The lockdown cookbook

I made about 8 quarts of ribollita, an Italian vegetable and bean soup. Of course I started of with two slices of bacon and threw in an old rind of parmagiano reggiano that I saved for this purpose, but you could omit both and it would be vegan and still awesome.

Salmon, asparagus w/garlic sauce, and brown rice tonight.

Cooked panko crusted buffalo salmon last night, easy and good

pasta with too-lazy-to-get-the-food-processor-out pesto, i.e. tossed with zucchini slow-cooked in olive oil, garlic, peppercorns and a jar of anchovies (yes, the whole jar, just imagine the "one clove = one bulb" garlic conversion meme, except with anchovies), with romano cheese and crushed walnuts on top

xp -- sunchokes are amazing roasted, just, uh, also might give you an extra reason to stay 6 feet away from anyone

fartichokes

Lockdown has been great for cooking (mostly vegetarian Italian).
Two days ago I made for the first time a great orzotto (orzo risotto) with mushrooms and various leftover veggies. Very earthy and definitely a winter dish so probably the last time I oculd make it tis year. Yesterday I made a soup-y pasta with borlotti beans for dinenr and eggs Kejriwal (ie "Indian croque monsieur") for lunch. At some point, I'll need to go to the supermarket though...

Clearing out stuff from your freezer/pantry cooking: scrapple with snails, mustard, horseradish, and salad. This is based on a dish I had at the old M. Wells Diner.

I'm eating so much pasta that I'm not even bothering to clean the pasta maker, I just leave it out and put more in it a couple days later

Help there was a banana bread recipe posted somewhere on ilx recently and it looks like search is busted.

Can u help me find.

i just made a fvckton of unfancy* leek and potato soup, which i will now let cool for an hour then place in small tupperware boxes in the freezer

*it's a tiny bit fancy, i put allspice in and grated some nutmeg also

I am now very much hoping the veg box today comes with leeks and potatoes

I did leek + pot + sausage soup with a base of pureed cauliflower and I hated it. It was "good" but too cauliflower-y and vegetal for me.

I made leek and potato soup today and got distracted, so it caught on the bottom and turned into a slightly caramelised stew - which was delicious with fresh bread.

I made a new sourdough starter. Then I made 27 sourdough English muffins with it. Before I baked them, I dried out the sourdough discard and ground it up, then sprinkled it on top.

From start to finish: eight days. Cost: about six bucks. I dried and ground

soda bread

corn bread

Making some bullshit Thai shrimp soup. Red curry paste, shrimp stock, coconut milk, shrimp. I forgot noodles on my kamikaze store run this morning.

Oh, I also don't have tamarind, so I am using lime zest to bitter it.

i made a little pizza from leftover naan and leftover regular pizza ingredients

leftover curry over cheap previously frozen fries that we hate

made some bullshit butternut squash soup with miso and dashi, threw in a lot of rice and a block of tofu, which lasted me the weekend at least

Made a very large batch of ghormeh sabzi (Persian herb stew) to freeze after a 2am trip to the grocery store.

In the food processor:
-3 large leeks (green part only)
-2 bunches of parsley
-1 bunch dill
-1 bunch cilantro
-About 7oz fresh spinach (too much will ruin it)
-A small handful of dried fenugreek leaves ("methi" from an Indian grocer)

In a large non-stick pot: sautee an onion in a generous amount of grapeseed oil with a pinch each of turmeric and black pepper until translucent. Add herb mixture and sautee over fairly high heat for 10-15 mins, stirring constantly (burning the herbs will ruin it). The herbs will turn a darker color, then slowly add water until it has the consistency of mud, bring to a boil and reduce heat to simmer. Add 4x limoo omani (dried lemons or limes) and 3/4lb of dried red kidney beans, and 1tbsp salt or to taste. You should poke holes in the limoo omani with a fork before adding them. (Adding more lemon juice, as some recipes call for, will ruin it IMO)
Cover and simmer for 2-3 hours.

You eat it with basmati rice.

That sounds delicious.

Made soup base with heads and bones of a big sea bass and a little dover sole and a load of prawn heads/shells with white miso and some bits of veg and dried seaweed, then strained it and poached some cabbage and a couple of skate wings in it, served over cold flat noodles tossed in crispy chilli oil. Same again for lunch tomorrow.

Local market had $0.99/lb pork shoulder so I picked up a 8.5lb shoulder and roasted it cuban style. Feel like I have a main dish for the week.

much deliciousness in these posts. made the six seasons cauliflower ragu. It is the kind of thing kids and adults can enjoy. But also tricked 2 and 4 year old into eating a quarter head of cauliflower in one meal. Will probably replace all other iterations of mac and cheese with this.

That’s a big shoulder and a delicious way to cook it. I hope you have associated Cuban sandwich fixings.

to go with the pasta I sauteed some turnips in butter, then tossed with bread crumbs and romano cheese; I feel like my two modes during all of this are no appetite at all or compulsion to prepare vegetables in the least healthy way possible

Pulled elk sausages out of the freezer this morning. I think I will poach them in beer and serve with boiled potatoes and sautéed frozen kale.

Anyone got any recommendations for salt beef, beyond bagels, reubens etc? Am considering incorporating into some kind of Portuguese-style wet rice thing but other suggestions gratefully received (I have a lot of salt beef)

I assume you have thought of corned beef and cabbage

What's a good, ethical (ie their workers are not currently striking for paid sick leave) place to mail-order food things? I'm looking for flavors I can't get in this small town--curry paste, sambal olek, dried guajillo, pasilla, arboles chilies, also I can't find a single lentil in the whole county so if I could order some that would be great. There's no grocery deliver, it would be straight mail order.

Also I don't need anything from there but browsing the Food 52 site is extremely soothing.

By the by

The most delicious and surprising way of eating a lot of vegetables for dinner is to make pinakbet, Filipino vegetable stew. Every time I make it, I am constantly surprised at how delicious it is, and how healthy it is, which is completely out-of-step with the majority of Filipino cuisine.

I'll type out the recipe here-- I can't find as good a one online as the one I use from my cookbook. (I omit chicharron/lechon that the recipe recommends as garnish, because I don't like that shit.)

Pinakbet

serves 4

3 cloves garlic
1 onion
4 tomatoes
6 long beans
1 bitter melon (or several mini ones, if you can find them) do not omit the bitter melon even if you don't like it, trust me, it is amazing in this dish and I don't generally like bitter melon
3 winged beans (pretty niche, not necessary)
8 okra
half a small eggplant
half a butternut squash
1/4 c oil (I use peanut)
3 Tbsp fish paste (if you can't get the real thing, I use mashed-up anchovies with commonly available fish sauce, or combine that IKEA-available Kalles shit with fish sauce)
A handful of cherry tomatoes

1. Put a litre of water on the boil, as salty as the sea. Set up your rice cooker to make rice.
2. Mince the garlic. Chop the onion. Wedge the tomatoes. Cut the long beans into 2" pieces. Halve the bitter melon, remove the seeds and slice. Cut the winged beans into 1" pieces. Remove stems from the okra. Cube the eggplant. Cube the squash.
3. Boil the squash for five minutes in the water. Remove with a wire skimmer; keep the water boiling.
4. Boil the other vegetables (except garlic, onion, cherry tomatoes) for 1 minute. Remove from heat and drain in a colander.
5. Get a big sauce pan and heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onion, saute until nearly translucent. Add the garlic, let cook for a minute.
6. Add the tomatoes and fish paste. Let simmer a couple minutes.
7. Add the other vegetables. Mix for about a minute or so over the heat, then remove from heat.
8. Garnish with cherry tomatoes and fish sauce

So, like, your veg are boiled a minute, fried a minute, served over rice, and honestly I can't really communicate how surprisingly delicious this mass of undercooked vegetables ends up being. I hope somebody reads this and makes it!

https://www.foxyfolksy.com/pinakbet/

Here's an online recipe-- ground pork is often added (I'd cook the onions/garlic less, then throw it in for ten minutes until it starts to foam). Parboiling the veg (as above) is REALLY effective, unlike this recipe and others would suggest. Look at how delicious this dish is, though!

Not sure how I came across this, could definitely have been ilx

http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2016/01/braised-chicken-thighs-cabbage-bacon-recipe.html

Cannot recommend highly enough. Anything that doesn't start with frying garlic is uncharted territory for me but it turned out really well.

io I've heard good things about https://oaktownspiceshop.com/

I made toum with some garlic that wasn't the best and past it's best and it's too astringent. mellowed it with some yoghurt and it tasted ok drizzled on a roasted whole head of cauliflower and as a dipping sauce for rotisserie chicken (my gf had the latter)

What's a good, ethical (ie their workers are not currently striking for paid sick leave) place to mail-order food things? I'm looking for flavors I can't get in this small town--curry paste, sambal olek, dried guajillo, pasilla, arboles chilies, also I can't find a single lentil in the whole county so if I could order some that would be great. There's no grocery deliver, it would be straight mail order.

― There's more Italy than necessary. (in orbit), Thursday, April 2, 2020 9:33 AM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

loz, if it's chiles you want i can probably sort this out

Thanks, dude! Actually C brought home some arboles and pasillas from Queens the other day so I'm good there but I'm still missing the Asian stuff. Might just wait it out.

There could be a modified posole in the cards though.

IO, I get chile products from here — http://thechileshop.com/ — every year or so. Everything's been really good so far.

had some zucchini about to turn so I made pesto with it (not the greatest I've had but pesto is very substitutable), then took a hunk of goat cheese and made pasta sauce; if I ever have children I really suspect I'm going to become that mom who hides vegetables in everything

made amazing asparagus risotto last night. one of the best things i’ve made for ages. absolutely ballsed up a chicken pilaf earlier in the week - whole grain rice was all that was available and cos i never cook with it i forgot it takes twice as long to cook. result totally inedible. had to make it all again and drank a lot of beer and danced round my kitchen in the process. the end result was v 5/10.

waterzooi - belgian fish soup - tonight.

I have so much arborio rice, I really need to commit to some risottos. Chx soup on my schedule for tomorrow though, with the intent of freezing it for later.

I don't like zucchini or eggplant or any squashes so it's been basically kale and broccoli and fresh salad veg (as long as they'll keep) for us--feels like I need to branch out a bit but I'm not that creative with veg!

we have been murdering the fennel risotti recently. lattermost one also had a large leek in it which pushed things even further. great lockdown food, would endorse

courgette and aubergine were both very apt ingredients in the giant daal tt made last night. they stew really well and soak up any flavour

my big question for tonight is how to deal with kohlrabi. the current feeling is a soup but that's almost a waste of its texture maybe?

great for high-heat roasting

or shaved raw in some sort of salad context

the former sounds eminently plausible!

went with the soup, accompanied by the leaves turned into crisps a la kale

it is superlative

https://www.abelandcole.co.uk/recipes/hellas-creamy-kohlrabi-soup