What's cooking? part 4

Eastern Washington was a huge asparagus producer when we lived there, it was asparagus heaven.

Still is - the past few springs I've eaten so much ridiculously cheap asparagus that I get kind of sick of it and need a break by the time the season ends.

I'd always heard thick ones are better than thin ones for whatever reason but I haven't noticed much of a difference. Jaq's right though, as long as your bundle is consistent you're fine, and snapping them is the way to go.

I almost always roast it in a super hot oven with olive oil salt and pepper, and add a little bit of acid before I eat it. Roast asparagus topped with a runny poached egg and a squeeze of lemon is one of the best breakfasts ever.

get kind of sick of it and need a break by the time the season ends

I'm the same - so excited at the beginning of the season though, nothing like the first taste after 10 months of not having any!

There was a big deal about the only processing plant near the tri-cities closing (maybe the one in Dayton? don't remember the details) and hundreds of acres of producing fields getting plowed up and replanted with cheatgrass or something for a biofuels plant. Good to know it didn't make that much of a dent - asparagus takes, like, 5 years of growing to really be productive.

I used to go pick asparagus along the ditch banks of the small town where I grew up every spring.

my parents used to grow it in their garden. they'd be all excited about how it was fresh and from the yard and i, being really snotty, basically said "i don't care where it's from, asparagus is still disgusting." now that i realize gardening requires time and effort, and not everybody does it (and also that asparagus is delicious), i wish i'd been a bit more appreciative.

i made apple banana nut bread today, it turned out great. i think it's the first time i've ever baked a loaf of anything.

thank you first google hit for banana apple bread recipe

I made crepes like 2x this weekend. They are the fastest food!

going to a mexican food themed party and thinking about bringing some portobello caps. anybody have quick preparation tips?

Pork, lemon, parmesan, anchovy (+parsley and thyme) meatballs. Ok these are amazing.

chicken legs (70c each!) roasted in a deep dish with whole garlic cloves, cherry tomatoes, basil, sliced new potatoes and chilli.

experimenting with quinoa salads:

(1) curried with apricots, almonds, red/orange bell peppers, spice house's maharajah curry
(2) greek with kalamata, feta, sundried tomatoes, parsley

i used to make one with black beans, bell peppers, and cilantro, so these are just basically variations on that. making the quinoa in the rice cooker is a dream come true compared to how i used to do it.

also baking some falafel tbh

just made squid for the first time!! it was DELICIOUS. i want to eat this every day in every way.

Fresh or frozen?? I've never made squid.

fresh! i got 1/2 lb and first i made a little appetizer of sauteed squid in a butter-lemon-red pepper flake sauce and it was great. sopped up the sauce with some crusty bread. tomorrow i am making a salad with squid, mango, corn, spinach, cukes, maybe something else, and a lime-tomatillo dressing.

this is one of those foods i have always enjoyed the hell out of in restaurants, so i am very excited to try making it in various ways at home.

i love cooking

The first one sounds like something I could eat ALL DAY LONG. Will try it as a summer thing espesh.

I haven't had time to cook lately. This has caused me to realize it's my #1 destressing activity.

It'll work out OK though because the week after I graduate, I get to help my mom cook food for my sister's wedding reception of 100+ people...can't wait to just sit around and chop veg and ice cookies all day.

Frankie made awesome goulash of pork, onion, red bell pepper, paprika, don't know what else...over pasta. Probably a little too rich but tasted warm and great.

He started by buying a giant leg of pork yesterday for like 6 bucks and cutting it up himself -- this is something I've never thought to try because I would have assumed I had to know something about butchering or what cuts of meet I was hacking apart. But he just went to town with my biggest knife! Seems to work out juuust fiiine.

Ooh! That sounds tasty. Good for leftovers too.

The half lb of squid was about $3.50 btw.

I didn't cook much for about a week because of work but I'm glad to be back in the old kitchen.

I haven't had time to cook lately. This has caused me to realize it's my #1 destressing activity.

I misread this as "distressing activity" and had a cartoon-style visual of you with exploding pans and ovens on fire.

That's not too far off base. I once had what looked like a map of Cuba left of my bellybutton for a few months bcz of hot oil splashback while deep frying tofu in a too-small shirt.

I made someone's recipe (kenan's?) for poblano chicken-potato soup. It said "takes 1 hour" and it took me 2 hrs AT LEAST but part of that was prob inexperience and reading/re-reading the recp and also a couple of smoke-breaks.

However, here's the thing: it's really spicy. I'd never used ancho chilies before and everyone always says how they're "smoky"-tasting, but somehow I didn't think they were ALSO really HOT! I like it with some queso crumbled in and diced avocado alongside, but the German thinks it's completely inedible and can't taste anything else but the heat. So um...that was probably just me being clueless but look out!

ancho chiles have never caused anything i've made to be hot, i have to add extra cayenne all the time

Was thinning the radish patch in our garden this morning, and put the washed-up thinnings on a sandwich, instead of lettuce. Oh yeah!

my nasal passages are congested so i am attempting doro wat, with collards

tastes fine but even though i followed the directions closely enough, the sauce was very watery at the end so it's more like chicken boiled in spicy broth + hard-boiled eggs. in the berbere paste i substituted dried ancho chiles for dried piquin peppers because those are too hot and you can't buy them anywhere anyway.

Have been pretty happy that we live across the st from a reasonable supermarket, and it turns out it's good for "what's for dinner?" moments, but I just got back from grocery marathon and they didn't have curry powder, basil, frozen blueberries, and a few other "no brainer" things.

bought a thing of garlic powder at cvs because we forgot to get it on grocery trip and you can't just go to the store here, you need a car. sigh.

Watercress soup, then roast chicken and potatoes boulangere.

that sounds delicious. what else is in the watercress soup?

Onion, butter, cooked with the cress for five mins, then add a little flour, then bit by bit the water (or veal stock - I ain't got any, but I might put in whatever chicken stock I don't need for the potatoes). Simmer for an hour, blend, add some cress leaves you've left aside, whisk cream and a couple of egg yolks together, add. Can also be eaten chilled. Pretty certain my mum used to make it with dill as well, but I'm not. The recipe, such as it is, is from Jane Grigson's vegetable book.

Wanted something light, not a full roast, and these seemed like a good combination

Amazing! I am going to c/p this into my little recipe archives.

Ok, in which case -

330g/10oz watercress
1 medium onion, chopped
1 heaped tablespoon flour
1 litre/2pt water or light (veal) stock
salt, pepper
250 single cream
2 egg yolks

Thanks! I hardly ever measure stuff very precisely but it's good to know proportions. Not sure what a 250 single cream is though?

Yeah, I know what you mean about the measures - apart from cakes, I don't measure much myself. In this case, it's more for the quantity of cress, to avoid anything too insipid.

It is, of course, 250 teaspoons of cream. Ah no, wait (*peers at book*)
millilitres. Make it half a pint.

Would you consider making this soup without the cream? I don't really like heavily creamy soups very much. I imagined it as sort of clear and green, but this sounds more creamy and green, which is totally different.

In other news, I was thinking of making vegetable soup tonight. Yesterday I finally organized all of my paper recipes/notes/pictures into a binder instead of a decade-old folder and was reminded how much I like vegetable soup.

Hmm, well it's kind of cream of watercress soup, not really a clear one - but I'm sure you can add cream to taste. It's useful because it kind of carries the flavour. It doesn't really come across as creamy or rich as such, for me anyway (a bit like pea soup - one of my favourites). If you don't want to use cream, I'd definitely use a stock (veg stock fine), to give the soup some body. I'm sure that'd be great, but in a different way.

I notice that in the potato and cress soup recipe J Grigon gives, she suggests using the water from haricot beans (I assume she means the stuff you get in a tin of haricot beans) to add flavour, and it's not the first time I've seen this suggested. So if you've got any tinned beans in the house you might want to try that.

Vegetable soups utterly rock - both chunky ones and smooth ones. Pea, as I say, is one of my favourites, but chunky ones with pearl barley and potatoes and aubergine and stuff, and a strong herb like sage or thyme + bay, amazing.

I made a clear beef soup last night with two browned soup bones and the usual garni, excluding rosemary (which I would have used but was told it didn't belong in a "European" recipe). Added barley (for me) and egg noodles (for dining partner) at the end.

Result was an almost-clear soup thanks to my repeated surface skimming, plus another whole pot of leftover beef broth to freeze!

Love rosemary, to hell with the purists, I say. V nice sounding that, Laurel.

Thx! I threw out the carrots, onions, garlic, and parsley that were boiled with the stock because they were all depleted and mush, and replaced them with fresh diced carrot & parsley for the re-heat.

When I make stock (or more properly, broth) is one of the few times I wonder if I really should have cheesecloth in my arsenal. Seems like the quickest way to clear out all those mystery solids without standing over the steaming pot for 30 mins with a large spoon.

Cheesecloth + egg white clarification gets my vote for quick, perfectly clear broth.

Another thing we were missing was some parsnip? You boil it with the broth and then throw it out, apparently you Do Not Eat It. Previous to cooking with a peanut gallery, I'd never purchased or used a parsnip in my life; what's their effect on soup?

xpost

I got muslin for that sort of thing. It's cheap enough, and great for making consomees or stocks of any sort really. Thoroughly recommend, if you're going to freeze, not initially straining it (though obviously sieve/colander the main bits out), but freezing it as it is, then leaving it to defrost over some muslin - because the fat is frozen at the top, it doesn't go through, and you end up with a crystal clear stock.

Laurel, thoroughly recommend making a parsnip gratin dauphinoise, just incredible. Parsnip is comparatively sweet but adds decent body to the stock.

They have a lovely lightly carroty flavor. I'm the sort of disgusting savage that would eat them though (roasted especially delish). xp

Jaq, you would despair if you saw my "kitchen" -- it's a hallway on the way to the bathroom, and I'm using my half-sized sheet pan as a dish drainer because it doesn't fit into the (electric) oven. Linear inches of counter space, total: 12.

I have an old gradeschool-yellow typing table on casters that holds the dish rack and ingredients, gets rolled back and forth depending on use. I hate our electric cooktop but at least the perfectly flat surface can double as counter space if you're not cooking anything. O_o

Landlords promising a kitchen remodel will begin in three weeks but a) I'll believe it when I see it, and b) there's just not much to work with.

oh man, that's hardship conditions.

I won't tell you about my next kitchen, it will make you cry.

If we don't get into a biblically amazing apartment next time with a luxury kitchen, I may have to say "I love my boyfriend but he has chosen Manhattan" and get my ass back to Crown Heights.