Foodie thread

[Esther Knapicius]

@Ruderunner I have a lovely East Indian market about 20 mins from me. Its a huge store. Some unique veggies for sale. I usually pick up a couple jars of Butter Chicken sauce when there, and they have some snacks I love. I have explored some veggies I normally don't have, using my cell phone first before buying them to see how they are prepared. They also have cute tiny eggplants, which are lovely to cook with visually. Have to get back there.

 

[cntrlwagdnr]

I love cooking all kinds of foods from all over the world - including here in the US. Sounds like you guys have great taste in food.

 

[Ruderunner]

Follow up on mushroom soup, not so good. I thought we had a full container of heavy cream, nope just a few tablespoons. Had to substitute milk and for some reason all we had was 2%. Yuck.

Stumbled across a new/old recipe idea. Fermented whole heads of cabbage so one can wrap your stuffed cabbage in sauerkraut. No actual recipe given and apparently was an old world thing. But I have made plenty of kraut and have several crocks so we might try this next fall. We've already made this years stock of cabbages.

Lots of chores to handle today so nothing fancy for dinner tonight. Planning on stir fry and fried rice tomorrow.

 

[Esther Knapicius]

@Ruderunner . Mushroom soup. In that case, add more butter, and use a little flour or rice flour to slightly thicken it.

 

[Ruderunner]

Had rice in the soup, plenty of starch to thicken it. I've made it before and it was much better on previous attempts. Just got caught out by the cream situation.

Going to dump what's left today. It's a week old now.

 

[Esther Knapicius]

Had rice in the soup, plenty of starch to thicken it. I've made it before and it was much better on previous attempts. Just got caught out by the cream situation.

Going to dump what's left today. It's a week old now.

I hate dumping, can you freeze it and use in something later, like part of a gravy.

 

[Ruderunner]

We make large batches of time consuming recipes and freeze the extra for MREs. We've stocked 30 pounds of stuffed cabbage, close to that in stuffed peppers.

We also tend to buy meats in bulk. Like the 90 pounds of bacon this spring at 2 bucks a pound, various lunchmeat at similar prices and most recently 12 pounds of beef roasts and 40 pounds of ground beef.

We've already filled the freezer for the winter.

This is no big loss, maybe 4 bucks for the whole batch.

To help save freezer space I've been toying with making scratch made corned beef which can sit in a crock over winter and canning beef stew to make use of our potatoes and carrots. But we're out of jars!

 

[cntrlwagdnr]

Follow up on mushroom soup, not so good. I thought we had a full container of heavy cream, nope just a few tablespoons. Had to substitute milk and for some reason all we had was 2%. Yuck.

Stumbled across a new/old recipe idea. Fermented whole heads of cabbage so one can wrap your stuffed cabbage in sauerkraut. No actual recipe given and apparently was an old world thing. But I have made plenty of kraut and have several crocks so we might try this next fall. We've already made this years stock of cabbages.

Lots of chores to handle today so nothing fancy for dinner tonight. Planning on stir fry and fried rice tomorrow.

You can make your own cream by recombining milk and butter - unsalted preferably, but for a savory dish I don't think it would matter. It's a bit richer then regular cream, because you are using milk, not whey left from churning butter, but you can regulate the amount of each and use whole, 2%, 1% or even skim milk. My Mom had a cream maker device she bought at a home show once in the 50's, but you can do it by whipping it. Just don't try a blender of food processor - it doesn't work.

Ingredients: (Makes 1 cup. Scale quantities as necessary.)

• ⅓ cup of Unsalted Butter
• This might be a good time to splurge on some of that “Grass Fed Butter”. Costco’s Kirkland brand would be good.
• ⅔ cup of Whole Milk
• You could use ¼ cup to ¾ cup if you wanted it a bit less rich and more pourable.
• You can also add a little powdered Sugar to taste if you want it sweet, but any other flavorings should be stirred in after it is made and chilled.

Directions:

• Gently melt the butter until it is liquid, but don’t let it bubble or separate.
• Cool until it is warm but still liquid.
• Pour the Milk into it and whisk until it becomes it is thoroughly blended and becomes Cream. Don’t over do it or it can separate again.
• A stand mixer is best for this, using the whisking attachment – or you can use a handheld electric mixer.
• Whisking by hand would require a strong wrist and a lot of stamina, you would have to do it vigorously to get it to homogenize.
• Chill before use or attempting to whip it, if you insist on doing that.

I like the stuffed fermented cabbage idea! I'm fermenting our kraut for the year right now - and we just made stuffed cabbage two nights ago! Putting kraut in the sauce when you bake it works quite well too.

 

[cntrlwagdnr]

We make large batches of time consuming recipes and freeze the extra for MREs. We've stocked 30 pounds of stuffed cabbage, close to that in stuffed peppers.

We also tend to buy meats in bulk. Like the 90 pounds of bacon this spring at 2 bucks a pound, various lunchmeat at similar prices and most recently 12 pounds of beef roasts and 40 pounds of ground beef.

We've already filled the freezer for the winter.

This is no big loss, maybe 4 bucks for the whole batch.

To help save freezer space I've been toying with making scratch made corned beef which can sit in a crock over winter and canning beef stew to make use of our potatoes and carrots. But we're out of jars!

I have made both corned beef and pastrami (smoked corned beef). I would be very wary of leaving beef in a crock for prolonged periods. The salt content would have be very high - and pickling salt mixture - but you would end up with wet salt beef. Plus, it would need to be hermetically sealed. Commercially made wet pack corned beef is heat treated and contains other preservatives - and even then it has relatively short shelf life. That's why it's mostly only seen around St. Patrick's day here. (Funny thing is, the real Irish don't eat it then. But they don't do green beer and other dumb a.. stuff either.)

I have a nice big Louisiana Grills/Pit Boss smoker and I make all our own bacon now - and half the family's too after they tasted it! Plus you get leaner bacon, because you choose your own meat and your preferred thickness. I make regular bacon from pork bellies (streaky bacon to the Brits), country bacon from shoulder butts (collar bacon to the Brits) and Canadian bacon from whole loins (don't think there's an equivalent in the UK really). Super quick and easy - and cheap of course. Forget all the days of brining and crap a lot of the recipes call for - way to salty. Just rub over coat of Morton's Curing Salt, wrap in plastic wrap, leave in the fridge (on a tray - it's gonna extract moisture). Overnight to no more than 24 hours. Rinse off well and dry. Smoke at about 190 - 210F until it reaches 150F give or take. Cool in the fridge overnight. Slice wrap and freeze the next day. My lovely wife bought me big heavy duty electric slicer, so it's easier on my wrists these days. If you slice by hand, make sure the knife is razor sharp and cut fat side up, which is easier to gauge thickenss and guide the knife. 3 day duration, but hands-on time is not a lot except slicing if done by hand.

 

[Ruderunner]

A couple years ago I did a preliminary test on pickling beef. Just a small eye of round in a quart Mason jar and canning salt. Stuck it in the back of the fridge. Was intended to see what happened after a month. Forgot about it for 3 months!

It actually looked and smelled ok after all that time. We didn't eat it but it seemed to work as proof of concept.

And I've had 5 year prosciutto, which is basically dough covered salted ham, hung in the basement.

Controlled spoilage is a hobby of mine. I've made batches of kraut that we kept for a year.

I'm just waiting for a good deal on a whole brisket. If it goes wrong I'm not out a fortune.

 

[cntrlwagdnr]

Costco sometimes has whole briskets at very good prices and of course it's always USDA Prime. The Chef Store (used to be called Cash and Carry) consistently has good prices on briskets with both USDA Prime and Choice. Saw it at $2.99/lb in one of those places last week! Don't remember which it was as I wasn't needing any brisket, so didn't pay a lot of attention. But that's an amazing price. Some local stores sell it at up to $9/lb or more as "competition brisket". All they do is separate the flat and point and often cut them in half too. They don't even differentiate between the two cuts! It just a ripoff using a fancy name to inflate the price.

 

[Ruderunner]

Just a bump

We've been eating our stuffed cabbage and peppers, and plenty of spaghetti. Made a big batch of wedding soup yesterday with spinach, celery and carrots from the garden (previously frozen)

We messed something up on our pickles, several jars are mushy. Sealed and taste fine. Thinking we overcooked them. Crock pickles are ok but supply is running short.

Tomato soup and borscht are being consumed for lunches

Today's dinner is schnitzel with stuffing and cabbage noodles

 

[Esther Knapicius]

From above, "Cream Substitute " Sometime I just put whole milk in that product and extra butter and some rice flour. Or sometime a wedge of Philly cream cheese.

 

[cntrlwagdnr]

Peppers ultra pot to pan pizza recipe.

This is simple to make on a day you don't feel like making a big meal. Because you cover up the meat it's basically vegetarian

Start with some greens from the garden. I am using baby spinach, chives, and some strange looking leaves I found growing at the side of my garden.. and mozzarella to shred:

View attachment 97969

Then take out the frozen pizza:

View attachment 97970

Then add the shredded cheese and garden greens, and other herbs and spices you like and drizzle with some homemade herbal oil:

View attachment 97971

Then bake at 450 until perfection has been achieved:

View attachment 97972

Enjoy! And don't make any plans to go out for the evening lol

... and then you had to make a second one...

 

[Esther Knapicius]

I made a banana bread the other day, substituted one "needed to be used" pear for one banana., had two bananas only. Came out really good. Just another frugal thing.