What's cooking? part 4

I grew up in the midwest too, but I think the difference is that you guys maybe actually saw people cooking and grew up eating "meals" with "family", whereas I had never really seen a full meat-vegetable-starch meal prepared for more than 2-3 people who were all eating that meal until I was...12? 13? My mom would make things sometimes, like rice-a-roni or mac & cheese, but we p much never ate together and never all ate the same thing. I've had to learn how to eat new stuff too, it just wasn't a particularly grueling process because I didn't have a set off assumptions to offset. I just knew I needed to eat food and I was kind of tired of the handful of things I was eating.

Anyway, I'm sorry you don't like beets, but it's not like I give a shit what anyone else eats or doesn't eat. It's not a mark of valor or anything. (Some of the pickiest eaters I've ever met have been students who grew up eating their own ethnic cuisine and turn up their noses - hard! - at basically anything/everything else) In sum, I would never assume anyone is a lesser being based on their food preferences. Do you not know me?

Poor grandpa. My dad eats green beans for lunch sometimes. Just raw green beans on a plate.

That's probably healthier, although not as fake-prepared as me stir frying them with a little soy sauce and seasoning for a couple minutes and eating them with rice.

I should start a thread reporting the horrors my parents report about my grandfathers. It's always something.

huh, i just finished off the last of the spaghetti squash in the fridge and then put beets on my grocery list (i've been roasting them with anise like mad lately) and here we are a feudin' over 'em. i grew up in the midwest, too, and the thing i'm pickiest with still is meats. always trimming away the nasty bits and getting accused of being wasteful (prob true). but i still vividly remember the first time i tasted broccoli and being ecstatic over it. i think i grew up in the wrong place!

whoever told justine spaghetti squash is exactly like pasta is a prankster and a real germ. love the stuff, but that is crazy talk.

I grew up on veggies but beets and asparagus were always given to me canned, and I was pretty convinced I hated them. Discovering the taste sensation that is fresh beets and asparagus was a huge moment for me.

had a group lunch at work today, and I realized 2/3 of the people around me were eating solid meat/starch lunches, with pasta/chicken and sandwiches w/fries being the most common

i like spaghetti squash but i really like squash. it's not like pasta!

attempted to rectify boring Tucci chicken soup with fire-roasted tomatoes & tomato paste. Much better: it actually tasted of *something*. But still kinda meh. Stupid tucci :(

I grew up on veggies but beets and asparagus were always given to me canned, and I was pretty convinced I hated them

Haha me too, I think thats a very Aus thing. I *still* havent ever tried fresh roasted beets, theyre always pickled in vinegar etc, which you know I do like, but Im guessing its better fresh. Asparagus? God, I hated the mushy tinned shit we occasionally had meted out for tea in summer with salad. Fresh steamed aspag was a revelation to me. but then again so were peas and corn, when I had them not boiled to within an inch of their life which my mother STILL DOES, seriously even steaming veg she manages to overcook it :(

I didn't know beetroot/asparagus/peas/beans came in fresh form until I left home. Well, I guess I knew in an abstract sense, the same way I knew that protons exist. On the other hand, I was very familiar with carrots, cabbage and potatoes. And tripe.

i'm making the chicken jaq posted upthread tomorrow! gonna roast some asparagus too.

right now gf is in the other room with ac/dc up really loud making some kind of peppers stuffed with quinoa and godknowswhat

they had whole chickens at winco for $1 a pound at winco last night, so I snagged one for that jaq recipe too! to make this weekend.

Jaq, looks like you're on the clock :)

xpost peppers stuffed with quinoa and RAWK

God do I love/hate Winco

i hadn't been in years: their canned goods & meat prices are possibly unfuckwithable. but it's def a zoo and fraught with non-bargains

I miss WinCo more than anything in Idaho. Anything@!

i was like a kid in a candy store. ZOMG SO MANY CANS SO MANY BARGAINS

We just ate the last of that slow cooker chicken tonight for dinner. Mr. Jaq had to fend me off with a fork because I was eyeing his gravy. I hope you all have great success with it! Keep in mind the skin on the back won't necessarily look done at 6 hours and the juices might not be clear, but the internal temperature will be just right for safe eating.

sweeeeet

so excited

pedantic question for Jaq: is your crockpot an older or newish one?. slow cookers within the last 5 or so years have higher wattages (a food safety deal) an so wind up cooking things a lot faster. i always ruin stuff in the crockpot anyway. i might do this in the dutch oven with the oven on 180-200ish and just cook to internal temp? hmmmmm.

Mine's newer - I've had it for 3 years or so. The low setting is 165 deg F though - I checked it to see if I could use it for sous-vide (too high for that).

ah, ty! actual temp is way more helpful.

just put it in the oven! rubbed the bird w/ black pepper/sage/salt blend, stuff it with carrots and half a lemon. in hindsight wish it was an orange. so now.

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m0ankfnUTS1rqfhi2o1_500.gif

i made these rolo knockoffs and they're much tastier than i would have guessed (i normally don't like dates). dates blended with pb and salt, rolled into balls and dipped in chocolate melted with coconut oil.

new fake cheese sauce is also amazingly delish: roasted yellow peppers blended with cashews, nutritional yeast and milk - way better than even the butternut squash fake cheese sauce that i used to love.

xp LOL

I don't get fake cheese sauce...I don't even know what nonfake cheese sauce is. Like nacho cheese?

it's a sauce that tastes cheesy but contains no dairy

but it has milk?

almond milk, or soy milk, or you could use hemp or coconut or oat milks

"milk" is just easier than saying a liquid made from a nut or bean that simulates actual milk

i'm sorry, i have never heard of anything like this, that's the only reason i asked
cheese sauce -- fake or otherwise -- is not my thing, i don't even know what one would do with it
nacho cheese, that i know
didn't mean to be deliberately dense!

regular non-vegan cheese sauce is just bechamel sauce with cheese added to it.

or mornay sauce i guess.

so the stuff that makes mac and cheese
ok gotcha

it should be known that when i was a kid i HATED all sauces of all kinds
soy was the first sauce i could handle

Cheez whiz aka processed cheese food is a human right

it's a human wrong.

Kitchen morality. Tell the people of Philadelphia.

um today I scored a copy of The Grand Ole Opry cookbook for $6 - it has Mother Maybelle Carter's recipe for Scripture Cake (ingredients coded in bible verse numbers: you have to consult yr bible to get the ingredients)
Best thing ever!!!

i put cheese sauce on anything - pasta, veggies, quinoa, rice - it goes with anything. the roasted pepper with nuts is such a great combo, really creamy, not exactly pepper-y, but there is a real depth of flavour that's missing from the squash-based versions.

for work i'm currently the purchaser at a rather large resiential community. one of my great pleasures is being able to get things for our residents that are not your normal everyday food item that i think they may enjoy. brought in some Stravecchio (Italian, very soft, unaged cow's milk cheese for the uninitiated) and am gonna make a ridiculous grilled cheese with it with some that is leftover. i don't reckon i'd call cheese my absolute favorite single food item but few things make me happier

xxp i need that! loretta lynn has a book of her own. if i were loretta lynn i'd name my recipes after my songs. Harper Valley PITA. Fish City. Buns on the Way.

Don't Come Home A-Drinkin' (With Oven On Your Mind)

^title of book

omg that is so cool

(xp not actually the title of book fyi)

YOU LIED TO ME

:)

Finally decided to try a buttnernut squash soup. Am a little wary, bcz I'm not a huge winter squash fan...but it's been years since I had one and they're SO cheap right now, I figured what the hell. Using an Emeril recipe that has italian sausage in it --- I figured that might help ease me into it. Training wheels, haha.

squash&sausage sounds potent, curious about the recipe & how it ends up.

yesterday was prawns-capers-mushrooms-olives&white wine risotto, today is meatballs.

Got a smoker yesterday -- a Masterbuilt 40" electric. It's going through its seasoning/burn-off process now, will start with pork shoulder tomorrow. Will I turn into one of those cue-heads who spends hundreds of dollars on gear to make a $20 rack of ribs? Only time will tell!

read somewhere recently how to make the perfect soft boiled eggs and it's foolproof as long as you time it right. the article claimed steaming allows the yolk and white to achieve their respective internal temperatures perfectly in 6.5 minutes no matter the size of the egg. i've done it twice this way now and concur with their findings. i didn't realize before that yolk and white coagulate at different temperatures and boiling isn't the best way to get both cooked to the perfect doneness consistently.
i LOVE soft boileds (esp. w/ a wee dab of umeboshi paste)

xxpost:
butternut soup rules. easy to make and i love that sort of delicate flavor. used to make one that had diced roasted red pepper added to the pureed soup. looked nice and tasted real yumm

I'm excited. Kitchen smells amazing right now

xxpost WmC - Mr Veg got a Brinkman from his Dad when we first bought our house, having never barbecued/smoked anything ever. Within 6 months he was obsessed, and within 2 years we had a Kamado. So, the answer is yes. But it's sooooooooooo worth it. I don't even remember that many inedible failures starting out tbh. To me even the failures were fking delicious :)

Good luck, and happy smoking!

Thanks! I think I have the hang of grilling and wanted to add smoking to the repertoire. The smoker was an Xmas gift from my main/only work client, who actually sent me cash and told me to research and get the smoker I wanted. This all grew out of a conversation we had the Friday before Labor Day -- she asked if we had big weekend plans, if I was going to barbecue. I said no, I didn't have the gear or the know-how for 'cue, but I was going to grill some hamburgers. This got into the whole thing of using the word "barbecue" when you mean "grill" and I happily ranted away on my pedantic high horse for a while, so that gave her the idea of getting me a smoker for Christmas. She and Judy plotted for a few weeks on what exactly to get, and decided to just give me $$$ and let me do the researching/buying, which is a big part of the fun anyway.