What Have You Cooked Recently?

So I did little reading first, and made those Korean rice cakes from trader joes. AWFUL. Texture was like a penne but filled with more under cooked pasta disgusting. I'm sorry I laugh at rape car wrecks etc. But wasting food is my only sin. I had to throw them out. Sauce was ok.

It was like BIMBI or some shit, if you like under cooked pasta... enjoy. Now I'm eating some TJ's wings from Foster Farms, during football. Super deal for lazy meal. Some of the best wings i've had (I'm not a wing snob.) just pop to heat and snack. Also having some falafal. Because lazy football.
 
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I made lentil soup again using Kenji López-Alt’s Easy 30-Minute Red Lentil Soup recipe (archive) from Serious Eats . Kenji, being a hapa, leftist, and chef had to fag it up with ginger and jalapeños and a curry yogurt garnish— I ignored all that in addition to subbing an onion for the scallions and chicken stock instead of vegetable stock.

What makes his recipe really good though is the use of a food processor to chop the vegetables. It saves a lot of work and the texture is great as is without any puréeing. I like to throw an extra carrot (short batonnet) and two ribs of celery (medium dice) for more variation. A very easy and dependable recipe and perfect for lunch.
 
I made lentil soup again using Kenji López-Alt’s Easy 30-Minute Red Lentil Soup recipe (archive) from Serious Eats . Kenji, being a hapa, leftist, and chef had to fag it up with ginger and jalapeños and a curry yogurt garnish— I ignored all that in addition to subbing an onion for the scallions and chicken stock instead of vegetable stock.
Why ginger? I love ginger, but you know what goes great with lentils? A really good smoked paprika (not some dead dried out McCormick shit). This and/or some garam masala is nice too.
What makes his recipe really good though is the use of a food processor to chop the vegetables. It saves a lot of work and the texture is great as is without any puréeing. I like to throw an extra carrot (short batonnet) and two ribs of celery (medium dice) for more variation. A very easy and dependable recipe and perfect for lunch.
Right before finishing, I like to take out just a part of the soup with a small strainer, puree that, and reintroduce it.

Also: more of my marinara-adjacent sauce from flesh plum tomatoes over radiatori, a weird pasta I'd never seen before called that probably because it looks like it's shaped like little radiators so it picks up the sauce between the grille.
 
Why ginger?
As I said, Kenji has a lot of fag tendencies. Being an actual redditor, he is subject to all the retardation you’d expect: TDS, a contrarian love of goyslop, cutesy writing style, weird flavor combinations, etc etc. Still he is exceptionally talented and has a genuine love of food and the science behind it. May the Lord help that little hapa find his way out of leftist retardation. Anyway, in his recipe the soup has a yoghurt-curry garnish so the use of ginger in the lentils is probably meant to evoke Indian food— which is why I left all of that out (not in the mood for anything jeet related).

I love fusilli, rotini, and other sauce holding pastas... That reminds me that I want to try making pasta alla gricia soon. I think my dad would like it a lot.
 
Anyway, in his recipe the soup has a yoghurt-curry garnish so the use of ginger in the lentils is probably meant to evoke Indian food— which is why I left all of that out (not in the mood for anything jeet related).
I don't disagree with that in general, it's just why ginger specifically? If it really is just to be gay well that's a bad reason. Garam masala has plenty of those strongly accenting spices, and if you don't want that, just smoked paprika by itself is amazing. I'd also substitute an onion for scallions, or even shallots. I have a specific bourbon-smoked paprika I like, which is paprika flavored with the smoke of burning staves from used bourbon casks.

Just plain hot Hungarian paprika is great too.

Also I usually like keeping lentils vegan so I'd substitute shroom stock for normal veggie stock if anything.
 
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I'm making gumbo tomorrow but I wanted something healthier after two days of butter heavy meals.
I roasted a halved acorn squash, cooked up some onion and ground chicken (seasoned with bunch of stuff including hp), then made mashed potatoes. So I made a semi cottage pie in the squash.

Roasted squash
Filled with seasoned cooked ground chicken and onion
Layer of peas
Topped with mashed potatoes (with some extra squash)
Broiled till brown on top
Gravy with horseradish drizzled on top
 
Breakfast Chilaquiles- Like all my recipes, came from Joy of Cooking. Very good. Breakfast nachos essentially. Loved it.

I'm still really struggling with finding uses for celery. I can't seem to buy it in reasonably small amounts, but I need it regularly for mirepoix at least once a week. I think I must be able to freeze it? Martha Stewart seems to say that I should be able to blanche it and freeze it which seems reasonable to me. Has anyone had luck with this? Or does anyone have retard proof celery focused recipes?

I finished my poached peaches from last week but there was so much syrup left over. I've been mixing a couple of tablespoons of that with seltzer to make a really nice fruit soda.
 
I make stock when my gallon ziplock of vegetable ends and bones in the freezer get too full and admittedly my stock is very celery heavy for the same reason.
So this is actually what my plan is. I've got a pound of poorly butchered chicken bones in my freezer from the past couple of weeks of practicing de-boning chicken thighs and I'd like to make a stock with it. But if you're saying that you find celery parts are fine to freeze for stock, I'll just freeze any celery still in my fridge 14 days after purchase for stock making. Simple enough.

This does lead into another cooking question I could use some feed back on. The only actual plans I have for this stock is to make a pan sauce for my chicken breast. I figure I can freeze the appropriate amount I need in individual servings and melt em down for each meal. But I'd love some other suggestions for stock usage. I was thinking trying to make a risotto, which I've never had before. It seems like there's a certain recklessness to trying recipes for things which you have no frame of reference of.
Right before finishing, I like to take out just a part of the soup with a small strainer, puree that, and reintroduce it.
Also I'm excited to give this a try. Lentil soup is becoming a staple for me. It's nutritious, filling, and I can make a large batch that I can reheat throughout the week for lunch. I'm also thinking of adding something like bacon, or the recipe I'm following says Canadian bacon to add more of a smoky flavor.
 
Literally put a whole onion head in a pan (cut in peaces), mix eggs with a bit of spice, cooking cream and a bit of bread Put the mix in the pan when the onion is nice and cooked, serve the goyslop in a plate and call it dinner.

This is the "not depressed to starve but too lazy to cook something proper" meal.
 
Just a frankenstein-schlop meal for lunch made from leftovers: some potato au gratin with a schnitzel and some halloumi pieces. It was really nice for what is was, but too heavy for a lunch and not an autumn meal.
For the piece of already baked gratin I re-slopped it and mixed in(and topped it with) chili flakes in oil and that was pretty good.
 
Bought some curry dip on sale from Aldi and decided to marinate some chicken thighs overnight with it.
Cooked it this morning with some veggies and it turned out great.
 

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Just a frankenstein-schlop meal for lunch made from leftovers: some potato au gratin with a schnitzel and some halloumi pieces.
Just fried some halloumi and topped with Mike's hot honey with sliced bosc pears and raspberries on the side. I will probably just do this again later. I was going to do queso blanco but the store didn't have it (the squeaky frying kind that is like halloumi).
 
So this is actually what my plan is. I've got a pound of poorly butchered chicken bones in my freezer from the past couple of weeks of practicing de-boning chicken thighs and I'd like to make a stock with it. But if you're saying that you find celery parts are fine to freeze for stock, I'll just freeze any celery still in my fridge 14 days after purchase for stock making. Simple enough.

This does lead into another cooking question I could use some feed back on. The only actual plans I have for this stock is to make a pan sauce for my chicken breast. I figure I can freeze the appropriate amount I need in individual servings and melt em down for each meal. But I'd love some other suggestions for stock usage. I was thinking trying to make a risotto, which I've never had before. It seems like there's a certain recklessness to trying recipes for things which you have no frame of reference of.

Also I'm excited to give this a try. Lentil soup is becoming a staple for me. It's nutritious, filling, and I can make a large batch that I can reheat throughout the week for lunch. I'm also thinking of adding something like bacon, or the recipe I'm following says Canadian bacon to add more of a smoky flavor.
Fresh chicken stock would be really good for a risotto. I’ve only made Risotto once, and I was too damn lazy to use the actual rice you’re supposed to use but it still turned out pretty good. It’s pretty time consuming though, as you have to slowly ladle in the liquid. Other than that chicken stock is honestly one of the most versatile things you can have. You can add it into soup, pastas, sauces, all kinds of things. There really isn’t much in the savory department that won’t be uplifted by adding a bit of stock.
 
The other night I was in the mood for something besides instant noodles, but I wasn't in the mood to get too experimental. I was craving just a reliable comfort food dish.

So I made a half assed chicken parmesan with some chicken thighs I had in the freezer.

And believe me, I really half assed it. I didn't bother with a lot of the typical recommendations, like "pound or slice flat for more even cooking" or I also went with a jarred storebought sauce instead of making something myself from scratch. And I used some pre-grated parmesan cheese. (To be fair, I got the stuff from the deli section that does actually come off a block, not the green tube Kraft sawdust.)

Really just laziness all around.

I read this recipe, and then proceeded to do basically nothing from it. I did lift the suggestion about adding some of the parmesan cheese to the panko and just winged everything else.

But honestly? It came out amazing.

Chicken parmesan is one of those little kid meals that's simple and just really hard to fuck up. Even half assing it, it's just a delicious, cozy meal.

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Served it over some pasta.

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The breading charred a little, but I didn't taste it, so whichever. Otherwise the chicken was cooked perfectly.

Sometime I'll put the effort into to do it properly and make it really fancy. But even what I made the other night was really nice and perked me up. I fried two chicken thighs so I had a second one for lunch the next day.

It's been rainy here recently because of Helene, so it was a good fit for the weather.
 
Fresh chicken stock would be really good for a risotto.
For some reason I'm terrible at risotto. Maybe I just lack the attention to tend to it as excruciatingly as you have to. I do have something I call Marmite risotto though which is better than it sounds. I make a broth from the Marmite, stovetop roast the rice in a bit of oil until it's showing a bit of golden brown, then add the broth a bit at a time (the first time it should go wild and boil instantly), along with any other ingredients.

It's a real ghetto type risotto but tasty. Mushroom stock gives a similar flavor if the idea of Marmite (or Vegemite) horrifies you.

Fun fact: if you're a vegan (I doubt there are many here), it's one of the few excellent vegan sources of B12.
 
For some reason I'm terrible at risotto.
People over complicate it. You could literally just sauté your garlic/onions and brown your rice at the beginning like usual then just put all your stock and wine in at once and just boil it until your rice is cooked. Then at the end add your butter and parmesano reggiano and a little heavy whipping cream. Also you don't need Arborio rice, any short grain rice will due. I use my Japanese short grain rice because I don't want to have keep Arborio rice just for risotto, it works just as good too.
 
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