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[CrankyJay]

Nah won't go rancid, that is why you use something benign like grape or canola. Yeah, once you get that reseasoned then there will no need to reseason it. And when wiping it down, you remove most of the oil.

I do add a caveat to that...I make sure to do some deep frying once or twice a year to help build up the season.

Doh, guess I could have used canola. I wiped some Crisco in there.

Will be cooking some bacon in it tomorrow.

I mean, do people usually scrub it pretty well in between cookings? I guess I'm not understanding this...I'm afraid of scrubbing off the non-stickness here. Or am I overthinking this?

 

[nakedsushi]

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaait a minute, that Kale stuff I'm reading about everywhere is just simple Grünkohl?

Ahahahaha

America you disappoint me. Your hyped, functional, healthy trend food is just

Spoiler

tasty

poor people food somewhere else in the world.e

Yep, pretty much. I love kale, so I'm glad it's at least healthy. I've been trying to grow it in the garden since I moved in because it's kind of expensive to buy, but snails or something keep eating my kale so I never get to actually harvest it from the garden.

 

[Yes Boss!]

.
I mean, do people usually scrub it pretty well in between cookings? I guess I'm not understanding this...I'm afraid of scrubbing off the non-stickness here. Or am I overthinking this?

Crisco is good.

I guess people scrub but I just do the twenty minute soak then us a simple brush to lightly remove food particles...then lube it back up for storage.

 

[Metroid Killer]

For the mousse itself, obviously the less liquid you're adding the better, so reducing the fruit puree in a saucepan beforehand could help. A little extra gelatin is also an option. Make sure you're giving the assembled cake enough time in the freezer, too.

The strip of joconde should be cut a bit longer than the circumference of your ring mold -- i.e. if it's an 8" ring, cut the joconde to 8.5 or 9" -- so that you need to compress it slightly in order to fit end-to-end inside the ring. This keeps it tight and lessens the chances of it coming apart after unmolding.

Thanks for the info, the joconde ring this time was defintely better as it compressed perfectly tight in the mold. Havn't checked how it looks this morning, but I'm sure there haven't been any leaks, the mousse was more firm as well.

 

[BriareosGAF]

Yep, pretty much. I love kale, so I'm glad it's at least healthy. I've been trying to grow it in the garden since I moved in because it's kind of expensive to buy, but snails or something keep eating my kale so I never get to actually harvest it from the garden.

Buy a few small disposable plastic bowls, fill it with some cheap beer like PBR, then put something over it to shade (we use broken pieces of flower pots). Bury a few of these in your garden, and they'll quickly fill up with dead mollusks.

We get a lot of kale from our winter CSA, my wife makes chips out of it and the kids go nuts eating them. It's ... weird. Even when I was a vegan I was never a huge kale fan, outside of some nice white bean soups.

 

[CrankyJay]

Crisco is good.

I guess people scrub but I just do the twenty minute soak then us a simple brush to lightly remove food particles...then lube it back up for storage.

Alright, thank you very much.

Just made some bacon and eggs in it this morning and the cleanup was relatively easy...did a light scrub with hot water for about 10 seconds then lubed it up in Crisco, wiped off the excess.

It's amazing to see some of the videos on youtube of well seasoned cast irons.

 

[Keen]

Made flap steak yesterday. No pics of the finished plate unfortunately. But here's one of the steak in the pan.

With the leftovers I made steak sandwiches today.
Bread baked with olives and comtè-cheese (bakery bought), sliced red onions, comtè, sliced flap steak, a fried egg, and sliced cold potato. Spread Dijon on the bottom bread and horseradish sauce on the top. Stupid good.

 

[Milchjon]

My goodness, stomach-boner alert.

 

[CrankyJay]

Thanksgiving leftovers...

Wheat bread, spread mayo on the insides, layered with white/dark meat turkey, stuffing, hot cherry peppers, and melted swiss.

Giving my cast iron some love.

 

[Keen]

That turkey sandwich looks amazing! Sandwiches for the win!

Dinner sandwich!

 

[Milchjon]

I've recently discovered Worcester Sauce. Holy crap, how could I ever live without this? Adds such a "warmth" and depth to my food.

 

[Rösti]

I've recently discovered Worcester Sauce. Holy crap, how could I ever live without this? Adds such a "warmth" and depth to my food.

It's nice to some foods. In casseroles and stews it can be really tasty, but on burgers, sausage and such I don't find it that enjoyable. Is it the Lea & Perrins brand you use?

 

[Milchjon]

It's nice to some foods. In casseroles and stews it can be really tasty, but on burgers, sausage and such I don't find it that enjoyable. Is it the Lea & Perrins brand you use?

The one I got is from Appel, which I guess is a German brand.

I put it in my Chili yesterday, and I couldn't stop eating until the pot was empty.

Today I cooked some mushrooms, Brussels sprouts, potatoes and green beans together with some pork and cream in a pan, and added a few dashes of that sauce. Soooo good, again.

 

[cryptic]

My cast iron had a couple of dishes burnt into it and not cleaned out properly due to my school setup. Now I can't get this layer of burnt off it and it really bothers me as it will get all over the food I cook in it.
I'm at a loss as to what to do as I've tried many methods to no avail, if you have any tips let me know.
Also, I have no oven, and I season with extra virgin coconut oil as that's all I have, is that alright?
I'd appreciate any suggestions.

 

[CrankyJay]

My cast iron had a couple of dishes burnt into it and not cleaned out properly due to my school setup. Now I can't get this layer of burnt off it and it really bothers me as it will get all over the food I cook in it.
I'm at a loss as to what to do as I've tried many methods to no avail, if you have any tips let me know.
Also, I have no oven, and I season with extra virgin coconut oil as that's all I have, is that alright?
I'd appreciate any suggestions.

Try putting half an inch of water in it then put it on the stove and boil the water in the pan or a long while. Use a metal spatula to scrape the crud off as it loosens.

Sometimes seeing is believing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npWOnXZAFLY

Make sure to re season your pan!

 

[CrankyJay]

That turkey sandwich looks amazing! Sandwiches for the win!

Dinner sandwich!

I'll trade you half a sammich, yours looks amazing.

 

[Ether_Snake]

I was boiling water and forget the pan on the oven for some time the other day. The pan looks burnt now, has some dark smudge spots in the metal itself:|

 

[Zyzyxxz]

It's assembled in the fridge and ready to go for tomorrow, I'll try to get pics of it right out of the oven then, hopefully with a nice view of the cross-section.

So to update my last post here is the Thanksgiving potluck spread and pic of the finished cottage pie.

The spread includes rib eye roast, potato salad, green bean casserole, and spinach artichoke dip plus a few other dishes not in the picture.

 

[OnkelC]

GREAT sandwiches and leftover dishes, folks! appreciate it.

re: skillet cleaning:
for a thorough cleanse, fill the skillet with half a pound of salt and heat it at max. gently stir/ rub the salt with a wooden spatula as an abrasive agent until the salt turns grey. be very careful, though, the salt will be hot like hell when you are finished. best discard it while still hot with the tap running into the kitchen sink. Only use if the waterboiling method didn't work.

 

[ElectricThunder]

Somebody at the market decided to get clever on the portions, so I had to throw this in the big oven with the light that doesn't work and be all paranoid about it. Hopefully just a one off thing, otherwise this could get trickier in the weeks to come!

Though it does allow this long platter to see some use for a change.

Crumble: Tostinos Artisan Toasted Southwestern Spices Nice and peppery which came through juust right on the lot of it.

Cheese: Trader Joe's Grass Fed New Zealand Sharp Cheddar An obvious candidate for the Pantheon of Cheddars----great on all levels, though difficult to interpret on the melt since I suddenly had to preheat and use an oven, and on a different rack, etc.

 

[CrankyJay]

More cooking from today...and more love for my cast iron:

Kapusta...Polish sweet and sour cabbage with bacon

Smoked beef kielbasa and some creole mustard

Cabbage tossed in bacon grease, salt, pepper, sugar...then simmered in vinegar and water

Cooked down a bit, added in the bacon I cooked earlier

More cast iron love...smoked beef kielbasa fried in left over bacon grease:

Plated with Zatarain's Creole mustard...mustard of the gods:

Washed down with a Sierra Nevada Celebration Hop Ale

 

[Yes Boss!]

Polish!

I like that as my familiy is Polish. Some of the best food out there.

 

[CrankyJay]

Polish!

I like that as my familiy is Polish. Some of the best food out there.

Yes, my wife's family is Polish and I live in Buffalo, NY which has one of the biggest Polish-American populations in the country. Such good eating around here.

The cabbage is heavenly.

 

[Yes Boss!]

Yes, my wife's family is Polish and I live in Buffalo, NY which has one of the biggest Polish-American populations in the country. Such good eating around here.

The cabbage is heavenly.

Yep, my dad and family is from Buffalo/Lackawana. They settled there from Poland in the mid 1800s.

My brother makes his own Kielbasa!

 

[TheExodu5]

My housemate and I make what we call hosers: sausage (bratwurst, in this case) with onions and beer, braised for maybe 2-3 hours. Really simple and delicious on a bun. I wouldn't mind stepping it up a notch a bit...maybe fry and deglaze it first to give it a bit more flavor? Maybe add some spices? Any tips?

 

[CrankyJay]

Yep, my dad and family is from Buffalo/Lackawana. They settled there from Poland in the mid 1800s.

My brother makes his own Kielbasa!

Good God...that is awesome.

I really need to try this some time...would love to make my own fresh Kielbasa and smoke some as well on my smoker.

Also, small world. I love it.

 

[Yes Boss!]

My housemate and I make what we call hosers: sausage (bratwurst, in this case) with onions and beer, braised for maybe 2-3 hours. Really simple and delicious on a bun. I wouldn't mind stepping it up a notch a bit...maybe fry and deglaze it first to give it a bit more flavor? Maybe add some spices? Any tips?

Do you actually mean making the sausage?

You have to have a bunch of equipment to make a forcemeat...sausage stuffer, grinder, proper ice setup, slow wood smoker, etc. Not difficult, but equipment is needed, even if if is stuff for a Kitchenaid. And not be wary of using nitrate.

 

[CrankyJay]

My housemate and I make what we call hosers: sausage (bratwurst, in this case) with onions and beer, braised for maybe 2-3 hours. Really simple and delicious on a bun. I wouldn't mind stepping it up a notch a bit...maybe fry and deglaze it first to give it a bit more flavor? Maybe add some spices? Any tips?

Sure...this could all be done in the same pot/dutch oven. Brown all the sausage first and hopefully you get a good amount of fat released from the sausages, remove the sausages then add in your onions and brown those in the sausage fat. Once you get a good bit of fond (the brown bits you get), deglaze it with some room temperature beer of your choice (maybe 4-6 oz) and scrape the bottom of the pot to get all those brown bits up and cook down the beer for a bit to concentrate the flavor. Then follow your recipe as normal.

 

[cryptic]

Polish!

I like that as my familiy is Polish. Some of the best food out there.

Yeah, I think Polish food is good but nowhere near any of the other European cuisines, at least in America, where's it nothing but golumbkis and pierogies with occasional kapusta and hunter's stew.

I've even tried to look for more recipes and can't really find anything other than hodgepodge American interpretative stuff, so I have to figure there's nothing else of worth to export.

I am fourth generation Polish.

 

[CrankyJay]

Yeah, I think Polish food is good but nowhere near any of the other European cuisines, at least in America, where's it nothing but golumbkis and pierogies with occasional kapusta and hunter's stew.

I've even tried to look for more recipes and can't really find anything other than hodgepodge American interpretative stuff, so I have to figure there's nothing else of worth to export.

I am fourth generation Polish.

My wife's grandma used to (and now us) make white borscht every Easter...it's basically stale rye bread/rye flour fermenting in a crock jar for a week to make zur, then that bread water is strained and boiled with slab bacon and polish sausage and vinegar. The broth is served over sliced hard boiled egg, sliced polish sausage, and fresh shaved horseradish.

Kinda decent, but definitely an acquired taste.

 

[Snkfanatic]

So much food porn on one page. Wow.

EDIT: Aw man...

 

[TheExodu5]

Sure...this could all be done in the same pot/dutch oven. Brown all the sausage first and hopefully you get a good amount of fat released from the sausages, remove the sausages then add in your onions and brown those in the sausage fat. Once you get a good bit of fond (the brown bits you get), deglaze it with some room temperature beer of your choice (maybe 4-6 oz) and scrape the bottom of the pot to get all those brown bits up and cook down the beer for a bit to concentrate the flavor. Then follow your recipe as normal.

But since the sausages are in casings, wouldn't there not be any fat released? Do I need to poke holes in the sausages?

 

[CF_Fighter]

I put it in my Chili yesterday, and I couldn't stop eating until the pot was empty.

Yep, I add worcestershire sauce to canned chili from the store. Along with other stuff I add to it I find I can make it taste a bit more homemade.

I love adding it to plain white rice too, makes it a lot more tasty.

 

[CrankyJay]

But since the sausages are in casings, wouldn't there not be any fat released? Do I need to poke holes in the sausages?

I would imagine heat and pressure would cause the casing to bust open. This happens all the time when I cook Italian sausages on the grill and I don't purposely poke them. I suppose you can poke them without fear of them drying out since you'll be cooking them in liquid anyway.

 

[Keen]

I'll trade you half a sammich, yours looks amazing.

Taken!

 

[dyonPT]

Nutella and hazelnuts Shortbread

 

[CrankyJay]

Breakfast this morning...I have been craving this for weeks.

Everything bagel toasted with creme cheese, red onion, capers and smoked sockeye salmon.

 

[Metroid Killer]

Nice, if I got smoked salmon for breakfast perhaps my morning appetite would be a bite better

Here's what I spent most of friday evening and some of the early saturday on:

Joconde Double Mousse Cake

Was invited to a 60 years birthday party and they had heard about my new hobby and wanted me to make the dessert. So I composed a Joconde cake with my two favorite kinds of mousse.
The bottom cake layer is a white spongecake. Jonconde imprime as walls. Raspberry mousse. Layer of chocolate spongecake. Dark bitter chocolate mousse. Dark chocolate ganache. Sprinkled with freeze dried raspberry.
It turned out pretty much perfect. Even the joconde imprime alligned perfectly, which wasn't even intentional. Luck was defintely on my side witch is always nice.

The only downside is that I only got a tiny slice of the cake myself... and seeing the pictures again makes me crave for more cake badly.

 

[Funky Papa]

Christ on a bike, that looks GOOD.

 

[TheExodu5]

Wow. I'm not a cake person, but that looks awesome.

 

[Corto]

Great food in this page! The sandwiches, the cakes and the cottage pie... Damn gorgeous!


Roasted Veal Riblets with Potato souffle. The platted souffle is deflated as I was serving everyone else before serving myself and taking the picture. But they were beautiful for 5-10 minutes.

 

[Funky Papa]

Well, so much for my guac hate.

I've voiced my distaste towards guacamole in countless ocassion, but today it finally clicked with me in the most unexpected way: used in combination with smoked salmon.

I allow myself two "cheat" meals per week and somehow I had a small container of guacamole nearing its expiration date, so I decided to use it in a smoked salmon sub and get done with it. Lo and behold, the combination was fucking AWESOME.

If you want to try it you only need some basic smoked salmon, a crusty loaf of bread (none of that white fungus they sell in bags, use a proper ciabatta or a Spanish-like loaf) and some non-sweet guac. Mine was just slightly salty and had a very faint spicy scent which went incredibly well with the salmon. Just spread a generous amount of it on the lower part of the sandwich, slap a couple of cuts of salmon and you are done.

Sometimes the simplest recipes are also the best.

 

[Milchjon]

I always shunned guacamole as I don't really like avocado. But last week a friend of mine made a Batch with a shitload of garlic, and it was oh so great.

 

[ElectricThunder]

I award you All The Thing for that Cake and having it not include White Chocolate and break my dreams and hopes!

Speaking of vicarious doings---ever thought of challenging one of the few natively American cake classics that is sort of vague on account of the origin and short history of it---a Boston Blackout? It is on my hopeful list to eat one next year...that or some sort of ludicrous Chocolate Doberge...

I will give the thread a good pic of my hopeful incoming custom b-day cake this coming week! Granted, it is more the sort where the trick is what you are eating versus badass looks like that above as well...but still~

 

[TheExodu5]

Sure...this could all be done in the same pot/dutch oven. Brown all the sausage first and hopefully you get a good amount of fat released from the sausages, remove the sausages then add in your onions and brown those in the sausage fat. Once you get a good bit of fond (the brown bits you get), deglaze it with some room temperature beer of your choice (maybe 4-6 oz) and scrape the bottom of the pot to get all those brown bits up and cook down the beer for a bit to concentrate the flavor. Then follow your recipe as normal.

Just picked up a 5 quart Cuisinart enameled cast iron dutch oven today (on sale for $60). What better time to try this?

Work in progress (it's in the oven now).

Browned the sausages:

Brown the onions:

In goes the beer:

Added some salt and pepper as well. I would have browned the onions some more, but I was afraid of the fond getting too dark (was already starting to turn a tad black). Did I need to worry about that? Anyways, will report once it's done. It's in the oven now at 250F. The beer I put in is a very flavorful beer...first time I try it out with sausages so we'll see how it goes.

Come to think of it...this dutch oven holds heat so well I could have probably just left it on the burner, instead of putting it in the oven.

 

[TheExodu5]

At was delicious. The flavor of the broth was superb.

Now that I have a proper dutch oven, I need to start braising. I've never had short ribs before...I may give that a shot. Saw a simple recipe on Youtube: short ribs, onions, carrots, celery, braised with red wine and beef stock, with some herbes de provence and a bay leaf.

 

[Silkworm]

At was delicious. The flavor of the broth was superb.

Now that I have a proper dutch oven, I need to start braising. I've never had short ribs before...I may give that a shot. Saw a simple recipe on Youtube: short ribs, onions, carrots, celery, braised with red wine and beef stock, with some herbes de provence and a bay leaf.

Congrats on the Dutch oven and tasty recipe! I've got a Tramontina 6.5 qt Dutch oven that has worked well over the last couple of years. Now I can't image trying to cook without a Dutch oven. Would love to have a Le Creuset cast iron dutch oven but can't justify the cost for now BTW, I've got a beer brats recipe I'm going to try this coming weekend but it uses a slow cooker. Hopefully it'll turn out at least as half as good as yours obviously did.

 

[Mario]

I baked some cookies for work - white chocolate and raspberry

Also, finally got round to ordering that iSi Gourmet Whipper to try my hand at 30 second sponge cake, foams, and instant infusions.

And picked up this at the same time

Hurry up, Amazon!

 

[TheExodu5]

Congrats on the Dutch oven and tasty recipe! I've got a Tramontina 6.5 qt Dutch oven that has worked well over the last couple of years. Now I can't image trying to cook without a Dutch oven. Would love to have a Le Creuset cast iron dutch oven but can't justify the cost for now BTW, I've got a beer brats recipe I'm going to try this coming weekend but it uses a slow cooker. Hopefully it'll turn out at least as half as good as yours obviously did.

Yeah I wanted to buy a Le Creuset, but $300 was a steep asking price. Paying $100 (Canada) for something of lesser quality was questionable as well. At $60, it was an easier pickup. Not the color I wanted, but it does the job.

 

[Keen]

I baked some cookies for work - white chocolate and raspberry



Also, finally got round to ordering that iSi Gourmet Whipper to try my hand at 30 second sponge cake, foams, and instant infusions.

And picked up this at the same time



Hurry up, Amazon!

Aah, that is waiting for me at my parents' place. Have to pick it up soon.