XF Bites
- My peach was moldy on the INSIDE. EW! - Jul 24, 2008
- What were you thinking, people? You knew this would happen. - Jul 23, 2008
Showing posts with label Cooking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cooking. Show all posts
Friday, June 27, 2008
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Sloppy Joe Pasta Bake Experiment
I didn’t know what to make for dinner last night, so I went to the Roxie to see what kind of meat product might inspire me. I have some Trader Joe’s Mahi Mahi in the freezer that I keep forgetting to defrost. It’s still in the freezer even now, when I could have cooked it tonight.
I didn’t really feel like making stir fry. Not only did I feel like experimenting with something new, but I was out of rice. Yes, I could have bought more, but I’m low on lots of stuff and need to do a big shop soon.
Anywhoo, spent some time staring at the boxed taco shells contemplating making Sloppy Joe Tacos, a favorite from childhood. They sounded good, but I wanted something lower maintenance that would be easier to take to work later as leftovers.
Lately, having become a big fan of casseroles, I thought… maybe I could just make a Sloppy Joe Taco Casserole. But why not just make Taco Pie, because I don’t want that. I could crumble corn chips into a dish and… or I could just use noodles.
I bought about a pound of ground turkey and some Sloppy Joe mix and then headed off to the Farmer’s Market for veggies. I got a red pepper, an orange pepper, some broccoli, and yellow zucchini. I would have gotten a yellow onion too, but they didn’t look very good.
I chopped up the veggies and put them in the casserole dish. Boiled some noodles and added them. Made the Sloppy Joe meat (which also requires water and tomato paste, which I had) and added that. Stirred it up, baked it for about 25 minutes at 425.
Served it with grated (or close to grated) cheddar cheese and avocado. Yummy. All it needed was Tabasco.
If I make it again I might add some black beans or kidney beans too.
Here's the "official" recipe.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
The Sausage Experiment
On the train ride home yesterday, I decide I want to eat Italian Sausage for dinner. Hmm, that’ll go well with the tube of polenta I have on my counter. What else should I get? So I go to the vegetable stand in my ‘hood and look around. I pick out an assortment of bell peppers (orange, yellow, and green) and a roma tomato. I also want some onion, but I think I have an onion. I’ll get one anyway, but all the yellow onions look terrible. Instead, I get a shallot. I’ve never really cooked with shallots, but it sounds good.
Then I head up the road to the Roxie for some mild sausages because the vegetable stand, while possessing a surprisingly wide selection of things non-vegetable, including pre-cooked sausages, they do not carry raw meat products.
When I get home I discover I do have half an onion, but it’s gone all moldy in the fridge. I really have no idea how to store unused parts of onions. Any tips would be appreciated. I chop all the vegetables into reasonably sized pieces and then arrive at the shallots. Realizing I have no idea what to do with a shallot, I consult my trusty handy dandy Joy of Cooking which tells me exactly which ends to cut off, how to chop it, and warns that they should be softened and not browned. Browning them apparently makes them bitter. As does crushing them, so take care in your chopping.
I also chop up a couple good sized garlic cloves because I’m largely incapable of cooking anything without garlic in it.
I start softening the shallots and the garlic in some olive oil, trying carefully not to brown them. Oh no! The garlic is starting to toast a bit. Browned shallots can’t be far behind. Quickly I squeeze the sausages out of their casings and throw them in. When the meats mostly cooked I add the green pepper. After a bit I added the tomato. Then I add what is fast becoming a staple ingredient of my cooking: old red wine I have lying around that’s probably no good to drink anymore. I used about a half a cup, but in retrospect should have used more. I throw a top on and let that simmer until the green peppers finally give up the ghost and go all pale and squishy.
Meanwhile, I take the tube of polenta and crush it into the bottom of a pyrex baking dish. It’s not very elegant, but it works. Then I pour the meat and stuff on top. Finally I add the yellow and orange peppers on top. I love orange peppers. I LOVE THEM. I would marry them, but I don’t often cook with them. They taste far superior raw. As I didn’t want them to lose all their flavor I just put them on top with the yellow peppers so that they would roast more than anything.
I popped it in the oven for 20 minutes at 350 degrees, and viola! Polenta sausage pepper bake thingy. And very tasty. The orange and yellow peppers stayed very flavorful and firm adding a nice contrasting texture. The polenta soaked up the juices nicely, and the shallots must be adding to the flavor in there somewhere. Yellow onion probably would have worked fine too. Had I to do it again, aside from the aforementioned extra bit of wine, I would also spray the baking dish with some sort of non-stick canned oil, like PAM. Perhaps a sprinkling of parmesan or some similarly flavored hard cheese would do nicely as well. I’d also double the recipe as it was so good I ate half of it for dinner leaving me only one meal’s worth for leftovers.
For a more recipe like version of the recipe, click here.
Then I head up the road to the Roxie for some mild sausages because the vegetable stand, while possessing a surprisingly wide selection of things non-vegetable, including pre-cooked sausages, they do not carry raw meat products.
When I get home I discover I do have half an onion, but it’s gone all moldy in the fridge. I really have no idea how to store unused parts of onions. Any tips would be appreciated. I chop all the vegetables into reasonably sized pieces and then arrive at the shallots. Realizing I have no idea what to do with a shallot, I consult my trusty handy dandy Joy of Cooking which tells me exactly which ends to cut off, how to chop it, and warns that they should be softened and not browned. Browning them apparently makes them bitter. As does crushing them, so take care in your chopping.
I also chop up a couple good sized garlic cloves because I’m largely incapable of cooking anything without garlic in it.
I start softening the shallots and the garlic in some olive oil, trying carefully not to brown them. Oh no! The garlic is starting to toast a bit. Browned shallots can’t be far behind. Quickly I squeeze the sausages out of their casings and throw them in. When the meats mostly cooked I add the green pepper. After a bit I added the tomato. Then I add what is fast becoming a staple ingredient of my cooking: old red wine I have lying around that’s probably no good to drink anymore. I used about a half a cup, but in retrospect should have used more. I throw a top on and let that simmer until the green peppers finally give up the ghost and go all pale and squishy.
Meanwhile, I take the tube of polenta and crush it into the bottom of a pyrex baking dish. It’s not very elegant, but it works. Then I pour the meat and stuff on top. Finally I add the yellow and orange peppers on top. I love orange peppers. I LOVE THEM. I would marry them, but I don’t often cook with them. They taste far superior raw. As I didn’t want them to lose all their flavor I just put them on top with the yellow peppers so that they would roast more than anything.
I popped it in the oven for 20 minutes at 350 degrees, and viola! Polenta sausage pepper bake thingy. And very tasty. The orange and yellow peppers stayed very flavorful and firm adding a nice contrasting texture. The polenta soaked up the juices nicely, and the shallots must be adding to the flavor in there somewhere. Yellow onion probably would have worked fine too. Had I to do it again, aside from the aforementioned extra bit of wine, I would also spray the baking dish with some sort of non-stick canned oil, like PAM. Perhaps a sprinkling of parmesan or some similarly flavored hard cheese would do nicely as well. I’d also double the recipe as it was so good I ate half of it for dinner leaving me only one meal’s worth for leftovers.
For a more recipe like version of the recipe, click here.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
The Shepherd's Pie Experiment
cartoon: www.xkcd.com
Somehow I got it into my head last night that I wanted Shepherd’s Pie, but I didn’t particularly want to go all the way to the big supermarket in my neighborhood where I knew I could get ground lamb. For those unfamiliar, apparently Shepherd’s Pie is made with lamb. If you use ground beef, you’ve actually made Cottage Pie because shepherd’s herd sheep and cows apparently live in cottages.
After arriving back in my neighborhood after work, I went straight to the small local grocery. This was, perhaps, a tactical error as I did not know by heart a recipe for Shepherd’s Pie. Rather I knew years ago I had made it once from a recipe I’d printed out off the internet. I also knew that print-out was still tucked in one of my cook books.
I went to the small meat section in the back and contemplated the three ground meats from which I had to choose: Beef, Pork, and Turkey. I of course chose pork. I have no idea why. It looked the freshest I guess. I also have no idea what you call a Shepherd’s Pie made from pork. Perhaps it’s a Swineherd’s Pie. Or a Swinebarn Pie. It depends on whether you’re going by the “animal tender” or “building nearby” naming standard.
I also bought instant mashed potatoes. I’ve always been suspicious of instant mashed potatoes, but as I was not about to make my own, I really had no choice. The ingredients seemed mostly natural. How bad can they be?
Without any real knowledge of what else I needed, I trudged down to the local fruit and vegetable market to get… well… to get whatever else I thought would be good in Swineherd’s Pie. I grabbed some carrots, broccoli, and a jar of tomato paste because something in the back of my mind thought I would need some.
At home, I quickly found the old recipe, tucked into my Frugal Gourmet cookbook right where I’d left it many years before, and read the ingredients. Celery, we’ll use broccoli instead and some celery salt. Worcestershire sauce… hmm… we’ll use soy sauce. A cup of lamb stock. I assume since I’m using pork I should use pork stock. I DON’T HAVE PORK STOCK. I do however have almost exactly a cup of old red wine sitting on my counter. I wouldn’t drink it, but it’s probably still good to cook with. Tomato paste, a ha! I’ve got that.
If you hadn’t noticed, I like to improvise when I cook and consider recipe’s to be more of a guideline or starting-off point. I had printed this recipe from a British website so all the measurements were in metric. Fortunately I had written down all the conversions on the paper the first time I made it. Except, I had converted the amount of mashed potatoes from 650 grams to “about 6”. I assumed I meant 6 potatoes. I had to guess what that meant in terms of instant potatoes, and I guessed wrong, necessitating a hastily made second batch.
That little hiccup aside, my strange Swineherd’s Pie concoction came off quite well. Definitely something I would eat again. Here’s the recipe for what I made last night, for you to use as your own starting off point: Swineherd’s Pie
Somehow I got it into my head last night that I wanted Shepherd’s Pie, but I didn’t particularly want to go all the way to the big supermarket in my neighborhood where I knew I could get ground lamb. For those unfamiliar, apparently Shepherd’s Pie is made with lamb. If you use ground beef, you’ve actually made Cottage Pie because shepherd’s herd sheep and cows apparently live in cottages.
After arriving back in my neighborhood after work, I went straight to the small local grocery. This was, perhaps, a tactical error as I did not know by heart a recipe for Shepherd’s Pie. Rather I knew years ago I had made it once from a recipe I’d printed out off the internet. I also knew that print-out was still tucked in one of my cook books.
I went to the small meat section in the back and contemplated the three ground meats from which I had to choose: Beef, Pork, and Turkey. I of course chose pork. I have no idea why. It looked the freshest I guess. I also have no idea what you call a Shepherd’s Pie made from pork. Perhaps it’s a Swineherd’s Pie. Or a Swinebarn Pie. It depends on whether you’re going by the “animal tender” or “building nearby” naming standard.
I also bought instant mashed potatoes. I’ve always been suspicious of instant mashed potatoes, but as I was not about to make my own, I really had no choice. The ingredients seemed mostly natural. How bad can they be?
Without any real knowledge of what else I needed, I trudged down to the local fruit and vegetable market to get… well… to get whatever else I thought would be good in Swineherd’s Pie. I grabbed some carrots, broccoli, and a jar of tomato paste because something in the back of my mind thought I would need some.
At home, I quickly found the old recipe, tucked into my Frugal Gourmet cookbook right where I’d left it many years before, and read the ingredients. Celery, we’ll use broccoli instead and some celery salt. Worcestershire sauce… hmm… we’ll use soy sauce. A cup of lamb stock. I assume since I’m using pork I should use pork stock. I DON’T HAVE PORK STOCK. I do however have almost exactly a cup of old red wine sitting on my counter. I wouldn’t drink it, but it’s probably still good to cook with. Tomato paste, a ha! I’ve got that.
If you hadn’t noticed, I like to improvise when I cook and consider recipe’s to be more of a guideline or starting-off point. I had printed this recipe from a British website so all the measurements were in metric. Fortunately I had written down all the conversions on the paper the first time I made it. Except, I had converted the amount of mashed potatoes from 650 grams to “about 6”. I assumed I meant 6 potatoes. I had to guess what that meant in terms of instant potatoes, and I guessed wrong, necessitating a hastily made second batch.
That little hiccup aside, my strange Swineherd’s Pie concoction came off quite well. Definitely something I would eat again. Here’s the recipe for what I made last night, for you to use as your own starting off point: Swineherd’s Pie
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