Voodoolily's Snacktastic Recipe Thread!!

[Yegolev]

That is because turkey is only meant to be eaten one way.  Well, two ways now that they make deep fryers large enough.

I was going to toss in some bacon bits but forgot.  My intentions for next time:

~2 pounds ground beef
1/3 cup A1 (considering 57)
1 cup onion, more finely diced
2 cups ground oatmeal ... yea I said ground, into about the size of bread crumbs
3 eggs
0.5 cup milk ... I think I used half-and-half last time, or maybe that was on the wiener schnitzel
1 tbsp (?) thyme
some amount of tomato
bacon bits

[MisterNoisy]

Has anyone else used Chantal Copper Fusion cookware?

I've had to learn to cook all over again since it basically turns even the shittiest Hotpoint into the equivalent of an induction range, requiring me to recalibrate all of my heat and time settings for stuff I used to cook pretty well.

[Evildrider]

Last time I made meatloaf, and it's been awhile, I made a kind of relish and mixed it into the meat instead of using a glaze.

I pretty much sauteed some red and green bell pepper, onions, and garlic.  Then I added some ketchup and brown sugar to it, let that all cool then mixed it into the meat.

[Sky]

There's a disturbing lack of cheesy nuggets in these meatloaf recipes.

[Signe]

Well, personally I wouldn't like cheese in my meatloaf and Righ doesn't much care for cheesy meat, either.  I think you might be the only person I know (not that I know a lot of people here or anything) who uses cheese in his meatloaf.  It might be a Sky thing?

[Sky]

Yeah, who likes cheese and ground meats?   

[Signe]

I don't like cheese on my cauliflower or broccoli, either.  And in this neck of the woods, poor old Righ has to ask for his Philly cheese steak sandwich with no cheese because if you ask for just a plain steak sandwich they say, "with cheese?  No?  You want a Cheese steak sandwich with no cheese?" and they're likely to put cheese on it anyway!  There's just way too much cheese around here!  Meatloaf with mash and a veg and no cheese seems good to us.  I had an auntie who would put a hard boiled egg in her meatloaf and I didn't like that, either.  Sometimes she seemed a tiny bit too French for a Norwegian woman. 

PS I'll be making Easter bread this week with no hard boiled egg in it, too.  I will, however, try and make a riccotta cheese pie with cheese in it, if that helps.   

[Yegolev]

I made two pie crusts and they turned out great, until I overbaked them but that's a different issue.  I then doubled up on a sweet-potato pie recipe but ran out of sweet potatoes and supplemented with pumpkin.  I also ran out of condensed milk and supplemented with heavy cream.  In the end I think I must have miscalculated because I had enough filling left to make two more pies, or at least one-point-five more.  The pies turned out pretty well, though.  Now I need to make another crust before the filling goes bad, unless anyone has an idea what to do with it that doesn't involve another pie crust.

[Signe]

Muffins?

[Yegolev]

Hmm.  Might as well try it!

[Yegolev]

Aftermath: not a disaster, but sweet-pumpotatokin-pie filling wants a crust.  The edges of the smaller ones are caramelized, if you like that, but the insides are too mushy.  I recently obtained a mini-cake pan with pagan Easter forms, pretty much large cupcakes shaped like rabbits, eggs and flowers, so I used that.  I even managed to get them out of the pan with a minimum of disfigurement.

[Signe]

If the sweet-pumpotatokin mixture is too runny, maybe adding some ricotta cheese until it's the right consistency?  You're probably done fiddling with this stuff, though.  I'm not a big fan of sweet potato anything, but I've mixed ricotta cheese in with carrot cake/muffins and pumpkin muffins and it was awesome.

[Yegolev]

I used all the batter, so maybe next time.  I think I'm done with pumpotatokin pie for a while.  Fruit pie next in the Pie Realm.

[voodoolily]

I really like making galettes. The fruit:crust ratio is perfection. I make an Asian pear-pine nut and a cherry-black pepper one that I lourve.

[Mosesandstick]

Not sure if people have talked about this before, but any advice for vegetarian or seafood cookbooks? (I'm pescy for now)

[Sky]

We've been eating a lot of cod lately as I break into cooking fish. I have a lot of cookbooks, but not a lot of good seafood recipes, so I end up taking the gist of several recipes and winging it. One of my lesser-used books has several halibut dishes I was able to adopt for cod, so I've moved beyond baking with red potatoes and making chowdah.

Last night the guy at the fish counter gave me 1.6lbs of fresh cod for the cost of 1lb of frozen. We totally gorged on baked cod in a lemon soy vinaigrette over some rice.

For veggie dishes, I remember enjoying the Vegetarian Epicure, but I lost my copy years ago.

[voodoolily]

Not sure if people have talked about this before, but any advice for vegetarian or seafood cookbooks? (I'm pescy for now)

If you want to splurge, Charlie Trotter has a seafood book and a vegetables book. His food is high-end, but I think the concepts can fairly easily be adapted to the home cook.

The Japanese Country Cookbook is one of my favorites for new ways to make vegetables and seafood, very authentic and simple recipes.

Other than that, I always loved the Moosewood cookbooks when I was a vegetarian. Good, simple stuff.

[Sky]

Been trying to find something to fill the honeycrisp void in my life. Other apples just can't stand up to the honeycrisp perfection. My market started stock Opals, apparently a new variety, they're a great replacement.

Problem is, they're a new variety, so I can't get a tree yet. I need a pollinator for the honeycrisp tree I just bought yesterday :)

[Bunk]

I need ideas. I have a bag of halibut cheeks in my freezer now. What should I do with them?

[Trippy]

I need ideas. I have a bag of halibut cheeks in my freezer now. What should I do with them?

I would sear and then broil them (depending on thickness) with a light glaze like miso or teriyaki.

[Mosesandstick]

Am I the only one who giggled at halibut cheeks?

[voodoolily]

I need ideas. I have a bag of halibut cheeks in my freezer now. What should I do with them?

Misoyaki would be a great way to do them, but grilled they might fall apart and that would be tragic. I made a chowder with them once that was lovely.

[Furiously]

I made chili powder today in preparation of making some lamb and beef chili tomorrow. (Used pork too last time but it fell apart too much).

So, I bought a shitton of dried peppers, (Mostly Ancho., small amount of De Arbols, and a bit of Pasilla)
Good amount of Cumin seed,
some Oregano,
A little salt

And... Best chili powder I've ever had. Shelby's is no more for me now.

Of course, afterward I touched my son's pacifier... He was not really happy with me. There might have been tears. I know I am going to touch my eye later and just be cursing as well.

[voodoolily]

I make my own as well. It's the only way to go! Get the peppers at one of those stores like Winco (large bulk section + large Latino shopper base = cheap chiles).

[Khaldun]

Yeah. Commercial chili powder, even good quality, is shit. Always go with pure chili powder, preferably some you've made from dried peppers, then mix in just a bit of other spices as appropriate. To be honest, I'd just keep the ground chilis separate and make different powder mixes depending on what you're making (I use a different mix for mole sauce than for chile, for example.)

[Paelos]

Alton Brown did a hell of a show on chili powder that I think was very very key in me buying a coffee grinder.

And I don't drink coffee at home.

[Furiously]

Skip the pasillas If you try this at home.

[Samwise]

Bread!



Combine 1 cup each of warm water and flour.  Put into a small jar, cover loosely (ideally you want to give it air but not let too much moisture evaporate), and leave in a warm place (I use my oven with the light turned on).  It should get bubbly and yeasty-smelling after a couple of days, give or take.

Pour your starter into a mixing bowl, and mix in another 1 cup each of warm water and flour.  Cover and let it sit in a warm place again for about 8 hours (i.e. overnight or while you're at work), and you will now have a larger batch of starter.  Toss a bit of that back in your jar with another cup of water and flour (that'll be your starter for next time).

To your big bowl of starter, add a cup of flour, two teaspoons of salt, four teaspoons of sugar, and two tablespoons of olive oil (or butter, or lard, or nothing).  Mix well.

Now slowly add another two cups of flour (about half a cup at a time, mixing well).  I use whole wheat for these last two cups.  By the last cup or so you might be having trouble stirring it, at which point you should get in there and start kneading with your hands.  Note that the longer you can put off getting your hands in there, the stiffer the dough will be and the less it will want to stick between your fingers.  Get the dough to absorb as much of that flour as you can, and if it's still sticky, add more.  Knead knead knead.

Cover your bowl again and put it back in that warm place.  Let it sit for a few hours.  Hopefully it will have roughly doubled in size; if not, it's probably better to proceed anyway and hope for the best.  Punch it down, knead it some more.  

Take whatever you'll be baking on (I've been using a loaf pan) and grease it or dust it with cornmeal.  Mold your dough into its final shape, put it on the pan/sheet, cover.  I also like to brush the top of it with water at this point; it'll help keep it from drying out and it'll make it more crusty when it bakes.  Back to the warm place to rise again.  Again, hopefully it will bulk up, but don't despair if it doesn't; it ought to rise some more in the next step as long as the yeast is still active.

Pop it in the oven, and turn it to 350.  Don't preheat the oven before putting the bread in!  It'll rise some more while the oven is heating up, but if it's hot straight away the yeast will die off before it can finish the job.  Bake for about 40 minutes, or until the top browns and it makes a hollow sound when you thunk it.

Slice, butter, and eat while it's still steaming.  Nom.

[Signe]

Since Sam sounds like such a patient baker - here's an article about a boule that I think I'm going to try this week.  It's extremely easy and I can only think that more people don't use this method because you could die from old age before the bread is even ready to go in the oven.  With me, it's that I'm just not organised enough time-wise.  Of course, if Righ wants to buy me one of those fancy shmancy steam injected ovens, I'd bake him bread every day.  And I'd promise not to ask for anything else this month.

[Yegolev]

Not ready to try bread again, although the weather is getting better for it.

Last night I sauteed, or perhaps fried, some garlic, cilantro and another leaf that I forget, then dumped in two cans of chopped tomatoes.  Faint dust of cayenne.  After 10-15 minutes of that cooking, I put four tliapia in there, covered it and let it cook for another 15 minutes, I think.  Salt and pepper also.  Recipe called for lemon but I called bullshit on that.  Turned out great.

[Bunk]

I need ideas. I have a bag of halibut cheeks in my freezer now. What should I do with them?

Misoyaki would be a great way to do them, but grilled they might fall apart and that would be tragic. I made a chowder with them once that was lovely.

I decided to stick with methods I know well, and did a simple panko breading and fried them. Actually came out great. Really fascinating texture to those things, reminded me of a scallop.

[Ard]

Speaking of bread, here's a sweet spice bread I like making.  It's more like cookies than bread though, given the sugar content.

1 cup flour
1 cup milk
1 cup brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1tsp baking powder

Heat the oven to 350.  Mix all the dry ingredients together.  Add the milk.  Grease a breadpan, and fill it with the mix.  Cook for one hour. 

I've added raisins and walnuts, dried apple, and chocolate chips to it various times, and it's always turned out good.

[voodoolily]

Sam, did you just collect wild yeast with your starter? I didn't see the addition of yeast in your recipe.

I've been baking a shitload, too, but only quick breads like soda breads and coffee cakes. It's been so great to always have a loaf of something nutty/fruity around for fast breakfasts (slice, butter and toast in toaster oven). 15 minutes of prep is usually all it takes - I might start bagging the dry ingredients together so I have less measuring.

I keep thinking about using my own milk to bake, but that's a little bit fucked up, even for me. 

[Samwise]

Sam, did you just collect wild yeast with your starter? I didn't see the addition of yeast in your recipe.

Yup.     Didn't do anything but set it out and let the beasties in the air colonize it.

[Signe]

I don't see why using your own milk is fucked up at all.  It's milk!  And it's from a human!  You would think human milk would be better for humans than  animal milk, no?  It seems there are some very smart people writing about this as a natural way to ward off and even fight some diseases.   Seriously, though, which do you think is more natural... morning coffee with cow's  milk out of a carton or a fresh squirt from a Voodoolily?