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[smirkrevenge]

so, one of my first "step-by-step" series of pics, but only for plating. i don't have any extra clean hands to take pics while i'm actually prepping.

greenbeans, pre-plating. with some soy, sugar, ginger, and garlic.

sea bass out of the oven, still in the parchment paper. 400F for about 15 minutes, but that was because the fish was still thawing from the freezer. leeks, ginger, garlic, green onion, salt, pepper, veg oil, a drizzle of sesame oil.

final plating. bon appetit!

 

[lostzenfound]

Hey OnkelC! Any idea how to make lieberkase(sp?)? I remember having it when I was an exchange student in Germany six or seven years ago and enjoying it.

If my mind isn't completely shot it was kind of like a glorified spam.

 

[scottnak]

Could I get some advice on how to check if carrots are still good?
I've had them in the fridge for maybe 2 months? And going through the semester-ritual "refridgerator dump" meals... I need to know whether I can use 'em or I should chuck 'em?

 

[OnkelC]

you all make me proud, folks! awesome dishes all around. Thank you for sharing.

scottnak, discard them. For the sake of humanity. They should be dead like disco.

lostzenfound, I know no private household that makes "Leberkäse" on their own, it's usually bought at the butcher or at the supermarket. Here's the wiki about it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leberkäse
it does usually not contain neither liver nor cheese as the name would imply, btw.

Keep sharing, folks! I'm not able to contribute that much from now on as I got lots of non-cooking-related stuff to do at the moment.

 

[Zyzyxxz]

phew... just got back from Malaysia but with no interesting food tales.

anyway...

dam that looks tasty, I have been living in Hong Kong for about 4 months now and I still have not dragged my ass out to eat some breakfast. Of course I can get it from my local chinese grocery store in the states but it tastes better here and the soymilk is better as well.

 

[OnkelC]

Pasta con fromaggio olandese in salsa americana:

 

[nakedsushi]

That looks great! I love baked bass.

 

[jarosh]

:O
that's blasphemy, onkel. my italian mafia family would lynch you for that travesty.





anyway, here's the promised pics of my spices and teas.


100 spices on my kitchen cupboard:

we put numbered stickers on the front and glued tiny magnets to the back:

and since there's so many, i put an alphabetic list on the back of the cupboard:

i also have a "normal" (bilingual lol) spice rack:

those are custom magnetic labels. you can take them off easily if you put in different spices.



also my tea collection with custom labels:

ok i'll stop now

 

[OnkelC]

impressive array of spices and quite a clever way of organizing them, jarosh. Thanks for sharing. Shame that your spice rack is bigger than my whole kitchen

 

[heavy liquid]

Holy crap, jarosh! That's an impressive collection of spices and teas. I'm jealous. I love how you've organized them, too.

EDIT: I have a few things from the weekend that I'll try to get up in the next day or so. I was hit by the winter storm on Saturday and my house lost power for a bit, so it was back to using candles and not having access to the computer.

 

[OnkelC]

EDIT: I have a few things from the weekend that I'll try to get up in the next day or so. I was hit by the winter storm on Saturday and my house lost power for a bit, so it was back to using candles and not having access to the computer.

looking forward to seeing them.

 

[scottnak]

scottnak, discard them. For the sake of humanity. They should be dead like disco.

Guessed as much. Grazi

And wow @ that spice wall. Pretty awesome!

 

[nakedsushi]

DAMN Jarosh. That is a crazy spice rack. Can I live with you?

I baked some onion bread tonight. Pretty edible for something I made up.

The onion bread was served for dinner with (tofu) steak and potatoes. I was inspired by someone else's fried potatoes but mine didn't come out looking as good, but tasted fine.

 

[OnkelC]

very nice bread, nakedsushi? how did you prepare the dough and the onions?

 

[Zyzyxxz]

wow Jarosh, nice spice rack! I would definitely like to experiment with all the types of flavors.

Also nice to see you have nice collection of tea, I love tea so I can appreciate that although I am mostly accustomed to Asian tea I like to try new stuff as well

 

[nakedsushi]

very nice bread, nakedsushi? how did you prepare the dough and the onions?

I chopped the onions finely and sauteed them in olive oil to carmelize them a bit. Then, I minced some garlic and submerged it in some olive oil to save for later.

The dough was made with 2.5 cups bread flour, 1 cup wheat flour, 1 tsp yeast, and about 1.5 cups warm water all mixed together in a stand mixer. I let this dough rise for 1 hour in a warm place, then rolled it out into a flat sheet. Brush the top with the garlic/olive oil mixture, sprinkle on the onions and a bit of dried basil, roll it into a log, pop into a bread pan type thing, and then baked on 475 for about 30 mins.

 

[Flo_Evans]

:O
that's blasphemy, onkel. my italian mafia family would lynch you for that travesty.





anyway, here's the promised pics of my spices and teas.





ok i'll stop now

I have some DUNE joke in mind but I just can't do it. :lol

Impressive spice rack!

 

[Zyzyxxz]

how does he find time to use all them spices though?

Dont some of them have a limited shelf life?

 

[Fxp]

I just wanted to share some photos of apple/banana pie my wife made.

The whole step-by-step process can be found here.

 

[OnkelC]

Fxp, thanks for sharing! looks like a fine cake.

Are you from Latvia (image host suggests so)? If so, I'd love to see some regional specialties from your corner of Europe!

Keep sharing, folks!

 

[Fxp]

Yes, I'm from Latvia - I'll try to use some local recipe next time

Fxp, thanks for sharing! looks like a fine cake.

Are you from Latvia (image host suggests so)? If so, I'd love to see some regional specialties from your corner of Europe!

Keep sharing, folks!

 

[jarosh]

mmmm that apple banana pie sounds and looks so good

 

[Flo]

Okay so, with the help of the guys here, I finally made that pizza with my friend. We got the dough for an Italian food shop as suggested, and it worked out great.

I'll spare you guys every process that went into it, but what we put on it was:

Tinned Italian tomato sauce (with cherry tomatoes in there),
sliced fresh cherry tomatoes
Italian mozzarella balls
Goat's cheese
Red onions
Black olives
Green and red peppers
Mushrooms
Sweetcorn
Tinned tuna chunks

Heres what it looked like before going in the oven:

That looks awesomely awesome, makes me want to make pizza too. My dad did that when I still lived at home, was always a party to build your part. First we had to mark the piece we wanted with something colorfull like carrots and then we could choose from about 10 bowls of different stuff to put on. We always had a lot of fruit on it as well, it adds to the flavour. Oh, and my part was always the highest of them all!

Also loving the banana cake and spices! So many good stuff in this thread.
Seeing that schnitzel made me wish I ate meat again (a tiny bit), OnkelC, your food look like it's in a restaurant.

 

[OnkelC]

So many good stuff in this thread.
Seeing that schnitzel made me wish I ate meat again (a tiny bit), OnkelC, your food look like it's in a restaurant.

Thanks!

 

[nakedsushi]

The BF made vegan paella tonight. It was pretty tasty but it would be even more tasty with cheese!

 

[heavy liquid]

Here's a strange combination of foods that we made over the weekend. First up are the cookies that we gave out as gifts.

I also made some chicken wings/buffalo wings/hot wings for appetizers for a party. I had been wanting to make some after the thread on them.

 

[OnkelC]

heavy liquid, the lollicakes / cookiepops / (?) are legendary!

Thanks for sharing.

I'll make meatballs with sauteed pears and raclette cheese tonight, accompanied by mashed potatoes. Since we got a few guests, pics might follow later tonight or tomorrow afternoon.

Stay tuned and contribute, people.

 

[Flo]

Here's a strange combination of foods that we made over the weekend. First up are the cookies that we gave out as gifts.

Do you have a recipe for this? It looks awesome.

 

[Wolffen]

Heavy Liquid, that all looks awesome. I wish I had the talent to make cookies look that cool. Those wings look heavenly as well. If my loving wife has time today, she'll be emailing me some pictures I took during our open house. One of the dishes I made (which your wings reminded me of) for it was "buffalo bites", essentially boneless chicken bites cooked in my own buffalo sauce and then stored in the sauce again over night, to really soak it up.

It's interesting seeing the difference in buffalo sauce between what I did and what you did. I've never thought about using vinegar and don't use brown sugar, but Franks Hot Sauce is the one element in common. I used Franks, a couple dashes of soy, a few dashes of Worcestershire sauce, garlic powder, cayenne pepper powder, a tiny bit of Better than Bullion Chicken Base, honey, and dark molasses.

Oh, and Jarosh: HOLY SHIT! @ that spice wall. I wish our kitchen was big enough for something like that. =/ I think even Alton Brown would be jealous after seeing those pictures.

 

[heavy liquid]

Thanks guys!

Wolffen, I usually use cider vinegar, but was out of it at the time. I swear I had almost every other kind of vinegar in the house, though! I also threw in garlic and cayenne, but never thought about molasses. I'll try that next time. As for cooking, I baked the wings for 30 minutes or so, took them out and coated them again and finished them off for another 15 minutes or so. They go awesome with a blue cheese or ranch dressing.

Flo, I don't have the sugar cookie recipe right now, but the preparation isn't actually too hard. I'll try to post it later tonight.

Once your dough is ready after being chilled, take it out and cut it into pieces. roll and flatten between two pieces of wax paper to the thickness you want. Then you can take your cookie cutter to it.

You can then carefully insert the sticks (they're specially made for baking so they don't burn -- you should be able to find them) and bake the cookies.

As for the glazing and painting, I usually do the outline first (like the pic in my other post) as a guideline and let it dry for a bit before painting the center. This helps to avoid disasters. Then you can paint your designs on the icing with edible paint.

 

[DarkJediKnight]

Any advice on a Sweet BBQ sauce for about 50 wings? I have about 4 guys coming over this Saturday for the Hockey game. I know one of them can't stand anything spicy. I'd like to go for something mild and sweet but very saucy for the wings.

 

[heavy liquid]

Any advice on a Sweet BBQ sauce for about 50 wings? I have about 4 guys coming over this Saturday for the Hockey game. I know one of them can't stand anything spicy. I'd like to go for something mild and sweet but very saucy for the wings.

Here's what I used:

Sauce:
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 cup hot sauce , preferably Frank's Louisiana Hot Sauce
2 tablespoons Tabasco sauce or other hot sauce, plus more to taste
1 tablespoon dark brown sugar
2 teaspoons cider vinegar

Wings:
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon table salt
3 tablespoons cornstarch
3 pounds chicken wings (18 wings), cut up

Obviously you'll want to double or triple the recipe.

If you just leave out the Tabasco and cayenne, it shouldn't be too hot at all. Frank's isn't that spicy to begin with. There might be a slight kick, but not really too much, especially after it's cooked. I also like Wolffen's idea of adding honey and molasses to the mix, which would definitely sweeten it up. Go easy on the Frank's and add in the brown sugar, honey and molasses and I'm sure you'll be fine. Ranch and/or blue cheese dip will help if he still finds it too spicy.

 

[painey]

those cookies are incredible because they are cooked and decorated so well, the cookies without icing almost look too perfect to be real.

 

[jarosh]

Any advice on a Sweet BBQ sauce for about 50 wings? I have about 4 guys coming over this Saturday for the Hockey game. I know one of them can't stand anything spicy. I'd like to go for something mild and sweet but very saucy for the wings.

another idea would be to try to make your own sweet chilli sauce:
http://www.abc.net.au/canberra/stories/s1338479.htm
if you remove the seeds from the chillis it should not be a problem at all. you can also buy sweet chilli sauce that's usually pretty mild at grocery stores - sometimes asian stores carry really good sweet chilli sauces.

 

[DarkJediKnight]

Thx guys.

 

[lostzenfound]

Here's the food: Crazy Pizza

Here's the story:

I used to work at a Subway, and one of the things we would do often was use the ingredients we had in the store to make pizzas. The marinara sauce was directly from the meatball bin, the bread was subway foot-long pieces of bread smashed together and made into a dough shape, and the cheeses were mozzarella and monteray(sp?) cheddar. The pepperoni was sandwich size, so we diced into tiny pieces.

What makes it hilarious is that Subway bread isn't really made like dough, so in the oven it rises out of control. Especially in this situation, where we decided we wanted thick crust. We used two foot-long pieces of dough to make the flat part of the crust, but then took another and laid it around the rim to make thick crust. We had no idea that it would get quite so outrageous.

Anyone out there working at a Subway should know that you can also use their bread to make pretty tasty soft pretzels.

 

[Cereal]

Those are easily the most perfect sugar cookies I've ever seen, Liquid. I'd love to see a recipe/walkthrough/etc. for the whole deal. Especially the glazing and painting part of it. What sort of glaze do you use?

 

[heavy liquid]

Thanks Cereal and painey! Things are kind of busy at work right now and I have more pictures at home, so I'll give an update later tonight with the recipe and more pictures of the process.

 

[Wolffen]

DarkJedi: As Heavy Liquid said, Franks isn't that hot to begin with. I've found that adding honey and molasses helps to take down some of the heat. If you have the chance, I'd recommend whipping up a small batch of sauce just to taste and see how the heat level is.

For a poor man's BBQ sauce that makes plenty of sauce, Ketchup, paprika, and apple jelly or grape jelly cooked on low heat in a sauce pan. Works best with pork, but might work for chicken wings too.

Turns out I take shitty pictures. So here's two pics someone else took of part of our spread at the open house. I'm hoping to salvage something from my wife's camera tonight. We'll see.

This was mainly savory items:

We had garlic herbed shrimp, cheese ball, cheesy bacon bites (simple recipe), southwestern tartlets, brie and jam tartlets, fruit tray with fruit dip, vegetable tray, spinach dip and chips, turkey and beef rollups, Steph's Famous Hot Dip (another simple recipe), Waldorf chicken salad with toast cups, and not pictured are hoisin beef rollups (marinated seared flank steak slices wrapped around scallions), a cheese fondue with beer bread, and an antipasto meat and cheese tray.

Dessert area:

Only a smattering of what was there; gingerbread cookies, peanut butter cookies, chocolate chip cookies, cranberry strussel bars, chocolate fondue (which was being put out when the picture was taken), Ina Garten's super sinful brownie bites, key lime coconut bars, pound cake, turtle and hersey pretzel treats, cheesecake cheeseball, chocolate pudding cake, and spiced nuts. Not pictured were seven layer bars, cranberry pinwheels, sugared cranberries, and chai shortbread cookies. In the kitchen we had black bean dip, rotel dip, my buffalo bites, peanut ginger meatballs, pork potstickers/dumplings, lil' smokies, parmesan cheese straws, bacon leek mini quiches, punch, and hot spice cheer (a spiced apple cider made from apple cider from a local mountain orchard).

Hopefully I can dig up some better pics from someone's camera.

 

[nakedsushi]

lostzenfound: That pizza story is hilarious. It reminded me of an ex who used to tell me he would get bored and deep fry his burgers when he used to work at a fast food joint with a deep frier.

Wolffen: Insane amount of food! Did you guys make most of that?

 

[Wolffen]

Wolffen: Insane amount of food! Did you guys make most of that?

Other than using a few shortcuts here and there from Two Sisters (like their beer bread mix and tartlets), yeah, everything was from scratch. Made enough food for two small armies, and only had about a regiment's worth of people this year thanks to the weather. My workplace loves me though, since they got all the leftovers on Monday.

 

[heavy liquid]

That pizza is pretty funny. And wow Wolffen, that's an incredible spread!

Here's the recipe that I used for the cookies:

Sugar Cookies

6 cups flour
3 tsp baking powder
2 cups butter
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp salt

Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs and vanilla. Mix dry ingredients and add to butter mixture. Mix it all together well.

Chill for 1-2 hours in the fridge. This will make enough for about 30 thick cookies or so.

Slice off a bit of your dough, flatten it out a bit and then place it between wax or parchment paper. Take a rolling pin to it to even it out to your desired thickness.

Then cut it out by hand or with a cookie cutter if you want and collect the scraps in a pile to make more cookies.

Add the sticks if you are using them before you bake the cookies. Make sure to preheat the oven for at least 30 minutes before baking. Bake on an ungreased baking sheet (I use a Silpat) at 350 degrees for 12-14 minutes or so, or until they're lightly brown around the edges. Keep an eye on them.

Icing:

2 large egg whites
1 pound confectioners' sugar (sifted)

First you whip your egg whites there are soft peaks. Slowly mix the confectioners' sugar with the egg whites. Add a tablespoon of water or so at a time until you have the consistency you want. More water and your icing will be thinner. I use a bit of a thicker consistency which is better for outlining cookies.

For those who don't know what egg whites are:

Like I mentioned earlier, I usually do the outline first and let it dry for a bit, and then go back and fill the center in.

We bought the food coloring at a craft store (Michael's) and painted it on with a brush. Let it dry, and you're done!

 

[nakedsushi]

I made ozoni tonight. It's traditionally eaten on New Year's day in Japan, but I'm not Japanese so I don't care! Plus, it was vegan so it's not so traditionally Japanese.

 

[Zyzyxxz]

For today's desert my roommate was so kind as to buy me pastries as a parting gift since I am going back to the United States and he is heading back to Shanghai for winter break.

There was a chocolate one also but I ate it before I thought of taking pics but the custard filling in the pictured one was very delicious and very sweet but not overpowering.

For the main course I just bought some food on the way back: beef brisket curry.

*sigh* I'll miss the different types of Asian food I will be able to buy inexpensively in Hong Kong, but next week being back in the states means I get back into my own kitchen

 

[tnw]

I made ozoni tonight. It's traditionally eaten on New Year's day in Japan, but I'm not Japanese so I don't care! Plus, it was vegan so it's not so traditionally Japanese.

ozoni varies a lot depending on what region you're in, so don't feel like there is one set type of ozoni. you could say it's the ozoni for wherever you are!

Although I don't see any omochi in that ozoni. that's crucial. mmm mochi.

 

[nakedsushi]

Although I don't see any omochi in that ozoni. that's crucial. mmm mochi.

The omochi are on the bottom. I think you can see some poking out. They kind of got monstrous after I left them in the broiler after.

 

[Cereal]

Thanks for the recipes/steps for making those cookies. I'll probably give my imitations a run this weekend. I'll post pictures pending the results. :lol

 

[Kyoufu]

Guys, any recommendations on what I could do with tomatoes, onions, peppers, mushrooms, eggs, chicken and cheese?

I'm trying to avoid eating rice and pasta, so its time to come up with new foods to cook. Any ideas?

 

[heavy liquid]

Guys, any recommendations on what I could do with tomatoes, onions, peppers, mushrooms, eggs, chicken and cheese?

I'm trying to avoid eating rice and pasta, so its time to come up with new foods to cook. Any ideas?

Sounds like a great omelette to me!

And you're welcome, Cereal. Hope it goes well for you!

 

[Grecco]

Guys, any recommendations on what I could do with tomatoes, onions, peppers, mushrooms, eggs, chicken and cheese?

I'm trying to avoid eating rice and pasta, so its time to come up with new foods to cook. Any ideas?

Thats an odd request. You could go for a nicoise salad i guess. Or Stuffed Peppers.