What's cooking? part 4

maybe i will do the apple/cranberry stuffed chops!

I have been thinking a lot about this apple cake recipe.

i dont really fuck with canning :(

One of my favorite things to do with apples is make sausage-apple-cornbread stuffing and make stuffed, baked winter squash.

o man i am making the fuck out of that apple cake

Made a great cake at the weekend, also gluten-free as it happens, and seemingly impossible to fuck up (it's been great every time I've done it, and my baking is patchy to say the least. It's an Italian Easter cake apparently and is very light, slightly austere and very delicious, excellent for afternoon tea.

150g blanched almonds, whole or flaked
3 eggs, separated
150g caster sugar
60g rice flour
2 oranges
30g soften butter
icing sugar for dusting if you want (I normally don't bother)

160C/gas mark 3 oven. Chope the almonds finely (food processor good for this) until they're crumb-like (ground almonds are too fine incidentally), whisk egg yolks with sugar until pale and creamy. Add the almonds and rice flour. Grate the zest of one orange into the mixture then had the juice of 1 1/2 oranges. In another bowl, whisk the egg whites with a pinch of salt into stiff peaks, hem hem. Fold into the orange-and-egg mixture. Butter a 20cm round cake tin - butter it heavily, it gives the cake a great crust. Pour in the mixture and bake for 50 mins, should be slightly springy to touch, cool it on a wire rack.

Goes great with tea, as I say, darjeeling or something like that.

jaq – i have made the smitten apple cake (not in a bundt pan). it is pretty awesome!

so i made roast chicken pasrts & apple & fennel

then a dope apple crisp

and still so many leftover apples

apple cake it is!

When I have a bunch of apples, I like to cut them into cubes, put some cinnamon on them, and fry them up for breakfast. For some reason my husband finds this idea abominable.

id buy that for a dollar

Seriously. My bf also hates apples cooked with foods, will not let me include them in the potato mixture I put under pork roasts.

The first time I made fried apples for breakfast, he looked at me like I was trying to feed him Gravy Train on a plate.

That's crazy, sauteed apples are wonderful. He needs to come on this thread and face his critics.

Yes, I like them with butter and lemon zest and thyme.

That sounds amazing!

My plan for dinner tonight is to make this soup. So stoked.

From the Martha Stewart food magazine! It's great, if geared slightly toward soccer moms who are solely responsible for both working a job and cooking for their entire families, 7 days and nights a week.

I mean the magazine is, not the sauteed apples.

lol at their instructions for "chopping peanuts" -- don't they know the best way is to wrap them in a clean towel and pummel w rolling pin??? None of this utter NONSENSE involving FOOD PROCESSORS.

jaq – i have made the smitten apple cake (not in a bundt pan). it is pretty awesome!

remy, I must have gotten that link from you - I've had it bookmarked for ages and have yet to make it. Now we have an apple tree, so piles and piles of fresh apples for the picking.

btw, sauteed apples for breakfast would be AMAZING in my book.

lol Laurel – Bittman loves his food processor so much.

I love mine too but it was a hand-me-down from my mother and JUST WON'T DIE. But I'd love it even more if I had a dishwasher. Right now I can't justify the extra washing.

Oh man, I just finished this soup & it is tasty. Defs a solid B+. I think it could work just as well without the chicken and then it would be totally vegan.

oh my, an apple tree! that is so awesome!

all my cooking efforts the past two weeks have been abject failures, so tonight i have returned to the old standby - inspired by jaq - of spinach/rice/pumpkin salad.

i am feeling seriously depressed about cooking this winter ;_;

Speaking of being depressed about cooking, how does one deal with having a pathetic shitty kitchen? I have a great gas oven/stove, but thats about it. Its a galley kitchen - no dishwasher, one sink, and 2 teeeeeny tiny bits of bench space. No room to move, cramped, cupboards way up high that I cant reach.

It has thrown me so hard off my game I just gave up. Any ideas?

i have an electric range, don't look at me

taste of thai green curry paste is kind of shit :(

my kitchen sucks (no counter space, no dishwasher so most counter space is eaten up by drying rack, one sink w/ crappy water pressure), but i am so happy to have a gas range that i am totally psyched about cooking every time!

i have very poor ventilation also and i have to take the batt out of my smoke detector when i cook or it will go off. usually end up opening the window, too, bc the whole place turns into a boiler. this may be useful to cut down on heating bills come winter?

Yeah I should be pleased I have a good stove/oven at least cos thats the important bit, innit?

i love my kitchen but i also have to take the batteries out of the smoke detector half the time

tonight i made pan fried chicken (with cayenne-flavored panko) with homemade tomatillo salsa and avocado on top, side of arroz
was delish

nom!

our kitchen is pretty small, BUT our last kitchen had the fucking oven and fridge in an entirely different room, so i do appreciate that when i stand at the sink, everything is within reaching distance. definitely lacking counter space but there is one of those old fashioned pull-out cutting boards which is super handy. and there is room to add a butcher block or similar.

i got this korma mix (dry) and recipe says to add 1/4 c cream + 3/4 c water - can i sub coconut cream? (cooking for a vegan)

i bet you could easily sub coconut milk

making a nice big batch of salsa makes so many things possible

this meal
omelettes/scrambled eggs with delicious salsa (personal fave)
salad with various toppings and salsa-as-dressing
tacos of various types
quesadillas
chilaquiles

whatever you want to put salsa on

this is why i LOVE MY FOOD PROCESSOR

I always make my korma with coconut cream so I dont see the prob!

Ricotta Gnocchi

My kitchen is the hallway to the bathroom and my stove is one of those stupid electric glass cooktop ones (but at least since it's flat, it doubles as a dishdrain when I'm not cooking). Because I have exactly one overhead cupboard, we had to put a tall bookshelf against one side of the hallway for storage of food & cookware & cookbooks, so there's no elbow room, and only space for one person to even stand by the stove, which = when anyone is cooking, no one else can use the bathroom. Every pan I own is stacked inside of every other pan I own, and most of the lids avalanche down when you so much as nudge any one item. I despise our kitchen. Despise.

Doesn't coconut milk still have milk in it? Maybe I've misunderstood it all these years.

Doesn't coconut milk still have milk in it? Maybe I've misunderstood it all these years.

and how

vegans <3 coconut milk iirc

coconut is milk produced by cows with large udders (or "coconuts")

taste of thai green curry paste is kind of shit :(

making your own is kind of a pain, but worth it if you have the time. can post a recipe that's worked well if you want.

^^^I would like recipe pls

from Hot Sour Salty Sweet. this is supposed to be enough for four curries, however i forgot that and used ALL of it for one curry. it was fine, perhaps because i didn't mash finely enough and didn't use enough shrimp paste.

You can use a food processor instead of mortar and pestle if it'll get stuff fine enough.

Green curry paste

1tbsp coriander seeds
2 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp black peppercorns
.25 cup minced coriander roots
1.5 tsp salt
.5 cup minced lemongrass (4 to 8 stalks)
.25 cup coarsely chopped garlic
.25 cup coarsely chopped shallots
2 tbsp chopped galangal, or sub 1tbsp minced ginger + 1tbsp fresh lime juice
1tbsp minced wild lime zest, or sub regular lime zest
.5 cup fresh bird chiles (preferably green ones), stemmed & coarsely chopped
1tbsp shrimp paste

Place a heavy skillet over med-high heat. Add the coriander seeds and dry-roast, stirring frequently with a wooden spoon, until aromatic and beginning to change color, about 3 min. Transfer to a mortar or spice grinder and grind to a powder, then set aside. Use the same method to dry-roast the cumin seeds, about 1 min, then grind to a powder and add to the ground coriander. Grind the peppercorns and add to the spice mixture.

Use a large mortar to reduce the ingredients to a paste: Place the coriander roots in the mortar with a pinch of the salt and pound until well softened and breaking down. Add the lemongrass and pound until it is well mashed. Add the garlic and another pinch of the salt and continue pounding. Once the garlic is shapeless and breaking down, add the shallots and continue until broken down. Add the galangal and lime zest and pound and mash with another pinch of salt to a coarse paste. Add the spice blend and mash and pound until well combined. Add the chopped chiles and the remaining salt and pound until broken down and smooth. Set aside.

Place the shrimp paste on a piece of aluminum foil about 8x4 inches. Spread it out in a thin layer, then fold the foil over it to seal and make a flat package. Place a heavy skillet over high heat, put the foil package in the skillet, and cook for about 3 min on the first side, pressing it down onto the hot surface. Turn over and repeat on the other side. You should start to smell the hot shrimp past.

NB don't seal all the edges of the foil package when folding, or it will expand with heat like a bag of popcorn, not good.

Remove from the heat, unwrap, and add to the curry paste blend. Pound or stir thoroughly to blend. You'll smell all the aromas in the curry paste as it mixes with the hot shrimp paste.

Store the curry paste in a clean, dry, well-sealed glass jar in the refrigerator. It should keep for about a month.

Makes 1 cup paste

That sounds like a great project for a gray winter weekend.

Monday night, it seemed like a good idea to put 18 lbs of pork shoulder into the slow cooker and let it simmer away for 24 hours. Realized last night that 18 lbs of cooked pork is WEEKS worth of the same stuff every night. Got some completely fabulous pork broth out of it though, time for posole or albondigas. Tonight I need to bake some kind of pumpkin almond (and/or coconut) flour quick bread that will be good for a few days worth of breakfasts. Maybe with some flax thrown in for xtra-healthiness factor.

Ya coconut milk is compeltely vegan

It is also incredibly, horribly high in saturated fat or cholestorol or something.

trayce it sounds like your kitchen is like mine. it has room to move i guess but no counter space. i've just gotten resigned to small kitchens until i can buy my own house.

Not really. It's full of a medium chain fat called lauric acid. And only animal products have any cholesterol. (xp)

Yeah I was thinking cholestorol was the animal one, I couldnt think what it was called.

Just made my BF an Italian pinwheel steak (stuffed w/ ham, provolone, spinach and fresh basil) and broccoli w/ cheese sauce made from cheddar, white truffle oil, milk and stilton.