Tell us what you have cooked lately (that's interesting)

[Nesrie]

You know I kept picturing mice nibbling on his garlic too. I know it was a typo, but it was a cute one.

[malkav11]

They sell those around here too, but personally I’d rather get it pre-minced or all the way fresh. If I’m prepared to do it by hand, peeling’s not a big deal, but if I’m not, pre-peeled does not save enough effort.

[ArmandoPenblade]

I’ve definitely broken down and bought the pre peeled a few times myself. Particularly when I make ginger garlic paste for Indian cuisine, and need the equivalent of 3+ heads of garlic, the speed bump from peeled is not insignificant! Especially when it’s gonna be dunked into my mixer grinder anyway–all it needs to be is peeled.

Tonight’s meal: meatloaf (sort of my own Frankenstein recipe that I’m MOSTLY happy with barring two frustrating mistakes), some VERY rich garlic-Parmesan mashed potatoes, and mushroom gravy:

[ChristienMurawski]

I like the product that @fire mentions above, but I much prefer to chop my own garlic. I like it as part of the process. I like breaking out the cloves, giving them that little pop with my favorite knife, then slicing or chopping as necessary. Or just rough chopping them and tossing them into my mini-mixer for pesto.

Any discussion of this, of course, always reminds me of this:

-xtien

[Timex]

Am I the only guy that has stores that sell pre-peeled garlic? I get it from most of my local grocery stores, super-cheap ($2-3 for a container) and it lasts me a few weeks.

For the record, I almost always mice/slice/etc with a knife, and have only used a garlic press once in the last 3 years, where the mice I did by hand didn’t integrate into the marinade I was making well enough, and I didn’t want to throw it in the food processor.

https://stresscake.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/1garlic-sm-img_8143.jpg

I always assumed something bad would happen to garlic if it were already peeled.

[ChristienMurawski]

I ended up not doing the Cornish game hens for Thanksgiving. I realize it’s been a couple of weeks since I suggested I was going to do that, but I realized I never talked about that completed meal so I’ll do that now. I went ahead and did a turkey, a twelve to thirteen pounder that was pre-brined. First time I’ve cooked a turkey in four or five years. It really turned out well.

Picture courtesy of my dad. The color looks weird. Like the thing has been sunburned. But trust me, it tasted really good. I used Alton Brown’s method of thirty minutes at 500 degrees, then dropping it to 350 and putting in the probe thermometer. Came out perfect.

Did some root vegetables. The hero of that was the roasted beets. Good lord those were wonderful. Next were the red potatoes, quartered and roasted in my cast iron skillet. They turned out perfect. Last were the sweet potatoes. I way overcooked those. I should have just mashed them. That was my first time cooking them, so I’ll know for next time.

I cooked the dressing (stuffing, but not stuffed) early, and reheated it as the bird rested. And I forgot it under the broiler during the “what are you thankful for” portion of the program! So the “browning” of the stuffing was “blackening” unfortunately. Scraped off the top and it was okay.

The real point of the meal, of course, was to get through the meal and get to the pies. I did three this year. A cheesecake for @fire. A pecan for my dad. A three-berry pie for my son.

I’ve tried cheesecake twice and I just haven’t gotten it yet. It seems to set up but then it’s way too wobbly inside. It tastes great, but you can tell folks at the table are nervous about it. So I need more practice.

I’ve got pecan pie down, no problem. It’s just too sweet for most people. I love it, though, and just polished off the last piece a couple of days ago.

The three-berry pie was the real star. Everybody loved that. They loved it so much that I ended up using the extra crust to make another one the morning of my birthday, two days later. That one disappeared fairly quickly as well.

It looks a mess, but dang was it good. And with frozen berries! My first time doing a lattice, which is apparently a good modification when you’re using frozen berries.

-xtien

[espressojim]

It can grow mold/fuzz if you leave it in the back of your refrigerator for 2+ months. I buy smaller containers that I use in 1-2 weeks. We use a LOT of garlic, and it often goes in the food processor, or I use a silly amount to make gambas al ajilo, which uses 24 cloves for 2lb of shrimp, or shrimp with green sauce which uses 12 cloves, or even 3 cup chicken, which uses 18-24 cloves depending on how I feel.

[Skipper]

What in the world is this?

A turner is just another name for a cooking spatula, turner indicates something akin to “pancake turner.” This one:

I use the hell out of it because I have a ton of cast iron and stainless cookware. And it is a wonderful tool, just the right weight, doubles as a cutter, thin enough to get under anything that is cooking. My tongs would come in a distant second place.

All the talk about garlic and nobody mentioned this low tech tool?

Put the garlic in, roll, out it comes, nice and clean.

[Nikolaj]

Regarding the mandoline slicer discussion, I decided to finally get one last year. I’ve been putting it off, since I’ve had bad experiences with pretty much every mandoline slicer I’ve ever used. In particular, the hand guards on all the models I’ve used, were always kind of useless, either not holding the veggies securely, or just sliding off to the side, rather than towards the blade.

I did a lot of research, reading reviews, watching vides, etc., and ended up getting this one:

Amazon.com: Borner V5 Plus Set straight from the manufacturer. Includes V5 Powerline Slicer, slicer Insert, 3, 5mm and 7mm Blade Inserts, food Safety Holder, storage Box and Combi-peeler (red): Kitchen & Dining

I’m really happy with it, and the hand guard just works. It holds the veggies properly, doesn’t slide off the side, and doesn’t require too much force to be used. My fingers have never been anywhere near the blade, except when cleaning it.

Just thought I’d mention that, just in case somebody was thinking about acquiring a mandoline. :)

[dgallina]

All the talk about garlic and nobody mentioned this low tech tool?

Put the garlic in, roll, out it comes, nice and clean.

Yeah I’ve got one of those too. I like it, BUT it’s impossible to get really clean & will make your kitchen drawers smell like garlic forevermore.

Diego

[Skipper]

Good points, Diego. I hold mine under running hot water to clean, then the one I have has a small hook hole and I hang it up, not far from the sink and my small kitchen prep area. If anything is ever left in it, it is mostly just a few small slivers of garlic skin.

That being said, never, ever let garlic or onions sit somewhere so long that they go bad. Getting that stink away is a horrible ordeal. I had a roommate that left many years back. Before he moved out he had left some (then) relatively new onions in a small pot under a cabinet where we sometimes stored potatoes. He may have put garlic in there with the onions, I don’t know, and probably don’t want to know. However, me, not knowing, stacked another item on the pot, and proceeded to live life for a while. One day I needed that pot for an item, so I removed the other kitchen item stacked on top of it. As I pulled out the top piece, a freaking wave of stench practically rolled out of that pot. It was like the smell of death, and it instantly filled the kitchen, dining room and living room in short order.

After gagging and more gagging, then getting rid of the onions, or fetid broth therof, far away from the house, I took on the unwise task of trying to clean the pot he had placed them in. It was an aluminum pot. No amount of scrubbing or soaking would clean that damned thing, and I finally just tossed it and chalked it up to a lesson learned. Onions are but a short aging period from being a chemical weapon.

[gruntled]

I’ve tried cheesecake twice and I just haven’t gotten it yet.

When our older son was maybe 14, he declared that he wanted to make a cheesecake. Having never done one before, we dragged out our old NY Times cookbook and said - hmmm Cheesecake Deluxe, OK. Two and a half pounds of cream cheese, one overflowing food processor and a few hours later, the thing was perfect. We’ve made it several times since, also successfully. He even hacked his own modification to result in a home version of Cheesecake Factory’s Pineapple Upsidedown cheesecake. One of those was the only Cheesecake Deluxe flop of the bunch, but that was due to having the not-bright idea of using low-fat cream cheese.

[Timex]

Freeze it, batter it, and deep fry the cheesecake.

[ChristienMurawski]

Having never done one before, we dragged out our old NY Times cookbook and said - hmmm Cheesecake Deluxe, OK. Two and a half pounds of cream cheese, one overflowing food processor and a few hours later, the thing was perfect.

Thanks, @gruntled. I may just try that. Since I can’t get the Alton Brown one to work.

-xtien

[ChristienMurawski]

Freeze it, batter it, and deep fry the cheesecake.

-xtien

[arrendek]

WHAT is he REALLY SAYING??

My best guess is “Male walrus”
Maybe “May he wash us?”

EDIT: I actually rewatched the scene, and it is him saying that. Only it doesn’t look like it because the gif is slowed down and there are a number of dropped frames.

[dgallina]

That’s a good idea. Perhaps I’ll hang & leave it out to air instead of stuffing it back in the drawer to moulder :-)

Talking about mouldering (and related to your story): I had two friends who were roommates together. One of them hated doing his chores, so one day, instead of taking the garbage ALL the way out the door to the dumpster, he put the bag in the nearly unused front hall closet and and told himself he’d put it out early the next morning on his way out. Of course the bag was forgotten for a week or two until a fetid odor filled the apartment & necessitated a mad search for the source. The roommate got so mad that he piled that nights dirty pots / pans / dishes under the culprit’s bed covers on the way out the next day. This precipitated a back / forth war of dirty / disgusting things for the next month. Suddenly it had gotten WAY less fun to visit these friends :-)

Diego

[Skipper]

Funny you mention that story because back in my Navy days I knew two roommates exactly like that. One got deployed on a ship and took off on a 3 month cruise, leaving a weeks worth of dishes stacked up in the sink. His stubborn roommate refused to wash them while the guy was gone, and instead used separate dishes and only washed those.

Fast forward a couple of weeks and I go to visit the roommate left at home. The place smelled HORRIBLE. It was an apartment and I swear you could smell it before you even got to their door. I talked the guy into just doing the dishes, and I even helped. Good grief people can get so stubborn during arguments over house chores.

[Eric_Majkut]

Finally felt like doing some Indian food. First try at a basic curry :)

Onions + garlic + ginger + tomatoes:

Turmeric and chili powder added to make it a masala:

Browning chicken:

Added some water, lower heat and simmer for about 30 mins until the chicken starts to fall apart:

Almost there :):

Over some nice jasmine rice:

Armando, how’d I do? :P Indian is one area I’ve always enjoyed eating but only tried making on my own a couple of times before.

[ArmandoPenblade]

See, I was gonna have some questions at the beginning (I’d normally get onions at least yellowish if not a little brown by themselves before adding garlic/ginger, get the rawness outta that before adding tomato, and then cook the whole mess down well before adding in the chicken), but not gonna lie man, the end result looks gorgeous and delicious! I hope you enjoyed it, and continue to explore. It’s a really fun cuisine to experiment with.

I’ve been experimenting with dishes I’d sworn off this week, to moderate success.

Made bacon-wrapped, sugar-ketchup-glazed meatloaf the other night. It was alright! If I could, I’d go back and not add any rosemary (which I forgot I kinda detest in large quantities), use thinner bacon, and not forget to the shredded parmesan to the meat mixture (it’d have held together a little better–it’s fairly lose–and been a little better-seasoned). But still, it’s entirely edible!

I made some really rich mashed potatoes with the saddest-looking bag of golden potatoes I’ve ever seen, but sufficient amounts of butter, cream, garlic powder, and herbs will fix anything. Made a quick mushroom gravy for that, as well, which I really enjoyed.

I also made a meatloaf sandwich using some of the leftover crusty bread from the meatloaf filling itself, some ketchup, hot sauce, and onions, as instructed by a good friend’s CT-native dad. It was pretty decent. So was the “high falutin’” one I made today with mayo, lettuce, and spicy Chow Chow relish. Hmmmmmm. . .

---

Then, I made a fairly quick batch of chicken n dumplings soup, an old fave of my gf’s. I used canned biscuit dough, rolled flat and cut into strips, and it reminds me a lot of the kinda slimy, unpleasant C&D I remember hating from my childhood. My broth (chicken broth in which the chicken itself simmered, along with salt, pepper, bay leaves, peppercorns, and broiled onions/garlic) is delicious and thick thanks to a butterscotch-colored roux, and the chicken itself’s just fine. . . I just don’t like slimy dumplings!

I also tossed together a quick green beans almondine (just almonds, salt, pepper, butter, olive oil, and green beans, sauteed) since I never got to use those ingredients for Thanksgiving.

Toasted a leftover biscuit from Sunday’s breakfast as a side. . . decent supper! Nasty dumplings aside :)