What's cooking? part 4

i like a little acid w/ my greens, but lately i am eating more and more kale raw in salads, etc.

these greens look like they like acid too (man do i love chard, it is easily my favorite green, even more than kale, i'm afraid) going to miss the farmer's market when it's gone ;_;
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Aqm5yVcK-JU/S8pNlu6FkyI/AAAAAAAAAAk/5H8y4wqNwaE/s1600/rainbow+chard.jpg

omg gorgeous

any reccs on a brand of dutch oven? i think that is the next thing on my kitchen-needs list. i was looking at the lodge ones, since they seem a good price, but a good chunk of reviews say that the enamel chips off very easily and very quickly.

i love my lodge pans (i have 3) and i will defend them to the end! no need to spend more imo. i have a small dutch oven that is perfect for 2 people + leftovers sized meals. maybe if i were cooking for 5 on a regular basis, i would need a larger pan -- but i don't, so i don't want to clean/lift/store a larger dutch oven.

this is mine except it's brown (ugly colors are cheaper ime)

http://cdn1.iofferphoto.com/img/item/140/163/095/DSwF.jpg

yeah that's the one i was looking at - so no probs with flaky enamel?

Nope, and I've had it for at least 2 yrs probably more, but I don't remember exactly when I got it.

I don't bake bread in it though, which I understand requires high temps? Mostly stews, rice dishes, etc.

Easy weeknight meals, mostly. No problems at all though. I love it.

Just be relatively cautious (don't use metal utensils, don't put cold water in the hot pan, etc) and the enamel will not be a problem - the same is true for spendy Le Crueset.

-bought some broccolini or brocolette (dunno the name) from the farmer's market. saute in EVOO with garlic, on high heat so it gets brown and crispy. so good! I do love that bitterness. you can squeeze some lemon juice and more EVOO on it after it's done.

I have a Lodge enameled dutch oven -- love it, recommend it without reservation. But it is heavy -- bone dry, the pot and lid weigh 25 lbs.

I feel I should post on ILC sometimes...right now I'm cooking Dry-Fried Chicken (aka "gan bian ji") from Fuschia Dunlop's wonderful Sichuan Cookery book. Rather inauthentically, I tend to do basmati rice with my Chinese food.

You should!! That sounds delicious. I only care about rice choice w/ risotto, but otherwise rice is mostly rice to me.

And to tie in with the top of the thread: today we went apple foraging and came home with 10 kilos! Lots of jelly to be made over the next few days...

Stuff I have made today:
– toast and fried eggs
– flourless peanut butter cookies
– two caipirinhas

Lately I've come around to wanting sticky rice for some dishes, basmati for others.

yeah, totally, but i am not going to go out of my way to get the right rice. if i have it, i'll use it. otherwise, noodles.

nooooooooooooodles (sorry rice)

what else is in the pb cookies, abbott? what holds them together?

I get basmati 15 lbs. at a time at Sam's, and got a 10 lb. bag of sushi rice last month, so I'm set for a while. I even have a bag of cheap-ass generic long-grain rice because it's good for cleaning the coffee grinder. xp

sticky rice for everything imo

I do want to learn how to make vietnamese broken rice at home

I also want to try 'forbidden rice'

Noooo, basmati for fried rice, and spanish/mexican rice. Plus it smells so freaking good!

I used to live off jasmine rice and nowt else, loved its strong smell and stickyness, but since ive switched to basmati I found Ive gone off jasmine, now.

we invented fried rice so that we wouldn't waste two day old sticky rice, fyi

pb cooks are:
1 cup pb (pb as natural as Gilbert O'Sullivan being alone again)
1 cup azucar
1 huevo

stir together and cook at 350ºF for 10 mins! so easy

I did the classic fork smoosh and I threw some sea salt on top.

The main reason for my all-basmati practice is that I know how to cook it exactly right. Whenever I try a different rice I always get the texture wrong.

I made a hash out of Mexican chorizo, corn, green onions, and awesome tiny farmer's market fingerling potatoes this morning with a couple of runny eggs on top and a ton of Cholula for breakfast. And I've had a bunch of chili going all day with the last piece of the 1/4 cow that I bought last fall and have had in the freezer because my wife demanded chili and cornbread for dinner while we actually get to watch the GREEN BAY PACKERS on TV.

I get my Mexican chorizo at the local food co-op and it's funny because it's actually not greasy enough sometimes - like I have to fry it in oil instead of letting it render its own lake of orange grease like most stuff. I can also find the Spanish stuff here pretty regularly and I live in small town middle-of-nowhere which is kind of awesome because I've not always been able to find it in big cities.

ILXors coming for dinner tonight - artichoke dip, Thai pumpkin soup, chard and arugula and parmesan quiche in an almond flour crust.

Ooh that quiche sounds good. I must try something similar.

Anyone tried making hummus with sesame oil instead of tahini?

roasted a bone in chicken breast tonight. i'll never buy a normal chicken breast again.

Yaaaaaay good work, kid

Lol "normal" though ;)

i've been cooking on a gas stove for the first time in my life, so that's been a bit of a test for me

yeah i guess i mean the opposite of normal, don't i

i don't think i'd ever under or overcooked a pot of rice on an electric stove, but on gas it's been really tough

a rice cooker is literally $15

i just got one! for literally $15!

See, I'd be the opposite - electric is impossible to control!

i am trying to use up the food in my fridge and i have no inspiration for it - yesterday the thought of cooking was so boring i went to bed without eating - today at lunch i put an aubergine, whole, in a hot oven and waited until the insides had softened enough to come away from the skin. it looked surprisingly beautiful inside! the creamish greenish colour of the flesh, a few strange strips dotted with little black holes or maybe seeds. i ate it on its own because at first it seemed like any other flavour would detract from the fine light flavour of the aubergine, but by the end something about it tasted wrong, overdone.

creamy eggplant is great but needs a little salt, my preferred way is w/ vinegar and sugar

what kind of vinegar?

oh, just white vinegar, acetic acid

ooooh. will keep that in mind.

this is the way I do eggplant (learned from my mom):

use thin and slender eggplants, not the big fat ones
cut into chunks, not slices
toss into a pan with a lot of oil (eggplants soak up a lot of oil)
add salt cuz to make the eggplants sweat
knock around listlessly with your spatula, wait until they feel soft and creamy when you push down on them
when they get soft and creamy, add vinegar and sugar (I just eyeball it). stir it around with your spatula, taste your spatula to see if the flavor is one you like.
if okay, serve!

Making fake beef bourguignon tonight! This should be lolsy

Question: I'm looking at agree different recipes, one uses herbs de provence and the others don't - y/n? Some also use bacon - I have liquid smoke, maybe I should add a little?

Stupid ph - ” a few”, not ” agree”

Depends on what the bacon's in there for. If you're chopping it up and rendering the fat for something else to cook in it afterward, then no to liquid smoke.

Making fake beef bourguignon tonight! This should be lolsy

can not quite wrap my head around this!

god it's taking forever