Ooh, interesting. Is the glass lid mandatory? I have an enamel pan with a nice heavy tight lid that’s the right size for something like this…
Last night I made the first butternut squash soup of the season.
Started off with bacon, tossed a frozen pound (forgot to take it out of the freezer before work, oops) in the big soup pot and cooked it up. Took out the cooked bacon and drained it on paper towels, and poured out about 1/2 the grease into the grease jar for future use.
Sauteed a chopped onion and a half in the grease till nice. Added chopped celery, maybe 4-5 stalks worth, and 2 chopped carrots. Cooked and moved it around for a while, then added half a bottle of beer - Berkshire Brewing Co. Shabadoo Black and Tan. Kept it simmering and stirring til it reduced down to a thick deliciousness.
Added a chopped butternut squash, two nice tart apples (peeled, cored and chopped) and a knob of miso paste, plus black pepper, red pepper flakes, some nutmeg and a bay leaf. Cooked and stirred for like another ten min.
Poured in a big can of chicken stock, covered and cooked for like half an hour til the squash was nice and soft.
Tried to make garlic bread but burned it
Whizzed the chunks in the blender (no immersion blender sadly), then stuck it in bowls topped with chopped up bacon.
Man oh man it was good. Maybe my judgement was clouded by the fact that it was 8pm and I was starving by the time we ate, but still. I was a little nervous using so many different intense flavors (bacon, beer, miso, red pepper) but the mild sweetness of the squash melded it all very nicely, as did the blending which I don’t always bother to do. It was good again tonight as leftovers along with some pierogies from the freezer.
For lunch today: Roasted eggplant salad with garden peppers, chickpeas, and couscous over tossed baby arugula.
For lunch tomorrow: Stir-fried quinoa, butternut squash, and pepitas with roasted tomatoes. Maybe I’ll throw in some corn and black beans and make it a stew.
dopers are the smartest people i’ve exchanged with. the glass lid does away with peeking (one of my compulsions.) also, it will tell you if your heat is too high and the gravy is evaporating too fast. at the end of 1 1/2 hours, you should have a rich gravy and chicken quarters so tender you can eat them with your spoon.
That makes sense. Now I’m thinking I could try to use my pyrex tea kettle so I can see it all happening. Probably would have to use thighs rather than quarters to fit in the small space…
Tried a chicken recipe out of the fix it and forget it cookbook. Roasting chicken, paprika, cumin, pepper, onions, garlic powder, red peppers and other things I’m sure I’m forgetting right now. If anyone wants I can find it again later.
So yummy! The chicken was so tender and the gravy had just a bit of bite but so flavorful. Mom even agreed it was good, though the next time we make it will involve less cumin and pepper because she hates spicy stuff.
I’m cooking kohlrabi for the first time. Found a recipe that looked good which basically looks like parmesan-covered kohlrabi fries.
Making a white-cheddar-and-leek macaroni & cheese that someone posted to the SDMB a week or so ago.
I also think I want to try to make risotto. We’ll see.
I hate cooking meat so unless I am tempted to buy a pork loin (which I LOVE cooking) I might just buy frozen chicken strips. Woohoo…
I just bought myself knives for the first time and they are proudly on display on my new knife strip, but I haven’t use them yet. I can’t wait to chop chop chop!
Tonight I’m searing some pepper-encrusted ahi tuna slightly on all sides, then slicing it and serving it with Japanese rice and a romaine salad with Korean dressing. The dressing is a simple mix of canola oil, sesame oil, soy sauce and red chili flakes.
Bring everything. Like a potato masher, a hand mixer, your knives (or buy two of these OXO Pro Mini Santokus and mail them to their house) and two cutting boards.
And make them buy a roasting pan, wooden spoon and whisk (don’t ask how I know).
Yeah, I’m bringing my potato ricer and gravy separator, along with some fresh herbs. I’ve cooked at their house before, so I know they have some serviceable knives and cutting surfaces. I already mentioned the roasting pan to her. A whisk may be a good idea, though.
On the present cooking scene, I just made the most awsomest sausage gravy in the history of the world. and some pretty decent biscuits to go with.
May I suggest again bookmarking foodgawker.com … I love not having to go through hundreds of blogs for food ideas, people post them on FG for me to peruse any time I am looking for something new, or am sitting out in the ice belt mining and trying to stay awake
Tonight is going to be cottage pie topped with cheddar/sourcream mashed potatoes leftover from last night =)
the search function sort of sucks, but it is great to just flip through the pages to see what other people are doing. I have noticed that it goes through fads, where you will all of a sudden see that there are 5 or more blogs suddenly doing their versions of some dish - it is because some person is running a contest for the best version of something like boeuf bourguinon [about 2 years ago with Julie and Julia all of a sudden there were like 20 different boeuf bourguinon blog entries.]
i have to admit, there are blog entries to specialty shops for stuff like the Japanese tea ceremony sweets that just compel me to want to go there and spend money on cute little food …makes me very thankful I live in the ass end of Connecticut and have no access to them!
Thanks to aruvqan meatless Monday is going to be sweet potato casserole and mushroom Wellington.
Here’s hoping I have better luck with the puff pastry than I usually do. You know what? Now that I think of it, I’m not going to use puff pastry. I’m going to use Goya’s empanada shells instead.
I have never tried the empanada shells, I have seen someone successfully fake puff pastry by buttering and folding and rolling out pie crust a couple extra times.
We are having homemade chicken unpot pie - you take bread dough, grab enough and work it into a cover for a oven safe bowl so that when you flip it over and sort of unmold it, it turns into a bread bowl for the chicken pot pie filling. Dang it. I am on a different computer and can’t find it quickly, I did want to link to it. But it is simple enough, really. You just want the cover to basically come almost all the way down to a baking sheet under the little pot pies so that when you flip and unmold them there is enough room in the bread bowl for all the filling.
mrAru has a request to try and come up with a corned beef and cabbage pot pie next time we make it and have the leftovers to play with. I am thinking of sneaking in an egg to coddle inside as a surprise =)
Hit a street fair last night, and for five bucks walked away with a big bag full of fresh red bell peppers, basil, ginger, grilling onions and avocado.
The avocado was SO good last night that, not only did it NOT start turning brown, even after having been out in the air for an hour, but even my picky hispanic husband opted to put it straight onto the tacos rather than mix it with salsa as is the norm.
And just now I tossed chopped red pepper, fresh basil, ginger, sauteed scallions and shrimp with pepper flakes, a little soy sauce and some sugar <to make up for the coconut milk I thought I had in the cupboard> into a pan, simmered it all up, and am eating it over noodles.
I am one happy camper, despite the lack of coconut milk. <3
I have a crazy large bag of frozen corn, so I’ve been pondering corn chowder for a bit and today is the day! I mentioned it to Sweetie and he asked when I was coming over to feed him! Plus if I was making cheese biscuits and bringing homemade salsa to put in the chowder too…
So I guess I have date for Amazing Race tonight (thank goodness for time shift!) with supper. Lol
Just to be different, I’m now toasting the walnuts that’ll go on top of the yams (no sweet potatoes at my store) with a boatload of cinnamon and a dash of cayenne. Plus some maple syrup.
The casserole is pretty sweet so I’m making a savory butternut and Italian pepper side dish to go with the Wellington.
BTW, does anyone know an easy way to peel and seed butternut squash?
I had the opposite problem. The kitchen I ended up in was super swanky. And with good reason. No one bothered to tell me that I was going to be going to be cooking for Martha Stewart’s (former) executive chef :smack:
He sent me a thank you note a few days later saying it was the best Indian food he had ever had
