What's cooking? part 4

resting is torture when you're hungry

Italian sausage and pasta is happening tonight; maybe some sort of savory bread pudding with sausage and random veg?

What sort of soup might involve sausage? I have some cabbage. . .

hmmm, like a russian cabbage soup w sausage in place of beef shank or w/e? idk about that w italian sausage tho. italian sausage soup sounds like something outta louisiana. lots of shrimp or potatoes or something!

Saute onions + garlic, crumble (or slice) sausage in and brown lightly. Pour off the fat if you like. Add pork stock (or chicken), about 1/2 of what you will want for the volume of soup. Let it simmer for 5 min or so. Chop some kale or other greens, toss in the soup. Stir for a minute or two. Thin with milk to the amount you want and eat.

adding roasted sweet potato to my repertoire tonight. I don't usually cook with it but I'm determined to start including it on the reg.

what kind are you using? my favourite are the purple-skinned/white-fleshed bc they are exactly like new zealish kumara. i could live without the orange ones.

garnet are the ones I have tonight

the orange ones are my jam but I like all of them. the 100% purple ones are CANDY

I love soup like jaq's with the addition of white beans

I got some special supersweet Japanese sweet potatoes a few weeks ago - not only sweet and delicious, but floury, like roasted chestnuts. We're now back to the normal orange ones - I roast them in the skins until they caramelize.

Ooooh OK I am getting into the idea of sausage and white bean soup with kale and/or chard, whichever I can salvage from the snow-battered garden.

Slow-baked steelhead fillets for us tonight, sitting there now with some fresh thyme and lemon zest in olive oil brushed all over. Then into a low (275 F ish) oven for 15 min or so. And, I had 1/2 a can of pumpkin left over from making the cat food today that I didn't want to seal up and freeze, so there's some curried pumpkin soup simmering away too.

left over from making the cat food
whaaaaaa

cat food has 4 lb. organic chicken thigh meat, 1/2 a large can of pumpkin, 1/4 cup cod liver oil, 1 tbsp seaweed (plaque off), 1 tbsp taurine powder, 1 cup of Instincts Plus premix + 2 cups of water. They love it.

omg minestrone was awwwwwesome. first soup I've made in weeks that I can't wait to eat another bowl of tomorrow.

Decided to use my stew beef to make beef and barley soup tonight--you just swung it.

woot!

waiting for chicken to get to temp and then boom, chicken and gravy COME ON DOWN

kind of a late dinner but sooo worth it

I've been wanting to do something with oxtail for a while, so took the plunge at bought some at the weekend. Going with a recipe from Rome out of La Cucina, it's two hours in and looking good. Only another 3 hours cooking to go.

I made boiled new potatoes last night and covered them in herb butter with dill, chives, and parsley, ate some, and promptly got horribly sick. Pretty tragic if I can't eat butter now. ;______;

On the bright side I dragged myself out of bed to make that beef soup (bc I'd already thawed the beef) and when it was ready, put it outside the window to cool (I love doing that!) and will add barley to it tonight and then FEAST.

i made hummus tonight, with fresh chickpeas - i even peeled the lil' fuckers - and for the millionth time, it tasted blaaaah. what am i doing wrong?? i've tried so many different methods/recipes, fresh tahini/jarred tahini and i just can't get it right.

i give up!

For me, texture was the difficult thing with hummus--I can only get it silky smooth with a vitamix, not a food processor or standard-issue blender (both of those result in more of a fluffy, textured hummus--not bad if you like it that way). For seasoning, more garlic, more lemon, more salt, less tahini, lots of tasting to get it just right.

oh and the olive oil you use makes a HUGE difference in the taste!

hey justine are you using raw chickpeas or cooked? because raw chickpea hummus is kinda gross in my experience. canned or fresh cooked chickpeas are the way to go.

Yeah I cooked my chickpeas! And I've used canned before. I thought fresh would be the game changer, but I was wrong.

that's a bummer. nothing worse than making a batch anything that you don't want to eat

My issue could be oil - I think I've mostly used canola, since I generally hate the play-dough taste of olive oil.

Ytth likes this batch ok, so he'll eat it.

olive oil would def help the taste over canola, imo

I'm so happy with the minestrone soup I made on Sunday - I've been eating it for lunch and it's delicious. And it totally lends itself to adding new things and reinvention each time, which is the kind of soup I really dig

olive oil is kind of the signature part of hummus, imo!

I never know what kind to get! I don't really use it for anything - I always use canola or vegetable oil in vinaigrette

don't tell homoII

Ew. Olive up, j.

justine there's nice evoo I get that's from Lodi, made by Bariani. It's v fruity & smooth, lovely for dipping, hummus etc

thanks vg i will look for that this weekend! i have had v nice creamy oo but i despise the taste with a strong olive flavour, which is why i just avoid it all together. i like the neutral taste of canola and safflower.

in nz i used to use oo a lot more bc i could always get "extra light" which is fairly neutral (i guess super processed) but i've never seen that here.

I'm pretty sure Bertoli makes extra light, I see it in the stores? you could try that

the supermarket we go to has like 585767908 kinds of olive oil, and all of them are evoo!

but i will check again ;)

in more successful cooking news: i made this (vegan) banana bread and it was totally awesome

minor success story: tonight i wanted to use some tomatoes/onions/green peppers, and i made a decent pasta sauce out of them (along with garlic and olive oil and some balsamic vinegar), and it actually came out really well! it's no big deal, but normally i would have been struggling to figure out something to do with leftover ingredients. being able to feed my housemates a decent meal was a nice bonus

tomorrow is tofu stir fry with a strawberry/arugula salad.

yay!

just want to do a shoutout to wmc; last night i needed some quick white rice and his method worked flawlessly!

Glad to hear it! It really is the easiest method ever.

seared tri-tip over romaine and baby kale for a steak salad tonight with a pile of spaghetti squash tossed with ghee and lemon pepper - very tasty.

I made this recipe for butternut/tofu/soba stir fry and my friend raaaaved about it (use a whole 16oz pkg of tofu though; 6oz is way too little). It's easy, too!

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/09/health/nutrition/09recipehealth.html?_r=0

What kind of tofu did you use? I get confused by all of the different kinds.

-pan fried corn, canned black beans, sriracha + kewpie mayo + lemon juice, pan fried garlic
-can't stop eating
-I am despicable

- arepas with cheddar cheese, later to be stuffed with scrambled eggs & veg.

My roommate is doing a super bowl thing tmrw with wings so there's no point in removing any grease from the kitchen surfaces today, plus I should do all my weekend cooking before he starts. Look for adobo chicken questions here later possibly.

I am just mixing sriracha and kewpie mayo and putting it on everything. i'm not even trying any more.