What's cooking? part 4

The last four years for me have been all grad school / adoption process / buying a new house / selling an old house / starting a new job / having a baby, and spending loads of time researching and experimenting with cooking just fell off the list of things I had time and energy for. It was just a huge chore and not something I really could devote any time to, and I just fell back on simple quick things I knew by rote if I cooked at all.

It's just been in the last couple of months that I've gotten back into it, went out to eat at some new places and got inspired, and actually bought a few new cookbooks.

checked out lovely book from library called Persiana, so tonight, Persian recipes, one slightly adapted to be vegan: Tomato Bulgur which is a simple pilaf kinda thing with tomato paste and red bell; and Cod in cilantro, tamarind, fenugreek sauce wherein cod will have to be subbed for another protein, thinking fake chicken. highly recommend the book if anyone has any interest in food from this region

zeal for cooking briefly restored after eating (not cooking) something from this book
http://shesimmers.com/2014/03/simple-thai-food-classic-recipes-thai-home-kitchen.html

it was SO GOOD

Good book! Most of the recipes available at her excellent blog.

ooh good to know
the one thing that seemed labor intensive was making the toasted rice powder/chili powder and i think i convinced my friend to share with me if i used my food processor to make something else and we could make double batches and then trade

i have kind of lost my zeal for cooking
it's not interesting to me anymore for some reason
like i used to really get a kick out of trying new things, now i just want to minimize the effort i spend planning what to eat and just cook/eat as needed. i feel kind of joyless about it but also it's not really a problem. maybe the zeal for cooking comes and goes.

this is me too, in a way, as I have zero free time to spend on making food (and shopping for it), but conversely my evening meal + TV time is like the one small pleasure in my day. (Apart from the love and joy of my family of course, but come on). So I'd like to at least enjoy it a bit. I wish I didn't find most microwave meals/pre-made soups hideous as I'd live on those for a good while.

Also I haven't tried any new recipes for about 5 years. And rarely eat out. I have started baking occasionally though.

new cuisinart ice cream maker has made an appearance! it's really hot here, so can't wait to find out if this works: http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2010/08/kaffir-lime-ginger-anise-sorbet-recipe.html. just made the base which we'll chill overnight.
never made frozen dessert before but guy @ farmer's mkt had kaffir limes today, so. . . next time i wanna make passionfruit and pair it with chocolate (sorbet). am a little limited, housemates won't do ice cream but they bought the thing so whatever

i made this tonight & it was really good

http://www.africanbites.com/moroccan-slow-cooker-chicken-stew-chick-peas/

oh, nice webiste. i love habanero/scotch bonnet recipes!
sorbet came out REALLY icey. i don't like it. sweet/tart isn't balanced enough either, maybe i shoulda added a little more lime juice and let it go 5 minutes longer, but it didn't seem like it was still churning when i stopped it.

in baking news i made a chocolate quickbread that involved yogurt & it turned out weird. ie texturewise it was kinda like a slimy chocolate fruitcake

thank god for vanilla icecream

been finding random small quantities of different flours laying around so have tried pizza dough experiments that incorporate a bit of one or the other. a couple tablespoons quinoa flour surprised me in how crispy the crust became. have used about the same amount of semolina (both just mixed with regular ole ap flour) a couple of times and i think i like that even better. gives dough great structure, and final result is a great balance of chew/ crispy bottom. haven't done much else lately, but did put together a tasty potato-spinach galette last night, from an old Jacques Pepin book

I love Jacques Pepin so much!

Any novel ideas for eggs? My girls are laying two a day and I've got a backlog.

pbs had on their website a few weeks ago some old jacques and julia shows. jacques rules so hard. these days david chang is the chef that regularly pushes my buttons.
anyways, i poached a couple in some mole awhile back, that was tasty. and i have a shakshuka recipe but haven't tried yet. oh, if you are into the idea of breakfast pizza - pureed chipotle in adobo for sauce/base, a few red onion slices, top with smoked mozz, or some kinda cheese, crack a few eggs carefully over top, cook 'zza, then finish with cilantro - can be super

shakshuka!

My cooking news is really boring: I found the world's best pancake recipe and I'm ashamed I used Bisquick for all those years when I could have been making these fluffy beauties.

quincie: pickled eggs?

thought the same thing right after i posted. saw this a day or two ago:
http://luckypeach.com/recipes/pickled-beet-eggs/

buttermilk pancakes? i once had a awesome recipe for pancakes that had guinness for some of the liquid. they had blueberries in 'em too. i miss that recipe

guys fwiw i think that 'the food lab' cookbook is really good

yeah agreed. the book or the serious eats archives is the first place i go if i'm just trying to figure out how to do something.

that looks interestin and reminds me of #1 of my cooking to-do list: making ramen noodles from scratch, which Harold McGee has seemingly discovered the secret to for the home cook. baking baking soda. changes it from bicarbonate to a salt, which is the"secret" for a alkaline noodle. i read this: http://luckypeach.com/recipes/fresh-alkaline-noodes/ & can't wait to try. sort of just past the beginning stages of going for my bachelors of science but i love chemistry [not sure if me and physics will ever get along. . . (sad emoticon)]

buttermilk pancakes?

This recipe calls for "souring" regular milk by adding some vinegar and waiting five minutes, but the second time I made them I used buttermilk and the result was just as good.

who fux w/ the Anova? This is the de facto best/easiest/cheapest way to sous vide, yes?

i have one (first gen), i like it a lot --- haven't been eating as much meat lately, though, so it hasn't been getting a ton of use

the joule (by chefsteps) also looks p neat, but is slightly more expensive

i have it too. it's a breeze to use and holds temp. i haven't really looked at joule but at no point have i said about the anova "i wish it had more features."

Agree w/ c.a.d. Love the Anova, easy, works on many different vessels, doesn't trip circuit breakers like my hand-crafted original setup (the pump I used isn't rated for the kind of temps it sees when submerged in the water bath, plumbing it so it could be external was too much work).

makin' a few Indian dishes later today. Aloo Matar - potatoes, spices (recipe calls for 4 different batches of spices, but they're pretty simple), peas, onion, garlic, ginger, etc (using a vegan cookbook called vegan yum yum)
also Dal Makhni which looks like a basic yummy dal recipe, but gets finished with cashew cream.
gonna do some roasting of a cauli, too - this recipe is killer - http://vegweb.com/recipes/cauliflower-poppers

I know w/ sous vide you can't actually just keep something cooking for 8 or 10 hours bcz it'll start to break stuff down -- can I throw a frozen steak in a water bath before I leave for work and then turn on the Anova via wi-fi like 4 hours out? Or will the water bath just like thaw the meat in an hour and it will sit all day at room temp and this is actually a terrible idea?

i've never tried it but it's actually something the anova supports--basically the anova will keep track of the temperature and start cooking whenever you tell it to, or earlier if it detects the temp is about to get to the danger zone.

My cooking news is really boring: I found the world's best pancake recipe and I'm ashamed I used Bisquick for all those years when I could have been making these fluffy beauties.

― aaaaaaaauuuuuuuuu (melting robot) (WilliamC), Monday, 5 September 2016 23:12 (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

pvm not ic

I have some blind spots, no doubt.

re losing the zeal for cooking, this is only tangentially related and probably not the appropriate thread but...

about a year ago i 'retired' from cooking: jordan decided to go kinda low carb (salads for dinner every night, basically) which took off the pressure i'd put on myself to cook. he makes his own salads and i eat whatever is easy (lots of those simple and small TJ frozen meals). it's one of the best decisions i've ever made and my life is so much better for it!

I live off a combo of those two things 90% of the time, now. And bulk frozen costco dinners.

friend gave us a batch of preserved lemons. they're so freakin' yum. so gonna stuff some tofu that has been fried somewhat with that and olives and hope it ends up looking as good as http://veganmenu.blogspot.com/2008/07/tofu-stuffed-with-preserved-lemons-and.html
also due up for side: roasted brussels w/ splashes o'reduced balsamic.

i really wanna make some preserved lemons

i tried once, using the same recipe my aforementioned friend uses (his Egyptian mother's) and ended up with olde salty lemons. wish i knew what went wrong. not knowing sort of makes me leary abt trying again someday

my improvised dinner of which i am insanely proud (bcz every time i make something like this it's really lopsided and not at all balanced or delicious):

- half a pound of elbows, al dente
- 1 pt of cherry tomatoes, roasted with s/p/oo/two sprigs of thyme at 400* for 20 min
- 1 clove of garlic, microplaned
- a ton of coarsely grated parm-regg
- a bit more fresh thyme
- a gentle splash of balsamic

oh my god

I am marinating a bottom round roast for sauerbraten on Friday or Saturday.

I figure if I'm going to do this, I might as well go all the way -- going to make spaetzle and braised red cabbage along with the sauerbraten.

That sounds absolutely fantastic. I've never made spaetzle, maybe I will give it a try.

i have! it was fun other than making a bit of a mess out of my colander.

i am baking bread for the first time in over ten years

chili on the stove now. looking good. have never used fake ground beef before, but throwing that in in a minute. gonna have roasted potatoes with it and cheddar on the chili so it will be close to chili cheese fries which rule, obv

i deep-fried some brussels sprout leaves tonight. the recipe i was working from warned they would bubble up upon hitting the oil and i used a good-sized pot, but it was still pretty scary to watch.

quite obsessed with eggplant at the moment. made this yottam ottolenghi recipe for imam bayildi about a week ago. but more commonly i will just make pasta with roasted cubed eggplant, mix with halved cherry tomatoes with some roughly torn basil, garlic and chilli fried in oil dripped over at the end, sometimes a bit of balsamic vinegar mixed in with the eggplant and tomato. just a very easy thing to cook and i find it extremely satisfying.

other current love: squash. really easy to make a butternut squash soup if you just roast a squash, leave it to cool, fry onions garlic and ginger and chili flakes, add the squash, a can of coconut milk, some stock, put in the immersion blender, voila.

i've been super into eggplant too and prob have ottolenghi to credit, since it's nothing that was cooked in my parents house when i was growing up. there are just so many ways to prepare it. he's got another one where iirc you roast eggplant halves and fill them with bulgur wheat and top w/yogurt and stuff and it made for an amazingly complete meal.

i want to like squash soup but the ones i have tried always turn out sweet?

anyone have a ~hella~ savory squash soup recipe?

nothing i've ever tried but this guy with dashi and miso seems like it would fit the bill: http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2015/10/miso-squash-soup-recipe.html

wow yes this looks perfect

hell yes 2 the eggplant! been roasting and just eating plain lately. also, i think i made this up a few weeks ago when i had some cooked freshly cooked eggplant and also french lentils hangin' out: take slices of roasted eggplant, slather w/generous dollop tahini , and lay some lentils over that. so obvious and simple, but, winnerwinner

made this recipe from vegan yum yum book (kinda highly rec.) http://smithsvegankitchen.blogspot.com/2012/02/red-white-cauliflower-bake.html
and is in the oven now. i expect nothing less than plowing through a couple pieces. it looks nice. had some sauteed leeks that got thrown in the "bechamel", but just followed recipe, basically

at what point should we start a new "what's cooking?" thread?

here are 5 things I made this weekend in order of good to best, w/ accompanying recipes:

5. kasha -- I have never made this before! It was simple but very delicious, and the leftovers went really well with #3
http://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1017205-kasha

4. broccoli cheese soup - this was very heavy and delicious, but maybe not as much BOOM POW CHEESE!!!! as I would have liked? But don't get me wrong, it was still quite cheesy; I think I just need to add some salt when I eat it. The broccoli flavor is way more pronounced than other BC soups I've had in the past. This is an excellent recipe for someone who loves BC soup but only a good-to-great recipe in general.
http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2016/10/broccoli-cheddar-cheese-soup-food-lab-recipe.html

3. miso chicken - I've made this before and it's deceptively simple and flavorful. I love it!
http://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1017699-miso-chicken

2. double buckwheat blueberry pancakes - at first I was like "hm these taste so interesting! do I like these? but then I was like "wow I REALLY like these!!!". Don't serve them to children. Do serve them to grown-ups who love great food. Also you have to make #5 first bcz it uses leftover cooked kasha in it.
http://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1017208-double-buckwheat-blueberry-pancakes

1. hummus tehina from Zahav - this is killer. it's the best hummus I've ever made. We're not reinventing the wheel here, folks -- this is simple quality at its finest. Go full Ina and get the best tahini, dried chickpeas, etc.
https://food52.com/recipes/42695-zahav-s-hummus-tehina