Houzz Logo Print
sleevendog

What's For Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, #416



Comments (75)

  • 10 days ago
    last modified: 10 days ago

    lizbeth, rats live about a year or less in the “wild” which includes the mean streets of NYC.

    By the way, global warming is apparently great for the global rat population, as their natural environment which includes our artificial environment is becoming more hospitable.

    Domestic pet rats typically live two to three years. Squeakers, the kids’ childhood pet rat, lived three years. Al got sick and died mid-infusion in the pet ER at one year. Simo is about two and seems to be chugging along. Jelly and Jam are still young-ish, about a year.

    Pet rats don’t necessarily need to be confined to a room. Squeakers had the run of the house; as an “only rat”, he followed people around and was seldom more than a few feet from someone, often riding on a shoulder or in a pocket. We had friends with a herd of rats, who exhibited more pack behavior, thundering (tiny ”t”) around the house chasing each other.

    But unless one is a bit of a rat-fanatic, a one room existence is probably best. The current ratties have no desire to explore the great Beyond DD’s Room; they have, and met our cat, who while elderly (20 years old!) and quite past her prolific ratting and mousing days, still managed to traumatize them.

    We went to a book sale this morning and got two cool old cookbooks. One is on the great restaurants of San Francisco with some recipes from each, circa 1963. Few of those restaurants still exist, but when I first moved to the Bay Area in the late 1970s they were extant and revered. Not that I could afford to eat there. Later as a young downtown worker I occasionally frequented the Tadich Grill, and was pleased to see it, and a few of its dishes, included in the book.

    The other is a small but thick how-to on Chinese wok cooking, written in 1970. I bought it as a joke, but reading reveals it to be a serious book. It was written in a time when the reader was assumed to barely know what soy sauce was, so it covers basic wok technique and what a steamer is, before getting to the hundred or so recipes. The recipes are very basic, in a good way. Make them as written and you will get the bare bones base dish, that you can embellish as you get more familiar with Chinese cookery.

    This is, I think, typical of old-time cookbooks. Recipes are short, a paragraph, with pared-down ingredient lists. Compare a recipe in Betty Crocker’s or even Julia Child’s books to the absurdly long, self-indulgent recipes common today. Back then, I think it was assumed you knew how to cook and would try different things without being told.

    Anyway, to test out my new Wok cookbook, we are making beef with cauliflower, pretty close to the recipe with only minor embellishments.

    Rice is in the cooker, beef marinating, veg parboiled and drained, all waiting for ten minutes before dinner time.








  • 9 days ago
    last modified: 9 days ago

    PM, that shrimp looks especially delicious, yum. Of course I really like seafood a lot, so I live as far from the ocean as possible.

    John, I had to laugh at the "herd" of rats. I immediately thought of "pack". You know, like "Rat Pack", and imagined your little rattie pictured with some sunglasses and a sport coat, a little rattie Frank Sinatra. :-)

    We did have supper with Amanda, Dave and Bud. I'm still working on "Pantry Cleaning February", so I made some Steak Diane, parmesan roasted potatoes, baked beans and sauteed cabbage. Dessert was Grandma's Blueberry Crisp. I forgot to take pictures but I did use a lot of things from the pantry, the freezer and the winter storage, including some ice cream to go with the crisp that has been languishing in the freezer since Madison's birthday clear back the beginning of December.

    I really need to have a pantry cleaning month more often, I think, things get pushed to the back or migrate to the bottom and it's not just the freezer. The cabbage we had tonight has been in the back of the crisper drawer for nearly a month and I forgot I even had it until we used the salad stuff in front of it.

    Annie

  • Related Discussions

    Breakfast for Dinner tonight.........

    Q

    Comments (12)
    Nancy, I can't believe you don't like biscuits. Learned something new about you. Stacy, it really is simple to make. Another one of those dishes that I just wing. I typed up this basic outline for you. I made my regular country biscuits using buttermilk instead of cream. And last nights gravy also included some leftover chicken gravy, which I think made the dish even better. Home Cookin Chapter: Recipes From Thibeault's Table ============= Basic Outline for Sausage Gravy. I never measure any of the ingredients. Good Quality Sausage oil garlic Cream/milk salt, pepper flour fresh sage Remove sausage from casings and saute in oil. Break the sausage up into smaller pieces. When Sausage is brown add minced garlic. Cook for one minute. Add 1 to two tablespoons of flour. Cook for 3 or 4 minutes. Add cream and or milk. Season with salt, lots of fresh ground pepper and minced sage. Simmer for 10 or 15 minutes to meld the flavours. Serve over homemade buttermilk biscuits. Note: If you have any leftover chicken, turkey or pork gravy add it to the sausage gravy. ================ Edited/November 2005 2 cups of flour 1 Tablespoon of baking powder 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/2 cup shortening, lard, crisco or butter (I use butter) 1 cup of milk (cream) or buttermilk if using buttermilk add 1/2 teaspoon baking soda) Mix the flour with the baking powder, and salt. Cut in shortening until it resembles coarse meal. Stir milk or cream in to flour mixture. Mix quickly with fork until dough comes together. Using hands gently pat the ingredients together. Do not over handle. Pat out to about 1/2 to 3/4 inch thick on a lightly floured board. Cut with biscuit cutters and place on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet and bake for approximately 12 to 15 minutes at 450°F. If making cheese biscuits add the mustard and cayenne to the dry ingredients and add the cheese after the shortening has been cut into the flour. (Note: to cut in shortening either use a pastry blender or put the dry ingredients along with the shortening in a food processor and pulse until the fat is the size of little peas. Do not over process. Pour the mixture into a bowl and add the liquid stirring with a fork.) (Options: For cheese biscuits, add cayenne pepper, dry mustard and some shredded cheddar cheese) or add some fried ham and green onions with the cheese) Option for using Blue Cheese(s): Add chopped green onion and Gloucestershire cheese or another type of blue cheese. And black pepper to taste.
    ...See More

    Breakfast for Dinner.....What are You Having?

    Q

    Comments (15)
    LOL, lots of breaksfasts for dinner tonite!! Lots of ideas for the next time we have it, too. Cherryfizz, haven't seen you in quite a while. OF, I love the coolish temps. Georgysmom, we have a dinner date with a friend for Chinese on Sat. We're looking forward to it. LOL Ellen. Your dinner sounds good. Nice and simple. Hubby loves, loves hotdogs, and just recently he discovered that he likes sauerkraut! At least the way I make it, which is the sauerkraut cooked with the sausages, not steamed separately. Sue, you had a busy day as usual. Matti and Rhizo......you're welcome for the dinner suggestion! :D Shirley, I hear you, on liking the cool weather! I'm bracing for another hot and humid spell the weekend and next week.
    ...See More

    Breakfast for Dinner! What are your plans Wed nite?

    Q

    Comments (23)
    We woke up to a light rain this morning. It's got a nip in the air and got up to 62 degrees. We liked it! :0) Very hearty and I put hot sauce over mine. 3 lbs potatoes, diced(small) & boiled, skins on 1 lb bulk breakfast sausage 1 cup diced raw onion 6 eggs 1 Tbl flour 1/2 lb grated cheddar cheese Seasoning salt & pepper to taste Fry the sausage, drain any grease off & add onions in a skillet until fully cooked. Press the potatoes into a 13 x 9 casserole dish. Spoon the sausage mixture over the potatoes. In a large mixing bowl whisk eggs, flour, salt & pepper. Pour over casserole, distribute the grated cheese over the top. Cover with foil. Bake 1 hour @ 400 degrees. This post was edited by nicole__ on Wed, Sep 10, 14 at 21:10
    ...See More

    Food in London - lunch and dinner for royalty?

    Q

    Comments (15)
    Looks great. And yes, shepherd's pie done right IS made with lamb. (Otherwise the proper term is "cottage pie", although I don't see why "cowboy's pie" isn't a thing as a name... shepherds don't move cattle around...) The fish and chips look lovely! Scones were indeed dry. When I've been in Scotland and England, I simply loved haggis. I had two or three different preparations, and liked them all. I did NOT like the blood sausage. I had that with a Full English Breakfast one morning, and it was the only part I didn't finish. Did you get kippers? I tried them the last morning I was in Scotland prior to flying home. I liked them, but it wouldn't be something I'd want often. I didn't have Scotch eggs over there, but made them here at home once (using duck eggs). Enjoyable. The salmon is great over there! I also like the English tea sandwiches.
    ...See More
  • 9 days ago
    last modified: 9 days ago

    For Christmas I got this vintage cast iron pan with drip ring, which works great for browning things that give off a lot of liquid.




    Here, diced ham for the split pea soup.



    The soup, which was well developed. carrots, celery, shallots, peas, spinach, parsley, ham, and quite a bit of cayenne.



    Ribeye, SV 125F with butter, garlic, wasabi then seared in the groovy pan



    The fat trimming was rendered and will be doled out to the ratties in very small amounts. Too much fat is not good for them. Like humans, they love food that is bad for them. If they learn to pose in sunglasses, they will get rewarded with tiny nibbles of beef fat.

  • 9 days ago

    I recently watched the Disney movie Ratatouille with my 5 year old grandson and of course loved it. In the movie I was surprised to see that the ratatouille cooked for the “Food Crictic” bore a resemblance to the ratatouille your DS made for you John a few weeks ago…so I’m thinking ratties, ratatouille, not a coincidence that DS made the ratatouille like he did. Hah!! By the way I love split pea soup cooked like that.


    Dinners have been all over the place here. I had to lend my car to son’s wife so didn’t do any large shopping for a week. Then I shopped big time and bought steak and marinara mix plus other goodies like figs and yummy Brie for desserts.


    Steak frites with salad. Butter was the steaks ( what we call a Scotch Fillet ) only accompaniment meaning no sauce.





    Seafood risotto, another recipe I came across in Rick Steins Venice to Istanbul series. Yes I’ve cooked risotto like this before but this time doing it his authentic way with a touch of all spice and cinnamon it turned out very good.




    PS party musics shrimp and lemon pasta was a stand out for me too.

  • 9 days ago

    Absolutely not a coincidence!

  • 8 days ago

    Snow, ice, and/or freezing rain is forecast for the end of this week, starting Thursday. It is chilly, and soup weather. DD and DS made albondigas soup, which is a big favorite around here.



  • 8 days ago
    last modified: 7 days ago

    Lots of steak going on here, but the seafood is what really appeals to me. Too bad I can't figure out how to grow it!

    John, I wonder where in the world you could get tiny little sunglasses? Barbie doll supplies, maybe? It's definitely soup weather here too, we're supposed to get anywhere between 5 inches and a foot of snow tomorrow night, the weather people like to give themselves a wide berth, LOL. I'm going out tonight to make sure the new baby has lots of dry bedding, we'll set a bale of hay for the big cows and then we just wait for the next storm, which should be coming on Saturday, I guess.

    Last night's supper was air fryer chicken thighs and a salad, definitely not picture worthy. Right now I have a batch of Christmas Limas in the crockpot, but I don't know what they will eventually become. When I figure it out, it'll be what's for supper here.

    Annie

  • 8 days ago
    last modified: 8 days ago

    I had no idea that rats had such short lifespans! And there are no steaks here, except after nearly every golf tournament I play in. lol!

    It's funny how something as simple as that shrimp-lemon-pasta dish can draw attention. I haven't made that in ages and it took me longer to peel the shrimp than to make the meal. So easy. I have another pound of shrimp in the freezer and was thinking of trying a honey-garlic shrimp recipe next. :)


    oh yeah... we were supposed to get 2" yesterday, but we got 8" instead. Nice. And they're saying we should expect 20" more tomorrow and Thursday. I'm running out of places to put it!

  • 7 days ago

    Easy meals are the best meals!


    I an hoping for any snow or ice we can get, even though it doesn’t look that promising. Sure, Portland is completely paralyzed when it happens, and almost everyone but little kids hate it, but I get very happy at our single annual snow event.


    As a sort of offering to the snow gods, we are making soup, again. Chicken soup with a whole chicken that is simmered then shredded, with carrots, parsnips, onion, and so on.


    I ended up with a lot of peelings, which I cooked up for the ratties. DD was appalled that I added stock to the peelings, lecturing that stock has salt which will give the ratties hypertension. I’m a bad rat chef. I just like to give them tasty food.


    Jam says, “bring it on”. She is a cute rat. Here is her adoption pic. How could you swipe left?




  • 7 days ago

    John, I don't mind if we get a snow day here, forces me to stay inside and cook. It's true that Portland tends to freak out, I'm sure the grocery stores will be full tomorrow!

    DD was in the TAG (Talented and Gifted) Science program in high school. For her project she decided to see how three different diets influenced rats growth/weight. Two rats ate whatever we ate, two ate from A Diet for a Small Planet and two were only given junk food-no protein, vegetables, etc.. It was awful to go in with bits of cheese or a chicken bone and see the junk food rats put their little paws out of the cage begging for some.

    DD weighed them and kept track of the data; in the end the junk food rats started losing weight and seemed pretty unhealthy.

    Of course, afterwards, they all became pets and had healthy diets. We learned that rats make wonderful small pets and can have very different personalities.

  • 7 days ago
    last modified: 7 days ago

    “It was awful to go in with bits of cheese or a chicken bone and see the junk food rats put their little paws out of the cage begging for some.“ That is sad. Still, there was a happy ending! Better than most ”lab rats” get.

    Rats are interesting, social, curious, intelligent, have nearly hand-like paws. I’ve often imagined that if not happened by their short lifespans, rats would organize a civilization, develop writing, make and use tools, learn agriculture and domesticate draft animals, and be ready to replace humans when we take our leave. They just need about ten more years of life and a rattie Julius Caesar to Rule The World or at least the Neighborhood.

    Here’s the chicken soup. DD added lemon pasta on the side.



    Hey, I’ll show the latte I made SWMBO this morning.



    lea, I am so hoping for snow that I have even pulled my generator to the yard and test-run it. We are not going to have enough snow/ice for significant power outages, but hope springs eternal!

  • 7 days ago
    last modified: 7 days ago

    Oh, nice latte, John. The soup sounds good too. I'm smiling at the possibility of a little rattie dating app, for when they take over the world.

    I also think the rats begging is sad, I'd be a bad parent because I'd be sneaking the healthier/more delicious stuff to the poor fast food rats, LOL. Just ask my cats what a push over I am! We had to use the sink in the kitchen to wash our hands because the cat took a 3 hour nap in the bathroom sink, LOL. He barely fits, but he can lay his head on the counter and sleep.



    Dinner was the Chrismas Lima beans I'd been cooking in the crockpot. I made a roasted red pepper sauce with some dehydrated poblanos and garlic, a bit of tahini and some lemon, I got the recipe on line. It was actually pretty good with a big salad:



    Yes, I missed meatless Monday, so we had meatless Tuesday which does not have the same ring to it!

    I think we're having burgers again tonight.

    Annie

  • 6 days ago
    last modified: 6 days ago

    That is a self-satisfied cat! Has achieved the nirvana of maximum comfort for self with maximum inconvenience for other!

    My kitty is 20 y/o, and has started showing her age in the last several months, gradually losing weight. I put extra stuff in her food to try and keep her weight up - powdered goat milk, malt - and glucosamine for her joints, and mix her food with water so that she gets lots of liquid. She’s doing very well for her age, but needs extra care.

    I have some prime rib that I defrosted but didn’t finish, so I need to cook that tonight. I might do a stir fry. Need a break from soups.

    We are skiing today but in a very desultory fashion. It is DD’s first day so she is dealing with the stress of sliding on slippery stuff with long things clamped to your feet when you have no recollection of how it is done, and we are taking lots of hot chocolate breaks.

  • 6 days ago

    We had the aforementioned burgers which look just like all the other burgers we've had, so no picture.


    The Big Man has no trouble keeping weight on. Even without a tail he weighs 27 pounds and is 14 inches tall at the shoulder, 23 inches from the tip of his nose to the stump he has left in lieu of a tail. He's a BIG cat, LOL, and is only 7, so he thinks he's still a great big kitten.


    Annie

  • 6 days ago
    last modified: 6 days ago

    We went from skiing to home via Hood River, a cute little town in the Gorge that is blowing up right now. I’ve been there quite a bit and it’s #1 on my list of places to move to, if I were to move from Portland to somewhere else in the PNW. By the time we were done at the bookstore it was 5:30 pm, and . . . uh oh, the evening choices for food in the downtown area were much more limited than I’d thought. Almost all the little places we like for lunch and brunch close in the afternoon.


    Hmmm, this is new and unfavorable information.


    We ended up at ”Hood River Chinese-American Restaurant“, partly because not much else looked good and partly because I have a weakness for old-school Chinese-American dishes. Not, though, these dishes.


    The food was so b-a-d and came in such ludicrous quantity that we drove home with stomach aches and two bags of takeout containers full of food that we decided not to even think of eating. I’m not sure what we’ll do with it. Maybe I’ll drop it at a homeless camp. So that was what was for dinner.

  • 6 days ago

    Ugh, sounds terrible. I'm impressed with that 20 year old kitty, BTW, the longest I've manage to have one was 19.


    I have pork tenderloin brining in some of last year's apple cider, the rest of our evening meal is yet to be decided. Maybe one of those butternut back in cold storage.


    Annie

  • 6 days ago
    last modified: 5 days ago

    Last night was this Greek-style sheet pan chicken. It was very good with lots of flavor. Not much left from the pan with just two of us.


  • 5 days ago
    last modified: 5 days ago

    Love Me Tendon

    By Elvis Parsley

    ------------------------------------------------------

    Love it tendon, love it sweet
    Never let it go
    You have made my life complete
    And I love you so

    Beef Tendon in parsley jack fruit sauce, with jack fruit seeds.

    Healthy and delicious for Valentine’s Day.

    Happy Valentine to all!

    dcarch




  • 4 days ago

    That looks great, dcarch. I’ve used tendon for stock but never plated it!


    We are having fish for dinner!




  • 4 days ago
    last modified: 4 days ago

    Cheese plate, I really liked this Brillat-Savarin



    Pot roast, not bad for DD’s first effort


    Valentine’s Salad, with lots of pink raddichio etc


    Kale and lemon vinaigrette


    And mashed potatoes


    Simo helped dispose of the peelings



  • 4 days ago

    dcarch - Jackfruit caught my attention a while back but I forgot all about it; thanks for the reminder. Your dish looks nice.

    I didn’t cook for Valentine’s Day, went out to a Greek restaurant we hadn’t bee to in a while. Saginaki, lamb shank for me, pastitsio for my wife. The latter two I’ve made before but feel the need to master.

    I did bake some Valentine’s cookies though, left for the humans, right for the dog. (Speaking of pets!)



  • 4 days ago

    I guess it is just me but I find rats unappetizing.

  • 4 days ago

    Simo’s feelings are hurt! She believes she would be tasty, if she were to be tasted.

  • 3 days ago
    last modified: 3 days ago

    dcarch-love your artistic plating!

    John Liu: cute napkin rings. DD's pot roast looks pretty good to me. And thanks for answering my rattie questions. I think my kids had about every pet, but we somehow missed the rats.

    FOS, I love a good sugar cookie!

  • 3 days ago
    last modified: 3 days ago

    We went to “RatPalooza” in Hillsboro today, to see the rat show and rat judging, pet rats, rat merch, and frankly to see what rat peoples look like. The Instagram and Youtube channels don’t often show the ratties’ owners. Well, it was cute but small, lots of goth ratgirls and excited little kids, not terribly different from Portland generally I guess.

    After a shorter time at the RatPalooza than expected, we went to a good used bookstore in the area and I picked up a cookbook called “Boshi”. It is a hip, heavily illustrated production by two guys who look smarmy, irritating, and insufferable as they re-invent vegetarian cooking blah blah, but it had some interesting - or merely well-photographed? we’ll see - recipes and was only $4 so I picked it up.



    Tonight I am trying a meatless Spaghetti Bolognaise, wherein 1.5 lb of minced mushrooms stand in for the meat. Hopes not terribly high, I’m making the dish exactly per the two irritating guys’ instructions.

  • 3 days ago
    last modified: 3 days ago

    Okay, well, the dish is not much like Bolognaise. But it has some promise. You’d have to enhance the recipe substantially with more umami ish things. I added some butter, cream, more tomato paste, more red wine, and cheese - most of which would probably not be okay with the authors - and that helped, but there are more fundamental problems.

    One is the directions do not call for carmelizing the two red onions, and in fact the minced onion, celery, carrot, garlic are only to be cooked for 10 minutes. Thus the veg base of the “sauce” retains the sharp, thin, bitter taste of the onion, which hasn’t had time to soften and meld.

    The minced mushrooms are only to be cooked for 15 minutes, so even though the dish should be rich with mushroom flavor, there is not enough time to develop that flavor.

    See here - the mushrooms and the veg mixture have been cooked for the instructed time, and are ostensibly ready to be combined and, with a little pasta water, become an unctious bolognaise sauce. Ha.



    The whole thing is a bit like mincing a salad in a food processor and passing the result, with too-brief cooking, as a sauce.

    I think besides longer and better cooking, the recipe needs some miso or nutritional yeast or something with the funkiness of meat.

    The general concept can be worked with, but I wouldn’t pay for this in the Boshi restaurant, if they have one.

    It doesn’t look bad, so presentation will be okay when I serve this to our vegetarian friend. This seems like a cookbook that I’ll go to for ideas rather than to follow trustingly.



  • 2 days ago
    last modified: 2 days ago

    Imo recipes invariably understate the time needed for cooking onions.

    Roast chicken here tonight. Kale off the allotment, roast potatoes, butternut and beetroot. A Nigella Lawson chocolate and raspberry cake for dessert. Used frozen allotment raspberries rather than fresh so it was a bit squishy but none the worse for that. We rarely have cake but this was for Valentine's Day. (Forgot to photograph it before it was devastated.)



  • 2 days ago
    last modified: 2 days ago

    Looks nice!


    Hey, " off the allotment " ??? What does this mean?

  • 2 days ago

    Recipes and timings should be treated more like starting points.


    The weather here is awful so it was a good day to get out the romertopf for a pork dinner, served with applesauce and a salad of cucumbers, tomatoes, and red onions.




  • 2 days ago
    last modified: 2 days ago

    The kale came from my allotment. For some reason we sometimes say 'on' and 'off' instead of 'at' and 'from' when referring to allotments eg 'I was working on the allotment'.


    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allotment_(gardening)

  • 2 days ago

    I like the allotment idea!


    We are trying the Spaghetti Mushroomnaise again. I am roasting 3 lb of mushrooms (375F, 1+ hr), carmelizing two large onions, and will be using more tomato paste/sauce and so on than the recipe calls for.





  • 2 days ago

    Not much to report here. I keep craving salad. I might put some meat or cheese in it. Satisfying, but nothing special. I need a vegetable day (cooking a whole bunch of veg). Maybe tomorrow.

  • 2 days ago
    last modified: yesterday

    Okay, I am very happy with this dish “Spaghetti Mushroomnaise” now. It looks good, has the right texture, tastes complex, not a facsimile of meat but interesting and tasty.

    Yaay. I finally have a good vegetarian dish I can remember how to make for people. Many main-course-worthy vege dishes are too difficult or complicated for me, too many ingredients to remember, or use stuff I don’t have.

    Here is the recipe. Two large yellow onions, sliced, then carmelized as dark as you have patience for - at least 40 min - with some butter, some olive oil, and about 1 tbsp of sugar. Add salt, pepper, a diced celery stalk and several cloves of garlic about 3/4 way through the carmelizing. Mince all in the food processor, stop short of a smooth paste, you want texture.



    Roast 3 lb mushrooms and three large carrots, 375F for 1 hour or so. Mince in the FP to the consistency of well ground beef, add to the veg mix, add any liquid that came off the roasted mushrooms.

    Add a small can of tomato paste, at least 1.5 cup red wine, 1-2 tbsp balsamic vinegar, 1 tbsp soy sauce, 1 tbsp olive oil, 3 tbsp nutritional yeast (more ok), 1-2 tbsp red miso (more ok), 2 tbsp butter (butter optional, for vegans), [EDIT: also some Herbes de Provence or similar, I forgot to list that]. I happened to have some pre-cooked red beets, so tried adding a couple tsp of beet juice, but it didn’t actually make much difference to the color. If you want it redder, try paprika, more tomato sauce, or more beet juice. Stir, cook at low heat for 20 min, adding and cooking in more red wine if needed to maintain a loose texture, adjust salt - I used truffle salt - and pepper.



    Cook pasta al dente, drain reserving several cups of water, put pasta and sauce back in pasta pot, add back enough pasta water for a loose, wet, moist texture and look, but not watery or soupy. Serve with Parmesan or some random cheese (I used both).



    To improve this I might cook the pasta in mushroom stock, find a more interesting garnish, maybe more tomato paste.

  • 2 days ago

    Great to see all the good meals. I’ve had a summer cold … nasty one with sore throat so DH has been doing most of the cooking and I’ve not had the energy to take photos. Anyway, I’m feeling much better and cooked pork chops last night with mashed cauliflower, corn and beans …. DH helped.

    I have an irrational craving for moussaka which I will attempt tomorrow.



  • 2 days ago
    last modified: 2 days ago

    I think I will try making a vegan spaghetti carbonara from the Boshi Boyz Book. Here is the ingredient list. The sliced mushrooms are marinated in the next few ingredients then roasted and play the guanciale (or bacon) role. The cashews are boiled then roasted, and blended with the next few ingredients to stand in for the creamy raw egg sauce. Not sure the consistency will have the right degree of gluant; maybe try some additional binders?



    I may make this in two parallel batches, one exactly per the recipe, and the other with whatever changes come to mind. Trying to speed up the learning process, and family will eventually object to repeating meals.

  • 2 days ago

    Difficult to imagine how that will come out. Good luck with it.


    Here’s one way with leftover pork. :)



  • yesterday

    Similar mishmash with leftover chicken, using pearl barley rather than rice.




    I don't think I'd have that patience to make the fake carbonara. It's a dish I make if I want something very quick and very tasty. So all that prep would rule it out for me. I'd just make a sauce that was already vegan.

  • yesterday

    chloe, the chicken and veggies sound (and look) good, plus clean up is only one pan, double bonus!


    Dcarch, as always, your plate is lovely and interesting. Elvis Presley might not be so amused, LOL. Are those grapes or multi-colored cherry tomatoes?


    John, I think the pasta sounds interesting and I like most things with mushrooms, so I'd try that. Simo is very cute, BTW. Oh, and I'd have purchased the cookbook too, even though I might never have used it.


    FOAS, I would like a couple of those cookies, they'd be perfect for breakfast with some coffee.


    Floral, your Valentine's Day meal sounds delicious, especially the cake. I also like the idea of "allotment", although here we do have community gardens in town and everyone is responsible for planting and caring for their own little plot. Sometimes participants find that their nicely ripening tomato is picked by a "neighbor" or something similar but it really goes amazingly well.


    Neely, I'm glad you are feeling better, good enough to swallow pork chops at least.


    PM, the pork looks perfect and your leftover pork dish does too. I have a bit of leftover pork tenderloin to make something with, maybe a stir fry, or something like you have there. And like you, we have terrible weather. Below zero, windy with blowing snow. And, of course, one of the cows just had to have a calf on Sunday, the coldest day so far this year. (sigh) She's a good Mama and put it right into the calf hut but it's below zero tomorrow too and wind chills down into the -teens. Tonight when we went to check on baby all the cows were in the barn, thankfully, it's open to them all the time. I put down some good second cutting hay, hopefully they'll decide to stay in there and eat the good stuff and let the babies stay warm and dry.


    So, because it was cold, soup sounded good and I made posole. No pictures, but I also canned some potatoes this afternoon and I did manage to take pictures of those!


    Amanda and Dave were here for breakfast on Sunday with Bud, so I made biscuits and gravy. AnnT's biscuits were perfect, as always, made with butter and buttermilk.


    I made a frittata with roasted red peppers, black olives and artichokes, and baked some bran muffins.



    And, of course, the pork tenderloin, with butternut squash from storage and some leftover baked beans.


    I'm still working on pantry/freezer, and I'm using up a lot of things that need to be used, like the potatoes and butternut from storage and the end of a box of bran flakes and, of course, eggs.


    Annie



  • yesterday
    last modified: yesterday

    Tasting as I go, a little dispiriting. The “carbonara” sauce does not taste rich and eggy, doesn’t taste of anything really, although the consistency is right.

    [Later] It all worked out. Adding stuff gave the sauce a very nice flavor, and the ersatz guanciale was tasty.





    The dish plates prettily, more so if you don’t let the pasta clump while cooking so you are peeling apart stuck-together noodles like a novice.



    The recipe is thus. Coarse chop 9-10 oz portabella mushrooms (1/4” ”slices” is good), marinate in 1.5 tbsp maple syrup, 3 (not 5) tbsp soy sauce, 1.5 tbsp apple cider vinegar, 1.5 tbsp olive oil, salt, pepper. Spread mushrooms on sheet pan and into a 375 F oven, with several whole unpeeled cloves of garlic, pour rest of marinade over, roast for about 25 minutes. The mushroom pieces should be curling and blackened and just starting to char at the edges.

    Boil 4 oz cashews and 3 oz hazelnuts for 15 min. Cashew provides the creamy texture, hazelnut the flavor. You could use a nut other than hazelnut, but cashew alone is too bland. Drained nuts into blender with 1 cup full fat oat milk, 3 tbsp nutritional yeast, 6 oz silken tofu, 1/2 cup plant-based ”Parmesan cheese” (Whole Foods has more vegan cheeses than you can shake a stick at), 1 tsp garlic powder (I think a bit of onion powder would be good too) and blend to a smooth creamy pourable sauce, adding more oat milk as needed. Taste and adjust - more nutritional yeast, more ”cheese”, a little salt, white pepper.

    (DD thinks using packaged vegan cheese is cheating; she would sub more nutritional yeast, some onion powder, and white miso.)

    I don’t know if it will ever pass for raw egg yolk carbonara but it will have a nutty and cheesy flavor and the nutritional yeast has a hint of yolkiness.

    Make the pasta, not clumsily like I did. I used a little less than 1 lb of linguine. Add a couple handfuls of green peas (or fresh spinach, of other pretty green stuff) to the pasta at the end. Drain pasta, reserving 3-4 cups of pasta water. Mix in sauce, then adjust with reserved water to a soft, flowy consistency. Plate, mix in a good amount of the roasted mushroom, squeeze the roasted garlic out of the skin into the dish, drizzle olive oil and sprinkle green and cheesy things on top.

    Just like real carbonara, this sauce tends to set up so you want to serve it right away. You’ll need to add more of the reserved water if the dish sits around.

    SWMBO gets very affronted if proposed a carbonara other than the traditional dish made from raw eggs by an elegant Italian lady who was part of some fancy Italian car family - not Ferrari, maybe Maserati? - who we met at the Pebble Beach Concours D’Elegance sometime in the late 1980s/early 1990s. We went to the Concours and the Monterey Historic Races every summer for a decade, so I can’t remember when Mrs. Maserati or whoever showed us how to make carbonara. Anyway that is how SWMBO makes it and she was equal parts hostile and scathing when I announced that vegan carbonara was to be attempted.

    She liked the dish. Quite a bit. Honestly, if served this I might not realize right away that it wasn’t ”the real stuff”, and by the time I did, I’d be happily eating.

    This vegan cooking is pretty fun. Just entertaining to learn new things.

    That said, I have a rack of pork ribs waiting their turn in my tummy.

  • yesterday

    annie, do you still have that huge surplus of eggs? You must be very popular now!





  • yesterday

    Your foray into vegan cooking sounds interesting and I’m sure tasty John, but alas not for me.

    Your fried rice looks delicious PM and I really like the photo too. Love those biscuits Annie and the barley instead of rice sounds good floral..

    Well I made moussaka. It didn’t quite turn out as I intended as the cheesey creamy sauce was still pretty runny although set in some places ( eggs in the sauce/custard ) and I layered in the eggplant instead of just chopping it in with the lamb but it all fell apart as I was serving. It tasted fine but not the “Traditional Greek“ serving of puffy topped, layered moussaka I was intending to serve.



  • yesterday
    last modified: yesterday

    Thank you, lizbeth-gardener , FOAS, Annie, and John for your kind words.

    Just for you, I made another Valentine dish. Yes, just for you:

    dcarch

    White clam sauce on linguine:



  • yesterday

    Hey where are the cherries?

  • 20 hours ago

    John, Elery and I are still eating eggs dated in December! My surplus isn't quite as big as it was. I took 6 dozen to the Township Treasurer when I paid my property taxes and 2 dozen to the friend who cuts my hair. The Township Supervisor stopped and picked up 6 dozen today and the B&B has guests all week so they've gotten several dozen.


    The B&B paid me $2.50 a dozen clear back when eggs were 49 cents, so I still charge them $2.50. My costs have not gone up, so theirs won't either. I've managed to stay clear of the bird flu so far, and I'm just crossing my fingers that my flock stays healthy. Right now I'm getting between 18 and 24 eggs daily, so not enough to put a sign out by the road, but when the B&B doesn't have guests the eggs tend to stack up.


    We also had our second calf born on Sunday, coldest day of the year until yesterday which was even more cold. Wind chills were about -20 so I'm at the calf hut 3 or 4 times a day to make sure bedding is dry and calves are safe and somewhat warm. It got cold enough last night that the Mama Cows wanted to be inside and they took the babies inside the barn, thank goodness. Dinners have been quick and easy. Tonight it's going to be leftover chili from the freezer over baked potatoes.


    Annie

  • 20 hours ago
    last modified: 8 hours ago

    Annie, I don't know what precautions you can take for your own exposure to the birds, but maybe worth a bit of research.

    $2.50/doz. Boy I wish I lived near you.

    What is the temperature in the barn, do you think?

  • 19 hours ago
    last modified: 18 hours ago

    Neely, I would happily eat your moussaka.


    Switching gears, roast pork ribs for dinner, just went into Giselle, sides will be decided upon after a little nap.

  • 15 hours ago
    last modified: 14 hours ago

    Normally I pressure cook or sous vide ribs before roasting or grilling, but I didn’t want to make the effort so these pork baby backs were tossed in 50% salt 50% sugar - which is how I do pork belly, which I haven’t made for a decade because of my gallbladder . . . WAIT A MINUTE I NO LONGER HAVE A GALLBLADDER. I can, I will, I must eat ALL the pork belly that I didn’t get to eat for the last ten years. I will become Pork Belly!

    Ahem. Back to dinner. The ribs were roasted 1/2 hour at 350F, 1/2 hr at 250F, and 1.5 hr at 160F. That temperature step-down wasn’t pre-planned, the sugar was making the ribs blacken too fast at the normal temp. The ribs were firmer than the usual falling-off-bone, but I liked them - however, a little too much salt. DD made a teriyaki sauce with tangerine juice and chili oil.



    DD made a recipe from the Bosh! cookbook. This is Hasselbeck Potatoes, a dish that the wizard authors have somehow managed to make vegan! however do they think of these things?!?



    Salad with too much radicchio and too little tangerine, in my opinion. More of a looker than a, cooker?, rhymes but doesn’t really make sense.


  • 13 hours ago
    last modified: 13 hours ago

    Dinner was a pre-made salad topped with some chicken salad, but first I grated a small block of smoked jack cheese. Breakfast is in the oven. The brocolini turned a weird color, so I sliced a trio of spring onions and added several sprigs, er, flonds?, of red curly kale, way too much pepper blend because my hand slipped, and a dash of North African heat because my hand didn't slip, and the smoked cheese on top. In a great confluence of space and time, using the six eggs for the custard (and removing the milk which had gone rogue and was trying to become leban) space was made to put the new eggs where they should be, so that which was moved to make room for the chicken could go where the eggs were, and there is now room to put the quiche in the fridge!

  • 13 hours ago
    last modified: 13 hours ago

    Refrigerator Tetris, everyone’s favorite game. We have to clean out and re-organize our fridge every couple of months. DD is cranky because her commercial kitchen ways are to label everything with content and date, but no-one else does, so there are leftover containers holding mysterious things that have been there long enough to evolve consciousness.

  • 9 hours ago
    last modified: 9 hours ago

    Mine is mostly too many jars of things that keep (though I've reduced one starter which was bring fed, not used). Otherwise, it's things like the bundles of greens I got to make soup, but then got a cold and wanted to eat, not make, soup, just when I was without minions.

    I like the term ”refrigerator tetris”!