Voodoolily's Snacktastic Recipe Thread!!

[apocrypha]

Wash your freezer thouroughly with tomato juice.  Really. 

Ok... thanks, I think 

That is it.  I always use the Good Eats recipe http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/angel-food-cake-recipe/index.html

And thanks!

Our spinach beds have been producing like mad the last couple of weeks, I reckon we're getting over 1kg a week off of them. Been having the most awesome creamed spinach.

Melt a knob of butter in a large pan, chuck in large spinach leaves a handful at a time and wilt them. When they're all cooked (shouldn't take long but it depends how tough your spinach is - our bolted plants take a good few minutes to go totally soft) pour off as much water as you can, pressing it out with a wooden spoon. The water is actually delicious - I drink it while it's still warm and think of it as spinach tea.

Whizz the wilted spinach with a stick blender and then mix in a good tablespoon of crème fraiche, a glug of olive oil, some black pepper, a tiny scrape of freshly grated nutmeg and (if you want - sometimes it's not right) a small crushed clove of garlic.

YUM.

[Signe]

Asparagus. 

Discuss.   

[voodoolily]

Dry saute or grill with a bit of butter, crunch of salt, and a bit of lemon zest. Do not boil or steam.

Wrap in proscuitto and grill or broil. Puff pastry is also acceptable.

With black bean sauce and tofu in a Szechuan stir-fry.

...I'll try to think of other applications.

[Evildrider]

I like asparagus with just salt, pepper, and lemon juice/zest. 

However I'll sometimes also drizzle them with olive oil and some good balsamic.

I prefer grilled or under the broiler if I have to.

[hal]

Asparagus.  Must be steamed with orange roughly. Or a Fritata of Asparagus eggs onion and garlic and grated cheese ( guess which one I use). Grilled is good too I guess but Asparagus and eggs are something you gotta roll with. I have spoken.

The spell checker is on fire again. I never learn.

[Nevermore]

Do not boil or steam.

Must be steamed with orange roughly.

Fight!

[Samwise]

I like asparagus with just salt, pepper, and lemon juice/zest. 

However I'll sometimes also drizzle them with olive oil and some good balsamic.

I prefer grilled or under the broiler if I have to.

Yes, this.

I don't terribly mind it steamed either though.  I'd eat asparagus all the time if it didn't do weird things to pee.

[Demetra]

Wash your freezer thouroughly with tomato juice. 

Will this work for a freezer that had food go bad in it?  I've already tried bleach and baking soda and those didn't fix it.  I am thinking I read that this will require replacing all the gaskets but I'd like to avoid that if I can.

I picked up 3 stewing hens, a couple pounds of beef rib bones (broiled 'em) and about a pound of pork neck bones (broiled them too) and made a huge batch of soup stock.  All of our herbs are growing like crazy so I added fresh thyme, rosemary, tarragon and bay leaves.  This stuff is liquid heaven so I'll have to make some soba noodle soup.  The basil is finally coming along now and we'll have loads of assorted cherry tomatoes soon too.  Just need fresh mozzarella to make THE best salad for hot weather.

[Yegolev]

I don't like asparagus.

Recent concoction:
Can of white chicken, ~9.5oz x2
Can of black beans
Jar of "Taco Sauce"
Shredded mild jack cheese
Corn tortillas

Preheat oven to 375F.

Drained beans and put in a bowl.  I mashed up the beans a lot but I think I won't do that next time.  Drained chicken and mixed with beans.  Added "Taco Sauce" until about right, but next time I'll probably use salsa and "Taco Sauce" or "Taco Seasoning".  Added cheese, salt.  Mix, mix.  Spread on tortilla, top with another tortilla.  Bake 10 minutes per side.

[Signe]

Wash your freezer thouroughly with tomato juice. 

Will this work for a freezer that had food go bad in it?  I've already tried bleach and baking soda and those didn't fix it.  I am thinking I read that this will require replacing all the gaskets but I'd like to avoid that if I can.

If you tried even bleach and baking soda, I just don't know.  I've washed things with tomato juice, including skunk-soaked dogs, and it's always helped.  When I was a kid, we used to have an outside garbage pail that was in the cement - it's a country thing, I think.  It used to get very stinky and my mother would wash it out with tomato juice.  It seemed to work fine.

[Demetra]

If you tried even bleach and baking soda, I just don't know.  I've washed things with tomato juice, including skunk-soaked dogs, and it's always helped.

I talked to a couple repair places this morning and they said it isn't really a repairable thing.  The smell gets into the insulation and stays there forever.  I gave up and ordered a identical one from Standard to be delivered and the smelly one hauled away.  Oh well, at least I'll have a usable freezer again.

[Oban]

Recipe: Bacon Wrapped Meatloaf and Black Truffle-Saffron Macaroni and Cheese

[Ookii]

Recipe: Bacon Wrapped Meatloaf and Black Truffle-Saffron Macaroni and Cheese

Holy overkill batman?  For those who dare not click the link, please note that these two items are not separated.  It's more like:

Recipe: Bacon Wrapped Meatloaf and Black Truffle-Saffron Macaroni and Cheese LAYERED CASSEROLE

[Oban]

[Trippy]

OMIGOD that just needs a layer of mayo on it and it would be the ultimate Midwestern dish.

[voodoolily]

OMIGOD that just needs a layer of mayo on it and it would be the ultimate Midwestern dish.

Now that's one heckuva hotdish (in Minnesota accent).

I want that with ketchup and some onion rings on a sandwich.

[Sky]

Onions, peppers and Frank's Red Hot on a hoagie roll!

[Numtini]

I'm having chest pains just looking at that thing. Geezus.

[Evildrider]

Hey if you are gonna eat that.. might as well go all the way and make it a true death meal.

A piece of texas toast on the bottom, with some garlic mashed potatos, a slice of that on top, then covered in some good brown gravy.

[Bunk]

Since this thread should not be allowed to fall off in to the dark reaches of page two, I thought I'd mention my latest culinary discovery.

We had a fusion festival here a few weeks back - multicultural music, food, dancing, etc. They had about 40 tents set up, and you just bought a pile of food tickets and went around trying things. This little Romanian deli had a grill setup, and were grilling something called Mititei.

I ended up going back twice, these things were so good. It's basically a caseless sausage, made up of beef, pork and lamb. Traditionaly served with bread, mustard, and beer.


So I bought a couple pounds worth from this deli and grilled them up this week - amazing stuff. So much fat drips off as they cook that my barbeque was still burning five minutes after I turned it off.

[Sky]

Our library is having a bake sale, so I went for the amazing thick chocolate chip cookie recipe I use from cooksillustrated.com. I have an auto-renew membership, but it said I was cancelled. I went to see what's up and they've again raised their membership cost, my intro rate was $12.50, the normal rate (I paid the second year) was $20/yr and now it's $30/yr. That's more than the goddamned magazine!

Grr.

I hope I printed out that recipe, because it did make the most amazing cookies I've ever had.

[voodoolily]

Cook's Ilustrated is a fucking sham. They spam bloggers to become recipe testers. There's one famous (among food bloggers) case of someone testing a recipe ("America's Test Kitchen" and all that) and blogging about testing the recipe, and CI issued a cease and desist. For like, a ribs recipe or something. They can't copyright their recipes (especially when they ask members of the public to test for them without signing any confidentiality agreement), so everyone thought this was just a huge act of douchebaggery and is unofficially boycotting CI/ATK.

As far as magazines go, Saveur is a much better read. And every year Food and Wine publishes a "best of" cookbook that's not very expensive (I still use the 2001 cookbook for inspiration). You'd get as much mileage out of one of those cookbooks in a year than a year of Cook's Illustrated.

[schild]

Cook's Ilustrated is a fucking sham. They spam bloggers to become recipe testers. There's one famous (among food bloggers) case of someone testing a recipe ("America's Test Kitchen" and all that) and blogging about testing the recipe, and CI issued a cease and desist. For like, a ribs recipe or something. They can't copyright their recipes (especially when they ask members of the public to test for them without signing any confidentiality agreement), so everyone thought this was just a huge act of douchebaggery and is unofficially boycotting CI/ATK.

As far as magazines go, Saveur is a much better read. And every year Food and Wine publishes a "best of" cookbook that's not very expensive (I still use the 2001 cookbook for inspiration). You'd get as much mileage out of one of those cookbooks in a year than a year of Cook's Illustrated.

Blogging is srs bsns.

[voodoolily]

At first I thought you meant "seriously bananas". 

[Sky]

Eh, I like the Cook's stuff. Found the recipe stuffed in a cookbook somewhere and the cookies sold out in under an hour :) I stuck it to the man and handed out the recipe, too. The librarian running the bake sale asked for ingredients lists for allergies, I figured I'd just hand out the recipe. They're really good cookies, and massive.

I like the new saying SRS BANANAS. I'm going to start using it.

[stu]

I read this recipe for mousse- http://thursdaynightsmackdown.com/2009/08/02/chocolate-frangelico-mousse/#more-2020 - and I was wondering if it's as easy to make as it seems to be on paper. My gf's birthday is coming up in a few weeks and I want to ensure that I (get laid) make her feel special. Anyone have some mousse wisdom to impart? I'll be doing a trial run by Wednesday to see how this goes.

[voodoolily]

I read this recipe for mousse- http://thursdaynightsmackdown.com/2009/08/02/chocolate-frangelico-mousse/#more-2020 - and I was wondering if it's as easy to make as it seems to be on paper. My gf's birthday is coming up in a few weeks and I want to ensure that I (get laid) make her feel special. Anyone have some mousse wisdom to impart? I'll be doing a trial run by Wednesday to see how this goes.

Ha! Michelle from TNS is one of my good buddies. Being a huge D&D nerd, she'd be delighted to know that someone from a gaming forum cited her blog.

Oh and yes, mousse is easy. Dead-simple, really. The trick is not over-whipping the cream (and turning it to butter).

[stu]

Excellent! It's funny, I had always thought mousse was tough to make because it tastes so damn good. Thanks.

[Yegolev]

It's hard to get out of crevices, though.

[Sky]

Keeping with my simple foods doctrine, sunday I made some chicken fajitas (rhymes with vaginas). I use Dinosaur BBQ's marinade because I am lazy (their stuff is ). I doctor it with the juice of a lime to speed up the marinade a bit, it was getting late.

Throw the chicken on a hot grill to get some grill marks on either side, then turn the heat down to cook it through without getting all tough. On the other side of the grill over medium heat, toss on a bunch of pepper thirds (red and green bell), skin down, and onion rings (sweet onion, not seperated). Blacken the pepper skins, put them in a bag, the usual roasted pepper deal. Cook the onion until the center parts are mellowed out and sweet.

Half the onion rings, skin and slice the peppers, cut the chicken into strips and add some reserved marinade/lime. Slap a couple small tortillas on the grill, flip them and add some cheese.

Good stuff, and had enough leftover to make burritos last night (adding rice and beans).

[Oban]

America, fuck yeah!



Deep Fried Butter

[Trippy]

This one sounds tasty:

Green Goblins: Cherry peppers stuffed with spicy shredded chicken and guacamole, battered, deep-fried and topped with queso.

[Sky]

This one sounds tasty:

Green Goblins: Cherry peppers stuffed with spicy shredded chicken and guacamole, battered, deep-fried and topped with queso.

I'd skip the batter and bake it, maybe add some diced onion and garlic to the chicken/avocado. But yeah, good idea! Lots of people around here grow cherry peppers to stuff the traditional way (italian).

[nurtsi]

Made some lemontart. It was omnom.

I need to figure out how to make a better crust though. This one came out a bit too thick and hard. I also had problems getting it in the pan in one piece as it kept falling apart. The dough was made from confectioner's sugar, butter, egg, and flour. Any tips for crust-making appreciated.

[Samwise]

I have not tried this yet, but I've heard that wetting the dough with vodka is a good trick.  Makes the dough easier to work with, but the vodka evaporates out quickly so it doesn't make the finished product rock-like.