So what have you cooked lately? (Year three!)

Entrecote steaks for silly money so it was daft not to grill them and serve with some great tomatoes just on the verge of turmning so they were incredibly soft and sweet. (we washed this down with an obscene Pomerol that we bought on a whim)

Made duck breasts in a champagne and redcurrant sauce too which rocked.

Ate a shitload of cheese - mainly Paille de Bourgogne and various very creamy ones.

and drank waaaaay too much wine

Teeny, as I'm so mental, I never cook for the baby. I ph34R I will do something wrong. Silly, I know. :-( But I do make sure she gets a lot of different things (and, thus, tastes).

I wanna do more cocktails. What are your guys faves?

Still drunk, sorry.

Cocktails are great! But I only know a few simple (and bastardized) ones. Our summer favorites are gin & tonics with lime and faux-mojitos - fresh picked mint leaves messed about in the tumbler, some simple syrup, some dark rum, squeeze o' lime. Highly effective!

Last night for a small dinner party, we grilled steaks and I made a salad of bow-tie pasta, fresh barely-blanched green peas, dry-toasted pignolias, dressed with a splash of olive oil, a touch of sesame oil and several generous dashes of crushed red pepper. It was incredibly good.

Apparently they used to eat horsemeat in Yorkshire though, some Americans claim that's where calling Yorkshire people 'kicker eaters' comes from, which is strange, as we've never heard that nickname before.

Meat is meat is meat. People's limits differ. Would I eat Dog if I was in Korea, possibly, because there that's what they do. Yes people in the west keep dogs as pets, but some people keep lambs/sheep as pets. To me it's more important how good a life the livestock as had, rather than whether it's an animal that some people interact with. The peruvian's eat guinea pigs, plenty of people eat Rabbits, ducks and geese.

But this could probably have it's own thread, there've been a couple on ILE in the past.....

(I've just been and checked my stuff and the pieds have disappeared :( I was really looking forward to them)

This may turn into a photo essay

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dice the pork to about !/4 inch on a side.
coat it with white pepper, salt, ground coriander, brown sugar, and fish sauce. soak about a half hour.
while soaking...
cut up vegetables for stir fry. I used red and yellow pepper, onion, and snow peas. also a little garlic.
dump the pork cubes into a hot pan. let them get very crispy on a side or two. you could cook it all through and set it aside, or you could cook the veggies with it if you have the space. I set it aside.
cook the veg for minute or two, and add some hoisin sauce, chile sauce, peanuts, and a more fish sauce to taste. cook until veg are to desired doneness.
combine meat and veg.
add some torn basil.
serve over rice if you want.

You can make this to varying degrees of hotness, sweetness, savoryness, any kind of -ness. I especially like the meat treatment, keeps it moist while crispy on the outside. The whole thing could be adapted to chicken, tofu, etc easily. I enjoyed it very much.

Caramelised pear, walnut and Lanark Blue filo tart (half-eaten on return from said pub trip, remainder for lunch yesterday)
Chicken and white pudding pie (shortcrust) (half-eaten last night, other half tonight)
A sort of scotch egg type contstruction, black pudding coated with lamb mince, breadcrumbed and fried (to be eaten at some point in the next couple of days, I have a bramley and mint chutney that I think will go well with them)

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I just stuffed some crusty rolls with mussels and leeks for lunch. That was all right.

i really want to try mark bittman's sausage/grape thing, but i fear the cholesterol.

all this while cooking up an Uber-lasagne veggie lasagne for tomorrow. Cooking really helps me completely forget work troubles (even if I am actually cooking some up)

also, marinated tofu with soba noodles and mixed veggies, which is a regular thing to make chez moi, because it's awesome. (soy sesame marinade)

oh, we made this great salad last week too--mixed greens with cucumbers, shredded carrots, goat cheese, dried cranberries, and slightly-candied almonds (you toast slivered almonds up with a bit of sugar so they stick together in little crunchysweet clusters). and easy homemade vinegrette.

Tomorrow: cuban sandwiches.

boil some lo mein noodles

then in a big frying pan:
fry some chorizo, then add - thin sliced onion, sliced garlic, a couple of teaspoons of taiwanese bbq sauce, an eighthed tomato, some soy sauce. Let that fry for a bit. after a wee while add to the pan a tin of smoked tuna slices and some ketjap manis.

Add the noodles to mix.

Top with a fried egg.

If I hadn't spent the weekend in San Sebastian, it would have been the tastiest thing I'd eaten in a long while.

I'm drinking a pretty bloody good Chilean cab sauv with it too, ahhhh bliss.

Had to come up with a starter special at short notice, and the walk-ins were nearly empty. Ended up cooking some lasagne sheets and cutting circles out of them, blitzing up a dressing of chilli, thyme and rosemary and making a sort of lasagne with slice of black pudding, layer of pasta, dressing, slice of goats cheese, layer of pasta, dressing, repeat. Quite nice, actually.

I'd make the Dipsea Cafe's eggs benedict tomorrow, but I've suddenly gotten paranoid in the last few days about my heart blowing up.

seven-grain pancakes with pomegrante sauce and a reduction of pear syrup
turkey-rice soup w. ginger & lemongrass
chocolate mint "frog" tort (aka I know how to use a cookie cutter)
congo bars
apple spice cake with molassas-bourbon frosting
apple-cinnamon cobbler
clementines and meyer lemon lemonade
christmas puddings with non-alcoholic brandy-butter (earl grey tea, spice sachet, lime juice makes a decent sub)
corn and cherry scones
cranberry clafouti
banana cream pudding in chocolate shells
cherry and sweet-cream blintzes
lebeküchen

at home i've been on a fake Poly-chinese kick, trying to emulate all the '60s vintage Tiki restaurant menus of my culinarily-deprived youth. So far I've done a decent (improved on citrus chicken) blood-orange squab with chow mein, a creamy, cinnamony, rendition of American strip-mall sweet-and-sour soup, some phony pork curries.

For Christmas presents, I made three types of catsup (Amish apple, smoky pepper, cardamom brown) two whole-grain mustards, and a vinagery BBQ sauce. They were mostly well-received, but apparently I made the mustards too spicy for my midwestern friends.

Tomorrow I'm gonna try to do a whole menu from Suzanne Goin's Sunday Suppers at Lucques which is rapidly becoming one of my favorite books.

I made a reasonable attempt at chocolate mousse for dessert on New Years Day. It followed Bream roasted on top of peppers and and potatoes tossed with thyme, the pan then swilled out with white wine and saffron water before being severely reduced for sauce.

But there was Sandbox ILC!

Also, any ideas where I can buy cheap duck or goose fat for confit? On a Sunday in Los Angeles? Surfas doesn't seem to have any... neither did the Culver City Whole Foods.

can't decide what starch to serve alongside. couscous w/mint?

Who follows their cravings when cooking? I had a fish craving bad, hence the pasta. I'm a big believer in listening to the body's cravings.

We were at our local fabulous asian market Saturday and got a 1 lb. slab (about 1/2" thick and 6"x8") of the most beautiful sashimi grade maguro. I sliced it in 3, coated with a mix of black and white sesame seeds and seared it in a blazing hot cast iron skillet for 2 minutes per side. It was divinely rare. Served with rice/green peas/toasted pine nuts as a side.

What was the name of that dim sum place we all ate at?

I made a tomato soup last night which was easy and tasty. And my long-awaited pain des pommes, whose recipe starts with a warning of how some might be daunted by a bread that takes weeks to make, is nearly done. The first two loaves got cooked yesterday, and right before I bit into one I realized that there was no salt in them. And I checked the recipe and sure enough that's how the recipe goes. And so I ate some and it was nice but was unsalted bread. So I added some salt and tried to work it into the remaining three loaves, which will go into the oven in maybe 30 minutes.

That was House of Hong, oh diaphragm drawer. Mr. Jaq and I took our Sarah there for lunch when she got here on Thursday. Our new neighborhood is the land of phô, and I am learning its varied delights.

$2 more per lb, too.

Can you provide more detail on this? I don't want to let my imagination run away with itself.

http://www.recipezaar.com/162127

The marvellous (though somewhat scary) Heston Blumenthal roasted his for four hours at 60C. N.B I am not suggesting you do this as he had to deep fry the damn thing to crisp the skin up afterward which is somewhat impractical, though you could brown it off in a pan. A couple of hours at a lowish heat, then a blast (He also brined it, boiled and refreshed the whole thing twice before roasting, this strikes me as being too much like hard work, and somewhat the antithesis of the whole idea of a roast i.e. lovely straightforward comfort eating). I find a salt/marjoram mix brings the skin up a treat (as nobly suggested by Paul upthread).

p.s. - i am in love w/ silver spoon.

Judy Rodgers may be trendy but she's got a lot on the ball. Salting instead of brining works amazingly in many many meat situations.

I served the confit on a bed of annatto and coconut-milk arborio, with a fennel-kabocha soup I got from the Sundays at Lucques cookbook.

On the side I made an arranged, sunset-colored salad from grilled Meyer lemons, roasted heirloom beets, roasted red carrots (they're all the rage at the Santa Monica Farmers' Market) blood orange supremes, and a little fresh mint. I made a plain-jane vinaigrette with a splash of rose water (weird, but good, like something I had at Al Forno about 10 years ago) and served the whole thingy with some extra-crappy chardonnay.

For desert I made madelines and orange-blossom turkish delight. The cookies were great, the turkish delight had all sorts of little crunchy sugar-bits in them. I don't understand why: I used a thick pan, heated evenly, stirred constantly to interrupt the sugar crystallization, added cream of tartar to inhibit crystallization, and kept the cooling temp. well regulated. Thoughts?

I actually like my fudge a bit crystalline. Mr. Jaq is in the creamy fudge camp.

Nath: my grandad used to sell fruit & veg. He'd cut up whole pumpkins with this HUGE cleaver type knife you had to learn how to bascially THWACK into the pumpkin. We were never allowed near that knife as kids, it was deadly sharp.

I'm still trying to figure out why that bread recipe didn't call for salt. That was madness. You really can't add salt to bread at the last minute. Even though "last" and "salt" are anagrams.

Also good with a dash of cumin or garam masala added.

I made the rhum-raisin bread (I mentioned in the Substituting thread) and it's DELICIOUS. It's not dark coloured as in the book (as I didn't use dark rhum) but it's so fluffily yummy! I had to *paint* honey on top of it, so now it's all sticky which makes it hard to put in a bag.

This evening I will make chicken tikka masala again. myum myum

I made a stir-fry last night. Simple thing. Some beef strips, some onions + garlic, a completely random sauce/marinade of oil, hot chili paste, soy, orange juice & ginger. Served over leftover rice.

Was fine, but a bit overdone. Wanted to let the sauce cook down and stick to things, but by that time the meat was quite tough. Any suggestions on how to keep stir-fry meat somewhat tender?

***

Oh, and I made a carrot + parsley + potato soup the other day.

Basic mirepoix (carrot, onion, celery) baked to a deepish brown in a cast-iron pan, low oven. Then I boiled those vegs for 45 minutes or so w/ standard soup herbs to make a stock. Later, I sauteed potatoes in butter w/ vermouth, added this to the stock, along w/ carrots, LOTS of parsley & more herbs. A bit of fresh parsley, some black pepper and a good dollop of heavy cream at the end.

Really damn good.

Is there an ideal cut of meat to use?

Diaphragm:

Good idea. I suspect cooking it too long was the only real problem. Meat was very tender after a couple minutes of cooking. Didn't want a lot of sauce, in fact I wanted it kinda dry. Cooking off the liquid excess just took to long. Cornstarch or arrowroot would've made liquids a non-issue.

If we ever do the kitchen remodel I'm hoping for, one must-have is going to be a wok burner capable of singing eyebrows in the next room. In the meantime, I stir-fry less often.

And pulling the solids out while the sauce reduces woulda been the way to go. Thaks for the advice.

wild halibut, coated in minced parsley, juice and zest of one meyer lemon, juice and zest of two yuzu, normandy sea salt, coarse black pepper topped with a teeny drizzle of truffle oil...

served with steamed broccoli, cauliflower and carrots and brown rice.

it was a big hit!

aside from cheese products, the other thing i've been fond of recently is baking vegetables. the inspiration came from a bittman recipe involving parboiling then baking with butter and parmesan. it seems to work with various flavors, spices, and veggies. i want to try broccoli baked with wasabi butter for the next go-round.

(It's Burns Night tomorrow and I don't like haggis, so Neil is getting a haggis and I'm doing my favourite Scottish thing I don't eat often enough because he doesn't like venison, the freak)

since my bf has been off all month, i've been pretty lax on the cooking front (giant cheese balls aside). tonight i'm going to get back into it with a chicken stew since we've got the incredible non-shrinking bag of boneless thighs in the freezer taking up way too much room. i'm more excited about the superbowl cooking, though. in addition to the football-shaped port wine cheese thing, we're going to make asian pigs in a blanket. the cocktail-sized chinese sausages we found are to be credited/blamed for this inspired idea.

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I had Mr. Jaq taste the final product. He took a big slurp of it, which surprised me 'cause I'd mentioned I thought it was hot. He was all mmmmmm, tastes nice but needs salt, OMG WOW!!!

Peeled and cut 1 eggplant into small dice (ended up maybe 2 cups?). Destem and chop the caps of 8 largish crimini mushrooms, also small dice. Saute eggplant and mushroom in olive oil until browned and eggplant is going mushy. Chop 3 sundried tomatoes (in olive oil). Chop 3 chipotles in adobo small and add to eggplant/mushroom. Add in a teaspoon of the adobo sauce from the can. Stir and let simmer for awhile. Add 2 cups of water, 1/2 tsp. oregano, 1/2 tsp. epazote, 1/2 tsp ground cumin. Let simmer for an hour or so, remove from heat and partially whiz up with an immersion blender - not too smooth. Add 1.5 to 2 cups cooked beans. Bring back up to a simmer and stir in 1 tbsp masa whisked into 1/3 cup cold water. Bring to a boil, drop to a simmer for 30 minutes. Adjust seasonings and add a dash or two of cayenne.

Thick, meaty texture from the eggplant and mushrooms, smokiness from the chipotles, not a whole lot of beans, and lots of chili heat.

For the other chili, how does the chili sauce figure into the dish as a whole? At the beginning? End?

I'm more used to what I think of as New Mexican chili or chile colorado? (though maybe it's not that, but just southwest or something) - basically you make a big pot of chili sauce and the beans are cooked separately. You might cook up some chunks of beef or pork in the chili sauce, but it's definitely more sauce than meat. If you want beans, a scoop gets added to your bowl. Generally served with tortillas.

I'm really pleased at how the eggplant/mushroom chili turned out. It's thick enough to use as a dip, like a chili baba ganoush.

lasagne is fairly labor intensive, but i can get four meals (for two) out of one batch so it evens out. plus once it's in the oven, that's it. you can forget about it and have a few glasses of wine. i haven't made any in quite a while, but i think we're having dinner guests this week so i might try doing the classic version with bechamel.

i've been craving middle eastern lately, so this past week i've been making hummus and foul and have just stocked up at kalustyan's so i can really go to town.

Sometimes I do make notes in cookbooks (reduce the qty of cloves in the peach butter by half) and sometimes I just go by memory (2x the garlic in the teriyaki marinade; don't substitute for the sherry).

I might make a project of perfecting the toll house cookie, though! That's a much more manageable undertaking.

that's what i thought it might be. delicious!

I did get a nice big bag of dried oregano for like 99 cents, though, that has much bigger pieces than I'm accustomed to seeing -- actual, visible leaves! And fewer pieces of stalk.

Things are iffier with things labeled ground beef or ground pork.

This is Wal-Mart's ground beef. They put 2 lbs. in a container that could hold 6 lbs., leaving a large area exposed to air, STRIKE ONE. The one time I bought ground chuck from them, the freshly-ground red look of the beef from the outside hid brown/smelly beef on the inside once it was crumbled up, STRIKE TWO. (They're using some sort of preservative on it, obv.) And also that one time, there were lots of inedible bits of bone and gristle, STRIKE THREE, HIT THE SHOWERS.

The local place, Vowell's, usually rotates between ground beef, ground chuck and ground round as a weekly special, and I buy about 10 lbs. when it's ground chuck's turn ($1.89/lb), repackage and freeze as needed. "Ground fresh several times daily" doesn't necessarily carry much weight with me, but when it's the sale item of the week and moving about as fast as they can grind it, I take it for true.

ARRRGH! i hate that. once upon a time in college, we had to get emergency beef rations during a barbecue and my housemate came back with like 4lbs of what turned out to be unusable steak from the supervalu.

Someday I'll be confident about cooking fish, far in the future.

i made a lentil dish from the zuni cafe cookbook last night, which was tasty but MY GOD did it take longer than the estimated cooking time (my big pet peeve). 30-35 minutes was what the recipe said, but after about an hour i was still pushing hard lentils around the pan.

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I tasted it a while back, and it's pretty hot. Too hot for my partner. So I added some pureed tomato and a bit more water, letting it simmer further. It's a bit better now, but still maybe too hot. Any ideas on how to tame that?

It's in the fridge now; we're gonna eat it tomorrow, so I figured I'd get the first hour or so of simmering out of the way. These things always taste better on the second day anyway, right? Beans, of course, won't go in 'til tomorrow. And I'm making cornbread to go with it!

Add a little peanut butter - this was a hint from Tep. I don't know what the peanut taste will do, but might be worth a shot. Also, have a glass of milk handy when you eat it (or maybe add a little sour cream) - non-vegan though.

I am still scared to eat my dragon fruit.

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Chili, cornbread:

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g00blar, how was the chili? Your cornbread looks great (as does your cast iron pan!). I had some of my leftovers for lunch today with tortilla chips - I think it is getting spicier over time.

for some reason i couldn't quite get it hot enough... but still did me good on the coldest day of the year.

Aldo that sounds marvellous (as, for that matter does whisky glazed liver, and of course, chili, it's two in the morning. No food now. Gah)

Tried making a mutton and prune tagine last night, but not having one I tried to make it in my pipkin which I'm still trying to get to grips with. As such, it wasn't nearly reduced enough and the flavours hadn't developed properly but it was my own fault.

Dragon fruit is very strange, and not at all what I expected. It's like a far more delicate kiwi fruit, the flesh is scented rather than flavoured, and rather pleasing. The outer parts of the fruit, once the seeds have gone and you're near what would be the pith, have a lovely bitterness that provides a lovely contrast. I would buy one again, but I'm not sure what for.

Multi-Menu Selections for Cooking White Rice, Mixed Rice, Rinse-Free Rice, Sprouted Brown Rice, Sweet Rice, Quick, Porridge and Dol Sot Bi Bim Bab

IT HAS A BI BIM BAB SETTING!

Is this Super H? I just found out about two Super H locations around Atlanta, must-to-investigate next time I'm there.

i think the only chain we've got up here is HanAnReum.

MAKE IT STOP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I made POTATO SALAD. Extremely yummy. Consists of ham, garlic, mayo, potatos (ORLY), onion,...

I made cow's milk mozzarella yesterday because there was none at the grocery and I had some lovely roma tomatoes and fresh basil and gallons of organic milk were on sale. This morning for 1st breakfast, I made myself a caprese omelet. Mmmmm.

I also started a biga last night using some of the whey from the cheese as the liquid. I'll bake a loaf of bread this afternoon. Here's the last one I did, which was very toadstoolish:

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How do you make mozz, Jaq?

Mr. Jaq got me a kit a few years ago from these folks. Basically, you add citric acid or lemon juice to a gallon of non-ultrapasteurized milk, then warm it up in a stainless steel pot to 88 deg F. At that temp, you remove it from the heat and gently stir in a tiny amount of rennet, then let it sit for 5-7 minutes for the curd to develop and solidify. It looks like a soft white custard in a yellowish clear liquid (the whey) at this point. You run a long knife through the curd, cutting it into 1" x 1" long rectangles, which helps the whey to drain out of the curds. You ladle the curds out as gently as possible, trying to drain out more of the whey.

After all the curds are out of the pot, they need to be gradually heated up to 135 F and kneaded and stretched into mozzarella, with some salt worked in. I use the microwave (zap on high for 1 min, knead and drain, then zap for 35 secs, knead some more, then zap again for 35 secs and knead and stretch). You can also just heat the whey up and dip balls of the curd into it to heat it up, which is more trad, but a lot tougher to control. After it's all a nice smooth ball, you cool it off in some ice water and start eating it.

1 gallon (about 4 liters) of milk makes about 3/4 lb (about 1.5 kg) of cheese. Making it's sort of technical and also magical so pretty fun on a weekend, as long as milk's on sale.

Banana pancakes. Not bad, but not a big success with Ophelia and DH. (hah I just typed DH)

FRENCH FRIES. well, deepfreeze ones so not really anything special. :-)

Simple black bean salad tonight - delish.

canned black beans (well washed)
avocado
chopped tomato
chopped red onion
chopped cilantro
fresh lime juice
salt & pepper
shredded cheddar cheese
(served with blue corn tortilla chips)

Perfect meal for hot evening

banana ice cream
mint ice cream

i've cooked two real meals in the past week: grilled colombian chorizo, avocado salad, garlic spinach, and fried plantains last saturday, and grilled steak/chicken thighs with tomatillo sauce, red/orange pepper salad, wonderfully fresh asparagus with lime, and mashed plantains last night. i'm on a slight latin kick.

oatmeal chocolate chip cookies
fudgy mocha brownies

(I guess that's more "baking" than "cooking," though.)

so much grilled stuff! i spent saturday night grilling for TWO HOURS. it's because i don't let people near my grill, it's sad.

Work has been taking its toll on my cooking, plus I am STARVING when I get home from work so more inclined to eat massive quantities of CHEESE instead of making something for dinner. But last night I made a nice pork roast (black pepper and thyme) and some blistered asparagus (get a cast iron skillet hot, add oil, toss in asparagus spears, sprinkle with crushed red chilis, flip about with tongs until bright green and getting some blackened spots).

Yes! I have been doing that to asparagus all week, bought some cheaply in the supermarket.

Last night I made a shepherd's pie as we both have horrible colds and needed some comfort food. Served piping hot with some buttered green cabbage and a big glass of milk = dinner like my mum did when I was a little girl and feeling poorly. It was brilliant. I saved some of the lamb mince and shall be making it all spicy and stuffing an aubergine with it tonight.

(I had bought the aubergine for doing moussaka and then couldn't be arsed because I was feeling like crap)

Nothing! In Tokyo so eating out a lot. HURRAH! I just miss Schweppes Tonic, really. I can't find it anywhere. :-(

i made a very improvised "moroccan" saute to go with some quinoa i had hanging around. onions, carrot, chickpeas, pine nuts, raisins, dried apricots, and ginger, and an odd but tasty combo of kecap (indonesian condiment) and pomegranate molasses for the sauce.

(lauren, that sounds really great.)

Went to the market this morning, there were no eggs to be had but got a nice chicken instead. Also, 2 lbs of Chelan cherries which will make a tasty clafouti if I stop snacking on them.

Mr. Jaq has been reading bits of a New Yorker article about sushi to me ALL RQ#$%!$T#$R@ DAY LONG and it's warm out, so damn it we are going to a sushi-go-round for dinner.

My parents dropped by on the way home from a party in Brechin and brought me a giant organic steak they'd bought from a farmers' market up there. I cooked it to perfection for once in my life (ie. rare but not cold in the middle) and ate it with some grainy mustard on a plate of its own. I didn't want to sully the dish with veg.

I think the expression is 'nom nom nom'.

damn, i have a savage craving for kale right now!

i used up the last of the ramps i had from the Union Sq. green market. they're probably all gone for the season =(

i'll miss those little stinkers till next spring!

B.L.T.

Nothing but plain seared meats lately - burgers, steaks, chops tonight. And asparagus. I ate all the cherries, so no clafouti. Nothing baked, nothing involved or the least elaborate. Simple simple simple. I stared at the cast iron pan I was about the cook the chops in tonight and thought about a nice pan of cornbread, but that's as close as I got.

last night i made a thai curry with very fresh squid from the greenmarket. their skate always looks really nice, so this week i plan on getting some. i didn't get any ramps this year, sadly.

going shopping in flushing today, YAY!

Used a birthday gift cert to buy a new cookbook: Arabesque: A Taste of Morocco, Turkey, and Lebanon. I didn't have the exact ingredients for any of the recipes, but have an inspired braise of lamb, onion, currants, dry-roasted pine nuts, and cubed butternut squash in the oven now, seasoned with cumin, paprika, allspice, cloves, turmeric, saffron, and some of the preserved lemons I put up a month ago. I'll serve it with couscous I think.

Damn, that was GOOD! And enough left over for lunches tomorrow. The lemons are insanely tasty.

I am cooking roast dinner for everybody once a week and really getting into it. Chicken, sweer potatoes, parsnips, roasties, yorkshire pudding, stuffing, gravy - in June!

Extra thick pork chops, brined in brown sugar and salt, then stuffed with bacon, smoked gouda, walnuts, green apple, and sage. Pan-seared and finished in the oven. Definitely the best I've ever made.

Mmm, a Sri Lankan-style curry with monkfish, tomatoes, a heap of coriander and a big dollop of dijon mustard, among other things. Thank you Madhur Jaffrey and your Curry Bible, it was just what my flu needed tonight.

Wait, Lauren, where are you that you'd go shopping in Flushing?

bklyn. if you've got a car it's a pretty quick trip.

Asparagus risotto (sp?). It's way out of my league. Risotto, have some patience with me.

Actually it was actually quite tasty but risotto sure is an attention seeker: you can not leave it alone for one second.

I just cooked a giant bundle of rhubarb down with sugar into a syrup, fuel for a summer of rhubarb margaritas, rhubarb prosecchi, rhubarb sodas.

3 cheers for rhubarb. i want to get some in the country this weekend and make a pie.

Hello all, I'm a long-time lurker on ILC but I thought now was a good time to take the plunge and register so I can talk about ASPARAGUS and RHUBARB and all the other delicious stuff that's going on at the moment. Nigella has a great rhubard recipe - just a basic fool I think, but she used cooked-down rhubard stock to make a syrup to go over the top (yum).

Rhubard = rhubarb, duh

mmmm rhubarb.

i made hummus the other day and ate it with raw green beans (my favorite) and other delicious vegetables. i need a better food processer, though :\

Some mint 'n'coriander yoghurt chicken concoction. Turned out quite well. Even Ophelia loved it.

It's an even quicker trip if you're in Bayside for the summer, is all.

Eight people for dinner at mine tonight. I've almost unintentionally gone a French route for it, mainly for ease - moules marinieres, lamb ragout and creme brulee (which I only do so I can use my blowtorch). Moules may be swapped for some simply cooked asparagus and hollandaise for starters if I can't pick up mussels later on today.

I wish I hadn't said today for it though - who wants to cook dinner for eight after the first day back from a weekend?

I have never cooked for more than four people. It seems daunting really.

Didn't cook today (not yet anyway), but I did buy... well, the other week: BBC Good Food. I tried to find a thread on cook books/mags but in vain. Anyone better at finding the thread?

When I'm cooking for loads of people I try to minimise effort on the day. I made pudding yesterday so I just need to sugar and blowtorch the top today. I'm putting the lamb on at lunchtime - I'm stewing it slowly in red wine, stock, rosemary and onions, to minimise work-intensiveness. All I'll need to do when I get in from work is put veggies in the stew and do the starter, which involves steaming mussels and not a lot else (serving bread with first two courses as well so no effort there). I think the most important thing when cooking for loads of people is to have pots big enough for the job. This sounds stupid but if you're short of capacity in pans everything takes longer and is more risky/precarious.

There again, if I had a toddler in the house and another on the way, I dare say I wouldn't be inviting seven people round for dinner!

For cook books/mags, try putting "recipe" in the search function - it brings up some useful stuff.

cas, i'm jealous. bayside is so close to so much amazing shopping/eating.

I made egg noodles on Saturday in order to make beef and noodles with the leftover pot roast from earlier in the week. After watching the Julia Child DVDs (highly recommended!), I tried her technique of bashing the dough out with my rolling pin. MY GOD THAT IS FUN!!! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! Now, I want a cleaver.

Roast chicken last night with a big skillet of cornbread.

Another tip for cooking for large groups - make stuff that is forgiving - things that can sit on the stove/in the oven for awhile without suffering.

You're kidding me, right? What is the amazing shopping around here? There are some new restaurants opening up that are much nicer* than what was around before, but...

Really, if there are localish places I need to go to, I want to know!

Take your time answering because I'm about to spend 90 minutes or so travelling to meet up with a friend in the East Village.

I think I will be making pizzas soon.

* By "nicer" I mean "Portlandish", affordable and tasty and pleasant to be in, rather than "fancy/expensive".

i'm obsessed with asian food, especially korean, so that colors my feelings towards the area that you're in. bayside is just a short bus ride from murray hill, which along with the edge of flushing is basically the queens koreatown. then you've got chinatown, the main st/prince st area of flushing, which gradually turns into a strip of indian/pakistani stores and small cafes/sweet shops. but i just remembered something - you're vegetarian, aren't you? that knocks a lot of my recommendations out of the water.

i know this is a cooking thread but until i have time to go buy good seafood, lauren: i need recs for someplace w/ really good ceviche cause i've been thinking about it all day and must go get some soon!

i have a recipe for a shrimp and crab ceviche that i've been putting off since november-ish. must make soon! i've never done it before but i successfully grilled salmon last night so i'm feeling better about my seafood cooking skills.

i like the shrimp ceviche and the mixed ceviche at pio pio riko, which is on manhattan ave at huron (i think) in greenpoint. that's the only place i've had it recently, but i'll try to think of a few more places.

Yeah I was gonna say, Korean food just doesn't fly by me. Although there is a Korean place in PDX that is veggie-friendly (the owner's sister is veggie). I don't remember Indian/Pakistani stores out there though!

you've got patel brothers, subzi mandi, and various other smaller operations. right in the middle of them is buddha bodai, a vegetarian asian restaurant with a very good reputation.

Oooo.

re: ceviche upthread, i like chimu on union right by the bqe (peruvian). i want to try the salvadoran place on grand st, bahia, which is supposedly good.

someone talk to me about soft shell crabs please, how do i cook them?

I made Alba recipe for a curried scrambled eggs with coriander on toast thing at the weekend. It's been so long I forgot how goooooood it is.

Alba's, I mean.

I don't know how soft shell crabs are generally cooked, but they're often used in bouillabaisse? They'd be cooked in stock, and then eaten as part of the stew. One time I had bouillabaisse and they used soft shell crabs to flavour the stock, and then took them out and ate them as a cook's treat. This was a very good idea.

Rogue question mark in first sentence.

Tomato curry with shrimps. Ate it by myself... a dish for four. heh

I need to find an Indian food store around here. Ideally not in Jackson Heights.

can you get to one of the big places (like patel brothers) on main street in flushing? that might be your best bet, and the selection is certainly outstanding.

last night: green tea noodles in broth, boiled pork/leek dumplings, and cucumber kimchee. none of it homemade, but stuff had to be boiled so i'm counting that as cooking.

Oh man I ate an entire eggplant last night. I cut it up into medallions and baked them with some oil. I served them covered in seasoned stewed tomatoes and cheese.

oh godddd how i love cucumber kimchee!

me too. i've been buying it in 3lb bags in flushing.

SS crabs: snip off their faces, dredge them in peppered flour, deep-fry them.

snip off their faces

i bet they don't like that

i need to start going to flushing more often i guess!

i'll let you know next time i go. probably not for a while, though, since we just did a big shop.

Looks like I'll be going to Patel Bros on Monday. Meanwhile I made a little cinnamon swirl breakfast bread thing. Very calm and cinnamony and nice, not quite the visual spectacle I was at first imagining. Well, I don't have my cookbooks with me.

Chocolate ice cream (which I can't try since it has raw egg yolks inside BOO!). I don't know if the custard was done properly, probably not thick enough. How long should it take? Should it be really thick or still a bit runny? :-(

This lunch time: potato puree (mashed potatoes), multi-coloured cauliflower (with curry sauce) and some meat (haven't decided on that yet).

It should be thick enough so that when you lift the wooden spoon out of the pan, you can draw a line on the back with your finger and it stays clearly visible. I always feel like it should be thicker (like packet custard thick) but the spoon/line test always works for me.

as I suspected, probably not thick enough but my husband thought it was ace anyway. hurrah!

Patel Bros was nice. I made some chickpea flour pancakes. Yum.

Pasta with avocado/green asparagus/cheese&cream sauce/basil/garlic/lemon and olive oil.

It was DA YUM

Now that the tomatoes are coming in like crazy, I've made my first blender full of gazpacho (with cukes from my parents' garden). SO GOOD. This was a fairly light-looking batch, with half red and and half yellow tomatoes. If I find a good looking yellow bell pepper, I'll make a batch with only Yellow Brandywines.

I made it using the Gourmet Cookbook recipe, roasting the tomatoes and peppers first. Really intense flavors.

gaby's is great!

oops, i meant to post that to the other thread. tomatoes are great, too.

They certainly are.

Hello all, I've been absent due to movng house, and spent a couple of weeks cooking on a little camping stove in my otherwise empty kitchen. The novelty wore off fairly rapidly. But now I actually have an oven again, so it was christened with a nice roast chicken, and why not? So on the home front I have cooked very little lately, unless you count toast and marmite.

Professionally, however, I was quite pleased with the palta reina I knocked out as a special last week, half an avocado scraped out and mixed with chopped prawns and coriander (quite a rough, big chop to contrast with the avocado smoothing right out), seasoned and then dressed with a smidge of stock from the shells of the prawns, a vague mention in passing of oil and a ferocious amount of lime juice, served piled all back into the shell because as we're a bistro in the north we're still stuck somewhere in the mid-seventies (the new menu has beef stroganoff on, for fuck's sake). Yum.

I recently made *fresh* tomato sauce. I might stick with this and not use tinned tomatos anymore. ;-)

Yesterday evening: quick banana ice cream. A bit of a risk as I mixed cream 'n' half-skimmed milk (with the bananas and sugar). We'll see tonight if it's any good. I can eat it as well as it doesn't contain raw eggs/yolks. Hurrah!

This lunch time: probably pasta/tuna/cheese bake or something. :-D

Also made (for DH and I) courgette/toasted flaked almonds/pasta (with basil/garlic/lemon/cheese and olive oil).

nathalie - non-egg Ice cream recipe I've been using:
2 cups double cream
3/4 cup of caster sugar

whip the sugar gradually into the cream, then add:
1/4 cup single cream
1/4 cup jersey milk

whisk some more.

now mix in some vanilla essence and a sprinkle of milk powder (this increases the fat content without increasing the liquid volume- this gives you a ....chewier ice-cream)

put all this into the ice cream maker and just before it's completely frozen add flavours of yr choice (I've been using a lot of dulce de leche to good effect)

Ooh, I'm definitely gonna try that!

Made a chocolate cake last night.

Yesterday and tonight: Strawberry marmelade. (It's currently *resting*.) This is my first attempt at making a marmelade. I'm a bit paranoid as the writers (of the recipe book) are extremely strict about using non-blemished fruit. That said, I hope this work, cause then up is an apple marmelade. Might try this tonight as well. And later on I will atempt a banana marmelade.

I also made a meatloaf (from a children recipe book) with some carrots in it. As a side dish a veggie sauce and boiled potatos in the skin.

Hmm. I think as long as you cut out the bad bits, you're fine. Surely the point of making jam is (or was in ye olden tymes) that you can use up your about-to-rot glut?

Cauliflower zucchini (?) chick peas curry. Very VERY good. Even if I forgot to add a bit of yoghurt.

gosh, i've been really delinquent again lately. i've boiled dumplings and made salads and the like, but nothing much beyond that. i did some stuff while we were in the country for the 4th of july weekend, but it wasn't very complicated - mainly just grilling fresh vegetables and fish. tonight we're having flat iron steak (also known as top blade steak), which i just threw into a marinade of soy sauce, molasses, key lime juice, garlic, oil, and rice vinegar. i've never tried this cut before, but the butcher (a dead ringer for 50 cent!) sold me on it.

http://therealdjwreck.com/catalog/images/WRECK-REALBEEF-FRONT-72.jpg

HA!

Baked rice (with mushrooms, carrots, onion, spring onion, bell pepper, ham and egg).

It cooled down a bit outside, so roasted a chicken for dinner tonight. I've been really uninspired about cooking lately. I did make a weird but tasty breakfast this morning though of leftover roast pork cut into medium dice and pan-fried until crispy, then added some rough chopped roma tomatoes while I made up two small french omelets. Squeezed a lime over the pork/tomatoes, and topped the omelets with the mixture.

Flat cake (see other thread). :-(

Gah, I am just not cooking these days. Pizza is about it for things that need a hot oven, otherwise it's "let's just chop something up and call it a salad". I am being a cooking enabler though - an officemate needed inspiration for some lamb so I brought her tagine spices and home-preserved lemons and the loan of a Moroccan cookbook.

Roast chicken, carrots roasted on the chicken fat, broccoli stir-fried with pine nuts and chilli and a sp[ot of herb risotto on the side.

Spinach with red onion, ham 'n' bacon over pasta. Not bad, but it won't be repeated too quickly unless I'm in dire need of some iron. ;-)

How do you preserve your lemons, Jaq? Do you manage to give them that sort of musky flavor that the real Moroccan ones have? Mine always wind up just tasting lemony and salty -- wonderful slivered on bread with olives and/or cheese, but lacking that note that makes a tagine complete.

I need to try a real Moroccan one! Mine remind me of lime pickle without any heat (so some cumin-like notes). There's something earthy in it, but not really pronounced. I used quartered Meyer lemons (had too many from produce delivery boxes) layered with koshering salt in a glass jar, left for 3 - 4 weeks in the pantry and turned every few days, then eventually put in the fridge.

Maybe it's the kind of lemons they use.

Was yours more of a dry cure rather than a brine?

Next I want to try making smen.

Much more a dry cure - I packed the layer with salt and squeezed the juice of maybe two in. For the first couple of weeks, the salt just looked damp. Even now, the salt/juice is a thick, opaque goo rather than a brine. I'd bet the type of lemon is a big contributor - I was reading about citrus species plasticity somewhere (Harold McGee's blog maybe?).

erm, layer(s) with salt

Eggplant parmesan, with fresh basil. Tomatoes, eggplants, basil, all from my garden. My favorite time of the year.

Great to see that there are people doing their own preserving too -- my extra tomatoes are sun-dried (very easy to do when you live where it gets to 100+ most days in July and August) or canned, and my eggplants are turned into babaganoush or relish and frozen.

(A new ilxer, still perusing the boards for the first time. Other then I Love Music, which is why I joined, an active I Love Cooking board is definitely the place I'd want to hang out . . . )

I can't find a good plasticlemon.jpg.

Paula Wolfert says "In Morocco they are made with a mixture of fragrant-skinned doqq and tart boussera lemons," mmm.

Hi Kenny!

Hi Kenny and welcome! Are you in the southwest?

A Lebanese friend of mine would char his surplus eggplants on the grill, peel then freeze the pulp to make babaganoush later. My current treatment for extra tomatoes is homemade tomato paste - I've made it up two years in a row now. I'm also especially proud of the air-dried ham we just opened last month (after 18 months of aging).

Wow -- meat preserving is more then I feel up to at the moment. I tried to can some chicken & squash soup I made with my excess yellow squash last year and failed -- thought I'd followed the rules but I guess not. I don't have a pressure canner, I use the hot bath method, so I think meat is simply out of range, and I've never eaten much dried meat.

I did buy a split-half of beef (quarter of a cow, 90 pounds) from a local organic farmer a month ago, though. I split it with two other families, so there was 30 pounds in my freezer. I live in farm country, so that kind of thing is available if you know where to look.

I live in Merced, California (north of Fresno), which isn't quite the southwest . . . it's a funny hybrid. It's desert weather in the summer -- 105 days, 70 nights, no humidity at all -- but it rains heavily in the winter and the snowmelt from the Sierras supplies water all year, so it's a good place to put farms, unlike the desert. Nearly 100% of the almonds grown in the US are grown within 30 miles of me, and plenty of other stuff as well.

There are days when I actually kind of miss the North Valley/Central Valley summers. (I used to live in Redding.)

Last night: salad nicoise. Little gem lettuce mixed with arugula, cherry tomatoes, steamed green beans, steamed baby new potatoes, all tossed with red wine vin+oliveoil+dijon vinegraitte. Topped with a couple of hard-boiled eggs, sliced, and the good tuna. Brilliant.

I do like a good nicoise, particularly as an excuse to scran large amounts of boquerones

I've had quite the cooking frenzy today:

vanilla ice cream with a bit of creme fraiche for a bit of tang
Potato salad with a mayo, creme fraiche and buttermilk dressing (also chives,radish and spring onion)
Green beans with a lemon vinaigrette
apple, blueberry and blackberry crumble
baked bean pie that Vic's finishing off as my insanely hot hands make pastry handling troublesome. (it's not as ghastly as it sounds hopefully - it's homemade boston style spicy beans topped with grated cheddar in apie crust..... could go either way)

oh and my first attempt at cornbread too, which looks pretty damn ok

I am intrigued by bean pie. Very intrigued. It all sounds pretty good (I am craving variety after spending the entire day knocking out roasts), the crumble in particular.

Argh, did a double-grind of about 8 lbs of pork shoulder + back fat for bulk sausage today. Still have to mix in the spices/salt and package it up in 1/2 lbs for the freezer, but needed a break. Bean pie sounds delish - I'd be tempted to do one up in the hotwater crust, like a pork pie. In the small size though, not the giant type.

I've got lamb to make up into a faux-tagine tonight and Mr. Jaq brought home some peaches that would be nice in a clafouti. I'm going to be traveling next week again, so even though it's damn hot and muggy I want to cook.

They're unorthodox, but yesterday I made modified samosa-calzones (wheat pizza dough with samosa filling) for future lunches:

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1138/897478418_b1dd31d4f7.jpg

not exactly cooking, but I made pesto from a giant handful of home-grown basil today. Just pignolias, basil, olive oil and salt. Next time, some garlic goes in.

the bean pie worked great, just the right side of stodgy, but it held together very well. The cornbread I made was a bit dry tho.

Last night was my first ever mac and cheese, now that went well.

Beef Skewers. Another major summer thing. A friend is in from Oakland for a few days and yesterday I marinated beef overnight in a Cuban marinade (rum, orange & lime juice, oregano, cumin, salt & pepper) and skewered it with tomatoes, squash, onions, peppers. Served on a bed of couscous. The beef was from the split half (90 pounds) we bought from a local ranch about six weeks ago; the veggies either from our garden or the local CSA.

This time of year essentially everything I cook comes from our garden or a local farmer I know. That's been the one greatest thing about moving from the California coast into the Central Valley three years ago. (For music, it's been crappy; for food, it's been great.)

last night for my dad's birthday i made a lamb pizza with grilled eggplants and tomatoes, mozzarella and feta. i wanted lamb sausage but could only find ground lamb which i cooked with onions and spiced a little. it turned out deliciously which was nice because it was so simple!

A blenderful of green gazpacho. (using a tomato variety that's green when ripe) Looks like green goddess dressing.

Spinach, scrambled eggs, bacon and potatos. I also had some bechamel sauce with it. Not a big success. :-(

A co-worker GAVE me a whole fillet of wild-caught silver salmon from his weekend fishing trip! So that's tonight's dinner, quick seared in a hot cast iron skillet in a 450 deg oven for 10 minutes - dash of salt, grind of pepper, sprinkle of lime.

Sounds good, it never does to get too fancy with good fish.

Lamb's meat (sp?) with spinach and creamy tomato sauce. DA YUM .

I am going to make tartiflette over the weekend with the last of my reblochon.

Oh and I made banana cake with banana (duh!), raisins and chopped walnuts. YUM-MY

Lamb faux-tagine last night and a ginormous dutch baby for breakfast this morning. I forget sometimes how excellent a cast iron pan is for baking things, but it only takes one crispy shelled creamy centered pancake to bring it all back.

I made my first 'proper" pancakes. I need a pancake pan as the one we have is too large. But 2 out of the three attempts were rather yummilicious.

Tartiflette in August, Aldo? It's one of my favourite things but I've always thought of it as very winter.

I had some reblochon, so it made sense. Also, using a very light white helps.

Tonight I'm making flan (vanilla and pumpkin) to bring to dinner tomorrow night. The caramel smell is all over the house.

My lunch today was a few strips of sirloin rapidly seared in oil with diced chilli and smoked garlic, mixed with cous cous and coriander, dressed with a bit of oil and lemon juice and stuffed into pittas, six minutes start to finish (the steak was the last thing I did).

That sounds delicious! Yesterday at lunch one of my fishing co-workers brought in a pile of salmon he'd cured from the last weekend's catch. I was already nuking something else up, but am ready to accept his generous sandwich offer today.

The flans (from Mark Bittman's World's Best Recipes) looked awfully wiggly at the 45 minute mark last night, and even still at the 1.25 hour mark. But we'll see how they are tonight. The caramel worked out well - I love watching sugar syrup transform as it heats up: grainy, clear and thin and small bubbles, thicker and weird quilted pattern of bubbles, giant almost fizzy bubbles, thick and golden and barely bubbling, then suddenly darker and thinner and boiling again and ready to coat a ramekin.

Oh man, I want to work in a place where my co-workers bring in piles of self-cured salmon...
Admittedly it would be a bit of a busman's holiday, but there you go. It'd be nice if the rest of them had a bit of enthusiasm.
Dinner was a quick fry up of chorizo, broad beans and onion, again with chilli and smoked garlic (from the marvellous Port of Lancaster Smokehouse, the best kippers I've ever had).

(also the purveyors of the best kippers, I should say)

I had some of his salmon on a slice of dark russian rye, smeared with sour cream and a bit of grated ginger - really really great. He's bringing in some more tomorrow! He declined to taste my air-dried ham, even after I didn't get botulism poisoning from it. I'll have to think of something else to make to pay back his kindness. It's cooling off enough here that cooking/baking sound appealing again.

I think I'm going to hit up my co-worker who has a near-industrial smoker (also, he's the ocean-fishing organizer) to smoke me some garlic, because that sounds excellent.

Maybe I'll make up some green corn tamales - they are labor intensive but I have a tamale steamer I've yet to try out.

pasta with kale and beet greens. i boiled the greens for a bit with some herbs, then sauteed them with onion, smoked bacon, and garlic and tossed everything together with balsamic vinegar.
the beets themselves are delicious. i roasted them on monday and have been eating them cold with various dressings. i think tonight is going to be sesame-orange-ginger.

Flan update: pumpkin flan was definitely not cooked through, dewatering the pumpkin would have helped. Both tasted great, but I think needed more eggs (recipe called for 1 egg + 1 yolk per cup of milk/cream - that makes a fairly light custard and I like my flans heavier and eggier to stand up to the intense caramel).

This evening I'll be attempting poulet au pot du bearnaise, basically a stovetop casserole with a soft-boiled egg vinaigrette.

My cooking has taken on a bit more of an agenda of late, as I'm gearing up to open my own gaff at the end of october (planning permission notwithstanding). So pretty much everything that gets cooked at home is fine-tuning dishes I'll be knocking out at the deli when it opens.

Matt, that's awesome! I will come eat at your place every time I'm in the UK :) Are you focusing on any particular stuff?

It's falling into place? that's great news, well done mate

Wow, Matt, that's awesome, congrats! Where's it gonna be?

Thanks chaps. I expect a visit next time you're north :)

Um, it'll be in Ormskirk ("A hotbed of nothing" - R. Fowler). It's been a couple of years in the planning and getting stuff into place but we're now just the stroke of a council official's pen away from actually opening (do not get me started on planning committees, they thought we were planning to be a wine bar so we've just had to restart the whole planning permission process). Once the change of use goes through then the lease on the site will be signed, we'll quit our jobs and get busy with sledgehammers.

The focus is on local as fuck, fish landed at Fleetwood, smoked stuff from Port of Lancaster, local meats and cheeses. It's a delicatessen with kitchen, so my business partner will be selling stuff in the shop whilst I'm knocking out meals upstairs. Platters constructed from the shop's stock, daily changing hot specials (for takeout also), cakes and what have you for afternoon tea (as a proud cornishman, I fully intend introducing a proper Cream Tea to the local heathens). Emphasis very much on the english though (admittedly my background is mostly in French/Italian so doubtless that'll creep in).

congratulations! i was going to say that i made a very nice beet and goat cheese thing last night, but that pales in comparison with your news.

Matt, that's so exciting!

Wow! ILCooking FAP/M (pint/meal) in Ormskirk, anyone? Good luck, Matt!

Woohoo! Matt, that's awesome! When will you know for sure?

I'm already considering how one might rig the OFM awards next year :)

Aw, you'll make me blush.

Basically all we're waiting on is the council's change of use coming through from the planning department of the local council. The licence is fine, the police are happy, the fire officers are happy, the disability access people are happy. The suppliers are ready, the contractors are ready, the staff are trained and waiting to go. The planning department were concerned about losing retail sites until we pointed out that we ARE retail. At which point they said "oh we've got you down as a wine bar". We said "eh? What on earth are you talking about? Wine merchants, yes, wine bar wtf?" and they said "well you'll have to start the change of use process again. So ner" and we smiled politely and said "of course" and plotted dark murder behind our smiles.

End of October, with a bit of luck.

fingers x'ed Matt!

Company pitch-in today, so whipped together greek potato salad (redskins, feta, chopped green olives, w/ olive oil/lemon/black pepper dressing), parsley/tomato/mint/couscous dressed w/ olive oil/lemon/sea salt, and a pan of brownies.

Marinated some top sirloin in lime juice, sriracha, and toasted sesame oil (no chipotles in the house and wanted some kind of spicy smokiness w/ the lime) for about 15 min, stabbing with a fork all over and flipping around 3-4 times. Dried off and grilled and was very spicily excellent.

smoked bacon & kale over pasta. the smokiness of the bacon is very overpowering, i may have used to much! hahaha like that's possible.

Mrs Coastaltown has just cooked plum crumble, which was throroughly fabulous. I'm susbsisting on butties at the moment, long work stint.

Happy culinary new year!

Oops look here instead. Stupid cut and paste.