Money is SUPER tight for us this right now and we ran out of milk and couldn’t go get more. I found a box of coconut milk in the pantry and looked up recipes for coconut milk bread.
Turns out that there is a Samoan Coconut Bread called Pani Popo that fit the bill perfectly. A very easy dough to make that is forgiving and very tasty.
The slightly sweet bread is a great pairing for the pork shoulder that I cooked sous vide for 36 hours.
I used this recipe: https://youtu.be/Tkx4lNpX3N4?si=D8ysm_BgWRsvw7JF
Especially when money is tight…
Also, 36 hours of cooking a pork shoulder… I mean if you can’t afford to buy milk just cut slices and cook them on the range real quick instead of building an electricity bill for 36 hours?
Oh and switch to tofu, it’s cheaper.
The pork shoulder was in a discount bin because it was on the way out so was cheaper per pound than anything else available. There is enough meat on it to feed us for about 2 weeks of 1-2 meals per day.
Sous vide can be exceptionally efficient with regards to energy. There are several resources that dive into the breakdown of the cooking method and cost of electricity but the most detailed analysis I’ve seen which accounted for cooking vessels, humidity levels, and temperature stability found that at a rate of 15 cents per kilowatt-hour a properly insulated sous vide machine cost $0.30 for a 24 hour cook.
My electricity is slightly cheaper so my sous vide cook cost me maybe $0.40 for the entire thing.
Source: https://www.amazingfoodmadeeasy.com/info/modernist-cooking-blog/more/how-much-energy-does-sous-vide-use
Oh I almost forgot: The cheapest Tofu in my area is $2.30 per pound and I got the pork shoulder at $1.15 per pound. Plus I have yet to find a Tofu recipe that I enjoy eating. I had an incredibly delicious Mapo Tofu from a mom and pop Chinese restaurant in Los Angeles when I was out visiting family but have been entirely unsuccessful trying to recreate it at home.
That person’s being a jerk, you don’t need to defend yourself.
Your rolls look delicious. Very clever of you to use the coconut milk I don’t think it would have occurred to me. Hope your situation turns around soon, but in the meantime, it looks like you are doing an incredible job working with what you’ve got.
I appreciate it! I’ve currently got an injury that started out one way and has slowly moved towards chronic pain with no real solution other than marginal pain management. Had to quit my job and am currently trying to find some kind of remote work I can do. Something will happen sooner or later I’m sure.
I was less defending myself and just trying to be a friendly educator. I kind of dislike that word because it makes me sound superior but I’m definitely not. There is that XKCD comic about not making fun of people for not knowing things and instead showing them what it is. https://xkcd.com/1053/ . I have found this to be good advice.
Maybe the person that I was responding to really didn’t know Sous Vide could be affordable and just needed an example. Same with the cost of the meat.
I try to give people the benefit of the doubt.
Why are you being so needlessly judgy? Maybe they have more money coming that will allow them to comfortably pay the electric bill by the time it comes. Maybe they wanted a special meal and buying & slow cooking the pork is how they budgeted their money. We have no idea about OP’s circumstances and frankly, it sucks that you felt the need to comment on how they’re doing everything wrong. They were excited about their ingenuity in the face of difficult circumstances and just trying to share something they were proud of with the community.
(Btw, I was curious so I did some googling and using this guy’s sample numbers, a 36 hr cook would use around $0.60usd in electricity. So changing cooking methods is not really an effective way here to save money.)
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