What's for dinner, DL?

[Clear Tranquil]

I used to cook Indian all the time but my mum told me I should stop eating so much spicy foods! ;o Now I'm in a chilli and bolognese phase though I'm not sure that makes much of a difference either >_>

Made another pot of bolognese today. Going to make tomato and red pepper soup with garlic tomorrow or later in the week and perhaps some garlic mushrooms because I had too many mushrooms to go in the bolognese! ;o

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Swapping spicy with heavy masses doesn't help a ton, no. >_>

[Shale]

Garlic butter penne with shrimp. Marinate shrimp in lemon, oil and garlic, saute in butter, add basil and pasta, mix, top with parmesan, serve. Delicious and ridiculously simple.

[Lady Door]

Recent kitchen experiments, in brief:

Shrimp and Spinach Curry:
Very easy. Cook some onions and peppers, add shrimp and spinach, finish with coconut milk and curry powder (or, you know, curry-like amalgamations of spices), serve!

Verdict:  Acceptable! Will try again. Needs more... something.

"Spaghetti" "Bolognese":
Beef, bacon, onion, garlic, carrot, celery, oregano, tomato paste and whole tomatoes with basil. Cook it all up together, cut the acid with a bit of heavy cream, and there you go.

It's in quotes because I didn't eat it over noodles. It's not precisely a bolognese, either.

Verdict: Pretty good. Will need some tweaking - especially with the constitution of the tomatoes; I used whole canned, but they didn't quite break up like they should have - but worth trying again when I have the time.

Bacon, Butternut Squash and Spinach:

I really will pay someone to prepare butternut squash for me. The premium to buy pre-cut is so worth it if you're going to need it cubed. Goddamn squash.

Verdict: This was terrible, and so definitely not worth the effort. I'll probably find some other good squash recipes, though, because despite how annoying they are to prepare, they are delicious when roasted.


Ginger Soy Beef:

Have leftover stew meat? Slice 'em thin, toss 'em in a pan with coconut oil and about 5 cloves of garlic crushed/diced, dump in some pureed ginger, glug on some soy sauce, simmer until cooked!

Verdict: Surprisingly good, and easy to turn out when you're already working on something more complicated. Will make again! Next time with less ginger. Guh.

Braised Beef:

Sear meat cubes, set aside. Cook up some chopped onions, then add chopped carrots and celery and garlic. Return the beef to the pan. Fill until halfway up to the beef with liquids of your choice - I used a lot of beef broth and a few glugs of cheap red wine. Toss in some herbs de provence and a bay leaf. Simmer the shit out of it for ~2 hours.

Verdict: I'll let you know after I eat it tomorrow.

[Luther Lansfeld]

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1176/5112225022_e4d9aef755_z.jpg

Made this tonight. Beef, snow peas, and green onions. The recipe as-is was too meat-heavy so I halved the meat and upped the veggies by about 50%. The verdict is that it was very tasty but that there was too much sauce and the current recipe had too much cornstarch. Next time I will half the amount of cornstarch and lower the amount of the other sauce-like ingredients a bit. I also need to get a better wok, mine is not non-stick anymore!

My plan in the near future is to make some roasted red pepper sauce with pine nuts for a pasta, but I am waiting for red peppers to not be stupid expensive first~ I'd like to make some shrimp scampi as well, but I'll need to figure out what veggies to throw in it first.

[Shale]

Jambalaya. Chicken, shrimp and sausage tossed in with the rice. So goooooood.

[Luther Lansfeld]

That sounds really awesome! I love jambalaya!

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Jambalaya. Chicken, shrimp and sausage tossed in with the rice. So goooooood.

Can you cook that at DLC6.

[Lady Door]

One Giant Ass Omelete

4 eggs
1/4 cu mozzarella
Chopped vidalia onion
2 cloves garlic
Pollo asado (leftovers)
Black beans
Corn
Milk
S+P
Salsa (to serve on top)

Heat some butter in skillet, put everything but the eggs and milk and cheese and salsa in the pan, cook them until onions are soft and everything else is warmed. Set aside. Lightly scramble the 4 eggs, pour in a bit of milk (your choice). Dump more butter in the skillet, dump the eggs on top. Pull the edges of the eggs in to make some folds in the center of the pan, tilting the pan to fill in the gaps. Once you've done this for 4 sides, dump the pre-heated/cooked ingredients on top, sprinkle with cheese. Cover and let steam for ~1 minute. Shake the pan to loosen the omelette. Tip it onto a plate, stopping halfway so you can fold the omelette. Garnish with salsa, etc., as desired.

Awesome brunch, and I won't need to eat again today.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Jambalaya. Chicken, shrimp and sausage tossed in with the rice. So goooooood.

Well shit, now I kind of want to challenge you to a cajun food battle.

[Cmdr_King]

Battle Cayanne.  Allez Cuisine!

[Lady Door]

I don't think I've mentioned that I've gone gluten-free, have I?

I feel so much better when I eliminate gluten from my diet. It's ridiculously sad that it's come to this, however, because I adore all things gluten. Fresh, crusty, glutinous French bread; Caesar salad with Worcestershire sauce; did I mention fresh bread?; sandwiches; cupcakes, cakes and cookies; fresh bread.

That said, when I'm not eating gluten? I'm happier, I have more energy, my skin is clearer, and I easily lose weight.

*shakes fist at God for cruel jokes of biology YET AGAIN*

--

It's much easier to handle this gluten-free thing when I don't have to be the crazy person at the restaurant going, "Is this gluten free? How about this? No? Can you make that without the dressing?"

Thus I am back to cooking.

Yesterday I made these super duper awesome brownies that were 100% gluten free and had no added sugar. Very simple recipe, which means it's also pretty damn easy to customize. Based off of this: http://www.elanaspantry.com/brownies/ -- and this is how I made it:

1 jar Justin's Nut Butter - Chocolate Almond (16oz)
2 eggs (ranch fresh, pasture raised, $7/doz eggs)
1 1/4 cups raw blue agave nectar (1 bottle from Trader Joe's)
1 tbsp organic vanilla extract
2 tbsp organic cocoa powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup 70% dark chocolate chips

Mix that together (stir up the nut butter until creamy; stir in eggs; stir in other ingredients; fold in chocolate chips). Dump it in a 9x13 greased glass dish. Pop it into a 325* F oven for 35 minutes. Voila!

These are the best brownies I've had in a LONG time. They have a great flavor profile. They came out really cakey in the corners and fudgey in the middle, so everyone gets what they like. Seriously loved them.

Which is great, because above recipe costs about $15 in ingredients.

--

Today I stopped by the farmer's market and grabbed some flowers for the table. It's very bachelor pad in my apartment these days, so it's nice to declutter and put a little LIFE into it from time to time. So, flowers.

While there, they had a Cookin' at the Market ("Cookin', no g - we like to keep it casual") demonstration. The premise of it is that they travel to various farmers' markets in the area and cook something up using what's available fresh at the market. Today's demo was a Fava Bean Salad with Herbed Yogurt Dressing, so I stopped by, intrigued.

Fabulous!

So I grabbed some fennel, mint, French breakfast radishes, and fava beans. Gonna toss those together with some olive oil, salt & pepper, and lemon zest/lemon juice (forgo the yogurt). Makes for a great creamy/spicy side dish.

[Lady Door]

Bought a crock pot, and have been using it solely to make chili. Mainly this is because it is a tiny crockpot and I can't find any good recipes, other than this one, that works well in it.

Anyway, chili.

Beanless Crockpot Chili

1 lb ground meat of choice (beef works best)
1/4 cu onion
1 serrano pepper
1 cu celery or zucchini
28 oz crushed tomatoes (I use canned)
1 tsp cayenne pepper
3 tsp cumin
6 tsp chili powder

Brown the meat, chop up the veggies, dump it all in a crock pot, and cook for 2 hours on high or 4 hours on low. Adjust spiciness via choice of pepper (less spicy: jalapeno; green chilis) and amount of cayenne (1 teaspoon = tasty spicy for wimps, 1 tablespoon = test of fortitude for wimps).

So damn easy, and pretty darn good too.

[Shale]

Homemade chili is the stuff.

I, meanwhile, have been working on getting an optimal mix of spices for a standbye baked chicken breast. Tonight's variation is garlic, onion powder, a good pour of paprika and a touch of white pepper. Hopefully it goes well!

[Cotigo]

Today on Zenny's Improvised Bachelor Chow: boring pasta!

dice one onion and 5 cloves of garlic.  Fry in butter.  Boil pasta.  Mix together onion/garlic, a can of tuna, and the pasta.  Don't add sauce.  It actually is pretty good for a meal I only made because I was too lazy to do anything more complex.

[Grefter]

In other news.  Microwave cheeseburgers.

[NotMiki]

something I did that turned out more delicious than I would have thought:

sweet potato fries seasoned with salt, tumeric, and cayenne pepper.

[Cotigo]

sounds like a lot of effort. I'll just eat the sweet potato raw.

[NotMiki]

But it's effort that makes food more delicious and less healthy!

[Cotigo]

I can't hear you, I'm too busy chewing chrunchy dry pasta.

[Idun]

FWIW + I'm sorry to post just about corn --- but holy hell corn mixed with red onions is a great fucking side dish.

[Cotigo]

Time for more adventures in the Zenny kitchen.

So I don't realize until after the stores around here are closed that I'm basically out of food.  Out of pasta, so boring pasta is out of the question.  I look in my fridge and find that I have onions, garlic, a carrot on the verge of rotting, a rotten potato (thrown out), ham I bought a few weeks ago that I don't know if I'm supposed to cook before eating or not.

Cue me drinking (more, otherwise I would have just driven to get other food in the grocery that's open and foregone the experimentation), cutting up the veggies and mixing this all into a fry pan and...!

It's terrible.  Don't do this.  On the plus side I don't think I actually had to cook the ham based on the look of it when I cut it up, so I probably won't get sick tomorrow because it's undercooked.  On the downside, it is terrible.  I'm eating it anyway.  That's what the drinking was for.

[VySaika]

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/summer-nights-eggplants/detail.aspx

The eggplant "stuffing" I made awhile back for thanksgiving, that I keep forgetting to link.

------------------------------------------------

Also, what I made for christmas lunch(the family went home before dinnertime, so we did lunch instead). What is probably my most commonly mentioned dish, and what I made at both DLC3 and minimeet: my own take on a dish called portuguese chicken.

Ingredients:
1 to 1-1/2lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts(or thighs if you like dark meat)
2-3 cans chicken broth
1 cup wine(optional)

4-5 red potatoes
1 large sweet onion
1lbs bag of baby carrots(2-3 normal carrots can be substituted)
cooking oil of choice(I use extra virgin olive oil)
thyme and bay leaves(I use dried, you can use fresh if you want, whatever)

1 package uncooked chorizo(I use pork or the soyrizo. Beef is too oily for me and too spicy for Jenna)
1 can tomato sauce
1 teaspoon sugar

Poach the chicken in the chicken broth. Set both aside.

Dice the vegetables into smallish chunks. Smaller then you would for a normal beef stew. Get them going in a large pot with the olive oil and herbs(just eyeball the thyme, use 1-2 bay leaves). After letting them saute in the pot for a bit, add either about 2 cups of chicken broth(from the poaching liquid) or 1 cup broth and 1 cup wine(I use just broth, since Jenna doesn't like wine). The liquid should just come up to cover the tops of the veggies. Bring that to a boil, and let it boil for...probably about 10 minutes or so. You want the potatoes and carrots to be tender.

Meanwhile, take out a frying pan and get that over heat. Cut the casing on the chorizo and fry that up in the pan like you would brown ground beef. Just let it be scattered around, don't make slices from it or anything. Once it turns a darker brown(and before it burns) take it off the heat, drain if desired(makes it less hot) and add to the veggies and stock.

Open the can of tomato sauce. Add to the veggies, chorizo and stock.

Chop the chicken into bite sized pieces. Add to the stew.

Let the whole thing cook awhile longer until you can take the edge of a wooden spoon and smoosh a piece of potato without needing much force. Add the teaspoon of sugar, and remove from the heat.

IMPORTANT: fish out the bay leaves. You do NOT want to bite down on one of those. The taste will stay with you for weeks.

Serve with crusty bread. It goes great with sourdough.

[Hunter Sopko]

AHAHAHAHA! I have completed the ultimate in confectionary weaponry! Behold!

The COOKIE ARGETLAHM



Heheh. Good times. Not great, but good for a freehand first attempt! May make this a yearly thing and see how detailed I can get. Here it is just out of the oven:

[Xeroma]

But... the Argetlahm is purple!