What's cooking? part 4

thanks WmC, tbh even if I was supposed to peel I probably would have said to hell with it anyway

pretty sure you don't peel - apricot skin is v v v thin and delicate, barely a skin at all.

the apricots are caramelised - I can't really tell! I think they probably are peeled?

Here's my recipe for what I've had for dinner the past two days - it's an attempt to copy what I used to get for lunch from Mixt Greens.
- butter lettuce
- cherry tomatoes
- chopped cucumber (british kind I guess)
- thin chopped slices of red onion
- avocado
- mango thinly sliced
- crushed macadamia nuts
Mix up in a bowl with either some lime juice & mango dressing or attempt to make your own from mango, lime juice, yoghurt, oil, something like that.
- tuna steak, rubbed with oil & ground coriander & salt & pepper, seared on hot heat then sliced. Put the salad on plates then the tuna on top with MOAR macadamias.
Sounds kind of not that exciting but really it is amazing!

got a banana bread cooling on a wire rack, counting the minutes until it might be cool enough to eat. I never bake so I am excited but resigned to the possibility that it may be largely inedible

(drums fingers, vibrates with anticipation)

Turned out pretty well, at least given my fear of baking! I used this recipe should anyone care: http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/banana_bread/

Bone-in pork shoulder currently a couple of hours in to smoking. Spouse was in charge of the rub, which was tasty upon sampling; now my job is to keep him from over-doing the hickory smoke (he thinks there is no such thing as too much smoke; he is wrong).

Thinking about making blueberry ice cream if I can pull it off without a trip to the store for ingredients. Have never tried to make ice cream with less-than-whole milk and cream, but maybe some extra egg yolk in the custard will compensate?

OK I'm gonna try this Mark Bittman cornstarch-thickened ice cream recipe:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/01/dining/011mrex.html

someone gifted me some squash blossoms the other day. did a scallop mousseline (pureed the hell out of bay scallops, added 1/2 egg white, dash cream, tarragon salt and white pepper) and piped into blossoms. steamed for ~4 minutes and it was really nice. neighbor friend inhaled a couple too.
even though it's frigid in sf this morning i'm jonesing and will get fixins for vietnamese spring rolls w/nuoc chom here in a bit.
i absolutely lurve those little salady things

that scallop thing sounds amazing!

hey ILC, here is a real good sandwich i make sometimes:

it's avocado, adzuki bean & aubergine. the adzuks are smushed into kind of a paste, so they can be spread on one of the pieces of bread (i throw in a little cumin and nutmeg, but that is hardly noticeable, really). the aubergines are thinly sliced & grilled, w/a little smoked paprika. two of them is super filling (this bread's pretty small, but it makes a really neat, tall, colourful sandwich). depending on how into sweating yr aubs you are, it takes like twenty minutes or so to make. pro-tip: once you've grilled the aubergines, half them again, otherwise they're one of those sandwich ingredients that you bite into & disassemble your sandwich by dragging out with your teeth.

http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/8428/sandwichc.jpg

xxpost: re: the scallop thing - that probably isn't my favorite way to prepare what are my favorite seafood, but it is a classic French preparation and i'm glad chef @ work gave me the idea to try it. was elegant and really simple to make. might try stuffing with mint/egg/ricotta and frying if those blossoms are still forgotten about and in the walk-in when i get to work on Monday.

that's a interesting sammie idea schlump. never really thought of combining avo and eggplant together, and don't think i've ever had adzukis....

adzuki beans are great! really flavoursome but they're also kind of apart from other beans consistency-wise, less starchy/chalky, so good for doing weird stuff with/refrying/puréeing, &c.

(they are kind of a motherfucker to soak & cook, btw, so they're easier out of a tin imo)

ok just realized mochi with red bean paste is adzukis so i've had that many times but never a savory adzuki. thx for the headsup

black beans and rice
fried ripe plantains
so satisfying!

^ classic

oh man I can't find canned black beans here. Is it a pain to buy dried and soak them and do they taste the same?

Takes some time, but not a pain. They taste better than canned, imo.

it's much better! i don't use canned black beans anymore because they are too mushy and do not taste very pleasant to me. if you cook them yourself you can throw in some epazote, which is supposed to aid digestion. (it's the main ingred in beano iirc?)

i think i think mushy is a plus w/beans, that might just be me though. i am not together enough to soak beans on the regular.

I will say Goya canned black beans are great but yeah if you have the time, dried is p much always superior. Just be sure to soak

I cook all beans in a crock pot now, some take a while but the beans soak up the spices.

Also threw allspice in my last batch of curry and it was out of this world!

Made Rama Curry for the first time tonight and it was so amazingly good. I had it for the first time on Sunday while visiting a friend in Atlanta and wanted to give recreating it a shot while it was fresh in my mind.

Help me plan a menu for my bday party! I want small finger-foody snack things w/ 1 or 2 vegan options, something cheap and easy w/o skimping on flavor (and NO HUMMUS, that is too played). Any suggestions?

vietnamese fresh rolls with a strip of either jicama or broken rice cracker in the center for awesome crispness

omg jaq that is so amazing

cheap, fun to make, ppl will be all "whoa"

I never did this but thought it would be cool for a party... if you have access to these: http://www.bolaniandsauce.com/home.php you can spread them with the spreads (I really like the cilantro and garlic mint cheese together) and then maybe cut into strips and roll up to make little rolls? Bonus because most are vegan iirc? Anyway you can change up the combinations and they are tasty! Maybe veering to near to hummus though....

They had lots of them in my local Whole Foods and also at farmers markets

Mmmm, kinder that sounds tasty!

Stevie, I think it is la lechera who repped for Trader Joe's puff pastry - you can cut it into shapes, put some delicious stuff on it, bake it, and it's amazing. I made tiny little shells full of triple cream blue cheese and fig spread for one party, so good. For that I baked the pastry first, then filled post-puff.

we just bought some of that bolani stuff for the first time yesterday! the jalapeno spread is really really good.

PUFF PASTRY is my jam
you can put anything on it and people think it's fancy

well maybe not ANYthing but lots of different things -- you're limited only by your imagination

also they can be sweet or savory, yr choice

One of my default cheap easy finger food party items is to brush olive oil on good bread and run it under the broiler for a minute, then rub each piece with a halved garlic clove. Lay these out on a plate with a bowl of tomato mixed with some garlic, olive oil, salt, pepper, maybe a splash of sherry vinegar and a little smoked paprika. Grate tomatoes if you can get good ones or food process a drained can of diced ones if you can't.

It's basically assemble-your-own pan con tomate. Vegan by default but you can add slices of manchego or jamon Serrano (or more realistically prosciutto).

Spain has the best food.

I am getting so many good ideas itt

One of my favorites is small mushrooms marinated in a lemon-thyme vinaigrette.

a couple weeks ago i bought some pork ribs from this specialty market and had no clear plan for what to do with them (i don't own a charcoal grill or smoker so the obvious options were out). dug around online and found a recipe that calls for oven braising them in tightly-wrapped foil with herbs, then broiling briefly with a sweet/sour balsamic bbq sauce.

we ate late tonight but damn if that wasn't a satisfying meal to make.

That sounds great. Smoke is good, but the oven is always amazing when done right.

How do you make chex muddy buddies/puppy chow a bit more interesting? sub almond butter instead of peanut? or maybe hazelnut butter?

that sounds like a great idea! maybe add some garam masala and/or other spices? is that gross?

unsweetened coconut?

garam masala might not go the best w/ almond butter and chocolate but i AM making roasted chickpeas w/ curry also which i am excited abt

ok, how about cayenne pepper then?

that could be good!

coconut otm

I biked to a Bangladeshi neighborhood to look for kafir lime leaves, since it's the nearest thing to "Indian" that I wouldn't have to go to Manhattan for (and I didn't feel like biking to the Atlantic market). There were no lime leaves. When I asked people about them, they laughed. One woman said they were "very rare to find" and that if they ever had any, they would sell right away.

Did buy some whole nutmegs and some green cardamom pods and 10lbs of basmati rice in a bag. Fish curry is for dinner if the fish ever thaws!