BS: Recipes - what are we eating?

Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 01 Jun 20 - 04:26 PM

My eyesight's great, but I only found out after a 60-mile round trip to Barnard Castle.

Radishes are everything I don't want to put in my mouth. And when I grew them years ago, every bloody one had cabbage root fly in it.

Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating?
From: Raggytash
Date: 01 Jun 20 - 04:53 PM

Livestock!?!?

I live in a duplex apartment, the only livestock is a visiting cat :-)

Any more ideas ……………??

Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating?
From: Jos
Date: 01 Jun 20 - 05:19 PM

I heard or read somewhere that if you let the radishes go to seed you can add the seeds to curries. I haven't tried it though.

Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating?
From: Charmion
Date: 01 Jun 20 - 08:22 PM

Eat the shoots before they achieve radish-ness!

Sorry, bit late with that ...

Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 01 Jun 20 - 08:50 PM

New glasses. Can I blame them?

I haven't cut myself (yet?) but I have cut into a fingernail or two. I am suggestible, though, so I think tonight's dinner will involve no knives, just in case!

Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 01 Jun 20 - 10:59 PM

Yesterday I used up a bowl of smallish poblano peppers from my garden and a couple of onions that have been around here for a while (and I have some onions from the garden to use once these are gone) and some cooked chicken breast to make chicken fajita filling. Corn tortillas from the freezer (picked up at the local panaderia and frozen immediately because they sell them at about 25 per package and I can't eat them that fast) and the usual toppings (guacamole from the freezer, the last of the sour cream, and Tapatio hot sauce). I made those yesterday, had some today, and probably have one more meal to go out of that bowl. Mmmmm good!

Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 02 Jun 20 - 01:08 PM

Another recipe for 1: spinach soufflé

Preheat toaster-oven to 375°

1T +1t butter (plus ramekin)
Parm to dust buttered ramekin
...butter and dust ramekin

5 oz chopped fresh spinach
Some minced onion
...soften onions then cook spinach down, in the 1T butter

1t flour
Dash of hot paprika
1/3 c milk
...make béchamel with the 1t butter
...add spinach to béchamel

Several grinds black pepper
Good grind salt
Dash nutmeg
1 egg
...beat till flufffy

Then add hot spinach mixture to egg in increments, folding and not cooking egg

Put in ramekin, bake till lovely (30m)

Mine is still in the oven. I will tell you how it goes...

Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating?
From: Donuel
Date: 02 Jun 20 - 01:16 PM

I need a glossary

Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 02 Jun 20 - 01:37 PM

Oh was it good. I checked after 20 mn and it was poofed, but reallyreally dark brown almost burnt on top, so I put a square of tinfoil over it for the last 10 mn. Prolly shoulda checked at 15 mn.

The butter-parm dusting turned into a side-and-botton crust of deliciousness. I used salted butter so it was fine with salt only in the egg part, I had wondered.

It unpoofed as I ate it like all good soufflés.

There was a smidge of liquid underneath that softened the parmy crust, but it wasn't more than could be sopped up by the bites of soufflé, which had been another worry.

I am enjoying using so much math, too! This one was arithmeticked from here.

Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating?
From: Jos
Date: 02 Jun 20 - 02:53 PM

Mrrzy and Donual: I assume that 'parm' is grated Parmesan, that 't' is teaspoon, that 'T' is tablespoon, and that 'c' is cup.
I do like 'flufffy.

Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating?
From: Jos
Date: 02 Jun 20 - 02:57 PM

PS I'm not sure where Mrrzy's 'maths' comes in, unless the measurements were adapted from a recipe for lots of people.

Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating?
From: Thompson
Date: 02 Jun 20 - 06:21 PM

French recipes often seem to use those single-letter codes for various sizes from soupspoon to pinch. Kind of feels like a cross between knitting and cooking!

Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 02 Jun 20 - 06:53 PM

"Last night I tried Steve Shaw's recommendation of starting a load of ribs in the oven and transferring them to the barbecue to finish. Disappointing, and I'm sure it was all my fault for letting the barbecue run too hot, or leaving them in too long, or something. The flavour was good, but the texture left much to be desired -- the meat at the bone was tender and moist, but just under the spice crust it was dry."

Well I had a stack of ribs that had already been separated (not ideal but it's what I had), and we enjoyed them muchly on the barbie tonight. I marinaded them for several hours in a very simple mix of tomato ketchup, a big dose of muscovado sugar, a dollop of hot English mustard, a good dash or three of Worcestershire sauce and a goodly heap of sweet smoked paprika. After that I put them in a baking dish with all the baste and covered the dish tightly with foil. They went in the oven for almost three hours at 150C. All they then needed was ten minutes on the barbie, basted with whatever juices were still left. They were very nice indeed.

Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 02 Jun 20 - 07:35 PM

Oops sorry yes. Parm=parmesan.

But I thought all recipes could use t for tsp, T for tbsp, etc.

And yes... The link serves 6. Mine serves 1. Lotsa math (singular, on this side of the pond)!

"Fflufffy" is a movie reference... Points if you get it!

Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 02 Jun 20 - 08:00 PM

You yanks have got this bloody daft "cups" thing. I accidentally bought a second-hand copy of a Nigella book that was written in American. It's full silly stuff about cups and a weird thing called "heavy cream." I had to buy a set of Yankee "cups" fer chrissake. I'm so resentful about the fact that I had to buy them that I never use 'em... :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating?
From: Charmion
Date: 02 Jun 20 - 08:35 PM

I see what you did there, Steve, and I see why it works and why what I did doesn’t.

I have never used a sweet sauce with back ribs; I use a dry rub and vinegar mop sauce, Low Country style. (I learned about ribs from a nice lady at church. She was from Raleigh, North Carolina.) An important part of the technique is smoke, which I can’t do in the oven without bringing the fire brigade down on us. So I had that batch of ribs in the oven at 275 degrees Fahrenheit until they were fully cooked, and then put them in the barbecue to smoke.

We ate some cold for supper tonight, and they were actually great — texture good, flavour just right. So not the failure I had convinced myself I had committed.

Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 02 Jun 20 - 10:11 PM

Wait, Brits don't measure in cups? What do you use?

Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating?
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 03 Jun 20 - 02:11 AM

Measures, here in the UK we have these things called ' measures ' they are good for measuring amounts of ingredients for recipes etc.

Dave

Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating?
From: Jos
Date: 03 Jun 20 - 05:44 AM

Measures? Apart from different sizes of spoons, I measure dry goods in pounds and ounces, liquids in pints or fractions thereof, or fluid ounces.
More recent recipes use grams/kilos and litres/mls - in which case I use maths to convert them to something I understand.
PS. US pints, gallons and fluid ounces are not the same size as the UK ones.

Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 03 Jun 20 - 06:39 AM

I measure pasta for two by the half-packet, olive oil by the glug, salt, pepper and dried chillis by the pinch, garlic by whatever takes my fancy, soffritto by the equal volumes, approx., of onion, celery and carrot, chicken by the one breast/two thighs each, flour by the sprinkle, enough for a burger by a handful of mince, herbs by sheer instinct, basmati rice by a scant mugful for two (I might do extra to fry up for tomorrow's breakfast), cheese by how much of the chunk is left after I've grated it, eggs by the egg and tomatoes by the can. I might measure amounts carefully if thickness of a sauce or a batter is paramount, otherwise I just seem to know.

Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating?
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 03 Jun 20 - 06:46 AM

I'll use whichever of imperial or metric is given in a recipe or, where both are given, the one I feel suits me better for the recipe, eg. I like to think of my sponge cakes as 8oz of butter, flour and caster sugar.

American measures are something else though. They use cups for one thing and their liquid measures are different (eg Imperial pint is 568ml, US pint is 473ml). I'm not equipped to deal with these and would have to do some conversions.

Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating?
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 03 Jun 20 - 06:51 AM

And on Steve's type of measurement's, the "some" is used round here, eg, some potatoes, some carrots, etc.

Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating?
From: Thompson
Date: 03 Jun 20 - 09:21 AM

Thanks to the French for the metric system, so much simpler than any other measurements.

Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 03 Jun 20 - 09:46 AM

How is it that when a recipe says "1kg potatoes" it never tells you whether that's the weight before peeling or after?

Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating?
From: Charmion
Date: 03 Jun 20 - 10:11 AM

Good question, Steve.

As a Canadian, I have been cooking with weird measures my whole damn life. Old Canadian cookbooks use British measures, gills, pints and quarts, and modern cooks have to be alert to the fact that the pint in question is 20 fl oz Imperial and the quart is 40. You know you have one of these books when you notice that it does not call for cup measures, but half a pint.

Pounds and dry ounces are blessedly consistent, and professional recipes, especially for bread, are written that way. When the metric system hit us in 1978, we just converted, and Canadians of a certain age are very good at multiplying and dividing by 2.2.

But sometime in the 1930s the American cup, at 8 fl oz, invaded Canada, and the schizophrenia started. I particularly dislike bread recipes that use volume measures for flour; flour is quite variable enough without faffing about with filling your measuring cup JUST SO and then realizing that it's wrong anyway. Weighing out two pounds (or a kilo) of flour is far easier. Also, you don't have half a dozen measuring cups to wash after.

Butter is another ingredient often called for in volume measures when a weight measure is both easier and neater. One tablespoon of butter is half an ounce. How hard can this be?

Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 03 Jun 20 - 10:18 AM

On a different topic, I bought a bag of shaved brussels sprouts, which I adore, but to my shame did not cook them (waaaasteful, I know) and now the bag is distended to the bursting point. If I leave it alone will it explode? Are fermenting [I think] brussels sprouts edible?

I *am* working on not getting more food than I eat while still only rarely going to a store.

Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating?
From: Jos
Date: 03 Jun 20 - 10:27 AM

For butter or cheese, if you know how much the slab or packet weighs you can just cut off an appropriate sized piece.
The trouble with 'spoonful' measures is that they can be level, rounded, generous and/or heaped. My grandmother used to measure the teaspoon of salt she needed, when breadmaking, in the hollowed palm of her hand.

Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating?
From: Thompson
Date: 03 Jun 20 - 12:26 PM

What on earth are shaved brussels sprouts?

And has anyone - Steve? - got a reliable Caesar dressing recipe that doesn't involve ladling in shop-bought mayo?

Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating?
From: leeneia
Date: 03 Jun 20 - 12:45 PM

Here's one, but it has raw egg in it. I would never eat raw egg.

https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/easy-homemade-caesar-dressing
======================
Last night I made a delicious easy dinner.

Ingredients:

1 Tbsp veg oil
one half of a rotisserie chicken from the deli
pasta for two people, cooked (penne pasta is good)
one-half of a can of sliced black olives, drained
1/4 to 1/2 cup yellow onion, chopped
olive oil
pinch of oregano - to taste

Amounts are approximate and can vary acc. to your taste.

Heat the veg oil in a large skillet, saute the onion till tender. You could even brown it if you'd like. Meanwhile, remove the meat from the half of a chicken and cut it into bite-size pieces. Kitchen shears are helpful here. Be sure to include the skin, which is flavorful.

When the onions are done, add the chicken and pasta and heat through. Just before eating, add the olives and oregano. Splash on some olive oil to taste so the batch is not too dry and stir gently. Serve.
============
This recipe is based on a favorite of mine from a restaurant now out of business. The original included some kind of mild, smooth cheese which acted as a binder, but I don't know what kind of cheese it was. It's good without it, anyhow.

I read somewhere that you shouldn't heat olive oil too high, so that's why I use veg oil for the onion.

Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 03 Jun 20 - 03:27 PM

You can heat extra virgin olive oil for cooking almost anything. If you need to heat the oil on its own before adding anything that might cool it down a touch and dilute the oil with other liquid, onion or tomatoes for example, just be careful not to let it smoke. I start many a dish by sauteeing sliced garlic and crushed chillis in extra virgin olive oil. The olive oil, the garlic and the chilli all benefit from gentle sauteeing with just a bit of sizzle. If your garlic colours, you've overdone it and you'll have to start again. And a soffritto is easily done with extra virgin olive oil. I don't use refined olive oil, ever. That belongs in my diesel car's fuel tank. If I want to use really high heat, for example to sear a steak or cook my oven chips, I'll use groundnut oil instead.

Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating?
From: Thompson
Date: 03 Jun 20 - 05:11 PM

Thanks, leeneia!

Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 03 Jun 20 - 11:12 PM

They are brussels sprouts sliced really really thinly.

Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating?
From: Thompson
Date: 04 Jun 20 - 04:59 AM

Aaah, thanks, Mrrzy.

Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating?
From: Jos
Date: 04 Jun 20 - 01:18 PM

On choosing the best/healthiest oil for frying, this BBC News item from about five years ago, regarding the programme "Trust Me, I'm a Doctor", comes down in favour of olive oil (though they seem not to have tested peanut/groundnut oil. They do not recommend sunflower oil or corn oil.
They also recommend butter, goose fat and lard, and say that saturated fats can be good for you.

Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 04 Jun 20 - 02:39 PM

The only oils allowed in our kitchen are two qualities of extra virgin olive oil (one for cooking, the other for sprinkling over pasta dishes, pizzas or as salad dressing) and groundnut, for all very hot frying. Roasties are done in the meat fat from the roast, or, failing that, either goose fat or beef dripping.

Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 04 Jun 20 - 03:36 PM

I visited the discount gourmet warehouse grocery store today and came back with a couple of months-worth groceries to go in the freezer and to hand off to a couple of friends. I still have to go out regularly to buy the produce I'm not growing, but I'm reaching a point where I'm using my own peppers, garlic, onions, and tomatoes. I'm also trying one of their frozen pizzas; after the bad experience with the cold salty delivery pizza from Dominoes I am following the advice (probably from this thread several months ago) to do a frozen one. I make my own pizzas often enough, but sometimes it's nice if someone else made it for you.

Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 04 Jun 20 - 04:19 PM

The verdict is in - the frozen pizza is much more satisfactory than the takeout or delivery one from Dominoes. It wasn't salty, the crust was a nice texture, and two slices was plenty for a meal. I've wrapped up the rest and will reheat in the toaster over over the next couple of days.

I did sprinkle some herbs over the top, and after having it otherwise in it's original form, in future I might add some thin sliced extra onion or peppers or black olives. As a child I was all about the extra cheese and as much greasy pepperoni as possible; now I really love the thin-sliced vegetables and a little meat goes a long way.

Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 05 Jun 20 - 06:32 AM

I have never bought a pizza in any shop, frozen or not, that had any more flavour than the cardboard box it came in. We have a takeaway pizzeria of high repute in Bude called La Bocca which we are intending to try shortly. We also have an "Italian" restaurant that's quite nice though thoroughly inauthentic. Last time I went, the wines-by-the-glass were all non-Italian and they clearly considered that a pizza wasn't a pizza unless it was decorated with those silly little mozzarella balls (uncooked) and unless the top was festooned with huge amounts of rocket. Edible but odd. The best pizzas we ever had were in a grubby little pizzeria in Napoli. We were the only non-Italians in there (always a good sign). We had a margherita and a pizza fritta, both huge and both wonderful. A terrible rainstorm raged outside and we sat close to their wood-fired oven. I'd choose a margherita every time, always dressed with the finest extra virgin olive oil. A good pizza isn't convenience food. It's heaven on Earth, and what red wine was invented for. In Rome we found a superb restaurant that served pinza pizzas (they wouldn't like my calling them pizzas...). The base, made from long-fermented dough, is far lighter and fluffier than a normal pizza base and there's just the right amount of lovely crunch. Now that was FOOD!

Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating?
From: Charmion
Date: 05 Jun 20 - 10:55 AM

The best pizza I have ever eaten we made at home, on a sourdough crust. If I start making pizza again, I would have to pop down to the sourdough bakery and bum some starter -- yes, we live near a sourdough bakery and the boss gives away starter if you ask nicely. We are blessed.

One of the local good restaurants (we are further blessed by the presence of several) is an Italian-style joint with a pizzeria downstairs and a white-tablecloth dining-room upstairs. Their pizza is about the best I've ever had in a restaurant (no, I've never been to Italy), with crisp crust, a variety of sauces, and an even wider choice of dressings that they don't pile higher and deeper. If you're a "house special with the works" kind of diner, they will do you an Ontario-style thick crust with tomato sauce and a load of cheese, but not if they can help it.

I don't know where the load of rocket fad came from, but it's here, too. Rocket has its place, but heaped higgledy-piggledy on a perfectly innocent pizza is not it.

Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 05 Jun 20 - 11:13 AM

To me, a thick crust pizza is not a pizza. It's cheese on toast embellished with (usually cheap and shitty) sparse toppings. Bits of stale ham or little discs of "pepperoni" or slimy bits of blackened, soft mushrooms. Or processed chicken.   Even worse are those stuffed crust ones. A pizza base should be very thin in the centre and have a narrow rim that has a nice bit of crunch. And spare me from wedges of cold "pizza" served at buffets...Nearly as bad as those horrid little pots of "pasta salad" consisting of doughy little pasta tubes bathed in something congealed that used to be tomatoes... Italy should wage war on us!

Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 05 Jun 20 - 01:10 PM

I buy Iraqi tandoor bread (a large thin round piece that is stuck to the inside of the tandoor oven for a few minutes) and put what I'm not going to use right away into the freezer. It serves as a wonderful thin pizza crust in a hurry. The modern Middle-Eastern bakeries have a metal oven, top-loading free-standing or built in, and the flattened dough is transferred from the work surface to the side of the barrel-shaped oven via a really gnarly looking fuzzy pillow thing.

When I make my own pizza crust I used to use a modified bread (loaf) recipe, but now use one I found in Martha Stewart Living that is simply the best. Biancho's pizza dough.

Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating?
From: Charmion
Date: 06 Jun 20 - 11:49 AM

Well, Steve, when all is said and done, what is pizza but bread and cheese with trimmings?

I’ll get me coat ...

Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Jun 20 - 12:02 PM

If it's a real pizza, greater than the sum of its parts is what it is.

Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 06 Jun 20 - 12:42 PM

One of the advantages to living alone is having whatever you want on your pizza.

Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating?
From: Thompson
Date: 06 Jun 20 - 02:57 PM

I'm with Charmion on rocket. A nice salad, but what's it doing in my hot dinner? And I'm with Steve on gluey thick-crust pizza. Pizza should be delicate and crunchy.

Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Jun 20 - 04:09 PM

Well I've made soup with rocket and it was very good. Also, we have it wilted into our spaghetti with lemon, chilli, prawns and rocket, with a bit more chopped-up rocket sprinkled on top. Very nice. We had that last night. Our favourite thing do with rocket is to have it in a toasted bun with a barbecued burger along with caramelised onion chutney. I make the burgers with pure minced steak, no seasoning, no onions, no nothing. The great thing about rocket is that, once you've sown it, you never have to sow it again.

Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 06 Jun 20 - 09:42 PM

In hot weather involved cooking is less appealing, and we're in the high 90s now (I think that translates to mid-30s Canada and UK). A cheese omelette with salsa and a side of steamed broccoli, followed by a bowl of vanilla yogurt was plenty. The house iced tea is made of green tea bags and several generous sprigs of lemon balm brewed in a 1/2 gallon jar. Sweetened with a little stevia, this is wonderful over ice.

Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 06:20 AM

Stevia turns my stomach into a cement mixer. .

Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating?
From: Thompson
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 10:07 AM

Hm, I wonder would that spaghetti recipe work with mizuna, which is coming on in the garden.

Subject: RE: BS: Recipes - what are we eating?
From: Jos
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 11:17 AM

I've never heard of mizuna - is it a herb?