What's cooking? part 4

the only food i had yesterday was five slices of toast and a couple of tins of parmentier sardines, which weren't very good although usually they are

i am going to make dill pickle dip

also hot toddies i think

toddys?

idk

i've never seen his show at least not maybe more than 1x?
i just have the cookbook

it's ok for easified Mexican recipes, although I know they aren't the same ones he uses because i doubled the chiles once and it was like 5x better tasting than when i followed his recipe. i think he waters them down!

There is something a little weird about Rick B., quincie, I agree even though I like his show and generally enjoy his food (in both pre-packaged, restaurant, and recipe form). For me it's a cross between his voice and his ultra-lean yoga bod. I kind of love Lanie, though, although I don't know whether that's because I legitimately like her or because I feel some weird sense of protective loyalty towards her.

LL, I have that cookbook and go through phases where I make some of those recipes tons. It's been sitting on the shelf so long, I actually had to wipe dust of off it this time. I'm glad that you liked that one! What did you serve it with? I'm thinking black beans and rice.

in both pre-packaged, restaurant, and recipe form

Both of those three things. Sheesh.

anyway, there is no way that this translates to a retelling but I'm telling it anyway because I it made me inordinately happy then and now, so:

Jeff, Jesse, and I were at Frontera Grill for dinner once and Rick Bayless happened to be there. We hadn't lived in Chicago long so I was way too excited about a real live celebrity chef sighting, and kept looking around for him, when Jesse pointed towards the kitchen and semi-yelled, "Here comes Rick Bayless! And he is ANGRY!"

Neither of which were true, but for some reason it made me LOL and LOL.

i don't think i served it with anything? i might go with something lighter tasting, like something with lime or avocado. cucumber-onion-tomato-avocado-lime juice salad would be good. i don't remember honestly -- it was a long time ago. i do remember it was pretty heavy, like a stew.

Oh, cucumber-something-something would be perfect. I'm delightfully close to numerous grocery stores rn, too. Thanks!

a la orden

hahaha that Jesse quip is making me LOL, too

Jesse plus Rick Bayless scenario would be awesome

in terms of gringo mexican cuisine experts i prefer diana kennedy though i like bayless just fine. something about the unwavering no-bullshit thoroughness and attention to detail that kennedy has is very appealing when i'm learning a new cuisine

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7480/15972237589_91511b99ae_b.jpg

NYE feast (lunch edition)

Bf wanted all Ottolenghi all the time so it's herb pie, cauliflower salad with walnuts, root slaw with labneh, cod cakes with tomato sauce and mint, burnt eggplant salad. Chilling out with black veldts atm. Dinner edition coming soon.

*velvets, not veldts (mental note for a future drink name tho)

btw these were all first-time attempts for me and everything turned out grand-slammer and was super cheap on the grocery end of things, highly recommend this dude

looks great!

I second marcos on Diana Kennedy.

If you like Ottolenghi, you should check out Sally Butcher, who runs my local middle eastern foodstuffs emporium. Veggiestan and Snackistan are awesome and her writing style is funny and cool. Haven't read Salmagundi, her newish salads book, yet but it's pretty much guaranteed to be reliable imo.

In other news, tomorrow I'll be making the trad Scottish NYD meal of steak pie for the first time. I always bought my pies when I lived in Glasgow but here in London all the pies seem to have shortcrust pastry on top and that is just rong.

Cooking a Joel Robuchon recipe for beef cheek stew...should be ready before midnight! I hope.

wow yum

probably some roasted roots

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGMabBGydC0

oh sweet jesus no

i am making little tofu pockets full of (1) mashed sweet potato + spinach, (2) cucumber + avocado and maybe some miso soup. it's going to be -1 outside, no way i am going out again unless there is a medical emergency in my home.

Smoked a big pork shoulder on the 31st for yesterday's prosperity meal. Every time I do one of these huge hunks of meat I think I'll portion it out, vacuum seal and freeze at least half of it, but it's so versatile we wind up eating the whole thing without getting tired of it. Barbecue sandwiches, smoky pork with noodles, omelette filling, tonight's pork tacos (with mushrooms and garlic-sauteed spinach). About the time we get tired of it, it's gone.

i am not deliberately being clueless just too lazy to google - what is a prosperity dinner plz?

I think it's just a New Year's Day dinner that is supposed to set the tone for the coming year. I usually cook salmon, as that (to me) is a sophisticated main course. This year I made a pizza.

https://scontent-a-lax.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xap1/v/t1.0-9/10891874_10204900270480314_8292578345244461771_n.jpg?oh=7a600f19559ab542271146f9477670c9&oe=5523692C

For me and for my parents--all of us spent time in the deep south of the U.S., "prosperity dinner" was a New Years meal that involved 1) hoppin' john, a black-eyed-pea and rice dish (with pork, natch) and 2) slow cooked greens (collards, etc. With pork, natch). Greens represented U.S. cash, I guess? And hoppin' john I think was also supposed to be symbolic of cash in some way (coins, maybe)? Anyhow I like both of these dishes so no probs for me to eat them on any and all New Years.

Pork and cabbage is another traditional New Years dish, but I don't know if it ties in with the "prosperity" theme in some specific way. Many years ago I was in the habit of ordering mu shu pork on New Years--easy way to get my pork and cabbage.

That's a tasty looking pizza.

My parents always eat black eyed peas and collards on New Year's. I hate black eyed peas, though, so this year I did a slow cooker eastern NC-style pork barbecue, barbecue slaw, and corn bread. It came out really good. Like wmc, my plan was to save leftover meat for whatever but instead we just ate the rest of it for dinner tonight. So good you guys.

Speaking of the slow cooker, the Rick Bayless chicken and tomatillo thing was.... pretty bland! LL was OTM about needing to up the amount of flavor in that sucker.

My wife and I ate some black-eyed peas, so we got that part of the equation correctly, but the greens we ate were kale and chard -- and nothing else on the menu yesterday matched the correct items according to quincie. And yet, I still expect a certain amount of prosperity for the coming year, regardless. I am an optimist.

I feel like tasty pulled pork, slaw, and corn bread is definitely a meal that heralds prosperity, so I'm quite comfortable with my life choices.

Quincie and Carl covered it. Leafy greens or cabbage to represent f-oldin' money to come to you in the next year, peas to represent coins, hominy=gold. Pork of some sort to represent, I dunno, "we may be poor, but at least we can afford to eat pork on New Years." We had barbecue, braised cabbage, purple hull peas and cornbread. Aimless, as I was taught the tradition, kale and chard totally count. I would prefer mustard greens, but I already had a head of cabbage in the house.

xp -- carl otm

As I was cooking yesterday I was thinking yesterday how southern home cooking is this weird blend of poverty cuisine and a cuisine of enormous bounty, esp regarding summer vegetables.

i had no idea there was a culinary tradition for new years day - fascinating!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-eyed_pea#Lucky_New_Year_food

We spiced up our black-eyed peas with some homemade salsa verde that I made and stashed in the freezer last September. According to that Wikipedia article adding hot sauce is traditional, so hurrah! we scored again!

I made up our hominy yesterday into posole that was especially good.

I just baked a GF cake for my partners son's bday (he's not celiac but his brother is, so its fair). I decided to try the marbling thing, which seemed simple enough:split the batter, add coco to half, blob, swirl and bake. And actually it seems to have come out ok!

As to how a GF cake mix tastes, i have no idea and dont wish to ugh. the kids involved know no better which is a bit sad.

I love the bit at the top of the thread about living & eating in France, because that is what I do! We were feeling lazy the other night & just wanted burgers (a little bit of home as we are americans) & asked at the butcher for steak haché ; the butcher just took some steaks & ground them up for us ; & they were fantastic ! a little pricier than we'd normally have paid in the usa e.g. but so much better.

we eat very simply here much of the time, e.g. last night we had our standby of lentils and lardons, with olive oil and a bit of red wine vinegar. lentils are one of the perfect foods, and french green lentils / lentilles du Puy are fab.

omg love puy lentils.

they're great in part because they hold up so well to being cooked. we eat brown & red lentils (e.g. in variations on megadarra) and they break down into mush ; which, granted, is part of the appeal! but sometimes it's nice to have lentils that maintain their individuality.

They are excellent for salad for that reason, I'llcook and chill them, toss them with oil/lemon, then have em for lunch over some greens and antipasto.

I resolved to make steak and kidney pudding this weekend, so the filling is going on once I've had my lunch for the pudding tomorrow.

i made ropa vieja for dinner

:D

hey i want to make tamales! they are one of my favorite foods and i've wanted to make them for years but never have. have any of you folks made them?

nope bc i've heard they are the sort of thing you have to make a ton of and then freeze, and my freezer doesn't have that much room for tamales in it
i like them though
if you can eat it, you can wrap some corn masa around it, wrap it up in a leaf and call it a tamal

I've made them a couple of times, but last time was probably 20 years ago. A good bit of work, easy to oversteam -- I decided to leave it to the pros.

i was at the indian store yesterday looking for zaatar (the guy said "no zaatar! it's finished!") and got bulgarian sheep's milk cheese just because. turns out to be feta-like but not feta http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirene. i saw this stuff at whole foods, where it is labeled as bulgarian sheep's milk feta, i think. but costs 2x more! would buy again.

very acidic and salty though!

interesting! the feta i always buy is bulgarian feta. maybe it's the same thing? much much creamier and more flavorful than most other fetas, and it doesn't have that super-chalky texture. it's really amazing. on all my salad's i just crumble some of that with some olive oil and it has the perfect amount of acidity, i don't need any dressing with it.

probably the same. definitely a fattier kind of texture. i guess the acidity varies.

i impulsively bought a bag of spelt a while back, so tonight i mashed up a couple of recipe ideas and combined it with roasted parsnip, yam, and red onion pieces, plus brown butter and a tiny bit of soy/mustard/honey glaze. not bad as a side to pan-roasted salmon.