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Pizza with red sauce, pepperoni, italian sausage, bell pepper, onion, italian herbs, ghost pepper flakes, powdered carolina reaper pepper, parmesan, and mozzarella.

Next, since there's extra red sauce and italian sausage, I'm going to cook up some pasta.

I've semi-decided that homemade pizza is going to be at least a monthly thing... I'll see how long that lasts.
 
I finally got a pizza with exactly the right thin crust, holding together and holding the toppings and still being foldable. The dough had been in the refrigerator for five days and was the last of a batch.

The first attempts failed miserably as I couldn't get it off the peel onto the stone. And then the third disastrous time the stone itself broke because it is a cheap piece of junk.

On top of that, the crust got too thick and bready.

So I gave up and just made it on a metal pizza pan. It finally turned out exactly perfectly, like the stone was supposed to do. Fuck pizza stones, I'm just using the pan. It is perforated with holes in it, which may have helped.
 
I'm baking onion and roasting garlic. Baked onions were popular in the 1700s. They're surprisingly good on their own with salt and/or butter, but I'm using these in prepping.
Baking an onion>>>>>>>>>all other ways to fill a place with a pleasant odor

I finally got a pizza with exactly the right thin crust, holding together and holding the toppings and still being foldable. The dough had been in the refrigerator for five days and was the last of a batch.

The first attempts failed miserably as I couldn't get it off the peel onto the stone. And then the third disastrous time the stone itself broke because it is a cheap piece of junk.

On top of that, the crust got too thick and bready.

So I gave up and just made it on a metal pizza pan. It finally turned out exactly perfectly, like the stone was supposed to do. Fuck pizza stones, I'm just using the pan. It is perforated with holes in it, which may have helped.
I've ghettoed up a pizza pan by flipping a regular baking pan upside down with foil covering it.
 
Boba for bubble tea. I got this as an early birthday gift from family:
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From here

Unfortunately I realized I don’t have mil.k, so I can’t make the tea part, but it recommended letting the boba soak in simple syrup, so I’m pretty sure it will be okay tomorrow. Never tried making it before. Just boba in syrup kind of looks like frog spawn.
 
Attempted to make ice cream mochi. The mochi was fine after a 2nd attempt, but it failed miserably because apparently it's so hot here the ice cream slowly melted, even in the freezer.

After wallowing in my failures I went and cooked myself some homemade fries seasoned with salt and black pepper.
 
Beetroot and onions tossed in olive oil, seasoned liberally and roasted, then mixed with flaked smoked mackerel and drizzled with a lemon, oil and horseradish dressing. Served with watercress. Really tasty but turns your shit red, which can be worrisome.
 
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Spaghetti.

I just threw ground beef in a frying pan with onions, garlic, mushrooms and sauce from a can. Sure is good though.

Almost all you need for a starter are these:

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Then just don't add all the sugar/HFCS/other gunk that is in most canned/jarred sauces. Tomatoes, salt, pepper, garlic, oregano, a splash of olive oil, and it's a marinara.

Maybe a bit of sugar, but it's amazing how much it is improved by just NOT adding sugar.
 
Almost all you need for a starter are these:

View attachment 692609

Then just don't add all the sugar/HFCS/other gunk that is in most canned/jarred sauces. Tomatoes, salt, pepper, garlic, oregano, a splash of olive oil, and it's a marinara.

Maybe a bit of sugar, but it's amazing how much it is improved by just NOT adding sugar.
I prefer things more on the bitter and sour side and make marinara sauce roughly the same way. Garlic, onions, olive oil, basil, parsley, crushed red pepper, splash of white wine (sauvignon blanc) tomato paste and crushed tomatoes. I understand why people add some sugar, it cuts down on the acidity of tomatoes. I find a nice white wine does the trick WAY better and makes the flavor profile more robust and complex.
 
I prefer things more on the bitter and sour side and make marinara sauce roughly the same way. Garlic, onions, olive oil, basil, parsley, crushed red pepper, splash of white wine (sauvignon blanc) tomato paste and crushed tomatoes.

I can live without heavy onions. I like it heavy on the garlic and may either skip onions entirely or use something more mellow like shallots. It almost doesn't matter really, you could practically do with just the tomatoes.
 
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Almost all you need for a starter are these:

View attachment 692609

Then just don't add all the sugar/HFCS/other gunk that is in most canned/jarred sauces. Tomatoes, salt, pepper, garlic, oregano, a splash of olive oil, and it's a marinara.

Maybe a bit of sugar, but it's amazing how much it is improved by just NOT adding sugar.

The range of canned tomatoes available in Italy is mind blowing: here's a link to some Brit fags sperging about 5 quid a can toms, Grauniad article!
 
Almost all you need for a starter are these:

View attachment 692609

Then just don't add all the sugar/HFCS/other gunk that is in most canned/jarred sauces. Tomatoes, salt, pepper, garlic, oregano, a splash of olive oil, and it's a marinara.

Maybe a bit of sugar, but it's amazing how much it is improved by just NOT adding sugar.
I don't think there was a lot of sugar in that canned sauce, it wasn't sweet at all. Might be different across continents.
 
Bf and I love making our own tomato sauce. Stewed some tomatoes, sautéed an onion and a few garlic cloves in a little olive oil, added the tomatoes, blended it with an immersion blender, and added some spices (chili powder, basil, oregano, salt & pepper, and a bit of onion and garlic powder). Simmered for 4 hours, and it turned out damn good.
 
On tomato sauces, my experience is some added carrots tend to be nice if you want to neutralize some of the acidity of the tomato due to say heart burn concerns. It also does not negatively affect the taste of the sauce given that carrots tend to be pretty easily dominated by other flavors.

As for cooking, just a quick batch of potatoes and some left-over chicken from last night for breakfast. Ate a pot pie (cheapo one) for dinner.
 
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I had a chuck roast to use up so I made some shredded beef for sandwiches in my slow cooker. I basically just slammed a bunch of shit I wanted to get rid of in there and cooked it on low for 8 hours, then shredded the beef and skimmed out the fat.

Beef, some chicken stock, a pack of onion soup mix, a partial jar of giardeneira,peppers, onions, garlic, white wine, oregano, basil, black pepper, crushed red pepper.

Actually turned out decent. Like a ghetto italian beef sandwich.
 
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Just finishing off the chicken/bacon stew I made two days ago with leftover celeriac, rutabaga, potato and leek and seasoned with thyme, oregano, a big chung of pepper and a shitload of garlic.

I almost kinda wish I had a cold because this feels like it would be the ultimate cold remedy.

Most importantly though It was a trial run of my new pressure cooker and im happy to say that it handled sauteing, browning, sweating, and stewing duties extremely well which means im going to be easily able to crank out a meat/veg stew once or twice a week as we head into spring. Right now im trying to cook with vegetables I havent really cooked with much before so im probably going to try something with turnip or squash next
 
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