What's cooking? part 4

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!

Do you have a mandolin? I have a slicing blade on the food processor but I never use it except for apple pies, because then I have to wash the whole thing.

I had one, but never used it. I think I sent it to Abbott when we moved the last time and I was paring down the kitchen. I just use my chef knife now - I'd need a lot of practice to make the slices even though :) It helps to cut the potatoes in 1/2 first, so they are steady.

We are having people over for dinner tonight, with a vegivore restriction (but not vegan): sweet potato bisque with cayenne-nutmeg cream fraiche, green salad with roasted beets, mac-n-cheese, chocolate galette for dessert (from Trader Joe's - I didn't think I'd be up to making dessert too). nom nom nom!

I think an ILCooking group blog would be fun. That's what I think.

Also I have not been cooking much, still. Blah.

i wish i had a mandolin!!!!! i don't even have a proper grater right now. i have a zyliss, but no proper grater.

also group blogging would be grebt.

i have also not been cooking much.

some day when i get back in the habit of buying groceries though... let's do it!

count me in the group blog thing. need some stimulus/inspiration cooking-wise, for the sake of convenience I've been over-relying on old favorites for that daily 6:00 PM challenge w/my family of fussy eaters.

I would do this group blogging. The idea should maybe have its own thread.

Had a taste for taco salad last night, and we had tortilla chips left over from the party last week. Sauted a lb of ground beef with a little lard (the meat we have is really lean), chopped onion, cumin, cayenne, oregano, epazote, nutmeg, cinnamon, salt, and a lot of smoked spanish paprika. Mixed a 1/3 cup of masa in 2/3 cup of water and let it sit while things were browning, then mixed into the meat with an additional cup of water. Let that simmer for an hour, until everything was nicely thickened. Took it off the heat and stirred in a handful of chopped cilantro. Layers of chips in bowls, then greens, then meat, then grated cheese, then salsa if wanted. Hit the spot.

i've been craving nachos lately. it's a once every 5 yrs or so thing with me. we've likewise got a ton of chips (leftovers from superbowling) so perhaps i should follow your example. lord knows i need to cook something. mr has been doing all of the food prep for the past month.

Pork chops, as the man said, taste good. I did mine on a hot grillpan with rosemary tonight and soaked up the juices with mashed spuds.

Tonight, six for dinner:

Cheese, olives.
Aioli, with baby vegetables (carrots, fennel, green beans) and hard-boiled eggs to dip in it.
Chicken liver pate on little toasts.
Paella with the good chorizo from Brindisa and cherry tomatoes on top, pace Bittman.
Apple tart.

I got work to do.

you certainly do. what's your pate recipe? i'm always looking for good ones.

by the way, mark bittman's scampi recipe (from his fish book) rules. the double dose of garlic is a great touch:

saute thinly-sliced garlic in 3/4 of cup of good olive oil until golden
add 1-1.5lbs jumbo shrimp, several cloves of minced garlic, and 3/4 of a cup of chopped parsley
when the undersides of the shrimp turn pink, flip 'em, add a tablespoon of sherry vinegar, and cook a few more minutes until done.

i wasn't planning on have that for dinner last night, but since the freezer melted down we had to save what we could (including a bag of giant prawns). looking forward to the leftovers (with spinach/feta/olive orzo) for lunch.

i use a similiar bittman recipe for scallops - quick soak in olive oil/sherry vinegar/chopped garlic then flash-saute in hot pan and finish with parsley. it's a favorite.

Ooh that DOES sound good. And basic. I have shrimp as well, threw them into a pot w/ spaghetti, snow peas, & a shitload of grated parmesan. Topped w/ fresh tomato.