We should have a "What are you cooking?" thread. Now we do.

[davent]

Hey, I made curry for xmas eve, too!

I did little red lentils in a cream sauce. I tried doing it as a one-pot for a change and kind of regret it, the lentils didn't quite soak up all the water, and you can't boil it down like you can with some other beans/lentils.

Sounds good Jon, curries for every occasion.

I campaign every year for Christmas Eve curries and only once before have i prevailed, they took pity... this year everything changed with the lockdown, it's the first year we never had to leave our place and go visiting Christmas day, the 'traditional' Christmas Eve meal became Christmas dinner and i got my curries the night before.
dave

[davent]

Chana Masala redux, chickpeas soup dressed with cilantro and Aleppo pepper, naan bread.

THe long awaited fruitcake has been sliced into and was well worth the time effort expense. Alton Brown's free range fruitcake, my wife's shortbread and my daughter's roommate sent a box of a variety of cookies she'd baked,  sweet tooth's doing well.





Next up, new years eve with no guests, uncharted waters.
Take care,dave

[alanp]

I cooked slumpie, from _Nanny Ogg's Cookbook_. It's not something I'd normally make, but wow is it tasty! (My sister can't have the oxo cubes for the stock, or the beer.) I didn't get 375g of spinach, and got 250g instead... I thought it was a big bag, but I didn't know that spinach reduces so much when you cook it! Finding sage was a bit of a drama... no sage at all in the dry herbs section, I had to wander back to the fresh produce section to find any (the one single packet of sage in the whole shop...)

Very, very tasty. Next time, I'm going easy on the garlic, though.

[davent]

Lockdown 2020 for two. First time since the 80's we haven't had friends in for New Years Eve so things scaled way back...

Meat and cheese plate with crackers and sour parts. Mild and hot cacciatore, Abruzzo sausage, herbed Boursin, a brie i missed the name of, incredible stuff, Wookey Hole cheddar.

Nachos with guacamole and bottled tomatilla salsa, sauteed shrimp with a cocktail sauce of sweet chili sauce and horseradish. Last week my wife discovered a small, jam packed, hidden at the back of a strip mall,  Indian grocer, 10 minute walk away, they supplied the samosas, delicious, dipping sauce, Google spit out a recipe.

Music for the times - A Slight Disturbance in My Mind












Fingers crossed for 2021...
Take care.dave

[harryklippton]

I'm pretty intimidated by Dave's cooking and photography but here goes. Since I couldn't be with my family this year, I had to make the traditional New Year's Day meal myself, and it came out really good. My wife said it came out better than when my mom makes it, but don't tell anyone. It's roasted pork loin with sauerkraut and dumplings. The sauerkraut is homemade instead of the canned stuff my mom or grandma buys. The dumplings are usually made with bisquick and boiled in hot water but I made a dough from scratch, and plopped em in the dish for the last 10 minutes in the oven after boiling them. The fat from the pork melts into the sauerkraut and it's so good.

I've been eating this my whole life on New Year's Day and I wouldn't miss it for anything. It's said to bring good luck in the new year! happy new year everybody!

[culturejam]

I bought myself a pressure canner for my birthday (late November) and finally put it use this week. For a simple test run, I just did 5 half-pint jars of blueberries packed in apple juice. Turned out pretty good. Eventually I'll work my way up to canning meat and other things that take a lot of time, but for now, I'll stick to fruit and vegetables (and maybe soup / salsa).

[EBK]

I'm doing a test run of my own today: a new hinged grill grate.  I haven't been able to easily add charcoal while cooking outside since the bottom fell out of my old barrel smoker.  Now I use a kettle grill, and a hinged grate is very useful (I sorely miss my barrel smoker though...).  Burgers and dogs initially, then I'll transition to Jamaican jerk chicken in a bit.

I'm also cooking the weirdest thing that I have done more than once: barbecued marshmallow Peeps.

[davent]

Nicely done guys!

2021, here goes, first pizzas, 24 hour dough and a jar of our tomato sauce drained in a sieve, used for both. The juice that drains from the sauce is great.

#1 - tomato sauce, fior di latte cheese, mild & spicy cacciatore sausage, pepperoncinis, and pot grown Biquinho peppers we pickled, they come on with the initial anxiety producing explosive taste of a Habenero  but the follow up is absent of fire, they're terrific, will be growing again this summer. Dried oregano & basil, salt & pepper, ground Aleppo pepper.

#2 - more tomato sauce, Arbol chili flakes, dried oregano, olive oil, anchovies, Parmesan, prosciutto, Balsamic glaze.









Last of our home grown soup beans, a couple varieties of black beans for soup. Chipotles in abobo, cumin/coriander, chipotle powder, topped with Abruzzo sausage, cilantro, green chilies, Greek yogurt, Aleppo pepper.



dave

[midwayfair]

Ramen! Sort of!

It's weird some of the stuff H Mart carries and doesn't. They had fresh Shandong noodles (which I'd consider really obscure in the U.S.) but no fresh Ramen noodles.

Also, it's hard to make pork bone stock when you're mostly vegetarian/pescitarian, but I have homemade miso, which does kinda have some porky overtones, so I made some dashi and added miso, made a fast ramen egg (hard boiled to a soft but not runny yoke, cut it in half and flip it upside down in some mirin and soy sauce), and cut up a bunch of mushrooms. Solid B for a 20-minute fake ramen, A- as far as lunch goes, would stuff self with again.

[davent]

Somali Chicken Soup recipe we stuck pretty close to, don't like rice in soup so went with ramen noodles, perfect. Acouple chicken thighs cooked in enough spiced up chicken stock for two, garnished with fresh radishes, red Napa cabbage, cilantro, a local smoked jalapeno hot sauce,  diced tomatoes from last summer's garden, picked the end of October.




One hundred sixty two days until summer and fresh tomatoes...
Take care, dave

[davent]

Sunday dinner with our daughter. Roasted curried cauliflower & chickpeas. Coconut milk, jar of tomato chunks, curry paste, cilantro, basmati rice.




Monday, Monday, here we go again.dave

[davent]

A favourite flash meal, saute onions, carrots, garlic, no celery in the fridge there was a fennel bulb so used some of that instead, arbol chili flakes, 200g ground beef, pint jar of summer tomato sauce, dried basil & oregano, parm, olive oil and parsley, 170g orecchiette.



Cheers,dave

[davent]

Saturday night dining in, there are zero other options.

Seared & roasted duck breast with jus, duck fat yellow potatoes, stir fried brocccoli/mushrooms with Maggi/Sambal Oelek, favourite pie, rhubarb/raspberry/blackberry with a good helping of thick Greek yogurt.

50's jazz for the prep, for the meal, for the rest of the evening...










Stay well.dave

[davent]

Been years since we cooked burgers outside tomato season or not on an outdoor grill which means uncharted territory.

Cooked stove top with ghee in a pretty hot carbon steel pan, blue cheese butter, home dill pickles, yellow onion, lettuce, Hellman's, sweet relish and runny ball park mustard, chunk of baguette toasted, rubbed with garlic finally drizzled with olive oil. Pretty good, a couple more patties in the freezer to use up.




153 days until tomato season.dave

[davent]

Almost vegan weekend, then feta came calling.

Chilaquiles with black bean/avocado/cilantro/lime topping. Sauve of guajillo peppers, onions, garlic, tomatoes & cumin, juiced with Carolina Reaper hot sauce.

Smoky three bean soup.

Found a bag in the freezer of forgotten mottled soup beans we'd grown, another bag of sliced garden Romano beans, had a bag of chickpeas for bean #3. Sauteed onion and garlic,added cumin, arbol chilie flakes, Aleppo pepper, chipotles aniey werel thd sauce, added the cooked dried beans cooked awhile, added the Roman's cooked 'til they were right. Topped with another batch of baked tortilla chips, avocado, tomatillo salsa, feta cheese, Aleppo pepper & cilantro.








Take care.dave