SoapZone Community Message Board

on the internet. Folks, y'all need to make some decisions on your cooking advice and come to a consensus.

Two cases in point: first, last weekend I made empanadas. I'd found some wrappers on a decent sale so all I needed was to make a filling. And then I needed to know how long to cook them in the oven (I didn't want to fry them) and at what temperature. I literally checked out a dozen recipes; 3 said to cook them at 350° for anywhere from 15-30 minutes. 3 said to cook them at 375° for anywhere from 15-30 minutes. 3 said to cook them at 400° for anywhere from 15-30 minutes. And 3 said to fry them. I wound up cooking the first batch (chicken and cheese) at 375° for about 20 minutes and the second batch (ground beef and cheese) at slightly higher than 375° (since the oven had been on a while) for about 25 minutes. Both batches turned out fine...for the record, the meats were already cooked. I thought the beef empanadas were better than the chicken empanadas but both were good.

This morning, I stuck a ginormous bone-in pork butt in the crockpot around 10:00. I've cooked smaller ones--around 2 lbs.--but this beast is 8 lbs., mostly bone, I'm guessing. I thought cooking it on low for 8 hours would be fine and with dinner being at 6:00 PM, or as close to 6:00 as possible, the timing would be perfect. But then Dad stuck a meat thermometer in the pork around 1:00 and it barely budged (the temperature, not the thermometer...or the pork). I got worried and checked the internet...again, it was all over the place. Cook it on low for 8 hours and as long as it reaches 185°, it'll be fine. Oh no....it needs to go 12 hours and reach 200° or you'll give yourself food poisoning. I pulled something else out for dinner and figured we could eat the pork tomorrow...and the day after...and the day after...and the day after (actually, I'll probably freeze some of it). So of course the meat hit 190° around 5:45 and would probably be fine, though it might not be "fall apart" tender.

Cooking is annoying 😁