The Food Thread

Yes.

Yeah, I wasn't too shocked or outraged by that guy's story.

I saw Good Eats for the first time last fall. Super fun show.

Welp, now I know what I'm doing with at least some of the berries in my freezer!

Oh, you SHOULD be bragging.  Those are ravishingly beautiful loaves!  How far away from me are you?  I think I can be right over to help eat those... 

So, I started myself cooking roughly two or three years ago. I'm not great at it in any way but the things I do cook work out fairly well at this point. By now, I started to look into more "exotic" stuff I could make.

In a otherwise unrelated Youtube-binge I came across this:


www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6um8EvfArI (Warning: It's SFW but not for the easily grossed out, it's a recipe for goat head)

The last time I've eaten tongue or brain is so long ago i don't remember the taste and the eyes , while gross, are said to be delicious. You see, I am just too curious now to not try it.

The GamblingGal has already stated her disgust, she's so not on board for this one. I tried the "but this way the whole animal gets eaten instead of parts of it thrown away" Argument, but no dice, I learned not to bring this up in her presence anymore.

So my question: (can I turn this into a poll somehow?)

Am I a sick individual who should be locked up and closely watched?

Or a misunderstood gourmet?

Or am I just bored by lollypops?


BTW, check out the guy's other videos, classic italian cuisine brought to you by a real classic italian. (no raw animal heads in the other recipes!)

I googled that, now I want it, too!
Problem is, I have no backyard. I have a small chance of inheriting a house, I'll just have to start murdering my way through a few relatives.
Two birds with one stone, i guess.


ETA: No, this 'quote'-feature is not my friend,  I'm referring to the Pig in the Ground.

For those of you needing Things To Do with strawberries, this was in yesterday's ATK newsletter:

FRESH STRAWBERRY MOUSSE
SERVES 4 TO 6

This recipe works well with supermarket strawberries and farmers’ market strawberries. In step 1, be careful not to overprocess the berries. For more complex berry flavor, replace the 3 tablespoons of raw strawberry juice in step 2 with strawberry or raspberry liqueur.

INGREDIENTS

2 pounds strawberries, hulled (6 1/2 cups)
1/2 cup (3 1/2 ounces) sugar
Pinch salt
1 3/4 teaspoons unflavored gelatin
4 ounces cream cheese, cut into 8 pieces and softened
1/2 cup heavy cream, chilled

1. Cut enough strawberries into 1/4-inch dice to measure 1 cup; refrigerate until ready to garnish. Pulse remaining strawberries in food processor in 2 batches until most pieces are 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick (some larger pieces are fine), 6 to 10 pulses. Transfer strawberries to bowl and toss with 1/4 cup sugar and salt. (Do not clean processor.) Cover bowl and let strawberries stand for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally.

2. Strain processed strawberries through fine-mesh strainer into bowl (you should have about 2/3 cup juice). Measure out 3 tablespoons juice into small bowl, sprinkle gelatin over juice, and let sit until gelatin softens, about 5 minutes. Place remaining juice in small saucepan and cook over medium-high heat until reduced to 3 tablespoons, about 10 minutes. Remove pan from heat, add softened gelatin mixture, and stir until gelatin has dissolved. Add cream cheese and whisk until smooth. Transfer mixture to large bowl.

3. While juice is reducing, return strawberries to now-empty processor and process until smooth, 15 to 20 seconds. Strain puree through fine-mesh strainer into medium bowl, pressing on solids to remove seeds and pulp (you should have about 1 2/3 cups puree). Discard any solids in strainer. Add strawberry puree to juice-gelatin mixture and whisk until incorporated.

4. Using stand mixer fitted with whisk, whip cream on medium-low speed until foamy, about 1 minute. Increase speed to high and whip until soft peaks form, 1 to 3 minutes. Gradually add remaining 1/4 cup sugar and whip until stiff peaks form, 1 to 2 minutes. Whisk whipped cream into strawberry mixture until no white streaks remain. Portion into dessert dishes and chill for at least 4 hours or up to 48 hours. (If chilled longer than 6 hours, let mousse sit at room temperature for 15 minutes before serving.) Serve, garnishing with reserved diced strawberries.

Barilla makes my favorite elbow macaroni, but I don't want to buy homophobic pasta (I had bought five pounds right before the controversy happened—they were on sale $1/lb.!—and I've only just run out). All the other macaronis I've seen in stores are missing Barilla's ridges, and it bums me out.

This is what Barilla's macaroni looks like.

This is what everyone else's macaroni looks like.

Can anyone recommend to me a brand that is like Barilla's?

In the great pantheon of foods, pasta with butter and cheese is really high up there.

Food thought of the day: fettuccine alfredo is awful. Heavy, bland, monotone. Food that unhealthy should at least taste good. Hell, food that unhealthy should taste great.

One of my last acts before the cooking ban came down was to make and freeze King Ranch Casserole, which I then thawed and cooked on our grill last night since our oven is on the fritz.
It's a comfort food bomb, basically: cheese, starch, and protein all bound together by cream of this and cream of that soup, then given a mild chile zip by a can of rotel. It was very, very hard not to go back for seconds.
Served it with a simple salad, then realized at the last minute I should have done a Bombay Salad instead. This is a locally famous salad served at the King Ranch Inn in Kingsville: Avocado, tomatoes, a little lettuce, and then a sour cream and curry powder dressing. It's so much better than it sounds.

I couldn't find Ronzoni's oven-ready lasagna noodles last week, and I was crushed to discover that apparently they don't sell them anywhere in my area anymore. I may have to order them online now. We used Golden Grain's version, and they went the wrong direction.

I made brilliant alfredo twice in 2012, so I know it can be done. It just generally isn't.

King Ranch Casserole is totally fascinating to me.  I'd never heard of it until heading out to last year's State Fair of Texas, where deep-fried King Ranch Casserole was apparently a thing.  After doing some research on what the hell it was, oh my god was that ever on the top of my list of things I wanted to try.  Alas, I never crossed paths with a booth that was selling it, and had to settle for just the deep-fried Thanksgiving dinner instead.

Welp, saw lobsters on sale at the supermarket yesterday ($6/lb. Not as great as the $4/lb last summer though). Picking some up today to make lobster rolls. Will also either do homemade chips or some sort of potato salad (french, german, WHO KNOWS?).
I prefer the warm, buttered version of a lobster roll, but my girlfriend likes the mayo based, so I'll be making an aioli. I'm thinking a garlic-scape aioli, if I can pestle it down enough to make it a paste. If not, then green garlic it is.