what's cooking? part 5: 2017-2027

thanks everyone! pretty new to fennel. i tried braising it in stock & vermouth last night & it turned out delicious, keen to try some of these recommendations

http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2015/02/vegan-ramen-miso-creamy-vegan-vegetarian-food-lab-recipe.html

going to cook this at the weekend

― Islamic State of Mind (jim in vancouver), Tuesday, January 10, 2017 5:28 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh man i've been wanting to try that but its daunting --- soda, you've done it? how long did it take?

i like fennel here are some things

fen risotto, maybe w/ salami
fen & chickpea broth w/ lemon zest and chilli
fen & potato soup
baked fen in like a puttanesca sauce w/ orange zest and feta
roast pork w fen (add fen seeds to pork herb rub too)
any bit of wite fish w/ fen, thyme, rosemary, lemon zest, capers etc

pernod good to have around just for fen

also if u ever want to parboil fen for anything do it in milk, or mostly milk, and keep for mash potato or gratin later

I don't like fennel because it is anise-y. I feel like I need to broaden my horizons tho w/r/t winter vegetables, I can't only eat potatoes all year, and I love kale but let's be honest it's not in season in February.

A friend is coming over on Sat bc she wants advice on cooking large hunks of meat. Considering a pot roast alongside a rolled stuffed pork loin -- one easy, one complicated.

try parsnips! one of our favorite winter things is just roasted winter veggies (beets, onions, carrots, garlic, parsnips, turnips, potatoes) mixed up with some olive oil, rosemary, and a bit of sausage, cover and bake.

best way to enjoy fennel is to throw it in the damn garbage bcz it tastes like licorice and it is GROSS

I made a great pork dish with star anise the other night and the first time I made it I used like one star anise (recipe says 5) because I hate licorice but actually it's so subtle it's really good so I always use 5 now

THANK U STEVIE YOU <---> ME = SAME TEAM

anise and fennel are wonderful flavors

that said i have bought fennel bulbs in the past and they have rotted in my fridge bc i couldn't decide what to do with them fast enough :/

tbh I wish I didnt' loathe anise/fennel bcz it wd make things a lot easier but welp here we are, what can ya do

parsnips are the devil fyi

hmph

parsnips are fine, they're sweet and a lil weird but they're fine

quickest way to ruin a soup imo

THE DEVIL

parsnips are good caramelized together with other vegetables as the base for a winter soup stock, they contribute a lot of complexity and are similar to carrots w/ their sweetness. im not a fan of plain parsnips though

for burly winter root vegetables i prefer celeriac

I stand with VG.

Honey roast parsnips are my secret ingredient in a veggie soup

monsters, all of u

mushroom pizza that has a bunch of rehydrated porcinis sauteed with a load of criminis and garlic, on top of fontina, carmelized onions with rosemary playing the role of sauce on some bland-o plain white dough i made

haven't had farinata in years, might attempt this recipe for saturday lunch http://www.seriouseats.com/2015/05/how-to-make-farinata-italian-chickpea-pancake.html

we had my brother and his family over for dinner the other night. they love cooking indian and so do we, so we made a huge feast. i haven't cooked this much food in a while:

masoor dal
benghali green beans and potatoes
tomato sambal
summer squash w/ mustard seeds
saag tofu

All the way at the other end of the vegetarian-omnivore spectrum, I'm making beef stock today.

I agree with VG that parsnips would not work well in any soup I know about, but they roast well and were quite acceptable in a beef and peanut stew recipe my wife made just a few days ago.

I really like roasted parsnips but they are such a damn awkward shape--the top fat part and the itty bitty skinny end make it diffcult to get evenly-roasting pieces.

had some oddly delicious parsnip cake last winter

I'm out. Can't take this parsnip thread. Too triggering.

I had a couple of ideas for pesto variations yesterday — roasted peanuts instead of pine nuts, and mustard greens instead of basil. I got some mediocre mustard this morning and tried that one out -- pretty good, but it needs fresher, more-peppery greens.

my co-worker's ex-husband hunted a deer and gave her a bunch of venison she couldn't use and i'm the leading consumer of meats in the office so i got some and made venison/pork chili and it's the best

niiice

My father in law used to give us venison and it was always good in chili. I don't really like chili tbh but it was ok.

i impulse bought a frozen rack of venison back around the holidays and still need to do something with it

just recently realized how freaking awesome delicata squash is. it's my new kabocha (eg fave winter squarsh). thinkin' of stuffing a couple a la http://beardandbonnet.com/delicata-squash-burrito-bowls/

Venison is awesome with mole. You're welcome.

delicata is great xp, i like it too because you don't have to peel it and it cooks faster than other winter squash

I'm also a fan of delicata. And venison! Had a discussion with a rabbi about kosher venison, which is a thing but v. v. expensive.

yeah delicata is like the french fries of squash in a good way

steely dan of squash even?
ended up making a Killer kale salad -- dino kale sliced v thinly, rubbed with salt and mashed roasted garlic, added some lemon juice and olive oil. threw in some quinoa/amaranth that i'd cooked together mixed it together and plated. topped with 1/2" slices delicata that had cumin and smoked paprika rubbed into the inside (automatic salt and pepper all around, natch) and dressed the top of salad with a simple but yum tahini/apple cider dressing. salad loving housemate was in heaven.

i have some lamb mince - it looked nice at the butcher so i bought it. not sure what to do with it.

my thoughts:

shepherd's pie
mince and potatoes cooked separately not in pie

i mean, do any recipes use lamb mince without being some celtic stodgefest?

go greek imo

you could make meatballs! flavor them however you want (i like parsley, something spicy, onion, garlic, ginger, ??) and eat with rice & vegetable of your choice. or put I guess you could also put them in soup.

shepherds pie with garlicky sweet potato mash

mince is ground meat right?

yep

actually I was looking at this keema recipe earlier, could try that?
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/461642/keema-with-peas

yeah that's right, sorry should have said!

meatballs is prob a good idea, i thought about something like a kofte tho think the spices i'd need might not have survived moving flat a while ago - could prob improvise a bit with szechuan pepper or something maybe as the spicy element.

xpost that keema recipe looks good, prob do have the spices for that. i can obv buy new ones just my cupboards are packed.

oh ok, in that case, keema meatballs?

lately my favorite meal is meatballs as described above + rice w saffron & a small piece of cinnamon + some kind of chopped radish/greens thing. colorful and flavorful but not overwhelming.

chest for me

it's basically convenience (upright) vs efficiency (chest), I went w/the latter

Hmmm yeah I've heard uprights will essentially 'dump' cold air when you open them but the convenience seems pretty great

chest freezers try to increase their convenience by adding various racks and 'baskets', but efficiency is their whole reason for existing. when you calculate the decrease in electrical consumption over the life of the unit it becomes a very good reason.

i got a chest freezer last fall, no regrets. i just get anxious about tracking whatever is in it but that's what spreadsheets are for.

ha I had not considered that re: the pig above, but I should!

Due to limited square footage, I went with an upright freezer. Thanks to spreadsheet contents tracking, it gets opened once every week or two and I move the packages for the next set of meals to the fridge freezer. It holds 1/2 a pig and over 1/8th of a cow, 6 chickens and an assortment of Costco sausage packages.

Does queso cotija taste bitter to anyone else? I kind of ruined a chili I made yesterday by grating a block into it, I probably need to sweeten it to make it more palatable.

for me, cotija is sweet and umami similar to parmesan. like parmesan, I try to stay away from any strangely soft versions.

I only buy the Nuestro Queso version at TJs

This is barely cooking, but sourdough toast with lots of butter and salt and pickled watermelon radish is such a satisfying breakfast.

Spring makes me want to eat all the radishes

if any of y'all have been thinking about rendering your own tallow i can recommend that you don't

had a lamb leg in the freezer from '22, trimmed the fat before roasting it, mentioned all the gnarly leftover fat to mr. cat who got excited because one of his ayurvedic physicians recommended him lamb fat once, for to help him sleep. can't be too hard to melt out the tallow, i figured, and it'd be a shame to waste any more of the poor critter than necessary. so i looked up some how-tos and yeah, turns out it's a simple thing to chop up the fat and toss it in the slow cooker w/ some water for a spell but ho.lee.sheeeeeep. does the process ever stank. nevar again, ugh ack barf puke

he really likes the tallow tho so maybe we can find some cute cuddly hippie shepherds nearby who raise their lambs with all the ethical whatnots before they ice them, mebbe buy some lamb tallow already made like proper consumers

I've always found lamb fat has a funk that beef and pork don't.

you bet your bippy there's funk, that's why i trimmed it off the meat (then used olive oil & ghee in its basicasfuck garlic/rosemary/lemon zest rub)

Nice!

My parents live in rural PA and have tons of ramps on their property every Spring. I made ramp pesto with ramps I dug out 10 days ago - still great.

oooooo rampy pesto sounds ridiculous delish!

we ain't there yet but if squirrel ever starts popping up in our diet i might try my hand at squirrel lard.

https://i0.wp.com/practicalselfreliance.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/rendered-squirrel-fat-for-cookies.jpeg

i'll have to give the brains a miss though on account of those pesky prions

is ramps wild garlic? if so I made some pesto with it the other week, it was really good! We have tons of woodland nearby where it just grows like a sea of it.
Love lamb fat, it does the best roast potatoes.

"ramp pesto" should be in tony hawk pro skater

Ramps are wild baby leeks, I believe, though I see the wiki says that wild garlic is another name. I always thought that was a separate plant. They look like mini leeks to me.

ah yeah it's wild garlic, I just picked the leaves, but the stems look good too!

They bring me a lot of joy - digging something wild out of the ground and eating it.

My market had shad roe, so I made shad roe breakfast for dinner: roasted potatoes, shad roe dredged in flour and sautéed in butter, brown butter caper sauce with lemon, with a fried egg on top.

I need some advice:

I’m making this cauliflower pasta dish tonight but I have to swap out the anchovies for something vegetarian. I have red miso but I’m not sure when’s the best time to add it - for anchovies, I’d add it to oil and garlic and fry till melted. Should I add the miso the same way or am I better off dissolving it in the reserved pasta water I’ll be adding to make the sauce?

dissolve in pasta water imo

if not vegan you can also add parmesan rind to the sauce and pull it out later for more umami type notes

I think you could fry the miso briefly just as you would for the anchovies, though it won't take as long. 30 secs at most.

But sleeve's way is fine, too.

frying it does sound good actually!