What's cooking? part 4

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.

chickpeas are currently soaking for egyptian chickpea soup mmmm

also going to make a vegetable-chicken soup tonight

and artichokes yum

Pumpkin custard, 5-layer bars (I was missing pecans and coconut, but they are still really good), and my first loaf of bread in the new place. I've got to work out this convection business - I turned it on (and turned the temp way down) for the bars, but they got really brown really fast. I feared what it would do to my bread, so left it off. I'm anxious to try it for cookies (or other small batch things), so I can experiment.

Linguine alla vongole tonight! It was great!

comfort dinner for a pal who has been working too hard: roasted beets with gorgonzola and some red oak leaf lettuce thrown in for greenery. then: pasta with kale and chickpeas, which sounds virtuous but was actually a caloric nightmare sauced with heavy cream and parmesan. very savory, but so rich that my friend and i only finished about 1/3 of the dish between us (very atypical). i used bionaturae pasta (http://www.bionaturae.com/pasta.html) for the first time and was quite impressed. i think it's going to be my default dried pasta from now on.

the night before last i made a vegetable curry using the recipe off the bag of my recently-purchased "hot bengal" powder from kalustyan's. i was a bit suspicious because it didn't sound like much, but it turned out very well. using fresh, high-quality spices really makes a difference, i think. i've got to work on using stuff up within a reasonable timeframe and not letting things go stale. the obvious way to do that is to not purchase too much, but damn it - spice shopping is so much fun!

Tonight - lasagne leftovers from last night. Leftovers = always great. This one was good because I put a whole bottle of red wine in the meat sauce and cooked it for about a million years (two hours, but still). We had leftover sauce once I'd put the lasagne together, which I ate with a ladle while the lasagne was cooking. This made me very happy.

This weekend - slow-roasted pork belly. End of this weekend - heart attack through having eaten about a kilo of crackling.

mmmmmmmmm crackling

A giant pot of black beans/soup, with celery/bell pepp/tomato/onion/garlic and a few dashes of red wine vinegar in the chicken stock base. Over long-grain rice with a little greek yogurt stirred in. God, lunch makes me so happy.

I am going to salt-roast some pork tonight, as seen here and here.

A question - I've jellied some chicken stock (is that what I mean? I've reduced it so it's jelly at room temperature). How long can I now keep it in the fridge? Instinctively I would say ages but I'm not sure how long that would be.

I've kept my homemade jellied stock for upwards of 6 months in the back of the fridge. when you concentrate it that much, the salts prevent molds and things from gaining a foothold.

Cool, thanks - it seemed like it should keep for months. Nothing like risotto/gravy/soup made with your own stock!

Kahlua pork chops and mashed potatoes last night, yum.

One of my favorite salads tonight: rocket and red chard, cubes of roasted sweet potato, goat's cheese, pecans, and avocado (admittedly didn't add much tonight--ripe but flavorless). Mmmmmmmm.

does anyone else think that avocados have been really poor this year? we've gotten loads that have gone from unripe to brown mush with no stop in between, and a fair few that have seemed ripe but actually been a flavorless, watery mess.

yes, actually. Waitrose had all of these 'perfectly ripe' avocados (which are, of course, avocados that haven't sold yet, and thus they can charge twice as much for), and today I had a really hard time picking one, 'cause they were all basically rotten-soft gross.

i just made myself feel better about the sad state of avocados by cooking a bunch of absolutely awesome fall veg: giant winter squash, turnips, purple cauliflower, sweet potatoes, and rainbow carrots. the last two went into a soup with curry and coconut milk while the others were roasted to be eaten with leftover wild mushroom risotto.

yes, lauren! the few avocados i bought (the prices are insane save my random trips to fairway) were really not very good at all.

your fall veggies sound wonderful, though!

i am all about roasting brussel sprouts this fall

I was in CA in...June? and the avocados and stone fruits were SO GOOD that when I came back I craved them all summer...but they just weren't the same here.

There wasn't any bread in the house for breakfast yesterday, but there were plenty of eggs so I baked a dutch baby. The convection is magic - normal bake time is 25 minutes at 425 deg F and this one was puffy and done in 15 min at 400 deg F. So tasty, with butter and a sprinkle of lemon juice and a drift of powdered sugar. Also, so good to be cooking in my own kitchen for a few days.

This afternoon I'm making up a pot roast - we stopped in at Pike Place Market to make some groceries yesterday and I went overboard on gorgeous vegetables: beets, yukon gold taters, baby bok choi, fennel. I leave again on Monday, need to get all these roasted/sauteed/eaten before then!

so far tonight - teriyake salmon (slightly over cooked unfortunately) on top of a soba and green bean salad thing, mug of miso with red pepper, spring onion and chilli on the side.

For tomorrow - chilli, using chuck steak, pinto beans and aduki beans. Heated up again tomorrow it should be ace.

Did the potroast tonight - lardons, garlic, sundried tomatoes, peppercorns, juniper berries, allspice, bay, 1 bottle Valpolicella. 2 hours in the oven. Done with oven-fried yukon gold taters (slice in 1/2, dab of lard underneath each, soft butter spread on top, sprinkles of salt, ground black pepper, thyme, roasted in a cast iron skillet). The beauty of convection had these crispy on the outside and silky inside in 45 min @ 300 deg F. I'm sold.

Accompanied by sauteed beet greens (so festive!) and steamed fennel. And additional bottle of Valpolicella.

http://orangette.blogspot.com/2007/10/sneaky-sneaky.html

^^^OTM

Sossidges tonight! This may not seem like much, but after three weeks of ready meals it is a victory for Miss Cripple here.

uh oh - have you been incapacitated?

i've made a few pasta dishes over the past week: one from alice waters using cored brussel sprouts (great, but boy was it a pain to core those little guys) and a very inauthentic soba noodle dish involving sesame sauce and a lot of quick-pickled kirby cucumbers. i just picked up some eggs from the greenmarket, so i think tonight is going to be fritatta night. with carmelized onion, perhaps?

This week: chicken and onion risotto, lancashire hotpot, po' boys, apple and blackberry crumble, pecan and cranberry bread and butter pudding, rocchetti with upholland pancetta and mushrooms, chestnut and chorizo soup, mushroom and garstang blue soup, houmous, tabbouleh, lots of roast chicken, kale and parsley fritatta, smoked mackerel fishcakes with tzatziki, scrambled eggs and smoked salmon on toast, salmon and chilli tagliatelle, bouillabaisse, poulet au pot, more pancakes than I care to remember, enough full english breakfasts to kill several men, roast mushroom butties galore.

Guess whose finally opened his deli?

tonight the old standby spaghetti & meatballs, my son's favorite also his grndfather who's coming over. I use ground veal w/a bit of parmesan easy on the breadcrumbs splash of milk and nutmeg, garlicky marinara.

jaq's pot roast sounds like food o the gods. I love my convention option but you've really got to WATCH IT.

convention = convection

Congrats Matt! I wish I lived in your neighborhood, all that sounds fantastic.

Congratulations, Matt, that all sounds amazing. Do you have a recipe to share for your chorizo and chestnut soup - I made a chestnut soup for Christmas last year which was lovely, but could do with something different this year and that might just be it!

gah, I haven't cooked anything in weeks due to the despair of hotel living, but now I am back home and have just fried up some side pork for breakfast.

Matt, that's fantastic! Mr. Jaq and I are talking about some sort of UK sojourn in 2008 and will come and eat all yr foodz when that happens!

Term is over, and now I am starting to enter my kitchen again. Onion soup today. Num num onions.

what to do w/boring bland old boneless chicken breasts? tonight I rubbed em w/a paste made of cilantro oliver oil chili powder cumin & coriander (dried) 1 clove garlic minced S&P. cored & chopped a 1 lb package of tomatoes then spread them around/on top of the chicken breasts in a pyrex dish. 450 over for 20 minutes, not bad served with curry couscous and steamed spinach. from Mark Bittman w/a few adjustments.

If I have to have boneless chicken breasts (and I do, because it's the only part of the bird my wife will eat), I generally pound them flat, dredge in seasoned flour, brown and set aside, turn the fond into a sauce with whatever is tasty and at hand. Add the chicken back, simmer a few minutes, serve chicken and sauce with a starch.

Or I make chicken curry soup.

Ooh, Deli Matt sounds fab!

uh oh - have you been incapacitated?

I fell arse over tit over double-fractured ankle on the way home from work last month. The cast is off now, but I'm still extremely hobbly. Last night's cooking was done by Domino's I'm afraid. Still, I'm going to bring out the mulling spice ice-cream recipe for a party on Saturday night.

omg! so sorry to hear that but glad you're on the mend. some mulled wine along with the spiced ice cream will probably speed recovery.

best dish so far: rice/spinach/ginger/garlic mix. da frigging yum.

tonights meal =

smoked salmon and cream cheese sandwich
i.e. two discs of derbyshire oatcake enclosing 2 salmon rashers (lovely smoked salmon we get at work) with rocket and a bit of wasabi creme fraiche

Then cassoulet:
a bit different to norm as MiL doesn't do pork so it had lamb and garlic sausages, some great little lamb chops and some confit duck legs and gizzards, nice crisp crust too which helps - washed down with an excellent Irouleguy.

Pudding was going to be a pannetone bread and butter pudding but my timings were cack, so we'r cracking into a bottle of port instead

i made a quick curry with string beans, a little onion and chicken tonight. served with brown rice. it was kind of not so great.

who has the best easy curry recipe? my friend makes a great one with sour cream. i tried with yogurt tonight but it ended up a bit odd and i think i overseasoned :(