Food floof! Love required....
4 years ago
last modified: 4 years ago
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Food floof! A pasta poll!
Comments (89)Sorry for the long hiatus in getting back to this post. After some initial research, I may have been mistaken calling the one kind of pasta I find most versatile "rotini" because apparently that's not Italian, and the correct nomenclature is "fusilli." Anyway, what I am talking about is the loose spiral pasta, not the tighter version. That would not be very good for a noodle pudding. FOAS, that post on cascatelli was very interesting. I have not seen it around, but I could special order some I suppose. A dish I like but rarely make is "skillet lasagna" which you can make many ways. I like to make it with pasta in the shape of small wavy lasagna strips. I used to think that was called "tagliatelli" but now I see that tagliatelli does not have the wavy sides, and that it is called maybe "mafalda." I eat past a LOT and enjoy pairing shapes with sauces and themes. So here's my noodle pudding recipe, which I know as "lokshen kugel" although when my grandmother made that, she just mixed a little cinnamon sugar with some of her little home made egg noodles and cottage cheese. One could use fusilli or other pasta but it wouldn't be quite the same. I usually use med. egg noodles. Not the most wide or the thinnest, I go for middle of the road. I like the pudding with raisins but Dad doesn't so I usually add a small can of crushed pineapple if I want to snazz it up. It seems overly creamy but it sets up over time. In fact, you often have to add more milk to reheat the leftovers. Creamy Noodle Pudding 8 ounces medium egg noodles 3 eggs, well beaten 1/3 cup sugar, heaping if you like sweeter pudding 1/2 lb. cottage cheese salt to taste 3 oz cream cheese (can use neufchatel) i pint sour cream 1 tsp. vanilla 1 cup milk Combine all ingredients except noodles in a large bowl. Parboil the noodles and add to the mixture. Butter a baking dish and put the mixture in (I think I use an 11.x 13 pyrex one) Bake at 350 for i hour. I top with a dusting of cinnamon sugar. Let sit at least 10 min. before serving. Serves 8-10....See MoreFestive Food Floof! Do you dare?!?!?
Comments (30)While I've been baking bread and challah (brioche type dough) all my life, the only yeast pastries I've made often are hamentashen in a sweet version of my mother's challah recipe. Last week, I had this sudden thought, "Pumpkin babka!" This has been a great year for pumpkins. So instead of figuring it out myself, I searched for recipes on the 'net, and found a chocolate with pumpkin dough, and one more like what I'd had in mind, which was pumpkin-pecan filling in a rich, soft dough. I usually have great results with blog recipes, and I was sleep deprived, so even though I reviewed the ingredients before saving the recipe, I didn't actually read them through for quality. BIG mistake! I don't know if it's meant to be a sabotage (the comments were useless, only discussing the pretty pictures in the post). It sort of reads, to my bread self like it was partially scalled with oopsies. I've done that scaling a recipe for myself in my head, without writing it down when I was tired. I don't know, for sure, but looking back, it also doesn't match the instructions in the demonstration. It's, um, whack! There were plenty of places where I had warning signs and should have stopped and read it over and quit, but I didn't. I was tired beyond thought. When I started the first step, and it said 2 1/2 TBSP yeast to 3 -4 cups flour, I should have stopped. I just figured she meant teaspoons, and adjusted accordingly. Then I read the gigantic amound of sugar and salt. I always adjust those to taste anyway, so I kept going. When it said 8 eggs and half a pound of butter, I just figured she knew something I needed to learn. Um. No. The result, as you who bake know, was a glutinous cake batter. I added about a cup of flour and ran it with the dough hook and let it "rise" (not that any rising was happening). Good thing I've learned so much about high hydration baking. I poured it out onto the baking mat. There was enough gluten development at this point that it didn't spill away, just made a stable lake. Much as I would have liked to use my big steel bench scraper, one can't on silicone, but a big bunch of cast flour on it, scrape up some goop with the small plastic bench scraper and push it over, led to a more stable mound. Still too soft for even a stretch and fold, but holding its shape as a mound. I covered and let it rise. And it did! And when I heavily dusted with more flour, it was manageable and rolled. It was too soft to twist nicely, but enough so that the middle has a nice distribution. You can't see the layers, though. The dough was still too soft and smushed together. And it was so soft that the outside was almost burning before the inside was done, and the corners were dry because of that. The filing was good. That's a keeper. So is the butteriness of the dough. The end result was fine eating, though not exquisite. I think if I added a little extra butter to the hamentashen dough it would be more like what one needs, and I think more filling proportionate to the dough. I had been surprised that it didn't call for toasting the pecans, but they came out great from raw. Because of the restriction I put on the excess sugar, it's really good with cranberry sauce! While chatting, i mentioned it to the Thanksgiving cousin, and that I'd put the second loaf in the freezer. She asked me to bring it, but I don't know if anyone ate any. At least I don't have to find someone to feed it to! Which is why one tests recipes ahead. I also tried to make the handkerchielf rolls. I don't think there's any saving that one. I mean, they're rolls but they have a kind of gummy mouth feel, and that's after I overbaked them a little! Nasty. The recipe was designed to sell the baking dish. I'm thinking I could rescue them with custard. Pumpkin bread pudding is in the offing. Maybe with a cranberry hard sauce. The worst breads make the best bread puddings!...See MoreFood Floof! Tacos!
Comments (16)Tacos can be kind of anything around here, depends on what's in the house and how many people are eating. Table is a taco bar and everyone can build as they will. I tend to like to build a salad on my plate. Then fill a tortilla or shell or two, maybe have a few chips, probably eat a bunch of it as a salad. Meats can be ground beef, shaved beef, steak, slow braised beef. Chicken that's sometimes cooked from cut up fajitas style, sometimes slow cooked and shredded. Pork and ham is usually slow cooked and shredded. Fish or shrimp tends to be quick cooked/seared or grilled. Pintos, black beans, and mayocoba beans- I cook those from dry and sometimes leave whole, sometimes mash up for refries. Sometimes shredded cheeses like cheddar or a jack, sometimes quesos, occasionally a cheese sauce. Chopped tomatoes, onions or green onions, shredded lettuce or other tender greens, lime wedges, sour cream, salsas or hot sauces, sometimes black olives. Avocado or guac. Shells and/or tortillas, sometimes hard corn sometimes soft, sometimes flour. Usually some tortilla chips, occasionally boats. Sometimes street corn, grilled or seared veggies, cole slaw, fried potatoes or sweet potatoes. Pickled jalapenos, pickled carrot salad, quick pickled red onions and radishes. Seasoned rices or rice and beans. Most of the time I'm seasoning from Tex-Mex, Central, and Northern South America. Sometimes I go more Jamacian or Cuban. I make my own taco seasoning or recipes for a lot of it. I also have a nice stash of seasonings ordered from Amigo foods for flavor profiles I might not have otherwise. If I'm going more Asian or Indian with it, a lot of the seasoning profiles and some of the fillings and extras change. Chapati/roti isn't exactly like a tortilla, but it's also not easy to find around here. During the summer I sometimes make "sushi tacos" for work lunches- cream cheese smear, packet tuna or whatever leftover cooked fish from last night I have in the fridge, white rice. Nasturtium leaves or other peppery leaves from the garden, green onions or sweet and sour onions, pickled edamame. Flour tortilla. And not exactly tacos, but around here... socca is used like soft tortillas too. Socca is a thin chickpea pancake. Usually socca is used with Mediterranean or Middle Eastern fillings and profiles. But the more usual fillings and profiles from the Americas work great too. And chickpea can be a nice alternative to corn or flour for some folks. Tacos I've had that I don't really make. Stewed goat was good, I like goat. Roasted lamb, not so much, but ground lamb like a kebab nug or moussaka filling is good. Duck was OK. Turkey can be OK, but often can be kind of the most boring of the meats. Venison was good, stewed and brisket kind of smoked style. Jackfruit is really good. Crab and lobster are OK, but there are better uses for those and I like fish tacos better. BBQ can be surprisingly good, especially using corn tortillas or shells for it....See MoreFestive Food Floof! Christmas!
Comments (45)I managed to do everything I planned to do despite having a bad reaction to the latest round of chemo on the 20th. We went back to our home in the country and I was feeling relatively OK the next day so I did some prep for cooking, making the sausagemeat stuffing for the turkey and freezing it. I had made pumpkin pies and brownies before we went down to the city for the treatment and put them into the freezer in our unit there. I was glad that I did as I felt dreadful on the Friday and Saturday. I was a little better on the Saturday so I continued with prepping, chopping bread cubes and celery and onions etc for the bread stuffing, then we had to pack it all up and head down to the city again as DD and her little family were arriving at the airport in the early evening. We were lending them DH’s car so at least he had to be there. It was touch and go as to whether I would be up to driving my car down (as opposed to DH’s sister bringing him back to the country and then him driving both of us in my car) but through sheer stubbornness I made it :-). Sunday morning I felt almost human again so I put the ham I had pre-studded with cloves into the oven and basted it with a mix of orange juice, cranberry sauce, honey and mustard at regular intervals. It turned out delicious and moist :-) As it happened I didn’t need to bring salads so I made the cheesecake I had planned to make and that was me done for the day. We took the ham and the desserts and all our presents to my BIL’s place and had a great evening with the whole extended family and then divvied up leftovers. I gave away a fair amount of ham, which was fine with me as I had bought a large one just for the purpose. Christmas morning I made the bread stuffing then stuffed the turkey buffe with it then sealed it in with the sausagemeat stuffing. We took that, the remaining ham and a pumpkin pie to the holiday apartment where DD is staying. Her DH made waffles with fresh fruit and maple syrup for brunch, then we played with DGS and opened presents while the turkey roasted along with the potatoes. After a while DD made an appetiser of brie wedges coated in panko and fried, along with cranberry sauce and rocket salad. Then we had the turkey, ham, green beans with prosciutto, roasted Dutch carrots, cauliflower cheese, hasselback potatoes, bread sauce and gravy and big puffy mini Yorkshire puddings (made by DSIL), followed by pumpkin pie at a decent interval. It was a lovely low key day and we had a great time with DD, DSIL and DGS, who is the most delightful baby 🥰...See More
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