What's cooking? part 4

I followed a stir fry recipe that had a tip so brilliant and obvious I almost cried: steam broccoli separately, mix in before serving. Such a difference!

I am making my old standby slow cooker chicken and gravy for dinner

god I am so tired today I can barely stand to think about what I'm going to make for a side.
mashed potatoes likely, also U + K

I totally forgot to put the Barbacoa together this morning, but I bought a lot of lunch meat etc the other day so I made some bread that will be ready at 11 :P Sandwiches!

Or maybe just fresh hot bread slathered in butter and eaten over the sink like an animals tbh

animal style ftw

A&I did mushrooms a year or so ago and I had put bread on beforehand- when it was ready we tore off chunks with our bare hands, standing in the kitchen, laughing til we cried at my forethought. :) Memories.

acid brings ppl together <3

idgi that's how i eat all bread

fair

tomorrow making a going away meal for one of my favorite work friends of all time:
Indonesian Style Tempeh (slices simmered in a mixture of tamarind, water, galanga, ginger, etc. and then pan-fried) with some peanut sauce. i'm excited.
recipe from a Deborah Madison book

Galanga is the stuff that looks kind of like ginger, yes?

Yah, yah, heyyy
(ohh-way-ohh yah yah yay)

tempeh turned out v good even though it almost scorched whilst simmering due to a overlong meeting. will up the tamarind and flavorings next time but a seriously nice peanut sauce ( uber simple recipe: lightly sauteed minced garlic and ginger, melt in some quality peanut butter, dash of fish sauce, then add coconut milk in ~ a 2:1 ratio as the peanut butter. simmer 3-5 minutes. done) carried it through. got thumbs up from my Indonesian/American coworker.

yeah, quincie, looks like ginger's cousin if that makes sense. i've always called it "galangal" but leaving out the second "l" seems more common these days for whatever reason
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galangal xxost

I'm very excited, tomorrow I'm going to try to make Moussaka. I'm a little nervous because it needs to be gluten free and every recipe I've found for bechamel sauce does use egg yolks and each one uses a different flour. Does not using yolks in the sauce leave a lot to be desired? We have almond flour, an all purpose gluten free flour and rice flour, does anyone recommend one more than the other for bechamel on moussaka? Lots of recipes I've found call for cornflour or tapioca and I haven't had good results with tapioca flour with anything.

I meant every recipe I've found for gluten free bechamel sauce does not use egg yolks.

Try using arrowroot instead of tapioca - it's a different texture from wheat flour, but I find it easier to work with than tapioca or any of the gums. Bob's Red Mill sells it in a larger package than the tiny $$ ones in the spice section.

Egg yolk adds richness, cohesion, and acts as an emulsifier. You could sub additional fat and a flaxseed egg.

Almond flour or rice flour are not going to work well in bechamel. I'd try the gluten free mix instead.

Thanks! I don't want to skip on the yolks, was just curious why the original recipe called for the yolks and none of the gluten free ones left them out. I'm all for yolks in sauces!!!

I menat all of the gluten free ones left out the yolks.

If the GS ones are going all out to avoid other allergens maybe?

My wife and I both grew up eating pannukakku as a standard food item due to our finnish ancestors and since she's mostly given up wheat and rice she's played around with recipes for it using almond or coconut flour instead. Neither absorbs liquid anywhere near as well so she uses half the liquid (coconut milk, the regular milk replacement kind) and doubles the eggs to get it to set.

Rice might work better but neither of these seem to dissolve in liquid and turn into that sauce texture that you'd want from bechamel. I've also had good luck with arrowroot but I've never tried a white sauce with it which kind of intrigues me. You only use like a tablespoon of whatever per cup of liquid so that might work.

It's a lot like cornstarch - mix it in a little cool water to make a slurry, then stir into hot liquid. I think potato starch might also work, or green plantains processed really smooth.

shakshouka

^^^a well deserved ILC Greatest Hits dish

http://imgur.com/5caPtkh.jpg

small picture. onions, pepper, cooked until sweet and almost browned + tomato, harissa, cumin, black pepper + two eggs, some labneh.

made 'zza today (been a couple weeks). dough came out really nice and chewy and it was topped with a little marinara mixed with a dollop pesto, provolone, finely chopped thai chiles, chopped mush and some lightly steamed kale. just a snack for peeps in the kitchen. Chef really dug the dough

Took me a few seconds to decipher "chopped mush" correctly but then it sounded good.

The local Railroad Festival is this weekend, and all the local churches set up downtown as a pop-up food court for four days, their big fundraiser of the year. But everybody's barbecue is uniformly awful, so I took matters into my own hands and smoked two slabs of St. Louis ribs today, plus I have potato salad (homemade) and cole slaw (storebought). Urrrrp.

Tomorrow's soon enough for a funnel cake or apple fritters.

what's your potato salad recipe??

Oh, it's really mediocre, I can't recommend it. I haven't made any for years before yesterday, it's so bad, but I had ribs and some potatoes that were starting to get sprouty. Cube up the spuds, boil until barely done, then add mayo/mustard/onions/sweet relish/S&P/herbs. I always think "this is so basic, how can it go wrong?" but it's boring. My daughter made a really good potato salad a couple of weeks ago with leftover baked potatoes instead of boiled potatoes, but she also added chopped bacon and shredded cheddar.

http://www.food.com/recipe/cooks-illustrated-all-american-potato-salad-480792

:D

"this is so basic, how can it go wrong?" but it's boring

Try splashing some vinegar on the potatoes, as you would in a German potato salad. It is a much lower calorie solution than bacon and cheddar and perks thing up immensely.

never thought of using sweet relish, so def will try that. i like pretty basic potato salad, so that recipe works for me ;)

not knowing any better, i would just dump in more mustard

My grandmother's german-style potato salad in a nutshell:

diced potatoes (not overcooked so as to become mushy and lose integrity),
apple cider vinegar,
sliced radishes,
sliced scallions,
dill pickle relish,
mayonnaise (I cut it with plain yoghurt), and
sliced hard boiled eggs. Use one egg for each medium-sized potato used.
maybe a bit of salt to taste

I agree with some added mustard, but grandma eschewed it. She used enough vinegar to add the required bite. I combine the two, with the emphasis on vinegar.

anyone own a pressure cooker? recommendations? what are they awesome at cooking?

toying with the idea of one, but know zero about new-style ones. the only ones i know are exploding ones from the before time

My mum uses hers for cooking stews in next to no time, and also the Christmas pudding.

I made potato salad last night with So Much Bacon!

I'm not a huge fan of pressure cookers, but I've never used a new-style one--maybe that would change my attitude.

i have a friend who used to make lots of beans/grains in her pressure cooker
she loved it

Just got a pressure cooker (also a slow-cooker) as a gift a few weeks ago. Have done chicken noodle soup, pork shoulder and red beans and rice so far. The food hasn't been mind-blowing, but it sure is easy to use. Also, I have heard from others that things start to taste samey after a few uses and I have noticed that it's tough to get the rubber gasket completely clean and wonder if these two points are related.

La la I don't remember what foods I like anymore so I'm going to look at my old collection of recipes in a fancy binder and see if that + this ostensible "spring" shakes anything loose.

I made something you might like last night! Giant piece of pork in the crockpot with a combination of bbq sauce and General Tso's chicken sauce (I had bits of each) + some cardamom pods, cloves, a piece of cinnamon, and rice vinegar, then eat like tacos/sandwiches/salads with a mint-radish-lime juice garnish. It's kind of a culinary abomination, but it tasted really great and fresh/warm at the same time.

oh also i put some sriracha in with the pork to cook

It sounds AMAAAAAAAAZING. The last time I made my beef barbacoa it didn't turn out as amazingly, but I think your pork recipe might re-boot me.

Did you brown the sides first or dump it in there raw?

dumped it
i like to crisp up the shredded pieces in the broiler or toaster oven afterwards/before eating tho

cooked on high from 12-6 or so?

I don't have any sauces or condiments (except mayonnaise) so I'll need to pick up bbq, rice vinegar, and...what's in General Tso's again? Googling....

Looks like...chili, sugar, soy sauce? I wonder if palm sugar would be good in something like that, I can get that locally.

I got an InstantPot - 6qt programmable electric pressure cooker that can double as a slow cooker, etc.. Reviews were good and the better stove-top ones were actually more expensive.

It just arrived, but I'm going to try shredded chicken or something simple to start with.