Also, long cook time is a big factor. I had always shied away from such things and cooked things from websites with search filters like 'cooking time thirty minutes or less' and never had any real success. Now I'm making awesome things with basically nothing in half the man-hours.
That is such a key discovery. There's a huge difference between cooking time and cooking difficulty. This is why slow cookers are such a brilliant invention.
Not only do you get a flavorful, tender end-product, but there's so little pressure on the advanced work that you can relax and really learn your way around kitchen basics like knife skills, eyeballing measurements, etc.
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I am pleased to announce that it was YOUR recipe for long-cook bolognese HERE that started me on this train of thought. It is surprisingly non-intensive to do the preliminary work on this when you wake up at two in the afternoon and eat by dinnertime.
Well I'll be damned. That is too cool for school. I feel like Ghandi or some shit.
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I made bubble and squeak last night for the first time. Since I only had red cabbage and purple potatoes, it came out an amuzingly jazzy color. It was damn delicious, I tell you whut.
hey. HEY!
Post enough info so that I can cook this.
Yessir! It was like this, sir. I peeled and chopped some potatoes, boiled them, drained them. If I had had left over roasted, baked or mashed potatoes, I would have used them.
Then I cored and chopped up half a cabbage. In a big skillet (10"), I heated up a knob of butter on med-high heat until the bubbling subsided, then I tossed the cabbage, some salt and some pepper into the pan. I stirred it every once in a while for 5 minutes until it was softer but not soft.
(I like cabbage crunchy and fresh-tasting, but you could also use leftover boiled cabbage and just sautee it less.)
Then I added the cooked potatoes on top of the cabbage and just mushed them up, squishing them into the cabbage until there were no large chunks.
I sort of pushed everything down so it was like one huge purple patty, and let it cook for 10 minutes without moving it at all until the bottom was browned, and that's all she wrote. You just serve it in chunks.
You could use all kinds of veggies, I imagine. Brussel sprouts, carrots, turnips, bok choy, cauliflower, they'd all work.
Bingo. It fills you up like nobody's business, too. Them poor Brits sure knew how to make do. On a related note, I understand UK sales of offal are way up in response to the fiscal crisis.
It sounds similar to the okonomiyaki thing I recommended to you once, using potatoes instead of egg and flour (did you ever make that?). I imagine that you could put all sorts of whatever your favourite thing is in this bubble and squeak deal as well.
I did make it! I shredded some zucchini and threw them in with the eggs and flour. It ended up being the cakey version just because of the pan size. It was truly delicious. I called it a reverse frittata because there is so much more veggie content than there are eggs.
Potatoes are great too as a replacement for tunips if you are like me and you think its stupid that they always come with huge bundles of leaves. Who uses turnip leaves? Get out.
I marinated some sliced boneless skinless chicken breasts in lemon juice*, soy sauce, garlic powder, and a teaspoon of oyster sauce for about an hour.
Throw it into a wok, throw in some rice, fry it all down. Toss in a couple scrambled eggs and continue cooking. Throw in a tin of La Choy Asian Vegetables.
Tonight it was nostalgia.
Red sauce over spaghetti.
I learned this from one of my uncles, one of the many communists I grew up with, and the best cook.
Brown ground meat with garlic, onions, thyme, rosemary, and oregano in olive oil.
Debate whether or not using Yiddish instead of Sephardic Hebrew would have made the Zionists less militant.
Add 1 can tomato paste, one large can of fire roasted ground tomatoes, a stalk of chopped celery and one little zucchini. Add red wine.
Talk about perceptions of race with the black panther (nice kid) you invited over.
Simmer add some more red wine.
Gossip about who was a mole in the Socialist Worker's Party.
Did you add some more wine? Better add some more.
Cook one pound spaghetti, drain, dress with olive oil.
Talk about Nuclear Free Leschi.
Pour sauce over noodles, grate cheese over the mess.
Serve with bread and boiled broccoli.
Serves about 8 hungry communists and their fellow travelers.
My aunt and uncle died about 15 years ago. They were black listed and always willing to take someone in. All the kids in the neighborhood were watched by my aunt Gretchen at some point.
New Mexico Chile Glazed Chicken and hominy polenta, with coleslaw. New recipe, but all the separate parts taste good so far.
I want to know how this was. It sounds delicious
It was pretty good. I think the chile glaze was a little sweet, but that could be tweaked to taste. (I would probably add one hot pepper to the glaze next time, too.) Sweet glazes on chicken aren't my favorites, but it was a good meal. Hominy polenta was delish with a great corn taste and a nice texture. Probably an alternative to Spanish rice for Mexican food nights at our house. Here's the link to the recipe. Despite having three parts to the recipe, it was actually pretty simple to make, although it took me longer than 30 minutes because I used bone-in chicken breasts. I made my own coleslaw with a little bit of red wine vinegar and sugar and spices.
I just got some tilapia, but the babies don't like fish, so Sluggo and I will have that with brussels sprouts or whatever, and Maturin and the Little Muffin can eat leftovers. We have chicken bowl-rito stuff from yesterday, and vegetable barley soup from the day before.
I had trouble getting to my food tonight but I managed to scrape together enough to make a dinner of spring rolls and plum sauce for appetizer and pork chops and stir fried vegetables on rice for dinner.
I am having problems with gumbo. The first time I got it in my head to make it I just pulled a recipe down off the net and did it, and it was fucking delicious. But every time since then I've tried to make it again it's been bad. All bland, missing something really important but I can't figure what.
I'll post my recipe later but is there anyone out there who knows what should go into a goddamn gumbo?
According to Cook's Illustrated (and they're always right), the key to tasty gumbo is a dark brown roux which you add to room temperature fish stock. If the stock is not room temp, the roux will separate.
As far as ingredients are concerned, the key spices are thyme, cayenne and bay leaves. The key meat product is a smoked sausage like the Cajun classic andouille sausage.