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Post by Ela on Jul 15, 2024 13:08:15 GMT
Tonight I plan on making french onion soup... wish me luck: I don't have the best track record with this one (owing mostly to impatience). It's mango season. I am eating mango every day. ![:D](//storage.proboards.com/6343532/images/IwGTjEvWiMqDCgEk5m52.gif) I just got a big box of peaches and have been doing much the same. Or, well, trying to. Nothing beats a good peach. A good mango? ![;)](//storage.proboards.com/6343532/images/ZBDvOFPmQgNwxFXLpuoD.gif) And I have a friend from Georgia who says she has never met a peach worth eating outside of Georgia. ![:D](//storage.proboards.com/6343532/images/IwGTjEvWiMqDCgEk5m52.gif) My family had two peach trees in the yard when I was a kid in NY and there is nothing like a peach fresh off the tree.
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Post by bethhigdon on Jul 15, 2024 17:24:49 GMT
I'm having to switch to a 30 min lunch instead of the hour long one I used to having due to me new schedule at work, so I spent yesterday preparing pre-made lunches.
egg salad potato salad pasta salad
and stuff for sandwiches
like today I'm having cumber sandwiches.
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Kestrel
Chancellery Guard
Likes: 2,693
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Post by Kestrel on Jul 17, 2024 10:48:51 GMT
So, the French onion soup was... not good. Not a disaster -- so, still edible -- but not good.I like to think it was bad enough to finally teach me a lesson I should've learned long ago: don't blindly follow recipes! I'm real bad about deviating from instructions. I definitely raised an eyebrow when the recipe I'd pulled up called for brown sugar, but I still added. Every single time I've added sugar to *anything* that wasn't a desert, the results have been... unpalatable. I kinda figured, it's not calling for much, maybe it'll just counter the acidity and I won't taste it? Nooooooope. Gave everything a bit of a gross, cloying aftertaste. Probably not helped by the fact that I went with gruyere (which I think is sweeter) rather than mozarella. On the upside I *did* manage to successfully caramelize an entire pot full of onions. It did take a good 90 minutes, though. So long... and honestly, I probably should've kept going another 10-20 minutes to caramelize more fully. I'm having to switch to a 30 min lunch instead of the hour long one I used to having due to me new schedule at work, so I spent yesterday preparing pre-made lunches. Whenever you leave that job, make sure to invoice them for all of the time you spent on meal prep. Those are billable hours.
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Post by bethhigdon on Jul 17, 2024 16:47:07 GMT
So, the French onion soup was... not good. Not a disaster -- so, still edible -- but not good.I like to think it was bad enough to finally teach me a lesson I should've learned long ago: don't blindly follow recipes! I'm real bad about deviating from instructions. I definitely raised an eyebrow when the recipe I'd pulled up called for brown sugar, but I still added. Every single time I've added sugar to *anything* that wasn't a desert, the results have been... unpalatable. I kinda figured, it's not calling for much, maybe it'll just counter the acidity and I won't taste it? Nooooooope. Gave everything a bit of a gross, cloying aftertaste. Probably not helped by the fact that I went with gruyere (which I think is sweeter) rather than mozarella. On the upside I *did* manage to successfully caramelize an entire pot full of onions. It did take a good 90 minutes, though. So long... and honestly, I probably should've kept going another 10-20 minutes to caramelize more fully. I'm having to switch to a 30 min lunch instead of the hour long one I used to having due to me new schedule at work, so I spent yesterday preparing pre-made lunches. Whenever you leave that job, make sure to invoice them for all of the time you spent on meal prep. Those are billable hours. Hahaha I don't think that will fly in TN, but wouldn't it be nice if it did?
I don't get the sugar addition either. Onions are already full of sugar, especially if you're using a sweet onion like a vidalia.
My problem is the opposite. I play fast and lose with recipes and will sometimes over or under season stuff cause I'm not measuring herbs and spices exactly.
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Post by aussiedoctorwhofan on Jul 23, 2024 21:50:08 GMT
1st week of August we are having some "Sri Lankan Street Food". So the cooking truck will roll up- we have to do our orders within the next week. Options : "Kottu (Chicken or Vegan) A Popular street dish made with strips of Home Made Godamba Roti mixed with Vegetables, an Egg and Curry. Devilled Chicken (Gluten Free) Cubes of Chicken Marinated in a Special Soza's Spice Mix and Tossed in Devilled Sauce served with Rice. Hot Butter Squid Soza's special batter coated Squid tossed in a flavoursome Hot Butter Sauce Kadala (Gluten Free/Vegan) A Snack made of "Tempering" chick peas in Sri Lankan Spices and served with Coconut. Chicken Curry on Rice Soza's Sri Lankan Chicken Curry on Rice. *Orders come with a soft drink of choice or water. " ![;)](//storage.proboards.com/6343532/images/ZBDvOFPmQgNwxFXLpuoD.gif)
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Kestrel
Chancellery Guard
Likes: 2,693
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Post by Kestrel on Jul 25, 2024 16:38:37 GMT
Oooh.... what's Sri Lankan curry like?
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Post by aussiedoctorwhofan on Jul 26, 2024 0:43:06 GMT
Oooh.... what's Sri Lankan curry like? Not sure TBH. I literally just put my order in- I am having the "Devilled Chicken". I showed my wife the list, she showed her work mate who is Sri Lankan. She laughed and said that it's all spicy and that I am stuffed either way LOLZ! I figure I will get wrecked while eating chicken (it's also gluten free) ![;)](//storage.proboards.com/6343532/images/ZBDvOFPmQgNwxFXLpuoD.gif)
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Post by tuigirl on Jul 26, 2024 7:50:24 GMT
Oooh.... what's Sri Lankan curry like? I had Sri Lankan flatmates (Tamil as well as Sinhalese) while living in NZ for several years. They did cook their native dishes in the kitchen. They let us taste their food.
We had to leave the kitchen when they were cooking, because it was like a teargas attack.
Also, if they did not adapt their food to us, their weak white people friends, we were physiologically unable to eat their food.
The main ingredient appears to be chilli....
But if they toned it down a bit, the food was very awesome and yummy.
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Post by bethhigdon on Jul 26, 2024 16:16:23 GMT
Going make some potato pancakes this weekend for breakfast
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Post by bethhigdon on Jul 31, 2024 18:52:31 GMT
There's going to be a lot of leftover loaf bread at then end of this week so I think I'm going to make some french bread for Sunday Breakfast.
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Post by bethhigdon on Aug 2, 2024 15:43:21 GMT
Got a lot of leftover bread, so I'm thinking of fixing French Toast for breakfast this weekend while I have everyone over visiting.
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Post by bethhigdon on Aug 12, 2024 18:37:35 GMT
Made gumbo over the weekend
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Kestrel
Chancellery Guard
Likes: 2,693
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Post by Kestrel on Aug 13, 2024 8:50:54 GMT
So, my knowledge of cooking is all self-taught, mostly the result of sporadic Google searches, experimentation, and occasionally looking up something tasty I've tried at a restaurant, with varying degrees of success (my time in Ireland has made me so much more dir it iCal of the cheeses we have access to over in America). Anyway, the point is I have a lot of blind spots. All of which is to say I only just now learned about Beurre Monte. Which is... maybe a very basic thing? I generally don't like butter, and try not to use it, but I'm planning to give this a shot tomorrow night, if I'm able to eat (I'd hoped to try it tonight, but wasn't able to). Basically you emulsify butter and water in a 3:1 ratio, and it makes a kind of think, kind of sticky sauce that's really good with vegetables. Usually I just toss stuff in a bit of olive oil and salt and roast 'em. If it turns out well, it might be a good way to add some seasoning to vegetables in a firmer (WC?) manner -- I'll keep it simple tomorrow, but will hopefully experiment later with maybe adding some rosemary, or Cajun spices, or maybe just a dab of cayenne. Made gumbo over the weekend I've never actually eaten gumbo before, but I've always wanted to try making some on my own. You got a recipe you'd recommend?
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Post by bethhigdon on Aug 13, 2024 17:20:02 GMT
So, my knowledge of cooking is all self-taught, mostly the result of sporadic Google searches, experimentation, and occasionally looking up something tasty I've tried at a restaurant, with varying degrees of success (my time in Ireland has made me so much more dir it iCal of the cheeses we have access to over in America). Anyway, the point is I have a lot of blind spots. All of which is to say I only just now learned about Beurre Monte. Which is... maybe a very basic thing? I generally don't like butter, and try not to use it, but I'm planning to give this a shot tomorrow night, if I'm able to eat (I'd hoped to try it tonight, but wasn't able to). Basically you emulsify butter and water in a 3:1 ratio, and it makes a kind of think, kind of sticky sauce that's really good with vegetables. Usually I just toss stuff in a bit of olive oil and salt and roast 'em. If it turns out well, it might be a good way to add some seasoning to vegetables in a firmer (WC?) manner -- I'll keep it simple tomorrow, but will hopefully experiment later with maybe adding some rosemary, or Cajun spices, or maybe just a dab of cayenne. Made gumbo over the weekend I've never actually eaten gumbo before, but I've always wanted to try making some on my own. You got a recipe you'd recommend? Several, it kind of depends on what type of gumbo you want to make and how much work you want to put into it.
Like there's seafood gumbo, sausage gumbo, chicken gumbo, trio gumbo (this a mix of meat and seafood) there's even vegan/vegetarian gumbo but it's less traditional.
And of course you can either make it completely from scratch or just a store bought base mix.
If you're making it from scratch the basics you will need is...
A Cajun 'holy trinity'. This is like a French Mirepoix but with bell pepper instead of carrots.
Sautee the pepper, onion, and celery in some fat. Usually butter but oil will work too.
Then you build a roux by adding some flour to the mix. Stir till you get a paste, and then you add the stock.
What stock you use will depend on what type of meat, if any, you decide to add. Fish stock or seafood stock for seafood gumbo, chicken or veggie stock for meat based gumbo ect.
Then you'll want some spices, like a Cajun/Creole spice mix, season all salt, paprika, maybe some chili ect.
After that you'll want to thicken the stew up with either some okra and/or some gumbo filé powder. This powder is just ground sassafras and it tastes really similar to lemongrass.
Lastly you'll add your protein and any extra veggies, like tomatoes if you want, and just let it cook.
As for the rice you can either add it to the stew or cook it on the side and serve the soup over top of it. Your choice.
So that's the thing with gumbo. You can really just throw what you want into it, therefore I don;t really have an exact recipe to give.
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Kestrel
Chancellery Guard
Likes: 2,693
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Post by Kestrel on Aug 14, 2024 2:16:10 GMT
All sounds good to me. Kinda like a Cajun curry. ...About Beurre Monte.... So, spoiler alert, it didn't turn out so well. Maybe this is the kind of thing that only works in really big batches? I have no idea how I'm supposed to bring a few tablespoon of water to a simmer -- as soon as it starts bubbling, it boils away almost immediately. Three different times I tried, and each time I brought the water to a simmer, removed it from the heat, turned to pick up the butter, and when I turned back all of the water was gone. So I ended up just adding a lot of water, relative to the prescribed ratio. And the result was... pretty much just watery butter? So I assume I did it wrong. Next time I try this, if I try again, maybe I'll pre-prepare the butter in a separate pan, and our the water on top of it immediately, as soon as it starts to bubble.
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Post by aussiedoctorwhofan on Aug 17, 2024 8:30:24 GMT
So tonight was home made sushi night. Lots of yummy chicken strips- pumpkin-asparagus- avocado combo's. ![;)](//storage.proboards.com/6343532/images/ZBDvOFPmQgNwxFXLpuoD.gif)
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Post by tuigirl on Aug 17, 2024 8:43:47 GMT
So tonight was home made sushi night. Lots of yummy chicken strips- pumpkin-asparagus- avocado combo's. ![;)](//storage.proboards.com/6343532/images/ZBDvOFPmQgNwxFXLpuoD.gif) Send some over!
(I cannot wait for the work sushi night on Monday)
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Post by aussiedoctorwhofan on Aug 17, 2024 8:44:20 GMT
So tonight was home made sushi night. Lots of yummy chicken strips- pumpkin-asparagus- avocado combo's. ![;)](//storage.proboards.com/6343532/images/ZBDvOFPmQgNwxFXLpuoD.gif) Send some over!
(I cannot wait for the work sushi night on Monday)
I had 8 rolls, Junior had 3 !
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Post by tuigirl on Aug 25, 2024 11:37:44 GMT
A colleague gifted me a large bag full of silverbeet. So I made some very tasty pasta with a silverbeet / salmon / lemon zest / sour-cream - sauce. It is divine. Luckily I made enough to last me yesterday, today and tomorrow!
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Kestrel
Chancellery Guard
Likes: 2,693
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Post by Kestrel on Aug 30, 2024 0:43:58 GMT
Made some barbacoa tonight. Can't eat anything today, though, so maybe tomorrow.
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