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

It’s actually a possible option for my week this week, alongside Americanized Chinese food! So if not this week, then next, I hope 😁

Nah, it’s because I’ve been prepping for a 3 year olds birthday party.

But I will make this week!

So this came today.

Just in time to be made into quiche. More to come.

I’d love to. But my grandma was SO jealous of her recipes that she purposely omitted ingredients and/or steps when writing them down for other people. My sister and I have tried to make a few of her dishes with little success, lots of frustration, and some amusement as a result.

Diego

My mouth watered so much my keyboard broke.

I made a damn fine beef stew.

Stew doesn’t really photograph well, so just take my word for it. Generic beef stew is one of those dishes that I don’t have a recipe for, and I just sort of toss in whatever I remember or think to. But, generally:

  • Dust meat with flour, brown in a stew appropriate vessel (e.g. Dutch oven). (Meat varies, ideally short rib, but a mixture of chuck and round is more typical) in oil.
  • Remove meat, add garlic, onions, some salt to sweat for a bit.
  • Add some carrots.
  • Add an appropriate amount of tomatoes for the meat. I usually use canned whole tomatoes.
  • Add flavors. This is usually some herbs, some red pepper, some Worcestershire sauce, black pepper, and salt. This time, I also added miso because I saw it in an anime (a food anime), and I had miso in my fridge so: why not? Some tomato paste. Probably some butter? Yeah.
  • Re-add the meat. Add some beef broth if there isn’t enough liquid. Or don’t.
  • Add some potatoes.
  • On low heat, cover and leave it alone for a while. Probably don’t leave the house, but, I mean, if you have to walk the dog or something, it’s probably fine.
  • Serve however. I serve over rice because I always eat rice.

2 things today. I’m getting a cold so I wanted to get this stuff done earlier than later. Started with a solid soup plan but my son asked for spaghetti sauce for dinner, so soup is prepped for tomorrow.

Tonight we ate Bolognese sauce. Pancetta, carrot and onion in a food processor. Skipped celery since the wife hates it. Mix until pastey.

Cook in pan with olive oil and butter. Tomato paste, brown ground beef, deglaze with red wine, add cooked down beef stock, cook down until thicker.

Usually add parmesan, but my son is allergic to dairy so a splash of fish sauce to compensate for umami. Added some extra tomato paste to brighten it a bit. Came out quite good.

Started the base for Tortilla soup for tomorrow. Stock takes a bit to make so it’s fine to split across 2 days. Leeks, chicken bones, onions, carrots. Tossed into pressure cooker. I usually use chicken broth as the base, but I ran out and used water. Pressure cook for 2 hours. Next step is going to be filter through a colander to get a good chicken stock base.

Tomorrow I’ll use some chipotles in adobo, fire roasted diced tomatoes, chili powder, cumin, garlic and onions as the base. I’m tempted to try a fire roasted poblano too, we’ll see how that goes. Then some saved shredded chicken, topped with chips, cheese and limes.

It’s kind of a blank canvas soup. Every single time I make it’s different. I think a lot depends on the kind of chicken bones. Some times it’s rotisserie chickens, other times, oven roasted, other times, remainders of hot wings. A lot of season then taste, then season then taste…

So yeah, that’s today’s food for the weekend.

Shake ‘n’ Bake was something that we occasionally had when I was a kid.

I had some chicken thighs from a couple of chickens I had cut into parts and wanted to do something a little different from the usual cut into bits and stir fry that I wild normally do.

I looked up some do it yourself recipes on the web to get an idea of proportions and then just winged it. The mix was about 1/2 cup of bread crumbs some salt, pepper, garlic powder, paprika, dried Italian herb mix. A little olive oil was added and the whole lot was stirred together and dumped into a ziploc bag with the thighs.

400 degree oven for about 40 minutes and the result was a nice moist piece of thigh with a tasty crispy skin. It was a hit.

I still love shake and bake every now and then. My wife judges me when i scrap off the burnt crunchy bits off of the roasting pan.

Chicken thighs have been my general go to lately. Too many “woody” chicken breasts put me off of them.

Both the soup and the bolognese sound wonderful, @lord_pall. And as someone who has to make frequent adaptations to a partner’s tastes, I feel you on the lack of celery/skipping Parmesan type stuff. Glad you’re finding good replacements when needed, though :-)

From earlier this week:

Indian “Kheer” Rice Pudding (whole milk boiled with soaked, partially crushed-up basmati until thick, then flavored with sweetened condensed milk, strands of saffron, and a healthy dose of cardamom, topped with chopped almonds, cashews, pistachios, and golden raisins fried in butter) + Alton Brown’s “The Chewy” Chocolate Chip Cookie, adapted into a festive M&M + Chocolate Chip combo.

Friend had a Three Kings Day party, so I did dessert; the rice pudding’s not altogether dissimilar to how they’d prepare it in her native Puerto Rico, and the cookies were mostly just there to get rid of a ton of holiday-themed M&Ms I had leftover. . .

And so, quiche it was to be. Black garlic included.

Sauteing black garlic with the onions.

One with the BG onions one with plain onions. Both with ham, Gruyere and white cheddar

The final result.

We have a lot of the black garlic and will be giving some away before it goes bad. The taste is truly sublime. Looking forward to more recipies with it.

That ham is crazy pink!

I thought so too. At least in the picture it is. What can I say, iPhone 5 camera. In real life it was more… ham colored. :)

Heh, that makes sense. At first, I thought you had put those little candy hearts in there.

Don’t be silly. That’s not until Valentine’s Day.

All the talk of paprikash made me want to try my hand at it, but I decided to find a simple recipe online for my first go around rather than try to fiddle with paring yours down. I might try your grandmother’s next time or try to mess with this one a bit first. I’m not really sure why it had me remove the chicken before adding the sour cream for one thing. Anyway, pictures:

The dumplings aren’t pretty, but they tasted alright.

Spaghetti Puttanesca
from Pasta Revolution

(Photo taken after I’d already dished some up).
Basically, for the sauce, you heat some olive oil with anchovies, garlic and red pepper flakes for a few minutes, then mix in a 28 ounce can of diced tomatoes and cook them for several more minutes, and finally add chopped kalamata olives, capers and fresh parsley. You’re meant to drain the tomatoes and reserve a bit of the liquid, I forgot to do this, so there was more liquid than intended.

For the pasta…well, you make spaghetti!

Fastest Chicken Parm
from How to Cook Everything Fast

Crazy simple recipe:
Turn the broiler to high, put an oven rack about six inches from the heat, put a couple tablespoons of olive oil on a rimmed baking sheet, spread them around, and stick the sheet in the oven. Core and slice three ripe tomatoes (it’s winter in Minnesota, I did the best I could), and horizontally halve four 8 oz boneless chicken breasts to form cutlets. Then take the sheet back out, and lay the cutlets flat on the sheet, topping with the tomato slices. Broil on one side until the chicken is no longer pink in the center (5-10 min). Meanwhile, grate parmesan and mozzarella and mix them with bread crumbs in a bowl, also pull a bunch of fresh basil leaves off the stems. When the chicken’s ready, take it back out, top the tomatoes with basil leaves and then spread the bread crumb mixture over the lot and stick it back in to broil for another couple minutes. Voila. (Yes, there’s chicken under all that in the photo!)

Looks like a good start! :)

And your dumplings look just fine. I dunno about other people’s, but mine are never pretty. They’re not supposed to be. They’re supposed to hold sauce and taste delicious. So as long as you got that part you’re doing great :)

Lookin’ good, @malkav11 and @Otthegreat!! And @RichVR, your black garlic usage intrigues me :-D


Recent dinner: Cajun red beans and (brown) rice, with toasted French bread and some spicy kettle cooked chips (that sadly aren’t real Louisianan Zapps cuz those are a bitch to find in NC).


Also, last night, I finished off an insanely complicated 2-day “Pane Rustico” using a carefully maintained levain from the old director of the institute I work for. He’s a biochemist/engineer by trade, so of course the recipe involves an elaborate, formula-laden spreadsheet and every single measurement down to the individual gram. . .

No crumb shot yet cuz it literally came outta the oven at 11PM, but we’ll get there. . . gyah, what a ridiculous recipe. And the last time I made it, it broke both my mixer and my oven! There’s a story there. . .

You can direct order a big box of Zapps from their website if you want them bad enough. I have done it a couple times.