What's cooking? part 4

ohhhhhh, I want that

― Biff Wellington (WmC), Sunday, 24 June 2012 21:19 (2 hours ago) Permalink

mmm soba noodles are delish.

yeah i have this huge package i bought a while ago so i should try to eat that more! for my own benefit i gotta write down how i did that: 2 cloves of garlic, big jalapeño, and a chunk of ginger, and a big handful of peanuts in the food processor until i basically made peanut butter. heated that in some oil to tone down the raw garlic and added water to thin it out. added soy sauce, rice vinegar, and brown sugar, then lime juice after i got the right consistency with more water. the peanut was just the right grittiness. i hate smooth peanut butter.

i've been eating the weirdest meals the last few days while my person i cook for is out of town. tonight for dinner i am having dinosaur kale and beet greens with soy/sesame marinated grilled mushrooms and maybe a few pieces of this superdelicious tofu concoction that i will dilute/stretch tomorrow with more tofu. tonight i am stretching with mushrooms. it's gonna be kinda weird but to my liking probably?

i've still never done anything with beet greens. i get intimidated buying them & just buy the picked beets instead, because otherwise i feel like i'd be taking home my own weight in long storks that would wilt before i did anything with them. in smaller-scale beet news i've been including it, grated, w/red onion, whenever i make rice or grains, recently, which is pretty great & sharp & cool & colourful.

I made raisin bread yesterday! Basically took a plain white bread mix, and added some hot cross bun style ingredients. Came out rather nice. Makes delish toast.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/s720x720/179947_10150856610967757_533719155_n.jpg

OMG that looks amazing, Trayce!

What an attractive loaf of bread.
I had a salad of cukes, radishes and lil heirloom tomatoes.
I also made nachos.

Fennel tastes like licorice/anise/etc and i haaaaate that flavor a lot

Stevie gets it <3

Whatever, more for me and all that.

I did a braise of chicken thighs and crimini caps in an arrabiatta sauce tonight that turned out perfectly. Loving this cool summer so far (since I'm not emotionally invested in growing tomatoes this year).

Tonight is turkey chili, kind of a bastardized Cinncinnati chili over wholewheat macaroni. Yay beans!!

Best thing about it is I'll have lunch off it for at least two days :D

Trayce - that is a beautiful loaf of bread!!

Thanks y'all! I was quite pleased with it. Oh and the shinyness was just brushing the hot loaf with sugar disolved in boiling water. It set into a nice toffee instantly, yum.

I used the leftover mushrooms from last night, added some much needed soba noods, pea shoots, and ginger and it turned out much more satisfyingly. Only took maybe 10 min too, including boiling the noodles.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7256/7444175036_f1065885fe_c.jpg

My pictures may be annoying, but I respond more to pictures of foods than descriptions -- it doesn't even matter if it's not a great picture, it helps me conceptualize food to see it. I generally avoid recipes without pictures tbh. So I would like to encourage more pictures, as long as it doesn't drive everyone but me crazy.

Speaking of noodles, I could go for some chewy superlong lo mein noodles soon. They are the best.

No no, pictures are great! In fact Im kind of suprised this thread doesnt have more pics than it does.

more pics please

n00ds

Old pic of ramen I made once, speaking of n00ds:

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/26426_349790092756_1410648_n.jpg

I got a whole folder of this crap on my FB haha, I like taking pics of my cooking ;_;

aw, quail eggs?

i have a whole set on flickr with hundreds of photos, not all of them pretty. i tried to tag them last summer but gave up because it was boring.

show me your ugly cooking

Abb: no theyre just regular hen eggs! ....its a rather large bowl (lol I am a pig)

Pozole

not big on recipes either, so pictures really are my guide
here's the link, please know that all pictures are not v good and most of them are iphone snapshots, and some of them look like barf
http://www.flickr.com/photos/marshmallowy/sets/72157622779106086/

i think my idea of the photo menu was actually born upthread? maybe on a difft what's cooking thread.

i stopped tagging because it was really boring but i should get back to that someday
it would make the archive more useful for vegetarians, etc. not that anyone uses it outside of me, but w/e.

the last time I posted a pic of my cooking, my jerk friend added it to his current tumblr project: a protest against bad/amateur food photography :(

Snobs gonna snob.

;_;

cmon i am trying to make myself feel better after posting 200+ amateur food photos

I am thinking about starting a show us your dinner! thread

that's exactly the kind of snobbery that irritates me, though -- why would someone deny another person the pleasure of one tiny molecule of pride in something s/he made?
f those people.

i mean, i'm not good at much, but i am good at making dinners

Those photos look fine to me, LL! I dont think people realise how much hard work - and insane levels of trickery - go into "pro" food photography. I mean they prop things up with toothpicks, spray things with oil to make them "glisten", alter the colouring in post, use plastic fake stuff etc etc.

I'd much rather see good, genuine photos of people's real food!

And I'm with you on the pride thing. Cooking is basically all I'm good at! When I posted that bread pic here (and on FB) I got so many encouraging comments, it cheered me up after months of being in a slump of "Im no good at nothin".

I mean I think they look fine too (most of them, at least) but I'm sure someone out there in the world would think they were shameful and amateurish, or that I should be using pedigreed recipes instead of making shit up myself, or or or or blablabla

but ultimately, my food is tasty, nutritious, inexpensive, and relatively easy to make. improvisation isn't scary or bad, it's fun. ask derek bailey!

Sadly I have no pics of that pasta primavera I made (recipe above) but guys it was sooo GOOD!! It was just enough mint to taste wonderfully fresh but not enough to taste "minty", and I've never used/experienced mint like that and it was sort of mystifying and awesome. We used Bionaturæ 100% whole wheat chiocciole and it's p much my new fave pasta brand ever (I had no idea ww pasta could be actual yums; you guys h a v e to try this stuff). Next is gemelli w spicy broc rabe and golden raisins

Okay also, cherry vs grape tomatoes? Grapes are more flavorful and just better, right? Are cherry tomatoes the red delicious apples of tomatoes ?

hmph. you guys are right. I'd been shamed into not posting any baking pics since because I was embarrassed! screw that guy.

I usually tend not to take pics unless it's something that took a lot of time to make. Like HAY SEE WHAT I MADE.
But I would love to participate in a food pics thread, or at least more regularly post pics of my achievements itt if ppl are all going to play

and Trayce your shiny bread was amazeballs. made me so hungry!!

omg so many dinner .jpgs

tonight i made a creamy chicken/tomato/peanut soup thing. i tried making my own garam masala for it since i couldn't find around here. not bad.

LL, I look at your food flickr semi-regularly!!! It is an inspiration and I really enjoy it.

Hey, thanks! I'm glad you have found things you like in it. That's what it's there for.

I am hopping on the shakshuka bandwagon tonight! First had it in Israel and then forgot all about it--thx to thread for reminding me!

I made it tonight - it was pretty good but tbh I wasn't terribly taken by it. I think it needed more pep, the three jalapenos I used were kinda small.

Oh, yeah, don't use jalepenos or anaheim, use seranos. 4-5 of them. No fucking around.

Mine needed more feta, some capers, and extra umami courtesy of this fancy sun dried tomato powder friends gave us. Good bread would have taken it up, too. Still, it was easy, nourishing, tasty enough-and minimal dishes to wash!

Smitten Kitchen had a good shakshuka recipe some time back; I followed it to a T the first time I made it, and subsequently have pushed it through a fine sieve or food mill to smoothe the texture. Puréed parsley and olive oil make an awesome condiment, as do fried scallions.

http://smittenkitchen.com/2010/04/shakshuka/

Man so many pol are talking abt that website

does it have some kind of deal? i'm browsing around and it seems like a good site