Cooking thread

January 2nd, 2013 at 6:42:01 AM permalink
Nareed
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Quote: Mosca
Bean soup


Interesting.

My bean soup is rather vegetarian, except for the chicken broth (chicken is a kind of vegetable, though, right? <w>) But beans are to food what cofee is to hot drinks: they combine well with lots of other things.

On a related note, I tried to make spaghetti sauce from scratch, and I got very close. I won't be posting it on my blog, as it was merely ok. For one thing it's very lumpy, despite having made use of an immersion blender. For another, it's very thick. How thick is it? It's so thick you can cut it with a knife! Seriuosly, it's so thick I had to resort to an old housewife's remmedy: adding some pasta water to the sauce (how do I know these things??)

Ah, but it tastes somewhat better than commercial, bottled brands. I added some chopped mushrooms, and the sauce does taste subtly of mushroom (mushrooms ahve a subtle flavor to begin with). A huge improvement over mushroom flavored bottled sauces. So, for my next try in a few weeks, I will instead semi-liquefy the whole thing in the blender, after half-cooking it (I've done it before, sort of). And I'll use a different kind of tomato.

In the meantime, the reminder is perfect for making Italian Chicken.

Oh, and once I get it right, I'll likely make it in LARGE batches. It's a lot of work peeling, seeding and coring the tomatoes. Seeding them, in particular, is rather yucky, though a bit less so than handling raw chicken (I'm amazed I can do that, BTW).

I also got a hold of a kilo each of dried lima beans and chickpeas. I've no idea what to make with them yet...
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January 2nd, 2013 at 8:48:13 AM permalink
Mosca
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Sure, vegetarian bean soup would be excellent! I was given a whole ham for Christmas, so I made mine with ham.

When I made my best home made spaghetti sauce ever, no one liked it but me. My family likes it when I saute onion, garlic, pepper, and mushroom with ground beef and add it to store bought sauce. I like pureed tomato, basil, and garlic.

Whatever you make with the beans, post it up!
January 2nd, 2013 at 11:40:36 AM permalink
Nareed
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Quote: Mosca
Sure, vegetarian bean soup would be excellent! I was given a whole ham for Christmas, so I made mine with ham.


Finding baked or smoked ham here is next to impossible. There is some sort of smoked ham called "jamón serrano," but it's too salty and fatty for my taste.

Quote:
When I made my best home made spaghetti sauce ever, no one liked it but me. My family likes it when I saute onion, garlic, pepper, and mushroom with ground beef and add it to store bought sauce. I like pureed tomato, basil, and garlic.


Basil! Right! I used fine herbs and oregano...

Bottled pasta sauces are ok, but I've found I preffer to do as much from fresh ingredients as possible. For instance, i could buy enchilada sauce in a can, but what's the fun in that?

Quote:
Whatever you make with the beans, post it up!


try and stop me ;)
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January 2nd, 2013 at 1:20:48 PM permalink
Nareed
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Here's how to skin red tomatoes:

First cut a little "x" on the bottom of each tomato. Next put the tomatoes to be skinned in boiling water for a few seconds, and no more than a minute. Take them out one by one with a slotted spoon and put them in a bowl of ice water. Take each one and squeeze it gently. The tomato should pop out and leave the skin almost intact. If any refuse to pop, toss them back in the boiling water for a few more seconds.

It seems complicated, but it's really very easy and quick. Compared to using a potato peeler on potatoes, apples, pears, carrots, etc, it's a lot easier.
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January 6th, 2013 at 2:41:11 PM permalink
Nareed
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Green Bell Pepper Soup

http://kathyscookingcorner.blogspot.mx/2013/01/green-bell-pepper-soup.html#

You also learn how to skin bell peppers.
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January 7th, 2013 at 3:55:56 PM permalink
Nareed
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The difference between cooking and eating:

While making my Italian Chicken last weekend, I swore about ten times "I'm never touching ground chiken ever again!" Really, it's messy, sticky and an overall pain to work with, involving repeated rinsing or washing of hands, scraping of utensils, and lots of care on the pan.

While eating it today, though, I thought "This is really good. I should make it more often."

<sigh>

So I'll try a compromise, maybe, next time: either I'll get pre-made chicken croquettes, or I'll use flattened chicken breasts.

It was really good...
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January 10th, 2013 at 9:27:51 AM permalink
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I'll be making Orange beef, Curry rice and "cream" of Chile Poblano next weekend.

I haven't had orange beef in a while. I forget whether the beef should be thin pieces or thick chunks. Any ideas?
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January 14th, 2013 at 10:22:42 AM permalink
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I did make Cram of Chile Poblano.

On the upside, it was wholly my recipe and turned out perfect. On the downsides, 1) it came out very hot, and I mean H-O-T HOT (that hot) and 2) it is a lot of work. So much work, in fact, that I was too tired to make rice, and I muffed the Orange Beef into Orange Beef stew...

Ok, Poblanos are supposed to be very mild. That's why they're used in things like soup, and stuffed and served whole. In addition I added milk and cottage cheese to the blend, which neutralizes, to a point, the action of the capsacin that makes chilies hot. Well, I whould ahve more carefully removed all seeds and veins from the Poblanos anyway...

For the beef, I made a mistake in the proportions of corn starch, so the sauce dind't thicken to any significant degree. It's quite good, but the feel of the dish is all wrong.

Overall, though, I've grown very confident in my ability to make soup. So next up, cream of tomato soup from scratch. Maybe even cream of tomato and red bell pepper soup from scratch. Unless I decide to make pasta sauce from scratch again...
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January 14th, 2013 at 1:27:07 PM permalink
Nareed
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Did I mention the Poblano soup was hot?

I just had some for lunch. It's really hot. Too hot, even for me. I have no choice but to try to fix it. I'm thinking of adding a cup of of chicken broth, blended with a half cup of milk and 120 gr. of cottage cheese.

Of course this is a vioaltion of one of my cooking laws. But I'm pretty sure I can talk myself into doing what I want.
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January 14th, 2013 at 3:46:32 PM permalink
Mosca
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You alluded to not removing the seeds and veins properly, but I was unsure; do you think that was why the poblanos were hot? Otherwise, you know that peppers can pollinate across varieties... you must have gotten poblanos with a whack of habanero!

The poblano soup sounds really good. I might give that a try sometime. I'd be thinking: poblano, onion, garlic, chicken broth, salt & pepper, sour cream, and rice.