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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!
Broccoli.
I mean, I’m always eating broccoli, but over the past month I finally tried baby broccoli (A.K.A. broccolini), which was super tasty when roasted. The ones I got were organic and were starting to bloom, but the little flowers tasted pretty good.
Earlier this week I went to a different store and they had a super great deal on organic broccoli and I picked it up. These had super long stalks, which are usually cut short on my regular stuff. I peeled the sticks and I swear they were like candy. So incredibly tender and sweet without cooking. They kind of reminded me of apple flesh, but without the characteristic notes of acid or honey.
I also picked up a cup of instant “vegan noodles” branded ramen and I’m actually a little upset because I’ve seen it around for a while and didn’t know how damn tasty it would be. The noodles are not fried and the oil is in a separate packet, so even though ramen is a cheat on my diet, it wasn’t that bad for me. It was shoyu flavored, which is one of my favorites. I should really try to make it myself one of these days. I’ve got some soba and I figure I will try to replicate the flavor.
that broccolini might be good in a simple soup. salt + water to around where it’ll barely cover — boil — broc in + salt on top — book until tender and put the broc in a blender and add a little of the stock to get your consistency.
i do this with normally broccoli all summer.
for your noodles, have you ever alkalized spaghetti? i think you do it with a teaspoon of baking soda per liter of water.
I have not, but I am not really a fan of Italian pasta in general. It’s just not quite to my tastes.
I've been trying to up my game with sauces. However, I'm still quite a long way from where I want to be. I've managed to get basic pan sauces nailed, but I struggle to take it much beyond that. I find that I lack the imagination to build an interesting sauce beyond a really good gravy.
If anyone has some good recommendations for resources that could help with imagination prompts I'd really appreciate some pointers.
When you say sauce, are you thinking along a similar line to a pan sauce, but more creative flavours?
When I'm trying to stumble across different dishes and flavours, I often explore Wikipedia. I realize it sounds trite, but with all the food lists, cuisine portals, and "similar" links, it's genuinely helped expose me to new foods (edit, I'm sure I've perusedthe list of sauces many times).
Another thing I often do for cooking is try imagining subbing out a component of the recipe, and then doing a web search to see if similar recipes exist. For a pan sauce, I might ask, what liquids could i use (eg, broths, fruit juices, alcohols, etc); what types of acids (citrus, wine, various vinegars, sour condiments); what herb/spice/flavour blends (sky's the limit, but I often draw cultural inspirations, like "what if pan sauce but chinese 5 spice"); what fats could I use (butter, cream, olive oil, flavoured oils like sesame); do I want to sweeten it (fruits, tomato, honey)?
While I dont cook a tonne of pan sauces specifically, here are a couple Ive enjoyed that go beyond basic gravy:
-Citrusy piccata sauce (buttery, lemony, capery) or orange sauce (classically with duck).
-whiskey sauce as in spanish solomillo al whisky, though I like to sub in brandy for an incredibly decadent sauce.
-Apples can make the basis for great sweet/savoury sauces, like miso apple sauce for pork, or apple/herb sauces, or spiced apple sauces.
Hope this helps giveyoh some ideas?
This is really helpful. Thank you so much.
I grew up hating cooked cereals, but I've lately loved having some frozen berries in raw rolled oats with some milk and a dash of sugar. It's a serving of fruits and decent carbs (I generally avoid carbs but eh), and I can throw it together with minimal effort after my crap drive home from work.
I was doing overnight oats with steel-cut (also would add the berries and sweetener), but ran out of the oats and the store didn't have them when I went back. So when I'm done with the rolled, I'll get the steel-cut again.