I made a kick ass grilled corn salsa today. My wife and I grilled a flank steak and then a bunch of vegetables: corn, red peppers, green onions and Brussels sprouts.
I’m no fan of Brussels sprouts but my wife says they’re good for you and put them in our basket this afternoon. She toasted some pine nuts and tossed them with balsamic and parm and it was pretty good, a nutty roasted taste that worked well with the vinegar.
The corn salsa was great with the steak on a corn tortilla with a little shot of red dipping salsa from Trader Joe’s. I didn’t do much besides fry up some garlic in a little olive oil and toss it with the roasted veggies and some cilantro. I found the recipie on epicurious (thanks Athryn!).
I made a nice fruit salsa, too, but I put it in the fridge for fish tacos tomorrow.
Cooks Illustrated has the best recipes by far of any mainstream source. By comparison, Good Eats recipes have been universally mediocre for me at best. My only complaint with CI is that the host grates on me.
Their blueberry recipe scone is unholy good. Best scones I’ve had in my life.
Anyway, the reason I’m posting – my SO decided to sign up for one of those CSAs and we’re forcing ourselves to learn about new vegetables and ways of cooking by using everything in the box. It’s a great way to force ourselves outside of our box.
Our box this week had leeks, spinach, leaf lettuce, local carrots, broccoli, beets, and brussels sprouts on the stalk.
Genji
1983
How do CSAs work exactly? Do you pick the produce up or get it delivered? I’ve been interested in using more local produce in our cooking but can’t make it over to the local farmer’s market consistently during the months it’s open.
Athryn
1984
nlanza
1985
Depends on the CSA. The one I use has a bunch of drop off points around the city, including one at a coffee shop two blocks from me. We also arranged a drop off at our office, which is super-convenient.
The one my mom uses, on the other hand, is pick-up only, so she drives over to the farm.
We’re in Seattle as well and so far have been using Full Circle farm. They’re not just local though, they’ll put stuff in from California, etc. unless you tell them not to, but they do local stuff as well. I think we can state up to 5 things we don’t ever want so that unlike other CSAs we don’t get stuck with stuff we’d never use like kale or ten pounds of potatoes or whatever.
We pick up local to us, my SO grabs a box each week on her way home from work (downtown).
Genji
1987
Thanks all for the links and info. Looks like there’s a pickup spot about a half mile from our house that should be easy enough to swing by after work. Can’t wait to try it out, the list of vegetables from Full Circle Farm has things we’ve never cooked before.
I second that. Brown’s “I’m Just Here for the Food” was great for me to learn about various techniques/processes, but I was always underwhelmed with the results especially the fried chicken recipe. Posters’ recipes in this very thread have been better. Looks like should graduate to CI.
Athryn
1989
The one recipe of his that I do use quite a bit is his method of cooking brown rice (in the oven.) It’s the only way (aside from a rice cooker) that it doesn’t come out gross and gummy for me.
Alton is first and foremost a filmmaker (he was a cameraman before he was a chef,) and you can really tell from his show.
tiohn
1990
I just pulled a loaf casatiello out of the oven. The Bread Baker’s Apprentice is a fantastic book.
I’ve followed Alton Brown’s instructions for making dashi and it has worked out well. I love a good miso soup, and I can now make it myself.
Gendal
1992
I doubt anybody else has the balls to use that much butter in one recipe. But yes, even with a neophyte cook they turned out awesome.
Waltzer
1993
What? That recipe is barely 20% butter by weight. That’s totally reasonable for biscuit scones.
nlanza
1994
I can’t understand why I don’t make slow-cooked scrambled eggs every weekend.
They’re incredibly delicious and actually kinda soothing and relaxing to cook.
What are slow cooked scrambled eggs? Sounds interesting. (I guess I could google it, but I come to this thread for guidance!)
nlanza
1996
Basically, they’re like any other scrambled egg, except you cook them over low heat, stirring steadily so they stay smooth and don’t get lumpy. I make 'em like this:
Take three eggs, warmed up to room temperature, crack them into a bowl, scramble them gently, and add salt and pepper.
Bring a small non-stick or cast iron pan to medium-low heat and add the eggs without any oil or butter. Stir them gently so they don’t stick or solidify too fast – you want them to cook as gently as possible and stay liquid as long as you can get them to so the texture is nice and soft. Keep stirring; if you stop, they’ll set too fast and you’ll just have normal scrambled eggs.
When they start to set but are still pretty soft and runny, take them off the heat and add a good-sized pat of butter and 1-2 tablespoons of milk or cream, stirring until it’s fully combined. The eggs should keep cooking a bit from the residual heat of the pan, but if they don’t you can put them back on the heat a little. They’re supposed to be pretty soft, though.
When they’re done, they should almost custard-soft, and you might want to eat them with a spoon.
Mmm.
Nlanza,
Thanks for the recipe! I will admit that that sounds gross, but I’m going to give it a try and see how it ends up.
Respectfully,
Neng Janggo
claybob
1998
As a guy who is billed for being a food scientist I recall an episode where he intermixed lactose and lactic acid and was talking as if they were the same thing. One is a sugar and ones an acid. That is a big deal.
My first serious plunge into cooking was lead by CI and America’s Test Kitchen. It is an excellent gateway into cooking. If your interests take you further, great. If not, that is still a good place to be.
While on the subject of gateway cooking drugs, here are my two: Julia Child shows on DVD (she’s really charming, she makes cooking look fun, and she made me feel a lot more relaxed about screwing up), and cooking chinese food from cookbooks. The thing about at least some (NOT ALL) chinese recipes is that they are fairly easy to do decent things with once you have the right ingredients, but when you pull them off you feel pretty cool. Part of what it took to get me into cooking was confidence building, and both of these were really helpful for that.
Also, I just made brussel sprouts, basically following this recipe. The only things I did differently were: I threw the leaves that fell off the sprouts in with the sprouts (which turned out well), I added the juice of 1/2 lemon after they were cooked (which turned out great), and a bit more parmesan cheese (I kept the cheese and grater next to me while I ate and added more as needed). This is a really terrific thing to eat and super easy to cook.
