8
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 don't know how interesting it is, but I made roasted root veg as a side for dinner last night. Cubed up some carrots, potatoes, turnips, onion and red bell pepper, then tossed them with a fair bit of oil and some kosher salt, cracked black pepper, dried thyme and rosemary. Baked at 350°F for about an hour stirring regularly, then bumped it up to 425°F for another 30 or so to finish browning.
The turnips ended up feeling a little less cooked than everything else (turnips are far denser than potatoes), so I think when I make this again I'll parboil them for maybe 10 mins before tossing them together with everything else. I did something similar with parsnips a couple months back, but I didn't like the flavor as well. The turnips kept a bit more unique flavor through the cooking process, IMO.
I only mention it because it seems like people are forgetting about all the different tubers there are in the world. Potatoes are possibly my favorite vegetable, but there are a lot of other good ones with subtle flavors and slightly varied textures that are worth trying out.
I love roasted veg in fall/winter! My go-tos tend to be carrot, squash, sweet potato, potato. Sometimes beets, parsnip, or celeriac if I have them.
A couple twists I enjoy:
I'm a little leery of blending starchy vegetables, particularly potato. The texture always seems to come out gluey to my reckoning.
When I make potato leek soup I usually mash the taters a little to get it thickening. It doesn't turn out as smooth, but it also doesn't come out reminiscent of wallpaper paste.
I'm more or less with you on that. I dont hate blended potatoes in the right context, but even for mashed potatoes, I prefer roughly smashing them and leaving pieces.
After years of instant ramen packs, I finaly worked up the courage to try making "fresh" ramen. I went fairly simple: a mixed chicken/beef stock base, white soybean paste, chili paste, aromatics , etc over noodles from my grocery international section. Pan fried some chicken thighs, deboned and sliced on top
It was quite good! If I had skipped/pre-prepped the protein, it would have been very simple and I could easily see myself trying this again in various permutations. The chili paste adds a nice full kick without being hot for heat sake. It was definitely a step above the instant stuff, even my favorites like shin black. I'm obviously not a connoisseur it I was impressed with how easy and delicious it was
This isn't recent, but some time ago I noticed that my local shop is selling frozen whole squids! I remember eating some superb squid in Portugal, so I had to get one.
I boiled it for a while, applied some spices (thanks, AI) and threw it on my charcoal grill for a few minutes and it came out pretty good.
Not very cheap, not easy or fast to prepare, but tastes great.