So what have you cooked lately?

Is this a good/accurate recipe for it?

Last thing I cooked was a really basic tomato sauce - tomatoes, garlic, basil, oregano, pinch of sugar. I've been lazy in the kitchen lately.

In a bowl, I mixed:

1 thinly sliced shallot
1 sliced (pickling) cucumber
2 sliced vine tomatoes
Sauteed crimini mushrooms and garlic in olive oil
Two fistfuls of whole arugula

Then I added penne pasta, salt, pepper, parmesan cheese. Tossed and ate. It was very good and tasted quite light. The recipe called for something like 1/4 cup olive oil, but the oil I sauteed the mushrooms in was more than enough (I thought).

Next time, I think I won't sautee the garlic and add it to the salad raw instead. The garlic was too subtle; I like more of a kick.

NA, you can't possibly be more of an amateur than I am, I've only been doing this for like a month.

Later this week we're probably doing fajitas (of some sort; my beef people didn't have fajita meat today, but I think I'll make a fajita/taco filling with their stew meat, like a carne guisada), which I do more often now that I've discovered that fresh-baked pitas from the Mediterranean places around here are closer to real flour tortillas than anything else I've had; tortillas are one of the few things I don't make myself, and my standards for them are high enough that I'm not sure I'd get through the learning curve.

The only problem is that I only made three and still have enough prepped ingredients to make thiry more. Looks like it'll enchiladas for the rest of the week... Must find some way to make them a little bit differrent or else I'm never going to want to have them again.

One half was a straightforward salt & pepper roast.
Other half, rubbed and stuffed with a mexican chocolate/pomegranate molasses mix, then finally rubbed with margarita salt. Worked remarkably well, even if I do say so myself.

I love anything with lime and cilantro; absolute ambrosia.

Tonight will be Platonic fish, without the orange juice unless we go to the grocery store again (I need chicken to go with the Thai basil I picked up this morning at the market); scallops; corn on the cob; and fried Caribe potatoes.

Now I gotta figure out what's for dinner...

It was the Fiery Foods Festival, so we also got some fresh serrano peppers to make cilantro/garlic/serrano salsa with. We're going back tomorrow with more cash for some of the fantastic pepper wreaths and strings.

Tonight I'm making sancocho (a South American stew that, from my frame of reference, is like a cousin of gumbo: chicken, sausage, beef, plantains, onions, corn, tomato, chiles, potatoes, name, pumpkin) for tomorrow; roasted figs with caramel sauce for dessert tonight after leftover chili.

On a whim of some kind, I cured some strips of skirt steak today, so we'll see how that comes out.

Start with red pepper olive oil, enough to generously cover a regular skillet
Saute about half a small onion, finely chopped (Not too much onion, or the fresh spinach will be sad)
add some fresh spinach
add some chopped tomato
black olives, sliced
I also chopped some soy Italian sausage into circles and heated it with the rest.

Spices- garlic, salt, pepper- nothing else because the idea is fresh spinach and tomato (YUM!.) I might add mushrooms another time.

Sautee till spinach is wilted, spoon over hot penne pasta, sprinkle some fresh grated parm or romano.

It was gooooooood.

I made them with cinnamon and raisin, but I kinda wanted to make them with cardamom. Would that have been terrible?

tonight's dinner was a risotto made from leftover chicken from last night, stock made from the carcass and celery leaves added at the last minute, this was a good thing

Later this week I'm scouting out the new butcher to see if they're open yet, in the hopes of ending the pork drought.

Lunches this week have been a "salad" of rice, black beans, and roasted chicken.

Hrm. I should see if I can get someone to go in on something with me, though.

I cookled 4 small boneless chicken thighs in olive oil and roughly cut them up. I accidentally used a whole head of broccoli (instead of one cup, but it was fine). I chose to replace the dill weed with fresh rosemary and thyme. I used shallots instead of plain old onions because some of the reviews said the onions were too overpowering. I left out the almonds.

It was rather difficult to "braid", since the crescents are perforated and were coming apart when I pulled on them. Next time, I plan on using the pre-made rectangular pizza dough to slice up and braid.

This recipe was actually something like what I made for a halloween party last year. You put the filling in the shape of a body, wrap the single strands of dough around the body and call it a "Mummy."

Quince and sour cream pie for dessert; there's panna cotta cooling in the fridge to go with it tomorrow.

Sunday is the eighth (I think) edition of Is My Blog Burning?, a "cooking with alcohol" theme this time round, so I'm going to make my version of coq au vin for that. Found out today that my new favorite local grocery store doesn't have non-injected whole chickens (because they only carry Tyson), and I wound up buying Cornish game hens just out of frustration. I'll use those for the "coq" instead of the thighs I usually use.

Tomorrow's the Farmer's Market, so I usually leave Saturday meals unplanned in case I pick something up that should be used right away.

I also made the non-pasta portion of a Mean Woman Pasta to set in the fridge overnight. I will have some tonight and I'm REALLY looking forward to it. The hardest part of prep was the kalamata olives. The grocery store didn't have nice-looking pitted ones anywhere so I had to pit them myself with a paring knife. In the end, it looked like I ripped the olives apart with my fingers. Not too pretty, but I think it'll taste nice. Maybe I should get an olive pitter and post it to the "Cool Tools" tread... And, I'm sorry, why is this called "Mean Woman" pasta? I chose it be/c I want to use some of my pepperoncini's but I'm worried that, after eating some, I'll have the urge to go out looking for puppies to kick.

Which reminds me, one of my favorite desserts at a now-defunct Cuban restaurant was Braza Gitana, translated variously as Arms of the Gypsy, Gypsy's Kiss, and Gypsy's Embrace. Whatever the name, it was luscious, decadent, and tasty - coconutty pineapply creaminess with cake.

I also made crumpets for the first time this weekend. They are enormous, almost too thick for the toaster and crunchier on one side than I expected. I think my yeast was not up to snuff - the holey side isn't terribly, so the butter doesn't soak in. Taste okay though, and certainly filling.

Restoring the cast iron took fine steel wool and lots of elbow grease - use some dishsoap and hot water and scrub all the rust off, inside and out, trying not to make pits but keeping the surface relatively smooth. Then dry it thoroughly, coat with lard or solid vegetable shortening inside and out and bake upside down on the oven rack at 350 F for an hour. I left them in the oven overnight to cool down, then rinsed them in hot water the next morning and scrubbed with a dish brush. Then dried and did the lard baking thing again to get a nice seasoned finish. So far, so good, after a few weeks use.

Nice to see you here, Matos, best of luck with starting cooking again.

Under $10.00 US, preferably w. serious nutritional value.

Gah!

The yoghurt soup was a partial success, btw. I didn't caramelise the leeks well enough, so their sweetness didn't quite stand up to the yoghurt's bite. Still pretty tasty though.

Beans and rice are about as cheap as it comes, right? And it's fairly nutritious. Use the extra moneys to add flavors.

So I was directed to this thread a couple of days ago and I finally caught up with everything. On the current topic of cheap eats, my favorite cheap dinner is just a bowl of fideo and beans. Sautee the fideo as you would rice for "Mexican" rice, i.e. in oil along with some diced onions, until the fideo (which you may know as "vermicelli") is a golden brown and the onions are transculent. Then pour in a small can of tomato sauce, water that you've poured into that same small can, some powdered chicken bouillon (Knorr is my absolute favorite), a touch of salt, and some garlic powder (or you could even add some fresh mashed garlic), and simmer until the sauce is thick. You don't cover it, which is the only real derivation between this and the way you'd prepare rice for a "Mexican" rice dish. The beans part -- should be a given, but using pinto beans would make this poor man's dinner authentic, and if you have access to Bolner's Fiesta spices, putting their pinto bean seasoning in along with the water makes the beans taste SOOOOO DAMN GOOD.

A bowlful of fideo and beans + a couple of corn tortillas you've warmed up in a comal = you might not miss anything.

Tonight I had a lazy man's dinner -- picked up a rotisserie chicken from the Wal-Mart Supercenter (hey, it was cheaper than it would've been at our local supermarket chain) and had a leg & thigh from that along with a pre-wrapped baked potato I just popped into the microwave and some canned green beans I doctored up with freshly cracked black pepper, a little salt, and some garlic powder. But on Tuesday I made something really good -- ground turkey patties are my current specialty, and I make them taste really good by mixing in sage and poultry seasoning and some diced onion in with the ground turkey before forming it into patties. So we had some of that, and I made some brown rice on the side that I doctored up with some basil and oregano and, when it was finished, I sprinkled in some Butter Buds (a powdered butter substitute) to make it taste better, which it did. I'd love to make that again. The mixed vegetables we had on the side were... well, not so good, because they came from a frozen package and I'm not good at warming those up, plus they came weirdly spiced, so it tasted odd to me. But I think that had we had some fresh brussels sprouts lying around, the whole of the dinner would've been kick ass. (Thanks to Casuistry, I've gotten to love those things.)

So. That's what I've been cooking lately.

My ex used to make some sort of fideo soup. It was the yum.

Trim and clean four medium leeks, slice finely and sweat in butter, with a teaspoon each of dried mint and chilli flakes for about 30-40 mins on a low to medium heat.

When the leeks are just short of being properly sweet and caramelised take a large bowl, break an egg into it and whisk half a tablespoon of plain flour in to form a paste (this is essential or else your yoghurt willl go exceedingly funky when warmed). Mix in about 400g Greek yoghurt, when well mixed thin with a 750ml-litre (depending how runny you want it) of chicken stock (for preference, veg stock or water acceptable otherwise). Add this mixture to your pan of leeks and mix well, warming the mixture gently. Don't let it boil. Taste for seasoning, season, and serve.

Also, hi Dee!

God, isn't it the best! It's my new obsession. We have this Ranch & Home store out here that carries everything Lodge makes - I got a 20" cast iron pizza pan a few weeks ago and have been using it as a baking sheet. Makes an amazing crust. Drop biscuits this morning with sausage gravy. The sausage is really spicy with cayenne and the gravy turned pink/orange from it. Tasted great. I love my Fridays off, even if it is 100 degrees out - it's my favorite cooking day.

Welcome to you and also to Matos. Though I read ILB and sometimes post there, I'm overwhelmed by ILE and the rest. Though I've been drawn to ILE since the bombings.

Also! Eggplant! Another new thing for 2005. I'm thinking of grilling them and making baba ganoush.

Left in the larder are five tomatoes, some white beans, soba noodles, cilantro, veggie stock and 1/2c. coconut milk. I'm thinking a modified Madras soup, prepared to contents. Don't really love straining stewed tomatoes, so I think I'll just blanch/peel/puree them, but I'm worried about sacrificing taste ... should I be?

We went to some sort of family thing and my mom was talking about roasting yellow squash, and a cousin shared this recipe, which sounds quite good and easy: get a casserole dish and put a layer of uncooked spaghetti on the bottom, then toss veggies in there--chopped squash, onions, whatever. She uses a can of ro-tel tomatoes and chiles but I'm sure you could use fresh if you had them. Drizzle a bit of oil over them, salt and pepper, then bake for a while. The veggies will ooze all kinds of juice out and cook the spaghetti. When it's close to done, sprinkle some mozzarella over the top and pop it back in for a few minutes.

It's known to my family that I clean when angry (they have exploited this to their regret), and now it's obvious I bake when I'm stressed. Today, peach pie (for consumption tomorrow) and a blackberry cobbler:

http://www.theilliterate.com/archives/illiterati/cobbler3.jpg

What with it being summery, I'm living largely off salads piled into pitta breads. The ingredients vary but tend to include spinach, watercress and rocket as the base leaves, cous cous, olives, some sort of seafood and an unhealthy amount of chopped pickled chillies.

Oh, and garlic, lots of garlic. Lime juice in the dressing U&K.

tonight I'll make fresh corn/tomato/avocado salsa w/cilantro & lime and a bit of jalapeno to go alongside the usual chicken breasts. And I don't even like corn that much, but tis the season and all.

Sauce Vierge

plantain

salad

num num

Last night I made lovely macaroni & cheese. I put sweetcorn & muchrooms in it too. Leftovers for lunch, which is always a bonus.

Blinis, blintzes, BABKA!!!

I'm mostly upset that I didn't get my hands on any Cel-Ray while I was there!

I did pick up a cookbook of Jewish desserts at the now-air-conditioned Strand, though.

This was my Indian twist on the Colombian sancochos I've been making lately, and I'm exceedingly pleased with the result.

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A pomegranate mousse with candied lemon.

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Steamed won-ton wrappers stuffed with ground turkey, red cabbage, bean sprouts and ginger dressing.

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Tempuraed mushrooms, zucchini and broccoli w. savory vanilla dipping sauce.