I just realized that the recipe was halved, and I'm supposed to use one cup of pumpkin puree instead of the standard 15 ounce can (What am I supposed to do with the other cup?). So my cookies came out even mushier than they should have.
Next batch: I'm doubling the baking soda, and adding an extra egg instead of milk. I'm also going to use all butter instead of vegetable oil.
I just realized that the recipe was halved, and I'm supposed to use one cup of pumpkin puree instead of the standard 15 ounce can (What am I supposed to do with the other cup?). So my cookies came out even mushier than they should have.
Next batch: I'm doubling the baking soda, and adding an extra egg instead of milk. I'm also going to use all butter instead of vegetable oil.
I know this is madness but... try to follow the recipe?
In baking it is entirely more complex than that. If you're frying something up you can change shit to your heart's desire so long as you have half a brain, baking changing anything a little bit can spell disaster.
In baking it is entirely more complex than that. If you're frying something up you can change shit to your heart's desire so long as you have half a brain, baking changing anything a little bit can spell disaster.
I was desiring a dryer, less puffy cookie.
Baking powder produces bubbles, increasing volume. So I took that out.
Eggs dry out the cookies compared to milk. So I did a replacement.
Extra baking soda cancels out the acidity of the egg.
Butter has a higher melting point than oil, for obvious reasons, which gives it more solidity.
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Mojo_JojoWe are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourseRegistered Userregular
edited January 2008
Yes, but really you needed to make the cookies before trying to fine tune their texture. Right now you're just stabbing wildly in the dark and getting poor results.
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Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
Here is the best way to cook a steak if you like rare steak but don't have access to a grill:
1) put in oven on a rack for 20 minutes at 250 degrees
2) heat a little oil in a pan until the oil is just smoking. Sear both sides of steak for about a minute or so.
3) Eat.
The marinade I used:
1 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup red wine vinegar
1/4 cup lemon juice
3 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper
1 sliced onion
2 minced cloves of garlic
1 pack of flavoured couscous- add your own flavouring/spice to plain couscous if you want but the premixed packs are awesome. Tomato/Mediterranean flavoured ones are best for this recipe.
1 pack pine nuts or cashews
1 red onion
feta cheese
ham
sweetcorn
2 large red or orange peppers (because greens taste like crap)
tiny bit of olive oil
1. Preheat oven to around 200 degrees C. Half the peppers, removing the seeds and stalk. drizzle with a little olive oil, and stick into the oven, skin side up
2. Set the kettle to boil. Cube the onion, and fry in a little butter or oil with the nuts. When approaching done, toss in the cous cous, stirring a LOT to make sure it doesn't stick. Only cook it for about a minute, then pour in enough boiling water to JUST cover it. Let the mixture return to the boil briefly, then take it off the heat, cover, and set a timer for 4 minutes.
3. Cube the ham, feta, and drain the sweetcorn. When the timer goes off, mix these into the couscous, which should by now have absorbed all the water. Taste some. It'll be awesome. Cook for a couple minutes longer, adding more water if necessary.
4.Take out the pepper halves, stick them on plates WITHOUT burning your fingers, and stuff each half with the couscous mixture. If you feel swanky add a little tomato ragu on top and serve with a small side salad.
Looks beautiful, tastes brilliant, and can be made in many variants according to whatever you have in the fridge. Really quick and fairly healthy. I tend to make a big batch of the cous cous and keep it in the fridge to go with other meals during the week.
Cool thread. May I request a breakfast ideas discussion? I try to take care of breakfast on the weekends for my wife and daughter, usually just some form of eggs, toast, and sausage/bacon, but occasionally I like to try something different. Last weekend was a breakfast pizza...real simple, coat the crust in olive oil and bake for ten minutes, meanwhile mix up some eggs with frozen spinach that's been cooked and dried and a bit more olive oil, scramble that up to get the eggs to set, then layer it onto the crust. Cover with the cheese of your choice (I used cheddar but really wish I'd gone w/ feta) and bake for another minute. Anyone else got some neat breakfast tips?
On the subject of TV chefs...Rachael really does it for me, sorry. I'm a sucker for her recipes and gladly look past any and all of her annoyances. Also, anyone else notice that Giada or whoever, the Italian chick, whenever she starts cooking on her show it really sounds like they're playing soft core porn music. I don't think it's coincidental.
Poached pears are a yummy breakfast item, we always have them on Christmas morning at the in-laws' house. Basically you core 5-6 pears from the bottom (leave the top intact), then put them in a crock pot over night with some marmalade or peach jam, burgundy wine, cranapple juice, and sugar/syrup. They are stupidly yummy.
So, El Salvadorian food. They make these things called pupusas. Basically it's like a tortilla with beans or cheese or some other filling. You make a dough out of masa harina (corn flour) and water, then you make a ball and poke a hole in it, then put in your filling, and then fold the dough over and flatten it out as much as possible. My boyfriend and I made some last night, and while they weren't as good as from the street vendors in El Sal, they were pretty good and easy to make, though the whole flattening thing is a bit of an art.
Also for breakfast there they like refried beans over fried up plantains. Mmmm plantains. Add cheese and eggs scrambled with ham, and also some coconut milk to drink. Yummy.
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Judge-ZTeacher, for Great JusticeUpstate NYRegistered Userregular
I've been to Cincinnati twice going on three times this Christmas, and my girlfriend's family has been introducing me to more and more of the food there. I was happy to see La Rosa's pizza mentioned on here, as well as Skyline. Oh, and Grinders, which we made a stop at the last time I was in Cincinnati and got buckeye ice cream. Good stuff.
On that last trip we also went to Gencon and I have to mention that the Ram has some of the best food I've ever had. If you are there for Gencon, be sure to stop in, especially on the Wednesday before the convention opens, since a local forum group holds morning and afternoon gaming there for free.
I'm from Boston though, so all I can really reccommend locally is the Agawam Diner (which I work and am totally not biased towards) and the Clam Shack. Get pies at the Diner and clams from the Shack (obviously). You need to try New England clam chowder, the good, thick, creamy, with blocks of potatoes and chewy clams, at least once in your life.
And avoid watching the Phantom Gourmet. All you'll want to do for the rest of the day is eat.
I always enjoy the role-playing themed menus they do. My friends and I traditionally go there the last night of the con. The bread pudding is fantastic, as are the various glazes and sauces for the steaks. Really, the whole downtown goes out of their way to make us gamers feel welcome, and I have it on good authority that many of the restaurants, especially the servers, like the GenCon crowd best out of all the various events Indy hosts. Something about actually being nice people who treat them with respect, even if we're a little strange.
Also in Indy near the RCA dome/convention center, I can recommend Loughmiller's Pub for simple but good pub grub and beer, and Alcatraz Brewing Company always has some interesting menu chocies both liquid and solid. The food in downtown Indy is one of the highlights of my semi-yearly GenCon pilgrimage.
My guilty pleasure is good old Steak and Shake. I wish that chain would spread out this way.
For those of you who find yourselves in Buffalo and want to sample some of the local specialties; for wings, ignore the Anchor Bar, which has the history, and go to Duff's instead. Most people I know think Duffs has perfected the chicken wing. A less well-known local specialty is Beef on Weck (short for kimmelweck, a German-style hardroll crusted with seeds and salt) a delicious roast beef sammich, the roll's inside dipped in au jus and served with horseradish to taste. Everyone has their favorite local place for Beef on Weck, but you can't go wrong with either Charlie the Butcher or Anderson's. (Anderson's wins any tie simply because they also have homemade frozen custard and ice cream). For more upscale fare, downtown has several excellent restaurants, but none really stand out as anything you can't find in any other city full of people who love food. You can even find decent barbecue. The downside is that you're in downtown Buffalo, and unless you're there to drink until 4AM or see the Sabres, there's not a hell of a lot to do.
Cool thread. May I request a breakfast ideas discussion? I try to take care of breakfast on the weekends for my wife and daughter, usually just some form of eggs, toast, and sausage/bacon, but occasionally I like to try something different.
If you can make good home fries, you're in good shape. Here's what I do.
1) Quarter a bunch of red potatoes (the ones that are about the size of a raquetball).
2) Put olive oil in a pan, cook potatoes covered on medium heat. Don't be shy with the oil--you want a nice even coat on the potatoes, it crisps up the outside nicely. Toss them with your hands if need be. Add kosher salt, cracked pepper, and rosemary.
3) Meanwhile, chop up a quarter of a sweet yellow onion and a few cloves of garlic.
4) Add these when the potatoes start to soften up. Drizzle a little more oil on there.
5) Cook until the potatoes are crispy and brown on the outside. Crank up the heat if necessary.
6) About 5 minutes before you want to serve them, throw a handful of chopped green onion in the pan with them.
7) Serve.
I also stole a recipe for an awesome breakfast sandwich from a local dive. It really needs to be served on toasted Turano rolls for maximum goodness. The hard part is that everything pretty much needs to be cooked simultaneously--
1) Buy some spicy ground sausage and form it into patties that will just fit the bun. Cook them through.
2) Spice mix: 2 parts onion powder, 1 part garlic powder, 1 part paprika, dash of salt, dash of cracked pepper
Dice 1 part onions, 1 part green peppers and 1 part tomatoes*. The quantities of the vegetables should be different from the spices obviously, don't use a cup of garlic powder and a cup of green peppers
Cook them in olive oil on medium low heat and spice mix until they just heat up a bit. They'll continue cooking after you stop applying heat, so pull those fuckers before they get gross.
3) Hash browns need to be cooked ahead of time. Ore Ida sells 'em in a bag and they usually turn out okay if you follow their directions.
4) Combine sausage patty, vegetables, a slice of mozarella cheese, and hash browns on the toasted Turano roll. Eat.
* Tomatoes + pan cooking often = soggy mess. I've read that you can essentially gut a tomato (removing the seeds and pulp), leaving the cortex, salt the interior, and then place upside down for five minutes and that this will retain the tomato flavor while ridding it of the juice that will just turn everything to slop. I've not yet tried it, but if you can get the cortex off and ditch the pulp it usually works out okay. DON'T SAUTE THE PULP.
Cool thread. May I request a breakfast ideas discussion? I try to take care of breakfast on the weekends for my wife and daughter, usually just some form of eggs, toast, and sausage/bacon, but occasionally I like to try something different.
If you can make good home fries, you're in good shape. Here's what I do.
1) Quarter a bunch of red potatoes (the ones that are about the size of a raquetball).
2) Put olive oil in a pan, cook potatoes covered on medium heat. Don't be shy with the oil--you want a nice even coat on the potatoes, it crisps up the outside nicely. Toss them with your hands if need be. Add kosher salt, cracked pepper, and rosemary.
3) Meanwhile, chop up a quarter of a sweet yellow onion and a few cloves of garlic.
4) Add these when the potatoes start to soften up. Drizzle a little more oil on there.
5) Cook until the potatoes are crispy and brown on the outside. Crank up the heat if necessary.
6) About 5 minutes before you want to serve them, throw a handful of chopped green onion in the pan with them.
7) Serve.
Ooh, now that I'm gonna have to try. Seems simple enough and sounds delicious. Thanks!
So, this isn't my favorite food, but it is an interesting snack my grandfather introduced me to when I was a kid. Most people immediately react with disgust and refuse to try it.
1 ritz cracker
spread with peanut butter
topped with a little onion
and a dollop of ketchup
Yeah, my mother insists that my grandfather ruined my taste buds
Here is the best way to cook a steak if you like rare steak but don't have access to a grill:
1) put in oven on a rack for 20 minutes at 250 degrees
2) heat a little oil in a pan until the oil is just smoking. Sear both sides of steak for about a minute or so.
3) Eat.
I prefer to sear first... though I don't know if it makes a difference
I'm living in residence right now, and all I have access to is a stovetop range - no oven, no fancy cooking equipment, but I do have all sorts of pots and pans.
Any good recipes made of ingredients I can pick up at the local grocery store? Nothing too exotic, I'd like to be able to cook for 2-4 people and wouldn't want to exclude anyone who is a total picky eater like I am.
Might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure what you are talking about are capers; completely different (for one,they are disgusting).
Anyways, just wanted to quickly share one of my favorites, an Italian dish (Italian is the food of the gods)
Braciole (pronounced brah-joule, kinda)
take a relatively large and thin steak (flank steaks are what my dad always uses) and tenderize it, using the tenderizer to kinda 'spread' the meat out, making it even thinner and larger
in a bowl, mix breadcrumbs, olive oil, garlic, salt/pepper, and lots of parmesan cheese.
Also add at least one of these: chopped prociutto, mortadella, mushrooms (crimini, portabello), parsely, basil, ...I know I'm missing something here, but I think you get the idea. Its hard to go wrong here as long as you dont overdo it.
Take the mixture and spread it over the steak, then roll up the steak; you will probably need to tie it with string or something to get it to stay.
Brown all sides of the 'roll' in a sautee pan with a little olive oil in it. You don't need to cook it to long here, just a couple mins on each side. Take the roll, put it in a oven-safe pan/casserole dish, and smother that baby in your favorite kind of tomato/spaghetti sauce.
Bake for about 2 hours at 300-400 deg (I think, cant really remember to be honest. If you want to make sure, stick a meat thermometer in it)
Enjoy!
edit: make sure you remove the string before enjoying! Funny story; I ate like a third of one of these (and pretty much nothing else) this New Years. Soon after, I started drinking. Well, I might have over-indulged on the beer (and other substances) that night, because sometime after midnight, it all came back up, and I discovered that I did indeed forget to check carefully for any little bits of string (I did wonder why that one piece of meat felt alot tougher to chew)
Might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure what you are talking about are capers; completely different (for one,they are disgusting).
You're both right, actually. You need to watch this thread's namesake show more often. Pickled peppercorns are green peppercorns in some kind of brine. It's a giant pain-in-the-ass to find non-pickled green peppercorns, your supermarket probably won't have them on the shelf like that. If it's an upscale place you might find it but your best bet is a spice shop -- unless you live near a relatively large city, you may be out of luck.
---
So while buying a juicer at Bed Bath & Beyond today, a friend that works there told my girlfriend and I about the Waldenbooks closing in the mall. We went to rape the 40%+ sale. I grabbed AB's I'm Just Here For the Food Version 2.0. It came with some awesome fridge magnets that show the different cuts of beef, lamb, pig and chicken (complete with egg). Only $20 after the discount, too! She picked up Rachel Ray's just in time! with her regular 30-minute fare plus a bunch of 15-minute and 60-minute recipes. Lots of good ideas, if not for the regular occurance of "sammies".
Yeah. Hence, can't seem to find them anywhere. I'm surprised that Alton didn't say where you could find them, or any substitute.
I do live in seattle though, where there's a spice store that was actually featured on the show. Parking's a bitch, though, so I was hoping to find some place more local.
Yeah. Hence, can't seem to find them anywhere. I'm surprised that Alton didn't say where you could find them, or any substitute.
I do live in seattle though, where there's a spice store that was actually featured on the show. Parking's a bitch, though, so I was hoping to find some place more local.
That's where he picked them up. I don't believe he mentioned pickled peppercorns and I'm sure they're just not the same.
Now, when it comes to beef, I don’t think that there’s anything better than cognac, and I’m going to add three tablespoons before I let it reduce further. And here’s an important thing to note: when you’re cooking with alcohol, remember, you can cook out some of the alcohol, but you can never cook out all of the alcohol. Now, I don’t think Thing’s going to be out driving tonight, but it’s just a good thing to keep in mind.
Also, I want to add another layer of flavor in the form of green peppercorns. They look a lot like capers, but they’re not. They are packed in brine though. And to carry the flavor, and also add more volume and body, we’re going to go with three quarters of a cup of cream. Now, that’s starting to sound like sauce!
This recipe is awesome. Cut them thin enough, and it's like eating chow mein.
Note that I used beef broth instead of water.
Another awesome carrot recipe:
Butter
Dill
Carrots, cut lengthwise and into quarters - think baby carrots cut in half
Warm butter, don't overwhelm the carrots (I don't really measure, sorry... two-three pats for like four carrots cut up) as you saute them up a bit. Add dill, continue to cook on the low side of medium. Slight browning isn't a big deal.
I saw a post on another blog about Rachael Ray getting a two-year extension on the Food Network. Hold on, it gets worse. She also got a new fucking show. It’s going to be called “Rachael’s Vacation†and it will show Rachael on, well, vacation.
Why? WHY!
What’s next? “Rachael Ray cooks on Maternity Leave� “Hors d’oeuvres at Rachael Ray’s Divorce Proceedings�
Don’t know if you’ve seen this show on the Food Network called “Semi-Homemade Cooking†with hottie host Sandra Lee. But I saw it, and holy fuck do I wish I hadn’t. Sandra Lee deserves a cooking show as much as Michael Jackson deserves to be a special guest host of “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader.â€
It shouldn’t be fucking legal.
This person has it right.
At first, I thought the Sandra Lee’s show was a fucking joke. You know, making fun of how obsessed you Americans are with convenience — especially culinary convenience. Then I realized it was real. Fucking bloody real.
Maybe I should start my own show called “Half-Assing It with Gordon Fucking Ramsay.†Here are some of my show ideas:
Now You’re Cookie-ing
Arrange Entenmann’s Original Recipe Chocolate Chip Cookies on a platter in desired manner. I prefer the traditional dump-the-fucking-box method for a rustic presentation, though I’ve seen more ambitious “chefs†arrange the cookies in a fan shape. Drizzle with Hershey’s chocolate syrup and serve.
Time-saver Tip: Leave the fucking cookies in box they came in. Open top, drizzle with syrup and enjoy! In a pinch: Use a package of Keebler Fudge Stripes. No need to drizzle with syrup.
What a novel fucking idea! A book that tells you to sneak vegetables into your children’s meals so that you can make sure they’re eating healthy? Jessica Seinfeld should get the fucking Nobel Prize in the category called “No Shit Sherlock The Fucking World Has Been Doing This Since The Beginning of Fucking Time.â€
Gee, I wonder how the fuck Jessica Seinfeld got a book deal.
Apparently, another author thought she had the idea first and now she’s upset at Jessica Seinfeld. What’s next, ladies? A book on making sure we hydrate our children by sneaking water into their…water? How about telling us how we can sneak soap into a child’s bath to make sure they get clean. You stupid bitches!
This is the fucking problem today. No one understands how fucking simple it is to be a parent. When it comes to lunch and dinner, follow this simple guide by Gordon Ramsay and you won’t need to read stupid fucking books like Jessica Seinfeld’s …
Cook something, whatever you want. You want it to be healthy? Great, cook something healthy. Guess what’s next? You fucking serve it. And if the kids don’t like it? Too fucking bad. They can go to bed hungry. Don’t worry. When your little ones get hungry - and they will - they’ll come around. And they’ll eat what you cooked.
Little fuckers need to stop running their parents’ lives.
Ok guys, for some unfathomable reason I've become obsessed by Lasagna/Macaroni Cheese this last month (i've cooked both about 4-5 times) and to be honest I don't see this ending anytime soon (my mouth was watering as I wrote this) so in the interests of introducing some diversity I appeal to you to post me your recipes for both of those dishes.
Ok guys, for some unfathomable reason I've become obsessed by Lasagna/Macaroni Cheese this last month (i've cooked both about 4-5 times) and to be honest I don't see this ending anytime soon (my mouth was watering as I wrote this) so in the interests of introducing some diversity I appeal to you to post me your recipes for both of those dishes.
One of the gifts we got for our wedding was a recipe for mac and cheese. It sounds kind of weird, but it is actually pretty good. I don't have it right in front of me, so this is just from memory. I'll edit it when I get home if I miss anything:
Mix together equal parts sour cream and cottage cheese
Stir in shredded sharp cheddar
Add to cooked macaroni or shell pasta (cook a minute or two less than what the box says)
Top with breadcrumbs mixed with melted butter, about 1/4-1/2cup bc to 1tbsp butter (optional)
Bake in casserole or soufle dish for about 25 minutes at 350°F
The recipe didn't provide exact quantities, so you have to kind of play with the amount of cheese sauce and noodles, but it is really easy to make different amounts with this recipe. It is also easy to adapt by adding extra seasonings (I like cayenne pepper and mustard powder) or more/less cheese to make it how you like it.
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KalTorakOne way or another, they all end up inthe Undercity.Registered Userregular
edited January 2008
I just used the Alton Brown recipe for Mac & Cheese (on foodnetwork.com). Next time I make it i'm trying out the Barilla Plus elbows instead of the normal ones. Deeelicious.
Damnit, not my mouth is watering too, and I don't have time for anything except cereal!
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Next batch: I'm doubling the baking soda, and adding an extra egg instead of milk. I'm also going to use all butter instead of vegetable oil.
I know this is madness but... try to follow the recipe?
...and...chicken...
I'd say my favorite fish that I'd take at the moment though is yellowtail, good grilled but I prefer it simple.
A good yellowtail, a bowl of sushi rice, and some soy sauce will last for about 3 days.
I was desiring a dryer, less puffy cookie.
Baking powder produces bubbles, increasing volume. So I took that out.
Eggs dry out the cookies compared to milk. So I did a replacement.
Extra baking soda cancels out the acidity of the egg.
Butter has a higher melting point than oil, for obvious reasons, which gives it more solidity.
The marinade I used:
1 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup red wine vinegar
1/4 cup lemon juice
3 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper
1 sliced onion
2 minced cloves of garlic
'twas juicy.
(Serves 2)
1 pack of flavoured couscous- add your own flavouring/spice to plain couscous if you want but the premixed packs are awesome. Tomato/Mediterranean flavoured ones are best for this recipe.
1 pack pine nuts or cashews
1 red onion
feta cheese
ham
sweetcorn
2 large red or orange peppers (because greens taste like crap)
tiny bit of olive oil
1. Preheat oven to around 200 degrees C. Half the peppers, removing the seeds and stalk. drizzle with a little olive oil, and stick into the oven, skin side up
2. Set the kettle to boil. Cube the onion, and fry in a little butter or oil with the nuts. When approaching done, toss in the cous cous, stirring a LOT to make sure it doesn't stick. Only cook it for about a minute, then pour in enough boiling water to JUST cover it. Let the mixture return to the boil briefly, then take it off the heat, cover, and set a timer for 4 minutes.
3. Cube the ham, feta, and drain the sweetcorn. When the timer goes off, mix these into the couscous, which should by now have absorbed all the water. Taste some. It'll be awesome. Cook for a couple minutes longer, adding more water if necessary.
4.Take out the pepper halves, stick them on plates WITHOUT burning your fingers, and stuff each half with the couscous mixture. If you feel swanky add a little tomato ragu on top and serve with a small side salad.
Looks beautiful, tastes brilliant, and can be made in many variants according to whatever you have in the fridge. Really quick and fairly healthy. I tend to make a big batch of the cous cous and keep it in the fridge to go with other meals during the week.
On the subject of TV chefs...Rachael really does it for me, sorry. I'm a sucker for her recipes and gladly look past any and all of her annoyances. Also, anyone else notice that Giada or whoever, the Italian chick, whenever she starts cooking on her show it really sounds like they're playing soft core porn music. I don't think it's coincidental.
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Also for breakfast there they like refried beans over fried up plantains. Mmmm plantains. Add cheese and eggs scrambled with ham, and also some coconut milk to drink. Yummy.
I always enjoy the role-playing themed menus they do. My friends and I traditionally go there the last night of the con. The bread pudding is fantastic, as are the various glazes and sauces for the steaks. Really, the whole downtown goes out of their way to make us gamers feel welcome, and I have it on good authority that many of the restaurants, especially the servers, like the GenCon crowd best out of all the various events Indy hosts. Something about actually being nice people who treat them with respect, even if we're a little strange.
Also in Indy near the RCA dome/convention center, I can recommend Loughmiller's Pub for simple but good pub grub and beer, and Alcatraz Brewing Company always has some interesting menu chocies both liquid and solid. The food in downtown Indy is one of the highlights of my semi-yearly GenCon pilgrimage.
My guilty pleasure is good old Steak and Shake. I wish that chain would spread out this way.
For those of you who find yourselves in Buffalo and want to sample some of the local specialties; for wings, ignore the Anchor Bar, which has the history, and go to Duff's instead. Most people I know think Duffs has perfected the chicken wing. A less well-known local specialty is Beef on Weck (short for kimmelweck, a German-style hardroll crusted with seeds and salt) a delicious roast beef sammich, the roll's inside dipped in au jus and served with horseradish to taste. Everyone has their favorite local place for Beef on Weck, but you can't go wrong with either Charlie the Butcher or Anderson's. (Anderson's wins any tie simply because they also have homemade frozen custard and ice cream). For more upscale fare, downtown has several excellent restaurants, but none really stand out as anything you can't find in any other city full of people who love food. You can even find decent barbecue. The downside is that you're in downtown Buffalo, and unless you're there to drink until 4AM or see the Sabres, there's not a hell of a lot to do.
1) Quarter a bunch of red potatoes (the ones that are about the size of a raquetball).
2) Put olive oil in a pan, cook potatoes covered on medium heat. Don't be shy with the oil--you want a nice even coat on the potatoes, it crisps up the outside nicely. Toss them with your hands if need be. Add kosher salt, cracked pepper, and rosemary.
3) Meanwhile, chop up a quarter of a sweet yellow onion and a few cloves of garlic.
4) Add these when the potatoes start to soften up. Drizzle a little more oil on there.
5) Cook until the potatoes are crispy and brown on the outside. Crank up the heat if necessary.
6) About 5 minutes before you want to serve them, throw a handful of chopped green onion in the pan with them.
7) Serve.
I also stole a recipe for an awesome breakfast sandwich from a local dive. It really needs to be served on toasted Turano rolls for maximum goodness. The hard part is that everything pretty much needs to be cooked simultaneously--
1) Buy some spicy ground sausage and form it into patties that will just fit the bun. Cook them through.
2) Spice mix: 2 parts onion powder, 1 part garlic powder, 1 part paprika, dash of salt, dash of cracked pepper
Dice 1 part onions, 1 part green peppers and 1 part tomatoes*. The quantities of the vegetables should be different from the spices obviously, don't use a cup of garlic powder and a cup of green peppers
Cook them in olive oil on medium low heat and spice mix until they just heat up a bit. They'll continue cooking after you stop applying heat, so pull those fuckers before they get gross.
3) Hash browns need to be cooked ahead of time. Ore Ida sells 'em in a bag and they usually turn out okay if you follow their directions.
4) Combine sausage patty, vegetables, a slice of mozarella cheese, and hash browns on the toasted Turano roll. Eat.
* Tomatoes + pan cooking often = soggy mess. I've read that you can essentially gut a tomato (removing the seeds and pulp), leaving the cortex, salt the interior, and then place upside down for five minutes and that this will retain the tomato flavor while ridding it of the juice that will just turn everything to slop. I've not yet tried it, but if you can get the cortex off and ditch the pulp it usually works out okay. DON'T SAUTE THE PULP.
Ooh, now that I'm gonna have to try. Seems simple enough and sounds delicious. Thanks!
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1 ritz cracker
spread with peanut butter
topped with a little onion
and a dollop of ketchup
Yeah, my mother insists that my grandfather ruined my taste buds
I prefer to sear first... though I don't know if it makes a difference
Any good recipes made of ingredients I can pick up at the local grocery store? Nothing too exotic, I'd like to be able to cook for 2-4 people and wouldn't want to exclude anyone who is a total picky eater like I am.
You should be able to buy them in jars, from memory. Seems like something a supermarket should have.
Yes. In jars, preserved in vinegar or some such.
Might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure what you are talking about are capers; completely different (for one,they are disgusting).
Anyways, just wanted to quickly share one of my favorites, an Italian dish (Italian is the food of the gods)
Braciole (pronounced brah-joule, kinda)
take a relatively large and thin steak (flank steaks are what my dad always uses) and tenderize it, using the tenderizer to kinda 'spread' the meat out, making it even thinner and larger
in a bowl, mix breadcrumbs, olive oil, garlic, salt/pepper, and lots of parmesan cheese.
Also add at least one of these: chopped prociutto, mortadella, mushrooms (crimini, portabello), parsely, basil, ...I know I'm missing something here, but I think you get the idea. Its hard to go wrong here as long as you dont overdo it.
Take the mixture and spread it over the steak, then roll up the steak; you will probably need to tie it with string or something to get it to stay.
Brown all sides of the 'roll' in a sautee pan with a little olive oil in it. You don't need to cook it to long here, just a couple mins on each side. Take the roll, put it in a oven-safe pan/casserole dish, and smother that baby in your favorite kind of tomato/spaghetti sauce.
Bake for about 2 hours at 300-400 deg (I think, cant really remember to be honest. If you want to make sure, stick a meat thermometer in it)
Enjoy!
edit: make sure you remove the string before enjoying! Funny story; I ate like a third of one of these (and pretty much nothing else) this New Years. Soon after, I started drinking. Well, I might have over-indulged on the beer (and other substances) that night, because sometime after midnight, it all came back up, and I discovered that I did indeed forget to check carefully for any little bits of string
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So while buying a juicer at Bed Bath & Beyond today, a friend that works there told my girlfriend and I about the Waldenbooks closing in the mall. We went to rape the 40%+ sale. I grabbed AB's I'm Just Here For the Food Version 2.0. It came with some awesome fridge magnets that show the different cuts of beef, lamb, pig and chicken (complete with egg). Only $20 after the discount, too! She picked up Rachel Ray's just in time! with her regular 30-minute fare plus a bunch of 15-minute and 60-minute recipes. Lots of good ideas, if not for the regular occurance of "sammies".
I do live in seattle though, where there's a spice store that was actually featured on the show. Parking's a bitch, though, so I was hoping to find some place more local.
Now, when it comes to beef, I don’t think that there’s anything better than cognac, and I’m going to add three tablespoons before I let it reduce further. And here’s an important thing to note: when you’re cooking with alcohol, remember, you can cook out some of the alcohol, but you can never cook out all of the alcohol. Now, I don’t think Thing’s going to be out driving tonight, but it’s just a good thing to keep in mind.
Also, I want to add another layer of flavor in the form of green peppercorns. They look a lot like capers, but they’re not. They are packed in brine though. And to carry the flavor, and also add more volume and body, we’re going to go with three quarters of a cup of cream. Now, that’s starting to sound like sauce!
This recipe is awesome. Cut them thin enough, and it's like eating chow mein.
Note that I used beef broth instead of water.
Butter
Dill
Carrots, cut lengthwise and into quarters - think baby carrots cut in half
Warm butter, don't overwhelm the carrots (I don't really measure, sorry... two-three pats for like four carrots cut up) as you saute them up a bit. Add dill, continue to cook on the low side of medium. Slight browning isn't a big deal.
Delicious
This is the greatest fake blog ever.
http://www.newsgroper.com/gordon-ramsay/2007/11/19/food-network-show-opened-fridge-week/
(It's funnier when you read the comments)
One of the gifts we got for our wedding was a recipe for mac and cheese. It sounds kind of weird, but it is actually pretty good. I don't have it right in front of me, so this is just from memory. I'll edit it when I get home if I miss anything:
Mix together equal parts sour cream and cottage cheese
Stir in shredded sharp cheddar
Add to cooked macaroni or shell pasta (cook a minute or two less than what the box says)
Top with breadcrumbs mixed with melted butter, about 1/4-1/2cup bc to 1tbsp butter (optional)
Bake in casserole or soufle dish for about 25 minutes at 350°F
The recipe didn't provide exact quantities, so you have to kind of play with the amount of cheese sauce and noodles, but it is really easy to make different amounts with this recipe. It is also easy to adapt by adding extra seasonings (I like cayenne pepper and mustard powder) or more/less cheese to make it how you like it.
Damnit, not my mouth is watering too, and I don't have time for anything except cereal!
Soooo gooooood
Truffle oil? Egads, sir! You think I'm made of dubloons?