1921

Tonight the boyfriend of one of my roommmate’s and I cooked and somewhat impromptu meal for the whole household. He grilled some salmon with lemon and rosemary along with some vegetables and I made a wild mushroom risotto (my first risotto) along with some roasted yukon gold potatoes. Two of my other roommate’s (I live with a lot of people) made some really hearty chocolate chip/oatmeal cookies that used quinoa. Everything turned out really well, and my risotto got a lot of praise from the household which I was quite proud of considering it was my first attempt and they have a reputation of being quite finicky. Sadly, no pictures to share.

1922

Damn, Kaigen. :D My own haul for this weekend (when I get bored of homework, I head to the kitchen): Greek-inspired pasta salad with a little too much onion and not enough feta; fresh bruschetta; fresh tomato and onion salsa (what can I say, I like tomatoes!); and Mexican-inspired hot chocolate. Would’ve done more baking than the out-of-the-box brownies, but I don’t have a mixer. Need to fix that.

1923

Made chicken stock in the crock pot overnight, and it came out green. Lesson learned: don’t eyeball the basil next time.

1924

Perhaps this should go in the “things” thread, but I need cooking help so I’m posting it here. Got my first CSA box this week. Very excited as I’ve been wanting to do this for years but was hesitant as I live in the House of Picky Eaters. A couple of friends who get produce from a local program were feeling overwhelmed by the amount of vegetables, so they asked if I wanted to take every other box. Bingo.

They told me they get the small box. Woof.

The veggies are, indeed beautiful. Here’s the spread:

I’m kind of at a loss as to what to do with a lot of this. I’ve cooked up a couple of the corns (simple microwave method: in husk, 2-3 minutes, flip, 2-3 minutes, wrap in kitchen towel for 5, shuck). Best corn I’ve ever tasted. I’ve used some of the other stuff in salads. Great carrots and radishes. Hoping for help/ideas for the rest of it. Especially those turnips (I think?) and this monster:

Which everyone’s telling me just to carve like a pumpkin. Arg.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

-xtien

1925

Hey, Underwood comes to my local farmers market too!

1926

Carrots, zucchini and turnips get you halfway to a marvelous chicken soup.

1927

You can either freeze or dry most of the herbs, if you’re not going to use them right away. I’m currently working on freezing a giant bunch of cilantro. Throw it in a soup later in the winter for a bit of a twist. :)

1928

It’s end of season for my garden, and even though half my crop failed I’m collecting a lot of different chilies. My wife wanted me to make her a really hot chili con carne, but when I cook on weekends (home to late on weekdays) I want to experiment and I not that fond of chili con carne.
So I open my iPad and finds this recipe on Epicurious. My first Chili con carne without rice, and it was awesome. Having that Chili cheddar shortcake was a revelation.

Only change to the recipe was that I only used fresh chilies and three different sorts - Jalapeno and Christmas Pepper for the cakes and Habanero for the chili.

As a bonus I bring you my close to perfection pizza. Tomato sauce made from my own fresh tomatoes and the only topping not from the Italian specialist store is the sausages, that my kids and wife insist on having.

1929

Last night I was coerced into baking cookies by one of my roommates. I didn’t have a recipe or my laptop handy so I just winged it completely. I’m going to copy the recipe into here so it’s documented before it escapes my brain completely, but these turned out really really well.

1 Cup Flour
1/4 Cup Cocoa Powder
1 Cup Rolled Oats
1 Teaspoon Cinnamon
1 Teaspoon Nutmeg
1/2 Teaspoon Baking Powder
1/4 Teaspoon Baking Soda
Sea Salt
2 Eggs
1/2 Cup Butter
1/2 Cup Packed Brown Sugar
1/4 Cup White Sugar
1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
Lots Chocolate Chips

Preheat the oven to 350, line a pan with parchment paper.

In a large bowl cream together the butter and sugar in a large bowl. Mix in two eggs, lightly beaten and then the vanilla.

In a medium bowl sift in the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, spices, salt and oats. Using a whisk, stir them all together so they were completely integrated. Gradually add the flour to the butter mixture with a flour spatula, scraping along the sides to make sure everything integrates well. Fold in chocolate chips to your taste.

With wet hands, roll the cookie dough into balls slightly smaller than a ping pong ball and place on sheet. Bake on 350 for about 8 minutes. Let cool on pan and then on wire rack.

When I first pulled these out of the oven I tried these and thought they were okay, not great. The texture seemed slightly off to me when they were fresh from the oven. Once they had cooled completely the chocolate was a little firmer and the whole thing had this gooey almost brownie like texture. In my opinion, some of the better cookies that I’ve made but you really have to let them cool completely.

If I made it again, I would probably do a couple things differently. I would leave the salt out of the flour mixture and instead sprinkle the sea salt over the cookie dough on the pan before I put them in the oven. I also might lightly toast the oats and then grind them in a coffee grinder to give the cookie a more consistent texture and broader oatiness.

1930

I improvised up a pretty tasty jambalaya last night. Thought I’d share the recipe in case any other Jambalaya lovers wanted to give it a whirl:

1 16oz Hillshire Farms smoked sausage.
1 largish chicken breast.
2 small stalks celery (one big one would do)
1 green pepper
1 small yellow onion
1 1/2 cups chicken stock
2 tsp garlic powder (use real garlic if you have it, I didn’t)
2 tsp (approx) Tony’s Creole seasoning.
1 cup uncooked white rice.

Pretty simple to prepare. I took a large cast iron skillet and heated a bit of oil in it. Then I cubed the chicken and thinly sliced the sausage and tossed it all in the pan to brown. While I was letting it brown and giving it the occasional stir I also chopped all the other veggies. I pulled the meat after it was browned and turned down the heat. Then I threw all the veggies in to saute in the leftover fat. Once they softened I added the seasonings plus some salt, which was a mistake as my final dish was a bit too salty. Then I tossed in the stock, the uncooked rice, the meat, and lidded it up. I lowered the heat and let it all simmer for 40 minutes. I stirred it a bit every once in awhile just to make sure nothing stuck to the bottom and burned.

Final result was quite tasty when served with a warmed crusty baguette.

1931

For Canadian Thanksgiving, I just baked apple pie FOR THE EMPEROR!

It is both gluten- and heresy-free

1932

I went to a pre party last Friday to an Iranian guy who said he had a bunch Persian snacks. He sure did. They weren’t all that great, being store bought and transported across the planet, but they had some nice flavors.

At one point in the party we tried something called ghotab, which are these deep fried balls with a nut + sugar + spice filling. The ones we tried had cinnamon inside, which worked pretty good. Dry, but fair enough. Then, he mentions that they’re difficult to make. If I hear those words about a snack I know I have to make them, so today me and a French friend of mine who’s also into pastries made some.

We chose to follow this one recipe that we found, but to try both cinnamon in some and cardamom in the rest.

Ghotab:

medium eggs, two
yogurt, 100 grams
cooking oil, 100 grams (we used olive oil. It was very oily. Two thirds, or maybe even a half should work okay)
flour, 150 grams
baking powder, one teaspoon
almonds, 250 grams
fine sugar, 150 grams
cardamom powder, one spoonful

Directions:

"Separate egg-yolks and mix well with baking powder, cooking oil
and yogurt. Add flour gradually while stirring the mix. Pour
the dough in a plastic bag and leave for 1-2 hours.

Peel and ground almonds. Mix well with sugar and cardamom powder.
Spread some flour on a table-top. Make orange-sized balls from
the dough. Flatten the ball on the table-top to a thickness of
0.5 cm using a roller.

Cut circles into the dough with a cup. Place some of the
almond-sugar mix at the center of each circle. Bring the
edges of the circle together and press to close completely.

Fry in pre-heated oil until colour changes. Drain the excess oil,
then roll in fine sugar."

We found that there’s nowhere near enough dough for all that filling. We still have about half of the filling left, so I would suggest using half the amount of almonds (use the rest, and the egg whites for macarons!), maybe 100 grams of sugar, and the same amount of spices (or possibly even more).

I didn’t take any photos, but they should end up looking something along the lines of

edit: Gwendraeth that rules!

1933

It’s some variety of squash. One option is to make a squash soup. I’m used to using butternut squash, but I suspect others would work.

Halve it, and roast in a 350 F oven, skin side up until the flesh is soft. This might take half 30-60 min or even more depending on the size of your squash.

Meanwhile, dice up a medium size onion. If you have some fresh ginger, you can also grate about a 1/2 teaspoon of it. In a large pot, saute the onions and ginger in some butter until the onions are soft and then add about 3 cups of chicken stock and bring to boil and then shut down until the squash is ready.

Scoop out the flesh of the squash and add to the pot, and bring to a simmer. Let it simmer for a few minutes. Using a stick blender, whaazz it all up until smooth. Or, you can blend in batches using a regular blender.

1934

Hey, thanks Tim! That’s a good idea. I’ve done a butternut squash soup a couple of times and absolutely loved it (although I left it too thick last time, I think), so I think I’ll go down this road.

Picking up another box today. Hopefully something in there will work with the soup.

-xtien

1935

We’re near the end of the season with our CSA, and we just got one of these in our box:

Uh, what the heck is that?

1936

Baby Cthulu

1937

It looks like some sort of intelligent space spore from Star Trek. Or maybe celeriac.

1938

That looks like it, cheers :)

1939

This made me smile. Hugely.

-xtien

1940

Celeriac actually one of the more common “What the hell is that?” vegetables you’ll find at most CSAs. It seems to pop up toward the end of the season, and occasionally during the winter if yours offers winter shares, as well.

It’s usually a pretty safe guess.