What's cooking? part 4

frozen tilapia fillets are... not good for anything that isn't heavily seasoned so it might be a good plan. it's either that or they taste like the fish equivalent of chicken breasts

btw if you have butter and cayenne pepper you can blacken them cajun-style

or just season w/ salt and pepper and some lemon juice and saute

these are good ideas, problem being i am getting drunker as i let them thaw

don't get drunk and decide to try to make ceviche with them

I mean, not that people have done that.... uh, yeah

Saute minced shallot and garlic in butter or oil, add a shot of tequila to the pan, lay the fish in, cover and steam. squeeze on some lime.

i have all these things minus the lime, but i think that one might be a go. possibly add ginger or galangal root...

edible +

no...downgrading to edible.

Hey as long as you dont put chocolate sauce on em you'll be fine.

in a steaming rig like this what could i expect

http://i800.photobucket.com/albums/yy282/everytownexceptpaducah/steamerkinda.jpg

also frozen fillets from a bag what can ya do

Tonight I made one of those once-a-year type over the top meals for Valentines day - ribeyes with some demi glace that I had in the freezer, homemade fries with chive/lemon/pepper mayo, lettuce with garlicky dijon vinaigrette, a good bottle of local wine, and, to ensure the ridiculous food coma, chocolate souffles. Feeling kind of bloated right now but it was worth it.

Sounds amazing. I made complicated mayos once, to go with roasted potatoes and garlic cloves. The worst part was trying to evenly flame-char and then SKIN my own bell peppers instead of buying them. Must have spent an hour just picking shards of skin off like an idiot. Ah those were the days.

Today I had a pound or two of stew beef, a can of San Marzano tomatoes, a bottle of red wine, and a carton of beef broth. Now all browned and seasoned and in a 300-degree oven for an hour, at which time I will add carrots and possibly baby yellow potatoes. While I'm waiting, I will degrease the stove top because holy shit.

you gotta let the pepper sit in a paper bag, rolled closed, for a half hour or so before skinning! the skin comes off easily in like 5 pieces instead of 1000

Sound advice, which I'll take for the next time (if there ever is a next time).

Because you are not kidding about the 1000 pieces.

The plastic handles of Le Creuset pots are oven-proof, right? I mean it's not even very hot in there.

i looked it up once. i think they are safe to 375 or so. i was making no-knead bread and it was hotter than that so i unscrewed the top and put a piece of aluminum foil in the hole to plug it up.

that wasn't a handle though, the little holder thing in the center? i think they're the same material

i decided to try making ratatouille in my crock pot and it was disastrous - i timed everything all wrong and ended up letting it cook for like 10 hours. i actually managed to completely cook all flavour out of it. it literally tasted like... nothing.

Trying to eat more beans because
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6EX0GepzOA

I made the awesomest batch of pintos: garlics, cumin, tons of the CHILE FROM HATCH, and that smoked sea salt + pepper just chilling in the pot liquor. I have eaten them every day for over a week and I'm still not tired of them. Think up next are some Anasazis!

Made menemen for the first time. Ridiculously simple and so, so good. Perfect for an excessive breakfast.

Abbott, I wish more ilxors understood the amazing power of the CHILE FROM HATCH. I don't build whole vacations around just any foodstuff.

I bought a 40 lb bag of roasted hot Hatch hiles from the farmer's market & it was defs my best investment of 2011. What's left is taking up 1/4 my freezer.

So jealous!

I bought a bunch of chile powders (mild and hot green, mild and medium red, chipotle) from Biad Chili, the processor that NMSU uses. Can't wait to get through current work deadlines so I can get into the kitchen and tinker.

my coworker was raving about hatch chiles! they sell them canned at whole foods but they are so freaking expensive.

does chile from hatch get auto-capped like DUMPLINGS!?

it probably should.

Yo that beef stew up there was straight magic. I'm making it again this weekend as a ragout for some heavy egg noodles.

trying to decide what's cooking tonight. i want vegetables.

OH so that's what hatch chillies are. Someone gave me like a half-pound frozen bag of them for Christmas, already washed and slivered and in some kind of green sauce. I haven't decided what to do with them yet, I don't even like spicy food that much.

Or maybe they're not specif Hatch chillies but the New Mexico green ones, anyway, that NMers love.

There's not a single chile variety called the Hatch chile, actually, per the FAQ at the Chile Pepper Institute -- the Hatch/Las Cruces area is just the biggest growing area. The Anaheim chile is usually the variety grown and sold as "Hatch chilies."

gonna walk to the chinese store and see if they have eggplants or if not that baby bok choys and i will eat them with my leftover "spicy sauteed fish" from last night's chinese

i always forget about baby eggplants. the chinese ones. i love those.

where is the thread about roasting chickens?

they had eggplant! a pile of them. gonna make an honest attempt at this because chinese eggplant is my favorite vegetable and i am always wanting it

Laurel, if you got your chilis in a sauce, they are already done and you don't need to do anything with them. This is just called green chili in NM/CO. You scoop it up with tortilla, or pour it over a burrito, etc.

at my chinese grocer's, I was looking for frozen DUMPLINGS! but noticed the pickings were very sparsed. then I noticed they had giant freezer coolers in the back. when I opened one, it was filled with bags and bags of DUMPLINGS!, all by the same company! I bought one and made them today, and I can see why this store would keep bags and bags of them. they're really good for frozen DUMPLINGS!!

i was gonna buy some DUMPLINGS! too but most of them were porky and i wanted some nice vegetable DUMPLINGS!

I will check to see if this brand also makes vegetable DUMPLINGS!

this eggplant isn't perfect but it's pretty good for first try guessing at the recipe because all the internet ones had something wrong with them imho

is it the really long and slender eggplant? that is the best kind of eggplant

can you tell us the brand name or is it a secret?

oh totally! it's called wei-chuan. the logo is red with white lettering.

the cooking method is so interesting - you add the DUMPLINGS! to a pot of boiling water. when the water boils again, you add a cup of cold water. wait for it to boil again. repeat 3 times. then it's done! so interesting.

yes the long and slender kind! it's like it doesn't even matter if my recipe is right because their texture and taste are so perfect to me

that is weird, when i got DUMPLINGS! from the chinese store i was just using my steamer basket

my dad makes this sweet/sour/salty chicken at home, I recently made it with eggplants, it's just as delicious perhaps even more delicious w/ eggplant, I'm glad to have a vegetarian version

oh cool

http://www.weichuanusa.com/

oh yeah i think chinese store has that kind, or i'm thinking of seeing them in h-mart which probably has a whole aisle of different DUMPLINGS!

no vegetarian options : (