What's cooking? part 4

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

Mushrooms are probably fine! I dunno, I've never cooked them that long except when making stock. Flavorwise it sounds fine.

Oh yeah, the za'atar burrata was awesome. We lucked out, they usually sell out of all their burrata long before she gets to their stand at the farmers market.

I have to try and find such a magical item.

i made it the keller way, leaving out the eggplant - i didn't add the mushroom bc y'all took too long to reply (lol) and i ended up having more than enough veg to fill the dish anyways. it is about 50mins from being ready!

shiitake are better in certain cuisines, imo

also my video game account name has the word "shiitake" in it

this was pretty good BUT i didn't have a skillet to cook it in, just a glass pie dish thingy, so when i took it out after the full 2.5 hrs it still had a lot of water in the bottom and i couldn't cook it off on the stove.

Ha, I realized as I was responding that it was probably too late for input. Sorry! It's NaNoWriMo.

I had that liquid problem one of the times I made it this summer - I think part of the issue is that water content can vary so much from tomato to tomato, and squash to squash. I wound up leaving it in the oven longer, uncovered, but it was a pain in the ass.

I can't quit thinking about these cute Scotch quail eggs. I haven't made them but they are haunting my consciousness.

i need some advice: i've made this vegan korma a couple times and there is something lacking - some kind of richness that i've tasted in better kormas. any ideas? is it a dairy thing? maybe something i can simulate?

coconut cream would be my guess? I mean thats vegan, yeh?

Wait nm there is coconut milk in the recipe haha. Dur.

It looks like plenty of vege curries ive made so I cant work out what'd be missing, apart maybe from ghee but surely that doesnt make THAT much difference.

today i am going to make:
an omelette
bittman mashped potatoes with dandelion greens
smita chandra chicken curry i have made like 20 times in the past 2 months

-what can I do with canned oysters?

Last night I smoked some lamb shanks for dinner. Instead of chucking the bones and scraps I figured what the hell and made a small pot of lamb stock (onion, carrot, celery chucked in to simmer).

Today I sauteed some onions and chucked in a can of whole peeled tomatoes to simmer for a bit while I cooked rice in the lamb broth. Pureed the he hell out of the tomato/onion and stirred it in with the rice. Some fresh rosemary and a squeeze of lemon--tomato rice soup, which the lamb stock took in a totally different (and delicious) direction!

I ate three bowls.

dayo i think you can make tomato sauce or something

Tonight I'm making rice with gravy from a packet and pre-shredded colby jack (aka cojack) cheese. It's like the meal equivalent of wearing hole-filled sweatpants.

i am sure i would like that better than risotto

i made a "pesto" from raw spinach, walnuts, garlic (too much probably), lemon zest, and olive oil. i am waiting for the bow ties to cook!

yeah harbl I think I'll throw the can into some tomato sauce. but I already bought a can of clams for that same purpose. I wonder if they'll taste differently?

I was also thinking, maybe you want like a 'white' sauce for oysters and/or clams. maybe for clams. but what is an italian 'white sauce'? like... vinegar? lemon juice? hmmm

i don't think different in a bad way. i don't like any kind of white or cream sauce so i don't know but i made red clam sauce all from scratch a while ago and it was great!

also my spinach pesto has parmesan in it i forgot

white wine, butter, garlic, herbs

red clam sauce hmm I think I will make a bold clam sauce tomorrow

oh yeah i would def eat something made of white wine and butter, i guess that does count as sauce

the recipe was from marcella hazan italian cookbook

I haven't bought butter in so long I don't know if I know where to look for it anymore

maybe I can squeeze some out of the blocks of cream cheese I keep in my fridge it comes from the same animal right

olive oil would be alright too

you disgusting heathen

but what is an italian 'white sauce'? like... vinegar? lemon juice? hmmm

I can't decide if you're being sarcastic, but bechamel is the basic Italian white sauce (the French borrowed it from Italy). White sauce for clams is typically based on white wine and clam juice, maybe some butter to thicken it. Red, white, just some olive oil and garlic, it's all good.

smita chandra chicken curry i have made like 20 times in the past 2 months
― tunnel joe (harbl), Sunday, November 6, 2011 9:49 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yo harbl is there a recipe u can share?

did some actual cooking for the first time in a while tonight and it was v. simple--acorn squash, red onion, crimini mushrooms roasted with bone-in chicken breasts. i was extremely happy with it tho.

thanks bill! I don't think I've ever actually had a clam sauce before.

here is a picture my father used to taunt everyone on facebook for a while
http://a7.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/75637_168662633162678_100000568271968_475752_7049978_n.jpg

i think he said it was a lidia bastianich recipe. you should make it!

i am braising some chard but
a. this is kind of embarrassing but i'm not really sure how to braise greens
b. i've never had chard before

i just tore the green off the stems, washed in cold salty water, dumped in large frying pan with about a cup of water, a cube of veg stock, half a tsp of fake chicken stock and a splash of white wine. and a dash of garlic powder. did i do wrong??

i guess i could have researched braising on the internet beforehand, but i was in hurry to get dinner going.

i must have done something right, bc that was fucking delicious!

I made braised chard tonight too - I always heat up olive oil, toss in sliced garlic, then red pepper flakes, then the greens and a bit of salt, cook them over pretty good heat until they're shrunk down a bit and add some water or wine and cook for half an hour or so. I add black pepper and some sort of acid at the end, usually lemon or sherry vinegar. I do kale, chard, collards, and mustards the same way and just vary how long I cook them depending on how tough they are.

Today I had these with little mini fingerling potatoes and chicken legs and wings that I just brown the hell out of in a cast iron skillet and put in a 450 degree oven until the chicken is super crispy. Probably technically overcooked but I love it this way.

Thats basically what I do with silverbeet J so it looks right to me! I fry onion/garlic/chickpeas (and sometimes a little wee bit of curry poweder) and then add chopped silverbeet/chard then fry it, add a little stock, and simmer for 5-10 mins. Yummo.

OK it's really really early AM but that clams/pasta pic is making me hongry