What's cooking? part 4

see also: making manicotti using zucchini (or eggplant) strips instead of noodles.

long slices of zucchini roasted or grilled are otm

― tehresa, Thursday, October 13, 2011 10:29 PM (8 minutes ago)

^^ My favorite.

you have to make TZA's pancakes, they are AMAZING and super fast/easy
mine wound up way smaller, like falafel sized, than the ones in the recipe, but they taste a lot like falafel because of the chickpea flour. totally going to try that with other vegetables btw. soon!

i like to grill (stovetop grill) long zucchini spears and portabello slices -- surprisingly filling with a little cheese and crackers or w/e for a weeknight easy meal

! Reading that zuke pancake recipe, someone in the comments mentions removing the juice from the shredded zuke using a salad spinner. Why didn't I think of that, thats genius! Ive been using paper towels and making a soggy mess!

but the juice helps bind the chickpea flour!

I have never been able to love zucchini :(

im ok w/ it but j0rdan saying its an incredible vegetable is kinda o_O to me

it is!

i had to add a little bit of water to the zuke cake mixture -- def don't remove any!

xp I find it slightly less disgusting than eggplant.

just like a * -...- * spritz, not a cupful or anything

these pancakes will make anyone like zucchini, i swear.

I have also made the zuke chickpea flour pancakes! A+

O sorry I should have clarified I meant the de-juicing zuke with a salad spinner *in general* is a great idea, obv for this recipe it would be madness.

red snapper red curry "mousse" steamed in banana leaf cups. the banana leaves add a lot of flavor, i was surprised.

pork tossed in tapioca starch, white pepper, fish sauce and a ton of garlic, then deep-fried

(homework - i am taking a class)

I can't stop eating toasted whole wheat covered in avocado, radish sprouts + salt & pepper. It is the best lunch of the world even though it gets avocado on my nice work clothes.

Yesterday featured an epic brisket battle: that fucker was still not up to temp after almost 12 hours in the smoker! Finally I said screw it, wrapped the bastard in foil, and threw it in a low oven overnight. Woke up to the whole house smelling like brisket, which is a little weird at 7 a.m. on Monday.

Fingers crossed that it is edible tonight.

camping this weekend, peripherally involved in the preparation of pork ribs, wrapped in foil w/marinade, and slow cooked over a fire pit with a bike wheel for a grill. seared on the spokes to finish (to get those classy three-cross grill marks). really totally excellent.

did you use the bike wheel afterwards?

yes....for more grilling

white bean chicken chili for the first time & it turned out really well. one of my favorite things that i've made in a long time.

i made the korean chicken soup found here http://food.lohudblogs.com/2010/01/20/believe-in-the-healing-power-of-broth/
because the soup place near me makes something like it. i put some cauliflower in it since i had some in my fridge. i think it needs about half the broth and 2-3x as much chili paste but could be just me. it's satisfactory.

Ooo that article reminds me I have a roast chicken carcass in the fridge I gotta make stock out of.

i just realized what i said could sextuple the concentration of hot pepper. i mean i tripled the paste this time, but if i had to do it again i would use half the broth and maybe only 1.5x the paste.

do we have a thread that's just like "post soup recipes for winter"

I don't think so but that would be a good idea. Just made a lentil soup that's pretty damn good. Not soup but also made a roasted broccoli and penne pasta with balsamic butter for later in the week.

Here is soup! where I just posted my new favorite easy hearty Thai coconut pumpkin soup.

Yay lentils! I made my lamb ragout recipe with stew beef because lamb was expensive and harder to come by. It's good, but it's missing some kind of...oomph? I browned the heck out of the meat AND bought a beef soup bone and browned IT, and threw it into the slow cooker to break down over 4 hours.

I don't understand. It will be delic, no problem, but it could be so much more.

Thinking of also hitting the curry-and-coconut-lentil-soup train and socking it away for the week.

lamb is pretty game-y, maybe that was what the original recipe relied on...?

Oh, I know, but this has the mirepoix, red wine, tomato, rosemary, it should be bursting with richness. I'm going to shred the meat and see if getting more sauce throughout helps.

usually letting it sit for a day helps ime
at first taste stews don't really taste as rich as they do the following day
(i don't really make that many meaty stews though)

Lamb has all kinds of gelatin which really adds to the sauce. A beef knuckle bone instead of a soup bone maybe would have done it, or adding some demiglace.

A knuckle bone! Who knew?? I'll ask for that next time, but, it being Sunday, there were no butchers working today. And I'll be eating this sauce for like 4 days, so Amanda's suggestion is also sure to be true.

One of these days I hope to reach Jaq-like levels of making gallons of stock and reducing it to jelly in my own home. One day....

Making those lentils after all. Cooking is giving me an excuse not to clean my room.

laurel, you're my type of gal

I'm so glad it's fall - stock simmering, lard rendering, apple butter making weather :)

I know! I gotta stay home more to have time to do that stuff.

i want to make a ratatouille-style thing - i have zucchini, tomatoes, red and green peppers but no eggplant - to serve with pasta. any ideas?

Keller's confit biyaldi (from the movie Ratatouille!) is very easy to modify to accommodate things you don't like, don't have, don't want to bother with, etc - http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/13/dining/131rrex.html I make it over and over again in the summer (without bothering with the vinaigrette).

Really the important part of the recipe is: slice everything very thin, layer and overlap it like gratin dauphinois, cook it slowly. You have the peppers, so could do the piperade, but if it sounds too fussy, a little extra tomato on the bottom will serve the same purpose of providing a little moisture. Easy enough to toss with pasta once it's done.

ha! i actually have that recipe bookmarked already, but the time on it seemed a bit excessive (bc i am lazy, have been sick for 3 days, and wanted to make it tonight before my veggies go off).

why the slow cooking time, anyway?

Today was orange vegetable day. I wanted to try out my astoundingly good method for home fries on sweet potatoes, which turned out a mixed bag. (Higher water content, lower starch content and necessity of peeling made them harder to handle; higher sugar content made them want to burn. Results were tasty anyway, but too much work.) And tonight, since a nice cold front came through, I made carrot-ginger soup to honor the chilly weather.

The slow cooking cooks a lot of the moisture out of it - it ends up like 1/4 of the original volume, depending on what mix of vegetables you use (I usually have a ton of summer squash and tomatoes from my mother's garden) - so you get a more intense, concentrated flavor (and texture - it'll cling to pasta, or make a substantial sandwich, in a way that it wouldn't if it were just sauteed). It's a long time, but it's hands-off - the slicing is the only time consuming thing, and even that's not too bad.

hmm you make valid points! maybe i will try it - although i'm supposed to be on a dry-cracker-or-toast diet, i need some goddamn veggies and carbs.

also: do i *really* need to peel and seed the tomato for the piperade?

Nah - seeds have a lot of flavor anyway. I mean, it won't look restaurant-pretty, but that's no big deal.

would it be gross to put mushrooms in this? i only have 1 zucchini (largish) and 3 tomatoes, plus a dozen or so shiitake mushrooms that need to be used up.

Oh hey Tep I meant to comment on the blogpost you made with the pic of that AMAZING CHEESE that Cait got, with the sumac/labna filling... omg! WANT.

shiitakes are pretty pungent and flavorful, no?

is that good or bad in this dish

i do this all the time w/out eggplant!

saute onion/garlic
throw in zucchini, chickpeas, green beans (if you want) and saute; season with s&p, rosemary/herbs de provence
add tomatoes and simmer for a while
serve over rice/quinoa/bulgar/couscous