What's cooking? part 4

cmon i am trying to make myself feel better after posting 200+ amateur food photos

I am thinking about starting a show us your dinner! thread

that's exactly the kind of snobbery that irritates me, though -- why would someone deny another person the pleasure of one tiny molecule of pride in something s/he made?
f those people.

i mean, i'm not good at much, but i am good at making dinners

Those photos look fine to me, LL! I dont think people realise how much hard work - and insane levels of trickery - go into "pro" food photography. I mean they prop things up with toothpicks, spray things with oil to make them "glisten", alter the colouring in post, use plastic fake stuff etc etc.

I'd much rather see good, genuine photos of people's real food!

And I'm with you on the pride thing. Cooking is basically all I'm good at! When I posted that bread pic here (and on FB) I got so many encouraging comments, it cheered me up after months of being in a slump of "Im no good at nothin".

I mean I think they look fine too (most of them, at least) but I'm sure someone out there in the world would think they were shameful and amateurish, or that I should be using pedigreed recipes instead of making shit up myself, or or or or blablabla

but ultimately, my food is tasty, nutritious, inexpensive, and relatively easy to make. improvisation isn't scary or bad, it's fun. ask derek bailey!

Sadly I have no pics of that pasta primavera I made (recipe above) but guys it was sooo GOOD!! It was just enough mint to taste wonderfully fresh but not enough to taste "minty", and I've never used/experienced mint like that and it was sort of mystifying and awesome. We used Bionaturæ 100% whole wheat chiocciole and it's p much my new fave pasta brand ever (I had no idea ww pasta could be actual yums; you guys h a v e to try this stuff). Next is gemelli w spicy broc rabe and golden raisins

Okay also, cherry vs grape tomatoes? Grapes are more flavorful and just better, right? Are cherry tomatoes the red delicious apples of tomatoes ?

hmph. you guys are right. I'd been shamed into not posting any baking pics since because I was embarrassed! screw that guy.

I usually tend not to take pics unless it's something that took a lot of time to make. Like HAY SEE WHAT I MADE.
But I would love to participate in a food pics thread, or at least more regularly post pics of my achievements itt if ppl are all going to play

and Trayce your shiny bread was amazeballs. made me so hungry!!

omg so many dinner .jpgs

tonight i made a creamy chicken/tomato/peanut soup thing. i tried making my own garam masala for it since i couldn't find around here. not bad.

LL, I look at your food flickr semi-regularly!!! It is an inspiration and I really enjoy it.

Hey, thanks! I'm glad you have found things you like in it. That's what it's there for.

I am hopping on the shakshuka bandwagon tonight! First had it in Israel and then forgot all about it--thx to thread for reminding me!

I made it tonight - it was pretty good but tbh I wasn't terribly taken by it. I think it needed more pep, the three jalapenos I used were kinda small.

Oh, yeah, don't use jalepenos or anaheim, use seranos. 4-5 of them. No fucking around.

Mine needed more feta, some capers, and extra umami courtesy of this fancy sun dried tomato powder friends gave us. Good bread would have taken it up, too. Still, it was easy, nourishing, tasty enough-and minimal dishes to wash!

Smitten Kitchen had a good shakshuka recipe some time back; I followed it to a T the first time I made it, and subsequently have pushed it through a fine sieve or food mill to smoothe the texture. Puréed parsley and olive oil make an awesome condiment, as do fried scallions.

http://smittenkitchen.com/2010/04/shakshuka/

Man so many pol are talking abt that website

does it have some kind of deal? i'm browsing around and it seems like a good site

That's the recipe I used, only I halved it!

(xp) to CAD. Some kind of deal? Not really. Smitten is run by a nice lady named Deb, and she'll have a book coming out in October. She's very nice – she made my gf a cake, once, and she's got an adorable son named Jacob. I've been a fan since ~2008. Her husband (I believe) is a professional photographer, hence the excellent food shots, and she's got some actual experience writing for pay, so her prose is a lot nicer than most food blogs.

yeah the writing is really pretty good

she introduced me to my go-to cake, http://smittenkitchen.com/2010/11/upside-down-cranberry-cake/
and also to pickled vegetables, http://smittenkitchen.com/2006/09/the-great-souse/

PS y'all Bittman's iPhone-optimized How To Cook Everything is searchable, has built-in timers, does grocery lists, and seems to have ALL of the content of the book. Also, only $4.99!! I love it.

I have the book, but that seems like an amazing deal. Thanks for the tip!

I made pesto for the first time! I have no idea why I hadn't before. I had some local fresh basil and garlic that I used and toasted the pine nuts on the stove. Used it on a cold pasta salad w/sun-dried tomato and shredded some baby spinach in with it.

You haven't bcz pine nuts are so expensive and so is acquiring enough basil if you don't have a huuuuuuge plant

I didn't look at the pine nut price last night! I got that, some walnuts, and a container of grated parmesan (lol lazy) and it was $8?

piece of fresh bluefish i had sitting around for 6 days and had frozen/unfrozen once, was convinced it was in the danger zone, but i broiled it with a little thyme and it was still v. good. #cookingrelief

aw yum bluefish sounds good. I had cod at the restaurant last night, it was really good - Mr Veg doesn't eat fish, so I only eat it when I go out or if I have sushi or soemthing for lunch.

yeah bluefish rocks, i should get it more

Yeah why ARE pine nuts so expensive? I once accidentally bought a really large bag (not realising I'd never need anywhere near that many, srsly it was like 300g bag) and it was something insane like $12!

Here's why: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-09-01/features/sc-food-0827-pinenuts-20100901_1_pine-nuts-climate-change-harvesting

Ah yes that makes sense. I love how one substitute suggestion is macadamia nuts, those are expensive as well!

As one of my father's "hey we are living in UTAH let's do crazy UTAH stuff" activities, we drove a few days into the desert, shook a pinion tree to get the pine nuts out, gathered them in black plastic garbage bags, and drove them home.

Next came many experiments as to the best way to extract them from their shells.

Running over them with dad's blue amc gremlin won the day.

omg i just got off work feeling more ravenous than i have in recent memory. hands literally shaking with hunger (my metabolism is kind of a thing). got home walked in the door and my gf had made soooo much paella.

it was a religious moment.

i bet u were all "pah-YAY-UH!!!!"

I wish for the day I come home from work, and someone has made dinner. It has, basically, never happened to me :(

Maybe, like once or twice. EVER.

FML.

Was thinking of having broccoli tonight...

i found this very similar thing to shakshouka but didn't try it http://english.turkishcookbook.com/2012/06/tomato-with-eggs.html

- firing up the grill today for the houseguest
- lamb chops, half just w/ black pepper and salt, the other half with cumin and cumin seeds
-burgers from scratch, gonna put in feta cheese, soy/worcestershire, maybe some horseradish?
- grilled corn

speaking of, grilling hte corn in the husk - soak or not to soak beforehand?

I want my lamb chops to look like this http://i.imgur.com/1neYi.jpg

xpost - we always soak our corn

good lookin out I soaked the corn

what should i do with eight very ripe mangoes?

advice on corn: the sugar from corn turns to starch immediately when it is removed from the stalk. ideally, there should be no more than 4-6 hours between harvesting and consuming the corn. anything that increases that time leads to diminished flavor; grilling husk-off helps to caramelize the sugar that remains in the kernels for a sweeter (and 'fresher') taste. soaking unhusked corn in sweet brine may help to replace some of the sugars: the salt will carry the sugar through the pericarp to the endosperm, and replace some of the turned starch due to some magical chemical osmosis. emphasis on 'may.'

(sincerely, remy bean, grandson of roadside corn farmers and agricultural engineers)

I have a really deep revulsion at the sound of corn being shucked, and that's been the shitty thing about living on my own. I bought a few yummy ears forgetting I could never peel them open.

remy, is it true that each individual strand of corn silk leads to its own little kernel life pod?

I found a nyt article from 1999 that said people in the south soak their corn in brine before grilling. now I know why!

as i understand it: yes, but they've got to be pollinated. my grandpa used to tell me that if you ate a lot of corn silk accidentally it would make you, and I'm quoting here, "pee like a demon." i assume that means "pee a lot" because that's the only thing that makes sense. it's possible he could have meant that eating corn silk makes your pee boil or turn blood-red or flow against gravity, but WebMD just says it's a mild diuretic, so I guess my first guess is correct.