So what have you cooked lately?

Is this a good/accurate recipe for it?

Last thing I cooked was a really basic tomato sauce - tomatoes, garlic, basil, oregano, pinch of sugar. I've been lazy in the kitchen lately.

In a bowl, I mixed:

1 thinly sliced shallot
1 sliced (pickling) cucumber
2 sliced vine tomatoes
Sauteed crimini mushrooms and garlic in olive oil
Two fistfuls of whole arugula

Then I added penne pasta, salt, pepper, parmesan cheese. Tossed and ate. It was very good and tasted quite light. The recipe called for something like 1/4 cup olive oil, but the oil I sauteed the mushrooms in was more than enough (I thought).

Next time, I think I won't sautee the garlic and add it to the salad raw instead. The garlic was too subtle; I like more of a kick.

NA, you can't possibly be more of an amateur than I am, I've only been doing this for like a month.

Later this week we're probably doing fajitas (of some sort; my beef people didn't have fajita meat today, but I think I'll make a fajita/taco filling with their stew meat, like a carne guisada), which I do more often now that I've discovered that fresh-baked pitas from the Mediterranean places around here are closer to real flour tortillas than anything else I've had; tortillas are one of the few things I don't make myself, and my standards for them are high enough that I'm not sure I'd get through the learning curve.

The only problem is that I only made three and still have enough prepped ingredients to make thiry more. Looks like it'll enchiladas for the rest of the week... Must find some way to make them a little bit differrent or else I'm never going to want to have them again.

One half was a straightforward salt & pepper roast.
Other half, rubbed and stuffed with a mexican chocolate/pomegranate molasses mix, then finally rubbed with margarita salt. Worked remarkably well, even if I do say so myself.

I love anything with lime and cilantro; absolute ambrosia.

Tonight will be Platonic fish, without the orange juice unless we go to the grocery store again (I need chicken to go with the Thai basil I picked up this morning at the market); scallops; corn on the cob; and fried Caribe potatoes.

Now I gotta figure out what's for dinner...

It was the Fiery Foods Festival, so we also got some fresh serrano peppers to make cilantro/garlic/serrano salsa with. We're going back tomorrow with more cash for some of the fantastic pepper wreaths and strings.

Tonight I'm making sancocho (a South American stew that, from my frame of reference, is like a cousin of gumbo: chicken, sausage, beef, plantains, onions, corn, tomato, chiles, potatoes, name, pumpkin) for tomorrow; roasted figs with caramel sauce for dessert tonight after leftover chili.

On a whim of some kind, I cured some strips of skirt steak today, so we'll see how that comes out.

Start with red pepper olive oil, enough to generously cover a regular skillet
Saute about half a small onion, finely chopped (Not too much onion, or the fresh spinach will be sad)
add some fresh spinach
add some chopped tomato
black olives, sliced
I also chopped some soy Italian sausage into circles and heated it with the rest.

Spices- garlic, salt, pepper- nothing else because the idea is fresh spinach and tomato (YUM!.) I might add mushrooms another time.

Sautee till spinach is wilted, spoon over hot penne pasta, sprinkle some fresh grated parm or romano.

It was gooooooood.

I made them with cinnamon and raisin, but I kinda wanted to make them with cardamom. Would that have been terrible?

tonight's dinner was a risotto made from leftover chicken from last night, stock made from the carcass and celery leaves added at the last minute, this was a good thing

Later this week I'm scouting out the new butcher to see if they're open yet, in the hopes of ending the pork drought.

Lunches this week have been a "salad" of rice, black beans, and roasted chicken.

Hrm. I should see if I can get someone to go in on something with me, though.

I cookled 4 small boneless chicken thighs in olive oil and roughly cut them up. I accidentally used a whole head of broccoli (instead of one cup, but it was fine). I chose to replace the dill weed with fresh rosemary and thyme. I used shallots instead of plain old onions because some of the reviews said the onions were too overpowering. I left out the almonds.

It was rather difficult to "braid", since the crescents are perforated and were coming apart when I pulled on them. Next time, I plan on using the pre-made rectangular pizza dough to slice up and braid.

This recipe was actually something like what I made for a halloween party last year. You put the filling in the shape of a body, wrap the single strands of dough around the body and call it a "Mummy."

Quince and sour cream pie for dessert; there's panna cotta cooling in the fridge to go with it tomorrow.

Sunday is the eighth (I think) edition of Is My Blog Burning?, a "cooking with alcohol" theme this time round, so I'm going to make my version of coq au vin for that. Found out today that my new favorite local grocery store doesn't have non-injected whole chickens (because they only carry Tyson), and I wound up buying Cornish game hens just out of frustration. I'll use those for the "coq" instead of the thighs I usually use.

Tomorrow's the Farmer's Market, so I usually leave Saturday meals unplanned in case I pick something up that should be used right away.

I also made the non-pasta portion of a Mean Woman Pasta to set in the fridge overnight. I will have some tonight and I'm REALLY looking forward to it. The hardest part of prep was the kalamata olives. The grocery store didn't have nice-looking pitted ones anywhere so I had to pit them myself with a paring knife. In the end, it looked like I ripped the olives apart with my fingers. Not too pretty, but I think it'll taste nice. Maybe I should get an olive pitter and post it to the "Cool Tools" tread... And, I'm sorry, why is this called "Mean Woman" pasta? I chose it be/c I want to use some of my pepperoncini's but I'm worried that, after eating some, I'll have the urge to go out looking for puppies to kick.

Which reminds me, one of my favorite desserts at a now-defunct Cuban restaurant was Braza Gitana, translated variously as Arms of the Gypsy, Gypsy's Kiss, and Gypsy's Embrace. Whatever the name, it was luscious, decadent, and tasty - coconutty pineapply creaminess with cake.

I also made crumpets for the first time this weekend. They are enormous, almost too thick for the toaster and crunchier on one side than I expected. I think my yeast was not up to snuff - the holey side isn't terribly, so the butter doesn't soak in. Taste okay though, and certainly filling.

I want it to be somewhat firmer still, texture-wise -- I found out too late that you're supposed to change the water daily if you don't use it right away, and this was bought on Sunday -- but otherwise it's pretty good for a quick lunch.

Marzapan cake (sic)

a puff pastry case (with not that much rise actually, so I'm guessing you over-work it) inside of which is a moist almond cake, in fact it's so moist that when you get down to chewing it, it's more like a soft marzipan.

hopw the hell do you reckon you make that?

Oh oh - you could cook the puff pastry first like a giant vol-au-vent, then make the cake filling more like an almondy mousse!

there's the bad boy

Not-actually-foamed lemon foam (it's like lemon meringue pie filling); and I've been curing lots of meat lately, since I finally got around to buying curing salt.

I FINALLY found a mole (moh-lay, not rodent) sauce I can open. For years and years I had this glass jar of mole that wouldn't open to any implement -- there wasn't enough lip to use any kind of flip-it-off thing, and the lid was too thick for a can opener to penetrate. I'm assuming it would have opened to some sort of tool common in Mexico and unknown here.

Anyway, the bodega here has a very small selection -- mostly rotting-in-the-bins produce that's more expensive than the grocery stores carry but no different except for the Spanish tags -- but they did have a plastic tub of mole paste. I can and have made it myself, but I had nothing to compare it against. The cinnamon taste is more pronounced in this paste than I would have realized, for one thing.

So a mole of beef, onions, oven-dried tomatoes, and the mole paste made its way into calzone-style pies, which was a huge hit with my girlfriend.

Tonight:

Tequila potatoes (the IMBB event lately included an entry about sake potatoes, which I made and were excellent; tonight I'm trying them made with tequila instead but haven't decided whether to keep the butter-and-soy-sauce combination. If I go with butter-and-hot-sauce instead, I'm basically looking at tequila-y buffalo wing sauce, which is A-OK by me.

I bought fresh yeast and 10 lbs of flour, because Casuistry's bread experiments are inspiring me.

I had bought a sourdough bagette and spreads to have while we waited for the pizza to cook. Some hummus, herby cheese spread, smoked trout pate and tampenade. Do you know, I had never had tampenade before but I remember a girl at work talking about how much she liked it. I looked through all the jars at the co-op and ended up buying a french one that had the best ingredients to me (olives, capers, olive oil, anchovies, herbs). I LOVED it and I'd love to make this at home (I think it'd be so easy). What's the consistancy meant to be? This one was almost smooth but I think I'd enjoy it slightly chunkier... What are people's feelings on tampenade?

last nuight we had scrambled egg with slivers of a cured duck sausage on wholemeal toast, as we're ponces we drizzled a bit of truffle oil on top. it was fine, mighty fine in fact.

i made kibbeh (first recipe, scroll down a bit) on sunday, and it was pretty good, in fact there is still a bit in the fridge that i am nibbling on every now and again. i don't have a food processor so i think it was a bit chunkier than perhaps it should have been, but the pine nuts and onion (and pomegranate sirop (it was the closest my local corner shop had, but it seemed to do the job) on top really made it...

as an aside, i wuv my local corner shop, they have shit hot veg and loads of mad turkish/mediteranean stuff i'm slightly afeared of, but slowly thinking what i could do with it...

But it was cheaper than the place that sold the unadulterated spices, so it goes. I just hope it isn't the spice equivalent of "mongoose pepperoni" and all those jerkies/sausages that are designed to incorporate an exotic meat with enough spices and texturizers to make it indistinguishable from beef or pork.

I'm going to try them soon -- I'm debating tossing some on my elk burger tonight, but I really like elk with hot sauce, and suspect the mountain pepper would get lost.

Still, it looks great. Probably a good gift/party bread.

Okay, this sounds awesome.

The girlfriend is out all day and has a job interview tonight w/ the CIA (not the cooking one), so normally this is when I'd make vinegar chicken or extra-spicy ribs or something else she's rarely in the mood for, but what I have in the fridge is leftover chicken, elk "Denver tender" (it's a cut of steak), and Elk Italian sausages. So who knows.

I mean, I'm being a little pedantic or something here -- I like both B&J ice cream and this bread -- but you see what I mean, right?

There's a bake sale Monday for the Heart Association. I'm making 7-layer bars, full of sugar and saturated fat.

I baked a salmon filet with couscous. It was a varient on this recipe I saw on Food Network a while ago. Just basically covered the salmon with a wild mushroom couscous and added water. I cooked it covered with tin foil so that the couscous would steam and not burn. Next time, I'll try leaving it off to get a nice crust...

Pork pie for pudding methinks

(At least that's what it was like when I tried it, we'll see how it comes out when I make it.)

We had company this weekend, of which part arrived before I could make up the chicken stock so that's on the simmer now. I'm trying to reduce it, but don't think I have the patience.

Saturday night was an enormous pot roast, oven-roasted potatoes, and gravy that turned out really well. My usual pot roast is braised in a bottle of red wine with garlic, bay, tomato paste, and peppercorns, but one of our guests reacts badly to alcohol, so I used veal stock this time instead of the wine. There was plenty of gravy left over, and I can't wait for the remaining company to depart so I can have at it over chunks of bread.

There was a crowd for breakfast yesterday morning, so I made a double batch of baking powder biscuits, and this morning a cream coffee cake with fresh plums and apples baked in.

Hi--as distinguished from an American one, which has three or more eggs and often is thick and ends up browned on one side, the French omelete is very light, like this:

beat two eggs thoroughly
melt just enough butter or put just enough olive oil to thinly coat a skillet and its sides
pour eggs in and tilt the pan until they spreads all over
shake it so the egg doesn't stick
sprinkly with whatever is on hand-rosemary, leftover meats, parsley, just a bit of whatever (traditionally actually there is no filling)
flip it or use a spatula to turn it over.
slide it out of the pan

The whole process takes about 2 minutes, and the result is very light, not greasy/oily, the egg perfectly yellow, not brown at all. They are fun to flip. Look ma, no utensils!

The baguette-style bread I made to go with it came out excellent, though. I'm glad I can at least do that right.

-- luna (lunace...), October 13th, 2004 3:25 PM. (later)

Nasty, innit? It's making the LA rounds, and sparing no-one.

In a wok with 2T butter saute until onions are soft:

1 medium white onion, coarsly chopped.
Small pumpkin cut into 1" cubes
1# apples cut int 1" cubes

Add:

4C vegetable stock
1/2 c. chopped cilantro.
cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice to taste.
salt

Cover and boil for 1/2-1 hour until everything's mushy.

Cool slightly.

Blend until smooth, adding dry sherry (to taste) and green onions.

Serve with dry-roasted pumpkin seeds on top.

I intend to cook it tomorrow, so will report back then. With photos, possibly.

Tonight, because luna reminded me of it, is vinegar chicken, with thighs from said butcher -- and for the same reason, I've got one of those face-stuffed-with-wet-gravel colds that makes it hard to taste anything that isn't spicy or acidic.

I want to know how this turns out - sounds really really good.

Lessons learned - I should have used better quality mango chutney, the one I used was a bit too gritty/fake sweet. Also, it needs fresh raita afterwards as the stuff on top doesn't provide enough of a contrast. All in all though, it probably only needs playing with proportions. Can you give higher praise to something every bone in your body says is wrong? (Actually, while assembling it I genuinely thought to myself "this is going to be horrible, you've overstretched yourself here.) The pasta works very well indeed with the curry, like a lighter chapati, and gives me ideas for a chicken tikka canneloni (with masala over the top).

Keema
ihttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v292/aldo_cowpat/7be1b53f.jpg

aided in no small part by the best curry powder that comes out of Leicester, and all you need for a dry curry

ihttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v292/aldo_cowpat/8f06495c.jpg

and some other makings. I bought the chutney and rait ajust for this, so didn't bother going to an Indian supermarket for them. As I say above, this was probably a mistake.

ihttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v292/aldo_cowpat/300c24d3.jpg

Halfway there, we have a layer of keema, some pre-soaked lasagne sheets, mango chutney and lime pickle

ihttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v292/aldo_cowpat/513addf3.jpg

then some more keema, some more lasagne and finished with raita

ihttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v292/aldo_cowpat/ab9b43d8.jpg

Into a medium oven for half an hour or so

ihttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v292/aldo_cowpat/ecb2914c.jpg

Then serve

ihttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v292/aldo_cowpat/8d76c900.jpg

Frances said it was a bit like when you wake up and have curry leftovers for breakfast, but obviously planned. And without the hangover. She was right, I think.

Just about as traditional a meal as I could have made in Mississippi in October. I needed me some home cooking.

so Made a stew of mainly vegetables with a bit of beef on Saturday, which re-appeared (liquidized and with the not so good beef taken out) as soup on Sunday and Monday.

Last night it was mackerel in mustard sauce with salad leaves

night before it was tuna and salad.

It's killing me, really killing me

("Revising"? Whatever.)

This is part of an ongoing series of apple-based foodstuffs. (Apple crisp, baked buttered-rum apples, sauteed apples with ice cream, and now apple pie.) Coming up: maybe some sort of apple soup?

That apple soup sounds plenty yum.

Asian-style chicken and biscuits (used some soy sauce, water chestnuts & ginger instead of mushrooms and chix stock)

Whole wheat pizza with brined greens and macademia nuts

Another gingerbread, because the last one was so good.

Also I'm making some rhubarb-ginger jam.

STELLAR!

Also I made ravioli. I filled them with a mix of ricotta, gorgonzola, and pine nuts. I was thinking of adding some pumkpin but I decided my open can of pumpkin had perhaps been open too long. Oh well. Any suggestions for other (non-meat) things that could be added to the filling?

Would that be nice or would that be horrible? and have I made it up or read it somewhere?

we had that with creamy potato and parsnip mash and some lovely kale.

http://www.deliaonline.com/picturelibrary/jpeg150/ox/oxtail.jpg

here it is, from New York Magazine (which has recently revamped their whole look and consistenly includes recipes now):

Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Walnuts and Pecorino

Toast 1/2 c walnuts on sheet tray at 350F for about ten minutes, set aside. Cut 24 Brussels sprouts in half and toss in bowl with enough extra-virgin olive oil to lightly coat each sprout. Season with salt and pepper. Lay sprouts on sheet tray, and roast in oven at 450F until tender and some leaves have become crunchy (about 20 mins). Let sprouts cool, then toss in bowl with crumbled walnuts. Drizzle liberally with olive oil, a squeeze of lemon, and and season with salt and pepper. Shave aged pecorino Toscano on top. Serves 4.

As an aside, I got some cans of Bumble Bee (who specialize in tuna fish) SALMON on sale at the grocery store. It's meant to be PINK SALMON and when I opened the can and tasted it, I SWEAR it's tuna fish. I mean, is this for people who don't know what salmon is supposed to taste like? I feel bad for these people who might someday end up saying something like, "Salmon? Oh, no thank you. Tastes just like tuna fish."

I'm very very VERY disappointed.

I'll give you the report tomorrow.

I'm craving brussel sprouts right now though!

Served the pork with sides of steamed brocoli and baked yams. yummers

I fried a bunch of stuff up tonight that was okay but would have been better had I taken the time to chop. Or simmer in some wine or beef broth maybe. Garlic, olive oil, lean ground beef, kalamata olives, oregano, sun-dried tomatoes, capers.

It looks like a head of cabbage makes about a quart of kraut.

Meanwhile I need to pickle something else to bide my time until the kraut is ready.

Basically, you make a heavy bechamel or veloute sauce (1/4 cup butter, 1/4 cup flour, 1 cup hot milk) and add your cheese and seasonings. Beat up 4 eggs, beat in a spoonful of the warm base sauce, then beat the egg mixture into the rest of the sauce. Pour into a hot buttered ceramic 3-4 cup casserole and bake at 375 F for 30 minutes or so in a water bath with about an inch of water in it.

I got too many pans/bowls/utensils messed up the first time I tried it, due to underestimating how much room I'd need to stir. This doesn't rise as high as a souffle with the whites beaten separately and folded in, but also doesn't collapse as dramatically. Also good cold. This is my new favorite food.

I also have some pickles going. Mmm, pickles.

Saturday started off with Chorizo and red onion in scrambled eggs for lunch, nice.

Then for tea we went to Locanda Locatelli (K-swanky) and I had the best pudding of my life - Toscana chocolate soup with truffled honey ice cream - that ice cream was absolutely amazing.

Then Sunday we had sushi from Oriental city, and for tea I made Thai minced beef with chilli and holy basil, followed by pannetone bread and butter pudding, which may be the second best pudding I ever had.

This week I made a creamy vegetable pasta dish on Monday (quorn pieces, mushrooms, onions, baby sweetcorn, asparagus with greek yoghurt) very tasty. Then last night I made a low-fat thai green curry last night.

Ingredients
main
75g sultanas
grappa, for soaking, for soaking
6 tbsp milk
375ml double cream
2 vanilla pods
4 eggs
150g caster sugar
1 panettone
butter , for spreading

Method
1. Put the sultanas in a bowl and cover with grappa. Leave to soak while you make the custard.

2. Pour the milk and cream into a saucepan set over medium heat. Add the vanilla pods and bring just to the boil, taking care not to let it boil over.

3. Meanwhile, whisk the eggs and sugar in a large bowl for about 3-4 minutes until thick and pale.

4. When the milk has boiled, remove the vanilla pod, and add the milk to the eggs, stirring continuously. Leave to cool completely, then cover and put in the fridge.

5. Preheat the oven to 170°C/gas 3.

6. Using a serrated bread knife, remove the crust from the panettone. Cut into equal slices. Butter both sides, then cut each slice into four squares.

7. Distribute the squares equally between individual ramekins (you can use one big dish but the cooking time will increase). Sprinkle with the grappa-soaked sultanas.

8. Remove the custard from the fridge and pour into the ramekins until half-filled. Leave to sit for 5 minutes so that the mixture soaks into the bread. Then fill with the remaining custard.

9. Place the ramekins in a bain-marie or a roasting pan filled with enough hot water to come halfway up the sides of the ramekins. Bake for 15 minutes until set.

10. Remove the ramekins from the bain-marie to cool. Serve at room temperature rather than chilled.

Changes made were - grappa soaked raisins left out, ramekins were replaced by the one lasagne dish, and he didn't use a bain-marie

It was gorgeous, though we didn't measure out the panettone, and I think we used a bit too much in ratio to the custard, as it wasn't very wet, but it wasn't too dry either. Chris can probably say more about quantities this evening if broadband is up and running.

We were planning on doing a brioche bread and butter pudding, but we polished off the brioche scoffing the fois gras, and we completely forgot about the panettone until the 31st dec! Chris had to warn me to leave some for B&B pudding though, as I'd quite happily have scoffed my way through the whole of it

Tomorrow: Lamb steaks with a chilli and pesto crust. Sauteed mange tout. CHIPS DONE IN GOOSE FAT.

I've decided I'm going to make 50 types of bread this year (rather than reading 50 books, as suggested on another board). I've already done 4.

This evening I made moules a la basquaise (roast peppers, garlic, white wine). This was slurped with piles of brown bread. Not bad at all, as it happens.

I'd also recommend reading Joe Ortiz's The Village Baker, which is the best "breadism" book I've read yet.

I have a few more to get and read, though...

Where do I get my goose fat? From my christmas goose. Even giving about half of it away, I've still got far more than I actually need to do me through the year. (From a 12lb goose, I reckon you render off easily 3lb of fat)

How can a person not have time to roast potatoes? But, more for you that way.

I just bought "Brother Juniper's Bread Book" which is also sort of about breadism, bread as a metaphor for life. But it's much less obnoxious about it than some of the breadist books. ("Bread Alone" is a huge terror in this regard; the author just has some beliefs and he's sticking to them, facts be damned, because that's what bread "is".)

I've been in the pub and am now going to attempt it. This may not be a good sign.

I baked a coffee cake last weekend that was an abject failure because I was hungry and whisked it out of the oven without checking it. The edges were cooked, but the center was a doughy mess under a nice streusel crust.

Which reminds me: What the hell is "nougat", really?

(though clearly some gnocchi investigation is in order).

I've always fabcied doing the tuna steak in large amounts of olive oil thing, but never had the nerve (or more accurately - the oil) to try it

I've poached halibut in a pan full of oil, and the results were mixed. The texture was nice and glutinous, but I'm a little meh on halibut anyway. I must try it with tuna.

Porto was tremendous - really really good, there's lots of stuff that I want to blog but just don't have the time what with work and all but a rundown of highlights:

Francesinha - a sammidge annotated thusly:

red spicy sauce
------------------
grill till bubbling
-----------------
cheese
fried egg
bread
bacon
steak
ham
spicy sausage
bread

CAN YOU IMAGINE????????

also - roasted kid - num num
some cracking bacalhau
suckling pig with the most peppery sauce ever - and thin too
and there's more, but I have a match to play

I made Turkish bacalao fish-balls last night. Interesting with a hint of cinnamon.

They don't like their vegetables in Porto, not unless they're disguised with lots of meat. Even their cakes and pastries have pig fat in them.

I really want to get some salt cod now, and try cooking it myself (or maybe I'll let Chris cook it!) Maybe I'll go to brindisa at lunchtime and pick up a chunk for the weekend!

Eating out tonight and tomorrow, when oh when will I cook again?

Oh, that's right, wednesday.

I think I got the tip on the sausages from Matthew Fort on one of the Nigel Slater programmes.

Man, that was some fantastic cake. Seriously. Ideal for a small gathering where you want to show off. Expensive ingredients (300g of dark chocolate is a lot of chocolate) but, really, precious little effort. I highly recommend it as a cake to give a friend as a present.

with that we had boiled new potatoes (dressed with olive oil and a tiniest drop of the white wine), baked fennel and something else that has slipped my mind completely. We had some sauce vierge to go with it too.

Today we roasted a two rib joint of beef which had obviously been hung for a very very long time. I did roast potatoes in duck fat (bashed and semolinaed), some purple sprouting which was disappointingly stringy, carrots and yorkshires. Lovely thick mushroom gravy too.

yep, we were at Borough market yesterday - fresh sardines for tea...........

samphire, you fool!

mm Liz, that sounds tasty

Today was a simple dinner - roast chicken with roast potatoes (semolina flour is definitely the key to the best), cabbage and carrots and pan juices for gravy - nice.

Tomorrow I'm working but Vic is making paella with stock made from the chicken carcass and some botifarra sausages on the side.

yogurt
vegetable stock
lemon juice
snap peas
nutmeg

a strainer
a whisk
a food processor

half an hour

It looked like blackberry puree. The flavor was spicy but not overwhelmingly hot.

Last nights dinner, one of my standbys and an easy way to get a fancy meal with little effort - teh roast dinner. Last nights was a roast lamb - a deboned rolled lamb shoulder (easier to cook and carve), with baby potatoes, butternut pumpkin and carrots roasted in garlic and fresh rosemary. Sat the lamb on a bed of rosemary stalks and oil, so when it was done I could make gravy with this incredibly rosemary-infused oil. Tasted so good.

So much cold lamb left over, I think I might make shepherds pie for tea tonight mmm.

Cut your conger eel into 3" slices, and simmer in a pan with veg stock, half a clove-studded-onion, salt, pepper and a decent sized bit of lemon rind until the eel falls off the central bone (35 minutes or so). Take the eel out, strain the liquor and add cream and flour to thicken. A squeeze of lemon juice and it's done. Lovely.

I don't have it that often, because it has a strange bone structure - you can get it off the central bone easily, but the flesh itself has small bones arranged almost randomly which means you're always spitting them out no matter how many you try to get out beforehand.

It's a very fishy fish.

I'd love to try and make unagi, but I've never seen small enough eels.

look forward to texas write ups on the pumpkin, If I ever get back into the UK

Today we had an odd mix which seemed to work, we actually had a starter which was some frozen squid pieces that work import from Spain, they come frozem, in a slightly spiced flour - really good with a squeeze of lime and a sprinkle of garlic salt.

After this we had some blackened haddock fillets (we'd had blackened fish in Florida and loved it, this came out pretty well considering we could only get relatively skinny haddock fillets and not big chunks of mahi-mahi) along with salad (lambs lettuce and beetroot), corn tortillas and some thing I cobbled together with leek, courgette and some chilli and garlic.

Tomorrow I'm making burgers, with hot fiery salsa from Fort Worth and some cowboy caviar on the side.

I'm finally making some potato bread. I hope it doesn't suck. I'm not sure I like potato bread, although I went through a phase where I loved it. My cat, the one I grew up with, also loved the stuff.

Also, the recipe for the paneer said to stir the milk, which made the cheese much more like dry cottage cheese in consistency than the more solid tofu-like cubes I was expecting. Next time, I'm going to not stir while it's curdling.

The potato bread turned out fine. It's just a variation on white bread, still, though, and I still don't seem to really care for such bread.

If I used the stale bread to feed the birds, I'd have enough tuppence for paper and string!

Must investigate this "old bread for new" scheme....

A friend is visiting who lives by the waffle; he couldn't believe we have never owned a waffle iron. Since we are having visitors every weekend this month, we bought one yesterday and this morning he demo'd how with a double-batch that included some semolina and quick scottish oats for texture. I made blueberry and marionberry compotes for toppings. Most excellent.

Now I am going to work on some blood red rolls. Thanks to the amazing powers of beet water! Let's see if it works.

The other night I had some portobella shrooms sauteed with garlic, onion, balsamic, thyme. Tossed with pasta and topped with FETA.

DAMN. FETA!!!!

North Staffordshire oatcakes fried gently in a little butter, with skinny young asparagus (sprue) and sliced Irish black pudding, likewise prepared, and topped with creamy scrambled eggs. Such a pretty dish, the colours and textures were gorgeous. And it was damn tasty with a nice cappucino in front of the TV.

Frying everything in butter is amazing. And really really bad for you.

Can't stop making tabbouleh at the moment. My friends are starting to worry. Generally with some kind of griddled fish.

biiiig slab of smoked salmon = good thing

???? Why, why was some nice man sampling you????

It was very yummy smoked salmon, but I forgot to pick peas up at the supermarket, so Chris's tasty creation was pealess.

They loved it, I thought it could have done with something a little more savoury in there.

Dill? though that's probably trite. Maybe something Thai-like: basil and chilis?

Here's a quiche I made last week, about to hit the oven:

http://www.memorygongs.com/quiche.jpg

Quiche is so easy, and a great way to use up the end dregs of veg =)

And I need to have time to cook again.

But I'm glad Remy's alive!

I'm curious ... I've got to make a roll basket for an Independence Day party in July, and I think that blue cornbread rolls, a sweet buttermilk white and blood-red rolls would be both tacky rah-rah USA and delicious.

That Bread Bible is pretty good, and Powell's has it on remainder...

Anyway, it's one of my favorite foods, and a total comfort food, and something I gorge myself on whenever I make it. And I made it last night, and had insane amounts of it -- probably ate an entire cabbage.

I have leftovers still, which I will devour today, no doubt.

mackerel baked on a bed of courgettes
spinach and asparagus salad
Fennel dauphinoise (just fennel, no potatoes - it was something I wanted to try after my boss raved about one he had in Chicago, and jesus, it really does work nicely - didn't really go with dinner but I wanted to try it.)

today:
a smoked pork shoulder (unfortunately rolled - not bone-in as I'd have liked.)
new potatoes
more asparagus

I had two small flank steaks in the freezer, so I thawed them both out and tried two of the rubs: rosemary/garlic/olive oil and ginger/sesame oil/garlic/olive oil. They were both really, really good — even though I used less sesame oil than called for, the ginger/sesame one was strong, but it was delicious. Served with green peas and buttered fingerling potatoes tossed with dill and chives from the garden.

Other parts of the spread included:

The Mrs first attempt at tabbouleh, which wasnae bad at all.
Roast quail rubbed with salt and sage
Blinis with creme fraiche and anchovies
Some home-made hoummous (which I sneaked a whack of chilli in when no-one was looking)

Bit of a mish-mash really, but it was all pretty good (The wine, incidentally, was a Tempranillo / Touriga Nacional blend from the Dao purchased that afternoon from the mighty Byrne's of Clitheroe).

Goat curry is something into which I will never branch out, I have to say.

All the herbs were from our container garden, where the basil especially is going crazy.

1 lb medium shrimp cleaned & quickly boiled
5 cups (1 package) organic baby arugula
1 ripe avocado, sliced
1 ripe mango diced (grapefruit works too)
2-3 shallots chopped

dressing: juice of 2 limes & 3-4 tbsp ev olive oil whisked

mix together and eat with good bread, sauvignon blanc or pinot noir.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v413/chrisnvicky/drpeppercake.jpg

Chris is making an easy river cafe dish - roasted chicken pieces with porcini and italian white wine. I'd forgotten just how much I loved porcini, the smell of them rehydrating is just so meatily mouthwateringly fantastic.

Keep the liquid you rehydrated them in to add in, though make sure you don't put in all the gritty stuff in the bottom! Generally, the bigger the chunks the more likely you've got decent bits of mushroom as opposed to bits of the stem.

sift 125g flour with a good pinch of salt. Beat 85g butter and 85g goats cheese together, stir in some thyme leaves and mix with the flour, knead it a bit, stick in the fridge (wrapped up!) for half an hour or so. Take it out, rool it into a rough circle about 10" in diameter, cover loosely, back in the fridge.

Blanch ten peeled cloves of garlic in boiling water for two mins, then fry with three sliced onions in an ovenproof pan (guess how big) for five mins or so, until softening. Sprinkle on caster sugar, red wine vinegar, salt and mucho pepper. When it starts to caramelise pop your pastry lid on top and sling it in the oven on gas five for twenty minutes or so.

Thank-you very much Jane Grigson. Wow, that sentence feels strange.

I've got gastroenteritis and have lost 8 pounds in 4 days, and all I can find to watch on daytime tv....the food channel :o( American Chopper just isn't repeated enough

I've been really surprised at how good two of the recipes I've tried from the book have been. The first was south beach mashed 'potato' which was basically pureed caulifower, with a little bit of creme fraiche (ok, it wasn't low fat, but I didn't put much in) and a tiny bit of marg. It was so tasty! It will be staying on our staple dishes list long after we've gone past phases 1 and 2. Lovely and sweet, and a texture surprisingly similar to mashed potato.

The other thing was a breakfast solution, thank god! I was really worried about what I was going to eat for breakfast, as I really couldn't see myself getting up in time for making an omlette, seeing as I couldn't even do it for cereal. But I made what is called quiche cups, they were easy, they are ridiculously flexible about what you put in them, and are delicious cold, so very easy to have just before leaving the house. Basically, 3 eggs, 100g cheese (supposidly low fat) and loads of veg. whatever you fancy, though the recipe is for spinach, red pepper and onion, and then bung them in a greased muffin tray, for about 25 mins. I'm looking forward to making them with leeks and peppers, num num.

We had a blowout at the weekend though, in anticipation - after the dr peppers cake we went to France on saturday, and as well as stuffing outselves on lovely cakes, we bought stuff to cook mussels in cider with leek, with lots of lovely juice to be soaked up with baguettes, and then Paella with rabbit, chorizo and clams, followed by tirramisu.

HOWEVER:
this is what i did last night, it is quick and easy and yummy

1. flashfry chopped onions in a wok (ideally they should crunchy still but soft inside)
2. add chopped celery and cashew nuts
3. stir fry until the cashew nuts brown a bit
4. remove to rest
5. stirfry chopped chicken (i cut breasts into ribbons w.kitchen scissors but shape and size to taste)
6. add as much or little as you like of sharwood's oyster sauce (or local equiv), and a dash of salt
7. mix in and continue to stirfry for a spoonturn or three
8. add everything and then pepper

DONE!!

i use peanut oil generally but whatever

INVALID FOOD: looking for classic vegetarian recipes for the poorly, after my kneejerk suggestion of Chicken Broth had been spurned, I reached for my trusty Mrs Beeton, who is always sensible on such matters. Three quarters of her standbys are also meat-based broths, of course, but I'll skip these for now. The section starts arcanely: To Make Arrowroot - as it's "flavourless and insipid", Mrs B advises you add sugar and sherry. Barley Gruel seemed too spartan even to countenance (despite the suggestion that you add port wine and sugar). What about Nutritious Coffee? This is really just coffee with milk, but "may be made still more nutrious by the addition of an egg well beaten, and put into the coffee cup". Er, OK. Egg wine: ingredients, 1 egg, 1 tablespoonful and half glass of cold water, 1 glass of sherry, sugar and grated nutmeg to taste," bearing in mind that "when the egg is not warmed, the mixture will be found easier of digestion , but it is not so pleasant a drink." Urgently on, casting only a swift glance at Invalid's Jelly, which requires "12 shanks of mutton", to Nourishing Lemonade: boiling water, four lemons plus rinds, loaf of sugar, half a pint of sherry, FOUR EGGS!!

I began to wonder if the great housemaker's technique with the under-the-weather was to threaten them with food so scary that they began say (in tiny frail voices) "You know what, Isabella my dear, I think I'm feeling a little better!" Two recipes remain: Toast-and-Water (ingredients - a slice of bread, one quart of boiling water) and (and here you grasp why Britain once commanded three-quarters of the globe's land surface) Toast Sandwiches: "put a very thin piece of cold toast between two slices of thin bread-and-butter... "

I'm rendering lard today, and from the looks of it, will be doing so for several more weeks.

How about a nice custard for the invalid? It's my favorite thing when sickly, after the nothing but ginger ale stage.

http://www.flim.com/artisan/olive-oil-claws.jpg

500g shortcrust pastry (I bought mine frozen) at room temperature
4 eggs, beaten
a small bunch of spring onions, finely chopped
a red pepper, finely chopped
a de-seeded red chilli, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
a block of feta
a bag of fresh spinach
fresh basil, a handful
fresh mint, about a dessertspoonful
paprika
seasoning

Warm some olive oil in a large frying pan on a medium heat, and soften the spring onions, garlic and chilli. After a few minutes add the red pepper. Cook until the vegetables are soft, fairly slowly so that they don't brown too much. Add the mint and basil, then the spinach. Cook for a few minutes until all the spinach is wilted. Season with pepper and a small amount of salt (as the feta already contains a lot).

For the pastry base, flour the pastry and the surface and roll out to about 3mm-4mm thick. Press the pastry into a quiche dish and trim the edges. Prick the base with a fork, then cover with baking parchment and bake for ten minutes on 190 degrees.

When the pastry shell is done, take it out of the oven and fill with the spinach mixture. Crumble or cut the feta into chunks and lay that on top of the mixture, then pour in the beaten eggs. Sprinkle the top with paprika and bake on 180 degrees for 25-30 minutes depending on your oven. Once it has finished cooking, take out of the oven and leave to cool for 15-20 minutes to allow the eggs to solidify. Is nice hot or cold.

This was the first quiche I'd ever made, but it turned out pretty well. Anybody got any other good ideas for quiches/flans/tarts?

3 c. flour
2 tsp. active dry yeast
2 3/4 c. warm water
1.5 tsp. salt
1 tsp. sugar
2 tsp. powdered milk
1 tsp. baking soda
2 tbsp. warm water

Combine yeast, sugar, and 1 c. warm water. Let stand about 10 minutes to proof the yeast. Sift the flour, milk, and salt together well. Make a well in the dry mix and add the yeasty water and the remaining 1 3/4 c. of warm water. Mix to a thick batter. Cover and let stand about an hour. It doesn't rise dramatically, but will expand.

Combine the baking soda and final 2 tbsp. of warm water. Mix well into the risen batter and leave to stand covered for 15 minutes.

Heat the griddle on medium-low and use a tiny amount of butter or oil. Oil the crumpet rings and place on the griddle. Put enough batter in each ring to cover to a depth of at least 1/2". Let cook until bubbles appear and break over the upper surface and they look "dry". (like a pancake) Remove from the rings, flip over for a minute or so to lightly brown the top, then remove to a cooling rack.

After they're cool, they keep well in the fridge for about a week wrapped in plastic.

Does anyone have any good quiche/tart recipes?

I've been all about cooking things in cast iron for the past month. I found 2 rusty nasty c.i. saucepans at a thrift store 2 weeks ago and restored them, then started cooking everything I could think of in them and my c.i. skillet. Absolute successes = green beans sauteed with chili oil and toasted sesame, hash browns, drop biscuits, shredded pork in mango chili sauce.

Young leaf lettuce, a pound of fried bacon, 1/3 cup sugar, 1/3 cup vinegar, 1 scrambled egg.

Fry the bacon crisp, set asided to cool then crumble.

put 1/3 cup of the bacon grease back into the skillet with the sugar and the vinegar, heat until the sugar disolves completely.

Add 1 table spoon of the heated grease mixture to the scrambled egg while stirring vigorously to temper the egg.

Add the egg mixture into the skillet and stir constantly so that the egg does not set but incorporates into the grease.

heat and stir until it begins to thicken.

Pour over the leaf lettuce and cover wuth plastic wrap to hold in the heat. Mix and recover several times until the lettuce is completely wilted.

If the mixture cools before the lettuce wilts completely just place it into the microwave for 30 seconds at a time until it is ready.

Tonight - trying my first batch of home-made lime pickle. Fingers crossed that it won't taste like chillified washing up liquid.

Ever since I posted that message upthread I've been wondering how salsa with anchovies would taste - going to try later this week.

Restoring the cast iron took fine steel wool and lots of elbow grease - use some dishsoap and hot water and scrub all the rust off, inside and out, trying not to make pits but keeping the surface relatively smooth. Then dry it thoroughly, coat with lard or solid vegetable shortening inside and out and bake upside down on the oven rack at 350 F for an hour. I left them in the oven overnight to cool down, then rinsed them in hot water the next morning and scrubbed with a dish brush. Then dried and did the lard baking thing again to get a nice seasoned finish. So far, so good, after a few weeks use.

Nice to see you here, Matos, best of luck with starting cooking again.

Under $10.00 US, preferably w. serious nutritional value.

Gah!

The yoghurt soup was a partial success, btw. I didn't caramelise the leeks well enough, so their sweetness didn't quite stand up to the yoghurt's bite. Still pretty tasty though.

Beans and rice are about as cheap as it comes, right? And it's fairly nutritious. Use the extra moneys to add flavors.

So I was directed to this thread a couple of days ago and I finally caught up with everything. On the current topic of cheap eats, my favorite cheap dinner is just a bowl of fideo and beans. Sautee the fideo as you would rice for "Mexican" rice, i.e. in oil along with some diced onions, until the fideo (which you may know as "vermicelli") is a golden brown and the onions are transculent. Then pour in a small can of tomato sauce, water that you've poured into that same small can, some powdered chicken bouillon (Knorr is my absolute favorite), a touch of salt, and some garlic powder (or you could even add some fresh mashed garlic), and simmer until the sauce is thick. You don't cover it, which is the only real derivation between this and the way you'd prepare rice for a "Mexican" rice dish. The beans part -- should be a given, but using pinto beans would make this poor man's dinner authentic, and if you have access to Bolner's Fiesta spices, putting their pinto bean seasoning in along with the water makes the beans taste SOOOOO DAMN GOOD.

A bowlful of fideo and beans + a couple of corn tortillas you've warmed up in a comal = you might not miss anything.

Tonight I had a lazy man's dinner -- picked up a rotisserie chicken from the Wal-Mart Supercenter (hey, it was cheaper than it would've been at our local supermarket chain) and had a leg & thigh from that along with a pre-wrapped baked potato I just popped into the microwave and some canned green beans I doctored up with freshly cracked black pepper, a little salt, and some garlic powder. But on Tuesday I made something really good -- ground turkey patties are my current specialty, and I make them taste really good by mixing in sage and poultry seasoning and some diced onion in with the ground turkey before forming it into patties. So we had some of that, and I made some brown rice on the side that I doctored up with some basil and oregano and, when it was finished, I sprinkled in some Butter Buds (a powdered butter substitute) to make it taste better, which it did. I'd love to make that again. The mixed vegetables we had on the side were... well, not so good, because they came from a frozen package and I'm not good at warming those up, plus they came weirdly spiced, so it tasted odd to me. But I think that had we had some fresh brussels sprouts lying around, the whole of the dinner would've been kick ass. (Thanks to Casuistry, I've gotten to love those things.)

So. That's what I've been cooking lately.

My ex used to make some sort of fideo soup. It was the yum.

Trim and clean four medium leeks, slice finely and sweat in butter, with a teaspoon each of dried mint and chilli flakes for about 30-40 mins on a low to medium heat.

When the leeks are just short of being properly sweet and caramelised take a large bowl, break an egg into it and whisk half a tablespoon of plain flour in to form a paste (this is essential or else your yoghurt willl go exceedingly funky when warmed). Mix in about 400g Greek yoghurt, when well mixed thin with a 750ml-litre (depending how runny you want it) of chicken stock (for preference, veg stock or water acceptable otherwise). Add this mixture to your pan of leeks and mix well, warming the mixture gently. Don't let it boil. Taste for seasoning, season, and serve.

Also, hi Dee!

God, isn't it the best! It's my new obsession. We have this Ranch & Home store out here that carries everything Lodge makes - I got a 20" cast iron pizza pan a few weeks ago and have been using it as a baking sheet. Makes an amazing crust. Drop biscuits this morning with sausage gravy. The sausage is really spicy with cayenne and the gravy turned pink/orange from it. Tasted great. I love my Fridays off, even if it is 100 degrees out - it's my favorite cooking day.

Welcome to you and also to Matos. Though I read ILB and sometimes post there, I'm overwhelmed by ILE and the rest. Though I've been drawn to ILE since the bombings.

Also! Eggplant! Another new thing for 2005. I'm thinking of grilling them and making baba ganoush.

Left in the larder are five tomatoes, some white beans, soba noodles, cilantro, veggie stock and 1/2c. coconut milk. I'm thinking a modified Madras soup, prepared to contents. Don't really love straining stewed tomatoes, so I think I'll just blanch/peel/puree them, but I'm worried about sacrificing taste ... should I be?

We went to some sort of family thing and my mom was talking about roasting yellow squash, and a cousin shared this recipe, which sounds quite good and easy: get a casserole dish and put a layer of uncooked spaghetti on the bottom, then toss veggies in there--chopped squash, onions, whatever. She uses a can of ro-tel tomatoes and chiles but I'm sure you could use fresh if you had them. Drizzle a bit of oil over them, salt and pepper, then bake for a while. The veggies will ooze all kinds of juice out and cook the spaghetti. When it's close to done, sprinkle some mozzarella over the top and pop it back in for a few minutes.

It's known to my family that I clean when angry (they have exploited this to their regret), and now it's obvious I bake when I'm stressed. Today, peach pie (for consumption tomorrow) and a blackberry cobbler:

http://www.theilliterate.com/archives/illiterati/cobbler3.jpg

What with it being summery, I'm living largely off salads piled into pitta breads. The ingredients vary but tend to include spinach, watercress and rocket as the base leaves, cous cous, olives, some sort of seafood and an unhealthy amount of chopped pickled chillies.

Oh, and garlic, lots of garlic. Lime juice in the dressing U&K.

tonight I'll make fresh corn/tomato/avocado salsa w/cilantro & lime and a bit of jalapeno to go alongside the usual chicken breasts. And I don't even like corn that much, but tis the season and all.

Sauce Vierge

plantain

salad

num num

Last night I made lovely macaroni & cheese. I put sweetcorn & muchrooms in it too. Leftovers for lunch, which is always a bonus.

Blinis, blintzes, BABKA!!!

I'm mostly upset that I didn't get my hands on any Cel-Ray while I was there!

I did pick up a cookbook of Jewish desserts at the now-air-conditioned Strand, though.

This was my Indian twist on the Colombian sancochos I've been making lately, and I'm exceedingly pleased with the result.

--

A pomegranate mousse with candied lemon.

--

Steamed won-ton wrappers stuffed with ground turkey, red cabbage, bean sprouts and ginger dressing.

--

Tempuraed mushrooms, zucchini and broccoli w. savory vanilla dipping sauce.