What's cooking? part 4

that sounds good

it's fairly easy to make and really hits the spot

the only thing you have to be careful about is the toasting

yeah toasting is stressful

I can almost taste qiqinq's recipe from reading it. An obvious winner. A crumbly blue would work, too, instead of the feta.

yeah def

do we have a favorite brand of cocoa?
do we have a favorite brand of unsweetened chocolate?

droste my favorite cocoa

ghiradelli unsweetened chocolate is what i use the most, idk how great it is

things I love that I consider salads:

butter or leaf lettuce with dijon / lemon /olive oil vinaigrette and hazelnuts

cobbish salad with greens, tomatoes, avocados, bacon, hard boiled eggs, chicken, chives, vinaigrette with worchester which is the key

oil packed tuna with a can of drained white beans, olive oil, parsley, garlic, maybe thin sliced red onion, red wine vinegar, possibly with lettuce but usually without

nicoiseish salad with greens, tomato, eggs, black olives, sliced shallots or red onion, tuna, vinaigrette

arugula with olive oil and lemon, possibly shaved parmasean

greekish salad with cucumber, tomato, black olive, red onion, red wine vinegar, dried oregano, and feta

thin sliced cabbage, fish sauce / lime / sugar / chile / garlic dressing, mint or cilantro or thai basil, maybe some shredded carrot or roast peanuts

I've had a lot of 90+ and a couple of 100+ days this summer and have eaten each of these numerous times, sometimes with grilled meats but often solo

i ate a lot of green bean/red wine vinegar/hazelnut salads in paris - one of my favs.

If you define salads as any combination of cold vegetables/meats plus a binding agent then I have some that I make a lot.

Cucumber salads
Cucumbers, tomato, red onion, feta, Greek-style vinaigrette either of your own devising or out of a jar
Cucumbers, sweet onions, slightly diluted red wine vinegar, salt, pepper, pinch of sugar (optional)
Cucumbers, sweet onions, and sour cream dressing made of sour cream, red wine vinegar, paprika, salt and pepper
http://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/recipe-collections-favorites/quick-easy/summer-side-dishes/cucumber-snap-pea-salad

Things that you add roasted chicken to to make it a meal (it's too hot to turn the over on so I am all about store-bought rotisserie chicken for these):
http://www.gimmesomeoven.com/rainbow-thai-chicken-salad-recipe/
http://www.budgetbytes.com/2015/07/crunchy-chinese-chicken-salad/
http://www.carlsbadcravings.com/southwest-salad-creamy-avocado-salsa-dressing/ (chicken optional in this one, but if you have some leftover you might as well throw it in there)

Salads that are just random produce/dressings thrown together:
http://www.budgetbytes.com/2015/06/apple-cabbage-slaw/
http://www.budgetbytes.com/2015/05/chili-lime-cantaloupe
http://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/recipe-collections-favorites/quick-easy/summer-side-dishes/corn-salad-parmesan-chilies
http://www.skinnytaste.com/2010/07/black-bean-avocado-cucumber-and-tomato.html

Pasta Salads (yes they are all from the same website but this woman knows who to throw pasta and vegetables together):
http://www.budgetbytes.com/2013/08/cold-soba-cucumber-salad/
http://www.budgetbytes.com/2013/06/lemony-cucumber-couscous-salad/
http://www.budgetbytes.com/2010/04/tuna-pasta-salad-wpeas/

Follow me on Pinterest for more summer salad recipes?

Ha that ? should be a !

Following up joygoat's post of delicious salads with a list of links involving canned tuna and sour cream make me feel like Rachel Ray to his Mark Bittman.

wow so many good ideas here, thanks everyone. i have some really good ingredients at the moment, a big drum of good oil, piquillo peppers, endless tinned fish, so there are many options here.

Actually given my fondness for grocery store rotisserie chickens (and booze) probably more like the Sandra Lee to his Mark Bittman.

http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lqd7vr231V1qbhetko1_500.gif

Fuck bittman.

I love classic tuna salad but joygoat's tuna + white beans salad sounds really good for the next time I open a can.

Yeah that sounds fantastic.

I was going to say, two of mine involve canned tuna, just the oil packed stuff from Safeway made by chicken of the sea or whatever and put into a can that looks like some fancy euro stuff.

I will also note that some of these are frequently augmented with either roast chickens or, more commonly, chicken fingers from the grocery store.

farmer's market has had these beautiful little caulies lately so i couldn't resist. one of my favorite umami effects is roasted cauli which i've taken to just doing in a cast iron on the stove with a loose lid, instead of heating the apartment up with the oven. another one that's just so simple and yumm. made miso butter for it the first night. last night just slathered on some earth balance. oh, and the dry farmed potatoes we picked up. . . omg @ how tasty a real potato can be!

i was in spain last week so was a little inspired - i also got a lot of spanish ingredients on an earlier trip this year, so tonight i steamed some new potatoes then cooked some chicken thighs in olive oil, paprika, a few bits of chorizo, and some garlic - then i poured it all over the potatoes, made a kind of bravas sauce for the side - one of the best things i've made at home in a long time. the spanish ingredients were prob cheaper than they'd be for supermarket equivalent here but the difference in taste was amazing, good pimenton de la vera is so amazing.

not my cooking but i ate at a czech restaurant in the weekend, schnitzel was off the hoooook good. haven't had good schnitzel since idk when

and had bramboracky for the first time (potato pancakes) Ugh! so good

bought some huitlacoche in a market today. guess i'm gonna make the requisite quesadillas with this stuff. i've become fascinated by this stuff. it's a fungus that grows on corn and turns the corn into the fungus, which farmers hate, but it's a delicacy. the part that blows my mind is that when you combine this fungus with corn you get a complete protein. nature so cray

ENBB I made those lasagna roll ups and they were easy and really good. Pro tip: you can use no boil noodles. Just soak them in boiling water over them for a few minutes to soften them up.

work is having a potluck for national bacon day next friday (rmde)

anyone have any good potluck-friendly recipes for something bacony that isn't stupid

sweets & baked goods welcome but not required

It was traditional to lay a few strips of bacon across the top of baked beans before you put them into the oven. In terms of ingredients, baked beans are very simple, but if you make them from scratch they're very time-consuming, just because of the overnight soaking of the beans and baking a very long time in a slow oven. Good potluck food, though.

I've been doing puy lentils with bacon a lot lately. Fry up some small-chopped onions and carrots with some thyme, then fry smoked cubed bacon, then mix it all together in the pan with the cooked (I use tinned) lentils and some steamed/boiled green beans. Great side dish for all kinds of things, so would work well for a potluck.

More workplaces should celebrate bacon imo.

xps to outdoor miner, rad! huitlacoche is amazing. i have a good Mexican cookbook with some recipes in it that I'll share later. I had some of those huitlacoche quesadillas in Mexico City a few years ago with squash blossoms and they were out of this world good

cool! thx marcos! bring it (when you have a chance). i'm thinkin' of making a pizza with it for my first experiment. roasted corn, huitlacoche that has been sauteed with garlic, some kinda queso - maybe goat or manchego, and minced habanero. but will def. be making tacos&quesadillas with this too

xpost is mini blt's stupid? iceberg wld stay kinda crunchy and tomatoes are so amazing right now. i make fake blt's with fake bacon and throw in some avo. and it's one of my fave sandwiches ever

I have a maple bacon cupcake recip ethat is actually p great that I can try to dig up!

ooh yes

really wanted a horseradish caesar dressing. jar of processed horseradish so expensive. now i think it might be worth it. always use caution when grinding horseradish in your food processor! i've never cried so much.

i think i know how mustard gas feels now

noted

yipes

It's been at least a decade since I made a moussaka, but last Thursday we got a half dozen purple globe eggplants from our CSA, plus another eight rather exotic Turkish orange eggplants that are about the size of handballs. Therefore I'll be making a moussaka this evening. I thought about rounding out the menu with a horiatikisalata (aka greek salad), but decided a tossed green salad would be less authentic, but more suitable. I may try to locate a bottle of retsina, for old times' sake.

one of the stands at the farmers market had white eggplants

they look like alien pods, they're so cool looking

i love eggplant so much

though honestly i think it is one of the most demanding vegetables -- you have to make sure that thing is cooked. so many times eating out i end up so disappointed when i bite into an undercooked, bitter eggplant

i mean i think it is best when it is absolute charred mush

I've never warmed up to eggplant but would be happy to keep giving it a try.

Back to trying to come up with interesting cold salads -- I thought about the standard boring carrot salad at every family reunion potluck ever, and am trying something different. Instead of grating carrots and throwing mayonnaise at it, I'm cooking carrots in yellow curry paste and coconut milk. When they're done I'll pull them out, chill them and then assemble a sort of traditional salad with raisins, slivered almonds (+ my roasted peanuts), vidalia onions or green onions, whatever else I think of. If I need dressing I'll add spoonfuls of the curry sauce instead of mayo.

Mmm, that sounds good. My awful 'aubergine melt' was accompanied by a rather good salad of beetroot, red cabbage and grated carrot.

I have a v v good eggplanta pasta recipe I wd be happy 2 share w/ yall

best when it is absolute charred mush

Another Mediterranean slash Middle Eastern eggplant dish that I consider to be excellent is baba ghanouj, which should be right up marcos' alley.

I have also known many unsuccessful aubergines but they always look so gorgeous when you slice them up and when they're done well they are superlative

saw a balsamic strawberry, arugula, and goat cheese salad on a menu last night
was gonna order it
but thought
hey
i can just make this myself
so i'm going to and then i will tell you all abt it

decided to augment my regular cornbread with bacon & add a maple syrup glaze for the bacon potluck. easy peasy

i just can't get down with any kind of fruit in a salad. why does it weird me out so much.

with the huitlacoche i mentioned the other week we made a killer pizza, imo. sauteed onion to soft, added corn niblets and huitlacoche- -enough to cover the base of a 'zza - kept cooking for a few minutes in order to take away some of the moisture. spread it on dough as the sauce element, topped with grated manchego, (finished with chopped habaneros, natch) end result is freakin' tasty as hell.
also picked up some packaged fresh mole Oaxaqueno on 24th St. (SF) that just needs broth added to it. have only made tofu mole with it so far, but it, too is a quality, but inexpensive product, not too sweet

http://80breakfasts.com/ensaladang-talbos-ng-kamote-swee/
such a refreshing salad, using yam wire leaves (akin to spinach, kinda, but with less oxalic acid). and simple, too. took like 4 ingredients and 5 minutes to make

mashed purple sweet potato with chipotle, red beans and cheddar burrito, 'cuz i had all the ings just lying around already. **cking good