i made a mock chipotle bowl today! it did end up being more effort than i'd hoped for - i spent about 1:30-1:45 in the kitchen. however, that is because i made different things to go into this, and it also made a TON of left overs i made rice like normal, except added 1/4 cup lime juice to the mixture, and when it was done, i lightly salted it. i forgot to buy cilantro at the store, and i can definitely taste the lack and am displeased, but overall it was very good (1/4 c lime juice to 2 c dry rice, btw) i just opened a can of black beans for the beans. rinsed 'em. put 'em in a bowl to be served into food bowl, nothing fancy. i'm probably going to substitute plain lentils for the beans in the future tho, because texture wise, i just like lentils way more, and in this instance, i don't think either hugely affects the flavor profile i put together a corn salsa - i cooked a (20 oz) bag of frozen sweet corn and two large diced poblanos together in a pan. would have liked a more roasted taste, might consider trying to cook them in the oven next time? (only reason i didn't was because i was baking bread at the time) i diced two small-to-medium sized red onions and two jalapenos, very fine. when the corn/poblanos were cooked, i added them to the onions/jalapenos (raw), and mixed everything together, then added about half a cup-ish of lime juice and salt, to taste. i think this could have also benefited from cilantro? but on the whole, v good - after eating about three cups worth on our bowls, we still had enough left over to fill 1.5 22 oz jars i had lying around, so. it made A Lot then i just cooked down a frozen bag of mixed bell peppers and onions on the stove, and called it good. taste wise, i think it suffered from the same problem as the corn/poblanos, and in the future i will definitely be cooking these in the oven for this + possibly seasoning it beyond "hey, salt is good?" also probably adding mushrooms honestly, i would just eat a bowl of the rice + corn salsa, but the beans and peppers/onions help round out the nutrition. i topped the whole thing with this "mexican cheese" i found at walmart - texture wise, it makes me think of feta, but i think it actually tastes good (sweet, hint of tartness like goat's milk but not that tart) also, the bread i was baking was from french bread dough lebesgue made for me and divided out into the freezer. it's not rising properly, which is a little disappointing, but it tastes exactly like french bread should, comes out with a very nice soft&chewy inside/crisp outside, and i am very happy with it
every time i watch this i become desperate to make my own tofu, but then it fades. one of these days i'll actually do it.
attempted to take step by step pictures of tonight's dinner. failed with serving one, went back when i plated my own these are just hasselback potatoes, really? the most complicated thing i did tonight was the slicing it thin without cutting all the way through, then i just popped them in the oven for almost an hour. i used cheddar between the slices, put it back in the oven for ~5 minutes to melt. then i butterflied the whole thing. (i don't think you can see in the second picture, but the slices of potato are all sticking together with the cheddar.) topped with corn salsa from yesterday (there is still... so much...) and finally topped with the mexican cheese (packaging tells me it is "queso fresco") it is very simple, and probably not very nutritionally complete, but it was a very tasty end to the day, and honestly didn't take very long - slicing the potatoes took me as long as preheating the oven did, so mmmaybe ten minutes? the single longest thing was slicing the cheese thin enough (too thick and it won't fit between the potato slices) Spoiler: lorge? sorry
yesterday night: my dad make this absolutely delicious curry! a red chicken curry to be specific, pulled from an indian cookbook. it tasted tomato-y and beautiful. he also cooked some chapati bread to go with it! tonight: there wasn't any more chapati to have, but still some leftover dough waiting to be used, so my mom helped me roll out and then cook some leavened flatbreads to use instead, so I was able to have something to mop up the leftover curry with :D
It is too goddamn hot so I made cold noodle salad. I even took a picture of it so I can finally be a real millennial. Spoiler: Look at me, being a real millennial
I made crumpets for the first time (and even without using a recipe!) and they turned out pretty good for a first attempt. (I have pics, but they are unfortunately on my phone.) The batter itself was pretty nice. They're main problems was I accidentally had the heat on too high at first, so the bottoms got a bit burnt, and I think I need to get better at pouring them into the rings so I don't burst too many bubbles.
though I should share the recipe I use to make my cookies! it's a modified version of a recipe a friend gave me. the result is a soft, chewy, and delicious salted-caramelly cookie, highly recommended! (not for those who like their cookies with the crunch.) ingredients: 125g butter 3/4 cup brown sugar 1/4 cup white sugar 1 egg 1 tsp vanilla extract 1 1/2 cups flour 2 tsp baking powder 1/8 tsp table salt 1 cup dark-chocolate chips sea salt method: gently melt butter in a pot on low temp, then add the sugars. turn off the heat and stir thoroughly until combined--the butter shouldn't be 'leaking' from the sugar mixture set aside butter-sugar mixture to cool. in a bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, and table salt. toss in chocolate chips and stir to combine add vanilla and egg (I personally like to beat the egg first) to the butter-sugar mix, and quickly stir hard to combine add wet ingredients to dry, and mix it all up. the result should be a very soft dough if you're gonna bake the cookies right after you shape them, turn on the oven at this point. you want about 135 degrees celsius. otherwise, skip this step shape your dough into cookie balls! what I do is pluck a small amount of dough, mold it into a rough round, flat shape about half the size of my palm, then place it on the tray and smooth and slope the edges with my fingers, adding or taking more dough if needed. I get about 24 cookies out of this, enough to fill two baking trays with three rows of four cookies, leaving out about 1-2 cookies' amount of dough that I just eat on the spot. note that these cookies will spread out considerably after they bake, so it's good to space out the cookies on the tray(s), especially if you want perfect round cookies sprinkle sea salt on the cookies. if you want to bake your cookies later, freeze them now to take out when you're ready, minimum 30 min to an hour or so. my friend recommends freezing the cookies before baking for more flavorsome cookies later, but imo it's alright to skip that step--you'll still get a delicious cookie in the end bake cookies for 20 min. turn/swap cookies after 10 min if you feel like it, but I don't. if you feel like the cookies need more time, keep baking in 5 min intervals until you're satisfied. take the cookies out of the oven and place aside and/or on a rack to cool. they'll still be pretty soft and malleable, but they'll firm up a bit as they cool. (not completely, though--these are soft cookies overall.) and that's it! you can pretty much eat them straight out of the oven if you want. one batch of 24 cookies lasts my family about a week. if you want more cookies, just double the amount of ingredients--the amounts listed are already pretty much halved from the original recipe if you want less caramel flavor, just replace some of the brown sugar with white sugar. that probably affects the texture and softness of the cookies as well, but I haven't experimented enough to make certain of the effects. and of course, you can do other things like sub out dark choco-chips for another kind if you want, add/toss the vanilla, leave out the sea-salt, etc.
oh i am ABSOLUTELY making those the next time the daytime temperature drops below 70 :D how amenable is that recipe to having things added? coconut, nuts, dried fruit, stuff like that. could i throw in some pecans or are these cookies better straight-up?
not sure, I haven't experimented much. I can ask my friend since it was originally her recipe, but she's busy rn so it might take a while for her to respond otherwise you can try experimenting yourself. with the given ingredient amounts, I probably wouldn't do more than 1/2 to 1 cup of nuts/dried fruit, maybe reducing the amount of choco chips if needed. you might need to increase the amount of dough if you're planning to put in a lot all at once. for coconut, maybe try 1 to a few tsp/tbsp in with the flour, depending on the strength? those are what I would try first, anyway
Combining two interests: FROM MIGUEL FLIGUER: Cooking With Lovecraft: Supernatural Horror In The Kitchen. "Cooking With Lovecraft" is a collection of short gastronomical weird tales, that will also give you directions to make real, tested, delicious dishes. Sometimes the recipe will be just an excuse for the story, sometimes the other way around, and occasionally there won’t be no recipe at all. Most of the stories are tongue-in-cheek, even outright silly, as an affectionate tribute to Lovecraft and the Mythos; but a couple of tales are a bit different. And this is not your typical “Lovecraftian cookbook” full of inedible witches’ potions. All recipes here are real food, tested and tasted by friends and family, and fairly easy to make. (from https://accordingtohoyt.com/2019/07...ary-catelli-and-nother-mike-and-book-promo-9/
FRITTATA TIME!! Made it in our BIG skillet (the 12 inch) so this is for a skillet that size. If you want to cut down the recipe for a smaller batch it's all whole cup measurements. 12 eggs 1 cup heavy cream 1 cup cheese 2 cups of fillin's (usually veg, cooked ham or chicken also good) Pre-heat oven to 425 Scramble the eggs in a bowl, add cream, mix well. Add cheese and fillin's. Pour into skillet, and put skillet into center rack of oven. Bake until golden brown and puffy in the middle. It poofs up and rises like bread so you'll know when it's done. Spoiler: Big-ish and sideways pic of finished product PS that all came from our garden and chickens. Hopefully someday the cream and cheese will come from our future goats.....
Spoiler: B I G We fucked up. I call them Wontacos because. They taste like a bite sized fried burrito.
I was wondering if people had any recommendations for easy vegetarian recipes? ('Easy' here being in the sense of 'I am a newbie cook', 'low spoon cost' forms of easy are lovely but not necessary.) Preferably ones that can feed ~3 people. Tofu is delicious and available, as are beans, other more obscure vegetarian proteins may not be.
While somewhat involved, chili is quite easy, it's pretty much "measure out ingredients, do the prep, set to simmer for a While". It's just that prep takes a Long time and the actual cooking takes even longer. The recipe I used most recently and liked is from a recipe book rather than online so I can't exactly link you but I think with the variety that exists in chili that's probably a good thing, there's just So Many Kinds that you kind of have to look for yourself to find one that sounds good. I used pinto and black beans last time for the record, if that matters. Pasta with veggies and store bought sauce of your preference is always both quick and easy and requires pretty much no extra commentary. If you have access to Middle Eastern cook books I super Ultra recommend soongov pilav (pilav with mushrooms [though there's again several varieties if mushrooms aren't your style, the mushroom recipe just happens to be my personal favorite]) which I can provide the recipe we use if you need (again it's just in a physical book and lol I'm not transcribing that at 6:30). Omurice which sounds strange on paper to some but I promise is good (you can obviously just cut the ham or substitute something else like tofu, up to personal preference). https://www.justonecookbook.com/omurice/ There's also simply straight up fried rice (be warned no matter what you do it will NOT taste like Chinese take out, it's just the way it is). https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/79543/fried-rice-restaurant-style/ You can add stir fry to the fried rice if you like (again, like chili, no link, you just gotta find the combination you like and follow the directions from that recipe).
an easy meal i make when i’m not feeling like cooking goes a little like this: select box of noodles of choice (i like rotini, radiatori, etc; something with lots of space for sauce, but penne/bowties/shells/spaghetti work just as well), cook noodles according to directions buy a jar of pesto, whatever specific kind you want. the jars we buy are 6.7oz and i usually find one jar is exactly enough sauce for one box of noodles. get some spinach and cherry tomatoes while the noodles are cooking, slice the tomatoes in half and take the stems off the spinch. as soon as the noodles are cooked and drained, add both and mix them in. the residual heat from the noodles wilts the spinach. then add your pesto, mix one last time, and serve! if you eat cheese, parmesan is really good on top. another simple one is beans and rice i usually use brown rice (although nearly any variety should work) and cook it in an instant pot, which reduces the spoon cost considerably cook rice however you’re going to cook it, add a can of beans (drain the liquid first), a small can of rotel (or any other mix of tomatoes and chilis, optional if you don’t like it), a can of diced tomatoes, and then season with onion powder, garlic powder, cumin, chili powder, salt, and pepper to taste. if you eat cheese, you can mix some shredded cheese in while it’s still hot or sprinkle on top after serving
Made stir fry for dinner tonight. Turned out really well despite me misreading the recipe as saying one cup of water instead of one half. Then made some sweet carrots and rice to go with it. Might put less pepper in it next time though. I think I over did it a little this time. Spoiler: Picture
anyone know some things you can do with red bean paste? I got some to put on ice cream, which was delicious, but now I do have a whole can of the stuff to use up before it goes bad. I was thinking of trying to make dumplings or steamed buns or something but that might require more energy and kitchen space than I have.
i was going to suggest mochi, but if dumplings or steamed buns are out, so to is probably mochi ... yokan, maybe? in terms of steps, it's basically the same as making jello just with red bean paste
