5
votes
What have you been eating, drinking, and cooking?
What food and drinks have you been enjoying (or not enjoying) recently? Have you cooked or created anything interesting? Tell us about it!
What food and drinks have you been enjoying (or not enjoying) recently? Have you cooked or created anything interesting? Tell us about it!
I use the term "barbecue" in the Canadian sense, not a southern US sense.
Opened up the barbecue after a winter of mostly not barbecuing. Hamburgers on the weekend - some beef, some impossible burgers, all delicious - and chicken with barbecue sauce last night. I made the basic but tasty sauce - ketchup, maple syrup, onion powder, olive oil, some herbs and spices, soya sauce, salt. I cut the chicken breasts into three pieces then dredged the pieces in flour and dipped them in the sauce. Grilled them for a few minutes a side. I also had some huge russet potatoes that I made homemade potato wedges with, and a caesar salad on the side, and we ate it on our back deck - the first outdoor meal of the year, since it was 18° C yesterday.
How'd you make your potato wedges? Anything special?
I had some huge (and I do not use that term lightly - about 25cm end to end and over 10cm thick) russet potatoes, so I cut them into wedge shapes, soaked them in water for a bit, seasoned them with olive oil, and baked them 425F for about 40 minutes. I tossed them about every 10 minutes or so, just to make sure no sides got particularly overcooked.
Sometimes I do a par-boil and then dredge step, but these potatoes have been exceptionally good and haven't really needed anything other than oil, salt, and heat, and they have been perfectly fluffy inside.
An unholy amount of peanut butter banana sandwiches and salads.
I am finding cooking to be really hard to do lately. Between getting everything together and having the time to actually put it into an eatable form, it just seems like it takes too much time. Even making the dressing for the salads feels like it's painful to do because it's annoying to clean the blender. I think overall I'm just really tired of doing dishes.
On the other hand, I decided this week to make my own oatmilk from scratch. It's insane how easy it is. Put oats and water in blender, turn on blender, pour into nutmilk bag, strain and drink.
A short while back I made okonomiyaki from a mix that I had. I need to figure out how to make it myself from scratch, because I still have half a cabbage that I don't know what to do with. Mostly I am unsure of how I am going to make the sauce; maybe I can just blend some dates and cooked onions with soy sauce?
Weird question, do you cook the oats first? I've eaten undercooked steal cut oats and it had me on the toilet for a few hours.
Nope. From what I have read attempting to cook or soak them would give the final product a slimy texture.
ooh, good to know! I think I'll try it this weekend.
Do be warned that it will end up a little different from the stuff you buy in stores. Those usually have extra oils and additives that affect the texture or add sweetness, and they are a bit more finely filtered than most nut milk bags can get. It also won’t last as long since there are no preservatives.
If you want it to have the creaminess that extra fat provides, then add some raw cashews or other fatty nuts/seeds. It makes it really good for coffee drinks.
A little late to the party but I got a wood pellet smoker /grill recently and put it to good use this weekend. Smoked a spatchcock chicken the first night, which turned out amazing — probably the best chicken I’ve ever cooked myself. Did smoked turkey burgers on the second night which were pretty good but not a huge step up from regular turkey burgers. Night 3 I did the classic ‘321’ ribs that were recommended to me and they were really good but I’m ready to try my own variation next time — namely smoking them for a bit less time and having them in foil with the apple juice for longer.
All in all I was really impressed by the grill and I’m looking forward to trying more things with it. Tonight I’m smoking some tofu for my attempt at Asian BBQ fusion.