most out of online recipe sites.

Collect
Cut
Categorize
Compare
Consolidate

1) Collect:
Search for what you want. Try a few different terms or combination of terms. Sometimes I have 2 or 3 ingredients that I want to use and think/feel will work well together so I just type those items into the search and see if anything comes up. In this case I searched "peanut dressing" and "peanut butter dressing" and a few other things. There are a few sites that I know and trust (like food network and recipes.com) and I am more inclined to open those options. Generally, however, in this step I just open a LOT of tabs in my browser.

2) Cut:
Close the tabs for options that don't pass the initial screening. There's a decent amount of experience/intuition in this phase but also some practical evaluations. Do I have all the ingredients in the house and if not am I willing to run to the store before I start? Are the reviews good? How long will it take and/or how complicated are the instructions? Are there any ingredients included that make me go "Whaaaaat?" or is it lacking ingredients that seem critical to the end product? With experience you'll start to be able to recognize when the listed ingredients will give you what you want or not. Also, often less is more in terms of ingredients lists. With all that in mind, close a bunch of the tabs. Keep the ones you like. Sometimes I will keep a tab open for only 1 specific reason or ingredient because I like it and want to make sure it makes it into the final product. However, you need to get this down to only a handful of options. 5 starts to get unmanageable so cut cut cut!

3) Categorize:
This is really just a pre-step for comparing. Sometimes it isn't even necessary. However, often you'll have to lump things into groups like "acids" and "sweeteners" in order to properly compare the options. The peanut butter dressing example below shows how this is useful. I typically do this in my head, but in this example I actually needed to write stuff down to keep track of it.

4) Compare:
Flip between tabs and look at the differences and similarities. Decide which options are best. You also have to pay attention to ratios. First, get a sense of basic ratios of the key ingredients and see if there are trends. Also, look for hidden duplicates of the same recipe. There have been a few times where I was comparing two recipes only to discover that one was just 2X the other. This is sometimes harder to recognize than you might think because recipes will use different measurements. For example, one might say 2 tablespoons and the other calls for 1/4 cup (which is 4 tablespoons.) Eventually you'll start to memorize common conversions for cooking volumes. Until then, the internet can help.

Now that I think about it, it's kinda impressive how much math I do in my head when researching recipes.

5) Consolidate:
In this step, I pick and choose what I like best from each option. Again, there's a decent amount of experience at play in selecting which options are best. There is also a lot of personal preference in terms of what ingredients you like and dislike. I often end up with one "leader" that I make small adjustments to based on the other recipes I've found and my preference. Jot down your new consolidated recipe and get cooking!

Below is a table I made when comparing peanut salad dressings. This is a case where I didn't really have one "leader" recipe. I've also included some comments so you get an idea of what I was thinking when I made decisions. Enjoy!

Click to make larger.

It may seem like this is a long and difficult process but it works for me. Based on my explanation, you're probably thinking that I spend days researching a recipe before I make something but that's not true. Usually I'll spend about 10-20 mins looking stuff up before I get started on actually making food. Often there are only a few options that pass all the screenings and then it's easy to compare, pick a "leader" and say "except I'll do X, Y, and Z." Occasionally I'll end up with an actual "winner" and just follow that one recipe. Again, experience helps. 

If you don't have a lot of experience with cooking, the only way to get it is to try things. Start with recipes as written in order to learn the basics. Then, start making small tweaks like adding more garlic. Always add more garlic. Eventually it all just starts to make sense and you'll find yourself throwing things together with no recipe at all. At first, many of these concoctions will fail, some of them epically. I went through this phase about a year ago (shortly after we started eating very low carb.) The ITH will corroborate that we had a few meals that were simply inedible. Don't get discouraged by this. Learn from it. Soon enough you'll be throwing things together that are super tasty, but you'll be a little sad because you really have no idea what you just did to create it and will never be able to do it again. It's all part of the fun. 

Substitute Notification

As I mentioned last post, the TDE is now also a substitute teacher. There is an online system that posts jobs, but this system does not include any notifications. Without a separate notification app, I would have to just keep refreshing the website to see if there are new jobs posted. In today's post I'm going to do a quick comparison of 3 common apps that are available for substitute teachers.

First, a quick list of things to consider:
1) How notifications are sent: email, text, or in-app. In-app notifications require the app to be open and running on your device.
2) Where the app "lives." If the app is stored and running from your device, it will either require you to have your computer running constantly (not in sleep mode) at home OR it will run on your mobile device and drain the battery. Those that live in the cloud do not require this power drain.
3) Can I accept the job within the app (easy one click to accept) or do I need to go log into the actual sub job system separately to accept the job?
4) Legality issues. When you sign up for the online sub system you have to agree to a user agreement. I didn't read through all the details of this when I signed up, but my online investigations have led me to understand that the user agreement prevents the use of certain 3rd party notification apps. This is because the company also created a separate notification program that they want you to use (Jobulator) so they prevent the use of some others. I tried to find the actual user agreement so I could quote it directly, but was unfortunately unable to find it. From what I've found online, as long as the app doesn't refresh more than once every 60 seconds and/or does not allow subs to accept jobs within the app then it is OK. However, because I was unable to find the actual user agreement, I am not sure that this is correct.
5) Cost

Second, a quick shout out to this previous comparison which helped me understand some of the differences between the apps.

Third, I am only including apps that work with the Aesop online system as that is the system I am using to find out about jobs in my area.

So, what did I find? There are pros and cons to all of them. Here's a summary table:

CORRECTION: Per Sub Sidekick's comment, it runs in the cloud, not on your computer.

SubSidekick:

Lives on the computer and therefore requires the computer to be running constantly. It is also the most expensive of the apps and has the shortest free trial period. One unique positive feature is that it is the only app that offers additional filters. Maybe you never want to sub for a history class. This app would be able to exclude history jobs from the notifications it sends you. For me, that wasn't a big enough positive to outweigh the cost and the power consumption.

Jobulator:

The official Aesop companion app so there are no concerns about legality or violating the user agreement. This is also the cheapest of the three but requires a full year payment/commitment upfront. It includes easy in-app job acceptance which is nice. The app installs onto your mobile device meaning that you don't have to leave your computer running constantly, but it does run down the battery of your mobile device. It doesn't seem to have the option of sending alerts other than the in-app alerts meaning you HAVE to have it running (and using your battery life) for it to work. Because it has to be running constantly in the background on my phone for it to work, it doesn't seem like the app for me.

SubAssistant:

This on runs on the cloud and then sends notifications to email, text, or the Android app. This one also has in-app job acceptance but this *might* be a violation of the user agreement. Cost-wise this one is in the middle but still pretty high at $8 per month. I'm not interested in violating my user agreement or paying that much so this one is out too.

So yes, I just eliminated ALL of them. 

Plan B was to download the free trial of one of them, and when it expires, download a different free trial, and then the third free trial. That would at least get me through this school year and would help me decide if they are worth the money. 

But, I didn't do that either.

Plan C, which became Plan A: The ITH took it upon himself to write me my own app in Python. It's a bit simpler than the others, but my hubby wrote me an app that will email me when there are new jobs, which is pretty darn cool. It also sends a screen shot so I can see all the job details. Finally, my notification app is FREE. No monthly or yearly charge when you DIY!

So, here's that table again, including the ITH app:

**Right now it doesn't send the link, but I've already put in a request to update the app to include this feature.

UPDATE: It took the ITH about 3 minutes to make the update. Now my emails have links!

*As long as we don't set the refresh time to more frequently than once every 60 seconds.

The app is running on the BeagleBone Black that the ITH bought a few months ago (for no reason other than it's cool and he'd find a use for it eventually, which he did.) So yes, technically if you don't have a BeagleBone Black or Raspberry Pi or something similar this app would have to be run on a computer and would require that the computer be running constantly. However, the ITH is smart and installed it on the little BeagleBone so that the power consumption would be lower.

So there you have it folks. If you don't like the options available to you, make your own!

PS: Dishwasher soap experiment is going well so far. 1 trial of each soap is complete. 2 more trials of each to go (except for soap D because I'm pretty sure I used up the last of it on trial 1....)

Dishwasher Soap Experiment Part 2 - DOE

First, some news from the TDE:
I have added yet another part time job to my collection. I'm now a substitute teacher for the local schools. I am going to do my best to keep to my schedule of blog posts on Wednesdays, but if I get called in to teach during the day (on top of teaching tap at night) on Wednesday, it sometimes will not happen. That is what happened this week. School ends at the end of May so we should be back to a regular Wednesday schedule starting in June.* Sorry for missing Wed this week and I apologize in advance for future late posts.

*Note: The TDE will be on vacation more often than not in June and internet conditions of each location are unknown. I will do my best to post on time and when unable I will post as soon as possible after finding internet. 

Now, on to the dishwasher DOE!

I spent the past few weeks pondering this in the back of my head. Every time I ran our tiny little dishwasher I considered how to make the experiment as controlled as possible. Based on my experiences of what is typically hard to clean and what is most annoying to me, I put together a plan for how to run this experiment. The DOE is a little boring because I am specifically testing type of dishwasher soap. So, dishwasher soap type is the only variable that I am changing. Everything else is staying the same and acting as a control to understand the performance of each type of dishwasher soap. A true DOE would generally involve changing multiple of the variables to discover the best conditions for the getting the cleanest dishes. Once I've got results for which type of soap is best I may play with some of the other conditions in follow up experiments. For now, however, here's my plan for the initial experiment:

*If more than 4 dishes with caked on food, will pre-wash only caked on food on additional dishes.

It's too small here, in order to fit on the page, but you can click on the pic to make it bigger. You can see that I'm keeping everything the same except for type of dishwasher soap. I'll be controlling the number of certain types of dirty dishes as well as density of the dishes and silverware. This should give a fairly controlled situation that will allow me to test the performance of each type of soap. I will reveal the actual brands/type of soap once the experiment is complete.

This is a good time to clarify that our dishwasher is a tiny countertop dishwasher. It is maybe 1/4 the size of a standard dishwasher.... maybe not even that big. So, that explains why I am only using a 1/2 tablespoon of soap (the size of the soap tray in the dishwasher.) It also explains why I'm only putting 3 pieces of silverware in each slot as 4 per slot is the max I typically put in it. 

Below is the table I will use to collect results. I've added one more result type as I've noticed that my coffee cups don't always get clean.

My hope is that I can run a load of dishes for the experiment once per day. There may be times that I need to wait to accumulate more dishes or the right kind of dirty dishes so I may need to skip some days. I'm guessing I'll also have to run a few loads of non-experiment dishes in order to keep up with the pile of dirty dishes. And, in order for things to be as controlled as possible I may need to just wait for the right conditions to occur (such as # and age of PB spoons.) So, best case scenario this experiment will take 2 weeks. However, I expect that it will actually take quite a bit longer than that. Hopefully I will finish before June because, as previously mentioned, we will not be home much in June. I will post the results whenever the initial experiment is complete. 

So there it is. Thats all for this week. Feel free to share your thoughts on this in the comments. Am I missing anything important?

One Global Temperature Scale

Happy Wednesday! Today I'm supposed to go into detail on my dishwasher soap experiment DOE, but that is being pushed to next week. Sorry. There's something else on my mind this week. I have a proposal to make the world a better place... or at least to make it a little easier to understand.

Years ago I was pondering the different temperature scales. My pondering led me to a conclusion that all of the currently used temperature scales have flaws and that maybe we need a new one. I came up with what I thought was a decent solution. Then I promptly forgot about the whole thing.

Last night I found myself pondering this again. I have no idea why. It must have been inspired by something in the crossword puzzle I was doing. So I was pondering how to come up with a temperature scale other than C or F (or K) that would make sense to people. And then I remembered that I had already done that a few years ago, but I couldn't remember what my solution was. So, I came up with a solution last night. It might be the same one I came up with years ago. Or maybe it isn't. Either way, here's my thought process:

1) The scale should be based on things that people experience regularly and understand.
a) I feel pretty strongly that we should set 0 degrees to the temperature at which water freezes (at atmospheric pressure.) Seriously... who decided that water freezing at 32 degrees was acceptable?
b) The boiling point of water is another good point to set to a nice comfy number.
c) Human body temperature is another point to consider. However, this temperature varies from person to person, day to day, time of day, amount of activity, time in a woman's menstrual cycle, etc. So, it isn't scientifically precise enough for me.
d) Typical weather patterns and comfortable (to humans) ambient temperatures are also important.

So at this point Celsius is winning as it is defined by the freezing point and boiling point of water. However I see a few problems with C. One is lack of accuracy compared to F. A change of 1 degree C is larger than a change of 1 degree F, by almost double (1.8 or 9/5 for the nitpickers.) Using F we get a more accurate result with the same number of significant figures. Which leads us to:

2) The scale should span more than 100 degrees between water freezing and water boiling to allow for more accuracy than the Celsius scale.

The other problem with Celsius is that the (relatively) small range between freezing and boiling leads to an even smaller range to be used for typical weather patterns. Americans are quite used to temperatures in the 80s and 90s. The hotter parts of the country regularly break 100 or even into the 110s. Records hit in the 120s. Now imagine telling those people that their record temperature is 50 degrees. To us, 50 degrees means grab a jacket. It would be a hard switch to make. We like being able to state extreme temperatures with extreme numbers. Therefore:

3) The scale should allow for those of us used to F to still express hot weather temperatures in similarly large numbers.

NOTE: For below-freezing temperatures (above -40), C is lower than F and therefore already the "more extreme" sounding scale. 

And, one more subjective rule:

4) The numbers for typical room temperature and typical body temperature should sound/feel reasonable. Again, it would be a hard transition to go from F to C as room temperature changes from 70F to 20C (or so.)

My proposed new temperature scale is super simple: Double Celsius.

So, we would have the following (also showing F and C for comparison):

*National Ave Temperature data from NOAA

**Extreme Temperature data ballparked from this wiki page

Is it perfect? Nope. 

Is it better? *I* think so. 

Sure, it makes cold temperatures REALLY extreme but I think it's about time we northerners get to express our extreme cold temps as extreme negative numbers. 

Other positives include:

1) Freezing point of water is 0 and the same as in C. Boiling point of water is close to the boiling point of water in F. 

2) We get a span of 200 degrees between the freezing point and boiling point of water. This leads to slightly more accuracy than using F.

3) Body temperature, room temperature, and typical weather patterns are fairly reasonable to someone that grew up using F. Different yes, but I'm better able to wrap my head around it than switching to straight C. For example, converting human body temperature from F to DC requires multiplying by approximately 3/4 whereas converting human body temperature from F to C requires multiplying by approximately 1/3. 

4) It's true that I've just transferred most of the problem of common temperatures "seeming reasonable" from the Americans to everyone who is already using C.... but, all they have to do to convert is multiply by 2. This simple conversion will make the transition from C to DC super easy. 

5) Everyone has to switch. We all share the pain together!
6) Room temperature becomes 42 degrees. It truly is the answer to everything.

The solution is so simple it made me think that there must already be a movement started to make a global switch to Double Celsius. However, my Googling shows that there is not. So, let's start it! Let's adopt one global temperature scale. If you like my proposed new temperature scale, start using it wherever you can. Spread the word. Make it go viral.