What Have You Cooked Recently?

[AnOminous]

I prefer making smaller batches of air fryer cheesecake by using those silicon muffin pans. Makes it easier to customize.

Also quicker. It's really about four hours at a bare minimum in the fridge to be ready to eat and better an entire night. I have a bunch of those little silicone cups already too.

 

[The I Scream Man]

You asked for it, here's a shitty photo of the last bowl of my borscht looking really awful, I promise it was great. Maybe I'll do more shit photos of my really nice food, we are not a plating kind of family lmao. On another note, I'm 90% certain we own the same dinnerwear Jack Scalfani used to feature.
View attachment 5508141

Nothing about this looks bad, it looks fantastic to me

I really need to make some or go buy some from the local Russian food truck, gat damn

 

[R00T]

Don’t have a picture but I’ve been using grandma’s traditional Slavic cookbook to try and make things with mostly failures and some success. Today I managed a batch of pirohy with little to no issues other than a ton of left over filling which I used to make a potato pancake. They look really clumsy but now that I’ve got the process down I can work on making them look good.

 

[CIS White Droid]

Simmered some black beans, kielbasa, bell peppers, onions and celery all day and served over rice. It was the perfect thing for a chilly November day and I even have left overs for tomorrow.

 

[mindlessobserver]

Tried making the cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving yesterday and realized halfway and a pound of cranberries into it that I didn't have enough fucking sugar. Substituted mollases (that's basically brown sugar now, right?)

Nope. Tastes like ass. Gonna have to try again. It set PERFECTLY into a jelly too .

 

[MoffAlbert]

I am once again back making gnocchi based bullshit. Inspired by braised beef ravioli I had as takeout from an Italian restaurant, I decided to make my own vodka sauce and dump a bunch of gnocchi and braised beef in it.

I started by cubing up a chuck roast, browning the cubes, adding onions to the drippings, replacing the meat into the Dutch oven, sprinkling on salt, pepper, and Italian seasoning, and covering it with beef broth and red wine and slapping it in the oven for a couple hours.

When that was done, I started the vodka sauce. Took some olive oil, put it in a skillet, added minced garlic, then tomato paste, then vodka, and then heavy cream. Let that mix together, and then added my beef and its drippings to the sauce. I added the cooked gnocchi next, then mozzarella and an Italian cheese blend. Baked it in the skillet for 15 minutes, and when it was done I topped it with fresh parsley and basil.

It was perfect. The beef was nice and tender, and the sauce was deliciously tangy. I'll definitely be making it again. Tons of leftovers, and I was practically full after the first bowl. Might have a side salad next time so I don't feel so guilty for eating such a rich and heavy meal.

 

[AnOminous]

Tried making the cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving yesterday and realized halfway and a pound of cranberries into it that I didn't have enough fucking sugar. Substituted mollases (that's basically brown sugar now, right?)

I honestly detest cranberries and think nothing can be done to them or with them to make them anything other than ass.

 

[mindlessobserver]

Cranberries can be good if used properly. They are a sour and bitter berry, which makes them complicated. They do suck ass a dessert but incorporate really good with savory dishes. Like say, roast turkey. Really good in salads too. Dried cranberries, mixed greens, walnuts and diced apple with balsamic vinaigrette is fucking amazing. Sprinkle a little goat cheese on that sucker and it's even better.

 

[AnOminous]

Cranberries can be good if used properly.

And the best use of cranberries is throwing them in the trash and buying something actually edible.

 

[2 braincells]

Recent items I’ve baked/tested


My meringue cracked

Mississippi mud pie



Banana nut bread


Bread pudding. Boss did something to the top it usually doesn’t look like that lmao.

 

[Tablet County]

I made some really good vodka sauce about a month ago. Unfortunately the combination of spicy and acidic ingredients helped me to realize I've got acid reflux disease.
On that topic, what's a good vodka to use for sauce? I'm not a drinker so I know very little about booze but I think I could've used better vodka.

 

[derpherp2]

I made some really good vodka sauce about a month ago. Unfortunately the combination of spicy and acidic ingredients helped me to realize I've got acid reflux disease.
On that topic, what's a good vodka to use for sauce? I'm not a drinker so I know very little about booze but I think I could've used better vodka.

I'm not a big enough alcoholic anymore to remember liquor brands but I specifically remember avoiding making any sauces using absolut or hennessy. iirc because absolut is a fuckton of ghetto vodka for sauce reasons, and hennessy is a shitty cognac in the first place.

Jack Daniels was awesome for whiskey glaze purposes though. And whatever "brand" rum people liked back then was also useable as a recipe-thing.
Also yes, there's a surprising amount of sauces/batters/etc you can make with liquor it's pretty fucking funny.

 

[The I Scream Man]

My only contribution to the cranberry question is that I really like rhubarb and cranberry together, usually as a pie or cobbler or something

Its fuckin good, don't let those miserable haters such as "my family" tell you otherwise

 

[CIS White Droid]

My only contribution to the cranberry question is that I really like rhubarb and cranberry together, usually as a pie or cobbler or something

Its fuckin good, don't let those miserable haters such as "my family" tell you otherwise

Cranberries are the perfect addition to an apple pie if you only have sweet apples on hand; if you like a tart apple pie that is. I, however, am a weirdo that loves to eat crab apples so your milage may vary.

 

[The I Scream Man]

Cranberries are the perfect addition to an apple pie if you only have sweet apples on hand; if you like a tart apple pie that is. I, however, am a weirdo that loves to eat crab apples so your milage may vary.

If you ever get the opportunity please PLEASE make crab apple jelly, its tremendously good and goes well with lots of things

Last time I had some I used it for filling in a danish braid, it was unbelievable

 

[Kosher Salt]

On that topic, what's a good vodka to use for sauce? I'm not a drinker so I know very little about booze but I think I could've used better vodka.

Vodka sauce in particular is one that I don't think it matters what vodka you use. It's a neutral spirit (i.e. you shouldn't be able to taste it), you're using a relatively small amount, and you're evaporating off all of the alcohol.

Anything else you're cooking with, the "if you wouldn't drink it, you shouldn't cook with it" rule of thumb applies. For vodka, it's more of "if you wouldn't drink it, what the fuck are you planning to do with the rest of it".

 

[AnOminous]

I would generally not cook with top shelf liquors, but also not with bottom shelf undrinkable trash. I'd go for the low end of what's drinkable, preferably without a particularly distinctive taste unless I want that actual taste. So maybe from Smirnoff to Stolichnaya for vodka (the anise-like undertones are actually good for sweets imo), maybe Grey Goose but at that point, you're buying it for drinking afterwards.

I find cooking with a liquor (or beer) generally loses any of the high notes in better (and usually pricier) liquor so you're wasting it on cooking. Just don't use anything with an actively BAD taste that will fuck up the dish, that is like in the adage, if it's so bad you wouldn't drink it.

For instance, when I make peach ice cream, I usually add some Old Grand-Dad (just a shot or so to a gallon of batter or it won't freeze). I've tried higher grade bourbon but it doesn't really improve the taste.

Unless you're a booze autist who never drinks anything but the most expensive, it'll work.

There are also non-alcoholic extracts of most common liquors that work fine since in most cases, you're cooking off the alcohol anyway, and they're specifically formulated for cooking.

Maybe I'm a pleb but I don't consider Hennessy too bad to cook with.

As for the cranberries/crabapples/rhubarb question, nix to the first two but rhubarb is okay I suppose, as is persimmon at least in pie.

 

[Kosher Salt]

Generally speaking all of the above is true. But for vodka sauce in particular you're literally just using it because the alcohol extracts stuff from the tomato paste and garlic and onion, and then it blends all of that into the cream sauce, and then you cook it until all of the alcohol cooks off. It's more of a chemical extraction step than it is an actual ingredient, and it shouldn't really taste like anything in the finished dish - you just taste the effect that it had on everything else.

Pretty much any other wine or spirit, you're actually going to taste it in the finished dish, so you want something that's at least decent quality.

And yeah, "alcohol cooks off" isn't entirely true, but the amount that's added, and the amount that's left after reducing, is probably some small fraction of a percent.

 

[AnOminous]

And yeah, "alcohol cooks off" isn't entirely true, but the amount that's added, and the amount that's left after reducing, is probably some small fraction of a percent.

It's nearly homeopathic. If there's any flavor at all, it's usually the impurities in the vodka, and since most impurities are from cheap-ass vodka that tastes like shit, you generally wouldn't use them. (This is why I wouldn't use Stoli in a vodka sauce, because while it actually has a discernible flavor that I like, it's not an appropriate one for a vodka sauce.)

One exception is when you add the alcohol at the end, the way some restaurants serve lobster bisque with a shot of alcohol on the side. Usually it's brandy but I like sherry (for that and pretty much nothing else).

 

[Stan]

I'd go for the low end of what's drinkable, preferably without a particularly distinctive taste unless I want that actual taste. So maybe from Smirnoff to Stolichnaya for vodka (the anise-like undertones are actually good for sweets imo), maybe Grey Goose but at that point, you're buying it for drinking afterwards.

I quite agree- I'm loathe to cook with $25/bottle wines, more like $12-15/bottle is good. The Costco box wines and bulk spirits are good for this, they punch above their price in value.