What Have You Cooked Recently?

I am, right as I post this, half way through making pea and pork soup. I have the skin off the pork and in the oven to make crackling (an experiment) and the pork etc just coming to the boil for the second time. This is all based on half-remembered recipes from childhood with a few extras thrown in (and probably more brandy than is strictly necessary). I have no idea if it will turn out right or if it will be a colossal fuck-up. Dinner is served in one hour.
 
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I don't like posting IRL pictures (incase I fail to sanitize it properly) but I cooked sausage, gravy and biscuits which was rather fast. (5 minute prep, 15 minute cooking) The only substitute I made was a pound of actual pork sausage instead of 9 oz of Jimmy Deans sausage (Maybe I'm paranoid of cooking processed shit so I don't like packaged/processed foods that much.

Heres the dolled up photo from the recipe page:

AR-216391-Easy-Sausage-Gravy-Biscuits-hero-4x3-4ea5190f4be74199a4ba2fed3eff3a5b - Copy.webp

The only thing I didn't like about it is that I cooked the biscuits for about 13 minutes and they weren't exactly hard, but they weren't soft enough to my liking. I don't know enough about cooking (and I should know something as basic as this) but I think I'll cook the biscuits below the 12-14 minute range at around 11 minutes and see how it fares. I'll just check up on it at the end and if it still looks weird and doughy I'll cook it longer, I guess.
 
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I made cornbread in a cast iron skillet for the first time (served with blackened chicken, mustard greens, mashed potatoes and gravy). I just didn't remember I had a cast iron skillet, tool my Mom gave me long ago, got buried under other junk in my cabinets, mused about getting one and she reminded me of it. So the thing had sat unused for years.

The cornbread seemed a little thin compared to doing it in a muffin tin, but it was much more firm, less crumbly, due to the crust. It's probably better this way. My intention is to try to get in the habit of cooking a skillet any time I run out to always have cornbread on hand, eat it with a glass of milk, eat it in the morning before work, not have to worry about starting my oven (long story) any time I want to have cornbread with dinner.

Related, I've learned to change my frame of mind from buying food for specific purposes to having certain ingredients always on hand stock as staples (milk, brown potatoes, eggs, bacon, mixed vegetables, broccoli, sliced bread, pickles, probably some others I can't recall off the top of my head). I've come to suspect I'm better off eating all burgers on toast than buying buns that I will never use up in time.

Magnitude2717 said:
I don't like posting IRL pictures (incase I fail to sanitize it properly) but I cooked sausage, gravy and biscuits which was rather fast. (5 minute prep, 15 minute cooking) The only substitute I made was a pound of actual pork sausage instead of 9 oz of Jimmy Deans sausage (Maybe I'm paranoid of cooking processed shit so I don't like packaged/processed foods that much.

Heres the dolled up photo from the recipe page:

View attachment 6857999

The only thing I didn't like about it is that I cooked the biscuits for about 13 minutes and they weren't exactly hard, but they weren't soft enough to my liking. I don't know enough about cooking (and I should know something as basic as this) but I think I'll cook the biscuits below the 12-14 minute range at around 11 minutes and see how it fares. I'll just check up on it at the end and if it still looks weird and doughy I'll cook it longer, I guess.
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By sanitize, do you mean removing possibly identifying things like reflections off of glass or other little things that would let Kiwi Farms do a He Will Not Divide Us to you and dox you?
 
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Made some pretty good bread pudding for the family. Sliced ups and cubed some vanilla brioche put it in the oven on low to stale it up, mixed 4 eggs, 3/4 cups of sugar, and a teaspoon of cinnamon and vanilla extract. Packed all the bread in what ever size the dish I found was, poured 2 tablespoons of butter on it and pured in the mixture and baked on 350 for 45.
It was good but it wasn't really that sweet but that's nothing some ice cream couldnt fix. I was satisfied for my first attempt, will probably uses a full vanilla bean and more sugar next time. I also tried to make a vanilla sauce to go with it but I completely fucked it up just complete ass, was more of a pudding than a sauce.
 
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Magnitude2717 said:
(Maybe I'm paranoid of cooking processed shit so I don't like packaged/processed foods that much.
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You're good and in the right. Who wouldn't substitute an ingredient for something better?

Speaking of substitutions, who else replaces potatoes with carrots if the recipe calls for it? Maybe I'm just overemphasizing vegetables in my low-carb diet and have it all wrong but I've always thought carrots are a low-carb version of potatoes. (Potatoes taste too good though, don't accidentally eat them you might actually enjoy your meal).
 
Travis Touchdown (REAL) said:
Thank you very much for the vid! As an enterprising young man who loves his sauces I'm inclined to try some of these
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Start with the bechamel, it's the basis for a lot of sauces. Once you master it you will be able to invent your own using it as a base. You do a good bechamel, you can infuse it with all sorts of stuff
 
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souschef said:
Start with the bechamel, it's the basis for a lot of sauces. Once you master it you will be able to invent your own using it as a base. You do a good bechamel, you can infuse it with all sorts of stuff
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Thank you for the advice! Do know anything in particular that would benefit most from a bechamel sauce?
 
Bronze Age Baddie said:
Pumpkin muffins. Streusel was being difficult this time around.
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Wow I love the idea of pumpkin crumb muffins. I got a craving for cinnamon buns after an episode of good eats, I may have to do some research and give that a shot. I want to see if I can do GF ones.

Tried to mix it up and not use a quick bread recipe this week. Starting with a sponge and giving it time to rise made the bread turn out how I've been wanting it to, it had a much better crust and a much more tangy flavor than I get with instant yeast. It was really interesting and a great learning experience being able to compare the instant bread with the traditional one. I'd love to give sourdough a shot but I have no interest in maintaining a starter. I do feel I'll have to plan it out a bit better if I want to regularly bake this type of bread though, maybe start it the night before or something and let it rise in the fridge for longer.

Vegetable soup came out great. Fettuccini Alfred not so much.
 
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