The Smells in My Kitchen

[locke]

I grilled last week! Love that I can use my grill again.

[Eaquae Legit]

I keep getting a whiff of the beef and onions simmering on the stove. Stew stew stew. Long, slow simmering should make it tender enough for me and hopefully even Nom!

[Eaquae Legit]

Roasted red pepper and black bean soup and rising bread.

I've had the food blahs for a couple of weeks, which is a real disruption to my life for many reasons. That is, it has repercussions beyond just eating repetitive food. Anyway, after going through some less-used cookbooks and planning out some more exciting food this week, making the grocery list, and doing the shopping, I went to the library, where I found three cookbooks - Middle Eastern, Lebanese, and Romanian/Bulgarian/Balkan.

You guys, I am STOKED. So many awesome, awesome ideas. I had no idea Lebanese cuisine used so much yoghurt! Or that Balkan foods were so exciting and full of bright vegetables! I am going to end up photocopying large swathes of these books, because no way am I going to be able to cook everything I want before I have to return them.

Now I just have to be good and stick to the week's menu and not get ahead of myself. Since tomorrow is Middle Eastern anyway, that shouldn't be too hard. Homemade falafel, here we come!

I have eaten the soup and it is glorious. A recipe for my book for sure!

[LilBee91]

Umm...that soup sounds delicious. Suddenly my leftover casserole seems rather unappealing.

[Young Val]

I am super into "fancy" sandwiches, lately. Quick, tasty, and don't have to heat up the kitchen.

Tonight's dinner was Black forest ham, semi-soft goat cheese, dijon mustard, tomatoes, and arugula on grilled sourdough, served with apple slices. YUM.

[Eaquae Legit]

Tonight's homemade falafel were awesome. Not really very hard to make at all! No more mixes here! I fried them on cast iron instead of deep-frying, and they turned out great. I'm well pleased, because I HATE deep-frying falafel with a passion. It's so messy! We had it with pita and fresh veggies and homemade tzatziki.

The soup was most excellent, and since I have it written down now, I may as well share it.

4 red peppers, halved and de-seeded
2 red chillies (optional), halved
2 tomatoes, halved
1 onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
4 cups veggie stock
150g dried black beans
1/2 cup dry red lentils (optional, but I like the thickness they add to the soup)
1 tsp each dried oregano, thyme, cumin, coriander seed
salt and pepper
olive oil
cilantro and sour cream, to serve

1. Soak the beans overnight, then drain. Cover with plenty of fresh water and bring to a boil, simmer for 45 minutes or until beans are tender.
2. Meanwhile, arrange the tomatoes, peppers (open side down), and chillies on a baking sheet and broil for 10 minutes, then turn the peppers over. Broil for a further 5-10 minutes until the skins blacken. Remove from the oven and let cool until you can handle them.
3. Fry the onions and garlic in a good glug of olive oil in a large pot. When translucent, add the stock, spices, and lentils. Drain the beans, reserving at least 2 cups of the cooking liquid, then add the beans and liquid to the stock.
4. When the vegetables are cool enough to handle, peel the skins off the peppers, chop all the veggies coarsely, and add to the pot. Check the seasoning. Let it all simmer until the lentils have cooked down, adding more water or stock if needed. Puree with a hand mixer until mostly smooth.
5. Serve up, adding a handful of cilantro and a dollop of sour cream to each bowl.

[LilBee91]

I have a baking question, and I figure you Pweb folk are pretty smart.

I am thinking about bringing these cinnamon rolls into work one morning this week. I've made them before and they are most delicious. The problem, however, is that there is about three hours worth of rising time, and I don't particularly want to wake up at five in the morning to get them done on time. I could make them the night before, but I'd rather them be hot and fresh. Is there a good way to slow down rising times so I could let it rise overnight? Can you let breads rise and then toss them in the fridge without them collapsing?

[Petra456]

You could probably just cover the dough and let it do it's last rise overnight in the fridge. I've done this with a couple of other cinnamon roll recipes, so my guess is it'll probably be fine (as long as it's not a really long night).

I've been meaning to remake the recipe you posted. I've only tried it once and it was a complete failure (our oven was really acting weird, so I really don't think it's the recipe's fault).

[Young Val]

Fred is totally right; you can let the dough rise overnight in the fridge.

You have to make sure you bring it back up to room temperature, though, before baking. Deb talks about doing this in comment #173 on that post! (Her cinnamon rolls are the BEST).

[Rei]

I'm currently working on saffron and currant buns. I am looking forward to them.

[Platypi007]

I'm currently working on saffron and currant buns. I am looking forward to them.

Those sound wonderful!

[elfprince13]

Cookout today! It was delicious. We grilled all the things - pineapple, hamburgers, hotdogs/sausages, vegetable/marinated-steak skewers, corn on the cob. Also I made a kiwi banana orange smoothie <3

[Luet]

I am not much of a cook but I get in moods. I was feeling particularly guilty (about general overspending) and useless today, so I decided to cook. I made a spinach, tomato and jack quiche. And a vegetarian chili. Haven't tried either yet, but hopefully they will be good. I'll be freezing most of the chili for future meals, since Mark won't eat it.

[Young Val]

I have some absolutely beautiful sour cherries from the farmers market. I think I'll end up making SK's sour cherry slab pie, but if anyone else has any suggestions I'd love to hear 'em! It's my first time baking with cherries!

[buckshot]

We have a gone wild red cherry tree on the edge of a field by a old homestead site that is just loaded with cherries some years. Anyhow when I was haying there a couple years ago I stopped the tractor under the tree and started eating and they were so good I filled my lunchbox full and brought them home. I found my moms cherry pie recipe and whipped a good lookin pie (remember I'm a pie eatin bastard) and proudly served it up to the family. The pie was beyond good and as I was scraping up the last wonderous forkfull I noticed the little maggoty wormmy lookin guys, they came through the cooking process quite intact.

[Luet]

Why don't we have a vomiting smiley? *barf*

[Dr. Mobius]

Cookout today! It was delicious. We grilled all the things - pineapple, hamburgers, hotdogs/sausages, vegetable/marinated-steak skewers, corn on the cob. Also I made a kiwi banana orange smoothie <3

How the hell do you grill a smoothie?

[elfprince13]

Cookout today! It was delicious. We grilled all the things - pineapple, hamburgers, hotdogs/sausages, vegetable/marinated-steak skewers, corn on the cob. Also I made a kiwi banana orange smoothie <3

How the hell do you grill a smoothie?

It's a secret


I made a large batch of orange-ginger-honey-beets which I had for dinner the last 2 nights. Delicious. On both nights I subsequently also had deep orangey-reddish pee.

[steph]

Lately? Cup o' noodles. Box mac and cheese. Microwave chimichangas. Pizza rolls.

Brian did make a killer fresh marinara from our CSA veggies, though.

Other than that, Tyler's been cooking all of the above dinners.

[Gravity Defier]

Tyler's been cooking all of the above dinners.

For any particular reason?

[Eaquae Legit]

I think we know the reason now. Good on you, Tyler, for stepping up your game when mama and papa need you! If he cares, that's a big from a pwebber he's never met (yet)!

Right now there is experimental bread finishing in the breadmaker - some sort of rye/buckwheat/wheat monstrosity with caraway and some soured milk in place of some of the water. And the last of the sunflower seeds our housemate left us in September. It will be an edible bread-like object, and anything above that is a bonus! And there's pizza dough on the go now, hopefully enough to put some in the freezer for a quick meal at a later date. And later I might make muffins, because we still have a ton of sour milk.

[steph]

It's technically in my living room, but my house smells like vanilla! Brian got me 100 extract grade vanilla beans for my birthday so I can make a gallon of extract. They smell so good!

He also got me Fizz Giz carbonator! I'm excited to carbonate tasty things. And my dad is going to help me build a valve into a wider mouthed container so I can carbonate grapes and watermelon and anything else I can think of! It's going to be awesome.

[powerfulcheese04]

I just made Cinnamon Toast Crunch cupcakes.

They are as amazing as they sound!


(Also, buttercream frosting is approximately 100 million times easier in a stand mixer than with a whisk or a hand mixer. Hand mixer frosting is epic fail and whisk frosting is at least 24 hours of sore arms.)

[steph]

Send me some?

[Gravity Defier]

After almost 6 months, I finally broke down and made myself some chicken and green chile enchiladas. OH. Baby. Where have you been all these months?


I also cut up some pineapple, so it smells like that as well. Good day to be eating in my apartment.

[Luet]

I want some!

[Petra456]

Oh man, that sounds sooo good right now!

The bite of Seattle was last weekend and I tried fried pickles for the first time. My kitchen is going to smell like them really soon because they were amazing and I have to find a way to make them!

[Gravity Defier]

I will eat a serving for the both of you. I'm just that nice.

[steph]

I'm sure you've shared before, but frankly, I'm too lazy to look it up, so I'm going to ask again.

Care to share your enchilada recipe? You're, like, authentic New Mexican/Arizonan and I'm just a Colorado girl. I'd totally trust your enchilada method.

[LilBee91]

I'm sure you've shared before, but frankly, I'm too lazy to look it up, so I'm going to ask again.

Care to share your enchilada recipe? You're, like, authentic New Mexican/Arizonan and I'm just a Colorado girl. I'd totally trust your enchilada method.

Ooo! Please do! I love me some green chile enchiladas but an in no way skilled enough nor authentic enough to try them. Maybe with the recipe of a legit southwesterner I can find the courage!

[Gravity Defier]

I'm not sure this recipe is all that authentic, since I'm likewise not sure enchiladas are technically an authentic Mexican food, but this is what my paternal grandmother taught my mom many moons ago and what my mom taught me. It's New Mexico style, so we don't do rolls for enchiladas, we do layers. This may not actually be all that helpful, since we just kind of know how to do it but as best as measurements can be put on this:

Chicken Enchilada Sauce
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 can cream of mushroom soup
milk
green chile - chopped (we got this roasted but if you need to settle for canned, that's okay)
onion - chopped (regular, not green)
garlic (chopped? Minced? basically, not whole cloves or whatever)

Empty soups into a pot. Fill each soup can 3/4 full of milk; pour milk into the pot. Add green chile, onion, and garlic to mixture. Heat, then simmer. This shouldn't be runny but it should be too thick/gloopy, either. You may need to adjust how much milk you use.

Chicken Enchiladas
Ingredients:

Sauce
Tortillas
Cheese (I use a mixture of cheeses for this, cheddar and monterey jack)
Chicken - cooked and shredded (boneless chicken breast, boil to cook, let cool, shred - I tend to use one medium-large sized breast but if it's smaller, then two)

Heat oil in a skillet. Fry tortilla about 20 seconds or until soft. Layer in casserole dish (I can usually get four in the corners of the dish and then add two overlapping those in the middle) and cover with a layer of sauce. Sprinkle chicken and cheese over the sauce. Repeat for desired number of layers, omitting chicken on the last layer. Cook in oven at 350 for 20-30 minutes.

Not sure how much sense that makes but it's easy enough, I think, once you get the hang of it.

[LilBee91]

Love!

[Syphon the Sun]

Or, as I call it, enchilada lasagna!

[steph]

Or, as I call it, enchilada lasagna!

If you notice, Alea, I didn't call you authentic Mexican, only authentic New Mexican.

That's actually fairly close to how I do mine. Mine uses less soup and some sour cream instead. And chicken broth instead of milk.

I pulled a pan out of the freezer to bake for dinner last night. Was delicious. And I thought of Alea the whole meal!

[Eaquae Legit]

Today's dinner featured my first batch of homemade yoghurt! It was remarkably easy to make, and next time I'm going to add some milk powder. I'm going to start with a fresh culture next time, but after that I'm going to try to just culture it like a sourdough starter. We go through a reasonable amount of yoghurt so this is a pretty good thing for us.