Recipes / Food - Drink

[Ea]

Originally Posted by bjones6416

They taste kind of like green tomatoes -- very "fresh" tasting. I recently had some tomatillo salsa at a restaurant and when I saw the bin of tomatillos at the Asian market had the sudden urge to buy some!

Thanks I can't get them here, but I sometimes see them in American recipes and wonder what they are like.

[poohbear_nc]

It's so hot - I'm committing chicken-cide!

Ingredients:
1 (3 pound) whole chicken, giblets
removed
salt and black pepper to taste

1 tablespoon onion powder, or to taste
1/2 cup margarine, divided
1 stalk celery, leaves removed
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. Place chicken in a roasting pan, and season generously inside and out with salt and pepper. Sprinkle inside and out with onion powder. Place 3 tablespoons margarine in the chicken cavity. Arrange dollops of the remaining margarine around the chicken's exterior. Cut the celery into 3 or 4 pieces, and place in the chicken cavity.
3. Bake uncovered 1 hour and 15 minutes in the preheated oven, to a minimum internal temperature of 180 degrees F (82 degrees C). Remove from heat, and baste with melted margarine and drippings. Cover with aluminum foil, and allow to rest about 30 minutes before serving.

If the power goes out again tomorrow at work, I figure I'll be completely cooked by lunch time.

[badgoodDeb]

Originally Posted by poohbear_nc

It's so hot - I'm committing chicken-cide!


If the power goes out again tomorrow at work, I figure I'll be completely cooked by lunch time.

Ohhh Nooo!! But the recipe does sound good.

[beppe]

A simple and healthy breakfast.

[Ea]

It's rhubarb season until midsummer - enjoy it while you can

Simple rhubarb sirop
5-7 stalks of rhubarb cut in 1 cm bits
2 dl sugar
2 dl water
Juice from 1 lemon

Heat the water in a saucepan and dissolve the sugar in it. Add rhubarb and let simmer for 15 min. until rhubarb is very tender.

Drain the syrup from the rhubarb with a fine sieve. Add the lemon juice. Store in a bottle, in the fridge, for up to 2 weeks.

Mix with plain or sparkling water and enjoy.

[beppe]

I felt like cooking. I had in the fridge the making for one of my preferred bistro salad wich is raw baby spinach, raw white mushrooms and bacon bits. I do the dressing by rising the hot bacon fat with sherry vinegar. No salt, no pepper. That's my way.

The mushroom were in a big package. And my contribution to day is about them.

The mushroom were smallish, like 2 inches in diameter. I cut away the stems. I poured some dukkah in a small plate and pressed the belly of the each mushroom in it. Dukkah is a fine mix of spices and hazel nuts that i was introduced to by my cooking muse, to whom goes my sempiternal gratitude for this and for many other precious suggestions.

I put a dollop of clarified butter in a large non stick pan. When it was already brownish I put the mushrooms in, careful to put them all with the belly up. Mushrooms like to be treated with strength and strong heat. Especially those white cultivated agaricus, that do not have much flavor to start with. When they were golden, I turned them one by one with a spoon. Sprinkled with salt and fried them for about 5 minutes. Then I poured over them half a cup of 30% cream. Stirred them around, and let the thing thicken, at very low heat, for about 10 minutes. Garnished them with freshly chopped mint, that is one of the key ingredients of dukkah. I might have used wild fennel also, or chervil (but mine is still tiny), and also put an anise star in the sauce. All things that I meditated while savoring the delicious Eumycetes. (that is my face when I meditate food that I have cooked).

I served them with thin slices of the cold smoked ham that I dished out warm for yesterday dinner (together with new baby potatoes buttered with parsley and with creamed leeks, that is why I had the cream). The salad was the entrée.

It was a success! The girls loved the whole meal. Also the little one. I was careful to involve her while preparing the stuff. She liked the bacon bits of course, the leafs of raw spinach, and a slice of raw mushroom, but was the spicy dukkah that I was afraid about her. Suspicious of novelties, she inquired if there was pepper in it. I obviously lied. She took one in her mouth. I asked if she liked it. She said yes and had many. Youppeh, she might become a good cook herself, if at 4 she enjoys these spicy sophisticated unfamiliar things.

Next time. I will use large mushrooms and press them in finely chopped garlic before dipping their bellies in the dukkah.

[wannabee]

Originally Posted by beppe

A simple and healthy breakfast.
Attachment 72191

Beppe, I'm with you. In a recent book I was doing. I had to translate the amount of people being diagnosed diabetic by Australian standards to USA standards. It's ridiculous. In the states some one is diagnosed with diabetes every 9 seconds. When I told my colleagues they were dumbfounded. (we are closely following)
edit: If anyone wants help with diet, nutrition, or related . . . do not hesitate to ask. Personal messages welcome. My employees welcome persons looking after their health.

[Ea]

Originally Posted by wannabee

Beppe, I'm with you. In a recent book I was doing. I had to translate the amount of people being diagnosed diabetic by Australian standards to USA standards. It's ridiculous. In the states some one is diagnosed with diabetes every 9 seconds. When I told my colleagues they were dumbfounded.

But with so much fruit I'd be HUNGRY after less than two hours. I would think it better to go for less quickly digestible food than soft fruits.

[Ea]

Originally Posted by beppe

I felt like cooking. I had in the fridge the making for one of my preferred bistro salad wich is raw baby spinach, raw white mushrooms and bacon bits. I do the dressing by rising the hot bacon fat with sherry vinegar. No salt, no pepper. That's my way.

The mushroom were in a big package. And my contribution to day is about them.

...

Next time. I will use large mushrooms and press them in finely chopped garlic before dipping their bellies in the dukkah.

Interesting, good story. I would never have thought to combine dukkah and cream. I could see it working though, especially if you turn up the heat and intensity of the dish a bit. Maybe a teeny tiny dash of apple cider vinegar?

[beppe]

Originally Posted by wannabee

Beppe, I'm with you. In a recent book I was doing. I had to translate the amount of people being diagnosed diabetic by Australian standards to USA standards. It's ridiculous. In the states some one is diagnosed with diabetes every 9 seconds. When I told my colleagues they were dumbfounded. (we are closely following)
edit: If anyone wants help with diet, nutrition, or related . . . do not hesitate to ask. Personal messages welcome. My employees welcome persons looking after their health.

I do not have that problem myself, but I know how it is important. I read recently a very interesting book about nutrition. In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan.

Spoiler:

SUMMARY:
"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." These simple words go to the heart of food journalist Pollan's thesis. Humans used to know how to eat well, he argues, but the balanced dietary lessons that were once passed down through generations have been confused and distorted by food industry marketers, nutritional scientists, and journalists. As a result, we face today a complex culinary landscape dense with bad advice and foods that are not "real." Indeed, plain old eating is being replaced by an obsession with nutrition that is, paradoxically, ruining our health, not to mention our meals. Pollan's advice is: "Don't eat anything that your great-great grandmother would not recognize as food." Looking at what science does and does not know about diet and health, he proposes a new way to think about what to eat, informed by ecology and tradition rather than by the nutrient-by-nutrient approach.

I have started to put on the table only real food, like home baked bread from whole wheat that has been stone milled. Thinking mostly to give to my little daughter the chance to get accustomed to the real thing, including having fun with it and enjoying the conviviality of eating.

[beppe]

Originally Posted by Ea

Interesting, good story. I would never have thought to combine dukkah and cream. I could see it working though, especially if you turn up the heat and intensity of the dish a bit. Maybe a teeny tiny dash of apple cider vinegar?

I scorched the mushrooms, but with the cream in I just let it barely bubble.
Yes, the apple vinegar. Absolutely. Or a drop of lemon juice. If it had not been for the little one I would have added some chili to the dukkah also. It missed that something more, and the garlic of course.

It is so interesting how us Southeners perceive the cream as very fat, and not the olive oil that is so more greasy. Food is, in large percentage, the prejudiced perception of it. You should have seen the faces of my daughter when she had her first dukkah mushroom. From prudent suspicion, to reassurance, to surprise, to sheer enjoyment.

[Ea]

Originally Posted by beppe

I scorched the mushrooms, but with the cream in I just let it barely bubble.
Yes, the apple vinegar. Absolutely. Or a drop of lemon juice. If it had not been for the little one I would have added some chili to the dukkah also. It missed that something more, and the garlic of course.

Mmm.... Creamed mushroom!

Originally Posted by beppe

It is so interesting how us Southeners perceive the cream as very fat, and not the olive oil that is so more greasy. Food is, in large percentage, the prejudiced perception of it. You should have seen the faces of my daughter when she had her first dukkah mushroom. From prudent suspicion, to reassurance, to surprise, to sheer enjoyment.

And up here I have to be careful with the amount of oil I add to food made for for guests, they think it greasy and "oily" - while full fat cream sauce pass unnoticed.

It's a good thing that your daughter learns to appreciate a variety of flavours, but there must be other factors at play with regards what food we eat as children and thus also as adults. I think the main thing is to instill the value that variety is good - the rest is up to personality. I had healthy but very bland food at home - I prefer much more complex and intense flavours.

[beppe]

Originally Posted by Ea

Mmm.... Creamed mushroom!


And up here I have to be careful with the amount of oil I add to food made for for guests, they think it greasy and "oily" - while full fat cream sauce pass unnoticed.

Well, oil is 100% fat, while cream is 30%. Of course it is enough a half teaspoon of good oil, to dress something, where it takes at least a table spoon of cream. That would make it 1.8 more fat with the cream. Climate then, and temperament? I don't think so. Olive requires a good climate. Good olive oil is extremely expensive, 25 euro for a liter. Hand picked. So that the acidity is at its best. On the ground it is much cheaper but then they have to treat it and there it goes the charme. And business enters and bye baby. I prefer the French one, from Nyon, made with those tiny dark olives. Or when I can get it, home produced by some friend.

It's a good thing that your daughter learns to appreciate a variety of flavours, but there must be other factors at play with regards what food we eat as children and thus also as adults. I think the main thing is to instill the value that variety is good - the rest is up to personality. I had healthy but very bland food at home - I prefer much more complex and intense flavours.

Variety. By all means. I want for her to have fun with food, to enjoy all aspects of it, from buying the ingredients, to cooking it and to eating it. And to be challenged by it. Rarely, there is comfort food on my table.

Our way of cooking relies more on the quality of the ingredients than on the seasoning, that is kept very simple. That thing that you mention, the complex and intense flavours is much appreciated in our tradition, that has little to do with Italian restaurants abroad, where they just go typical, I am sorry to say that. It is usually achieved by contrapposition. Now, for instance, in this season, it is common to eat raw fave beans with medium sheep cheese. Nothing, but so tasty. One ingredient climbs up on the other. A sip of wine let you restart the exercise. But the Scandinavian flavors are just wonderful. Over all I much prefer European cuisine to anything else, from the tip of Sicily up to Trondheim, that is as far North that I have been long enough to build some experience, the way of cooking changes gradually with latitude and climate.

It is just a question of being ready to hand out cash for quality, really.

[Ea]

Originally Posted by beppe

Well, oil is 100% fat, while cream is 30%. Of course it is enough a half teaspoon of good oil, to dress something, where it takes at least a table spoon of cream. That would make it 1.8 more fat with the cream.

38 % (or 18, 12 or 9 %). There is the difference that cream is used for sauces, which is eaten in larger quantities than oil dressings.

[beppe]

Originally Posted by Ea

38 % (or 18, 12 or 9 %). There is the difference that cream is used for sauces, which is eaten in larger quantities than oil dressings.

Of course. But please tell me. What is inside a 9% cream? It looks like a thicker milk.