What's cooking? part 4

Can someone please remind me -- or better yet, give me some sort of mnemonic -- for the test of whether eggs are still usable (for, you know, making cookies in this instance). It has to do with whether it floats in water, right? Or doesn't float? Sigh.

Fresh eggs will sink to the bottom of fresh water. This is because the air cell in the large end is small to non-existent. As an egg ages, the air cell grows larger - a 2 or 3-week old egg will float pointed side down, but still be mostly underwater. Eggs that float mostly above the water are probably too old to be used.

Eggs make good cookies for 5-6 weeks, if they've been stored in the fridge, but the freshest eggs make the best meringue.

How about the mnemonic "fester" (Fresh Eggs Sink; Tired Eggs Rise)?

The eggs were no good, so I made cardamom shortbread instead. But, well, maybe I'll remember "fester"...

Hopefully It'll go down ok - I've been feeling bloody awful for days

I trust it did, and that you're better, it all sounds absolutely phenomenal.

Christmas dinner at Coastal towers was a roast goose, with shredded sprouts fried with pine-nuts and a local pancetta. As a result everything since has been cooked in goose fat, hurray.

Halibut steak steamed over fennel and white wine. Sauteed fennel as a side and slices of yummy pumpernickel.

God i love fennel

chicken & garlic stew -- chick parts and two heads of g cut up in cloves braised in stock w/ a little cinnamon

the other day I made ziti w/sauted califlower & garlic & red onion, finished w/mint and grated parm. tasty.

Anyone have a recommendation for temp/time for roasting a half leg of lamb? 620g/1.5 lbs, bone-in.

From memory (ie. best check with others) half an hour per 500g at 180 degrees.

Dinner tonight: pork shoulder roast rubbed with cracked black pepper and thyme, carrots braised in butter/maple/caraway/black pepper.

I made these brownies tonight; they're cooling RIGHT NOW.

Pretty damn good, even if they're sort of falling apart. Dark chocolate+espresso makes them "complex", but I wouldn't have minded if they were a bit more straightforwardly sweet chocolate goo.

I owed the GF over for a special dinner (she's been cooking up a storm for us), so for my first major meal for us I pained over the following menu:

1) SALAD: a winter salad with baby arugula, microgreens, pomegranate seeds and shaved almonds with a meyer lemon/olive oil dressing. garnished with some red and yellow and orange mini peppers (semi-sweet).

2) APP 1: prawn cocktail with straight cocktail sauce adding a little south east asian chili-garlic sauce for a little more mmmmmmmmm.

3) APP 2: apple cured bacon wrapped brussel sprouts. cheated on the bacon by microwaving it half-way (sacrilege!) and then wrapping around the partially-steamed sprouts. i had some left over prawns so i wrapped a couple of these too and threw the shrimp and sprouts in a frying pan with some butter/olive oil and browned them up.

4) STARCH 1: fingerling potatoes with oyster, shiitake and maitake mushrooms. boiled the potatoes til nearly done and then threw in the soaked mushrooms for flavor. added some parsley. finished it off by draining then simmering the potatoes in the mushroom broth with a little butter, salt and pepper and more parsley.

5) ENTREE: local wild halibut. got a nice medium-belly cut from my hook-up at the fish market. soaked this in juice of 3 meyer lemons for a little more than 20 minutes. folded some foil underneath and then threw it in the broiler for a little more than 10 minutes (the lemon juice starts to boil). garnished with cilantro, a couple more of the mini peppers, and served on a bed of

6) STARCH 2: the coup d'grace: my mother's grits recipe, dressed up with a teeny bit of truffle oil and some saffron. this came out super good as well as...

7) VEGETABLE: side of yellow zucchini. crisp, super sweet and just a dash of salt on top for flavor.

8) DESSERT: hand-packed pomegranate/tangerine gelato from the folks at Ciao Bella (ex-NYC gelateria whom i love), with a few pomegranate seeds for garnish, and a splash of framboise liqueur.

We split a bottle of a bone dry Reisling from Santa Cruz.

Good times.

I did the popcorn in the paper lunchbag with staples thing the other night.
it turned out AWESOME.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,1977,FOOD_9936_11374,00.html

hooorrraaaay alton brown

staples + microwave = O_o

office staples are shorter than the wavelength of the microwaves and thus don't spark

Yay Alton! None of that respiratory illness causing fake butter smell.

i will call that tip 'great' precisely because dr. morbius won't see me use it, and ream me out.

Steve Shasta, your grits w/ truffle oil and saffron sounds intensely good (well, as does everything else in that menu).

I'm getting back into the daily rhythm of cooking - today, oatmeal for breakfast (the long-cooking kind); thinly sliced and sauteed redskin potatoes with chopped green olives and feta cheese for lunch; homemade egg noodles with leftover pot roast for dinner.

I also bought 20 lbs of winter pears back in late October and have approx. 8 lbs left in the bottom of the fridge - new favorite breakfast treat is a peeled and sliced pear topped with a big spoon of thick greek honey yogurt. yum.

I got drunk munchies last night and decided to use my little square cast iron pan to make a bunch of bacon, then chopped up a tomato and grated some emmentaler into a bowl, ripped up the bacon and mashed it all together on a couple of toasted burger buns. I had no lettuce but it was num. BACHELOR MAGIC

Oniony meatloaf in the oven right now, smells so good. No ketchup in the house though. Will lime pickle be an adequate substitute? We'll see.

my current favorite condiment: lime pickle mixed with real mayo.

hey shasta what was the name of the riesling?
i'm on a quest to find as many good dry wines (red or white) as possible right now.

family members planted / ran / owned husch vineyards, and i can vouch for the quality

Lots of Washington state wineries do nice dry rieslings - Columbia Crest, Chateau St. Michelle, Covey Run, Hogue. I think all those are distributed nationally now.

i'm not usually a riesling person, but if it's dry enough i will give it a shot!

i am going to a dinner party tonight where there will be an assortment of dishes including a lemon roasted chicken (i've had this by the hostess before and is amazing) and also lasagna (i don't know how these two came together). i'm about to go wine shopping, i guess i could take red or white (or both!) but i want it to be good. i get very nervous about dinner parties with people that know things about food or wine because i don't want them to judge me on my cheap wine-buying or lack of knowlege!

http://www.nataliemaclean.com/matcher/

^fun

Maybe it's a vegetable lasagna for the anti-carnivorous? If you can find a white that's a blend of marsanne and roussanne, it would complement the lemon chicken. Sometimes hard to find though!

btw, off-dry rieslings and gewurtztraminers go really really well with spicy Thai and Indian dishes - the slightly sweet acid is magic with the spicy chiliness.

Ooh, Nat Maclean's great, and does a really fun wine newsletter as well. She focuses on canadian releases, and there's some great stuff from the Okanagan region in British Columbia (sweet ice wines usually).

my father is iming me about this: http://www.markwestwines.com/

fun!

t,

bonny doon pacific rim dry riesling

it's like $7 at trader joes too. pretty killer.

ss

cream scones in the oven

cream scone in my belly

i made potato donuts and glaze yesterday!!

steve!

i have been drinking that for years! in fact, i have half a bottle in the fridge now and took a bottle to the party the other night (along w/ a bottle of the mark west pinot, which went over well but seemed very sweet to me because it followed a super dry crianza).

6.99 a bottle ain't bad! i first learned of it a few years ago when a friend brought it to my dinner party because the bottle is pretty.

t,

if you ever come to SF i will take you to the vineyard, it's a trip.

ss

I bought a bottle of Argentine Malbec to cook with for like $11 but ended up drinking it instead and it was great! Maybe it was the 2003 Alamos? Can't remember and I threw the bottle out already...

A couple of weekends ago I went crazy making a recipe for Thai chicken soup but couldn't find curry leaves or black cumin so I made without...and then got to the end of several hours of work/simmering and realized it was exactly like the curry that I normally make and I liked it better w coconut milk, so I just turned it into a saucey curry and served over rice. Delicious, but a waste of an afternoon. I do need to find the other ingreds, though....

Other than that I'm a total faker, I've been craving guacamole and "fully loaded" potato skins, ie apparently I think I'm eating at some kind of pub EVERY DAY. Luckily I almost always have potatoes, cheddar, scallions, bacon in the freezer, and sour cream on hand. :D

i only had enough spinach pasta for one person, so i gave that to the mister, but we both ate the following (mine was over plain fresh spinach):

giant sea scallops
pancetta
cremini mushrooms

sauce:
butter/white wine/garlic/pancetta grease/red pepper flakes/parmesan/herbs (+ salt/pepper on everything, of course)

noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom

i had coconut sorbet for dessert, but it was not homemade. this meal is not remotely impressive but for some reason it really hit the spot. it's what was cooking.

that sounds lovely!!

steve, if i ever drag myself out to the west coast i will take you up on that! bonny doon makes mouths happy! p.s. i am still tickled that we both like the same wine :)

pasta with toasted almonds and breadcrumbs in a sage butter sauce!

t, you should try gravina. it's a white from apulia, very moderately priced and tending towards the very dry; green with a bit of mineral. you may have to order, though, as it's not very common here. bar veloce had one on the menu several years ago, which is how i was introduced.

sounds lovely

do you guys have a youtube/vlog? i think lauren would be a natural! :-D

I have a friend who used to do this but she moved to hawaii and got a boyfriend and she never cooks anymore!

it's my dream to have a talk show.

i would love a lauren talk show! i might even figure out how to set up my vcr to record!

A sort-of quiche/frittata thing for dinner tonight: layer of thinly sliced yukon gold potatoes started in a hot skillet, then a few handfuls of chopped up broccoli tossed on top. 5 well-beaten eggs with a 1/2 cup of milk, 1/2 cup of water, and 1/3 cup of flour beaten in, as well as a pinch of salt. Then some grated emmenthaler and Beecher's flagship mixed in and the batter poured over the potato and broccoli in the skillet. A quick grind of black pepper and the whole thing popped into a 325 oven for 1/2 hour. Puffed up nicely and very tasty.

That sounds lovely!