Whatcha Cooking today?

[Danny]

About 3 ounces of salmon filet, butter poached with just salt and pepper, some king trumpet mushrooms also cooked in a bit of the left over butter from the salmon. The local store has started carrying some more varieties of mushrooms besides portabellas and buttons. Going to use some beech , trumpet, shiatakes and maistakes mushrooms in a tempura this week with some larger shrimp as well. Will add in some fresh broccoli, bell peppers both green and red, onion and carrots, all in a tempura batter too.

A lot of fried food, may split it up into two dinners and sticky rice, of course with a good greens salad.

[bower]

A simple stew with some cubed up pork I took out of the freezer. Seasoned with lots of coriander, garlic, cayenne, fresh ginger. Cut up vegs Romanescu zucchini, Red Shepherd peppers, Orange snack pepper, button mushrooms, garlic scapes (yeah still good in the fridge!) and Mokum baby carrots. Added honey, soy sauce, a dash of rice vinegar, lime juice, fresh cilantro. Served over basmati rice.

The baby carrots are the only thing I planted that wasn't ravaged by the Vole. So crisp and sweet.
The lime I bought specially for this dinner. $1.59 for ONE lime. Wow. It was worth it, but definitely a 'treat'.

[Sue_CT]

That is a CRAZY price for a lime even by Conneticut standards. Yikes. But it does add so much flavor! I hope you enjoy it, it sounds delicious!

[Uncle_Feist]

I had some dried Kwintus beans I picked and threshed last weekend.



I cooked em with plenty of jowl meat and a ham hock until they were nice and tender.

I also made a pone of gritter bread from some Tennessee Red Cob corn to go along with the beans.

Served with fried Kennebec taters and onions and pickled beets.

[worth1]

I had some squash that needed attention.
HEB brand chili powder.
Knorr tomato chicken bullion powder.
Dollop of salted butter.
Used the mandolin to slice.
Covered and in the oven at 215F.
I'll put my tri tip in after it's ready but won't heat it up.

IMG_20230928_165513576_HDR.jpg

IMG_20230928_170216174_HDR.jpg

[worth1]

Some of the tri tip.

IMG_20230928_171639271.jpg

[AKgardener]

Made Cuban sandwich last night .. let it cook over night but doing another sandwich tonight to eat up bread simple grilled cheese and soup then spaghetti then tuskin chicken oh my gosh it’s to die for haha

[worth1]

It's gone.

IMG_20230928_193608650_HDR.jpg

[worth1]

Sounds crazier than a walleyed bat but yesterdays squash extravaganza turned into tonights supper.
The bowl the squash was cooked in had chili powder and butter in it.
I put it in the refrigerator after everything was eaten.
I put the bowl in the oven to heat up and took the chili I made the other day into a pot of hot water.
Ounce the chili was hot in the zipper freezer bag I put it in the bowl with the hot butter that was left over.

[worth1]

The chili was a real hit.
But I'm moving on.
I bought a package of fresh cheese curds at the store.
I'm going to try my luck at the CurderBurger as was discussed in another thread.
Not for sure what cheese I'll add to it
Jack cheese seems to be a good choice.
Maybe swiss.
This is just for the fried cheese patty that goes on the burger.
However I do it I need to make the patty and then freeze it solid.

[worth1]

Might let the cheese warm up some and try again but here is the process I'm using for the fried cheese curd patty with panko bread crumbs.
The tortilla press using my meat patty conversion.
Now double duty as a makeshift cheese press.
The ingredients are.
Jack cheese.
Wisconsin white cheddar cheese curds.
Imported picorino romano cheese.
Probably a tasty disaster but we shall see.

IMG_20230930_132044951.jpg

IMG_20230930_132910422_HDR.jpg

IMG_20230930_132937024_HDR.jpg

IMG_20230930_132952572_HDR.jpg

Now it's in the garage with my vise pressing it even more with two backing plates.
This should do the trick.

IMG_20230930_134105756_HDR.jpg

[worth1]

That worked somewhat but I'm in a hurry.
I got it cold in the freezer.
As usual.
Flour.
Then egg wash.. panko bread crumbs.
Back in egg wash.
Then more panko bread crumbs.
Then off to the minus 4 below freezer to get frozen solid.

IMG_20230930_140052547.jpg

IMG_20230930_140442037_HDR.jpg

[worth1]

I've got some really thick meaty slices of bacon in the oven at 170 slowly cooking to help break down the collagen to make it tender.
Then after some time I'll increase the temperature to crispy it up.
But not the 400F temperature every one seems to go for.
Simple reason I don't want burned bacon or anything close to it.
Probably around 300F at most, time is on my side.

[worth1]

I turned the oven up to 250 for awhile then to 350 for a very few minutes then back down to 300 for a bit.
For the purpose of what I'm doing with it the bacon in my opinion only is cooked to perfection.
Not burned and almost all the fat is rendered out.
It's going on a hamburger and I want the bacon to snap off but be tender.
I don't want to drag the bacon out of the burger like a rubber band trying to eat it.
This bacon was the extremely cheap HEB brand dry cured bacon ends and pieces and was at least 1/4 if not 5/16 thick.
Odd sizes hence the reason why the bacon ends and pieces deal.
It was under 5 dollars for 24 ounces.
My baking sheets get the devil used out of them and they're ugly.

IMG_20230930_174633432_HDR.jpg

IMG_20230930_175119133_HDR.jpg

[PlainJane]

Sometimes I make jeweled rice but this time I decided to use gigande beans.
It’s a rif on this chicken marbella, an old recipe. This will keep us in dinners for most of the week.

https://www.themediterraneandish.com/chicken-marbella/

Roasting the marinated chicken with the apricots, prunes, shallots, olives etc.

IMG_3907.jpeg

The beans are precooked so they just need heating up. Fifteen minutes before done I added the beans to a baking dish and mixed in all the ingredients except the chicken, which goes on top for the final bake.

IMG_3909.jpeg

IMG_3910.jpeg

IMG_3913.jpeg

[karstopography]

Wedge salad here. Made the blue cheese dressing, the inclusion of buttermilk in the dressing definitely elevates the flavor.

[pepperhead212]

Tonight I made an Indian dish, a Maharastrian version (using the Malvani masala powder I made a new batch of recently), using a cut up eggplant, 4 long beans, and about 2 c of cut up okra, to use up some of the veggies I had in the fridge. I started out by first cooking some oat groats in the Instant Pot - while not traditional, those I use here in place of rice, for more nutrition, combined with the masoor dal. While that was cooking, I started the rest.

In a sauté pan, I started a large chopped onion in a few tb of coconut oil, adding about 1½ c of chopped up Numex chiles after about 5-6 minutes. After a few minutes I added about 1 tb each of minced garlic and ginger, plus 3 tb of the Malvani masala powder, cooking about a minute, then added about 2 cups of blended tomatoes, 10 curry leaves (more in the tarka), and scraped the pan, and rinsed the VM out with about a cup of water, and added to the pan. I let that simmer well, while I cut up the other veggies, and got those cooking in the IP (setting the oats aside), and after sautéeing the veggies, added about ¼ c dried, grated coconut in the last 2 minutes. Then I added the thickened tomato sauce, and 2½ c water, plus about 3/4 c masoor dal. I salted to taste, and set it to manual for 8 minutes, and let the pressure release in 15 minutes, and the dal was finished. Then I stirred in 3/4 tsp of garam masala, the pre-cooked oak groats, and set it to simmer briefly, while setting the tarka ready - mustard seed, cumin seed, 6 or 7 Thai peppers, asafoetida, and some curry leaves. I stirred that in, and about 1/4 c chopped cilantro.
Almost finished Malvani masala dal, with the tarka and cooked oat groats, ready to stir in. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Finished dal, topped with some cilantro. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

[worth1]

I had a half slice of oven baked bacon to test it
A cotto salami sandwich and later a few saltine crackers with peanut butter on them with a glass of Port in the middle of the night while watching murder on the orient express from 1974 I think the year was.
Great movie I never actually sat down to watch before.

[Uncle_Feist]

[worth1]

Getting everything ready to make the burger.
The frozen cheese curd patty is ready.
My preformed burger patty is warming a little but will be going in the 12 inch Lodge cast iron skillet still frozen a bit.
Bacon is ready.
The buns have been toasted with my homemade ghee spread on them.
Using butter makes the buns soggy because it's full of water.
So it's better than a butter burger, it's a ghee burger.
No lettuce or tomato will go on the burger.

IMG_20231001_122352246.jpg

IMG_20231001_122453825_HDR.jpg