• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

Who enjoys cooking?

#61
Futzed around with baked falafel this week. Monday I made terrible hockey pucks and ate them anyway. Tonight I reprised, with modifications, and it went much better.

About 2/3 of a pound of dry chickpeas/garbanzo beans, throughly soaked in the fridge with LOTs of water so they stay covered when they swell - 12 hours or more - 60+ for tonights batch, as I soaked a pound but used a guesstimated 1/3 of it Monday - but I think the 12 hours was sufficient)

A Granny Smith (or other, of course) apple of normal size (3" 8 cm)

A red (or other, of course) onion of similar size. Shallots would substitute nicely and really kick this into orbit, I suspect.

6-8 cloves (could use more, less would be sad) garlic.

A little olive oil.

A little lemon juice.

Grind up in food processor - my little one needed two and a bit batches to get through this. Mixed those together in a bowl to even things out. Oil and juice just sufficient to get things processing nicely. Kind of a sloppy mixture but Monday's was drier and made hockey pucks, so don't go too dry.

Oil up a cast iron skillet, a baking sheet, or (what I actually did) a silpat on a baking sheet. Even with the silpat a little oil is needed to make happy falafel when you are baking them rather than frying them (another lesson from Monday.) Wind the oven up to 375F 190C

Squidge out patties. I went sort of smallish hamburger size, but you can suit yourself, subject to possible baking time adjustments. 3" x 1/2" thick (8 x 1.3 cm) Plop them on the oiled sheet or skillet. Shape and flatten right on the sheet - too wet to form and move, unless maybe you want to try a burger-mold if you have one. Put a little more oil (nice olive oil without going for the fancy overpriced olive oil was what I used) on top of each patty. You could make balls I suppose, but cooking time will possibly vary again.

Cook 50 minutes to an hour, flipping at halfway, should be a little bit browned.

Not hockey pucks. Not remotely "traditional" as far as I can tell. Quite nice, IMHO. And no messing about with deep frying (wadda mess...)

If you are not as sodium-averse as I am you might toss in some salt. Or you could just sprinkle a bit on the top before baking.
 
#64
The Chipotle thread, in which someone stated they could cook better food at lower cost than Chipotle (or, presumably, than any restaurant), made me dredge up this thread.

I despise cooking. I hate the process of preparing food and the huge mess it causes. I won’t cook anything more complicated than a steak, or salmon, in my George Foreman grill, and a microwaved baked potato. And that's pushing the limit of my patience with cooking.

Chipotle will prepare a healthy real-food lunch for me for under $10? Heck Yes!
 
#65
Love to bbq! Tin foil to steam any veggies if you don't wanna kabob them. Give me fire and tin foil and skewers and I'll cook the crap outta anything. Started cooking way back when my taste buds were, uh, enhanced... yes, enhanced by quasi-legal plants. But sure has made me the best cook in the family. You can't watch the food channel sober. Just not possible.
 
  • Like
Reactions: OldDog52
#66
I love it and my wife loves me for it. Here lately I've been on a pasta kick. Simple recipe with fresh ingredients. Fresh pasta tossed in olive oil with sliced heirloom tomatoes, broccoli, mushrooms and oven baked chicken breast. I bake my chicken low and slow in the oven so that it falls completely apart. Tonight I had spaghetti, again, tossed in olive oil, with sausage and some meatballs I found at the market with Havarti cheese in the center. I doctored up the pasta sauce with fresh tomatoes, sauté d onions and mushrooms. While the pasta-sauce is simmering, I dump the meat-sauce into it. Italian bread is all that's needed after that. I've been cooking since I left home 40 years ago.
 
#68
gjohnson441496 said:
I love it and my wife loves me for it. Here lately I've been on a pasta kick. Simple recipe with fresh ingredients. Fresh pasta tossed in olive oil with sliced heirloom tomatoes, broccoli, mushrooms and oven baked chicken breast. I bake my chicken low and slow in the oven so that it falls completely apart. Tonight I had spaghetti, again, tossed in olive oil, with sausage and some meatballs I found at the market with Havarti cheese in the center. I doctored up the pasta sauce with fresh tomatoes, sauté d onions and mushrooms. While the pasta-sauce is simmering, I dump the meat-sauce into it. Italian bread is all that's needed after that. I've been cooking since I left home 40 years ago.
Click to expand...

That's close to one of my favorite recipes. Boil pasta according to instructions. For this I prefer either spirali/fusilli but angel hair works very well too. Reserve a little of the pasta water.
In the pasta pot I start with EVOO, heat until warm. Dice red onion and garlic. Add to warm olive oil. When softened but still mostly firm add 1/2 to 1 pat butter for each portion. Sometime I will add a little vegetarian crumbles/ground to it.
Put pasta back into pot and turn everything until completely coated. You can add a little of the pasta water if the sauce needs to be a little looser. Sprinkle with vegetarian parmesan and fresh chives if you have them or dried. Even better, if in season, mix fresh chives and garlic scapes and toss on top. With this you need a white wine. I prefer pinot gris/grigio or a white Rioja.
 
  • Like
Reactions: gjohnson441496
#69
I love cooking. Part of it, for me, is a simple case of chemistry; following instructions, mixing ingredients and getting predictable results. Some of it is almost like mastering or mixing music. I try and EQ my food with brighter tastes, darker tastes, always trying to balance out sweeter and more savoury flavours... Mostly I like cooking for other people and seeing their reactions and knowing that they are happy. I love when my girlfriend requests dishes from me!

I just cooked an excellent roast chicken tonight. I've experimented a lot with these. I started out with a £3 chicken my local supermarket had on clearance. This chicken was pre-trussed and maybe even had some sort of pre-brining going on. I don't know as the packaging wasn't very forthcoming. I don't know the weight as I do all of this by eye, but it was a chicken for 2 - 3 people, and it fitted in my round crock pot.

Yesterday afternoon I removed all the 'cook in the bag' nonsense and brined the chicken overnight instead. I think I went with 500g of salt to 250g of brown sugar, and varying quantities of white pepper, dried thyme, dried basil, onion powder, garlic powder, cracked black pepper, paprika, ginger powder, celery salt and Chinese 5 spice. To all of this I added enough water to fully immerse the chicken. I then left the chicken to brine overnight and, I think, it got about 12 hours or so in there. Of this mix, the chicken seems to pull in the garlic and 5 spice flavours the most, followed by the white pepper. The herbs seem to hover in the background, and you would miss the other stuff if it wasn't there. Honest!

Today I first drained and dried the chicken. I then baisted it with a mixture of melted butter and some more of the herbs I laid out above. I then quickly stuck it under the grill (broiler for US folks) for a few minutes to colour the skin. I then filled my slow cooker with disks of onion, to which I added crushed garlic, fresh rosemary, some water and some apple cider vinegar. I stuck lime quarters up the backside of the chicken as well for good measure. I cooked it on 'low' for four hours or so.

At the end of this cooking period the chicken had made a good layer of broth in the bottom of the cooker. I removed the chicken and let it sit on an ovenproof dish. I turned my oven on and set it to 240 degrees C (sorry, US folk). I stuck the chicken in the hot oven for five minutes, again to add flavour. I then set the chicken aside to rest for ten minutes or so. I then wussed out and got my girlfriend to carve it, and the meat was ridiculously juicy and tender. This was a chicken that could be pulled apart by hand! And again the juicy broth was still slowly seeping out the meat. Pefect!
 
#72
I think I was visiting friends on the Isle of Wight when I first met those. I was one puzzled Yankee for a little while, as it was back in the dialup internet era and there were no references to hand. I muddled through and made bread in the oven anyway.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Axstar
#73
T_Bone_TL said:
I think I was visiting friends on the Isle of Wight when I first met those. I was one puzzled Yankee for a little while, as it was back in the dialup internet era and there were no references to hand. I muddled through and made bread in the oven anyway.
Click to expand...

Part of me could get philosophical about it. Our oven has a stainless steel faceplate, and the previous occupant took a Scotchbrite pad to the whole thing. As such all the numbers are missing, so we do a lot of cooking by eye, experience and dead reckoning! Like the Gas Mark system, I suppose it gets you away from the mentality of cooking something at exactly X degrees for Y minutes and then getting flustered and upset when the results aren't as expected.

The other part of me just finds it sorta unhelpful!
 
#74
Campfire smoked crab claws...mmmm
IMG_3450.jpg


IMG_3463.jpg
 
#75
The wife and I both love to cook still.
It took a couple weeks to adjust to our tiny kitchen, but we're back in the groove again.
We picked up an Instant Pot. Those are great to have, at least in our experience so far.

-Mike
 
#78
fjadams said:
That's close to one of my favorite recipes. Boil pasta according to instructions. For this I prefer either spirali/fusilli but angel hair works very well too. Reserve a little of the pasta water.
In the pasta pot I start with EVOO, heat until warm. Dice red onion and garlic. Add to warm olive oil. When softened but still mostly firm add 1/2 to 1 pat butter for each portion. Sometime I will add a little vegetarian crumbles/ground to it.
Put pasta back into pot and turn everything until completely coated. You can add a little of the pasta water if the sauce needs to be a little looser. Sprinkle with vegetarian parmesan and fresh chives if you have them or dried. Even better, if in season, mix fresh chives and garlic scapes and toss on top. With this you need a white wine. I prefer pinot gris/grigio or a white Rioja.
Click to expand...
Pinot gris sounds so good right now. I'm going to try the vegetarian parmesan.
 

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back