spaghetti and meatballs? i thought it was just something that the swedish people would order in the tourist pack vacations in the mediterranean. never tried, sounds really gross. (besides i don't eat meat).
well, i do like cooking. sometimes.
all kind of (hot) sauces for pasta / rice, rice and beans (south american way, except no animal parts added, and no grease), stuffed jalopeños, potatoes with jalopeños (the only edible way of that boring tasteless vegetable), dark dark dark drinking chocolate ... home made rice milk, all kind of veggie stuff with e.g. zucchini, egg plants etc, vegetarian frittata etc .. and so on.
But you wanna make the best grilled cheese in the world? Choose your bread, choose your cheese. Melt a little butter in the microwave, and use a pasty brush to brush it on the bread, then toss it in a skillet over low-medium heat. It browns *perfectly*, you use almost no butter, and the crunch has the best texture.
Also, toss a little bit of the same cheese you made the sandwich from through the shredder, and place it in the bottom of your soup bowl before you ladle it in. It ties the two items together, and adds a bit of texture to the soup as well. Oh, and toss in some fresh basil to the tomato soup if you have it.
I like gruyere on half-wheat/half-rye myself.
Well, I like longhorn cheese on wheat. I put canola margarine (thinly)(and high in polyunsaturates) on the outer bread slices, 1/4" thick cheese slices, sliced to perfection with those cool wire cheese-slicers, put the sandwich in the skillet on low heat with a lid on the pan to help melt the cheese; then turn sandwich and raise heat a bit to speed melting, still with lid on.
The sandwich is perfectly golden brown, crunchy, and the cheese perfectly melted. Cut in half and put on ribbed platter so the bottom of the sandwich doesn't steam itself soft (like it would on a flat plate).
I want to start making my own vegetable soups. I had some broccoli I needed to use up, so I chopped it up and put it in the blender. Threw in some fresh chopped onions. Put the blended mixture in a saucepan and added milk, non-salt vegetable seasoning, heated but not to boiling. People gobbled up this soup, and it was SO ridiculously easy.
Fresh shrimp sautéed in olive oil with generous amounts of garlic, served with angel hair pasta tossed in a white clam sauce. Big tomato slices and fresh mozzarella cheese drizzled with olive oil and oregano, or a big salad. Crusty bread with oil for dipping.
Usually I'm cooking on the George Foreman instead. Chicken breasts or swordfish steaks, mostly. And couscous is so damn easy to prepare in the microwave.
With Chicken and Sausage. My friends brag about this stuff for me, to anyone who hasn't tried it yet. It's simply addictive....
44 servings or so, a full stock pot.
It tastes great reheated, or can feed a very large party of hungry people.
Actually, I just cooked a batch up last weekend for Stupor Bowl Sundae - in uptown Nawlins, no less.... even the natives call it the best they've every had.
8)
PM me for the recepie, or search the board for "jambalaya" (I think I posted in a recepie thread a good while back).
This thread makes me happy. I am annoyed by all the people, including some of my friends, who claim that they ?can?t cook?, ?don?t cook?, ?hate cooking? and eat nothing but re-heated packaged meals or junk food drive-through. Statistically, this now accounts for a large portion of the population in the U.S. and Canada. I don?t know why this annoys me so much, since it really is none my business, but it really ticks me off. I find both preparing and eating good food to be part of the pleasure of life. Also, studies have shown that those who eat good food ? even though it may also have some fat in it ? do not have the same tendency toward obesity as those who eat junk. It is something about the nature of the fat.
I don?t claim to be a trained gourmet cook, but there is a lot you can do with a few good recipe books, some imagination, and enthusiasm. Here is some of what I like to do:
Homemade bread ? sourdough, biga, other types (my wife says that when we married I promised to make this more often than I now do)
Pizza from scratch
Vegetarian and non-vegetarian tomato sauce
Vegetarian lasagne, with spinach, garlic, ricotta, and slices of hardboiled eggs, covered with my vegetarian tomato sauce (I find it too heavy with the meat sauce)
Lentil stew ? with or without ham
Split pea soup ? with ham
Various slow cooked beef stews, heavy on the wine and/or sherry
Various types of grilled fish, brushed with various sauces
Lamb curry (Often I cheat here and use Patak?s sauce)
Omelettes ? often with weird and wonderful fillings (they don?t always work, but they usually turn out pretty good ? try it with shallots, gruyere, a few dabs of mustard, and medium salsa).
Cuban pork (rubbed with garlic, salt and various spices), with beans and rice
Have any of this with a nice glass or two of wine, or beer, and who can say that life ? with all of its challenges ? does not have its great pleasures as well?
Everybody stop and note carefully how tinned salmon can actually, unbelievably, against all reason, be nice. And be used to? do what Anders likes. With food. (Anders, this is one for you - the surprise uppercut to follow the left hook of the peanut soup, figuratively speaking, a combination guaranteed to win the hearts and nether regions of all whom into your compass come.)
FISHCAKES. Thai fishcakes. From Hassan's 'Cordon Bleu Cuisine For Total Cheats'.
In a food processor.
Spring onions (?scallions?), four. A red chilli, seeds removed. Several cloves of garlic. About six kaffir lime leaves. A big handful of coriander, stalks ?n? all.
Chop, blend, whiz, yea, even unto a rough paste, should you process them.
In a bowl.
A tin of salmon, red salmon, that is, bones removed, or tuna, fresh fish if you live in Sweden or you are rich, or in a make-or-break seduction effort. Anders.
An egg, do you add.
The paste from the food processor, you then add. A tablespoon of nam pla (Thai fish sauce) and a splash of soy sauce, you then add.
Mix that shit.
Flour on a plate or a wooden board, flour on your hands.
Make fishcake size thingies, dust with flour.
A hot pan with light vegetable oil? Yes please.
FRY THEM. Eat them. With cold rice 'vermicelli' noodles tossed in sesame oil? Hell yes.
I still maintain that canned salmon is an abomination unto god, satan, all their little combined minions, and various forms of fungus.
Edit: And who the hell came up with 'red' salmon???
Atlantic salmon: big trout. Very fatty. Not my favorite.
Pacific salmon: not only a different species, but a different *genus* - totally different. Subtypes are:
Keta (pink): close to Atlantic, but not as fatty.
Coho: more flavorful, has a fattier underbelly, but it can be trimmed off it desired. Meat is rather lean, slightly orange.
King: Fat starts to work its way through the meat a bit, but the flavor is very strong, and on a good fish mildly 'spicy', pretty red.
Sockeye: A good sockeye is like beef: rich, deep deep red, robust flavor, my favorite. Copper River hook-caught is wonderfully good if fresh.
I like to plank 'em: take an alder or cedar plank, soak it in water, and toss it on the grill, salmon atop. Let the oils from the wood permeate the flesh while the smoke from the underside penetrates from above. Then flip both fish and plank so that the skin side gets placed on the slightly charred wood. Mmmm. Throw some scallions and garlic in there, maybe a citrus or two, even a touch of rosemary on a sockeye, and voila. Nirvana.
Edit: And who the hell came up with 'red' salmon???
20_And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
21_And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, to be caught and canned, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
22_And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.
I think we need a thread devoted to grilled cheese debate.
I'm dead serious.
I will put my grilled cheese up against anyone else's.
Cheers
Scott
Well, Scott, the problem is when you SMASH yours down!!!
Why not try my longhorn cheese? Granted, you have to go to the extra effort to actually SLICE it yourself ....but it's WELL worth the trouble. A thousand times better than Kraft singles. I promise!
TRY IT. TRY IT. TRY IT!!!!!
Puuleeeeaasssse? Pretty please, with sugar on top?
Well, Scott, the problem is when you SMASH yours down!!!
Why not try my longhorn cheese? Granted, you have to go to the extra effort to actually SLICE it yourself ....but it's WELL worth the trouble. A thousand times better than Kraft singles. I promise!
TRY IT. TRY IT. TRY IT!!!!!
Puuleeeeaasssse? Pretty please, with sugar on top?
You are implying that my PERFECT grilled cheese is not the result of many years of experimentation. Not so.
And I said "mash," not "smash." "Mash" is just about the bestest word in the English language.
Aren't you an English teacher at a college, or something like that?
just about the bestest word
I am a professor of English at a University, and I have a PhD in eighteenth and nineteenth-century English literature with the attendant thorough grounding in history and philosophy of the period(s).
And, indeed, to my ear "mash" is such a wonderful word that it merits a superlative superlative adjective.
It is, in other words, the bestest word out there.
On the other hand, to say something like besttestest would be silly.
Cheers
Scott
Edit: I suppose you would object to my frequent use of "gooder," as well?
Comments
well, i do like cooking. sometimes.
all kind of (hot) sauces for pasta / rice, rice and beans (south american way, except no animal parts added, and no grease), stuffed jalopeños, potatoes with jalopeños (the only edible way of that boring tasteless vegetable), dark dark dark drinking chocolate ... home made rice milk, all kind of veggie stuff with e.g. zucchini, egg plants etc, vegetarian frittata etc .. and so on.
Originally posted by Kickaha
Love this!
But you wanna make the best grilled cheese in the world? Choose your bread, choose your cheese. Melt a little butter in the microwave, and use a pasty brush to brush it on the bread, then toss it in a skillet over low-medium heat. It browns *perfectly*, you use almost no butter, and the crunch has the best texture.
Also, toss a little bit of the same cheese you made the sandwich from through the shredder, and place it in the bottom of your soup bowl before you ladle it in. It ties the two items together, and adds a bit of texture to the soup as well. Oh, and toss in some fresh basil to the tomato soup if you have it.
I like gruyere on half-wheat/half-rye myself.
Well, I like longhorn cheese on wheat. I put canola margarine (thinly)(and high in polyunsaturates) on the outer bread slices, 1/4" thick cheese slices, sliced to perfection with those cool wire cheese-slicers, put the sandwich in the skillet on low heat with a lid on the pan to help melt the cheese; then turn sandwich and raise heat a bit to speed melting, still with lid on.
The sandwich is perfectly golden brown, crunchy, and the cheese perfectly melted. Cut in half and put on ribbed platter so the bottom of the sandwich doesn't steam itself soft (like it would on a flat plate).
I want to start making my own vegetable soups. I had some broccoli I needed to use up, so I chopped it up and put it in the blender. Threw in some fresh chopped onions. Put the blended mixture in a saucepan and added milk, non-salt vegetable seasoning, heated but not to boiling. People gobbled up this soup, and it was SO ridiculously easy.
Served with crunchy mange tout or sugar snaps.
Dang.
Usually I'm cooking on the George Foreman instead. Chicken breasts or swordfish steaks, mostly. And couscous is so damn easy to prepare in the microwave.
paella, unfortunately, my wife doesn't like it because it is always too spicy for her no matter what I do
With Chicken and Sausage. My friends brag about this stuff for me, to anyone who hasn't tried it yet. It's simply addictive....
44 servings or so, a full stock pot.
It tastes great reheated, or can feed a very large party of hungry people.
Actually, I just cooked a batch up last weekend for Stupor Bowl Sundae - in uptown Nawlins, no less.... even the natives call it the best they've every had.
8)
PM me for the recepie, or search the board for "jambalaya" (I think I posted in a recepie thread a good while back).
I don?t claim to be a trained gourmet cook, but there is a lot you can do with a few good recipe books, some imagination, and enthusiasm. Here is some of what I like to do:
Homemade bread ? sourdough, biga, other types (my wife says that when we married I promised to make this more often than I now do)
Pizza from scratch
Vegetarian and non-vegetarian tomato sauce
Vegetarian lasagne, with spinach, garlic, ricotta, and slices of hardboiled eggs, covered with my vegetarian tomato sauce (I find it too heavy with the meat sauce)
Lentil stew ? with or without ham
Split pea soup ? with ham
Various slow cooked beef stews, heavy on the wine and/or sherry
Various types of grilled fish, brushed with various sauces
Lamb curry (Often I cheat here and use Patak?s sauce)
Omelettes ? often with weird and wonderful fillings (they don?t always work, but they usually turn out pretty good ? try it with shallots, gruyere, a few dabs of mustard, and medium salsa).
Cuban pork (rubbed with garlic, salt and various spices), with beans and rice
Have any of this with a nice glass or two of wine, or beer, and who can say that life ? with all of its challenges ? does not have its great pleasures as well?
Tonight I am called upon to make Gwumpkies.
Originally posted by Anders
You can take your chocolate mousse and stuff it. Mine cannot be beaten. Actually everything in desserts I am da master.
And I have refined Hassans Peanut butter soup to a point where girls want to have sex with me just to taste it
Reading that I notice that I used to be quite funny.
Everybody stop and note carefully how tinned salmon can actually, unbelievably, against all reason, be nice. And be used to? do what Anders likes. With food. (Anders, this is one for you - the surprise uppercut to follow the left hook of the peanut soup, figuratively speaking, a combination guaranteed to win the hearts and nether regions of all whom into your compass come.)
FISHCAKES. Thai fishcakes. From Hassan's 'Cordon Bleu Cuisine For Total Cheats'.
In a food processor.
Spring onions (?scallions?), four. A red chilli, seeds removed. Several cloves of garlic. About six kaffir lime leaves. A big handful of coriander, stalks ?n? all.
Chop, blend, whiz, yea, even unto a rough paste, should you process them.
In a bowl.
A tin of salmon, red salmon, that is, bones removed, or tuna, fresh fish if you live in Sweden or you are rich, or in a make-or-break seduction effort. Anders.
An egg, do you add.
The paste from the food processor, you then add. A tablespoon of nam pla (Thai fish sauce) and a splash of soy sauce, you then add.
Mix that shit.
Flour on a plate or a wooden board, flour on your hands.
Make fishcake size thingies, dust with flour.
A hot pan with light vegetable oil? Yes please.
FRY THEM. Eat them. With cold rice 'vermicelli' noodles tossed in sesame oil? Hell yes.
Edit: And who the hell came up with 'red' salmon???
Atlantic salmon: big trout. Very fatty. Not my favorite.
Pacific salmon: not only a different species, but a different *genus* - totally different. Subtypes are:
Keta (pink): close to Atlantic, but not as fatty.
Coho: more flavorful, has a fattier underbelly, but it can be trimmed off it desired. Meat is rather lean, slightly orange.
King: Fat starts to work its way through the meat a bit, but the flavor is very strong, and on a good fish mildly 'spicy', pretty red.
Sockeye: A good sockeye is like beef: rich, deep deep red, robust flavor, my favorite. Copper River hook-caught is wonderfully good if fresh.
I like to plank 'em: take an alder or cedar plank, soak it in water, and toss it on the grill, salmon atop. Let the oils from the wood permeate the flesh while the smoke from the underside penetrates from above. Then flip both fish and plank so that the skin side gets placed on the slightly charred wood. Mmmm. Throw some scallions and garlic in there, maybe a citrus or two, even a touch of rosemary on a sockeye, and voila. Nirvana.
Originally posted by Kickaha
Edit: And who the hell came up with 'red' salmon???
20_And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
21_And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, to be caught and canned, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
22_And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.
I'm dead serious.
I will put my grilled cheese up against anyone else's.
Cheers
Scott
Originally posted by midwinter
I think we need a thread devoted to grilled cheese debate.
I'm dead serious.
I will put my grilled cheese up against anyone else's.
Cheers
Scott
Well, Scott, the problem is when you SMASH yours down!!!
Why not try my longhorn cheese? Granted, you have to go to the extra effort to actually SLICE it yourself
TRY IT. TRY IT. TRY IT!!!!!
Puuleeeeaasssse?
Originally posted by Carol A
Well, Scott, the problem is when you SMASH yours down!!!
Why not try my longhorn cheese? Granted, you have to go to the extra effort to actually SLICE it yourself
TRY IT. TRY IT. TRY IT!!!!!
Puuleeeeaasssse?
You are implying that my PERFECT grilled cheese is not the result of many years of experimentation. Not so.
And I said "mash," not "smash." "Mash" is just about the bestest word in the English language.
Cheers
Scott
Originally posted by midwinter
You are implying that my PERFECT grilled cheese is not the result of many years of experimentation. Not so.
And I said "mash," not "smash." "Mash" is just about the bestest word in the English language.
Cheers
Scott
Aren't you an English teacher at a college, or something like that?
just about the bestest word
Originally posted by Extras.rsrc
Aren't you an English teacher at a college, or something like that?
just about the bestest word
I am a professor of English at a University, and I have a PhD in eighteenth and nineteenth-century English literature with the attendant thorough grounding in history and philosophy of the period(s).
And, indeed, to my ear "mash" is such a wonderful word that it merits a superlative superlative adjective.
It is, in other words, the bestest word out there.
On the other hand, to say something like besttestest would be silly.
Cheers
Scott
Edit: I suppose you would object to my frequent use of "gooder," as well?
Originally posted by midwinter
I think we need a thread devoted to grilled cheese debate.
I'm dead serious.
I will put my grilled cheese up against anyone else's.
Cheers
Scott
dude, i perfected my recipe 12 years ago. i agree with you on all parts but the amount of butter.
Originally posted by billybobsky
dude, i perfected my recipe 12 years ago. i agree with you on all parts but the amount of butter.
Is that a gauntlet? Did you just throw down a GAUNTLET?!!?