What's cooking? part 4

willie sounds like a man after my own heart.

Willie's a great guy - next time we are there I'll try to take a picture of the shrine he has up to his gramma who is "Baking for the Angels Now". He uses her recipes for the red velvet cake and 7-up cake and the pecan pie they sell. Maybe also for the yams I think, which are sweet and yummy enough to be dessert. He also does custom smoking, so if we ever again have a whole pig, I'll have him smoke up the hocks and one of the hams.

Hallelujah, it's fig time: I bought eight yesterday and if I can resist eating them raw with dollops of mascarpone, I'll make ice-cream this weekend. One of Nigel's books has a Nigella recipe in it (ah, chums) which calls for 125ml of muscat, 125ml of double cream, 125g of caster sugar and eight figs. Now there's a recipe for memorising. Best of all, there's no cooking involved - you just whizz it all up, churn and freeze.

I started a batch of tea pickles last night. Except I am not sure what kind of tea I used. So who knows. Sadly I am out of lapsang souchong, which is what I used last time, many years ago.

I'm churning the fig and muscat ice-cream right now and my god, it tastes like Christmas. I'll be surprised if there's any left this time tomorrow.

That. Sounds. Fantastic.

I have successfully negotiated making my own sausages, and by God it's relatively easy. And they taste so good.

Surprisingly, not that much cheaper than buying them in packs, although I suppose when you start upscaling quantities you can see the savings - I just did a kilo to start with.

A couple more trial attempts with the basic recipe and I'll be ready to start experimenting.

goat cheese/beet salad and pasta with fresh basil pesto and beet greens on saturday night. i'm so into the many varieties of beets available at the greenmarket at the moment. this most recent meal was made with bull's blood beets, which are enormous, more red than purple, and have more flavorful greens than the standard guys.

i was craving slavic comfort food after seeing eastern promises yesterday, so that set the theme for dinner: sliced heirloom tomatoes with sour cream; quick cucumber pickle with red wine vinegar, sugar, and dill; grated beets, garlic, walnuts, and hardboiled egg dressed with sour cream and real mayonnaise; and a warm carrot salad with garlic and cumin that frankly owed more to morocco than kiev. second course: sauteed sauerkraut and mushroom pierogies.

Goddammit I have this new cookbook and its recipes are very short and to the point, which is nice, but it means if you miss ONE word everything can go crazy. Like, say, how they want COOKED beets in the beet and bechamel recipe, even though you bake it for a while after you add the bechamel.

I made the best of it and it was edible, but goddamn. I = idiot.

Deli update for those that are interested: we get our yay or nay from the council on Oct 4th.

somewhat ahead of time, council says yes

off we jolly well go, then

Congratulations!!!!!! Hope it goes great guns from day 1.

Excellent news! Will have to pop in when we bring the nipper up north, when are you hoping to open? Are you going to wait until your little bundle turns up before getting down to serious business?

congratulations, matt.

excellent soup last night: a large bunch of orange and yellow carrots, a huge red bell pepper, a small red chili, a large chunk of ginger, and much garlic and shallot, all simmered with a water/stock mixture then whizzed with my best friend, the immersion blender.

that sounds a tasty soup indeed

Vicky: we're looking to open by mid-Nov now, a few weeks to get the lease sorted and then the shopfitters move in. It's worked out quite handily as baby is due in a week, so I get a few weeks of fatherhood under my belt before I have to throw myself back into running a kitchen.

indonesian-style rice noodles for dinner last night: chopped string beans (sadly, no long beans at the greenmarket yesterday), coarsely grated carrot, giant bird chili, and a shallot/garlic/ginger paste all sauteed together until the veg were softened a bit, then simmered with about a cup of coconut milk, some brown sugar, and a few glugs of extra dark soy. cooked rice noodles and two beaten eggs were added at the very end. next time i'm going to use shrimp paste in the sauce as well. it needed a little bit of funk.

lauren, all your stuff sounds SO GOOD!

I finally cooked something in the new kitchen last night. Mr. Jaq was off for his first piano lesson and it seemed ridic to head out when I knew there was all this pantry stuff in various boxes - I just had to find it. Dug up a bag of bowtie pasta, had a partial jar of sundried tomatoes in olive oil in the fridge, also the stub end of a herb-coated salami. Found some pine nuts in with some of the bathroom stuff (?) and there was a handful of pregrated parmesan in a bag in the freezer for some reason. Boiled, chopped, sliced, dry-roasted, and mixed it all together, and it was lovely. Got a few more piles of things sorted while the pasta was boiling, but it's still not even halfway.

thanks, jaq! it's been really, really good to get back into cooking again. i''ve been trying to do more veg dishes, since lots of weekend grilling this summer meant overconsumption of meat. that's not good healthwise, and i also ended up having a minor crisis of conscience about eating too much unethically-produced stuff.

New Adventures In Sossidges

(but I bet that linking doesn't work, unlike the sossies hoho)

Bluddy knew it. Oh well, they're in this thread:

Not location specific, No rules: Welcome to ILX heaven

Yes, I know it's a long one.

kale and white bean stew w/ a little bit of chorizo. gorgeous kale at the greenmarket now! so robust and just picture-perfect. we got about 3lbs of cleaned greens from a $2 bunch.

Tonight - neck of lamb stew. I like to keep it simple, just slow cooked in some wine, stock, rosemary and served with pasta. Now that the nights are really drawing in, I'm craving warming wintery stuff and this will definitely fit the bill.

Kale is good on this side of the Atlantic too - sunny Yorkshire has a glut of the stuff at the moment. Bought (and ate) a bunch at the weekend that looked like a triffid, yummy iron goodness.

i made ed's mutton stewed in red wine, which was delicious. the last 20 minutes or so i cooked it on very high heat with lid off, so the sauce got thick and a bit syrupy. yay!

(the recipe is on the the autumn drinks thread on ile, by the way.)

stew sounds good,lauren.
I'm just waiting for autumn to actually hit the northeast before i get to start making all the yummy stews and braises.

i know - it was actually way too warm and summery yesterday for that dish, but i really wanted to try it.

Stew season has been delayed but the temp should fall 30 degrees by Wednesday. I cannot wait.

Need a veal stew recipe if anyone has one.

Chestnut time in Yurp -- found some good looking chestnut linguine from the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland, and did them up with a slightly modified Jamie Oliver recipe: olive oil, Italian sausages (just the meat), white wine, lemon juice and zest, parsley, butter and gobs of Parmesan, and some seasonings I will not reveal. It was absolutely fantastic, totally Autumn-y. And worked surprisingly well as breakfast the next morning when I re-heated it in my wok with some scrambled eggs.

i've never had chestnut linguine, but it sounds great.

a light pasta for the last of the warm weather: calamari (cooked on the grill pan) and really nutty arugula tossed with small shells, sauteed garlic, olive oil, and lemon juice.

There are workable recipes for chestnut pasta on the web.

hmm, so i see. i also found a few places nearby that sell it fresh during the late fall, so i might just be lazy and wait until i can buy it. although if i had a bag of chestnut flour, i also could make castagnaccio...

My pickles, they did not turn out so well. I need to remember for next time: Diversity! Smaller batches! Test test test!

Welcome home dinner for Mrs Coastaltown featuring stuff she hasn't had for a while: Starter of mussels in tomato, smoked paprika and saffron broth, main of rare duck breast on a bed of diced sweet potato, savoy cabbage and chorizo, fried with garlic and a spot of cider vinegar. We'd have a filthy Vacherin for afters but we're too full.

Bolognese, which has been bubbling most of the afternoon while I started decorating my bedroom. Only 40 minutes to go...

carrot muffins. Matt, your post reminds me I still haven't had any sushi since Aidan arrived...

yesterday: a big pot of middle eastern-style lentil soup with greens and lots of lemon juice, to use up a head of treviso radicchio that was still hanging around despite having yielded half a dozen salads.

friday: linguine with beet greens, again. it seems to have become my default dish. the beets themselves were roasted and eaten with blue cheese.

i wasn't planning on cooking last night, but responsibility was delegated to me at the last minute. chicken thighs were already in a jerk marinade, so i broiled those and served with mashed sweet potatoes and braised kale. i love kale, even if it is kind of a pain to deal with a big bushy bunch of it.

I keep seeing stuff in newspapers about ways to make kale palatable, talking about it like The New Brussels Sprouts or something. Why the hate? I don't understand - I love kale (and sprouts for that matter).

i don't get it, either. i love "gross" vegetables like kale, sprouts, and cabbage.

I finally used the oven at our new place! To my surprise and chagrin, IT'S ELECTRIC! The range top is gas, and I assumed.....too much I guess.

It still roasted a 6 lb chicken and 4 yams just fine.

It also has a "convect" button?

Dangerous! My ex got really into the convect possibilities with his hyperfancy oven. I was never convinced it was worthwhile.

brussel sprouts on the stalk have hit the greenmarket, and i'm very happy. last night i braised some and tossed them in a mustard/butter sauce and served alongside sunday dinner leftovers (shepherd's pie with mashed yam topping). fall perfection!

Jaq it sounds like you TOTALLY lucked out! Gas is tops for range, but electric is way better for oven (cooks much more evenly). And you have convection! Awesome!

N.B. I have never actually used a convection oven.

Co-worker was telling me today how awesome the convecting is for making dried stuff and also for roasting. It sounds like it might mess with baking, but I am eager to try it out!

I totally agree; gas hob plus electric oven is the best combo. Being stuck with an electric hob, I am jealous.

Tonight - boned chicken thighs stuffed with stilton, wrapped in Parma ham and roasted. Served with creamy wine sauce, cue drooling a la Homer.

I must also cast a positive vote for kale and all its miraculous nutritional value + tastiness.

It sounds like it might mess with baking

I've heard they're great for baking because the air circulation means your cakes come out level (in my gas oven they rise more on one side than the other) and things cook as fast at the bottom as they do at the top.

I'm going to bake up some custard tonight, and am definitely doing bread this weekend. Someone recommended using the convect during the preheat, because it is so much quicker and more even. I also keep my cast iron pizza griddle on the bottom rack to add mass, which also helps to keep the heat more even and steady.

My sister (who readily admits to not being much of a cook) had issues with her convection oven apparently. Like a roast chicken that had beautiful golden brown skin, but was pretty much raw within. Operator error, more likely than not.

Convection is fine for baking, just adjust temp and cooking temp downwards by about 5-10%.

I am also the proud owner of a convection oven, which is thus far marvellous. It has like eight different settings depending on what you are cooking, like only using the bottom element if you're doing pizza and don't want the top all crispy. I have not done cakes yet as no-one around to eat them, but Madchen and her other half have an invitation to come round for dinner some time and I might attempt some sort of cakey thing for that.

What an excellent idea :)

Last night I made celery and pancetta risotto, with chopped celery leaves stirred through it at the last minute and lots of grated pecorino on top. It was aces.

We've been all about the autumnal veg this week - butternut squash risotto, pumpkin, sweet potato and mushroom lasagne, and a beef stew in the slow cooker with potatoes, carrots, swede and parsnips.