Recipes

Feb. 17th, 2020 12:48 pm
pjthompson: quotes (quotei)
Random quote of the day:

“Science means simply the aggregate of all the recipes that are always successful. All the rest is literature.”

—Paul Valéry, Moralités



Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Key and Peele, Celine Dion, or Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies
pjthompson: (Default)
It seems like I spent the whole day yesterday cooking. I didn’t, but I did work for my food. I got a late start to the market, about 2, but got some luscious short ribs. As soon as I got home I had to start chopping veggies and garlic, dredging and browning ribs, sauteeing, then adding everything to the pot with the broth. We had a couple of cups of homemade beef broth in the freezer, but I supplemented it with Swanson’s. I ain’t proud.

Then I could rest up for an hour and a half while everything bubbled away (about 4:30). I cleaned up the worst of the kitchen mess, then went to sit out in the back with Min and read a little. It was a gorgeous sunny day, as I said yesterday, the first we’d had in awhile. Today’s another fine day. I enjoyed sitting in the sun. (And my apologies to those of you enduring a late in the season snowstorm.)

About a half hour before serving time I added some sliced shrooms to the pot, then got the wheat noodles on to boil. If I do say so myself, the meal was worth all the work. Just delicious. Below’s the recipe if you’re interested. I got it from allrecipes.com and modified a bit. It wasn’t all that hard, just a lot of prep work up front, but no more than if you made this in a crock pot. I also use more onions and garlic then is called for here because I’m a barbarian who likes to punch up the flavor, and I may have added more celery and carrots as well. Okay, so maybe my wrist got a little heavy on the wine, too. I also added the mushrooms in the last half hour of cooking because I like mushrooms in stuff like this, dammit.

Smothered Beef Short Ribs
  1. 1/2 cup olive oil
  2. 4 pounds beef short ribs
  3. salt and pepper to taste
  4. 1 cup all-purpose flour (I use wheat flour as it adds a really nice dimension to the flavor)
  5. 2 cups chopped onions
  6. 1 cup chopped celery
  7. 1 cup chopped carrots
  8. 2 tablespoons minced garlic
  9. 3 bay leaves
  10. 1 tablespoon dried thyme
  11. 1 cup red wine
  12. 8 cups beef stock
  13. 1/4 cup chopped parsley

Heat the oil in a large pot over medium high heat. Season the ribs with salt and pepper to taste and dredge them in flour. Fry the ribs in the oil in small batches, adding oil as needed, to sear the meat. This should take 2 to 3 minutes per batch. Set ribs aside.

In the same pot, add the onions and saute for 2 minutes. Add the celery and carrots and saute for 1 more minute. Season with salt and pepper to taste, and then stir in the garlic, bay leaves and thyme and cook for 1 more minute.

Deglaze the pot with the red wine, scraping up all the bits on the bottom. Add the stock, bring to a boil, reduce heat to low and simmer. Add the ribs and continue to simmer for 2 hours, until the sauce thickens. Stir in the parsley and serve.

pjthompson: (Default)
I got this recipe from the Yahoo Food page. We try to go meatless once or twice a week, so this sounded like a good bet to satisfy our junk food cravings the veggie way. It turned out to be quite delicious. We used four of the regular size (non-Costco size) Boca burgers which we cooked before adding to the sauce, and we substituted a yellow sweet pepper for the green since I can't digest the green. It added a wonderful sweetness. I usually make my own barbecue sauce, but in this case we used the Masterpiece Original bottled sauce and we did use the (optional) soy sauce. Definitely a keeper in this household.

We froze the rest but haven't tried it out yet so I don't know if this freezes well. I can't imagine it wouldn't, but you never know...

Vegetarian Sloppy Joes

• cook time: 25 mins
• servings: 8

ingredients

• 1 cup chopped onion
• 1 large green sweet pepper, chopped
• 1 tablespoon cooking oil
• 1-1/2 cups refrigerated or frozen precooked and crumbled ground-meat substitute (soy protein)
• 1 10-3/4-ounce can tomato puree
• 1 cup water
• 1/3 cup bottled barbecue sauce
• 1 tablespoon yellow mustard
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce (optional)
• 2 teaspoons chili powder
• 1 teaspoon bottled minced garlic (2 cloves)
• 8 to 10 hamburger buns, toasted

directions

1. In a large skillet cook onion and sweet pepper in hot oil for 5 to 7 minutes or until tender. Stir in ground-meat substitute, tomato puree, the water, barbecue sauce, mustard, soy sauce (if desired), chili powder, and garlic.
2. Bring to boiling; reduce heat. Simmer, uncovered, for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Serve on buns. Makes 8 to 10 servings.
pjthompson: (Default)
I made the best fish tacos on Saturday--omg, Oh. My. God. to die for. I also picked up some ears of sweet red corn. So sweet and delicious! Heaven. The recipe (from Bon Appétit, but really not as irritating as those recipes sometimes get) for the fish tacos is behind the cut. I used talapia. Although the ingredient list is a little long, most of it gets thrown together in a marinade, so it's really not that time consuming. I eschewed the cabbage—that's traditional, but cabbage and I don't get along.

Confession: I used green taco sauce because I didn't feel like going to the market and getting salsa verde or making my own. Yes, I guess that means I'm a barbarian.

Other confession: I used the electric counter top grill instead of the barbecue because I didn't feel like dealing with briquettes. See above about barbarism.

Yet another confession: I didn't grill the tortillas. I used an old trick I picked up from Rick Bayless's book, Mexico One Plate at a Time. Get a dishtowel and wet it thoroughly, wrap the corn tortillas inside, then nuke them in the microwave for 1-2 minutes (depending on how hot you like them) and they come out all soft and warm and nummy. If you take them straight out of the freezer, you might have to go as much as 3 minutes.

Yum. There was much snarfing heard in the land.

Muy bueno fish tacos. )
pjthompson: (Default)
Yep, it's a keeper. This is a Williams-Sonoma recipe, but it's very similar to a Lamb Shanks Provençale I used to make. It was quite delicious on a cold, rainy day—the kind of meal where you throw stuff in a pot and let it cook half the day, and the house smells wonderful. It works well with the measurements reduced by thirds or two-thirds. And when I cook, more garlic and wine always manage to fall into the pot. Don't know how that happens...

Braised Lamb Shanks with White Beans

"You can substitute the same amount of veal shanks if you like."

1-1/2 cups dried small white, white kidney, or cannellini beans
2 Tbs. extra-virgin olive oil
6 lamb shanks, each 1/2 to 3/4 lb.
1 yellow onion, finely diced
1 celery stalk, finely diced
2 large carrots, peeled and finely diced
6 garlic cloves, minced
1-1/2 cups dry red wine such as Côtes-du-Rhône, Cabernet Sauvignon, or Chianti
1-1/2 cups chicken broth
1-1/2 cups peeled, seeded and chopped tomatoes (fresh or canned)
3 Tbs. tomato paste
1 tsp. chopped fresh thyme
1 bay leaf
Salt and pepper to taste

Pick over the beans and discard any misshapen beans and stones. Rinse the beans, place in a bowl and add water to cover generously. Let stand for about 3 hours.

Drain the beans and place in a saucepan with water to cover by 2 inches. Place over medium-high heat and bring to boil. Reduce the heat to low and simmer, uncovered, until nearly tender, 45 to 60 minutes. Drain well.

Meanwhile, in a deep, heavy stock pot over medium heat, warm the olive oil. Add the lamb shanks and brown on all sides, 10 to 12 minutes. Transfer the shanks to a plate. Add the onion, celery and carrots to the pan and sauté over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the onion is soft, about 10 minutes. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Add the wine, broth, tomatoes, tomato paste, thyme, bay leaf and lamb shanks. Bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to low, cover and simmer until the shanks can be easily pierced with a skewer, 1-1/2 to 2 hours.

Add the beans, stir well, cover and simmer gentle until lamb begins to fall from the bone and the beans are tender, about 30 minutes more. Season with salt and pepper. Remove bay leaf and discard.

Correction

Dec. 26th, 2005 12:11 pm
pjthompson: (Default)
In case any of you rushed right out to make that roasted pork recipe I posted yesterday...

That should have read:

1 tbsp. dried thyme (or, if someone was sure they had thyme in the cupboard and discovered at the last minute they did not, 3/4 tbsp. parsley flakes and 1/4 italian seasoning) (really)

Bwoogity. That would have been some grassy tasting pork.
pjthompson: (Default)
If you're looking for vegetarian or low-cal, move it along, nothing to see here...

There's a lot of steps, but this is actually fairly easy to prepare and delicious. If you're a saucy sort, you may want to double up on the Madeira sauce because it cooks away quite a bit.

4 lb. boneless pork loin roast, cut in two lengthwise
1 c. pitted prunes
1 c. dried apricots
1 garlic clove (if you're a sissy)
Fresh ground black pepper, to taste
8 tbsp. butter, softened (but that's what makes it good, nutritionists)
1 tbsp. dried thyme (or, if someone was sure they had thyme in the cupboard and discovered at the last minute they did not, 3/4 tbsp. parsley flakes and 1/4 italian seasoning) (really)
1 c. Madeira wine
1 tbsp. molasses
Salt to taste
Watercress, garnish (if you're a into that sort of thing)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place dried fruit onto one side of the roast (or cut a channel if you prefer), alternating prunes and apricots. Cut the garlic into thin slivers. Make deep slits in the roast with the tip of the knife and push the garlic into the slits. Tie roast with twine and rub surface with salt and pepper.

Set roast in a shallow baking pan. Smear butter over the roast. Sprinkle with the thyme. Stir Madeira and molasses together in a small bowl, and pour over roast. Set the pan on the middle rack of the oven.

Bake for 1-1/2 hours (approximately 20 minutes per pound), basting frequently.

When roast is done, remove it from the oven and let it stand, loosely covered with foil, for 15-20 minutes. Cut into thin slices. Arrange slices on serving platter. Spoon pan juices over slices. Garnish the platter with watercress. Serve immediately.

Alternately, just slap in on the plates and scarf.

ETA: CORRECTION! That should be: 3/4 tbsp. parsley flakes and 1/4 italian seasoning as a substitute, not cup! Yikes!

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