What's cooking? part 4

i wld assume it's just to thicken it a bit, yeah.

Nah, before you purée it the liquid/solid ratio is way off; it's just a pot of stuff with some liquid between the cracks and maybe an inch or so on top

gotta puree lentil soup! i use an immersion blender for everything and it works great.

Experimenting with adding proteiny things and extra vegetables to Nigella's Happiness Soup and making it into more of a Happiness Stew. Today: baked tofu, red peppers and spinach.

ah well, maybe i'll look for more of a soup-with-lentils recipe

xp to self: this was much better with hotdogs.

Soup is in the air! Today I am going to make some chunky (no blender here, immersion or otherwise) tomato basil soup to go with this delicious cheese bread we found at a random bakery yesterday, which I am afraid I will never find again now that I am addicted to their chocolate-peanut bread :(

lentils are dope as hell, dal bhat classic dish maybe w some greens or yogurt or something, so wholesome

damn i want some dal bhat now, no dal tho

Turning 40 lbs of apples into apple butter today.

Lemon rice mk 3: with seafood. Excellent, but I need to buy better shrimp.

I'm attempting cinnamon rolls! they are currently 'rising' by the woodburner.
Going to cook a full roast pork dinner in the meantime

whoa

Made some cinnamon rolls myself today. They've turned out pretty well.

Currently halfway through cooking meat stuffed apples, which I found in a Greek cookbook and I think will either be great or awful. I have no idea which.

making a beef tagine

Today, a sweet potato/peanut stew. Been feeling a little guilty about the amt of meat in my diet lately, so it's nice to get back to some vegan basics.

crockpot chicken & gravy

Vgrrl, I met Michele from NomNomPaleo on Friday and got all fangirl about the chicken and gravy!

Shockingly, I have all the ingredients to make the chicken biryani from HT Cook Everything, but then I noticed it doesn't call for curry or coconut, and I'm not very interested in it without those things so I guess I'm making a curry like a biryani but with curry and coconut cream.

No curry? But does it have some of the spices that normally go into curry powder?

It calls for cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, saffron.

Hmm, I guess most curry powder has cumin, cilantro, turmeric, chilli powder at a minimum.

God, I love cardamom. I'm going to make some cardamom tea.

omg that was amazing
pro tip: having a broken oven thermostat that massively overheats every time ==> best crackling ever
(the meat was only in that oven for not that long so was ok)

I can now vouch for meat stuffed apples being quite tasty. Not sure I'd make them again but was worth trying once.

Today, a sweet potato/peanut stew. Been feeling a little guilty about the amt of meat in my diet lately, so it's nice to get back to some vegan basics

recipe please WilliamC?

xxxpost

Xps, biriyani is traditionally not a curry dish. It's often eaten with a curry sauce though. In most restaurants what's sold as biriyani is just pilau rice mixed with whatever curry the chef happens to have handy.

Behold: pan-roasted chicken thighs with harissa chickpeas

http://i934.photobucket.com/albums/ad184/sdolnack/42310C94-B3C9-4F5C-AC2A-CAA23307F041_zpsfwc4ueln.jpg

#winnerwinnerchickendinner #iwokeuplikethis #harissaexplainsitall

#flawless

recipe please WilliamC?

I looked at 7-8 recipes online and combined/freelanced it this way:
First I toasted about 2.5 cups of raw peanuts on a baking sheet at 350˚ for 25 minutes, giving them a shake a couple of times during to make sure they didn't get over toasted on one side. Divide them in half; salt one half liberally while they're still hot and shiny from the oils coming out, leave the other half unsalted.

1 large onion, rough chopped
3 large cloves of garlic, chopped
a quantity of fresh ginger, grated -- I wound up with about 1.5 tablespoons

Sweat the onion in just enough olive oil until sweaty, add garlic and ginger and give it another minute. Then add spices:
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp cumin
1 tsp salt
some hot chili paste. I have to make things pretty mild because meds blew my wife's taste buds up a few years ago. 1 tsp of sambal oelek gave it a barely noticeable heat -- 1.5 or 2 tsp would be better, I think
1 tablespoon of tomato paste

Stir it all around for another minute, then add:
3 large sweet potatoes cut into 3/4" dice
one 15 oz. can of diced tomatoes
Enough unsalted vegetable stock to cover, 4-5 cups
the unsalted half of your toasted peanuts

Low simmer for 45-50 minutes
At this point I pulled out a couple of cups of potatoes/onions/peanuts, pureed the rest with the boat motor and put the rest back in so there would be some chunky bits, but you can puree the whole thing if you want.

Then whisk in some peanut butter -- I think I used about 1/2 cup, more or less to suit you. Taste it and adjust the salt if needed, simmer at low for another minute or two, and it's done. Throw a small handful of the salted peanuts into each bowl for a nice crunchy surprise.

Stevie I made that lentil stew for my sick Mama - A+! I forgot the vinegar and didn't have fresh spices, but it still worked. Added Tabasco sauce.

#winnerwinnerchickendinner #iwokeuplikethis #harissaexplainsitall

^^^^^^^^^^

about to bake off a GIGANTIC pizza. half of it: clams and garlic, nice Italian fontina and chopped habaneros; b/w blanched broccoli/sundried tomato/mozzarella/habanero.....

habs packed no punch but the garlic/clam/fontina part killed.
salad day today - baby kale, mango slices, toasted hazelnuts with simple lemon/honey/extra virgin dressing

adventures in leftover gravy day 1 : shredded leftover chicken, sauteed veggies, brown rice + gravy.
day 2: turkey burgers on bread smothered with gravy
day 3: profit

Can anybody help me identify this vegetable

http://i975.photobucket.com/albums/ae232/daggerlee/SH/86EB40F5-6091-4875-8C48-77D221818672_zpsoiqc96uv.jpg

I think that's a seed/bean in the middle

I can't get it to zoom in for detail, but it sort of looks like a split open bitter gourd? Kind of ridged exterior? Those don't have seeds like that though. Maybe tepary bean in the pod?

Not tepary bean, but winged bean I think. Can't copy the link on this phone, but check the wiki image - pretty sure that's it.

Ty Jaq!

Did you eat it? What was it like?

making rogan josh with half of this huge leg of lamb roast i got at costco

Yeah it was at this banquet lunch I went to

Vinegar/soy vinegraeittteete

Tasted nice, good texture, not stringy, would have again xp

i wanted macaroni and cheese, so i made my first roux, but i didn't have flour, so i used some cornstarch, it didn't seem to matter

woo my cheese sauce is getting better, i started putting cayenne pepper in it too, i think next i'll try mustard

Oh mustard is a great addition. Happy trails!

Made this yesterday as my 'take to work for the week' lunch:
http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2014/01/slow-cooker-chicken-40-cloves-garlic-fingerling-potato-recipe.html
So yummy and easy. I hope everyone loves my garlic breath.

It is by far the classiest thing thing I have ever made in a crockpot. OTOH I feel like crockpot recipe books have ruined their image for me as they're usually half recipes like 'hey why not just pour a 2-liter bottle of Dr Pepper into your crockpot and heat it up for six hours?'

Ugh, yeah. Or a couple of cans of chicken soup.

leftover lamb means shepherd's pie for dinner. haven't had it since i was a kid :D

I have a friend who is going to Singapore on a Fullbright, and for his birthday yesterday he instigated a potluck by requesting that people claim and prepare recipes from this Malaysian / Singaporean / Indonesian cookbook (he sent scanned recipes out, but I have my own copy).

It was pretty cool - perhaps a bit presumptuous to invite people over and demand the cook a specific thing but everyone was into it and it turned out really well, a good spread, all thematically similar, more than anyone would be sane enough to attempt on their own. It also gave me an excuse to make fried chicken that had been soaked in coconut milk and spices overnight.

made tomatillo habanero salsa last night. so tonight tempeh and cheese tacos w/avocado and the aforementioned (roasted habs, tomatillos, onion & garlic, lemon juice, cilantro, salt). salsa excites me to no end

shepherd's pie turned out fantastic - used an alton brown recipe and it was v flavorful without being too far off what I grew up with. The only difference really is that I didn't grind up the leftover lamb the way mum used to, I just cut it into chunks.

though I did have a horrible 'y can't VG read' moment, where I made the mashed potatoes according to mr brown's recipes (or what I thought was his recipe)... added the liquid and the butter thinking 'wow that's a lot of liquid' but of course I didn't double check the recipe because I'm in the zone. I mix it all up and it was like soup! I was all "WTF Alton Brown your mashed potatoes suck--"
....ohhhhhhhhhh wait you said 1/4 cup not 3/4 cup liquid looooooooooooool.

So I cooked up another lot of potatoes, mashed them and added them to the 'soup' and bob's yer uncle

note to self. READ recipe.