14
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!
Not really "cooking" per se, but I've discovered a way to use nearly-empty peanut butter jars: Overnight oats.
Once the peanut butter is nearly gone, such that it's not easy to scrape out for a sandwich, I add a bunch of oats (or lately muesli with pumpkin seeds and raisins), maybe add a touch of molasses or maple syrup, then top with almond milk (I'm largely non-dairy). Put the lid back on and refrigerate overnight. The peanut butter kind of mixes in (emulsifies, maybe?) with the oats and milk, making the jar super easy to clean and reuse/recycle once finished.
Made some bean soup yesterday. Easy home made soup my parents used to make.
Toss some ham cut into cube chunks (with bone if possible) into 6-8 cups of water. Add 3/4 tsp pepper, a bayleaf or two, half an onion chopped up as desired, and 3 or more toes of garlic (I like a lot of garlic so I usually add more). Bring to a boil and let it simmer for 2 and a half or more hours. Then add some veggies. I reccomend 2 or 3 big carrots sliced up, 2 or 3 celery stalks sliced up, and 3 peeled and cubed potatoes. Let it cook for another 30 minutes or so. Add 2 cans of brown beans (doesn't matter what kind; pork and beans, maple cured beans, beans in tomato sauce. Doesn't matter as long as they're brown beans) and cook for at least 5 more minutes. Serve and enjoy. Very tasty, but prepare for gas if you make it. It's also better the day after it been sitting in the fridge and you go to reheat it.
I've really nailed down a Shrimp and Grits recipe which is apologetically bad for you but absolutely a special-occasion worthy meal. It consistently blows people away.
What's the secret to shrimp and grits? Like, what makes it good? I've only had it once at some NOLA food market, and it was bland porridge.
Ok - so the secret is time. Yes, there are spices involved and you can't go wrong with a nice sharp cheddar to put it your grits but what really separates just-ok shrimp and grits from something spectacular is the sauce and what makes the sauce is the shrimp stock.
So, when I make mine, I start with 2 lbs of shrimp which I peel and devein. The shells go into a saucepan with some hot oil and I cook them until they're seared nice and hard -- pink with maybe a little touch of browning. Then I dump in 4 cups of water with a handful of black peppercorns and some bay leaves and let the whole thing boil down by half.
While that happens I crisp up about a half pound of bacon and reserve it. Sear the spice-coated shrimp in the bacon fat, and then cook down my onions and peppers and garlic in the same before incorporating the shrimp stock. That then reduces AGAIN by half, before the shrimp go back in for a few minutes to finish cooking them and bring everything up to temperature right before serving.
Shrimp are good. Bacon is good. Onions, peppers, garlic, and your standard combination of cajun spices are all good... but what makes it great is the boiling down and concentration of all those flavors in the shrimp stock.
I just recently tried the trending smores cookies baking recipe. It actually turned out really good, with a crunchy graham cookie bottom that supports the ooey gooey marshamallow on top. The cookie surrounding it turned out amazing, with it being slightly undercooked giving it a nice accented soft texture to the crunchy exterior.
To make:
Place down half a graham cracker (I used honey, but will try out cinnamon next time for fun)
On top, couple morsels of semi-sweet chocolate chips
On top of that, place a regular sized marshmallow (I want to try the jumbo sized for fun also)
Then gingerly cover the whole thing with cookie dough ( I tried to keep it thin)
Then baked at 350 degrees for 12-13 mins (resting for about 3 mins)
Enjoy!
I've really nailed down my tagliatelle alla Romana this week. I used to make a quick tomato sauce and leave the aubergine in chunks; now I let everything cook down for longer, until it's a smooth, creamy sauce that really clings to the pasta well.
Sourdough!
I bake bread for a living, but my workplace doesn't play around with recipes/shapes/scoring styles, leaving me no choice but to experiment at home. After a long time procrastinating, I am finally playing around with it again. I'm still getting used to the oven and temperature, and it's a bit difficult to trap steam as the best set-up I have found so far is an upside down dutch-oven over a pizza stone, which I spray water into before putting over the loaf (works 50% of the time).
I made three loaves,
Dough info for anyone who cares
Starter:
Experimenting with a spelt starter after using mostly rye for my starters and at work. I think it's much easier to work with that rye and produces a great tang.
Dough:
Home stand mixers (at least mine) suck at mixing bread dough. I always have to do it by hand in the end, I think I'll stop bothering trying to use the mixer.
Getting the steam right at home is always a pain.
I'm now using a pie-pan filled with about 5 pounds of steel slingshot ammo, pre-heated along with the pizza stone. Then I add water with a syringe which instantly evaporates (careful!). This allows for a pretty large amount of steam right away.
My partner had the idea to start making mocktails for us this summer. (I've never been an alcohol drinker.) It's been fun to both take recipes we find online and try our own experiments. Non-alcoholic tequila sunrise is probably our favorite right now, but we also like some of the different syrups we bought - particularly elderflower and prickly pear.
BBQ Shrimp packets. Pretty similar to something like this but this is very much a ‘what’s in the fridge’ recipe (well, obviously you need the shrimp). Really nice easy summer meal you can cook outside and also take in a lot of directions. I've done more cajun ones and more garlic/tomato/basil ones and they're all delicious. Cleanup is also pretty minimal, which is a bonus.
That picture just dug a hole in my stomach.
I'm gonna have to try this.
I was cooking shrimp and chicken pad thai.
I had to go to an asian market an hour away to get the ingredients, especially the tamarind paste, thai soy sauces, and pickled radish, but it was worth it. It's amazing.
Making it authentically (mostly, I skipped the garlic chives) is definitely worth it.
And then like an idiot I left the shallots in the plastic bag and it trapped the moisture and they somehow became covered in mold like 3 days after I bought them, which sucked.
After being vegetarian (with admittedly mostly high commitment) for the last two years, I made instant pot chicken and rice yesterday trying to diversify my diet now that I live alone. It was pretty good, although the rice I have on hand is very starchy even after rinsing, and I could have probably added more salt. With anything I hope to learn more and try again.