LazBro
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Post by LazBro on Jul 1, 2014 8:59:07 GMT -5
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. In the never ending battle between butter or mayo, the answer is almost always both. Sounds amazing. I continue to pine for the day that Mrs. Snape's taste buds snap into proper alignment and she takes a liking to seafood. Any seafood. I'll start small. I don't care. She's come around on a lot of pretty basic foods since we met - mushrooms, chile peppers, egg yolks - but seafood is the whole class of eating we don't enjoy at home. Ever. |
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Post by pairesta on Jul 1, 2014 10:31:14 GMT -5
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. 1) Ah to live someplace with cheap seasonal lobster readily available. Out here in Texas it's $11.99/lb and up. On "sale" it's $10.99. 2) Welcome back stranger! |
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Post by Gumbercules' Jugband Christmas on Jul 1, 2014 11:49:37 GMT -5
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. 1) Ah to live someplace with cheap seasonal lobster readily available. Out here in Texas it's $11.99/lb and up. On "sale" it's $10.99. 2) Welcome back stranger! I've been around, but just super busy. Ever since getting back from Germany, my boss re-examined my work load (which I had always said I was doing but never really added up the numbers), since I operate on billable time. I was estimating I had enough work for a 3 month backlog. Turns out, I'm booked until 2016. So, very little time to check this site. |
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LazBro
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Post by LazBro on Jul 1, 2014 12:26:38 GMT -5
1) Ah to live someplace with cheap seasonal lobster readily available. Out here in Texas it's $11.99/lb and up. On "sale" it's $10.99. When I hear those (possibly apocryphal) stories about how coast-dwellers in colonial times would riot if they had to eat lobster/oysters/clams more than 7 times a week, I think could I ever get that sick of lobster? My feeling is no. No I could not. |
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Smacks
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Post by Smacks on Jul 1, 2014 15:10:11 GMT -5
This is too awesome not to share with other culinary adventurers. I hope someone sees it way back here. 50 states, 50 sandwiches |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 1, 2014 16:13:24 GMT -5
This is too awesome not to share with other culinary adventurers. I hope someone sees it way back here. 50 states, 50 sandwichesAnd now I want a French Dip. And most of the other ones. |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 1, 2014 16:16:02 GMT -5
1) Ah to live someplace with cheap seasonal lobster readily available. Out here in Texas it's $11.99/lb and up. On "sale" it's $10.99. When I hear those (possibly apocryphal) stories about how coast-dwellers in colonial times would riot if they had to eat lobster/oysters/clams more than 7 times a week, I think could I ever get that sick of lobster? My feeling is no. No I could not. Lobster was my favorite food as a little kid. We lived on Catalina Island for a while because my dad was doing search & rescue with the LA Sheriff's Dept. They'd confiscate illegal traps and keep the catch. Terribly convenient. |
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LazBro
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Post by LazBro on Jul 2, 2014 7:34:01 GMT -5
Okay so it's hard to make nachos pretty, but it's not hard to make them tasty.  |
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Post by Liz n Dick the Halls on Jul 2, 2014 10:27:22 GMT -5
The tyranny of boring, commercial pickles has finally come to an end -- I made my first patch of garlicky dills yesterday! WOO HOO!!! Sure, I have no idea if those cucumbers from my farmshare will hold up to pickling (they look like picklers, but I don't think they are), and sure, I went with a quick-brine small-batch recipe instead of the usual full-sour deli dills that will come in a few weeks*, but no longer will I have to suffer the indignity of the soggy spears the bagel place includes with my sandwich for our weekly Sunday bagel lunches! It's pickle season again, baby!
*I have not been able to unlock the secret of how to actually can pickles that will be crispy and delicious after processing, so we end up just going with refrigerator pickles. After fermenting several batches of delicious, delicious dill pickles, I'll cram as many of them into the fridge as space will allow, and then parcel them out jealously for as long as possible. This past winter we ate the last one in February. We'd need another fridge if I wanted to get all the way through until the next pickle season, and I'm not sure they'd actually keep for that long. Life is so cruel.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 2, 2014 20:45:56 GMT -5
Okay so it's hard to make nachos pretty, but it's not hard to make them tasty. OH MY GOD. I could eat that entire platter by myself. I wouldn't enjoy the result, but I could do it. Please let me do it. |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 3, 2014 10:28:30 GMT -5
Okay so it's hard to make nachos pretty, but it's not hard to make them tasty. Those look amazing. |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 5, 2014 23:21:30 GMT -5
Today I made that balsamic strawberry sauce, and it's insanely delicious; I could have eaten the whole batch right out of the pot. Made frozen yogurt with it using this recipe, because I don't have a food processor, let alone an ice cream maker. (Tastes wonderful, but isn't as smooth as I'd like.) Tomorrow I will make the sauce with peaches and pomegranate vinegar. Gonna double it, tho; the recipe as-is makes only about a cup. ( Liz n Dick the Halls, I highly recommend making, oh, ten times the amount with your bounty of berries.) Also made some tzatziki and minty brown sugar syrup, which led directly to mojitos. |
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Post by Pedantic Editor Type on Jul 6, 2014 18:45:47 GMT -5
1 5 oz can evaporated milk
11 oz whipping cream or half and half
2 tsp vanilla
8 oz cream cheese
1/2 cup sugar, divided
2 tbsp cornstarch
2 tbsp milk or water
Pinch of salt
Heat the evap milk & cream, vanilla, plus half the sugar over low heat, stirring occasionally until it steams. Remove from heat and whisk in slurry of cornstarch and milk. Add cream cheese and remaining sugar and stir until well combined. (If you do this with reg milk instead, stir over heat until it coats the back of a spoon.) let chill in fridge an hour or three.
Freeze in ice cream maker. Add fruit syrup of your choice (I used blueberry) or other flavoring. Stir in crumbled graham crackers before putting in freezer.
And voila, you have cheesecake ice cream.
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LazBro
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Post by LazBro on Jul 7, 2014 8:42:28 GMT -5
Cheesecake has always been way low for me on the dessert scale, but I'm somehow fascinated by this.
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LazBro
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Post by LazBro on Jul 7, 2014 8:51:19 GMT -5
Made sticky rice (sweet, glutinous) for the first time last night. I don't have a rice cooker, so rice has never been my favorite thing to prepare. Even with every technique in the book, my rice is never perfect.*
This, however, was the bomb! Sticky but not mushy, satisfying to chew, and very flavorful. I added salt after the steam, even though recipes said not too ("you want to taste the rice"), and I'm happy with that decision.
After this experience, I suspect I will be making a lot more sticky rice. Which is good, because a 2lb. bag of the stuff was the smallest the market had.
*The cycling on and off of my flat, glass cooktop wasn't helping. But now I'm cooking on sweet, consistent gas.
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Post by Pedantic Editor Type on Jul 7, 2014 10:09:45 GMT -5
Cheesecake has always been way low for me on the dessert scale, but I'm somehow fascinated by this. You could easily make it without the cream cheese, but then it would just be vanilla ice cream. (Delicious, delicious vanilla ice cream. Plus fruit & graham crackers?) Anyway, evaporated milk plus the cornstarch equals a super-silky creamy texture. Without six egg yolks. |
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Post by Liz n Dick the Halls on Jul 7, 2014 10:52:40 GMT -5
The quick-brine pickles I was so excited to have turned out super-nasty. Just a thoroughly unpleasant recipe, that was weirdly sweet and unbalanced and awful. The moral of the story is that there's just no cutting corners with pickles, if you're a very, very picky pickle eater like me.  (Good news, though! My cucumber vine is starting to get some ripe fruits on it. Real, full-sour fermented deli-style dill pickles, coming right up!) |
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LazBro
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Post by LazBro on Jul 7, 2014 12:43:10 GMT -5
Cheesecake has always been way low for me on the dessert scale, but I'm somehow fascinated by this. You could easily make it without the cream cheese, but then it would just be vanilla ice cream. (Delicious, delicious vanilla ice cream. Plus fruit & graham crackers?) Anyway, evaporated milk plus the cornstarch equals a super-silky creamy texture. Without six egg yolks. Oh no, I'm cool with the cream cheese. I love cream cheese. On the face of it, I really should like cheesecake. There is not a single bad ingredient in it. In the end I always find it kind of heavy and short on flavor. I think the idea of doing it as an ice cream appeals to me, because I often eat cheesecake frozen anyway. Improves the texture. Also, key lime pie is delicious frozen. |
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Post by thebigmeh on Jul 7, 2014 17:16:44 GMT -5
I've made this a few times this spring/summer (and again tonight) and its becoming a staple at our house: www.skinnytaste.com/2012/08/southwestern-black-bean-quinoa-and.htmlWe usually leave out the mango and then eat it cold as directed - but we've also found that you can melt a little cheese on top, add sour cream on the side, and have an awesome tortilla chip dip! |
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LazBro
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Post by LazBro on Jul 8, 2014 23:10:38 GMT -5
Week by week my kitchen nears completion. I set up my beer wall, I finally had the new cooktop installed. And now, spice wall. I can actually fit another 12 canisters on there, so really the attractive pattern there is just for the photo. Also, the swiffer in the second photo ... ugh. I suck at this.   |
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Post by Gumbercules' Jugband Christmas on Jul 9, 2014 6:33:31 GMT -5
Week by week my kitchen nears completion. I set up my beer wall, I finally had the new cooktop installed. And now, spice wall. I can actually fit another 12 canisters on there, so really the attractive pattern there is just for the photo. Also, the swiffer in the second photo ... ugh. I suck at this. Looks great! As long as you don't have a son trying to tell you about his recent trip to Mount Everest, you should be fine. |
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LazBro
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Post by LazBro on Jul 9, 2014 7:28:29 GMT -5
Ha! I actually did almost that very thing trying to take the top-down picture. I dropped my phone, reached to catch it, and slapped literally every cannister off the wall. Fortunately not a single one opened. No mess, and the only loss was to my pride. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 9, 2014 9:20:15 GMT -5
LazBro wow, awesome organizational skills, looks great! I lack whatever gene is responsible for being able to do that - look at how I organize my spices:  Total fucking chaos.
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Post by Liz n Dick the Halls on Jul 9, 2014 9:42:58 GMT -5
songstarliner, you and I seem to have gone to the same school for spice organization. I'd take a picture of my spice collection, but it's almost literally all over my kitchen. There's the official spice drawer, which worked fine until I started wedging more and more bags of shit on top of the jars; then there's the spice island, where jars of various sizes and effective labeling are stacked higgledy-piggledy on the kitchen island; then there's the spice overflow area by the cutting board area next to the stove; then there's the bags of bulk spices shoved randomly around the small appliance storage in the pantry... Ugh. I'm hiring LazBro to come over and redo my spice storage for me.
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LazBro
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Post by LazBro on Jul 9, 2014 9:43:23 GMT -5
LazBro wow, awesome organizational skills, looks great! I lack whatever gene is responsible for being able to do that - look at how I organize my spices: Total fucking chaos. Sadly, I have so many spices (and want to add more) that I still have some of this going on. I'm probably going to end up adding a fourth rail to my wall. I love your nutmeg nut just chillin' out there. |
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LazBro
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Post by LazBro on Jul 9, 2014 9:44:57 GMT -5
songstarliner, you and I seem to have gone to the same school for spice organization. I'd take a picture of my spice collection, but it's almost literally all over my kitchen. There's the official spice drawer, which worked fine until I started wedging more and more bags of shit on top of the jars; then there's the spice island, where jars of various sizes and effective labeling are stacked higgledy-piggledy on the kitchen island; then there's the spice overflow area by the cutting board area next to the stove; then there's the bags of bulk spices shoved randomly around the small appliance storage in the pantry... Ugh. I'm hiring LazBro to come over and redo my spice storage for me. Hey, aren't you the one with that dazzling "wall o' pickles"? You've got it in you. |
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Post by Liz n Dick the Halls on Jul 9, 2014 9:51:22 GMT -5
Hey, aren't you the one with that dazzling "wall o' pickles"? You've got it in you. HA! Yeah, for about 10 minutes. You should see the wall o' pickles now... It's tragic. (I also tend to forget what's there. A few weeks ago we were working on some of our mountain of lettuce and I apologized to Hugs and our mother that I didn't have any fun add-ons to make our salads more exciting than lettuce and croutons. There was this long pause, and then Hugs was like, "Uh... not even pickles? Because I think we have a few downstairs...") |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 9, 2014 9:59:20 GMT -5
I love your nutmeg nut just chillin' out there. For easy access  |
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Post by pairesta on Jul 9, 2014 10:06:07 GMT -5
Snape I continue to think you and I are some weird long lost brothers or something. I have a similar set up, but on the side of my fridge. Always get an admiring comment from people when they visit for the first time. And yes, I'm giddy whenever I get a bunch of the new cannisters and get to reorganize and add still more spices to it.
Only problem is we have a very grabby 2 year old so they're all crammed up at the top of the fridge, both sides, to stay out of his reach. I can just imagine him getting into the cayenne or something.
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LazBro
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Post by LazBro on Jul 9, 2014 11:14:38 GMT -5
Last night was grilled Moroccan chicken skewers with quinoa-bean salad. The skewers were good, but the salad was phenomenal. It was a "clean out the refrigerator" dish that turned out very well. Thought I'd share:
Quinoa blend
Black beans (leftover canned)
Chickpeas (leftover canned)
Green onion (leftover fresh)
Toasted slivered almonds (already opened bag)
Zuchinni, grilled and diced
Lime zest
Salt, pepper
Dressing:
Toasted and ground cumin seed
Lime juice
Dijon mustard
Agave syrup (instead of my standard honey, so bebe can partake)
Extra virgin olive oil
Salt, pepper
It was great warm, would probably be great at room temp. This is one for the bank.
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