What's cooking? part 4

Hope it suits!

whenever my gf's birthday comes around i consider cool kitchen stuff, which we'd both use, but then i feel like homer buying marge the bowling ball with his name engraved on it and try to think of something else. i stress wayyy too much abt gifts though.

yeah, i used to think buying stuff like that as 'gifts' was pretty lame and mean, but i'm REALLY into kitchen stuff now, and it's not like we're made of $$$. plus, buying me kitchen stuff is a guaranteed hit.

like, sadly, i would be SUPER FUCKING PSYCHED, if i got a dyson vacuum cleaner for xmas.

Oh man, I'm just fine with Mr. Jaq buying me kitchen stuff, as long as I get to use it first (and, you know, the most).

Ditto, if I got a cherry red KitchenAid mixer. Or a couple of bits of cast iron cookware. Or a full set of the highest quality knives.

(all of which are 100s of $$$ so, it aint gonna happen sigh)

yeah, i should probably get over it, cooking together has become a pretty cool part of our relationship (unless i'm crabby, i've made it sorta unpleasant a couple times!) we've been looking at cast iron cookware the same way we look at puppies we'd love to adopt.

You'll have the cast iron longer.

jaq, those narrow metal shelving units you have in your kitchen - are they from ikea? i have been coveting them ever since we visited you.

No, I've only ever found them on-line here: http://www.improvementscatalog.com/product/pantry-rack-chrome.do
They really are great, pretty much the perfect size for kitchen stuff.

garden yielding tomatoes hand over fist. what are your great tomato recipes, ILC??

Sliced, fresh from the garden, with some buffalo mozzarella. Dressed with olive oil and salt.
Seeded and chopped into ceviche.
Seeded and chopped into tabouli.
Excess crop turned into tomato paste and canned/frozen.

So jealous of succesful tomato growing. Thus far, it has evaded me :( Damn possums.

Tomato sandwich with mayo, salt and pepper, eaten over the sink because the juice is going to run down your arms.

Excess crop turned into tomato paste and canned/frozen.

― Jaq, Wednesday, July 27, 2011 10:15 PM (22 minutes ago) Bookmark

any good method for this? or should I turn it straight into sauce?

got about 20 tomatoes today and looking at the plants will probably harvest at least 10 more tomorrow. for a 3 person household... :O

can you make a tomato relish?

i also like a tarte of crust, spicy mustard, and tomatoes.

http://www.foodinjars.com/2010/09/tomato-jam/

any good method for this?

You really want a food mill or a strainer (like this one) because it is incredibly tedious to peel tomatoes and pick out all the seeds from the pulp. And if you peel and seed, you lose a lot of the flavor (which is in those little juice packets around the seeds).

Peeling by dropping them briefly in boiling water until the skins loosen and then coring/coarsely chopping then canning might be your best bet. Frozen chopped tomatoes really suffer for texture, though can be a nice addition to soups/stews/braises.

Depending on the type (romas work best for this), you could try to dry them.

Okay, that tomato jam sounds life-changing. I'll be making some of that once I get some ripe ones on my vines.

yeah that tomato jam sounds great! lot of sugar though

what's wrong with leaving the peel/seeds in the preserves?

my dad is bringing me some fig jam he made last weekend :)

Do you have a lot of available freezer space? The last few years, I've peeled them (boiling water method), cut the cores out and cut them into quarters/eighths, then just frozen them in quart bags. Nice rough'n'ready method, quick, no jar processing needed. But you have to have a bit of freezer space.

Otherwise, canning in quarts is SOP.

alternately you can give me all your extra tomatoes

what's wrong with leaving the peel/seeds in the preserves?

Nothing, if you're talking that tomato jam. But tomato paste is so concentrated, the seeds become bitter stones of tooth pain and the peels end up like bits of plastic wrap.

lol tza if I go down to the dc/va area I'll bring a peck! (a...peck!)

souvlaki cries out for rad tomatos, it's worth some proper consideration.

improvised some cider/apple sauce to have w/ my chicken today, surprisingly good.

hmm will try to make a souvlaki soon!

the aldi here has a food dehydrator for $20, gonna try to make some sun dried tomatoes!

i made vegan tacos with lentil 'meat' and a salsa that was just tomatoes blackened in a pan and then pulsed in the FP a few times, along with some red onion, garlic, lime juice and sugar. they were amazing! i don't even like lentils.

I thought it was illegal for vegetarians not to like lentils.

i'm not a vegetarian! still an omnivore!

anyone who loves lentils is an ascetic imo

i just made salmon for breakfast because it was on sale at whole foods and i bought a TON but it's been so busy this weekend and i haven't had time to make dinner. so we are now having honey-balsamic glazed salmon for sunday brunch? it is really good. i could eat salmon for breakfast more often!

xp idk, lentils can be cooked in lots of great stocks and sauces etc. but it's usually just the texture that i find off-putting. these lentils were cooked with onion, cumin, ancho & chipotle powders, toasted sesame oil, smoked salt, smoked paprika, tomato paste.

Sorry, I got you confused with a vegetarian ilxor!

I like lentils, no texture issues there...chickpeas are another matter. I've had to face the fact that chickpeas need to be broken down to their hummus or falafel states for me to like them.

aldi had run out of the food dehydrator by the time I got there :(

xp I was probably being about 40% serious. lentils are useful, yr right & i like them, but they also possess an innate potential for overwhelming blandness. indians can complain about the blandess of english cuisine all they like, but i've had moments shovelling down salty daal when my mind turned to sartre's being-in-itself.

xps yeah i can't really deal with un-hummus'ed chick peas either. or baked beans.

food dehydrator

Deepish pan + cheesecloth + breeze and you are set

I looooove lentils. Esp those dark grey puy lentils - those ones have a great solid flavour that goes nicely with sausage (which obv defeats any vege purposes but hey).

I make the best home-fries, seriously.

Came upon a bunch of free oats (thanks Colette!) so I decided to make Alton Brown's granola -- I had all the ingredients just sitting here. I did, however, reduce the brown sugar and added some *salted caramel chips* that I got in a fancy food store in Paris, so I am expecting magical results. Instead of cashews I used pecans too. Unsweetened coconut, of course.

WmC -- breakfast truck?!!? amirite?!?!

WmC -- breakfast truck?!!? amirite?!?!

We were talking about exactly that last night while we were eating dinner! Blue-skying the idea of a "Home-Fry Heaven" booth at next year's railroad festival, or a food truck. My thought was to offer them as a base with a bunch of different modification options — NM style green chile, red chili, poutine style with cheese and gravy, a smooth curry, etc. Breakfast variations like chorizo and scrambled eggs, or a couple of nice runny fried eggs laid over the top.

Basically, the method I've stumbled into with super results is to use cold baked potatoes. They're already cooked through — it's just a matter of getting that good brown crusty crust on them and seasoning them well.

-bi bim bop style
-with tons of cheese because lord knows there' always someone who will order it and it's easy enough to prepare
-spanish OR mexican chorizo

and the basics are so cheap! the profit margin could/would be up there

my mom made homemade granola in the 70s w/peanuts & unsweetened coconut IIRC - sooo good, super-filling.

I'm eating it right now with some fresh peaches and a little plain kefir
SO GOOD
i feel good that i made my own cereal because cereal advertising can be SO offensive (so can yogurt advertising, for that matter)

you should definitely include this, or something like it. it's one of my all-time favorite brunch dishes.

got around to baking that famous no-knead bread recipe today - wow! pretty incredible

oh my dad LOVES that recipe.

tza, that link in your previous post didn't work -- what was it?