LazBro
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Post by LazBro on Jan 2, 2018 8:36:29 GMT -5
New year. New project.
My Alton Brown project was fun - or is fun; there's no reason I couldn't return to it should the whim strike me - but I'd begun to feel increasingly despondent whenever I turned to the book looking for dinner. There are still recipes the look good to eat, but not especially good to make. Smoked cheese dip, deep fried burgers, charcoal setups for freakin' everything. Cut me some slack, dude. So when putting together my Christmas list for 2017, I chose and hoped for a couple changes of scenery. One of the winners: Smitten Kitchen Every Day.
Similar to the story I told about cookbooks at the beginning of the last project, I'm really not much of a food blog reader. I'm a food blog user, certainly, but I've always been the type to skip the write up and go straight to the recipe. So I've seen plenty of Smitten Kitchen recipes before, and made at least a few of them, but before getting this book I don't think I'd ever read a word of Deb Perelman's prose. It's wonderful. Such an easy, engaging style that makes me crave whatever the dish may be. And I do. Smitten Kitchen Every Day is cover-to-cover with gorgeous photography and utterly crave-able recipes. There are nearly a hundred here, and I want to eat over 90 of them. I see very little here that my daughter would ever consider tasting, but I'll just have to make that work.
In 2017 I made 23 recipes in my Alton Brown project. Hopefully we'll do better with Smitten Kitchen in 2018. Alright, let's do it!
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LazBro
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Post by LazBro on Jan 2, 2018 9:18:08 GMT -5
#1 - Grandma-Style Chicken Noodle Soup
Last Tuesday I was deep in the clutches of some kind of primordial death flu. Fever, uncontrollable shaking, thumping headache, and feeling like I'd gone five rounds in the ring with a bag of navel oranges. It was also the day after Christmas, meaning the fridge was stocked with some prized leftovers. Among them, and ranking highest, about 10 ounces of some of the best prime rib I've ever cooked. Eager to put those ounces to work and not go to the store, I fashioned a prime rib sandwich by slicing the rib thin, quick searing it to add some color and remelt the fat, then topped it cheese, arugula and horseradish sauce and called it dinner. And it was great. And I ate about five bites of it. Too rich, too indulgent, and all wrong for me in my weakened state. Should have known better. Wednesday, I decided to get serious about my impending death and brew up a proper curative. I also spied the perfect gateway to my new project. Smitten Kitchen's Grandma-Style Chicken Noodle Soup. There's nothing remotely odd or surprising about this recipe. It is right down the line and relies on a simple premise - give it time, and you will succeed. Well, I work from home now, so time I have. Deb does it by sauteeing mirepoix to get a little color on it, then going into the pot with garlic, parsley stems, bay leaf, water, and a whole chicken, cut up if needed. I got a giant stock pot from my grandma, so I don't have to cut up my 5 lb. bird to fit in the pot, but I went ahead and halved it anyway, figuring it would make easier removal and meat pulling down the road. I also removed half the bird's skin before the first simmer, since my chicken was larger than the recommended size, and I didn't want all that fat getting in the way. Simmer for about 25 minutes until the chicken in cooked and pull-able. Remove it to cool and get the stock back to a simmer. Once the chicken is cool enough, pull it, then return the bones to the pot and simmer for a minimum 1 hour but really as long as possible. (Deb recommends watching a Harry Potter movie, but doesn't say which one, further evincing the soup's maverick nature.) Or ... maybe do what I did. So we're going off book already. In addition to making this recipe, I also wanted to test the whole roasted bones thing. So instead of returning the bones immediately to the pot, I instead moved my bones - some still clinging to a bit of meat - to a 450F oven for about 30 minutes to really brown up. Then I re-added the bones to the pot, "almost covered" and simmered for 3 hours. It made a huge difference. Whereas my typical chicken broth is a disappointingly pallid specimen, more off-clear than TV yellow, this broth was golden and sumptuous looking. It's what a chicken broth should look like. Anyway, I'm going on. Let's finish this soup. When you're ready, strain the soup through a fine mesh or cheesecloth set in a colander. You're welcome to use the veg, but Deb feels they've given their all, and so do I. Discard the bones and aromatics, return the now-clear broth to the stove and add a fresh batch of veggies: carrot, celery, onion and optional: green onion, leeks. Add the pulled chicken to warm through. When you're ready to serve, ladle into bowls and add a helping of your choice of noodles, cooked and kept separate until the bowl. Top with parsley and, if you're Deb or me, fresh dill. Eat. This is the best chicken noodle soup I've ever made. As I said a few lines back, there's nothing special about it. No twist, no surprises. It's just the classic flavor done the right way. By taking enough time, using enough ingredients, not skipping steps and maybe - just maybe - roasting the bones first, you can have a hearty restorative that doesn't feel a bit heavy. This was a great start to a new project, and just what I needed last week. Image:
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LazBro
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Post by LazBro on Jan 3, 2018 8:59:00 GMT -5
#2 - Strawberry Raspberry Cloud Cookies
Two recipes in, two accounts of going rogue. With the soup, my shot from the hip was by design. Here, it was by necessity. "Cloud cookies" are just cute names for meringues, a confection I've never made before and hadn't made much time for even when available to eat. But I was drawn to the description, which promised a sweet-tart "pink lemonade" flavor, and also to the ingredient list, which was blessedly short at only five items. What sets these meringues apart from standard is their flavoring. Perelman has you source freeze dried strawberries, which you then pulse in a food processor or blender until all that remains is a fine powder. Well, I couldn't find freeze dried strawberries. Even when I caved and went to a second store, a store with a freeze dried section, I couldn't find them. Unwilling to give up on cookie day, I opted for freeze dried raspberries instead. A personal favorite of mine that I hoped would result in a similar pink color. If there's a revelation to this recipe, it's the powdered fruit. Incredibly powerful, I imagine this stuff would be magical for flavoring all kinds of desserts, dressings, and marinades. Hell, it'd be good just sprinkled on ice cream, or maybe pound cake and whipped cream. Anyway: whip egg whites to soft peaks, add sugar, salt and your powdered freeze dried fruit of choice, whip to stiff peaks, add lemon juice, spoon onto sheets and bake slow until just turning brown at the peaks. Result? Darn tasty. Just crisp exterior, meltingly tender interior, and best of all, not too sweet. The raspberry powder brought a considerable tang to the cookie - and yeah, a little lemonade like - that gets your salivary glands working in your favor. And so easy, if a bit sticky, to make. Final note: not good the next day. Not good at all. Make the batch, and eat'em up. Image:
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Post by Pedantic Editor Type on Jan 3, 2018 9:18:27 GMT -5
I want someone to come make that soup for me, and also Baby Snape is ADORABLE.
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Post by Liz n Dick on Jan 3, 2018 9:29:47 GMT -5
Ahh, giving the hard sell to this cookie recipe by use of an adorable child. Clever!
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Post by pairesta on Jan 3, 2018 9:51:39 GMT -5
#2 - Strawberry Raspberry Cloud Cookies
If there's a revelation to this recipe, it's the powdered fruit. Incredibly powerful, I imagine this stuff would be magical for flavoring all kinds of desserts, dressings, and marinades. Hell, it'd be good just sprinkled on ice cream, or maybe pound cake and whipped cream. Freeze dried strawberries are so good it's almost worth considering never bothering with cottony, white storebought strawberries again. I'm sure they are pumped full of all kinds of carcinogens, but whatever: they taste so purely and intensely of strawberry. I sprinkle some on my yogurt and granola whenever I'm lucky enough to have them sitting around. For a long time I had an obsession with making them into ice cream, and finally did it last spring. Unfortunately cooking them leeched out their color and the resulting ice cream was a rather unappetizing gray color, but was very, very intense.
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Post by The Sensational She-Hulk on Jan 3, 2018 10:03:39 GMT -5
I can't decide what I like more: your write-ups or the kid pics.
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LazBro
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Post by LazBro on Jan 3, 2018 19:14:42 GMT -5
I can't decide what I like more: your write-ups or the kid pics. Awww, thank yall for the nice words
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Post by Ron Howard Voice on Jan 5, 2018 15:29:39 GMT -5
Girlfriend pre-ordered this book and got a bonus pre-order-only recipe (a chocolate dessert, if you're interested). So far everything has been solid-to-great. Pizza beans are addicting. You will like pizza beans.
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Post by Ron Howard Voice on Jan 8, 2018 15:45:00 GMT -5
Just counted. Yesterday we made our 9th SK Every Day recipe, the roasted vegetables + halloumi roast. It's pretty much foolproof, you just roast veggies and halloumi until delicious (though the gf thought 2 teaspoons as instructed was too much salt and gave me the leftovers). The marinade initially looks hilariously small relative to the amount of veggie but it worked out fine.
The mushroom shepherd's pie is tasty, but missing something? Thyme?
So far the highlight might be pelmeni (Russian dumplings with a splash of vinegar to finish) or the breakfast skillet of polenta and eggs. Nothing's been bad.
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LazBro
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Post by LazBro on Jan 8, 2018 21:10:51 GMT -5
Despite my lack of write-ups here, I think I'm up to seven dishes from the book, and I've found them all excellent and worthy of repeats. Mrs. Snape said, "She's batting 100." She meant batting 1000, but I'll give her credit anyway.
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LazBro
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Post by LazBro on Jan 9, 2018 14:02:26 GMT -5
#3 - Crispy Short Rib Carnitas with Sunset Slaw
This book is proving to be a back-to-back stunner, but I will admit that when I first meandered through its pages, the chapter that left me coldest was the one right at its center: Meat Mains. Don't get me wrong, they looked good. Some of them really good. But as I get older I find myself drawn more and more to the allure of vegetables. These meat dishes might look tasty, but I positively tongue-wagged through the salad chapter. Me ... Snape ... salads!
Even today's subject - a luxurious braise of fatty short rib, crisped under the broiler at the last minute and served simply on toasty corn tortillas - I think I made mostly for its accompanying side: sunset slaw. "Sunset slaw?" I thought. "What's that?!" Turns out sunset slaw is a simple mix of shredded red cabbage, shredded carrot, green onions, mayonnaise, hot sauce, lime juice and salt. Zen simple and crazy good. And because there's no wilty green cabbage, it keeps in the fridge. For real. Like ... for days! Amazing! Oh yeah, the tacos. Braise the best short ribs you can find in a mix of orange juice and lime juice (fresh for both, please), plus a bunch of garlic cloves and some chili powder. The recipe calls for 5 garlic cloves, but it also says that the cloves (which are left skin on) can then be squeezed onto the tacos at the end for those interested. Well, I'm very interested in that, so I upped it to something like 10 cloves. Maybe more. After braising low and covered for 2.5-3 hours, take off the lid (or foil cover) and put the spurs to it - 425F - and baste it as it begins to crisp and caramelize. Shred the meat and served on toasted tortillas. Deb does hers in a dry skillet. I do mine right over the gas stove (all hail!). She says to serve with diced white onion, cilantro and lime (plus garlic cloves), street taco style, and that is good. But if you also happen to plop some sunset slaw on top, well maybe that'll work out too. Verdict: I think my smoked pork carnitas turn out a little better when I take the time, but no doubt this is good eating. You really can never go wrong with tacos. And that slaw is the bomb. I don't know why I'd never considered an all red cabbage slaw before. I will from now on. Image: Okay, so I took a picture, but I just ... I don't like it. I'm bad at this. Here's someone else's (which I also don't love - for one thing, the slaw looks dry. Mine was more slaw-like).
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Baron von Costume
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Post by Baron von Costume on Jan 10, 2018 12:46:11 GMT -5
Yay I got this book too and can follow along
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Post by LazBro on Jan 11, 2018 10:24:58 GMT -5
#4 - Broccoli Melts
My favorite dish from my Alton Brown project was not a rich, tangy mushroom stroganoff, or a gooey grilled cheese, or even the clever chicken parmesan meatballs, which I've made numerous times hence. No, my favorite dish was a broccoli sandwich. And that's not a big surprise. If we remove mushrooms from contention as fungi and not plants, broccoli is probably my favorite vegetable. I love the flavor, I love the texture, I love it raw, I love it cooked, I love it in many different contexts. Broccoli is my bae. So when Perelman offered up her own take on a broccoli sandwich in her new book, I knew it wouldn't be long before I gave it a whack. I also love how the dish came to be. It was inspired by her husband's love of the classic tuna melt, which resides in the culinary catalog of "dishes we only eat when we're alone." That tickled me, as that very same circumstance is often a topic of discussion over on the Food Thread. Perelman is not big on fish, however, so she adapted the concept of the melt into something she does like. I liked it a hell of a lot, too. First off, this melt is not a sandwich but is actually a toast. Anyway, cook a lot of broccoli or broccolini until just shy of tender. She does this by simmer-steaming in a pool of salted water. I just steamed it. Then once it cools a bit and has a chance to steam out, chop small. Until it's a "rubbly" pile. Back in the pan, heat olive oil and then quick sautee chopped garlic and red pepper flakes, then re-add the broccoli. Cook just a couple more minutes or until fully done, then transfer to a bowl a finally mix with lemon zest, lemon juice and a helping of grated Pecorino Romano (which I actually had on hand! Another reason I made the dish so soon.) While all that is going on, prep slices of your choice of bread. She recommends a seeded country loaf, and that sounded good to me, so that's what I used. Toast it plain under the broiler on each side a minute or so, just to dry it out and begin to get some color on it, then remove from the oven. Top each piece with the broccoli mixture, then crown with slices of, in her words, "totally unfancy deli provolone." Pop back in the oven to melt and brown the cheese. Serve. Whether or not you'll like this dish comes down to how you feel about broccoli. If you like it, this is a damn tasty way to eat it (broccoli and cheese get along gloriously, don't ya know). If you don't like it ... well, I assume you stopped reading already. I love broccoli and I loved these melts. Crispy, cheesy, salty, a little tangy from the lemon, and very broccoli-y. Final note: it doesn't really function as a full dinner, so I served some sauteed chicken on the side with similar flavors - garlic, red pepper, lemon - to kind of carry it through, but it'd make a bangin' lunch or snack. Image:
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LazBro
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Post by LazBro on Jan 11, 2018 10:30:39 GMT -5
Oh, and just a heads up guys. #5 is OH-MY-FUCKING-GOD good.
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Post by Liz n Dick on Jan 11, 2018 10:51:04 GMT -5
Oooh, these melts sound fabulous! Boomer and I occasionally have tuna melt dinners when Hugs is working the late shift (tuna salad being the only fish thing that I will eat), but broccoli melts would be equally welcome...
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Post by Crash Test Dumbass on Jan 11, 2018 11:47:55 GMT -5
#3 - Crispy Short Rib Carnitas with Sunset Slaw
Oh yeah, the tacos. Braise the best short ribs you can find in a mix of orange juice and lime juice (fresh for both, please), plus a bunch of garlic cloves and some chili powder. The recipe calls for 5 garlic cloves, but it also says that the cloves (which are left skin on) can then be squeezed onto the tacos at the end for those interested. Well, I'm very interested in that, so I upped it to something like 10 cloves. Maybe more. After braising low and covered for 2.5-3 hours, take off the lid (or foil cover) and put the spurs to it - 425F - and baste it as it begins to crisp and caramelize. Shred the meat and served on toasted tortillas. Deb does hers in a dry skillet. I do mine right over the gas stove (all hail!). She says to serve with diced white onion, cilantro and lime (plus garlic cloves), street taco style, and that is good. But if you also happen to plop some sunset slaw on top, well maybe that'll work out too. I think this is the writeup that made me put the book on hold at my library (I'm number 16 physically and 9 electronically), and it sounds like it may even make it into the pantheon of books I actually buy.
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LazBro
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Post by LazBro on Jan 11, 2018 12:36:40 GMT -5
#3 - Crispy Short Rib Carnitas with Sunset Slaw
Oh yeah, the tacos. Braise the best short ribs you can find in a mix of orange juice and lime juice (fresh for both, please), plus a bunch of garlic cloves and some chili powder. The recipe calls for 5 garlic cloves, but it also says that the cloves (which are left skin on) can then be squeezed onto the tacos at the end for those interested. Well, I'm very interested in that, so I upped it to something like 10 cloves. Maybe more. After braising low and covered for 2.5-3 hours, take off the lid (or foil cover) and put the spurs to it - 425F - and baste it as it begins to crisp and caramelize. Shred the meat and served on toasted tortillas. Deb does hers in a dry skillet. I do mine right over the gas stove (all hail!). She says to serve with diced white onion, cilantro and lime (plus garlic cloves), street taco style, and that is good. But if you also happen to plop some sunset slaw on top, well maybe that'll work out too. I think this is the writeup that made me put the book on hold at my library (I'm number 16 physically and 9 electronically), and it sounds like it may even make it into the pantheon of books I actually buy. You ... you work at the library. Rig that shit and get your book the next time it's available.
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Post by Powerthirteen on Jan 11, 2018 23:00:50 GMT -5
Oh man, we also got this book for Christmas because weâre embarrassingly dependent on Debâs recipes. So far weâve tried: -sweet potato âsteaksâ w green beans (pretty good, we were missing a few things that would have given it some zip) -chicken meatballs Marsala (damn good; chicken meatballs are a revelation) - the smoky chicken sheet dinner (really tasty)
More will be made, including hopefully some of the baking this weekend.
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Post by Powerthirteen on Jan 11, 2018 23:27:38 GMT -5
I will say - my one major Point Of Contention with Debâs recipes is her fondness for âcrispy eggs,â which I find nasty and always replace with poached eggs.
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Post by Ron Howard Voice on Jan 11, 2018 23:34:26 GMT -5
-sweet potato âsteaksâ w green beans (pretty good, we were missing a few things that would have given it some zip) Did you put the green beans on top of the sweet potatoes like in the picture? If so, was that kinda weird or did it cohere?
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Post by Powerthirteen on Jan 11, 2018 23:58:02 GMT -5
-sweet potato âsteaksâ w green beans (pretty good, we were missing a few things that would have given it some zip) Did you put the green beans on top of the sweet potatoes like in the picture? If so, was that kinda weird or did it cohere? We did - it was definitely not weird. Fun sort of textural contrast. It would frankly be better as a pair of sides for a chicken thigh though.
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LazBro
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Post by LazBro on Jan 12, 2018 8:09:35 GMT -5
Oh man, we also got this book for Christmas because weâre embarrassingly dependent on Debâs recipes. So far weâve tried: -sweet potato âsteaksâ w green beans (pretty good, we were missing a few things that would have given it some zip) -chicken meatballs Marsala (damn good; chicken meatballs are a revelation) - the smoky chicken sheet dinner (really tasty) More will be made, including hopefully some of the baking this weekend. I'm not a sweet potato guy, so the sweet potato steaks are near the bottom of the list for me, and I doubt I'll make them. The other two I'm excited about but haven't made yet. I like crispy eggs, a lot, but I haven't made any of her crispy egg recipes yet. I think it's probably reaching the passe stage in food culture, but I do appreciate her "put an egg on it" approach. Eggs are all over this thing.
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LazBro
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Post by LazBro on Jan 31, 2018 10:09:07 GMT -5
I'm way behind on write-ups, but not on dinners. I think I'm up to 13-14 recipes made, eclipsing the halfway point vs. my last project's effort, and it's only the first month. This book is mad good y'all. Anyway, let's get one on the record. #5 - Raspberry Hazelnut Brioche Bostock
Everything I have made up this point has been good, repeat-worthy even, if never quite mind-blowing. That changes today. This sweet, tart, crunchy, buttery, luscious bostock, a dish the author playfully calls "French French toast," is probably the greatest breakfast bread I have ever made. (Here, as always, we exclude biscuits, which are an anytime food.) So what is bostock, because I certainly didn't know. It doesn't even have a Wikipedia page. To take Deb's word for it, bostock is a French pastry in which day old brioche is revived with a flavored syrup, sweet frangipane (almond paste) and sliced nuts, then baked until crispy. Ummmm, yeah, sign me up for that. Looking to add her own twist, the chef swaps the frangipane for a homemade roasted hazelnut cream and smears on a layer of smooshed fresh raspberries. Well, I don't like hazelnuts, and wouldn't you know it, I was fresh out frangipane. Tell you what I do like though: Texas pecans. Especially the ones that I got at the tree farm last November and were already on hand in the freezer. Here's what I did: Set out thick slices of brioche in the morning to spend the day getting stale. In a food processor, I combined pecans I toasted in a pan and cooled, pinch of salt, sugar, unsalted butter, 1 egg and some almond extract (keep it tradish). Processed into a smooth cream. Try not to eat it all before making dinner. Meanwhile, I made a syrup of equal parts water and sugar, plus 2 oranges worth of orange peel. That's more than recommended, but I didn't have the (optional) orange liqueur so I tried to bump it in other ways. Cool. Finally, the build: brush each piece of toast with the syrup. Don't be stingy. Then mash on fresh raspberries blackberries, because that's what was on sale. Then a layer of the pecan cream. It'll blend or make a little bit of a mess with the fruit, and that's all good. I think I used more cream than is traditional. Then sprinkle with some leftover chopped pecans. Bake until the top is puffy and the edges are crisp. Sprinkle with powdered sugar. Eat. It just ... it hits every note. Sweetness and saltiness from the cream and pecans, tartness and freshness from the fruit, richness and crispiness from the bread. This was eyes roll back good. Or maybe it wasn't. A few dishes further into the project, Mrs. Snape confessed to me that while she liked it a lot, she would probably put it at the bottom of her list. So what do I know? Image:
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Post by Liz n Dick on Jan 31, 2018 10:35:42 GMT -5
Deb and I historically have very differing views on what makes for a delicious dessert, but I was just last night wondering what to do with the excess almond paste I still have on hand after my Christmas cake, and lo! Here you come with this dessert concept. I had never heard of such a thing as this, but some variation on it might just have to happen at stately Dick n Hisses Manor. I mean, that almond paste is going to waste otherwise...
(And that phenomenon of being like, "THIS IS THE BEST THING I HAVE EVER EATEN!" and then your peeps being like, "Eh, it was okay..." -- man, I hate that. Get on the same page with me, people!)
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LazBro
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Post by LazBro on Jan 31, 2018 10:42:04 GMT -5
Deb and I historically have very differing views on what makes for a delicious dessert, but I was just last night wondering what to do with the excess almond paste I still have on hand after my Christmas cake, and lo! Here you come with this dessert concept. I had never heard of such a thing as this, but some variation on it might just have to happen at stately Dick n Hisses Manor. I mean, that almond paste is going to waste otherwise... (And that phenomenon of being like, "THIS IS THE BEST THING I HAVE EVER EATEN!" and then your peeps being like, "Eh, it was okay..." -- man, I hate that. Get on the same page with me, people!) It's in the breakfast section of the book, but yeah it's pretty dessert-like. Kinda like how a thick slice of custardy French toast is almost indistinguishable from bread pudding when you think about it. Served with scrambled eggs and sausage, it was breakfast. Served on its own, or maybe with flavored whipped cream (frangelico? brandy?) ... yeah, totally dessert.
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Post by Powerthirteen on Jan 31, 2018 12:54:33 GMT -5
We have also made more of these recipes. Polenta Baked Eggs: Hell yes. Endlessly variable. Kind of fussy with the polenta, and I'm never good at guesstimating the right time to bake eggs for, but still super duper good. Makes great leftovers too. Carrot Salad w Tahini: Also very nice. Could maybe use more pistachios? Or just crispier chickpeas than I made. You could experiment with the carrot/chickpea.nut balance and find your own preference. Ginger Crumble Apple Bake: Needs, like, three times as many apples.
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LazBro
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Post by LazBro on Feb 2, 2018 15:42:01 GMT -5
We have also made more of these recipes. Polenta Baked Eggs: Hell yes. Endlessly variable. Kind of fussy with the polenta, and I'm never good at guesstimating the right time to bake eggs for, but still super duper good. Makes great leftovers too. Carrot Salad w Tahini: Also very nice. Could maybe use more pistachios? Or just crispier chickpeas than I made. You could experiment with the carrot/chickpea.nut balance and find your own preference. Ginger Crumble Apple Bake: Needs, like, three times as many apples. That's two big thumbs up for the Polenta Baked Eggs, which do look amazing, but man, that's everything Baby Snape doesn't want to eat. It'd be a two-dinner night for sure.
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LazBro
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Post by LazBro on Feb 2, 2018 16:19:46 GMT -5
#6 - Romesco, Chickpea, and Smashed Egg Bowl
Ah... the "bowl." How trendy. A dish that makes perfect sense in a fast-casual context, or maybe when shoving together a few leftovers for lunch and forcing them to get along. But it often proves a complete pain in the dick when producing from scratch for dinner. The road to your humble pile of stuff is paved with four or more totally separate preparations of ingredients that you can only hope will at one point meet blissfully in the middle. I'm not against bowls. In fact, I love them. I just feel that producing one without relying on leftovers is like opening your own Chipotle franchise. So much work for such a simple, if tasty, result. And tasty it is! Rant aside, this is a fabulous meal. There are five elements: chickpeas, sauteed spinach, charred scallions, romesco sauce (!), soft-boiled eggs. But really there's only one element. Only one recipe. The romesco sauce. The rest is so straightforward as to barely warrant mention. Here we go: cook plum tomatoes down (fresh or canned; I used canned) with red pepper until squigey. In a food processor, blitz garlic and roasted almond (marcona if you got'em, but crap man who has'em?), then add the tomato mixture, roasted bell peppers (I used jarred), garlic, smoked paprika, olive oil and sherry vinegar. Season to taste. (And the taste you're looking for is "amaze-balls!") Meanwhile, heat up a cast iron skillet (or whatever you prefer) super hot and add a little olive oil. Drop in your whole scallion to char in the oil. Really give it to'em. Remove the scallion, and then add a bunch of spinach. Wilt it down with some garlic toward the end, seasoning as you go. Still meanwhile, prep some soft boiled eggs. The book has a method, but fam, I ain't using anything else but my Instant Pot for in-the-shell eggs. If I recall I did 3 minutes at pressure. Anyway, the goal is cooked whites with runny centers. You're ready: grab a bowl. Chickpeas -> spinach -> scallions -> romesco -> eggs -> chopped almonds. Verdict: yeah, man. Tasty as hell. I'd eat it every day if 1) I already had at least a couple of the ingredients on hand or 2) someone else was making it for me. From scratch it's a lot of work. Fortunately you'll probably end up with some leftover romesco sauce in the process, so there's still plenty of good eats to be had. Notes: 1) I used cooked chickpeas I already had on hand, but the recipe recommends canned. What's weird is that at no point does the recipe say to heat the chickpeas. Since chickpeas make up the bulk majority of the dish, it's weird to me to leave them room temperature. My situation was worse even, with the beans fresh out of the fridge, so I heated mine until hot in the microwave. I'm really not sure if room temperature is what Deb intends, but I don't think I agree. Heat yo' beans, y'all. 2) I took the picture with only one egg in the bowl, to be genteel, but you better believe I made two eggs per person. Image:
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Crash Test Dumbass
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Gender (additional): mostly snacks
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Post by Crash Test Dumbass on Feb 6, 2018 18:23:52 GMT -5
I finally got a physical copy of the book and I only read a little at lunch today and I already want to try two or three recipes. DAMN YOU SNAPE
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