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

Depends how much you make soup and salsa. Everything else it’s best suited-for (mayo, whipped cream, sauces like hollandaise) are pretty uncommon and other stuff is best made in a full-sized blender anyway. They really are great for blending up hot soup, though. I got a cheap immersion blender years ago, have used it maybe 10-15 times, and it’s perfectly fine.

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ESVKJJY

Chronic, good lord man, what happened to that steak? It looks gangrenous. I hope just a bad cellphone pic.

Edit: Oh, a blue cheese crust. I would never do that to a perfectly good steak, a cow died for that. Anyway hope it tasted better than it looks!

I had read this article before getting mine, I ended up getting this Cuisinart (hey the same one Stusser just posted), performance was rated good but the screwy safety button lowered the rating. I was impatient and it was the one I could get quickest. I don’t find it too burdensome but you definitely are aware of it.
https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B00ARQVM5O/?tag=se-equipment-20

Ha Stusser, I figured you missed the blue cheese part. I had 4 steaks so it was 2 with 2 without just in case things went really badly. If you like that kind of thing it turned out pretty awesome. There’s a great old school steak joint here in Minneapolis, Murray’s, that does a crust like this and my son got one last time we were there and he said this was pretty close.

I’m planning to go Breville. Wirecutter thinks it’s the best, and I want the best.

The use I could see regularly doing? Kenji Alt-Lopez’s (slightly crazy) technique of buying whole peeled canned tomatoes and then blending them in the can instead of buying pre-crushed/pureed. I mean, I don’t know that I believe that there’s that much of a difference, but I do use that consistency of canned tomato a lot and if I already have one I might as well.

In my last move we misplaced a box that had some kitchen stuff in it, including our immersion blender. It was one of the first things I rebought. I got the cuisinart one, after loving my previous one. My previous one didn’t have the safety button though. The new safety button is a bit of a pain, and not easy to really hit with one hand. Really knocks it down a few notches in my book (but can’t complain about anything else).

You must make a lot of soup!

I use my immersion blender a ton. It’s super useful for curry if you like it smooth, plus hot soups, mayonnaise, and yeah, tomato sauces where you wanna use the genuinely good San Marzano whole plums, not just any old Grade-Z crushed shit.

I can’t speak for @nKoan but I’m considering one for precisely that reason. I make a soup at least once every 2-3 weeks. More like once a week in the winter, Chicago winters be cold!

I kinda do but not really more than a 1-2 times per month in the fall/winter. I also have an attachment that is basically a mini food processor, which I use about the same or slightly more. I used that nearly daily for baby food and still use it for batches when the regular food processor is simply too big.

The best I ever had was at a place called George’s on Cortelyou Road and McDonald Ave in Brooklyn. Great food.

Speaking of soup, I made a cabbage stew for dinner tonight.

Super tasty as well as fairly healthy. Yeah, it has bacon. But also cabbage, onion, tomato, celery, and carrots.

So I referenced Boss Sauce above in my query about things I might cook for Passover. Boss Sauce is a really simple sauce my girlfriend’s son loves. He eats it over pasta or rice, so I offered to make it or chicken soup for him for their return from vacation.

Given the choice, he chose Boss Sauce. Both make me nervous, because both recipes come separately from his two grandmothers. It’s always weird to assail a beloved dish made by grandma(s). But I’ve had success with this before. It’s really simple. Just onions (chopped super fine so they almost disappear) with some basil and ground beef and tomato sauce. Then seasoned carefully so it’s not too spicy but not too boring. I’m okay at it. It’s fine as a substitute.

This time I decided to do two versions. Since my girlfriend never gets to try it, as she is a vegetarian, I made a second vegetarian batch, with thick-cut mushrooms and basil and garlic and some olives. Sort of a take on my puttanesca sauce, but re-branded. Again, it can go over rice, as her son’s sauce does, but omits the meat.

It’s fun to take chances while cooking. Even little risks like this. You never know until you try.

We shall see how it goes.

-xtien

Is that a lodge enameled cast iron Dutch oven?

Actually it’s a Tramontina. The economical version that has served me well for easily more than a decade. I love cooking in this thing. Though it can be a beast to move around and clean.

-xtien

It looks almost exactly like my lodge one, which is also the "cheap"version of more expensive enameled cast iron.

Like you, I love cooking in it. I probably use it more than any other pan.

It’s hard to move around and clean, but its stability on the stove is a nice benefit a lot of the time.

I find my Lodge super easy to clean, though it’s definitely heavy. Stuff comes right off. I don’t actually use it as a general purpose pot though because it takes a long time to heat up and then retains that heat for a long time. That’s something you want sometimes, but if a recipe doesn’t specify a Dutch oven I generally won’t use it because they’re probably not expecting that profile.

I’m super biased towards hand crushing my tomatoes because I like the texture in sauces more when there are still little chunks left. I have an immersion blender, but don’t use it for too much, as I feel like my blender does a much better job when I really want to make something smooth. Usually, I’m passing those materials through cheesecloth or very fine wire mesh after the blender in those cases to really accentuate the “smooth” texture.

I exclusively use my immersion blender to half-blend soup, when I don’t want it 100% smooth, but thicker, and to make salsa.

Secret to homemade salsa is tossing in a can of chipotles in adobo. Everything else is exactly what you would guess you’d put in salsa.

I did make mayo once, but it turns out one egg yolk makes like a ridiculous amount of mayo so that’s not something I’d do again.

Last night’s dinner:
Pork Chops with Potatoes and Mushrooms
from The Best Casserole Cookbook Ever


Thick cut pork chops, lightly breaded, baked over a bed of sliced potatoes, onions and mushrooms, with some dried sage and heavy cream poured over the veggies. They ended up being underseasoned for my taste and I think next time I’d cook it the full hour (the recipe said 45-60 minutes) since the potatoes could have stood to be a little more tender. Pretty good with some more spices though.

Pasta with Shrimp, Andouille Sausage, and Red Pepper
from Pasta Revolution


Pretty much what it says on the tin. You cook ziti in a big pot, and build a tomato-based sauce in a skillet while that’s happening, starting by browning cut up andouille sausage, then softening the red pepper in the fat, then mixing in a can of crushed tomatoes, and finally simmering thawed shrimp with the skillet covered until it’s cooked through. Dump the sauce in with the drained pasta and some chopped fresh parsley, season w/ salt and pepper, toss and serve. Pretty yummy.

Yeah, it makes about a full cup, so you need to have a use for it. I’ll usually do some fresh garlic mayo when I grill shrimp.

“What’s the sauce?”

“Garlic mayo.”

“Oh, right. … Wait, what?”

Call it an allium aioli, then they’ll go all “ooh, fancy”.