Culinaria: What's for dinner ?

[mitchellmckain]

Sounds good. How was it?

Last time we got tamales from a restaurant, everyone complained. They just were not as good as mine. I told them it was because of using cheese instead of lard. I have heart that starting with corn (nixtamal) makes the tamales and tortillas even better, but my one experiment with that just proved to me the difference wasn't worth quite that much work -- maybe if I had better equipment...

As for the homemade tortillas, they are good, but I wouldn't mind discovering the recipe used by some restaurants for the tortillas they make for soft tacos, for it might help me to improve my own.

[Watson]

You should try asking? Maybe not for the recipe, but if there is something different that they do, or an ingredient that kicks it up a notch. Can't hurt, if it is not a busy part of their day?

[mitchellmckain]

Today I made Gnocci Bolognese with Italian sausage and tomorrow it will be Chicken roasted in a spicy lemon sauce with pasta Carbonara on the side. These are the result of my search for new and different pasta sauces. I made the spicy lemon chicken before and my youngest really liked it. It was entirely my own creation and consisted of cooking assorted chicken piece in the oven with a sauce made from squeezing one whole fresh lemon with garlic, chopped peppers and onions, a tablespoon or two of sugar and a table spoon of Vietnamese hot pepper sauce called Sambal Oelek (and probably salt and fresh ground black pepper).

The itallian sausage was a mistake for it made today's dinner more spicy than I wanted. I need to learn to read "Italian sausage" as "spicy sausage" and go ahead and use the Bratwurst even if it is for an Italian dish. Both the Gnocci and the Bolgnese sauce were a bit of work. For the Gnocci it is rolling out the dough (made from mashed potato, flour, and egg) and chopping it into bite size pieces. For the Bolognese sauce it was roasting the spices (bay leaf, clove, peppercorns and fennel) and then grinding them up.

[Event Horizon]

This might get some bellies rumbling!

https://t.co/M3sLwwkppw

[mitchellmckain]

Last week I served baked potatoes with the option to top it with not only sour cream but mole. It was a hit.

Now the problem is that "mole" can mean many things. In my case, I only use the word for a spicy sauce that has nut and cocoa in it. As for my mole I usually use Don Marie's sauce from the grocery store (which already has some cocoa, peanut, and sesame in it) as a base then add to it. In this case I started with sauteing garlic, onions, and chopped pascilla peppers. To these I added chicken breast chopped fairly small and cook till the chicken is mostly done. Then I added the Don Marie with an generous dollop of almond butter. Once that is well mixed in, I added the chunky tomato sauce with a teaspoon of cocoa and a tablespoon of sugar. Most of the spice comes with the Don Marie but you can add more spicy pepper if you like. At least two in my family prefer food rather mild though (I like things a little spicy and my eldest son likes them more spicy than me).

[Serpent]

Sounds interesting - and complicated. I suppose, if were having the potato as a side dish, we could simplify it somewhat - leave the chicken out, and maybe just one kind of nut. I'd add a jalapeno or two.

Mole reminded me that you could probably use pesto on a baked potato. We happen to have a bumper crop of purple basil this year. Instead of pine nuts, I make it with sunflower and pumpkin seeds. Pulverize the seeds in a small food mill before adding it to the garlic, basil leaves and olive oil in the processor.

[mitchellmckain]

Today was my third time making chinese roast pork. It is a marinated pork with lots of flavor cut into thin slices. It is particularly good for adding to ramen noodles -- just a couple slices as a garnish. Though my eldest took some in order to make a filling for chinese steam buns.

I found three bottle of molasses in the back of the cupboard, probably from someone buying it for a recipe and then forgetting about it. So I looked up what you can do with it. Mostly I found two things: barbecue sauce and gingerbread (including all kinds of ginger snaps and cookies). Then I found a few kinds of candy.

My first effort was to make molasses taffy and I am not sure why it failed. It looked and tasted like taffy when I cut and wrapped it, but a couple hours later and it turned into something like fudge. This week I made ginger snap cookies and it was a great success. I added a bit of candied ginger, made myself by boiling chopped ginger in water and sugar. As a result I needed to thicken it wit more flour and some oats. They turned out quite nicely. One bottle of molasses down and two more to go. Next I may try a recipe for molasses sea foam candy.

[outstandingrush]

Guys. I've heard that Terry Crews don't eat untill afternoon. Is it healthy? Actually, I have some problems with money and i need to limit how many times I eat per day. I follow this rules https://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/news/20090323/7-rules-for-eating#1

[zetreque]

Guys. I've heard that Terry Crews don't eat untill afternoon. Is it healthy? Actually, I have some problems with money and i need to limit how many times I eat per day. I follow this rules https://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/news ... r-eating#1

Dr. Daniel Pompa has a huge following that is getting into lengthy fasting if you want to look him up. Intermittent fasting as a whole is becoming more broadly popular.

(If you can't find your post in the future I might have split it off to a new thread in the health section of the website.)

[Serpent]

Here are two cheap things I did today.

Last night, before a meeting of the Humanists, I stopped off at No Frills for bread and incidentally scored a lot of mushrooms on half price sale. Today, I peeled them all, cut the majority in 1" chunks and left about a dozen of the smallest whole.
Those went into a version of ratatouille: one red onion, one biggish zucchini (the last one from the garden), five little stunted yellow peppers (also the last of this year's crop) two handfuls of TVP balls (presoaked in just enough boiling water to cover them and a dash of soy sauce). Chop the onion and pepper in quite large pieces, sautee in a little oil; stir in zucchini, then mushrooms; sprinkle with flour and stir that around a little while; add TVP balls with liquid. Thin with tomato or vegetable juice, cook until everything is tender.
This will make two meals for two people. (The second one is in the freezer.)

The rest of the mushrooms, I sauteed in oil with black pepper, marjoram and thyme, then sprinkled with flour, stirred, and cooked briefly in vegetable juice. (Had to: a big jug had been opened and nobody wanted to drink it.) Three containers to freeze, each enough to go on a double serving of pasta or rice and make a nice, quick meal with a side salad.

[mitchellmckain]

My thing these days is fresh baked bread. Today I made raisin bread for the first time trying for a marble effect with cinnamon and sugar. learned that I needed to roll it out if wanted as much marbling as I wanted and to leave the end that ends up on the outside without the cinnamon and sugar (because that will most likely end up on the outside). One thing you don't have to worry about is punching the bread down too much because this bread seemed to rise all that much more because of how much I flatted it.

[Serpent]

What - nobody cooks or eats anymore?

When the first lock-down was announced in March, my SO anticipated more interruptions to the supply-chain and feared a shortage of necessities. No, not toilet paper and disinfectant: flour and cooking oil and such. Indeed, that week, our grocery quickly ran out. So I went to the wholesaler and bought a 50lb sack of flour and a 20lb bag of rice...
I've been eating rice every week since (SO can't because of glucose). Usually make up a batch in the slow cooker. Sautee first, with some chopped onion, diced carrot and celery. Then you can add chopped kale or spinach, mushroom, green pepper; bullion cubes and or spices. You can use tomato juice or broth instead of water for cooking liquid. I guess you could add meat or seafood, if that's your kink.
Alternatively, you can make rice pudding, with sugar, chopped dried fruit, raisins, baking spice mix, cinnamon or cocoa, and use milk as a cooking liquid.
Lots of variety. Takes longer to cook, but doesn't need to be watched.
I make enough each time for three or four meals.
I'm on my third sack of rice now, discovering that I like Basmati less than cheap white short-grain.

Have you made any culinary changes, achievements, adjustments or discoveries in this Year of the Covid?