What's Cooking

[GoingMyWay]

I've liked Jamie Oliver since I first saw his show, the Naked Chef.  He's got a new vegetarian cooking show we saw recently.

We made homemade fried chicken and dirty rice last weekend.  I used Charlie Andrew's recipe:

To my surprise, the fried chicken was nicely seasoned, though the onion powder was a little too overwhelming (that's all I could really smell when the chicken was frying).  I don't think we'll be making the dirty rice again.  It was a lot of work and the rice came out under cooked.  It did look very similar to Popeye's cajun rice.

[attachimg=1]

[attachimg=2]

[attachimg=3]

[attachimg=4]

[attachimg=5]

The leftover fried chicken reheated nicely in the air fryer.  The inside wasn't fully warm, but the skin was crispy.

[attachimg=6]

[attachimg=7]

[attachimg=8]

 

[GoingMyWay]

We made "Hawaiian" ham steak like my grandparents used to make for an easy weeknight meal.  I think they usually used Mash ham steaks and would also sprinkle brown sugar on my section to make it sweeter.  The Wegman's ham steak wasn't that salty.

I also tried oven roasting yukon gold potatoes - 425F convection oven, but they didn't turn out nearly as nice as [member=6237]deepcreek[/member].  I think part of the issue might have been I peeled the potatoes (I hate potato skins - even the "thin" skinned potatoes) and then soaked them in water.  I did dry the potatoes before cutting up, but maybe they were still kind of on the wet side.  We saute our green beans with a little salt, pepper, pepper flakes, and chicken or mushroom powder.  These green beans were exceptionally "stringy."

[attachimg=1]

[attachimg=2]

[attachimg=3]

[attachimg=4]

[attachimg=5]

[attachimg=6]

 

[notenoughcash]

sum nice looking grub on here!

we need a mouth watering emoji.....  (SITE DEVELOPERS PLEASE!!!!)

 

[semenza]

I frequently pan fry ham steaks. I like butter for the frying in this case due to the flavor it adds. Do one side , flip spread brown sugar and mustard on the top side. It melts together and gets some of the butter mixed in from the surface of the ham.

Quick, easy, and really good. 

Seth

 

[GoingMyWay]

Ham steaks are really good.  They're very easy and quick to prepare and relatively inexpensive.  We should have them more often, but I tend to forget about them.  I just remembered that my grandmother made a ham steak baked in a little bit of milk (she only had skim milk).  The version with pineapple is far superior.

I'm not sure if anyone else has ever tried these grapes, but the Moon Drops are really good and such a unique shape.  The Gum Drop grapes are also good, just like the Cotton Candy grapes that I tried last year.

[attachimg=1]

[attachimg=2]

[attachimg=3]

We tried the Stonewall Kitchens Blueberry Pancakes.  They were pretty good and I don't even like blueberries.

[attachimg=4]

I tried making the dry rub wings again in the air fryer.  This time I used much less of the rub and they turned out better.

[attachimg=5]

I also made some cauliflower in the air fryer.  The first time I mixed the garlic, hot smoked Spanish paprika, and salt into the oil and tossed with the cauliflower.  Most of the seasonings were stuck to the bowl and only globs made it onto the cauliflower.

[attachimg=6]

[attachimg=7]

[attachimg=8]

The second time I just mixed the oil and garlic and then sprinkled the salt and paprika over top for better coverage.  I actually think I like the globs of seasoning better!

[attachimg=9]

[attachimg=10]

[attachimg=11]

 

[GoingMyWay]

Made cottage pie over the weekend.

[attachimg=1]

[attachimg=2]

[attachimg=3]

[attachimg=4]

[attachimg=5]

[attachimg=6]

[attachimg=7]

[attachimg=8]

[attachimg=9]

 

[hdv]

Today I made some seabuckthorn-squash jam (I hope I chose the correct name here. Not sure about the difference between squash and pumpkin, nor if it is marmalade or jam. Where I am from marmalade is a very particular type of jam. Ah, well. I think you'll understand what I meant.)

You'll need equal amounts or seabuckthorn, squash, and sugar. I used 500 gr of each. And one and a half oranges.

• Clean the seabuckthorn
• Cut the skin of the squash and remove the seeds with a spoon
• Scrub the peel of the oranges to remove any wax or chemicals
• Use a zester to scrape only the coloured part of the peel (you don't want to use the white part, as it is very bitter)
• Squeeze the juice from the oranges
• Bring the seabuckthorn berries to a boil
• Let them simmer until they start to break
• Use a food mill to get rid of the seeds and most of the skin (you really don't want to keep the seeds, you can't compare them to bramble seeds)
• Put what is left of the seabuckthorn in a pan (don't forget to use a wooden spoon to get what's sticking to the underside of the food mill, it would be a shame to waste it)
• Add the squash
• Let simmer until the squash breaks down (I use an immersion blender to speed up the process in order to preserve as much of the taste as possible)
• Add the sugar, zest, and orange juice
• Heat until the jam has reached a core temperature of 80°C
• Put the jam in sterilised jars and put them away upside-down
• After about half an hour you can turn the jars again
• If you took care to work as clean as possible, the jam will easily keep 2 years when stored in a cool, dry, and dark place

Enjoy!

 

[GoingMyWay]

Interesting.  I've never heard of sea buckthorn before.  I wonder if it's available in the US.

Last night I tried making Pomodori al Riso (Rice Stuffed Tomatoes).  It seemed relatively simple and has a nice presentation.  I soaked the arborio rice for 45 minutes in the tomato juice and then cooked the stuffed tomatoes for 1 1/2 hours, but unfortunately the rice still wasn't fully cooked.  I'm think I should have soaked the rice for much longer than 45 minutes.

[attachimg=1]

[attachimg=2]

[attachimg=3]

[attachimg=4]

[attachimg=5]

[attachimg=6]

[attachimg=7]

[attachimg=8]

[attachimg=9]

[attachimg=10]

 

[semenza]

[member=66216]GoingMyWay[/member] BTW, I see that you have a Wegmans near you.

Seth

 

[hdv]

We do have those brushes around here (mostly along the coast line), but almost no one is using them. In Scandinavia (there they call it havtorn), the Baltic States and Russia it is quite popular. There you can even buy them freshly frozen in most supermarkets. Picking the berries in the wild is a bugger though. Those thorns are really nasty and there are way too many of them. I read that they created a cultivar of the species without thorns, just to make commercial viable harvesting possible.

 

[GoingMyWay]

[member=66216]GoingMyWay[/member] BTW, I see that you have a Wegmans near you.

Seth

Yup we have a very large Wegmans close by.  I don't normally shop there, but I have gone 2 times recently and really enjoyed it!

 

[Cheese]

This is a yearly ritual for us, purchasing a couple of bushels of fresh ripe, red, orange Roma tomatoes to eventually turn into a sauce of our choosing.
Roma tomatoes are better than your typical eating tomatoes for this chore because there is more "meat" and less juice. Less juice means there is less "burner time" trying to reduce the water content. 

It's all pretty simple, cut the tomatoes into small enough pieces & then crush the tomatoes using a Kitchenaid, which eliminates the skins and seeds, and then reduce the water content by bringing the crushed tomatoes to a low/slow boil for several hours. Then can appropriately and they will last for 2-3 years in the cellar. Nummy...

In the past I've added spices, onions, garlic, green peppers, Italian peppers, parsley, basil...you name it to the batch but found out that sometimes these additions only contributed to spoiling the product prematurely. I've now settled on using just straight crushed tomatoes and leave the additions for later when I'm actually cooking the sauce. That's a much better approach.

So in the simplest form here goes.  [smile]

Cut tomatoes in the upper tray, tomato juice & pulp draining into the stainless pan on the LH side and the "pooped out tomato skins & seeds" on the RH side.

[attachimg=1]

Here's another view.

[attachimg=2]

[attachimg=3]

[attachimg=4]

[attachimg=5]

[attachimg=6]

And here are the results...3 pans full of tomato pressings and placed on the stove to reduce on low at 6:39.

[attachimg=7]

And 4 hours later, only 2 pans of tomato pressings to can.

[attachimg=8]

 

[GoingMyWay]

Last week we made Thomas Keller's Roast Chicken.  It was pretty simple, but the bottom of the chicken sitting on the potatoes prevented the underside of the chicken from cooking all the way through so it required a slightly longer cooking time so that the bottom of the chicken was fully cooked.

[attachimg=1]

[attachimg=2]

[attachimg=3]

[attachimg=4]

I recently bought the Weber griddle insert and this smash burger kit.  Smashed burgers get a great crust.  The last couple kinda burnt because the charcoal got too hot and I waited too long to flip.  Next time I might put the griddle on the butane stove for better heat control.

[attachimg=5]

[attachimg=6]

[attachimg=7]

[attachimg=8]

[attachimg=9]

[attachimg=10]

[attachimg=11]

[attachimg=12]

[attachimg=13]

[attachimg=14]

Yesterday we made Chef John's Lomo Saltado.  It had a good taste.  We increased the amount of soy sauce to make more sauce.

[attachimg=15]

 

[GoingMyWay]

Last night I made a quick pasta dish inspired by my dad.  He wasn't much a cook at all, but I had recently remembered that he used to add sherry cooking wine to alfredo sauce to eat with rotini and braciole.  I used 5 tbsp of dry sherry (not the cooking wine that's loaded with salt like he used to use) and 1 jar of alfredo sauce for a 1lb box of rotini pasta and 2 sauteed chicken breasts.  We could have used another jar of sauce, but I really enjoyed the flavor.  It brought back some fond memories.

[attachimg=1]

[attachimg=2]

[attachimg=3]

 

[mkasdin]

Hi!

Those of you who follow me on Instagram might have seen a couple of these, big time foodie here. I think we're cooking as much as we're going out for dinner/lunch - I don't always take pictures ...

Here's some stuff I've cooked/baked - please enjoy.

So this is - by far - our favorite starter for menus. It's quite simple as it's just tiger prawns with a cream sauce (shallots) made in the same pan the tiger prawns were roasted/seared in and a piece of puff pastry. Sometimes we add some mushrooms to the sauce.

Another quick & easy favorite dish is pasta with salmon. Sometimes it is not quick - when we make our own pasta - but the salmon and sauce are easily and quickly made.

We love oysters.

Kind regards,
Oliver

What hours is your restaurant open. Do I need to make a reservation? During Covid lock down it’s been frozen Trader Joe’s entrees. Nothing like what you’ve been eating

 

[GoingMyWay]

I made a chicken and wild rice casserole over the weekend. 

[attachimg=1]

[attachimg=2]

[attachimg=3]

[attachimg=4]

[attachimg=5]

[attachimg=6]

[attachimg=7]

My wife made a small pot rice noodle soup with homemade rice noodles.

[attachimg=8]

[attachimg=9]

[attachimg=10]

 

[GoingMyWay]

For Taco Tuesday, we made tongue tacos.  I brined the tongue for 24 hours and then cooked it sous vide for 24 hours at 165F.  This is definitely the longest I've ever cooked anything sous vide.  I was afraid that the tongue might be salty after brining for 24 hours, but actually came out under seasoned. 

[attachimg=1]

[attachimg=2]

[attachimg=3]

[attachimg=4]

[attachimg=5]

[attachimg=6]

[attachimg=7]

[attachimg=8]

[attachimg=9]

[attachimg=10]

[attachimg=11]

[attachimg=12]

 

[mkasdin]

I had a few left-over ears of corn so I made this salad to go alongside some sautéed scallops. I eliminated the bacon so as not to tamp down the flavor of the scallops.
https://www.today.com/recipes/avocado-corn-bacon-salad-lime-vinaigrette-recipe-t111620

This is a great corn salad recipe. I've paired it with chicken and have also used it with flanksteak. I'll usually double the vinaigrette so I can also drizzle it over the protein that I use.  [smile] 

Sometimes I've also thrown in some black beans and then seasoned the meat with some cumin to give it a Southwestern twist. It all works.

If you don't like cilantro you could substitute parsley, basil, spinach or arugula.

The scallops take on a brown cast because of the browned butter I used to sauté them.

[attachimg=1]

your fancy dishes 🍽 look delish!

 

[GoingMyWay]

Recently made Chef John's Baked Ziti.  It was good, but I think I might like America's Test Kitchen's Skillet Baked Ziti a little more (mostly because it's faster and easier).  Chef John's version is definitely better if you're feeding a crowd!

[attachimg=1]

[attachimg=2]

[attachimg=3]

[attachimg=4]

[attachimg=5]

[attachimg=6]

[attachimg=7]

[attachimg=8]

 

[GoingMyWay]

I had been interested in a product called the Wok Mon several years ago, but I think there were delivery issues and it might have been out of stock at the time.  I recently remembered the product, looked it up online, and saw that it was in stock so I ordered.  We've had a wok since 2016, but it never really performed all that well on a traditional gas burner stove.  I had also looked into getting an outdoor wok burner, but that never came to fruition.  The Wok Mon is kind of expensive considering it's just a ring of thin metal that concentrates the heat. 

The Wok Mon definitely improves the indoor wok cooking experience by funneling the flame to the center of the wok versus the perimeter (it obviously can't increase the burner's BTUs).

[attachimg=1]

[attachimg=2]

We used the Wok Mon to make some sweet and sour fried fish and some bok choy with king oyster mushrooms.

[attachimg=3]

[attachimg=4]

[attachimg=5]

[attachimg=6]

[attachimg=7]

[attachimg=8]

[attachimg=9]

[attachimg=10]

[attachimg=11]