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

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 .