MX Linux Forum

Posted: **Fri Mar 08, 2019 2:25 am**

One of my favorite hobbies is cooking. It reminds me of messing around with a chemistry set when I was a kid, only with cooking I can eat the results (plus it doesn't stink or explode nearly as often.) I'm by no means a gourmet or professional-quality chef, I'm more of a home-style cook. I don't worry a lot about presentation, I just try to make things that are nutritious, inexpensive and taste good. I usually use lots of veggies and make a lot of soups and stews because most of those can be eaten over a bowl of rice so it's more filling and makes more servings: more *pow* for the peso.

Right now I'm simmering a bit over half a kilo (around 1 1/4 pounds) of bone-in chicken breast pieces along with two hot siling labuyo chile peppers for a hint of spiciness, two sachets of Maggi Magic Sarap seasoning granules (chicken-based with salt, onion, garlic, MSG and a few other things) and one chicken stock cube in a small stock pot with enough water to fill the pot 4/5ths full to make a chicken stock. Later I'll let it cool, remove the chicken and refrigerate the stock so I can easily remove the fat.

Tomorrow I plan to make something kind of like Filipino sopas which is a creamy and thick macaroni, chicken and vegetable soup. They usually add sliced hot dogs and use evaporated milk, but I plan to skip the 'dogs and use cream along with a can of cream of mushroom soup for mine, with some mild red peppers similar to bell peppers, a carrot, some pechay (bok choy), onion, garlic, all diced, plus some chopped green onions, elbow macaroni, the shredded chicken meat and some of the stock. It's a Philippine comfort food that's probably best on cool, rainy days but what the heck (it's summer here and pretty warm, but today it's mostly cloudy and cooler than yesterday, so I'm at least prepping the stock. I saw the recipe on a box of chicken broth cubes a few years ago and decided to go ahead and try it.

Posted: **Fri Mar 08, 2019 4:17 am**

I cook but not as a hobby, in fact it is essential. Living on my own these days, if I don't cook then I do not eat, and if I do not eat then that is the end.
Started cooking when based on a remote Pacific weather station where a supply ship came about every six months and we were very dependent on our small
farm and kitchen garden. One of the team was our cook, but we all took turns in cooking for 9 at weekends, or when the cook was getting some exercise
digging post holes on the farm. Working in the garden was another essential, occasionally I was the slaughterman, despatching a sheep or pig to provide
tomorrow's roast. All cooked on a wood burning stove too.

These days with the family all gone, I make my own bread, using spelt in preference to wheat flour. Work the freezer fairly hard so that a casserole cook-up
of beef and vegetables provides 3 or 4 meals to be used over a few weeks. Usually tend to cook too much for one, so the left overs go into the freezer for a
frittata or Spanish omelette which will do two meals. Still (albeit slowly) growing vegetables. Beans, peas and spinach tend to be harvested in bulk,
part cooked in a steamer then frozen in meal sized packs, and I have enough tomatoes frozen to make p sauce for about one pasta meal a week until next summer.

Posted: **Fri Mar 08, 2019 4:31 am**

@Gordon Cooper: I didn't mention it but eating is also one of my favorite hobbies. Another one is staying alive.

I got started cooking when I was a teenager and used to make dinner for everyone whenever my mother happened to be sick, but it became essential for the very reason you stated: when living alone, no cooking=no eating. You can only survive on instant noodles and bologna (polony/baloney) sandwiches so long. Anyway, I enjoy doing it. It's more fun to cook for others though. Have you ever noticed that the more successful you are in the deliciousness of your dish, the fewer complements you receive? Because people enjoying it too much to stop eating long enough to say anything.

Posted: **Sat Mar 09, 2019 2:42 pm**

Anyone using software to manage their recipes.
I recall KDE has an app. I don't recall the name at the moment.

Posted: **Sat Mar 09, 2019 2:46 pm**

Oh Duh. It is called Krecipes.
I am thinking about trying it when I have time.

Posted: **Sat Mar 09, 2019 3:51 pm**

Sorry guys, I really had to add this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKQWBTkgUAM

But yes, I cook. I do it mostly from or my friends, and it's mostly French cuisine. I love escargot with butter and olive oil, but I know many hate the idea.
I keep all my recipes in an excel sheet which is probably not a good idea, but it works in openoffice.

Posted: **Sat Mar 09, 2019 4:42 pm**

Something we bbq up from time to time. In Texas.

https://thecookinchicks.com/texas-armadillo-eggs/

Posted: **Sun May 05, 2019 12:39 am**

I love to cook. My favorite things to make are all types of dough products, like breads of all kinds and pizza dough. I also make my own cheese. Though I tried making fresh mozzarella today and it was a failure! I was so bummed!! Either I didn't have milk that wasn't highly pasteurized or my second heating was too much. My thermometer let me down here I think. It wasn't updating fast enough and went to 122F before I took it off the burner, I was supposed to take it off at 110F! But today I also made some farmer's cheese from Whole milk and white vinegar that I'm going to try on homemade pizza. Looks and tastes promising!! I hope it works out because I already make my own dough and sauce for my pizzas. I also have some creme fraiche in process as I type this. It's so easy, just add 1/4c real (live) buttermilk to 2c heavy cream. No heating at all! Just let it sit in a relatively warm spot for 24h then in the fridge for 24h more. Happy cooking!

Posted: **Sun May 05, 2019 1:22 am**

Since today is Cinco de Mayo I plan to cook Macarrones Con Queso Con Salchicha De Pavo Ahumado. (Macaroni and cheese with smoked turkey sausages. I've been craving mac and cheese lately.)

Posted: **Sun May 05, 2019 1:26 am**

JayM wrote: Sun May 05, 2019 1:22 am Since today is Cinco de Mayo I plan to cook Macarrones Con Queso Con Salchicha De Pavo Ahumado. (Macaroni and cheese with smoked turkey sausages. I've been craving mac and cheese lately.)

Sounds fantastic!!

Posted: **Sun May 05, 2019 2:02 am**

Smacks of good ol' George Carlin - RIP - loved the man - still love cooking, but keep it simple these days
Used to cook all kinds of great dishes - zuppa di pesce - a beautiful Mediterranean fish soup frequently,
also osso bucco - an excellent hearty beef stew, in my restaurant-owner days - its a sure way to go bust,
as all your buds expect to eat & drink for free ... happy 5th

Regards

Jack

JayM wrote: Sun May 05, 2019 1:22 am I've been craving mac and cheese lately.)

Posted: **Sun May 05, 2019 2:14 am**

jackdanielsesq wrote: Sun May 05, 2019 2:02 am Smacks of good ol' George Carlin - RIP - loved the man - still love cooking, but keep it simple these days
Used to cook all kinds of great dishes - zuppa di pesce - a beautiful Mediterranean fish soup frequently,
also osso bucco - an excellent hearty beef stew, in my restaurant-owner days - its a sure way to go bust,
as all your buds expect to eat & drink for free ... happy 5th

Regards

Jack

JayM wrote: Sun May 05, 2019 1:22 am I've been craving mac and cheese lately.)

I made zuppa di pesce this past Friday for my wife and I's 30th anniversary. I followed a YT vid from Two Greedy Italians. Cheers!

Posted: **Sun May 05, 2019 3:16 am**

I've never made zuppa di pesce but I've cooked pasta e fagioli before, though more of a Filipino version, kinda-sorta. I can't get cannellini beans here, but there's a cheap brand (Ram) of baked beans that contain Great Northern white beans in a tomato sauce. Perfect! I can also find canned red kidney beans in the Imported Foods aisle at some supermarkets. Garlic, carrots and onions abound, green bell peppers can be found, and sometimes celery but I usually substitute pechay (bok choy) so I also get some greens in the soup, plus pechay's always fresher than the celery you see here which always looks pretty wilted and sometimes yellowish. There are canned diced tomatoes available, and rather than pancetta or prosciutto (or ground meat) I usually use smoked longanisa sausages which add a mildly smokey, mildly sweet flavor when you bite into one. Couple that with a few spoonfuls of "Italian seasoning" dried herb mixture and a package of salad macaroni, and chicken broth to cook everything in, plus salt and pepper and it comes out pretty well. Make an odori of onion, carrot and chopped pechay stems (or celery) with some olive oil cooking until tender, add some garlic and let it sweat for a couple-three minutes, then just dump everything but the pasta in a big pot and cook it 'til it tastes good, then add the pasta and cook 'til that's al dente.

They have a fish soup here that's pretty delicious though a bit boney, called tinolang isda. Take a whole white fish or two, gutted, cleaned and scaled* and cut into fourths (head and all to be authentic); some not-quite-ripe small tomatoes, wedged; onion; garlic; fresh ginger root, peeled and sliced; several whole siling espadas (sword peppers, about the same heat as jalapeños which can be substituted); and some sort of green leafy veggie such as mulanggay, alugbati, kangkong or chili pepper leaves (you could use spinach or Swiss chard). water, salt and pepper. This is commonly eaten here in the Visayas during cooler weather, along with cooked rice, in a bowl. There's a Northern Philippines version that's also eaten here in the Visayas called tinolang manok, which uses chicken (manok) instead of fish (isda) and adds some small wedges of either green papaya or sayote (chayote) and usually omits the tomatoes.

IIRC they also do a type of sour soup with mussels and lemongrass (I think) but I'm hinky about eating shellfish in a country that relies on private septic tanks for sewage rather than waste treatment plants, so I've never tried it.

*In the Philippines when a fishmonger offers to clean the fish for you this entails removing the gills. That's it. You have to scale and gut the fish yourself after you get home. It's probably because they sell them by weight so they get more money this way, or perhaps just because "that's the way it's done."

Posted: **Sun May 05, 2019 3:47 am**

Oh Man ..

That's wonderful - I hardly ever made it to the first, and I really tried to make honest women out of all of them
Of course, owning bars & restaurants are the proverbial kiss-of-death to any/all marriages.
Again - Congratulations - may you and your young bride have many, many more

Highest Regards

Jack

[/quote]

I made zuppa di pesce this past Friday for my wife and I's 30th anniversary. I followed a YT vid from Two Greedy Italians. Cheers!
[/quote]

Posted: **Sun May 05, 2019 1:43 pm**

Well I prefer to think of myself as honest but yes, some people would call me that.

EDIT: oh, sorry, I misread the thread title

Posted: **Sun May 05, 2019 4:24 pm**

jackdanielsesq wrote: Sun May 05, 2019 3:47 am Oh Man ..

That's wonderful - I hardly ever made it to the first, and I really tried to make honest women out of all of them
Of course, owning bars & restaurants are the proverbial kiss-of-death to any/all marriages.
Again - Congratulations - may you and your young bride have many, many more

Highest Regards

Jack

I made zuppa di pesce this past Friday for my wife and I's 30th anniversary. I followed a YT vid from Two Greedy Italians. Cheers!
[/quote]
[/quote]

Thank you, Jack, that's very kind of you! I'll tell you what I knew two families growing up who owned food businesses (Deli's) in my hometown of Bayonne, NJ. One was my first gf's family, and the other was my aunt/uncle. The former owned an italian deli, and latter just a general type of deli. I remember vividly that they both lived to work, they were always working. Indeed it was their entire life. So I definitely understand how the restaurant business would be a kiss of death to relationships for the people running them. That's a sad truth. Thank you again for your very kind words Jack.

Scott

Posted: **Sun May 05, 2019 11:55 pm**

Mmmm, Yes, to answer the OP's 1st Q. Not in the mood to wax verbose atmo though. Seeing as how my earthlink personal webpage that I had favorite recipes on "is currently being migrated".

Posted: **Mon May 06, 2019 12:30 am**

azrielle wrote: Sun May 05, 2019 11:55 pm Mmmm, Yes, to answer the OP's 1st Q. Not in the mood to wax verbose atmo though. Seeing as how my earthlink personal webpage that I had favorite recipes on "is currently being migrated".

I've got homemade pizza on tap for tomorrow with the cheese I made yesterday. I have to get my homemade pizza fix on once or twice a week. :)

Posted: **Sun May 26, 2019 4:38 am**

I'm short on cash right now so I have to stretch it. Therefor I've been making a lot of hearty soups and stews lately as they last me for many more meals than braised pork and veggies which is my usual fare.

Last Saturday I made a pork and monggo (green mung bean) curry. Today I made up a soup recipe using (what else in the Philippines?) pork, Chinese or Napa cabbage, some long (asparagus) beans and some other things, whatever looked good to me at my favorite vegetable stall at the neighborhood market.

Pork and monggo curry

500g (a skosh over a pound) of dried green mung beans
~370g (a skosh under a pound) of pork shoulder, cut into 1/2 inch cubes (fat, skin and all: Philippines again. They eat every part of a pig but the oink.)
2 large and 1 medium yellow potato, peeled and cut into 1 inch cubes
3 carrots, peeled and sliced at an angle
1 large white onion, peeled and coarsely chopped
4 or 5 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
6 pechays (bok choys), sliced crosswise into around 1 inch pieces
1 piece of fresh ginger root a bit larger than your thumb, peeled and sliced lengthwise (use a spoon to scrape the outside peel off: it lets you get into the nooks and crannies easier than a vegetable peeler)
2 sachets of Fat and Thin brand curry powder (probably the same amount of two jars of Schilling or McCormick curry powder, which you can use instead: it's a generic commercial yellow curry powder)
2 soup-can-size (or a bit larger) cans of coconut milk
Around 25g of chili powder (or less if you don't like a spicier curry as I do.)
Around 3 liters of water
4 large pork stock cubes
3 large chicken stock cubes
2 tsp MSG
3 tsp sugar
Salt and pepper to taste

Place the mung beans in twice the level of water as the level of beans, soak for 24 hours, refrigerated.
Prepare all the other ingredients as stated above.
Drain the mung beans, place in a large pot along with the pork, onions, garlic, broth cubes and MSG. Add the water, cover and heat on medium-high until starting to boil. Reduce heat until there are just a few bubbles breaking on the surface. Continue cooking until the mung beans are almost completely tender, about an hour. Stir frequently as mung beans have a tendency to stick to the bottom of the pot.
Add the remaining ingredients except for the coconut milk . Raise the heat until it just starts to boil then lower it as before. Cook until the potatoes and carrots are tender, stirring to prevent sticking.
Stir in the coconut milk. Reduce heat and simmer for about 20 minutes, still stirring often.
Taste, add salt and pepper to your liking. Let cool to edible, not-burn-your-mouth temperature. Serve in bowls over cooked rice.

(Mrs. M. said it tasted like the Indian curry in Australia but it was a bit too spicy for her. Sorry, my dear.)

Posted: **Sun May 26, 2019 4:56 am**

Pork and Chinese cabbage soup

Around 370g (a skosh under a pound) of pork shoulder, cut into 1 inch or larger cubes ( bought a piece of pork shoulder that was around 738g and used half for the curry and the rest for today's soup)
1 medium white onion, peeled and very coarsely chopped
1 entire head (bulb) garlic, peeled and minced, around 12 cloves (I didn't count 'em)
2 carrots, peeled and sliced into coins
2 medium yellow potatoes, peeled and cut into 3/4 to 1 inch cubes
1 handful of long beans (asparagus beans) cut into (roughly) 2 inch lengths
1 good-sized Chinese (Napa) cabbage, sliced crosswise into (roughly) 1 inch slices
6 whole, fresh siling espadas (sword peppers) or substitute mild jalapeños
Around 1 1/2 tablespoon each of Mixed herbs and Pizza Seasoning dried herb mixtures (Pizza Seasoning is basically the same as Italian Seasoning only with less tarragon and more oregano)
4 large pork stock cubes
3 large chicken stock cubes
3 tsp MSG
2.75 liters of water
1 tbsp Maggi Liquid Seasoning (somewhat similar to Worcestershire sauce or brown sauce)

Put the pork, peppers, stock cubes and MSG into a large pot and add the water. Cover and heat until it starts to boil then reduce heat until bubbles are slightly breaking on the surface. Skim the scum off the top if desired (I usually don't bother.) Cook, stirring occasionally, until the pork is cooked and tender, about 45 minutes. (Don't eat the peppers, unless of course you want to. They're mainly there to add just a slight "zip" to the soup.)
Add all remaining ingredients, raise heat until it just begins to boil, reduce heat as above, cover and cook, stirring occasionally, until the potatoes and carrots are tender: about another 45 minutes.
Taste and add salt and pepper if desired. Allow to cool to edible temperature and serve in bowls over some cooked rice.

Posted: **Sun May 26, 2019 5:18 am**

Home-made cheese is definitely not your everyday event ... especially with home-made pizza
Gave home-made beer a real go once - wrecked the basement of my mountain house
Bravo for all your superb effort

Jack

scottr954 wrote: Mon May 06, 2019 12:30 am
I've got homemade pizza on tap for tomorrow with the cheese I made yesterday. I have to get my homemade pizza fix on once or twice a week. :)

Posted: **Sun May 26, 2019 6:11 am**

jackdanielsesq wrote: Sun May 26, 2019 5:18 am Home-made cheese is definitely not your everyday event ... especially with home-made pizza
Gave home-made beer a real go once - wrecked the basement of my mountain house
Bravo for all your superb effort

Jack

scottr954 wrote: Mon May 06, 2019 12:30 am
I've got homemade pizza on tap for tomorrow with the cheese I made yesterday. I have to get my homemade pizza fix on once or twice a week. :)

(Now I'm craving pizza.)

Posted: **Sun May 26, 2019 9:50 pm**

jackdanielsesq wrote: Sun May 26, 2019 5:18 am Home-made cheese is definitely not your everyday event ... especially with home-made pizza
Gave home-made beer a real go once - wrecked the basement of my mountain house
Bravo for all your superb effort

Jack

scottr954 wrote: Mon May 06, 2019 12:30 am
I've got homemade pizza on tap for tomorrow with the cheese I made yesterday. I have to get my homemade pizza fix on once or twice a week. :)

Hi Jack! Ya know I've been trying to perfect pizza (dough & sauce recipes) for a few years now. Although I *like* my pizzas, and others do as well, I've yet to produce my 'perfect' pizza. What's amazing is, as you know, there's so few ingredients. But amazingly it's no easy task to create the perfect pizza.

My very latest is the two ingredient dough: self rising flour and plain greek yogurt. I actually was quite good! If you haven't tried that one, please do. As far as quantities of each of the two ingredients, I'd say use enough of them to create something that "kneadable/", but a tad on the moist side. Just mix, rest 30 min, knead, rest 30 min, make pizza. :)

Posted: **Sun May 26, 2019 9:53 pm**

JayM wrote: Sun May 26, 2019 6:11 am
jackdanielsesq wrote: Sun May 26, 2019 5:18 am Home-made cheese is definitely not your everyday event ... especially with home-made pizza
Gave home-made beer a real go once - wrecked the basement of my mountain house
Bravo for all your superb effort

Jack

scottr954 wrote: Mon May 06, 2019 12:30 am
I've got homemade pizza on tap for tomorrow with the cheese I made yesterday. I have to get my homemade pizza fix on once or twice a week. :)

(Now I'm craving pizza.)

Hi Jay! Haha funny how that works! :)

Posted: **Sun May 26, 2019 10:08 pm**

Have made good bread and very good pasta with Spelt. Not tried it for pizza yet, but willdo soon.

Posted: **Mon May 27, 2019 2:26 am**

Gordon Cooper wrote: Sun May 26, 2019 10:08 pm Have made good bread and very good pasta with Spelt. Not tried it for pizza yet, but willdo soon.

Interesting, definitely report back with the verdict!

Posted: **Tue May 28, 2019 11:40 am**

Fried up some left over enchiladas with eggs and cheese . Broke out the leftover bag of 7 up biscuits and apricot jellied em. Chocolate milk and hot tea on the side.

Breakfast is served.

Posted: **Tue May 28, 2019 12:44 pm**

A bit of context
Not a cook here, but I like to cook, especially since I've been in the UK (humour). As a French, it's kind of a part of my culture, although I'm rather into cheese than wine (moderately, one glass of good wine on special occasions). Unfortunately, quality cheese, wine or charcuterie (French broad term to designate specialty sausage so to speak, from ham to sausages, and pâté)

Since the processed food is so so in England, my latest attempts were to try to cook some beef Madras (although it's not really an Indian dish and it's supposed to have been created in Glasgow in the 60s or 70s). What is formidable in the UK (especially in London), is that almost every food from all around the world is available in supermarkets. The choice of spices is so vast.

My specialty is the caramelised pork belly, which was the dish my Asian (Chinese-Cambodian) Grandmother used to cook for me as a child, but I also had an Italian Grandfather, so the Carbonara spaghetti or linguini is also one of my favourites (guanciale is harder to get by so I use pancetta). Both dishes are indeed very easy to make. I did try some mac and cheese too, rather easy once you mastered the Bechamel sauce part. Chicken fricassée is also my go to dish, with quiche lorraine.

I bake too, with ups and downs. Biggest failure: macarons, never managed to bake correct ones ... Usual successes: Strawberry cake (fraisier in French) or Far breton (some kind of very dense and filling flan from Brittany).

Currently, I'm toying with spices (mainly cumin, mild Madras curry and 5 spices powder) and have been cooking for a week Chicken curry (I find it tastier when marinated in advance in curry powder with chopped green onions), with some onions and coconut milk (and a wee bit of crème fraîche, unorthodox, but that's the French touch), accompanied with Basmati or Jasmine rice.

Next project, baking my own bred, without kneading, in a covered cast iron pan in oven, T65 flour, salt and fresh baker yeast (don't know the exact English term).

Posted: **Tue May 28, 2019 12:55 pm**

Definitely not a cook, was able at most to boil an egg and pasta, but I've subscribed to a couple of meal kit services for a while and was able to learn some basic cooking (also like that I get exactly what I need without having to go grocery shopping), actually with good instruction I feel like I cook pretty much everything now. Now I have some favorite meals that I cook for myself.

I highly recommend using a meal kit service if available in your location: https://www.self.com/story/the-12-best- ... -smoothies

Posted: **Tue May 28, 2019 2:19 pm**

rokytnji.1 wrote: Tue May 28, 2019 11:40 am Fried up some left over enchiladas with eggs and cheese . Broke out the leftover bag of 7 up biscuits and apricot jellied em. Chocolate milk and hot tea on the side.

Breakfast is served.

Nice!! Did you make the 7-up biscuits? Share the recipe?

Posted: **Tue May 28, 2019 2:58 pm**

Cristobal wrote: Tue May 28, 2019 12:44 pm A bit of context
Not a cook here, but I like to cook, especially since I've been in the UK (humour). As a French, it's kind of a part of my culture, although I'm rather into cheese than wine (moderately, one glass of good wine on special occasions). Unfortunately, quality cheese, wine or charcuterie (French broad term to designate specialty sausage so to speak, from ham to sausages, and pâté)

Since the processed food is so so in England, my latest attempts were to try to cook some beef Madras (although it's not really an Indian dish and it's supposed to have been created in Glasgow in the 60s or 70s). What is formidable in the UK (especially in London), is that almost every food from all around the world is available in supermarkets. The choice of spices is so vast.

My specialty is the caramelised pork belly, which was the dish my Asian (Chinese-Cambodian) Grandmother used to cook for me as a child, but I also had an Italian Grandfather, so the Carbonara spaghetti or linguini is also one of my favourites (guanciale is harder to get by so I use pancetta). Both dishes are indeed very easy to make. I did try some mac and cheese too, rather easy once you mastered the Bechamel sauce part. Chicken fricassée is also my go to dish, with quiche lorraine.

I bake too, with ups and downs. Biggest failure: macarons, never managed to bake correct ones ... Usual successes: Strawberry cake (fraisier in French) or Far breton (some kind of very dense and filling flan from Brittany).

Currently, I'm toying with spices (mainly cumin, mild Madras curry and 5 spices powder) and have been cooking for a week Chicken curry (I find it tastier when marinated in advance in curry powder with chopped green onions), with some onions and coconut milk (and a wee bit of crème fraîche, unorthodox, but that's the French touch), accompanied with Basmati or Jasmine rice.

Next project, baking my own bred, without kneading, in a covered cast iron pan in oven, T65 flour, salt and fresh baker yeast (don't know the exact English term).

Wow that sounds awesome.. I love Chicken fricassée by the way. Haven't made it yet though. Just had it out, but not for some time.

Posted: **Tue May 28, 2019 5:16 pm**

7up Biscuits I use the Bisquit recipe
https://www.geniuskitchen.com/recipe/7- ... ivity-feed

We do a lot of Bisquits and Sausage gravy for breakfast also.
https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/21639 ... -biscuits/

We use the links cut up after being fried up crisp 1st . Or the jimmy Dean roll fried up first. The gravy comes in powdered form fro local grocery. I use the white gravy.
I cobine the powder in a glass with water 1st and stir for a bit before dumping in cast iron skillet so as not to get lumps in gravy.

Then don't get me started on Chorizo scrambled egg burritos or cut up hot dog and scrambled egg burritos. The salt on hot dogs compliment the eggs so no salt needed.
https://www.closetcooking.com/chorizo-a ... g-burrito/
https://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe- ... ipe=554953

Posted: **Tue May 28, 2019 5:26 pm**

PS. I am 6 foot 7 inches and my grown boys grew up when I was not cooking on this

1 lb. (16 oz.) VELVEETA®, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1 cup TACO BELL® Thick & Chunky Salsa
Microwave till melted in a bowl.
Pour over Doritos or Salsa corn chips.

Posted: **Tue May 28, 2019 5:27 pm**

scottr954 wrote: Tue May 28, 2019 2:58 pm
Wow that sounds awesome.. I love Chicken fricassée by the way. Haven't made it yet though. Just had it out, but not for some time.

Despite my efforts, I'm very average at best.
You should try the chicken fricassée from a simple recipe, you'll see it's very easy (in my opinion, the most difficult task might be to make the roux butter, but once you got the technique, it's rather easy). Some recipes add white wine and spice like paprika, nutmeg ground, to add a more subtle flavour, or arrowroot for thickening instead of a roux.

Posted: **Tue May 28, 2019 5:36 pm**

Cristobal wrote: Tue May 28, 2019 5:27 pm
scottr954 wrote: Tue May 28, 2019 2:58 pm
Wow that sounds awesome.. I love Chicken fricassée by the way. Haven't made it yet though. Just had it out, but not for some time.
Despite my efforts, I'm very average at best.
You should try the chicken fricassée from a simple recipe, you'll see it's very easy (in my opinion, the most difficult task might be to make the roux butter, but once you got the technique, it's rather easy). Some recipes add white wine and spice like paprika, nutmeg ground, to add a more subtle flavour, or arrowroot for thickening instead of a roux.

Oh you're fine. There's tons of recipes online I just need to make it happen! :)

Posted: **Tue May 28, 2019 5:37 pm**

rokytnji.1 wrote: Tue May 28, 2019 5:16 pm 7up Biscuits I use the Bisquit recipe
https://www.geniuskitchen.com/recipe/7- ... ivity-feed

We do a lot of Bisquits and Sausage gravy for breakfast also.
https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/21639 ... -biscuits/

We use the links cut up after being fried up crisp 1st . Or the jimmy Dean roll fried up first. The gravy comes in powdered form fro local grocery. I use the white gravy.
I cobine the powder in a glass with water 1st and stir for a bit before dumping in cast iron skillet so as not to get lumps in gravy.

Then don't get me started on Chorizo scrambled egg burritos or cut up hot dog and scrambled egg burritos. The salt on hot dogs compliment the eggs so no salt needed.
https://www.closetcooking.com/chorizo-a ... g-burrito/
https://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe- ... ipe=554953

Thanks!! Great ideas! I'm going to use the hot dog and egg idea here in a few min! :D

Posted: **Tue May 28, 2019 5:38 pm**

rokytnji.1 wrote: Tue May 28, 2019 5:26 pm PS. I am 6 foot 7 inches and my grown boys grew up when I was not cooking on this

1 lb. (16 oz.) VELVEETA®, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1 cup TACO BELL® Thick & Chunky Salsa
Microwave till melted in a bowl.
Pour over Doritos or Salsa corn chips.

Sounds good!

Posted: **Tue May 28, 2019 5:51 pm**

Home made macaroni (spaghetti). Simply eggs, water and flower..

Posted: **Tue May 28, 2019 7:17 pm**

A great carrot cake:

https://www.chowhound.com/recipes/moist ... cipe-21792

This recipe works best if you use a small food processor to finely chop the carrots
I don't like nuts in cakes so I increase the amount of raisins to 1.5 cups and I use Sultana rather than Thompson raisins.
Also, my oven is a bit slow so I increase the cooking time to 55 minutes

enjoy

Posted: **Tue May 28, 2019 7:56 pm**

@ richb Doesn't look very sanitary all sprawled out on a varnished table like that, but that's just me...yes. I is a cook :)

Posted: **Tue May 28, 2019 8:41 pm**

jj1j1 wrote: Tue May 28, 2019 7:56 pm @ richb Doesn't look very sanitary all sprawled out on a varnished table like that, but that's just me...yes. I is a cook :)

It is mostly on a cutting board. I ate tons of this as a child and still kicking at 74 with no diseases. So will stay with the family tradition,

Posted: **Tue May 28, 2019 9:26 pm**

Cristobal wrote: Tue May 28, 2019 12:44 pm Currently, I'm toying with spices (mainly cumin, mild Madras curry and 5 spices powder) and have been cooking for a week

Now I'm hungry for Chinese ngohiong. (There are many places one can buy ngohiongs here, but Chinese Ngohiong (the name of the shop) is arguably the best. Unfortunately it's over an hour away. They're basically lumpia (spring roll) wrappers stuffed with sliced palm hearts that are seasoned with ngohiong powder (Five Fragrant Spices) and deep fried, served with a spicy, ngohiong-seasoned dipping sauce.

Next project, baking my own bred, without kneading, in a covered cast iron pan in oven, T65 flour, salt and fresh baker yeast (don't know the exact English term).

That sounds almost like Australian damper although I believe they used cream of tartar for a leavening agent as it was easier to store and work with in bush conditions than yeast. You might want to experiment with sourdough some day instead of using yeast. Just mix some sifted flour, water and a pinch of sugar into a batter and let it stand uncovered and hope that your local wild yeasts are good ones. When it looks bubbly it's ready to use. Just mix half of it in with your bread dough, and add more flour and water to the starter to keep it going. The only thing about sourdough starter is you have to use it regularly and keep feeding it with more flour and water or else it will die. When I was young a schoolmate's mother gave me some starter that had been in their family since her grandfather went to the Klondike-Yukon gold fields in the early 1900s. He didn't come home with sacks full of gold, but he did bring his sourdough starter back. I used to make doughnuts with it. Unfortunately, being a kid I didn't commit myself to cooking with sourdough often enough to keep that starter going and it died on me.

Posted: **Tue May 28, 2019 10:47 pm**

@ richb I was mainly referring to a petroleum based finish coming in contact with food. Some foods/ingrediants contain acid that can break down finishes, and mixes into the food being prepared on it. Cutting or chopping on a varnished surface can cause chips of varnish in the food being processed. Considering some finishes contain toluene which is a cancer causing substance I wouldn't chance it. When I prepare food on wood it's always bare wood, and I give it a good scrubbing with a bleach water solution, (1Tbsp bleach per gallon of water is enough to kill most germs), for good measure. Food born illnesses are a bitch. I suppose what doesn't kill ya makes you stronger, but go through a case of Staphylococcal, and it will leave an impression on you that you will not soon forget. What makes it worse is preparing food for someone else, and they catch something.

Posted: **Tue May 28, 2019 10:59 pm**

jj1j1 wrote: Tue May 28, 2019 10:47 pm @ richb I was mainly referring to a petroleum based finish coming in contact with food. Some foods/ingrediants contain acid that can break down finishes, and mixes into the food being prepared on it. Cutting or chopping on a varnished surface can cause chips of varnish in the food being processed. Considering some finishes contain toluene which is a cancer causing substance I wouldn't chance it. When I prepare food on wood it's always bare wood, and I give it a good scrubbing with a bleach water solution, (1Tbsp bleach per gallon of water is enough to kill most germs), for good measure. Food born illnesses are a bitch. I suppose what doesn't kill ya makes you stronger, but go through a case of Staphylococcal, and it will leave an impression on you that you will not soon forget. What makes it worse is preparing food for someone else, and they catch something.

Do you happen to know what natural wood that's not too expensive that I could use for a cutting board? I want to make my own because I want a really large one (for rolling out dough). But I've been unsure what should and shouldn't be used.

Posted: **Tue May 28, 2019 11:03 pm**

richb wrote: Tue May 28, 2019 5:51 pm Home made macaroni (spaghetti). Simply eggs, water and flower..

I have that exact machine/maker! I've only used it once. I definitely want to get in the habit of making my own pasta.

Do you make your own sauce? Bolognese?

Posted: **Wed May 29, 2019 3:36 am**

JayM wrote: Tue May 28, 2019 9:26 pm
Now I'm hungry for Chinese ngohiong. (There are many places one can buy ngohiongs here, but Chinese Ngohiong (the name of the shop) is arguably the best. Unfortunately it's over an hour away. They're basically lumpia (spring roll) wrappers stuffed with sliced palm hearts that are seasoned with ngohiong powder (Five Fragrant Spices) and deep fried, served with a spicy, ngohiong-seasoned dipping sauce.

I see, it's like a battered roll, I didn't know that kind of roll. My Asian family usually does the rolls made with the Vietnamese Bánh tráng, deep fried.

JayM wrote: Tue May 28, 2019 9:26 pm That sounds almost like Australian damper although I believe they used cream of tartar for a leavening agent as it was easier to store and work with in bush conditions than yeast. You might want to experiment with sourdough some day instead of using yeast. Just mix some sifted flour, water and a pinch of sugar into a batter and let it stand uncovered and hope that your local wild yeasts are good ones. When it looks bubbly it's ready to use. Just mix half of it in with your bread dough, and add more flour and water to the starter to keep it going. The only thing about sourdough starter is you have to use it regularly and keep feeding it with more flour and water or else it will die. When I was young a schoolmate's mother gave me some starter that had been in their family since her grandfather went to the Klondike-Yukon gold fields in the early 1900s. He didn't come home with sacks full of gold, but he did bring his sourdough starter back. I used to make doughnuts with it. Unfortunately, being a kid I didn't commit myself to cooking with sourdough often enough to keep that starter going and it died on me.
The yeast I was talking about is baker's yeast (compressed fresh yeast)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baker%27s_yeast
Isn't it sourdough? (you start the sourdough aside in a glass of water, that you mix with the dough later in the process, does it sound right?)

EDIT: after reading the French sourdough Wikipedia page, it appears that some sourdough is added to the fresh compressed yeast, so it's not totally sourdough, especially as yeast takes over sourdough during the leavening process.

Posted: **Wed May 29, 2019 4:05 am**

Cristobal wrote: Wed May 29, 2019 3:36 am
JayM wrote: Tue May 28, 2019 9:26 pm
Now I'm hungry for Chinese ngohiong. (There are many places one can buy ngohiongs here, but Chinese Ngohiong (the name of the shop) is arguably the best. Unfortunately it's over an hour away. They're basically lumpia (spring roll) wrappers stuffed with sliced palm hearts that are seasoned with ngohiong powder (Five Fragrant Spices) and deep fried, served with a spicy, ngohiong-seasoned dipping sauce.
I see, it's like a battered roll, I didn't know that kind of roll. My Asian family usually does the rolls made with the Vietnamese Bánh tráng, deep fried.

Not battered. It's wrapped in a spring roll or eggroll wrapper, sealed up like a Mexican burrito when it's folded, then fried in palm oil or coconut oil. Sort of like fried egg rolls in Chinese restaurants but bigger and with no meat or bean sprouts inside, just the seasoned palm hearts.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Chinese- ... 9269304379

Those green triangular things you see in the pictures are puso or "hanging rice". It's just rice that's been wrapped up in woven banana leaf strips and cooked in the wrappers. They're usually eaten to accompany street foods/finger foods like barbecue, at places that don't serve food on plates and offer eating utensils. You just open the puso and eat the rice while holding onto the wrapper. They're called "hanging rice" because they're strung together for transporting, usually by bicycle or motorbike, hanging from the handlebars.

Here's the delivery man.

The yeast I was talking about is baker's yeast (compressed fresh yeast)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baker%27s_yeast
Isn't it sourdough? (you start the sourdough aside in a glass of water, that you mix with the dough later in the process, does it sound right?)

No, you always soak dried yeast in some warm water to revive it before use. I'm talking about a 50-50 flour and water batter that's left out to sit at room temperature, loosely covered, until the airborne wild yeasts or any wild yeast that happens to already be in the flour start growing in it. It's best to use distilled, purified or filtered water to remove any chlorine that may be in your tap water, and to cover the container (a glass jar works well) with a layer of cheesecloth. You use a half cup, more or less, of the starter instead of baker's yeast to leaven the bread dough. It adds a slightly sour tanginess to the bread vs. using a pure baking yeast, yielding a bread that's great for sandwiches among other things.

Posted: **Wed May 29, 2019 5:03 am**

scottr954 wrote: Tue May 28, 2019 11:03 pm
richb wrote: Tue May 28, 2019 5:51 pm Home made macaroni (spaghetti). Simply eggs, water and flower..
I have that exact machine/maker! I've only used it once. I definitely want to get in the habit of making my own pasta.

Do you make your own sauce? Bolognese?

I do not. I tried once or twice, but did not taste like Mom's so sauce comes from the grocery store. I am not really a cook. The board I have, and it is a wood cutting board, not varnished, is over 80 years old. I would think you could get one at a place like Bed, Bath and Beyond. Perhaps our real cooks have a source.

Posted: **Wed May 29, 2019 5:26 am**

richb wrote: Wed May 29, 2019 5:03 am
I do not. I tried once or twice, but did not taste like Mom's so sauce comes from the grocery store. I am not really a cook. The board I have, and it is a wood cutting board, not varnished, is over 80 years old. I would think you could get one at a place like Bed, Bath and Beyond. Perhaps our real cooks have a source.

Is that a source for the sauce ( forgive me being saucy!) or the the cutting boards? You can buy them in large pieces from a timber supplier and saw them to whatever size you prefer. Much cheaper (and better quality!) than buying ready made ones. Most butchers buy them that way.

Posted: **Wed May 29, 2019 5:32 am**

turtlebay777 wrote: Wed May 29, 2019 5:26 am
richb wrote: Wed May 29, 2019 5:03 am
I do not. I tried once or twice, but did not taste like Mom's so sauce comes from the grocery store. I am not really a cook. The board I have, and it is a wood cutting board, not varnished, is over 80 years old. I would think you could get one at a place like Bed, Bath and Beyond. Perhaps our real cooks have a source.
Is that a source for the sauce ( forgive me being saucy!) or the the cutting boards? You can buy them in large pieces from a timber supplier and saw them to whatever size you prefer. Much cheaper (and better quality!) than buying ready made ones. Most butchers buy them that way.

For the cutting board. Good idea getting them from a timber supplier.

Posted: **Wed May 29, 2019 5:48 am**

JayM wrote: Wed May 29, 2019 4:05 am
Not battered. It's wrapped in a spring roll or eggroll wrapper, sealed up like a Mexican burrito when it's folded, then fried in palm oil or coconut oil. Sort of like fried egg rolls in Chinese restaurants but bigger and with no meat or bean sprouts inside, just the seasoned palm hearts.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Chinese- ... 9269304379

Those green triangular things you see in the pictures are puso or "hanging rice". It's just rice that's been wrapped up in woven banana leaf strips and cooked in the wrappers. They're usually eaten to accompany street foods/finger foods like barbecue, at places that don't serve food on plates and offer eating utensils. You just open the puso and eat the rice while holding onto the wrapper. They're called "hanging rice" because they're strung together for transporting, usually by bicycle or motorbike, hanging from the handlebars.

Here's the delivery man.

Indeed, my mistake, I read the article too quickly.

JayM wrote: Wed May 29, 2019 4:05 am No, you always soak dried yeast in some warm water to revive it before use. I'm talking about a 50-50 flour and water batter that's left out to sit at room temperature, loosely covered, until the airborne wild yeasts or any wild yeast that happens to already be in the flour start growing in it. It's best to use distilled, purified or filtered water to remove any chlorine that may be in your tap water, and to cover the container (a glass jar works well) with a layer of cheesecloth. You use a half cup, more or less, of the starter instead of baker's yeast to leaven the bread dough. It adds a slightly sour tanginess to the bread vs. using a pure baking yeast, yielding a bread that's great for sandwiches among other things.
OK, I understand, you grow yourself the sourdough; it might be even more practical than buying fresh baker's yeast. A recipe I found on the internet, says to use 150g of sourdough (once made) for a 500g lump of bread, and preferably "artisan" flour (maybe they meant organic).
Does the time you leave the sourdough, at room temperature or in the fridge, affect the taste of the bread? I mean, the longer, the stronger will taste the bread?

Posted: **Wed May 29, 2019 6:07 am**

For actually chopping meat with a cleaver or heavy knife the best cutting board is a tree round, about three inches thick. That's what they use in Chinese/SE Asian meat markets, and also in restaurants and food stalls in those places that sell cooked meat such as lechon baboy. Tree rounds present a cross-grain surface that the cleaver or knife can bite into like a chopping block does when you're splitting firewood with an axe. That helps protect the edge of the blade so you don't need to sharpen or hone it as often. If you don't want a rough porous surface like the Asian ones have it can be planed and sanded.

Regarding the type of wood, cedar is good as the natural oils in cedar act as antibacterial agents, but it might impart a bit of flavor to the food that you don't want. Most cutting boards are made of some type of hardwood like maple or walnut. The best ones, similar to the Chinese tree round ones, are end-grain rather than cross-grain to avoid dulling your knives as much.

A good DIY project, if you have a few basic woodworking tools, would be to beg or scrounge a 2 or 3 inch section from near the bottom of a good-sized maple or other hardwood tree that someone's cut down that doesn't have any rot in the heartwood, debark it, then take an electric plane and a belt sander to it to even up the surface, and Bob's your uncle.

Posted: **Wed May 29, 2019 6:27 am**

Cristobal wrote: Wed May 29, 2019 5:48 am OK, I understand, you grow yourself the sourdough; it might be even more practical than buying fresh baker's yeast. A recipe I found on the internet, says to use 150g of sourdough (once made) for a 500g lump of bread, and preferably "artisan" flour (maybe they meant organic).
Does the time you leave the sourdough, at room temperature or in the fridge, affect the taste of the bread? I mean, the longer, the stronger will taste the bread?

Not really, you just want to leave your starter out long enough that the fermentation of the natural sugars in the flour is well underway, then you can refrigerate it between uses though I wouldn't do so for longer than a week. Let the starter warm up to room temperature and bubbles are forming before you use it. If you don't want to commit to baking bread every week to keep your starter alive there are other things you can make with it such as the raised doughnuts I mentioned (I recommend applesauce and cinnamon doughnuts, made cake-style in which you don't let the doughnuts rest long enough to rise very much before deep-frying, sprinkled with pastry sugar) or sourdough pancakes (American crepes, basically.) Pretty much any baked goods that require a leavener can be made with sourdough, with the exception of Irish soda bread which must be made with sour milk and baking soda, the reaction of the sodium bicarbonate and the lactic acid causing the leavening.

The amount of starter that you use for a batch of bread isn't super-critical as long as you use enough to make the dough rise. Remember, sourdough was invented by the prospectors at the Klondike gold rush back in the day to make their own bread, and they didn't even have measuring cups let alone kitchen scales. They just eyeballed the amounts and baked bread, usually in cast-iron Dutch ovens. I would estimate that a half-cup, or maybe a bit more, of starter would be sufficient for two loaves of bread. If you get too much starter the bread will taste too sour, and if you don't get enough the dough will take longer to rise, so it's better to err on the side of too little than too much.

By the way, the older a starter is (that is, the more time has passed since it was freshly made) the better the bread and things taste. A freshly-made starter turns out pretty good sourdough bread, but one that's a year or two old (or older) makes bread that's absolutely delicious. So use the starter every week and keep feeding it by adding more flour and water then letting it sit until fermentation is going well before you refrigerate it.

Posted: **Wed May 29, 2019 8:30 am**

Silicon cutting boards rule here. The real skinny thin ones that come in a pack pf 5 . They fold up to pour work in the cooking utinsel/pot which is pretty handy . Tuck away nicely . Easy clean.

Posted: **Wed May 29, 2019 8:32 am**

Also. Once you buy the silicon cookie baking sheets. You will never go back to tin.

Posted: **Wed May 29, 2019 6:19 pm**

There's a ton of websites that talk about cutting boards. I think the main consensus is hard maple, walnut, oak, birch and cherry is most commonly used, and an end-grain cutting board is hard to beat. I ran across a site that sells slats already planed. https://www.woodworkerssource.com/lumbe ... woods.html although I wouldn't choose zebrawood, or bloodwood. That doesn't make sense. It's good to know the properties of wood before you go to all the trouble to make a board; toxicity being the most important property. A good example IS zebrawood. From the site; "Be warned that zebrawood may look like an amazing exotic wood BUT it smells like its name sake. It is the absolute worst wood I have ever planed and smells like your toilet backed up".
Some sites state that the open grain of oak isn't good, but it's fine. Just clean the board right after it's used with bleach water solution and a stiff brush so it will clean out the pores of the wood. Another site that's helpful is http://thewoodbox.com/data/wood/
Also this site explains a little about glues to use; https://www.finewoodworking.com/forum/w ... ing-boards

Posted: **Wed May 29, 2019 7:03 pm**

jj1j1 wrote: Wed May 29, 2019 6:19 pm There's a ton of websites that talk about cutting boards. I think the main consensus is hard maple, walnut, oak, birch and cherry is most commonly used, and an end-grain cutting board is hard to beat. I ran across a site that sells slats already planed. https://www.woodworkerssource.com/lumbe ... woods.html although I wouldn't choose zebrawood, or bloodwood. That doesn't make sense. It's good to know the properties of wood before you go to all the trouble to make a board; toxicity being the most important property. A good example IS zebrawood. From the site; "Be warned that zebrawood may look like an amazing exotic wood BUT it smells like its name sake. It is the absolute worst wood I have ever planed and smells like your toilet backed up".
Some sites state that the open grain of oak isn't good, but it's fine. Just clean the board right after it's used with bleach water solution and a stiff brush so it will clean out the pores of the wood. Another site that's helpful is http://thewoodbox.com/data/wood/
Also this site explains a little about glues to use; https://www.finewoodworking.com/forum/w ... ing-boards

Thanks!

Posted: **Wed May 29, 2019 8:37 pm**

JayM wrote: Wed May 29, 2019 6:07 am For actually chopping meat with a cleaver or heavy knife the best cutting board is a tree round, about three inches thick. That's what they use in Chinese/SE Asian meat markets, and also in restaurants and food stalls in those places that sell cooked meat such as lechon baboy. Tree rounds present a cross-grain surface that the cleaver or knife can bite into like a chopping block does when you're splitting firewood with an axe. That helps protect the edge of the blade so you don't need to sharpen or hone it as often. If you don't want a rough porous surface like the Asian ones have it can be planed and sanded.

Regarding the type of wood, cedar is good as the natural oils in cedar act as antibacterial agents, but it might impart a bit of flavor to the food that you don't want. Most cutting boards are made of some type of hardwood like maple or walnut. The best ones, similar to the Chinese tree round ones, are end-grain rather than cross-grain to avoid dulling your knives as much.

A good DIY project, if you have a few basic woodworking tools, would be to beg or scrounge a 2 or 3 inch section from near the bottom of a good-sized maple or other hardwood tree that someone's cut down that doesn't have any rot in the heartwood, debark it, then take an electric plane and a belt sander to it to even up the surface, and Bob's your uncle.

Great info, thanks Jay!

Posted: **Wed May 29, 2019 9:46 pm**

A tree round is end grained isn't it? The grain of a cross grained board surface would be perpendicular to the blade motion. No different than using a cross-cut saw to cut across the grain of wood. With an end grained board the blade motion is in-line with the grain like that of a tree round. Also, I have to disagree with ceder being used as a cutting board. I have worked with ceder extensively. I remember sticking my thumbnails deep into ceder many times. It's a softwood , and IMO, a poor choice for a cutting board. A person would end up with ceder in whatever they were chopping, and you are correct in what you mention about the oils in ceder. It's aromatic properties could taint many foods with it's oils.

Posted: **Wed May 29, 2019 9:49 pm**

jj1j1 wrote: Wed May 29, 2019 9:46 pm A tree round is end grained isn't it? The grain of a cross grained board surface would be perpendicular to the blade motion. No different than using a cross-cut saw to cut across the grain of wood. With an end grained board the blade motion is in-line with the grain like that of a tree round.

Yeah, you're right. It's been many years since I took wood shop in school. I got my terms mixed up.

Posted: **Wed May 29, 2019 10:25 pm**

In my previous life as a Cabinet Maker I worked with many woods. If I would have thought about it I would have made cutting boards, too, but had a lot of fun making what I did. Here are a few projects I did. All the craft items were made with the desktop CNC mill, (the last picture). https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

Posted: **Wed May 29, 2019 10:46 pm**

jj1j1 wrote: Wed May 29, 2019 10:25 pm In my previous life as a Cabinet Maker I worked with many woods. If I would have thought about it I would have made cutting boards, too, but had a lot of fun making what I did. Here are a few projects I did. All the craft items were made with the desktop CNC mill, (the last picture). https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

Man that stuff is incredible!! The fire truck!! I'm rubbing elbows with geniuses here! Did you retire from that type of work?

Posted: **Wed May 29, 2019 11:01 pm**

Like all things nothing lasts forever. The mill eventually broke down, and the shop didn't fix it. My dept. wasn't really very profitable because many of the things I made took too long to create. I caught the CNC bug though, and ended up changing careers. It was either that, or going back to bending and stooping making furniture. I decided to learn CNC. I went to school, and earned an AAS in Manufacturing, and CAD CAM. I miss working with wood though, and hope to get my own mill someday, an make Intarsia again.

Posted: **Wed May 29, 2019 11:18 pm**

jj1j1 wrote: Wed May 29, 2019 11:01 pm Like all things nothing lasts forever. The mill eventually broke down, and the shop didn't fix it. My dept. wasn't really very profitable because many of the things I made took too long to create. I caught the CNC bug though, and ended up changing careers. It was either that, or going back to bending and stooping making furniture. I decided to learn CNC. I went to school, and earned an AAS in Manufacturing, and CAD CAM. I miss working with wood though, and hope to get my own mill someday, an make Intarsia again.

Well I wish you great success!!!

Posted: **Sun Jun 02, 2019 12:19 am**

No genius here! I'm a cook! A really crappy one. :) I cook 'cause if I don't eat I'll die.

I just made something, (eating it as I write this) that I'll get a few meals out of that isn't half bad (might only be half good too lol). You can make it as spicy as you like (spicy is great for bad cooks - not only bad cooks though, I like spicy even if a good cook made it.)

Here's the recipe (nothing ground breaking at all, but it is pretty quick & easy, really healthy & it tastes good to me, to the point that I wrote it down so I can do it again):

The yummy Handy concoction:

This easy meal is made with a spicy mixture of brown rice, & vegy's (both fozen & fresh - whatever). It cooks up quick and easy on the stove & is a really good base for which to use whatever you have laying around & to customise to suit your taste.

Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time ~45mins
Servings 4 good size servings (easily modified)

Ingredients:

1 tbsp. olive oil
1 medium onion diced (fine without)
4 garlic cloves finely sliced (I used about 8 )
1 1/2 cups diced tomatoes (~3 tomatoes)
OR a 400 gram can (I used a can + the last tomato from the fridge)
4 cups vegetable broth
~ 3 - 4 cups assorted vegy's (I used combo' of mixed frozen & fresh)
1 tbsp. tumeric
1.5 tsp. ground cumin
2 tsp. ground black pepper (fine without)
2 tbsp. cayenne pepper hot sauce adjust to heat preference (I use 3tbsp)
3 cups brown rice (whatever kind you got)
2-3 spring onions chopped

Instructions:

Coat the bottom of a large pot with oil and place over medium heat. When the oil is hot add onion, & garlic. Sauté for 5 minutes, until they are softened.
Add tomatoes, 4 cups of broth, tumeric, ground cumin, black pepper, hot sauce, and rice. Raise heat to high and bring to a boil. Lower heat, cover, and allow to simmer until the rice is cooked and liquid is absorbed, about 45 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to sit for about 5 minutes, covered.
Serve topped with spring onions if you got 'em.

Posted: **Sun Jun 02, 2019 2:00 am**

That sounds not bad at all, Handy. Sort of like a vegetarian curry crossed with jambalaya sort of thing. A person could even add a chopped-up boneless chicken breast or two to that if they wanted to.

I'm like you, I'm in no way whatsoever a restaurant-quality chef, I'm just a not-too-bad home cook. One of my favorite things to do is see what I happen to have on hand in the cupboard and in the refrigerator and invent something using those for ingredients.

I just went grocery shopping earlier. Disappointing! They didn't have celery or spicy sausages. I had my heart set on a batch of red beans and rice. Oh well, I did buy the beans anyway, and I know of one or two other supermarkets that should have what I need, I just didn't feel like running around all day long to try to find them. (I forgot to get orange and mango juice too.) I may head out again Tuesday or Wednesday and make the beans and rice next weekend. The challenge will be to try to find Cajun or Creole seasoning. I can always make up my own with cayenne or chili powder, black and white pepper, but it's just a lot easier with a jar of Zatarain's or Tony Chachere's.

Posted: **Sun Jun 02, 2019 2:47 am**

Hello JayM,
When I have open the forum, it's a big surprise for me . I'm completely in opposite side, I'm a macrobiotic's, vegan or vegetalian or vegetarian since 45 years. I'm a good cook with rice whole and the other cereals and red bean , spaghetti’s nippon udon, soba . I used miso for example miso soup . , consummate seaweed hizikis, kombu, vegetables ! Times in times I eat except animal product , fish , chicken...... red meat practically never. It's very strange about the maximum different thing for to eat for every one . Have a nice day see you soon

Posted: **Sun Jun 02, 2019 8:51 am**

My new toy, I've been given a brand new cleaver (probably a low end one like those sold in supermarkets, but likely more than enough to get the spirit). I was initially planning to order a Shi Ba Zi on Aliexpress.

Posted: **Sun Jun 02, 2019 10:00 am**

@cristobal,

Here is my tree or more knife, made in japan. It's with this I cut vegetables, fish etc These knife are since more 35 years to use it
Your picture are very beautiful , very nice , congratulation

Posted: **Sun Jun 02, 2019 10:24 am**

I've done simple pot stickers with Jimmy dean sausage .Here is the video's I followed.
Making dumpling wrappers

making filling

Time to clean out the fridge of leftovers. I have the best well fed rescue dogs on da planet.
They get fed so good They won't run away.

Guess I'll show my comfort food leftovers for the dogs today. It gets cut up and mixed up with the dry dog food .
farmers cheese vereniki

Old school

I grew up on the above besides other good stuff. Mom was a master cook from a peasant village.
Here is her recipe for single dudes with a slow cooker.

I carton < approx 1 qt or 1 litre > of chicken broth or beef broth.
Veggies of your choice as filler < corn, potatoes, turnips, Jicama, Rutabagas , celery,cabbage, etc.....>
Spice to personal tastes. < chilis, salt, sauces on meat added by you. >
Add pasta as filler also if big like me with big appetites.
I can of swanson chicken breast if doing chicken. If doing beef Buy cheap cuts of bulk cow meat with some fat and cut down to bite size. Then brown and spice in a good skillet till done before sliding it into the crock pot . Remove any grease in fry pan 1st with spoon or strainer.

Set on slow cook and forget about it. I recommended canned chicken breast because my Mom told me everybody likes chicken breast. But if a dark meat person. Thighs or legs deboned < thighs are cheap >. Skalded and spiced to personal taste on a cast iron skillet . Is the bomb also in soup.

For filler, Buttered bread or saltine crackers are good to go. Experiment with spicing your butter. I find I like putting garlic in my margarine dish of " I can't believe this is not butter ".

Edit: the bulk leftover chicken and cowmeat can be put in da fridge and used to make chili verde burritos later on. Or. Baked perogis.

Posted: **Sun Jun 02, 2019 11:25 am**

For the veggie only dudes and dudettes

1 butternut or acorn squash, cut in half
Oil
3/4 cup walnuts
3 garlic cloves, ends removed but skin intact
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cups coconut milk
2 cups rutabaga, peeled and diced
1/2 teaspoon. pepper
2 cups vegetable or chicken broth
1 1/2 - 2 cups sweet potato, peeled and diced
1 small onion, chopped
teaspoon nutmeg

All the above ingredients can be substituted with others because of your personal tastes. If you don't like sweet potatoes. Sub a regular potato.

Heat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Rub the squash with coconut oil and place cut-side down on a baking sheet. < Ours is a Okeefe and Merrit Grillevator

Cut ends off garlic, coat with 1 teaspoon coconut oil, and then wrap in foil. Coat the rutabaga and sweet potato in oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Add both to baking sheet. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes or until softened, stirring diced veggies once.

Caramelize the small onion in a frying pan and let cool. < takes about 10 minutes on low heat . do it till browned >

Add heated broth to mix listed below. This is gonna be creamy soup. Makes a good potato chip dip when thick.

Remove roasted veggies from oven and blend together with the remaining ingredients in a food processor until smooth. The nuts may remain grainy, but that's OK. Add water to reach preferred thickness.

I started eating this because on my wellness test at the Docs. I was told I need to eat more walnuts.

Posted: **Sun Jun 02, 2019 1:14 pm**

jibel wrote: Sun Jun 02, 2019 10:00 am @cristobal,

Here is my tree or more knife, made in japan. It's with this I cut vegetables, fish etc These knife are since more 35 years to use it
Your picture are very beautiful , very nice , congratulation

Thank you.

I've read those Japanese blades are very reputable and many Western chefs use them, you must be a pro (there's a Nakiri in the group photo?).

It reminds me my father who did a hotel school, he had this case from back in the day (a bit like a Pelikan case lined with some protective foam) to transport all of his knifes (around 5 if I remember correctly and they were likely German, some brand from around Solingen).

Personally, what I like in the Chinese cleaver, is its multi-purpose role, one knife to replace all (less maintenance too); some Chinese chefs are supposed to an additional cleaver, which is thicker, for cutting bones.

Posted: **Sun Jun 02, 2019 4:18 pm**

I'm making chicken parm today. It's really an easy dish and darn near impossible to mess up. I can get chicken breasts at 1.99/lb and the rest of the ingredients can be had cheaply also. Makes fantastic left over sandwiches.

Posted: **Sun Jun 02, 2019 8:41 pm**

Cristobal wrote: Sun Jun 02, 2019 1:14 pm Personally, what I like in the Chinese cleaver, is its multi-purpose role, one knife to replace all (less maintenance too); some Chinese chefs are supposed to an additional cleaver, which is thicker, for cutting bones.

That's actually a Chinese chef's knife. (I have one, and also a western-style chef's knife.) They look like cleavers but they're not meant for chopping through bones as their blades are too thin for that.

Posted: **Sun Jun 09, 2019 2:54 am**

JayM wrote: Sun Jun 02, 2019 8:41 pm
Cristobal wrote: Sun Jun 02, 2019 1:14 pm Personally, what I like in the Chinese cleaver, is its multi-purpose role, one knife to replace all (less maintenance too); some Chinese chefs are supposed to an additional cleaver, which is thicker, for cutting bones.
That's actually a Chinese chef's knife. (I have one, and also a western-style chef's knife.) They look like cleavers but they're not meant for chopping through bones as their blades are too thin for that.

Yes, I know, "cleaver" is used as a a generic term; Chinese chefs (those I've seen) have usually a thin cleaver for chopping vegetables, fish and meat, and a thicker one that can cut bones.

On another note, I've started my sourdough 2 days ago: 50g of T110 flour (the higher the index, the less refined is the flour) plus 50g water and a pinch of coconut flower sugar (not really necessary), then the same amount of water and flour, and 100g of each this morning (although, since many recipes differ, I might have gone with wrong proportions). Some bubbles have burst since yesterday evening, but the odour doesn't smell acid yet, the flour smell is slowly dissipating though.

Posted: **Sun Jun 09, 2019 4:02 am**

It can take 4 to 5 days depending on the temperature. You don't need to keep adding flour and water to it at this stage, only after you've used some in a recipe, which you should do about once a week. Just leave it alone and wait a few days for it to get nice and bubbly. Then you'll be ready to bake your first sourdough bread, or make sourdough pancakes, or muffins, or try it in a cake batter, or pizza crust dough, or ???

These sites may interest you:
https://www.acouplecooks.com/how-to-mak ... h-starter/
https://www.culturesforhealth.com/learn ... sourdough/

CSB time: right after I graduated from college I took the summer off, and two friends of mine and I decided to go on a ten-day expedition-style backpacking trip across the entire Olympic National Park in Washington State, US, following as closely as possible the route of the Seattle Press Expidition of 1889. I don't remember why but we decided to alter the rout a bit and come out along the Queets river (through a rain forest) instead of the north fork of the Quinault, further south, as the Press Expidition had done. Probably because following the Quinault would have taken several extra days and required that much more food, and our packs were over 20 kilos each already.

Anyway, I brought along a sealed plastic Tupperware container half full of my sourdough starter, sealed inside of a plastic bag, along with some flour, intending to make some sourdough pancakes for our breakfast as some point along the way. Unlike the original expedition who chose to cross the mountains in December(!) we opted to do our trip in the middle of summer. The combination he summer heat and being jounced around in my pack all day every day caused my starter to expand to the point where it escaped not only its container but also the plastic bag. It was like the blob! That stuff got absolutely everywhere! In fact, when we arrived at the car we'd left at the Queets ranger station I took out a clean, dry pair of jeans, double-wrapped in sealed plastic bags, that I'd decided to save to war during the car ride home, and I found sourdough starter on them!

Posted: **Sun Jun 09, 2019 5:55 am**

For those who like meat with their veggies. It's a simple classic, but it's hard to beat.

15"x10"x3" baking dish
Large skillet-
3-5 lb chuck roast-thawed
1 to 2 T salad oil
1 large onion-chopped 1 to 2 in pieces
2 turnips- skinned, chopped 3/4 in pieces
3 stalks celery-sliced 1 to 2 in pieces
3 large carrots-peeled, sliced 1 to 2 in pieces
1 c green beans-sliced 1 to 2 in pieces
4 mushrooms-1/8 to 1/4 in slices
1/2 c barley-dry uncooked
3 med red or golden potatoes-peeled or unpeeled, sliced to 1 to 2 in pieces, (I like these cause you don't have to peel them, unlike russets)
3 large cloves garlic-peeled, pressed, or finely chopped
1 c red wine- any cheap red wine will do
2 c water
2 pot roast-slow cooker seasoning packets

Preheat oven to 350 F. Add oil to hot skillet. Let oil get hot then add roast. Sear all sides. Place into baking dish. Add vegetables; place around and over roast. Combine wine, water, barley, garlic, and seasoning packets in bowl. Blend well, and pour over roast, and vegetables. It may look like too much liquid, but the veggies, and barley will absorb much of it. Cover dish with foil. (seal well.) Bake 4 to 6 hours with cover sealed for the first 2 hours, then for rest of cooking time, reduce oven temp to 300, and open up corners of foil so steam can escape easier. No need to check temp of roast. I just stick a fork deep in roast near an edge, and twist. When the fork easily turns, and meat fibers separate, it's time to remove from oven, and let sit for 10 minutes. Then prepare yourself for a meal you won't soon forget. The wine gives this a deep richness, but it may take a few times to get the right ratio of wine/water as tastes are different for everyone.

Posted: **Sun Jun 09, 2019 6:32 am**

I made a big pot of red beans (for red beans and rice) yesterday afternoon and evening. I got a late start on my cooking because I was doing some laundry in the morning. This is the first time I made this traditional Creole Monday dinner* dish from New Orleans, Louisiana (because Mondays were washing day and the homemaker could leave a pot of beans simmering on the back of the stove all morning while busy with the laundry.) It was typically made using the bone of Sunday's ham plus some sliced andouille sausages (or smoked sausages such as kielbasa), red kidney beans soaked in water overnight, the Holy Trinity (green bell pepper, celery and onion), the Pope (minced garlic), seasoned with a blend of paprika, cayenne pepper, ground black pepper, white pepper, salt, thyme and oregano, bay leaves, some chopped parsley, some hot sauce and some Worcestershire sauce and simmered for at least two hours in chicken stock and served with plain cooked rice.

I opted to make mine more Cajun style by making and adding a dark roux. Most cooks nowadays use a commercial blend of Cajun or Creole seasoning such as Zatarain's or Tony Cuchere's brands, but of course these are unavailable in the Philippines so I had to make up my own from scratch. Celery and green bell peppers aren't that common either. I opted to use Hungarian sausages which are similar to a cross between kielbasa and bratwurst and somewhat spicy like andouille. I didn't have a ham bone or any other pork bones so I just added the sausages. This being the Philippines I had to visit four different supermarkets to get all of the ingredients. Due to my late start, the time it took to make the roux, and the long cooking time required it wasn't ready until around 8PM but it came out pretty good, though a bit salty (note to self: don't add too much salt during the cooking even it it tastes too bland when you sample it. Wait until it's finished then add more salt if needed right before serving.) The saltiness isn't too bad after the plain rice gets stirred in though.

*In the American South, dinner, the biggest meal of the day, is or was the mid-day meal, and supper is/was the smaller evening meal or snack usually consisting of the leftovers from dinner. I think this is due to the warmer climate in the southern states throughout a good bit of the year combined with the fact that cooking was traditionally done on wood-burning stoves and they didn't have air conditioning way back when. So most of the heavy cooking was done early in the day and the stove's fire left to burn out and die so it wouldn't be quite as hot at night when people were trying to sleep. The nomenclature continues to this day: in the north people eat breakfast, lunch and dinner. In the south they eat breakfast, dinner and supper, even though these days supper may be the most substantial meal just like dinner in the north.

Posted: **Sun Jun 09, 2019 11:23 pm**

JayM wrote: Sun Jun 09, 2019 6:32 am I made a big pot of red beans (for red beans and rice) yesterday afternoon and evening. I got a late start on my cooking because I was doing some laundry in the morning. This is the first time I made this traditional Creole Monday dinner* dish from New Orleans, Louisiana (because Mondays were washing day and the homemaker could leave a pot of beans simmering on the back of the stove all morning while busy with the laundry.) It was typically made using the bone of Sunday's ham plus some sliced andouille sausages (or smoked sausages such as kielbasa), red kidney beans soaked in water overnight, the Holy Trinity (green bell pepper, celery and onion), the Pope (minced garlic), seasoned with a blend of paprika, cayenne pepper, ground black pepper, white pepper, salt, thyme and oregano, bay leaves, some chopped parsley, some hot sauce and some Worcestershire sauce and simmered for at least two hours in chicken stock and served with plain cooked rice.

I opted to make mine more Cajun style by making and adding a dark roux. Most cooks nowadays use a commercial blend of Cajun or Creole seasoning such as Zatarain's or Tony Cuchere's brands, but of course these are unavailable in the Philippines so I had to make up my own from scratch. Celery and green bell peppers aren't that common either. I opted to use Hungarian sausages which are similar to a cross between kielbasa and bratwurst and somewhat spicy like andouille. I didn't have a ham bone or any other pork bones so I just added the sausages. This being the Philippines I had to visit four different supermarkets to get all of the ingredients. Due to my late start, the time it took to make the roux, and the long cooking time required it wasn't ready until around 8PM but it came out pretty good, though a bit salty (note to self: don't add too much salt during the cooking even it it tastes too bland when you sample it. Wait until it's finished then add more salt if needed right before serving.) The saltiness isn't too bad after the plain rice gets stirred in though.

*In the American South, dinner, the biggest meal of the day, is or was the mid-day meal, and supper is/was the smaller evening meal or snack usually consisting of the leftovers from dinner. I think this is due to the warmer climate in the southern states throughout a good bit of the year combined with the fact that cooking was traditionally done on wood-burning stoves and they didn't have air conditioning way back when. So most of the heavy cooking was done early in the day and the stove's fire left to burn out and die so it wouldn't be quite as hot at night when people were trying to sleep. The nomenclature continues to this day: in the north people eat breakfast, lunch and dinner. In the south they eat breakfast, dinner and supper, even though these days supper may be the most substantial meal just like dinner in the north.

Hi Jay, I love red beans and rice, especially with those spiced meats/sausages you mention! Comfort food at its finest! Well reading your post made me think of my pressure cooker, which I absolutely love. After soaking beans overnight in water, they cook perfectly in my pressure cooker with anything I add: beef, ham, rice, etc.

So does anyone else have a pressure cooker and love it also?

Posted: **Fri Jul 05, 2019 8:37 pm**

Something I learned as a cook in the Marines was a way to rescue spaghetti from too much seasoning, (which happened a lot because many cooks couldn't or wouldn't follow the recipe). Blend 1/4cup of sugar and 1cup of water, and heat on burner until sugar is dissolved. Then gradually stir into sauce tasting frequently so as not to add too much. Only add until the overpowering seasoning taste is neutralized. Preparing batches for a thousand folks we sometimes had to use imaginative methods to save a product. In this case it did add a sweetness to the sauce, but could be somewhat masked by adding more seasonings.

Posted: **Thu Jul 11, 2019 10:05 pm**

jj1j1 wrote: Fri Jul 05, 2019 8:37 pm Something I learned as a cook in the Marines was a way to rescue spaghetti from too much seasoning, (which happened a lot because many cooks couldn't or wouldn't follow the recipe). Blend 1/4cup of sugar and 1cup of water, and heat on burner until sugar is dissolved. Then gradually stir into sauce tasting frequently so as not to add too much. Only add until the overpowering seasoning taste is neutralized. Preparing batches for a thousand folks we sometimes had to use imaginative methods to save a product. In this case it did add a sweetness to the sauce, but could be somewhat masked by adding more seasonings.

Cool story! I guess that explains the sweet spaghetti sauce I've come across from time to time in my lifetime. If it's piping hot and served with some garlic bread it actually tastes just fine that way.

Posted: **Thu Jul 11, 2019 11:00 pm**

scottr954 wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2019 10:05 pm
jj1j1 wrote: Fri Jul 05, 2019 8:37 pm Something I learned as a cook in the Marines was a way to rescue spaghetti from too much seasoning, (which happened a lot because many cooks couldn't or wouldn't follow the recipe). Blend 1/4cup of sugar and 1cup of water, and heat on burner until sugar is dissolved. Then gradually stir into sauce tasting frequently so as not to add too much. Only add until the overpowering seasoning taste is neutralized. Preparing batches for a thousand folks we sometimes had to use imaginative methods to save a product. In this case it did add a sweetness to the sauce, but could be somewhat masked by adding more seasonings.
Cool story! I guess that explains the sweet spaghetti sauce I've come across from time to time in my lifetime. If it's piping hot and served with some garlic bread it actually tastes just fine that way.

Filipino spaghetti has a somewhat sweet-tasting sauce that reminds me a little of Chef Boy-ar-dee or Franco-American. They also put hot dog slices in it which gives it a bit of smokey flavor which actually goes pretty well with the sweet sauce, and they put a bunch of shredded processed cheese on top. Maybe the sweet sauce you've encountered came from a Filipino cook, or someone who'd lived in the Philippines in the past. (Or maybe that's just the way they learned to make spaghetti sauce in their family.) It can be an acquired taste, I suppose.

I read somewhere that spaghetti bolognese isn't really a thing in Italy, it's American. In Italy they eat long pastas like spaghetti and linguini with simple, lighter sauces and toppings like olive oil, herbs and cheeses, or a carbonara sauce, and spaghetti is always tossed, not served with sauce on top which is another American thing. The red sauces are used in tube-shaped pastas like penne because some of the sauce gets inside the tubes and makes them more flavorful. They also go easy on the sauce, so the pasta only has a light coating and doesn't get all moist and gloppy like some American pasta dishes. Also, their sauce is made from peeled, crushed, fresh tomatoes slowly simmered until it cooks down to a thick liquid, with some fresh basil, a little wine and some salt added. No oregano, and no (or only a little) garlic, no bell peppers, mushrooms, onions, tons of ground meat (although I thing ragu has meat in it) like ours has. And in Japan they add things like squid and sweet corn! I don't know what Malaysian spaghetti's like but I wouldn't be surprised if there were hot chili peppers, fish sauce and lime juice involved.

Posted: **Thu Jul 11, 2019 11:12 pm**

My Italian father had 100 tomato plants in the garden. My Mom made and canned sauce. It was tart, no sugar added and to this day that is the only way I like it. Hard to find these days. Closest I have come to it is RAO's. I have attempted to make it on occasion, but it is not like Mom's. My Aunt, my Mom's sister made sweet sauce. The result of my father teaching my Mom how to make it was that the initial family recipe stayed with my Aunt. I suppose when you acquire a test from childhood it stays with you.

Posted: **Thu Jul 11, 2019 11:41 pm**

richb wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2019 11:12 pm My Italian father had 100 tomato plants in the garden. My Mom made and canned sauce. It was tart, no sugar added and to this day that is the only way I like it. Hard to find these days. Closest I have come to it is RAO's. I have attempted to make it on occasion, but it is not like Mom's. My Aunt, my Mom's sister made sweet sauce. The result of my father teaching my Mom how to make it was that the initial family recipe stayed with my Aunt. I suppose when you acquire a test from childhood it stays with you.

Yep. My mother learned to cook fried chicken from her mother who was from Georgia, and she learned it from her mother who was from Texarkana. She'd fry it in the normal way until it was crispy and golden brown then she'd drain the grease and fat (to make gravy), add some water, cover the pan and steam it for several minutes so instead of being crispy and crunchy it was soft and moist. She once mentioned to me that that was the real Southern fried chicken. That's the way I like it, but I can never find any and when I try to cook it, it never turns out the same as hers.

My mother's father was French and he used to grow tons of garlic in his garden. Once when we went to visit he gave us a big paper shopping bag full of garlic bulbs and I remember thinking "well, that should be enough to last a year." Less than six months later my mother was buying garlic at the supermarket again. We went through a lot of garlic. To this day when I'm cooking something and the recipe calls for four cloves of garlic I say "nah, make it a bulb, 10 or 12 cloves."

We never had much luck growing tomatoes but ever year she'd can home-grown green beans, greens, make pickles (dill, sweet and bread-and-butter), can peaches if someone happened to give us a box of them which happened often, and put up her own jams and jellies: blackberry, apple mint, boisenberry, pineapple-apricot, strawberry (my favorite, though the rest were good too.) She'd also make zucchini relish in an effort to use up zucchinis (because someone, somewhere, always made the mistake of planting a hill or two of them and ended up with enough zucchinis to feed the entire neighborhood. Man, those things really grow in western Washington!)

Posted: **Thu Jul 11, 2019 11:52 pm**

A man after my own heart. Cannot get enough garlic. We had it hanging in our fruit cellar, several braided strings of it. Along with 2 barrels of homemade wine that would knock your socks off. Of course Mason jars of tomato sauce and peaches . I only came to appreciate all this as an adult and boy do I miss it.
I have many other stories of freshly prepared daily meals and holiday foods that I have not had in many years. My fault. With a little effort I could have learned how to make them but did not. As a child and teenager you think it will last forever. Too soon old to late wise. And even now I could make the attempt. But have never got around to it.
Thanks for the inspiration to go down memory lane. My mouth is watering.

Posted: **Fri Jul 12, 2019 12:25 am**

It wasn't just things from our own garden. My mother and my aunts would share what they'd grown, so somebody would do lots of beans or corn, somebody else would have extra Swiss chard and kohl rabi, etc. and everybody would get some. And if somebody happened to go to eastern Washington they'd usually stop at one of the fruit stands and load up on pie apples, cherries, peaches, apricots, whatever and those would be shared as well. Plus there were the neighbors and family friends, and everybody had vegetable gardens, and everybody canned and pickled every fall.

Speaking of zucchini, I remember one year there was a knock at our door and when my mother opened it no one was there, but there was a big bag of zucchinis on the porch in front of the door like an orphaned baby. Someone was that desperate to get rid of the things! So once again we had fried zucchini slices (which are pretty good: shake the slices in a seasoned coating mix like for chicken and fry 'em up), zucchini relish, zucchini bread (like banana bread only with zucchinis) and anything else she could think of to try to use it up. It's really weird: you plant a hill of zucchinis, you go out and check them one day they're not quite big enough but almost ready to be picked so you give them a couple more days, and then when you go to get them you find dozens of these huge, gargantuan zucchinis four times as big as they were, then you think "What have I done?"

Posted: **Fri Jul 12, 2019 4:16 am**

Amen ..

Men after my own black heart ... add herbs, spices, some red wine and lets roll ...

Jack

JayM wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2019 11:41 pm
richb wrote: Thu Jul 11, 2019 11:12 pm My Italian father had 100 tomato plants in the garden. My Mom made and canned sauce. It was tart, no sugar added and to this day that is the only way I like it. Hard to find these days. Closest I have come to it is RAO's. I have attempted to make it on occasion, but it is not like Mom's. My Aunt, my Mom's sister made sweet sauce. The result of my father teaching my Mom how to make it was that the initial family recipe stayed with my Aunt. I suppose when you acquire a test from childhood it stays with you.

To this day when I'm cooking something and the recipe calls for four cloves of garlic I say "nah, make it a bulb, 10 or 12 cloves."

Posted: **Tue Jul 30, 2019 2:14 am**

Ginisang Talong (braised eggplant, in (modified*) Visayan** style)

4 small eggplants (but not too small)
1 small or 1/2 medium purple or white onion
8 cloves garlic
1 Birdseye or red Thai pepper (or 2 if you like spicier food)
1 small pc. fresh ginger root
1 cup or a bit more small (1/2 inch) pork cubes
1 chicken stock cube
3 tbsp soy sauce
4 tbsp oyster sauce
2 1/2 cups water plus around 1 more cup
3 tbsp cooking oil
Salt and pepper

Peel and chop the onion. Peel and dice the garlic. Dice the pepper, seeds and all. Set aside. (Wash your hands thoroughly two or three times to remove any oils from the pepper, or wear latex gloves while chopping these veggies.)

Trim the stems from the eggplants. Cut in half lengthwise then slice into 1-inch pieces. Set aside.

Peel the ginger then slice it legthwise into thin slices. Set aside. (The easiest way to peel ginger is to scrape it with the side of a spoon.)

Place the pork in a large skillet (not a non-stick skillet due to the heat used.) Add enough water to cover the meat about halfway. Heat on medium-high and cook, stirring occasionally until all the water has evaporated. Lower the heat to medium or lower and cook until there's no longer any steam and the pork begins to fry.

Add the oil then the onions, garlic and pepper. Cook, stirring often, until the onion is tender and translucent.

Add the stock cube and soy sauce and stir.

Add the water, oyster sauce, ginger and eggplant. Stir well, cover, raise the heat back to medium-high and cook, stirring occasionally, until all of the eggplant pieces turn green and are tender.

Remove from heat, add salt (or a little more soy sauce) and pepper to taste. Serve with cooked rice. Serves four. (Don't eat the ginger slices.)

You can cook many different vegetables in the ginisa style including green beans, cabbage, bok choy, Chinese cabbage. Just leave out the oyster sauce in these and add a bit more soy sauce. I prefer using a pork stock cube when cooking cabbage, instead of chicken.

*Modified by me. Traditionally Filipinos don't add the hot pepper, ginger or oyster sauce, but eggplant's a bit on the bland side and these things add some needed flavoring. Otherwise it mostly just tastes salty from the soy sauce.

**The Visayas are the central region of the Philippines, and have more Malaysian influence due to their being part of the Rajahnate of Malaysia prior to the arrival of the Spanish.

Posted: **Tue Jul 30, 2019 10:18 am**

RichB brought back memories of dad chewing on buttermilk .

Not this stuff pre-blended in stores. My parents. Being eastern European . Kept chickens, a pig, a cow, a garden. Not much store bought items were given me while being raised.

Probably why I am 6 foot 7 inches and no body else in my family tree has grown as big as me.

Gonna make me some spam and scrambled egg burritos, spice em up with 1/2 a teaspoon of pico de gallo < instead of green herbs like chopped cilantro >. Salt and pepper on the side so one can unwrap and season to taste.

Making extras later for noon when the wife comes home for lunch.

Posted: **Fri Aug 23, 2019 1:05 am**

I like to cook but cooking doesn't like me

Posted: **Fri Aug 23, 2019 5:36 am**

I've been playing with the gratin dauphinois recipe lately.

Potatoes, milk, garlic, butter, nutmeg, cheese (which is not in the original recipe, I add it, mostly from my region, therefore Comté). Since I haven't got a mandolin to slice the potatoes, I use my Chinese chef cleaver to obtain 1 to 2mm thick potato slices.

https://youtu.be/YvpYyfRkxSI
You can activate the translated subtitles.

Posted: **Fri Aug 23, 2019 6:32 am**

Now, that is just weird! Less than two hours ago I suddenly began craving the American version of that dish, potatoes au gratin (or "potatoes augh! Rotten!" as my mother called them) and come back to my computer after feeding dinner to my animals to find you've posted about almost the very same thing!

In my mental food fantasy I was thinking of making a Béchamel sauce, adding grated or diced white cheese of some sort, thinly-sliced peeled potatoes, small pieces of ham, and some asparagus (which I've actually seen in supermarkets on occasion here in the Philippines) to make a one-dish meal of it. To be done right they should be baked in an oven rather than done on the stove top though, and I don't have even a toaster oven to lightly brown the top, but even a stove top version would be better than none at all. (If I had a propane torch I could brown the top that way, but I don't have.)

Posted: **Fri Aug 23, 2019 9:10 am**

Great minds!

Indeed, I do believe it is better if the potatoes are not precooked but rather cooked in the gratin dish (plat à gratin) in the oven. This way, garlic and cheese (and whatever you add) can infuse the potatoes during the process. IMHO, the secret is to have really thin slices of potatoes.

Posted: **Fri Aug 23, 2019 10:25 am**

I don't think of myself as being much of a cook, but in my younger days I worked as a cook for several years, at a few different restaurants, and I've still got a few tricks up my sleeve. These days I like to keep things simple, and I don't like to spend a lot of time in the kitchen. But I live alone and I prepare my own meals.

I don't eat meat very often, and I try to stay away from processed foods. Lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, lots of chopping stuff up on the cutting board. I cook with garlic and onions a lot, and I've always got to have olive oil on hand. Got a nice little rice cooker that I use quite often. Avocados, tomatoes, green chiles (hey, I live in New Mexico, I'm addicted to green chiles, sue me!), those are some things always found here in my kitchen.

One thing I miss having here, something I've used a lot in the past: a wok. And my stove/oven... electric. Ew. I miss cooking with gas, and that's one of the few things I don't like about the apartment I'm in now.

Posted: **Fri Aug 23, 2019 12:08 pm**

Well,

If you pronounce the word "cook" like Jacques Pepin does, then yes, I am a kook.

The Tramp

MX Linux Forum

Are you a cook?

Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?

Re: Are you a cook?