Hey all,

Lately I've been working on going vegan, which has meant that I've been using beans as an ingredient a lot more in my cooking. I use just about any beans for hummus, I've made roasted chickpeas with my air fryer and want to start making falafel, I want to start adding black beans to my tacos, I use mung beans for omelettes, you get the drift.

Anyway, I was recently thinking about the packaging the beans come in. This came to mind since I've been re-evaluating the products I purchase and how to put my dollar where my heart is, and in looking at where my canned beans come from, I started thinking about the packaging of the dried beans I have.

While not all the dried beans I have include info about the ability to recycle the packaging, Walmart for all their flaws made things easy with some dried beans I got in the past and has the "Not yet recyclable" label from how2recycle.info, and I can guess that the other brands I have are in the same boat as they all appear to have the same packaging.

In comparison, I already know for certain that the cans for canned beans can be recycled, and the labels are just paper, meaning the same case for them. Now reading things from what I know it appears as if using canned beans is more environmentally suitable than dried, assuming both are sourced domestically, but I want to ask if there's anything I might be forgetting here that could also factor into things that I may not be aware of. On top of this, some recipes specifically call for dried beans, and I'd have trouble substituting them with canned product, namely with falafel and my vegan omelettes.

Should I make the switch? Any and all input is greatly appreciated.

Hey all,

Recently I've been trying to work on purchasing more products made here in Canada as opposed to down south or overseas, reason being to help decrease my environmental footprint, as well as to keep my money supporting businesses based in Canada, especially with the tariffs that might be coming in the near future.

I was curious if there were some good tips to help find products made within our borders. Some stuff has been easy, like swapping from Silk to Earth's Own for example due to labeling on the package that states where the product was manufactured, but other stuff is a bit of a pain since it doesn't seem to indicate where the product is manufactured or at the very least if it was imported, just where the company's head office is located.

While my main concern is with groceries since I've been trying to purchase more second-hand as of late, I was curious as to what some good all-around tips are for finding Canadian products. I'm willing to spend a little more if needed, I prefer to bank my money in my morals and not in convenience.

Hey all,

So I recently decided to go vegan. My personal reasons for ditching animal products were because of environmental factors, animal welfare, and trying to maintain consistency with the values I hold to their logical ends.

I was curious. I've seen a lot of hate towards vegans online, admittedly being someone who partook in that several years ago myself to a small degree. While I'm glad and very lucky people I know closely have been making accommodations for me, I'm also worried about mentioning or bringing it up to people I'm getting to know since I don't want to rub them the wrong way if they possibly have these notions that being vegan and veganism are a bad thing. Namely when it's relevant in conversation like people asking me why I read ingredients lists or can't have something they're offering me, which I've been half-lying attributing to food allergies and intolerances out of worry (I'm lactose intolerant, which helps as a cop-out).

I'm wanting to know what people dislike about vegans, whether they're based on previous experiences they've had, or preconceived notions, and what would make someone a "good vegan" in their eyes. I know I shouldn't be a people-pleaser, but knowing this stuff would definitely help me gain the confidence to be more open about myself and my personal values to others who don't necessarily share said values.

Thanks in advance, I'll try to respond where possible, but it's going to be a busy day for me, though I do read all replies to posts I make.

Hey all,

I recently bought a bag of Textured Vegetable Protein (TVP) as a recipe in a cookbook I have called for it for tacos. Funnily enough, the bag I got also had a recipe for tacos on it, and after following it I have to say, it was phenomenal. Pretty certain I got bang for my buck considering it only used 100 g or such of a 340 g bag that I got for $5.79, that's only about 21 ¢ a taco putting aside other ingredients.

I checked the company site for other recipes using TVP, but there wasn't a whole lot. Curious if anybody here has any go-to recipes they'd like to recommend or share, as I'd love to use this stuff more often.

Hey all,

As the poll did not seem to get any votes, I think what I'll do to play things safe is to work on the wiki tonight, but also only work on methods that don't require search engines.

I will also start submitting more music here again, likely starting with a track tonight. Thanks for sticking around despite the recent silence, posts will being picking up once again.

Hi all,

I've been in a weird spot the last little bit. I recently bought an air-fryer at the thrift shop for a decently cheap price. The thing works like a charm, and I'm excited to start using it on the regular to make recipes like falafel and beet and potato chips.

The issue I'm currently having is just cleaning the damn thing. Clearly it had a lot of use from the previous owner, and I while I want to do the same myself, there's this tough to clean spot on the base that I can't figure out how to clean.

The model is a T-Fal Actifry 2-in-1, so rather than being the typical air fryer I've seen with the basket, this one has a rotating piece in the centre that can either be used to stir ingredients to keep them from sticking using a paddle, or have a rotating pan attached instead which keeps things in place.

The area in question I'm having trouble cleaning is in the base here, behind the plastic filter:

I've tried using an all-purpose cleaner, as well as a stronger cleaner that claimed to have degreasing properties (Vim Pureboost Power Shine), and neither of them have removed any of the mess. It was suggested by someone I try baking soda and vinegar, but I'm not even going to think about that, as I'm worried about things getting behind the slots there and frying the circuitry.

Thanks in advance.

Hi all,

I'm currently wanting to make a few wiki pages for a community I host here on PieFed. Not trying to advertise the community, but for context, it's a community about BY-NC-SA licensed music, and I'm wanting to create a guide as to how to find new music with that license on certain platforms.

My trouble is this. I want to provide those viewing posts with the ability to find music with ease utilizing search engines when that's the best option to do so. However, I also don't want to have that search engine be Google if that's at all possible.

The main features I'm needing are to only fetch results from certain websites, and to specifically include or exclude specific phrases. For example, if I wanted to find BY-NC-SA power metal music on BandCamp, and exclude songs from the band Blind Desire for some random reason, I'd have the following search:

In this case, Google only fetches results from bandcamp.com, only with the BY-NC-SA license, and only with the words "power metal" in the page, while also removing results from Blind Desire.

Are there any privacy-friendly options that have similar search features? Being made aware of an alternative like this will definitely help me kick what little reliance I have left on Google.

Thanks in advance.

This has been a movie that has been on my mind that I can't seem to recall the name of. I've been trying to search certain details, and I'm unsure if my troubles are because of the search engines I'm using (I refuse to use Google), or if it's because it's genuinely that much of a pain to find this film.

From what I remember about the movie, a vampire man catches his eyes on a young woman. Since the film is set in the past, the vampire asks her father for permission to marry her, to which the father responds that he wants his daughter to marry a hard-working man who'd support her, and that the vampire's hands are the softest hands he's ever felt in his life.

The vampire is not pleased with this, and if I remember correctly, kills the father while he's alone. With the father out of the way, he and the woman marry, and move to a property atop a hill. While I can't recall much of what happens afterwards, I do remember the woman finds out about her husband being a vampire, and a lot of paranormal stuff happening with the house and it's property, such as the snow outside turning a blood red. By the end of the movie, the vampire dies, and that's the last I remember happening.

If anybody knows of this film, I'd love to know the name of it. Might give it another watch after all these years and see if it's any good or not.

Hey all,

Sorry to flood the community, just been working a lot about getting acquainted with the kitchen as of late, and learning more about navigating and utilizing it.

In three cookbooks, I've come across four recipes for soups I'm wishing to try. One for Borscht, one for Minestrone, one for a lentil soup, and one for Cauliflower soup. While I have the needed ingredients for these recipes, all of them call to cover the pot as the ingredients and/or soup are cooking.

My problem is that my pots don't have lids. When I first got the one pot, it came with one, but I can't recall what happened to it, all I know is that I no longer have it. I've brought the one pot to the thrift shop seeing if any of the loose lids there fit, but they were either way too large, just too small, or were perfectly sized, but refused to sit stable.

I was wondering how important it is to cover the pot as the soup and/or ingredients for the soup cook. Are there any consequences for not covering the pot, or does it simply take a longer time for cooking to finish?

Thanks as always in advance.

Hi all,

I recently came across a recipe that I wish to try for a lentil bolognese. I'm excited to try it as I've been trying to find a recipe I can use my red lentils with, but I'm curious about one thing both with this recipe, and recipes in general.

This recipe calls for the pan to be deglazed with red wine. This is something I've seen before in other recipes, though this recipe is the first of which I'm taking an interest in exploring. I'm personally fine with regular red wine, but my concern is that I have a friend who is incredibly cautious with alcohol, and says she'd refuse to eat things if they had alcoholic ingredients.

Putting aside my personal thoughts about that, I was curious if using a non-alcoholic wine would work just as well, or if the alcohol adds certain properties to the wine that make it function better as an ingredient or for deglazing. I'm mainly curious as I hope to invite friends over for dinner in the future, and want to make accommodations where possible, especially if it's as easy as simply buying a slightly different ingredient.

Thanks in advance!

Hey all,

I was making a smoothie for breakfast this morning, and was confused briefly as to where my frozen bananas went when I realized, whoops, I placed them in the fridge and not the freezer last I used them.

I've since put them back in the freezer, which I hope is foodsafe, but I was curious if I would be able to use them for banana bread if I ever make this mistake again. Based on smell and appearance, they seemed as though they'd be perfect for it, but figured I'd ask in case something differed based on water content of thawed frozen bananas, or if they lose certain qualities important for banana bread once frozen and thawed.

Thanks in advance!