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

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?

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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.