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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!
I grow basil every summer. It was so hot and rainy this summer that I have harvested more than ever. I've been eating pasta and panini for weeks and my freezer is full of pesto. I love basil (and basil pesto) but even I am hitting my limit.
Oh I feel you! My wife and I transplanted some indoor basil this spring, but ththen had a cold snap so we were afraid it died. My wife bought some more pk a whim and the old stuff bounced back. Now we have more than I know what to do with!
Do you grow tomatoes as well? My solution is to start eating Caprese salad in August and not stop until September.
Cooked some chicken biryani today in my slow cooker! Followed a recipe from my mom and used her garam masala in my recreation and it turned out amazing! I put a little too much cayenne pepper so it's spicy as heck but it still tastes amazing! Now I've got more than enough chicken biryani to last me the week.
Does your mum make her own garam masala? I'm always interested in learning about different blends (if that's something you'd be comfortable sharing).
Yeah she makes a variety of different spice blends for different Indian dishes! If I knew the recipe, I'd share it here haha
I’m traveling in Sulawesi (Indonesia) and I’ve been eating AMAZING food! Food stalls, all kinds of fruit I can’t get at home, and home cooked treats at the places where we’re staying. There’s a bunch of stuff I’m not trying, like bat/dog/cat/etc, but we did decide to leave the vegetarianism at home for this trip.
Here’s a selection of the fruit I’ve had in the past week, but I’m probably forgetting quite a few.
Fruit
Salak - hard describe the taste: dry taste, sweet, but makes your teeth feel like you just had a Coke. Crunchy like an apple. Really one of my favorites!
Jeruk Bali - the picture doesn’t do it justice. They are large, huge even. And the flesh is deep red. Eating them feels so healthy. And it’s a chores to peel them, so it keeps us busy.
Rambutan - like a lychee, although I like rambutan a bit more. Unfortunately not in season, so I only had a few and they weren’t that good.
Nangka - commonly known as Jackfruit. As a fruit, it is incredibly delicious. The texture looks a bit like a mango, but it is not as juicy. It tastes like a banana and a pineapple had a love baby.
Manggis - texture a bit like a lychee… but not at all really. Juicy, sweet and tangy. Fun to open. Unfortunately not in season, very not in season. The ones we had were a disappointment.
Pisang - where I live, we usually only get the large bananas. The bananas here are fresh, sweet and small. They are so nice. Peel ‘Em, Mash ‘Em, Stick ‘Em in a drink, on a pancake, in ice cream, whatever.
I experimented a little with guavas, and made this north Indian dish Amrood ki sabzi. The flavours had potential, but I absolutely flubbed the spice ratios with too much asafoetida; I also felt the fenugreek seeds in my panch phoran blend didn't go well to my taste.
In the end, I salvaged the food by blending it, straining out the whole seeds, sauteeing with tomato and a couple ground spices (cumin and coriander seed) to even out the flavour and make a whole new curry gravy, and then adding chopped potato to simmer. In the end, I had a pretty tasty, slightly fruity, aloo curry.
Mostly I used the guavas I bought in smoothies, which led to my discovering that my immersion blender handles ice cubes very well (adding one at a time). Now I'm on a big smoothie kick to beat the heatwave!
tonight I BBQ'd some chicken thighs on skewers (cut to 1" x 2", marinated, and then folded in half onto the skewer.) the rub was just smoked paprika, cumin, garlic, onion, chili, s&p, brown sugar -- then sumac before the grill (charcoal)
I also made a really nice slaw of brussels (halved, panfried, then chopped roughly), sliced red onion, etc with a dressing of lemon, honey, salt, and greek yogurt. last, I made a very simple raita with cilantro, cumin, etc.
so I grilled it all up and sliced the chicken off of the skewers like you would for shawarma, then popped that onto some nice soft taco shells. Nice quick dinner.
coffee-wise I am moving away from light roasts since i think they sometimes mess with my stomach. this roaster makes a blend that is, and I am not kidding, 10 single origin Arabica types or whatever... its so stupid. I saw it at the shop and thought, 'this is either going to be amazing or underwhelming' --- and it tastes like every other decent medium roast out there.
in theory I shouldn't have the same cup twice, at least... so maybe I'll end up chasing the dragon with this blend.
The quick dinner sounds great! Always nice to read about other people’s cooking, gives me some new things to try out.
What process do you use to make coffee?
Typically I just do an aeropress with the flow control cap --- 16g at 14 on the encore, 288g of 94 degree water, 30s with a swirl, top up with the remainder for the rest of the time. Pretty standard. I really like Hoffman's no-press french press method. On a race occasion I'll use a moka pot, but I don't love it as much as the other two.
Isn't the point of single-origin that it's, yaknow, single origin? Mixing seems like it would defeat the purpose :)
right! I was thinking about emailing them to ask about this because, as you said, it defeats the purpose. I don't think I'm used to medium roast, either, so that's also playing against it.
Love seeing the Inidan dishes on here. I recently made Matar Paneer, following a recipe from the cookbook Indian-ish. It turned out great! It was surprisingly easy to put together too. I think the total cook time was about an hour, but the prep work is pretty minimal and you have time to clean your kitchen or whatever while you're waiting. The base of the sauce is made from tomatoes, onions, and serranos with a heavy dose of coriander. The acidity of the tomatoes is balanced nicely when the paneer chunks and peas are added in during the final simmer. It all comes together at the end when you add the finishing spices of toasted cumin seeds, tumeric, and asafoetida. This dish was delicious and quite filling but doesn't feel heavy as there no meat grease involved. It's very adjustable too. If you want it to be healthier, add more peas and less paneer. If you want it to be spicier, add more serranos. I'll probably be putting this in my rotation of regular meals.
I've been changing my diet to 80% plant based due to health issues, and it's been so interesting experimenting with different protein options. I mostly consume my protein in the form of eggs, mushrooms, and tofu, but I am adding seafood back in now that I know my triggers. Mr. Tired is excited about the changes to our cooking and actually has gone with me to shop for all the plant-based ingredients. Over the weekend, I pre-cooked rice and beans, and yesterday we had rice and bean burritos. Tonight we're going out to dinner at our favorite local BBQ joint, where I literally can't eat anything, but I called ahead, and they're making a special dish for me tonight, which is exciting!
Tomorrow, I have a vision of making butter soy trumpet mushrooms over rice and stir-fried veggies. But that remains to be seen whether I have the energy to cook it.
We also tried the impossible spicy chicken patties this weekend as a fast food-style spicy chicken sandwich, and they were absolutely delicious. The texture isn't quite there like their regular chicken nuggets are, but the flavor is good enough to overcome it!
I find the thing I'm missing the most is cheese, which I can't eat due to lactose, even with taking a lactaid pill, I still feel very nauseous, so I try to avoid anything with lactose in it if I can, and was able to find lactose free Greek yogurt which tastes pretty good. I'm not a huge fan of plant based cheeses, I find they don't feel the same, and for me, texture is the most important with cheeses. I'm not really a big cheese person, and you won't catch me eating anything with mold, including brie, but I do like cheddar, havarti, and mozzarella especially.
This diet change has me experimenting with more varieties of beans, though! This week I tried Gigante Beans and omg they're so good and you can bake them into these nice crispy nuggets!