What's cooking? part 4

sadly my tolerance/heat threshold has built up to the point that habaneros are only a little spicy to me these days. it happens when you eat them every day. i am not a masochist. they never bother my stomach and as long as they're a regular part of a diet they're basically unnoticed during "elimination". i think chiles are a superfood, nutritionally speaking, but i also love 'em to death

Made Julia Child's coq au vin for dinner tonight for the first time. It turned out great (even with me forgetting to season the chicken)

The only thing is that running all four burners on my small stove in my tiny kitchen is kind of unwieldy and a little bit stressful. But v v worth it for the lovely end-result

so many fucking dishes tho my god

i spent 30 mins making pesto in a mortar and pestle, per the serious eats' "best pesto" recipe and it was not very good. too much oil, too garlicky. too much hard work.

yeah, i found that too! clearly god made the foodprocessor for a reason

http://www.belcampomeatco.com/shop/uncategorized/goat-butchers-box/

seriously considering splurging on this - the only goat I can get locally is stew meat from La Michoacana and when I tried that it was awful - bone chips and tiny pieces.

neighbor came and dropped off a bunch of salmon bones and king salmon (that he caught awhile back) from his freezer. wish it were colder here but gonna salmon chowder the hell outta this gift

omg i have never even contemplated salmon chowder!!!!

neither had i! found a couple martha recipes - one for stock, one for salmon chowder - that look fine. i wouldn't go out and buy fish to do this but since it just appeared....got a bulb of fennel to add to the chowder recipe, might add a parsnip, too, and i'm just gonna reduce some half&half in it since all they carry at the store are pints of cream and i don't want to waste it. otherwise pretty much going with:
http://www.marthastewart.com/334705/homemade-fish-stock
and http://www.marthastewart.com/286421/salmon-chowder
just finished making the stock and it's actually kinda lovely. might just proceed with soup production here in a little bit

sandwich w/ homemade hummus, kinda chopped up in a food processor sun dried tomatoes (bc I can't deal with these chewy little jerks in large pieces), avocado slices, ossau-iraty cheese, clover sprouts, and lemon aioli. I stole this from a local sandwich establishment, but I like my version better because the hummus and aioli are less salty, and the cheese is tastier.

I find that I am just spending money on ridiculous cheeses in my quest to mostly remove meat from my diet.

ridiculous cheeses are amazing and as i have increasingly realized a very important part of a tasty and exciting vegetarian kitchen

a very important part of a tasty and exciting vegetarian kitchen

I love cheese.

yeah cheese is fundamental

now in progress: shrimp creole

jambalaya here! Cajun Monday I guess.

i made a spaghetti casserole bcz i was craving potluck food

its full of butter therefore delicious

Spaghetti casserole sounds like something I could get down with. Do you have a recipe?

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2011/02/creamy-chicken-spaghetti-casserole/

her instructions are a little wack but it works out in the end

damn, that is a 'I will casserole because it is right and just' casserole rather than a 'I will casserole because it is fast and easy' casserole

by which I mean it looks delicious

yeah it's basically a "take a can of mushroom soup casserole" expanded into a whole hoopdedoo

but that being said it doesnt take v long to make

and i love white sauce so much I would have my burial coffin filled with it so

Gd pioneer woman.

I would probably only make that if I already had leftover chicken/bought a rotisserie chicken but otherwise, I like all of those things together in one dish.

tasted burrata once and it didn't leave an impression. bought some for the first time this week with the intention of using it on pizza. it didn't last once i opened and tasted it. that sublime gooey center oozing out a sweet fresh mozz-y exterior. o my noms!

omg I need to eat that cheese.

way upthread but it was neat to see others with serious spinach pie cravings! i have had these cravings since i was a kid when i first tried some from this lebanese restaurant in cleveland. i get all kinds of cravings but spinach pie cravings are intense. and i came home from work the other day and my wife made a phyllo dough spinach pie, it was an entire 9 x 13 baking dish and i ate the entire thing in a day

I run into a lot of recipes that call for chicken stock.

I don't eat a lot of chicken, much less bone-in chicken and I can't bring myself to buy whole chickens just to make stock. (OTOH, I might be able to source carcasses locally soon.)

So that leaves me down to store-bought broth (probably TJ's) or homemade vegetable stock, which I can do pretty easily. I know it will vary from recipe to recipe, but I'm curious which route ILCers would tend to go down?

we'll we're vegetarian, so when a recipe calls for chicken stock i just make a vegetable stock and tailor spices/herbs/vegetables to accommodate the recipe. figure what is really important is just the added depth of flavor rather then specifically a chicken flavor. sometimes i'll also use bean broth as a chicken stock substitute. white beans and chickpeas approximate the color of chicken broth very nicely and are very flavorful

There are some decent store-boughts and some terrible ones. I like Kitchen Basics. Check the label--you don't want liquid stock made from concentrate, otherwise you might as well use cubes/powder.

That said veg broth is just gonna give a different taste. I love the flavor of good chicken stock so I tend to go with that instead of veg, even if homemade.

I keep Tone's Chicken Base on hand, a paste that I get at Sam's, but the quality has gone way down over the years. Lately I've just been using veg stock in its place.

http://www.seasonedwithlove.com/chickenbouillon.jpg

It was ranked as Cook's Illustrated's best chicken broth in a recent test, it's inexpensive, and it lasts forever. It is salty, though, so you have to adjust your salt otherwise.

That said, once you get your chicken carcasses, if you have a slow cooker, you can really easily make a big bunch of homemade stock and freeze it in quart-sized freezer bags, then supplement with the chicken base as needed.

justin3 I believe is a big fan of Better Than Bouillon for vegetable stock, too.

yes! i really like the vegan beef and chicken versions too - they definitely have a very similar taste to the real stuff.

Grabbed some BTB organic chicken base and lamb shanks - gonna do this in my pressure cooker tonight, I think:
http://nomnompaleo.com/post/36962406393/pressure-cooker-lamb-shanks

My #1 pro-tip is the lower-sodium BTB; not only is it delicious and cheap and lasts forever but it has about as much sodium as regular chicken broths (the regular BTB is extra-salty, moreso than prepared broth)

def get the LS BTB if you can track it down; I make special trips to get it when I run out.

Just found and purchased the low sodium stuff. Thanks! I previously would buy store brand carton stuff that is pretty much oily water.

i get kirkland chicken broth. i like it.

i'm making rick bayless red chile chicken and rice w/ black beans

do not like whole foods 365 broth. it's slightly more flavorful than water.

Ooooo good I will look for the low sodium version.

Consumer Reports liked the actual Swanson's Chicken Stock (not the broth) too. Not sure how much I trust CR's culinary expertise, though.

love the BTB chicken stock & the Kirkland's Signature
esp love Better Than Bullion ham stock for getting that hammy flavor in soups & beans
ham shanks are fucking expensive imo

also protip c/o serious eats – adding 2 packets of unflavored gelatin to store-bought stocks for body – makes up for the collagen & whatever you woulda boiled outta the chicken corpses

i'm all about waste not, want not, but boiling a bunch of bones & c all day, in the desert, is not something i want to fuck with anymore

I have been going craaazy with gelatin! Above poster otm ^^^

ham shanks are fucking expensive imo

Smoked turkey legs have been a big revelation for me lately in delivering a smoky/hammy flavor on the cheap. Tons of meat, too, and easy to pick off the bone.

tell me what u have made with them, i want ideas

I have used smoked turkey legs to flavor various dried beans and collards and soups.

i'm making rick bayless red chile chicken and rice w/ black beans

― computer champion (harbl), Saturday, February 28, 2015 4:51 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i have made this, it's good!

also going to check out btb after seeing how many fans it has here, i suck at finishing entire broth cartons before they get uncomfortably old.