What's cooking? part 4

oh and about 1 tsp of toasted sesame oil in that mixture

I love having dinner leftovers for breakfast. If I'm being completely honest, I'm not even that INTO breakfast. I'd much rather eat this wonderful Thai-ish curry chicken and rice soup.

What's a good brand of tempeh? Or do they not vary very much? Gonna try that recipe tonight!

The trader Joe's stuff it's fine! I think they're pretty much all the same.

Monday I made a really delicious lime-chile-chicken thing in the crock pot, using both hatch chile powder (+cumin) and Huy Fong chile sauce because I didn't want to choose between SW USA and SE Asian chile flavors. That night I had the worst gastrointestinal distress I've had in decades, but my daughter, who ate the same thing, didn't have any problems at all. After a couple of days to recover, I'm digging into the leftovers -- just to see if that was the culprit, but also because it's really really good.

Totally! I forgot I have some fancy hot pepper blends from NM and I just threw in the regular dried red ones I got 2 years ago at the Latino-centric grocery store. And curry leaves that I've had in my freezer for months, luckily they freeze perfectly. Needs lemongrass next time (I always say that because I can't get lemongrass easily near me.)

I've seen tubes of prepared lemongrass paste at local grocery stores -- I need to give that a shot, because prepping and freezing a bunch at a time results in too much dried-out/freezer-burned product for me.

I made risotto with orzo pasta instead of rice and, as well as tasting awesome, it only took 15 minutes to cook.

last night i made chicken in my cast iron skillet with a sherry/thyme reduction, roasted brussels sprouts and cauli, and cheese/crackers. it felt like fall food.

i miss summer food already!

What do you do with molasses? It's not really a thing in nz but I bought a jar awhile ago for a recipe and now I don't know what else to use it for.

i think i've only used it for cookies?

molasses is best used in baking. I use it when I bake granola. it shows up in quick breads & some muffin or cookie recipes. pumpkin pie. gingerbread. not very useful in cooking though.

is it similar to treacle?

Down here it's a ubiquitous biscuit-topper, more in play than honey and in some households more than jelly or jam. Mix a little softened butter into some molasses and it's really heavenly stuff.

I only mess with sorghum molasses, never tried blackstrap, which I hear is sulfurous/bitter and kinda nasty tasting.

Funnily enough, I saw this recipe posted on Facebook just this morning: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/alton-browns-molasses-and-coffee-pork-chops-recipe.html
I assume you could marinate tofu or tempeh with it as well.

I like to use it instead of brown sugar sometimes when I'm making barbecue sauce.

I was going to say it's good in marinades. And you can use it in any recipe that calls for black treacle, so tons of baking.

Looks like it is the same as black treacle! In which case I've made this which I loved (was a bit dubious about the bitterness of the treacle but it's good in this cake): http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1462/sticky-stem-ginger-cake-with-lemon-icing

I like to use it instead of brown sugar

food trivia. brown sugar is created by simply combining refined sugar with molasses.

I've got the black strap stuff. Would it mage a suitable-if different- sub for maple syrup in a marinade?

I think I originally bought it for a bbq sauce recipe that came out disappointingly.

I wish I could tell you. I need to find a neighbor who has some and beg a couple of tbsp. so I can find out for myself how much more bitter it is than sorghum.

oh quincie i totally forgot - there's supposed to be a half tsp or so of liquid smoke in that tempeh recipe!!

ah OK, I can grab some of that this afternoon. Do I cut the tempeh crosswise into strips, lengthwise into strips, or do I just chuck the whole rectangle into the skillet? I had somehow expected it to be shaped more like a block of tofu, but instead it is this thinish rectangle.

Just cut it into thin strips, probably about a 1/4" thick, any way you like.

Going to make this tonight
http://www.vegrecipesofindia.com/beetroot-carrot-poriyal-recipe/

A friend took me to a south Indian vegetarian restaurant and it was all delicious but the beet poriyal was insane. Alongside all the curries and other dishes, it stood out as being almost meaty, kind of bacon-y.

I like to cut a block of tempeh mildly on the bias to increase the ratio of surface area to volume.

Saturday night I made the berbere chicken and lentils that Stevie made upthread, to rave reviews from housemates. Everybody wants to take the leftovers for lunches. When I saw how much berbere I had to buy (huge container, at least for spices it's huge) I wondered if it was worth it, but now I'm really glad I have it, because I plan on making this or some variation pretty regularly. Also made rum and raisin ice cream - pretty good but I'll stick with store bought unless I ever get an ice cream maker.

Brown rice pasta (or rice/quinoa) is worse than wheat pasta, but it's better than no pasta.

I agree about whole wheat pasta. It just doesn't have the right texture at all and the flavor is certainly no improvement over semolina pasta.

I just finished making about 2 liters of fresh salsa verde. Our CSA recently gave us a ton of tomatillos, some Anaheim peppers, plus some cilantro, garlic and fresh jalapenos. There seemed to be a message in there.

Main course: Ginger/garlic pork with dandelion greens and ponzu
Side dish: Wild rice with marinated tofu

3rd night of crockpot enchilada stew: burrito magic

My doc's office had a bunch of Bon Appetit and I snagged some amazing pasta recipes as well as an awesome griddle cake recipe using cornmeal, buckwheat, and oat flours and is apparently GF too!

Who wants to come over for pasta

i am learning how to make pasta sauce

most of my advances in cooking in the past year or so basically boil down to 'saute some onions or something to start with', funny how far that gets me

onions are critically vital

aliums

think it was edouard de pomiane who said he'd often put the onions on before he'd decided what he was going to cook

Lundberg makes a ~really~ nice brown rice pasta. and a co-op in Oakland (pretty certain) called community grains makes killer whole wheat noodles. both have the best texture and if you ate these blindfolded i'd wager you wouldn't have a easy time telling them from semolina. they're that wonderful.

xxxxpost

I pickled some red onions today.

been ending up with p wicked frankenstein breakfast burritos (for dinner) lately by starting with the onions

also i want all the pickles

pickled red onions would be ace on a breakfast burrito!

I am making a roasted cauliflower soup.

tonight i made pan-roasted salmon with a little improv gremolata, and a side of rapini with roasted garlic and crispy potatoes. prettiest meal i've made in a while if nothing else.

Discovered roasted kabocha squash. Like chestnuts without all the peeling.

The Trader Joe's sales flyer suggested roasted kombucha squash curry so that's definitely going to happen.

i like it roasted, but another way i cook it:

heat a cast iron pan on med-high
toss 1" slices of peel kabocha (we call it buttercup pumpkin in nz) in a little oil
add to pan and brown to really dark
throw in a handful of thinly sliced onion
and a pinch of nutmeg
brown onions
add a generous splash of white wine (i only have sake at the moment so i just use that)
cover and put in a 350F oven for about 30 mins or until pumpkin is tender.

I thought kabocha and buttercup were different: http://heathereatsalmondbutter.com/2010/01/19/kabocha-vs-buttercup/

they taste exactly the same to me - that article says buttercup gets mushy, but that has never been my experience

I didn't have much at home, so I just tried to throw together a dutch oven one-pot. Spinach on bottom, frozen tuna steak, garlic, carrots, broccoli, avocado oil tossed around a bit then harissa, salt and pepper on top.

The recipe I saw for something similar said 450F for 45 minutes - the tuna came out well done and everything else (carrots aside) was mush. My thermometer said the internal temp on the tuna was 175F - I'm thinking I could cut back to 30 minutes next time most likely?

even 30mins at 450F seems pretty long/high? what about putting the tuna in first with the spices and then dumping in the veggies 15 mins before it's done?

Or defrost the tuna before cooking and do 20 or so minutes? The carrots may need more time than that, so maybe microwave them a few minutes first.

yeah having a frozen protein and a bunch of non-frozen vegetables in a very hot oven does not seem like a path to happiness.