The Recipes Thread

[cmdr_silverbolt]

Okay, hold up. I'll hook you up with a barbecue sauce recipe my family uses.

I'll ask my roommates, who actually cook, what vegetables are in season and good for fries. You might also want to consider a pandowdy. You can just serve the filling with ice cream, and that'll be pretty good too.

Edit: hm, looks like I don't have the recipe anymore. I cleaned out my external drives recently, and must have gotten rid of it. All I know is that that recipe has plum jam. I couldn't find a similar one online, but here's another type to inspire you: http://www.yummly.com/recipe/Grilled-T-Bone-Steaks-With-Bourbon-Peppercorn-Mop-Sauce-Food_com-171817?columns=6&position=12%2F36

As for fries, try squash or zucchini, or just different rubs for potato fries. I am partial to cajun rubs: http://picky-palate.com/2011/05/26/homemade-cajun-french-fries/

But seriously, if you have good meat, the worst thing you can do is slather it in sauce, so that's also something to consider. My advice is to have the meat with seasoning, as Guy suggested, and use a sauce for grilling the vegetables.

 

[GuyNwah]

T-bone is a cut that is very easy to grill and, in my opinion, benefits from some seasoning. This recipe has too much salt (reduce the salt by half) but is otherwise very suitable: Montreal Steak Seasoning

Season before grilling. Put them on a hot grill, turn once after about 5 minutes, another 5 minutes and off. T-bone steaks may have been cut thin, in which case they will cook especially quickly and end up overdone if you turn your back on them.

If you want a shrimp dish to go with the steaks, see my recipe for shrimp etouffee a page back.

Especially in California, beans are often served as a side dish with steak. If you can get dried pink beans, these are the best, but any dried beans will do. You have to start soaking these the day before, otherwise they will take forever to cook and never get tender.

Chile sauce may be easier for your friend to find on base. Something like Las Palmas enchilada sauce is good.

500g dried beans, picked over and rinsed.
200 to 250g cured pork (like Kassler), chopped.
1 clove garlic (or more to taste), minced.
200 to 250g diced tomatoes (canned is fine, if your fresh tomatoes aren't really ripe).
50 to 100ml mild red chile sauce.
Mustard, sugar, salt, and pepper to taste.

Soak the beans overnight and rinse. Cover with water and simmer about two hours, until tender. Drain and set aside.

Saute the pork until lightly browned. Add the garlic, tomatoes, chile sauce, and seasonings. Add the beans and a little water; simmer for 1/2 hour, adding water as needed if it starts to dry out. Season to taste.

 

[Sana_mia]

Thank you both, I'll just have a look at the market what vegetables are available. I have some ideas now.

Guy you're gone laugh but I was already considering your shrimp etouffee, mostly because I heard a very vocal: "Oh that sounds great" in the background.

My significant other also seems very much inclined to pink beans, something about not having those in ages.

Now I must hope the wetter plays along...

 

[secondchildren]

Just since it's summer, and your cooking will might be down to the fground, here's a recipe for a fresh and quick salad.

It's a dish typical of my city, Florence, created by peasants. Name is panzanella (which I don't really know what it means).

You need:
1. old bread (old means, dried bread, bread that you haven't eat for 1 day or 2. Italian bread preferable)
2. fresh vegetables, anything you want, but mind not to miss:
fresh tomatos
fresh onion (red)
fresh cucumber
fresh basil (the leaves)
optional: fresh red radish

3. olive oil (cannot do without)
4. vinegar
5. salt, a little of black pepper (powder) and dried oregano

You just need to put the dried bread into the cold water for a few hours, depends on how much bread you have and how old it is. Generally from 3 to 8 hours. Then squeeze the bread with your bare hands, put it in the bowl with all the vegetables, oil, vinegar, basil leaves, salt etc. One hour into the fridge and then you got your fresh summer salad

The secret to make a perfect panazanella, is to make it rest in the fridge for the longest time possible, so that the scent of onions, basil, oregan and vinegar soak the entire bowl. 2 hours should work.



Another recipe quite good in summer is "melanzane(eggplants) alla pizzaiola". Basically small pizzas with eggplants. Tomato sauce and a piece of mozzarella (or parmigiano if you want) on a slice of grilled eggplant.

This

You have to cook them in the hoven to make the cheese (mozzarella or parmigiano) melt.
You can eat them warm or cold, they're good the same, and it's perfect in summer imo.

 

[GuyNwah]

Just since it's summer, and your cooking will might be down to the fground, here's a recipe for a fresh and quick salad.

It's a dish typical of my city, Florence, created by peasants. Name is panzanella (which I don't really know what it means).

You need:
1. old bread (old means, dried bread, bread that you haven't eat for 1 day or 2. Italian bread preferable)
2. fresh vegetables, anything you want, but mind not to miss:
fresh tomatos
fresh onion (red)
fresh cucumber
fresh basil (the leaves)
optional: fresh red radish

3. olive oil (cannot do without)
4. vinegar
5. salt, a little of black pepper (powder) and dried oregano

You just need to put the dried bread into the cold water for a few hours, depends on how much bread you have and how old it is. Generally from 3 to 8 hours. Then squeeze the bread with your bare hands, put it in the bowl with all the vegetables, oil, vinegar, basil leaves, salt etc. One hour into the fridge and then you got your fresh summer salad

The secret to make a perfect panazanella, is to make it rest in the fridge for the longest time possible, so that the scent of onions, basil, oregan and vinegar soak the entire bowl. 2 hours should work.



Another recipe quite good in summer is "melanzane(eggplants) alla pizzaiola". Basically small pizzas with eggplants. Tomato sauce and a piece of mozzarella (or parmigiano if you want) on a slice of grilled eggplant.

This

You have to cook them in the hoven to make the cheese (mozzarella or parmigiano) melt.
You can eat them warm or cold, they're good the same, and it's perfect in summer imo.

Yum. The panzanella is definitely going to get made when my tomatoes are ripe. Not sure I can sell my family on the melanzane, but I may give it a try.

The English name is, descriptively enough, "bread salad". OED says, unconvincingly to my eyes, "from pane, 'bread' + zanella, 'small basket'".

We're processing apples now, and probably for another two weeks. Our apple trees went crazy this year, setting big clusters of fruit that look like bunches of grapes.

Cobblers are a Colonial dish that made their way back to the UK. I call them the busy man's pie, because they go together about as fast as a pan of biscuits.

Apple Cobbler (after Aaron McCargo, Jr., "Big Daddy's House")

Filling:
6 cups apples, sliced thin. Peel them or not, your choice.
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour. Use more or less, according to how juicy the apples are.
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. vanilla extract
Juice of 1/2 lemon

Topping:
2 Tbsp. butter, softened
1/2 cup self-rising flour. Or 1/2 cup all-purpose flour and 3/4 tsp. baking powder.
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 tsp. ground ginger
1 large egg, beaten

Preheat oven to 375F. Grease a 9x9 inch baking pan.

Toss all of the filling ingredients in a large bowl to mix. Turn out into the pan.

For the topping, sift the dry ingredients and mix in the butter and egg.

Drop the topping in dabs over the filling in the pan. Don't try to cover completely; it will spread as it bakes.

Bake 30 minutes. Serve with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

 

[secondchildren]

The English name is, descriptively enough, "bread salad". OED says, unconvincingly to my eyes, "from pane, 'bread' + zanella, 'small basket'".

Oh really? I was pretty sure about the "pan" word but the "zanella" was unknown to me, some ancient words are lost unfortunately. Thanks for digging out for me />

I like this bread salad cause it's at my (for dummies) level of cooking. I just need to slice vegetables in the end.
The original recipe has no tomato, since it comes from America and peasants had no access to such a plant. It was added later (thankfully, coz I adore it).

We're processing apples now, and probably for another two weeks. Our apple trees went crazy this year, setting big clusters of fruit that look like bunches of grapes.

Cobblers are a Colonial dish that made their way back to the UK. I call them the busy man's pie, because they go together about as fast as a pan of biscuits.

Among all the dessert, this is my fav, coz it's simple and delicious. In winter or fall especially for breakfast... yumm

I should try this recipe. Uhm... mom or man should, I mean (I don't want to kill anyone /> )

 

[GuyNwah]

Oh really? I was pretty sure about the "pan" word but the "zanella" was unknown to me, some ancient words are lost unfortunately. Thanks for digging out for me />/>/>

I like this bread salad cause it's at my (for dummies) level of cooking. I just need to slice vegetables in the end.
The original recipe has no tomato, since it comes from America and peasants had no access to such a plant. It was added later (thankfully, coz I adore it).




Among all the dessert, this is my fav, coz it's simple and delicious. In winter or fall especially for breakfast... yumm

I should try this recipe. Uhm... mom or man should, I mean (I don't want to kill anyone />/>/> )

Most of Europe considered tomatoes weird and dangerous (sensibly enough, because other parts of the plant are poisonous) until well into the 17th C. And tomatoes in Italian cooking are indeed somewhat more recent than that. They were (still are) a major export crop. It's not just the tomatoes, anyway: it's the harmony of tomatoes and cucumbers and onions and basil and oregano and olive oil over the pedal point of bread that makes it delicious.

 

[secondchildren]

I couldn't say better, really! That salad smells deliciously.
Mom says that when I was a child, I came to this old lady, my neighbour, just to eat the onions from her panzanella. We lived in the countryside at that time, she was an old peasant and the vegetables came directly from her garden. I have a lot of memories of that period, even if I was about 3 years old. I still remember her chickens, her rabbits, her goose, the snake in the grass... LOL

 

[Eri94_user70]

Mushrooms (variety of mushrooms) in the oven.

Ingredients:

Some agaricus (those small, round, white mushrooms)

Some pleurotus (the common, abundant, readily available variety)

Some porto bello (the big, round, brown ones)

Some bacon cut in thin pieces

Some yellow cheese cut in thin pieces

Some lentinula edodes, either fresh or dried

Some extra virgin olive oil

Some salt, pepper, oregano

Some garlic

Preparation:

Do NOT wash any of the mushrooms. Instead, simply pluck out by hand, or cut with a small knife, the agaricus and porto bello stems, as close to the cap as possible. Chop the stems in half and keep them. Heat some water until just before it begins boiling, and throw in it the dried lentinula edodes pieces, letting them in there for about 15 minutes. If your lentinula edodes is fresh, do not peel it (it is both a nutritious and health-enhancing fungus), simply chop it finely into small, as thin as possible, pieces; cut their stems in half and keep them together with the other stems, if they have any.

Now, place from left to right, in rows, first the agaricus mushroom caps, upside-down (with the spore-cases looking up), then the pleurotus, and finally the porto bellos, also turned upside down. Chop the bacon into small, triangle pieces and yellow cheese into big, square pieces. Place inside the porto bello caps a small layer of lentinula edodes pieces.

Peel the garlic, and from the head, get a handful of pieces. Now, try to fill the gaps of the baking pan with fitting nicely into them all the stems, and spread throughout the entire surface equally the garlic pieces, placing them among the mushrooms. Annoint the entire surface of the mushrooms and the pan's bottom with the olive oil, carefully, to avoid pouring in too much. Spray with salt, pepper and oregano.

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees Celsium for 5 minutes. Place in it the baking pan. Do NOT pour water, mushrooms upon baking release quite enough. Then put the oven to 200 degrees Celsium. Be careful not to bake them TOO well, because they dehydrate and burn, they should not be crispy. Check them once in a while, keep in mind that they will be ready relatively quickly, and when they will be almost ready, you will understand it by their color and scent. Approximately 10 minutes before they are ready, open the oven, place upon the porto bello caps the triangle bacon pieces (forming a pattern similar to the radioactive symbol), and upon them, the square, yellow cheese ones; they should be long enough to cover both the caps and their stuffing, much like a jar lid or a handmade cover. Put it back inside the oven for 10 more minutes, turn off the heat and let it inside there for 5 more minutes. Ready to serve. Enjoy them with some wine, some more cheese/bacon, and a nice salad of your choice.

 

[GuyNwah]

Mushrooms (variety of mushrooms) in the oven.

Ingredients:

Some agaricus (those small, round, white mushrooms)

Some pleurotus (the common, abundant, readily available variety)

Some porto bello (the big, round, brown ones)

Some bacon cut in thin pieces

Some yellow cheese cut in thin pieces

Some lentinula edodes, either fresh or dried

Some extra virgin olive oil

Some salt, pepper, oregano

Some garlic

Preparation:

Do NOT wash any of the mushrooms. Instead, simply pluck out by hand, or cut with a small knife, the agaricus and porto bello stems, as close to the cap as possible. Chop the stems in half and keep them. Heat some water until just before it begins boiling, and throw in it the dried lentinula edodes pieces, letting them in there for about 15 minutes. If your lentinula edodes is fresh, do not peel it (it is both a nutritious and health-enhancing fungus), simply chop it finely into small, as thin as possible, pieces; cut their stems in half and keep them together with the other stems, if they have any.

Now, place from left to right, in rows, first the agaricus mushroom caps, upside-down (with the spore-cases looking up), then the pleurotus, and finally the porto bellos, also turned upside down. Chop the bacon into small, triangle pieces and yellow cheese into big, square pieces. Place inside the porto bello caps a small layer of lentinula edodes pieces.

Peel the garlic, and from the head, get a handful of pieces. Now, try to fill the gaps of the baking pan with fitting nicely into them all the stems, and spread throughout the entire surface equally the garlic pieces, placing them among the mushrooms. Annoint the entire surface of the mushrooms and the pan's bottom with the olive oil, carefully, to avoid pouring in too much. Spray with salt, pepper and oregano.

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees Celsium for 5 minutes. Place in it the baking pan. Do NOT pour water, mushrooms upon baking release quite enough. Then put the oven to 200 degrees Celsium. Be careful not to bake them TOO well, because they dehydrate and burn, they should not be crispy. Check them once in a while, keep in mind that they will be ready relatively quickly, and when they will be almost ready, you will understand it by their color and scent. Approximately 10 minutes before they are ready, open the oven, place upon the porto bello caps the triangle bacon pieces (forming a pattern similar to the radioactive symbol), and upon them, the square, yellow cheese ones; they should be long enough to cover both the caps and their stuffing, much like a jar lid or a handmade cover. Put it back inside the oven for 10 more minutes, turn off the heat and let it inside there for 5 more minutes. Ready to serve. Enjoy them with some wine, some more cheese/bacon, and a nice salad of your choice.

Lovely. Thanks for posting.

For US readers, certain of the mushrooms listed are found in markets under these names:

Agaricus - plain "mushroom". This is the common white market mushroom in the US.

Pleurotus - Oyster mushroom.

Lentinula edodes - Shiitake mushroom.

Portobello mushrooms are now common in better markets. Asian grocers will usually have the oyster and shiitake mushrooms.

 

[Veleda.980]

Very late, but on the barbecue question, I like to marinate chunks of vegetables in Italian dressing overnight and grill them. Very simple and tasty. They make a fantastic vegetarian sandwich with hummus on a multi-grain seed roll. Peppers, squash chunks, zucchini, mushrooms, etc.

 

[secondchildren]

Well almost everything is good on the bbq... and fried. I think it was grandma that said that even a shoe is good if fried ^^

 

[GuyNwah]

BLUEBERRY ICE CREAM

This is what I make for the Fourth of July. It is my best ice cream recipe.

1 pint blueberries
1 cup sugar
1 Tbsp. vodka (if you use bourbon, nobody will tell on you)
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
2 cups milk, scalded
4 egg yolks
1 cup sour cream (the sour cream must be of the best quality)
1 cup whipping cream

Bruise the blueberries and toss with 1/2 cup sugar, vodka, and lemon juice.

In a double boiler over boiling water, or a saucepan over very gentle heat, beat the egg yolks with 1/2 cup sugar. Gradually beat in the scalded milk. Cook with frequent stirring until thickened, and set aside to cool.

Fold the sour cream, whipping cream, blueberries, and custard together. Freeze according to the instructions of your ice cream maker.

PESTO

Had to harvest some basil today, as it was starting to grow out of bounds.

Adjust proportions to your taste. Some like it more garlicky, others (including me) like it nuttier, others like more cheese.

2 cups (packed) basil leaves and flowers
2 cloves garlic
1/3 cup pine nuts
2/3 cup olive oil (only the best extra virgin will do)
1/3 cup (freshly grated) Parmesan or Romano cheese
Salt and (freshly ground) pepper

Chop basil, garlic, and pine nuts in a food processor or blender. Gradually beat in the olive oil and cheese. Add salt and pepper to taste.

 

[wichat]

Summer time, summer drink.

Ingredients for 1 liter of horchata


• 250 grams of tiger nuts, 1 liter of water, 125 grams of sugar.

How to make homemade horchata de chufa

The first thing to do is put soaked tiger nuts, to hydrate and puffy. We have them 24 or 48 hours and changing the water several times to remove impurities from the fruit.

After this time, we tiger nuts hydrated in a container with some water and started to gradually grind in a blender.

Will gradually coming tiger nuts milk or horchata. Then, we pouri it through a funnel shaped strainer to acheive two things: remove impurities and to squeeze a little more tiger nuts. It is a costly work and requires patience and a lot of manual force. (unless we have a blender with pulp centrifuge).

Then add the remaining sugar and water to the vessel and mixed vigorously. We put in the fridge for a couple of hours to be well chilled.

The homemade horchata is to consume in a matter of hours, if it gets damaged very easily.

 

[GuyNwah]

Tiger nuts (chufa, "earth almonds") can be a little hard to find outside of Spain; we can get Matiz's bottled concentrate, but I'm sure it's not the same.

(California has more almonds than we could ever use. They are a serviceable, if not authentic, substitute. Mexican "horchata" is made with rice and cinnamon; it's not the same at all.)

 

[wichat]

Tiger nuts (chufa, "earth almonds") can be a little hard to find outside of Spain; we can get Matiz's bottled concentrate, but I'm sure it's not the same.

(California has more almonds than we could ever use. They are a serviceable, if not authentic, substitute. Mexican "horchata" is made with rice and cinnamon; it's not the same at all.)

Yes, and even in Spain is not easy find tiger nuts, horchata production companies hardly allow them to reach the market and so making them almost unavailable to any consumer.

So, if any of you come to Spain, please, don't lose the chance of taste it! />

 

[cmdr_silverbolt]

Awwh, I want that eggplant thing, it looks soo good. So here's something easy:

Yogurt Popsicles:

- half container of raspberry jam (farm made, if you can get it)
- a whole bunch of strawberries, like 3-4 fist fulls.
- 3-4 hefty tablespoons of honey

- process in a food processor until smooth.

- add half container of low-fat yogurt; use yogurt which tastes good to you, everyone's perception of "tasty" yogurt is different.

- now freeze the mixture in a popsicle mould; it's done when it's frozen.

 

[KnightofPhoenix]

I recently made some Couscous to guests and they loved it. It was good if I say so myself.

Here's the recipe:

- Boil potatoes, zucchini, eggplant, onions, green pepper, carrots. Potatoes are better boiled separately at first cause they require a bit more time. Then you put everything together.
- In the meantime, heat tomato sauce (with water if it's not liquid enough but not too much). Put a generous slice of butter in it to make it greasier and yummier, with a dash of garlic powder
- When the vegetables are ripe (they should be really light and can melt in your mouth), put them with the sauce and keep them for a bit so they mix well.

- 3 cups of soumul (that's for 4 people and each had two servings so you may want to have less)
- A dash of olive oil on it
- 3 cups of water you boil (number of cups of water should match number of cups of soumul), and then put on the soumul (better than vice versa). Cover it until the soumul fully absorbs the water.

- Fry some sausages (in my case, veggie sauces) with onions if you want a merguez

And voila!
It took me about an hour and a half counting slicing the vegetables and all. It's not that hard and if you have time, it's worth it!

 

[GuyNwah]

Thank you for that recipe; I love couscous. We can get whole-wheat here, which I prefer over the regular kind. Sometimes I will make it up for a quick lunch, with a topping of chutney or lutenitza or ajvar.

 

[username_3266374]

Chicken Cakes
Ingredients

1 pound shredded chicken meat
1/3 cup crushed crackers (recommended: Ritz)
3 green onions (green and white parts), finely chopped
1/2 cup finely chopped bell pepper
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1 egg
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon dry mustard
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon salt
Dash cayenne pepper
Flour, for dusting
1/2 cup peanut oil

Directions
In a large bowl, mix together all ingredients, except for the flour and peanut oil. Shape into patties and dust with flour.
Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. When oil is hot, carefully place cakes, in batches, in pan and fry until browned, about 4 to 5 minutes. Carefully flip cakes and fry on other side until golden brown, about 4 minutes. Serve warm with preferred sauce.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Crab cakes

Ingredients

1 pound crabmeat, picked free of shells
1/3 cup crushed crackers (recommended: Ritz)
3 green onions (green and white parts), finely chopped
1/2 cup finely chopped bell pepper
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1 egg
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon dry mustard
1/2 lemon, juiced
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon salt
Dash cayenne pepper
Flour, for dusting
1/2 cup peanut oil
Favorite dipping sauce, for serving

Directions
In a large bowl, mix together all ingredients, except for the flour and peanut oil. Shape into patties and dust with flour.
Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. When oil is hot, carefully place crab cakes, in batches, in pan and fry until browned, about 4 to 5 minutes. Carefully flip crab cakes and fry on other side until golden brown, about 4 minutes. Serve warm with preferred sauce.