What's cooking? part 4

i started reading shark's fin and sichuan pepper over the weekend. it's very informative and interesting, although dunlop can get a bit "cheery englishwoman" at times for my taste. a nice selection of recipes are included. what's cooking? tomorrow night, it's going to be fish-fragrant aubergines.

Last night I made arepas (yellow corn) with smoked gouda, shredded chicken (leftover from lunch) and sofrito (leftover from something else I made a few days ago) and man was it good. They were little towers of taste:

sofrito
chicken
gouda
arepa
chicken
gouda
arepa

sauteed green beans on the side

yumz

next time i might mix the cheese in with the masarepa and then pan-fry them

nommm.

yeah, i need someone to teach me how to shop for and identify good fish before i could do chinatown.

this reminds me i forgot to take my frozen mahi mahi out to defrost for dinner tonight. damn it.

i'd recommend checking out the mccarren market this weekend. the fish/seafood that pure vida sell are caught by their boats (same w/ blue moon), so you're getting a very fresh product.

yeah, definitely! i keep meaning to go up there. must make a point of it this weekend.

Am trying to cook nutritious+delicious food for pregnant wife so have a big pot now bubbling with white beans, smoked ribs (yay montenegro!), onion, carrot, garlic. Will eat with steamed greens w olive oil and lemon. Not the most summery of dishes (it's a million degrees here), but I still think it's gonna be great.

i'd be astonished if it wasn't, that sounds awesome

today I made potted smoked mackerel with pickled cucumber, I'm fairly pleased with the results but it's too early to tell

did not get to mccarren last wekend bc of beach trip but hopefully this sat it is ON!

matt that combo sounds awesome!

Pregnant so soon?!??!??! Congrats, goob, I missed that one somehow.

Yeah you're telling me! Thanks; we're generally excited, but the excitement is punctuated by huge waves of fear and anxiety and nervous laughter. Oh, and nausea.

I'm loaded down with cherry tomatoes, mostly yellow ones -- if I can see my way through these work deadlines, I'm going to pickle a bunch of them. Don't see why it wouldn't work -- but I wonder if I should process the jars after I seal them or not. I want the tomatoes to retain their shape, so as little cooking as I can get away with will be good.

i bought huge bunches of radishes and cilantro at the greenmarket. i have some avocados for another attempt at guac for a party tonight and want radishes to be one of the dipping utensils. also string beans. and cucumbers (the latter two not from greenmarket).

i also got some nice fresh blueberries that i haven't figured out what i will do with yet.

Blueberry yoghurt cake om nom nom, faling that just toss them with a little shredded mint and a glob of creme fraiche

and thanks, the cucumber was possibly too acid a cure cos there was a lot of pepper in with the mackerel, but I started another batch today with some dill and thyme which I have high hopes of

last night i had some fresh blueberries with cucumber slices. yummy combo! wish i'd had mint and yogurt to go with.

I was making gazpacho this morning with the overload of tomatoes we have -- using a recipe that called for putting the blended veggies & bread through a fine strainer. That left me with a bowl full of tomato/cucumber/garlic/bread solids, so I thought I'd see if I could do anything with it.

Sauteed some chopped onion and more garlic in a lot of olive oil, added a big double spoonful of the tomato stuff, a spoonful of chili paste, a bit of sugar, some lime juice and a little water, then quickly cooked some big shrimps in the sauce, and threw in some leftover cooked noodles at the end and tossed it all together. I was worried that the cucumber would be a weird element in it, but it tasted great. The dissolved bread solids gave the sauce a nice thick stick-to-the-noodle texture.

ok I didn't write this down as usual because I'm an inveterate eyeballer/finger-taster but DAAAAMN I'm a genius tonight

seared crusted tuna!:
big hunka tuna bright pink and thawed
lotsa black pepper
lotsa parsley flakes
lotsa ground macadamia nuts with some herbs in it from whole foods
little sea salt
little paprika

rub all over the tuna and sear in buttered pan on low heat like five minutes a side, transfer to plate, slice and serve

WITH AMAZING SAUCE!:

sriracha and/or sweet chili garlic sauce
mango chutney
plain ol' white vinegar
sesame oil

sorry I got no proportions I was just basically emptying a few bottles and watching the pretty colors

SO GOOD

sounds zingy (in the good sense not the idiot lol sense)

we had a stall at a festival this weekend just gone and were knocking out belly pork butties with onion relish which went down a storm

take one pork belly, bone out the ribs and reserve for chef treats, score the skin incredibly heavily, cuts no more than 1cm apart, salt the skin more than seems necessary and leave for half an hour, brush excess salt off, sprinkle crushed coriander seed and mustard seed, glug olive oil all over and put in a stupidly hot oven until you've got good crackling, then turn the oven down and give it a bit more until it's cooked out (if you don't get the requisite crispiness from the oven portion it out and crisp it up under the grill)

onion relish: onions sweated down with ww vinegar, healthy slosh of balsamic, horseradish, mustard powder, paprika, chilli (I use a puree of roasted birdseye at work but dried flakes'll be fine), low heat, long time until it's kind of like jam

combine two between two slices of bread, buy a beer, watch some endearingly slapdash bands

Tonight I am making:
-Mussels steamed in coconut milk curry broth
-nasu shigiyaku (miso eggplant)
-sea scallops w/ salad greens (don't know what dressing to make so please give me ideas!)

Oh everything from the farmers market! Would it be weird if I put cippolini onions in the curry broth?

I'd go for some kind of fresh ginger/garlic/lime dressing for the salad w/ scallops. Don't know about cippolini onions being weird in curry, but sure sounds tasty.

Matt's pork belly sandwich sounds amazing.

Last night - spicy tofu and edamame beans. Hotter than hell in a good way (tongue tingled for about half an hour afterwards), and the tofu tasted good even to this confirmed carnivore.

the cippolini onions were delicious in the curry broth! perfect for scooping up in the outer scallop shell. the broth was soooooo good and i was very happy to have bread to dip in it.

the only thing that didn't come out so well were the eggplants, i need to revisit that recipe.

Cooked the inaugural pan of bacon in the new (to me) kitchen this morning! We have been eating out so much due to working/moving/traveling exhaustion/laziness. But I can tell this is going to be a very happy place to cook.

yay!

last night we were going to make some soup out of the leftover broth, but got full on bruschetta with tomato, shallots and salami

i've been making this frittata from farmer's market vegetables at breakfast and can't stop thinking about it all day!

2 eggs + a blop of milk
1 small tomato
1/3 of a bell pepper, chopped up small
1 green onion stalk
small handful cilantro
smoked paprika
salt + pepper

nom nom nom nom

Has it been another year already?

Are we really up to year five?

A sort-of quiche/frittata thing for dinner tonight: layer of thinly sliced yukon gold potatoes started in a hot skillet, then a few handfuls of chopped up broccoli tossed on top. 5 well-beaten eggs with a 1/2 cup of milk, 1/2 cup of water, and 1/3 cup of flour beaten in, as well as a pinch of salt. Then some grated emmenthaler and Beecher's flagship mixed in and the batter poured over the potato and broccoli in the skillet. A quick grind of black pepper and the whole thing popped into a 325 oven for 1/2 hour. Puffed up nicely and very tasty.

JAQ this sounds amazing (i was searching for quiche recipes)but i need some advice on how to adapt it. i hardly ever 'cook' (i mean, i make salads/sandwiches and i heat things, but that's really about it) but i have a craving for quiche.

we have: eggs, red onion, broccoli, little yellow potatoes, cheddar cheese, provolone, swiss cheese, grilled chicken, spinach, marinated red capsicum, soy milk, no skillet and no appropriate oven dish. i was thinking i could try making a small version of this in the microwave (sacrilege!) and fry the potatoes first. i don't really have any other basic pantry items like flour, tho. shall i just kind of attempt to slap this together and hope for the best?

i got a bunch of chard and multicolored potatoes (purple flesh! red flesh! wow!) and i think this week i will attempt some sort of squash/potato/chard bake or tart. maybe a good chance to experiment chickpea flour or something non-wheat in baking (though i have some wheat flour i should probably use up?).

I think that could work pretty well as long as you didn't try to cook one that was more than maybe 3 eggs worth. If it was too big, the edges would get all rubbery before the center was really cooked. I'd probably chop all the things you want to use for the filling fairly small too, and mix in with the eggs before pouring over the potato base, again so it cooks more evenly. And maybe bring the mixture closer to room temp before nuking (instead of having it all ice cold from the fridge). Another thing to try is to cook for 30-45 second bursts, then let it sit for 15-30 seconds for the temp to even out, then nuke again - again just to not overcook the eggs.

(xpost!)

Also just1n3 - you don't need to add the flour. It makes it more yorkshire pudding-like rather than quiche like.

if i make a large quiche tonight, how long will it keep for it? we don't have a medium-size baking dish, just a big sort of roasting pan, so i'm thinking about making a broad, think quiche frittata type of thing.

i'm a little worried about using soy milk - i think it might be way too sweet? might just leave it out all together.

Quiche will keep 3 or 4 days in the fridge, or wrap individual slices up airtight after it's cooled to room temp and freeze - they'll keep for a few months frozen and you can nuke as needed.

ok i'm gonna DO THIS! this could solve my lunch worries for the next week, at least.

oven temp?

if i heavily grease the roasting pan, will that prevent sticking?

making baked ziti for the first time. with sundried tomato chicken sausages and spinach.

results to follow.

Hmm - thought I posted about skipping the soy milk and just using eggs plus a little water and veg oil, don't know where that went to. Oven temp at 325 F, take it out when the center looks just barely set, then let the residual heat finish baking the center for 10 minutes before you cut it.

grease or oil the bottom of the pan before you layer the potatoes in for sure.

Whitey on the Moon, that sounds delicious.

I'm simmering fennel and oregano sausages in red wine, crushed plum tomatoes, sweated Walla Walla sweet onions and garlic right now. For dinner tonight over pasta. I feel kind of bad for italian food losing to mexican in the poll - it should have been a tie.

when can i come over

Oooh, I just got a call from my mother and will be picking up a couple of pounds of okra tomorrow. Some of you may say bleah but I say nom.

haha, if only I'd gotten my post in just before gbx's.

joke's on all of you bc i actually do get to go over!

<3

tza, blackberry crisp w/ vanilla ice cream too, for afters :)

oh yum okra - after you mentioned that awesome okra dry curry WmC, I look for it at every indian place I go. So good.

ok let's forget about my stupid frittata idea, i'm on my way over to jaq's

awesome!

i should get some okra.

has anyone ever used dragon beans? kind of purplish/white looking green beans? i also saw redder ones, called cranberry beans, but i chickened out and just got green beans.

haha i knew there had to be SOME way we could finally lure you up!
xpost

how do i caramelise some onions for my frittata