theweaselking: (Default)
 photo h28DAF5AF_zpsaurkqmlv.jpg

I ran across a recipe for slow-cooker Chicken Ropa Vieja, which is basically a slow-cooked shredded-chicken stew and it's both easy and very good. I've made it twice now.

Recipe, with notes, reproduced to avoid linkrot, behind the cut

Slow Cooker Chicken Ropa Vieja )
theweaselking: (Default)
I'm way behind on recording recipies again. I've made this one a half-dozen times and it's turned out great every time, so I really should have written it down sooner.

Paprika Chicken And Spinach In White Wine Butter Thyme Sauce.

Recipe reproduced to avoid linkrot, with notes. )
theweaselking: (Default)
Two #cookbookwithacamera recipes today!

First, in celebration of the weather being nice enough to use the barbecue, I have Grilled Stuff On Sticks.

 photo IMG_20150502_190239_zps2l1ocavo.jpg

The recipe! )

Recipe #2 is a classic case of Truth In Food Names: "Chicken With 40 Cloves Of Garlic". Quick, guess what's in it.

Hint:
 photo IMG_20150507_175535_zpsujjm1bil.jpg

More pictures! )

But anyway, yeah, here's the recipe-with-notes, reproducing to avoid linkrot:
RECIPE! )

CHEFFERY
theweaselking: (Default)
I've actually forgotten what I made that originally required fresh rosemary, but one of the side effects of buying fresh herbs is that there's ALWAYS way more than you need for any one recipe. Which left me with a ton of rosemary left over and a need to use it up.

So here's what I did!

First: This is a recipe for Crispy Sriracha Rosemary Chicken, which may not be a flavour combination you'd think is great and, uh, you're kinda right. I made it according to that recipe and while it was far from inedible, the cool taste of the rosemary and the bite of the sriracha and lemon and garlic just never meshed well for me. So I remade it with FRESH GINGER instead and that turned out awesome.

Reproducing here with notes and to avoid linkrot:
Crispy Sriracha rosemary GINGER Chicken!

Ingredients (modified from the original):
4-ish boneless skinless chicken breasts (If they're really plump, slice them in half. You want the marinade to reach as much of the meat as possible)
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons Sriracha
A moderately large piece of fresh ginger, peeled and sliced into chunks about the size of your thumbnail and half a finger thickness. About 4 tablespoons, ish.
3 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 cup plain Greek yogurt

Directions (unmodified! the directions worked great, the ingredients just needed adjusting):
1. In a large bowl, combine Greek yogurt, olive oil, lemon juice, ginger, sriracha, minced garlic, and salt and pepper to taste.
2. Place chicken breasts in a large resealable plastic bag and pour marinade mixture over them. Seal bag and toss carefully to coat chicken.
3. Place bag in refrigerator and let sit 2-4 hours to marinate.
4. When chicken is fully marinated, heat oven to 375 degrees F. Place chicken in an oven and broiler-safe baking dish and pour extra marinade over the top.
5. Bake chicken until cooked through, about 40-45 minutes. Heat broiler to HIGH and cook chicken until crispy and golden brown, about 5-7 minutes.

Serve with a couple of the ginger pieces on the spicy chicken.


Second! Crispy Baked Rosemary Garlic Fries

As-written, these were a little disappointing - it was a lot of fiddly work compared to many other "oven fries" recipes, and the decision to add so much of the seasoning *after* cooking led to some oddities in the flavour - ambushes of near-raw garlic and entire rosemary leaves sticking in the teeth. As well, I wasn't nearly careful enough about making all my wedges both the same size, and small, so some of them were cripy and awesome (although underseasoned) but others were doughy. So I'm definitely doing these again, but I'm going to make some changes.

Ingredients (mostly unmodified - I'm keeping the ingredients, I'm just doing different things with them):
3 potatoes, peeled and cut into even wedges. Wedges should be approximately all the same size, and try to avoid them getting much more (OR LESS!) than 2 cm wide on the wide edge.
olive oil to rim pan
1 Tbsp olive oil (for coating fries)
Salt and pepper to taste (recipe says ~ 1/4 tsp each, I plan to *at least* double that next time)
"large handful" rosemary (About a sprig and a half, denuded, worked well for me. Especially because it was all I had left. Recipe says to leave the leaves intact and add late - nope, I'm going to mince and add early next time)
2-3 cloves fresh garlic, minced

Instructions (here's where my bigger changes are - I'm going to throw the rosemary and garlic in early, instead of late):

1. Preheat oven to 475 degrees F.
2. Soak potatoes in hot water for 15 minutes, then drain and dry thoroughly with paper towels or clean dish towels.
3. Dry the bowl they were in and then place them back in. Drizzle with 1-2 Tbsp olive oil and add salt, pepper, minced garlic, and minced rosemary, and toss.
4. Coat a rimmed baking sheet with oil and drain off any excess. Transfer fries to baking sheet and arrange in a single layer.
5. Cover with foil and bake for 5 minutes. Then remove foil and bake for 15 minutes more. Remove from oven to turn over with a spatula. If they stick, just gently nudge them with the spatula and they will lift off the sheet. Make sure to keep them in a single layer to ensure even baking. Place back in oven to cook for another 5 minutes.
6. Remove from oven, flipping once more. Return to oven for 5-10 minutes more or until golden brown and crispy.
7. Remove from oven and transfer to a large bowl. Season with additional salt to taste while still hot. Toss and serve warm.
theweaselking: (Default)
Originally expressed as "DON'T FUCKING REHEAT RICE", the NHS clarifies it to "Never eat rice that has been at room temperature after cooking. Cook it, eat it hot, put it in the fridge still hot, then reheat it to hot once and only once, and you're okay. But if it cools to room temperature, or you're tempted to fridge it a second time, don't."

I did not know this.
I am learning more cheffery.
theweaselking: (Default)
Today I went to a place that served potato wedges. And by "potato wedges" I mean "wedges, wrapped in bacon, drizzled with chili oil, served with madras mayo".

SO GOOD. Would have been better if instead of "madras mayo" it was plain "madras sauce", or even currywurst sauce (madras+ketchup), but still, EXCELLENT.

I need to make that.
theweaselking: (Science!)
CHEFFERY.

So I made a modified version of THIS.
This is an awesome recipe. Holy SHIT it is rich. And I modified it. But here's Chicken With Bacon And Leeks In Cream Sauce )
theweaselking: (Default)
 photo anigif_enhanced-1325-1411585699-1_zpsb17cb1c5.gif

CHEFFERY.

Yesterday was thanksgiving, so as is my tradition we went and ate what the Pilgrims ate: Indian food, cooked by someone else. We went to an Indian restaurant with friends.

Today I decided to cook Keith "buy the best ingredients you can, and do as little as possible to them" Floyd style.

So we had:

Roast beef (buy meat: rub with garlic powder, salt, pepper, rosemary. Roast in pan on bed of sliced onion rounds until thermometer says medium-rare. Slice)
Mashed potatoes (Potatoes: peel, boil, drain, salt, butter, pepper, milk, mash, serve)
A friend's homemade Carmenère (open, serve)
Pumpkin pie (from local market) with whipped cream (from a can)

Truly delicious, very very simple.
theweaselking: (Default)
Because it's a THING that you can get in places, I decided to go dig up a sausage and pepper penne recipe and make it myself.

And it turned out pretty good!

 photo h5CC3D19C_zpsa9140196.jpg

Mostly stolen from here, with notes from here, and some changes.

Sausage and Pepper Penne! )
theweaselking: (Default)
So I had this eggplant. I don't normally eat eggplant, and I'm actually pretty sure I'm never cut one open before. Eggplant is the kind of thing that shows up in the curry someone else at the table orders and I have a few bites of.

But I had this eggplant.

So I googled and found an easy-looking recipe for fried eggplant rounds. And the verdict..... yeah I'm not making that one again. But I might make a variant on it, especially with zucchini or something other than eggplant.

Short recipe:

1 eggplant, cut into 0.5in thick rounds.
1/2 cup cornmeal
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/4 tsp dried oregano
1 quart vegetable oil, for frying.

Instructions:

1. Mix the cornmeal, chili powder, and oregano in a small dish. Add some salt. Dredge the eggplant slices through it to create breading.

2. Heat a thin layer of oil in a frying pan. Fry the eggplant rounds, 2-3 minutes a side, adding oil whenever you need more oil.

And the result? Well, let's put it this way. I ate them, but I ate them with ketchup. They weren't inedible, just not very good. Bland, and mushy. I thought the instruction to regularly add more oil was weird, until I started cooking - and realised that no, the eggplant is like a sponge, absorbing all the oil. So you need more oil or it won't fry. And then it's saturated with oil when it comes out, bleeds oil when you cut into it, and drips. I don't think I used anywhere near a full quart of oil (I had to look up what a quart was. SERIOUSLY PEOPLE, USE METRIC. OR AT LEAST "cups" BECAUSE THOSE ARE SOMEWHAT NORMAL FOOD MEASUREMENTS) and it was still too much. I added *way* more salt, ate 'em with ketchup, and they were still kinda bland and mushy. And the cornmeal was crunchy - little bits of solid cornmeal, sticking in my teeth and giving a rather unpleasant mouth-feel. I just used generic cornmeal, is there a variant that's more like powder and less like sand?

I think if the cornmeal had been powdered and they'd been cooked on a grill instead of fried in oil, they'd have been better.

Anyway. Suggestions for altering the recipe to make it not bad? Or have a preferred way of cooking eggplant that's just way better?
theweaselking: (Default)
Reason #227b that John is no longer allowed in the kitchen unsupervised.

So! Two things I've been doing recently. First, an update on the Zucchini Boats , which I have experimented with several times, including Italian Sausage boats and a ton of others. I have come up with the platonic ideal of zucchini boats, ones that are basically perfect:

Halve the zucchini and scoop, like before. Brush with olive oil, add salt and pepper.

Put in minced onion, cover with chunky salsa from a jar (I like normal salsa, [livejournal.com profile] torrain strongly prefers the local farm's garlic salsa), bake 30 min.

Cover with cheddar cheese, broil.


Second thing: Fried Roma Tomatoes.

We got a ton of Roma tomatoes and had no idea what to do with them, so I pulled out a recipe for fried tomatoes and made that.

Reproducing with notes:

Ingredients:
2 tbsp dried thyme
2 tbsp dried basil
1/2 tsp salt
2/3 tsp pepper
5 tsp olive oil
2 Roma tomatoes sliced lengthwise

First note: Those proportions look off to you? Yeah, they're off. WAAAAY off. The "paste" you're going to make with that is going to be a dry non-pasty mess, because I'm 99% certain those "tablespoons" should be "teaspoons". Especially since it makes a metric crapton of paste, way more than you could ever fit on two tomatoes. So what I actually did was add more oil, more salt and pepper, and use 5 tomatoes.

Instructions:

1. Mix together everything except the tomatoes, making a paste. Spread on the cut side of each tomato half.

2. Heat a couple of tbsp (for real, this time) of olive oil in a frying pan. Place tomatoes herb-side down in skillet, and cover. Simmer for 5 minutes; tomatoes should be hot but not stewed.

3. DEVOUR.

Verdict: Well, very tasty, but I scraped off most of the paste and threw it away because it was thick and really overpowering. Seriously, "Tablespoons" is completely wrong. [livejournal.com profile] torrain loved every bite of them but she is weird.

The second time I made them, I experimented with the spices and I used *way* less, and instead of frying them in olive oil we just use the same pan I'd just made bacon in. Verdict: The Thyme/Basil ones were still a crowd-pleaser, the hot bacon pan meant they cooked faster and I should have cut it off a minute earlier, and the garam masala tomatoes and the cumin tomatoes didn't really work, but my personal favourites were the salt/pepper/curry powder tomatoes. YUM.

So, yeah. I know what I'm doing with the next batch of romas. In fact, I'm tempted to try it with normal tomatoes, cutting thick slices, adding a little flour to the spice mix, and frying both sides.
theweaselking: (Default)
I have made ZUCCHINI BOATS.

This is a new thing that apparently EVERYONE BUT ME KNOWS ABOUT.

So. You need zucchini, and stuff to put in the zucchini. The recipe I stoleused uses halved grape tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, and garlic.

So!

Slice your zucchini in half lengthwise. Take a vegetable peeler to the back side to flatten it so it will lie flat in the cookie sheet. What cookie sheet? Why the one, lined with foil, that you will be putting your zucchini halves on!

Scoop out the seeds with a spoon. Make sure you get them all - you're really going to gut this, because otherwise you'll have zucchini seeds in your final product. GUESS WHAT I DID

Drizzle the halves with olive oil, smear with crushed garlic, add salt and pepper.

Halve grape tomatoes and toss 'em in the halved zucchini, leaving space.

Throw the whole thing in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes.

Waited your 30 minutes? Okay, good. Pull out the zucchini and drop in diced mozzarella. Change the setting on the oven to broil: put it back in under the broiler, until the cheese is bubbling and browning.

Pull the boats out, drizzle with olive oil, and add parmesan cheese.

DEVOUR.
theweaselking: (Default)
Reason #17 John Is No Longer Allowed In The Kitchen Unsupervised.

Garlic Chive Chicken!

I've made this twice now (what can I say, I had a LOT of chives to use up) and it's pretty good!

Reproducing to avoid linkrot, with notes: )

Result: DELICIOUS. As-written, the lemon is a little strong, the garlic is a little weak, and the sauce is very much "flavoured herbed butter on your chicken and noodles" as opposed to being an actual thick sauce, which isn't a bad thing but is worth noting and maybe changing. On the second attempt, we didn't roast the garlic and that led to the garlic being a little sharp, and we also added fresh rosemary to the mix because we had it and thought it might be a good addition[1]. The rosemary was a mistake, by the way. Don't add rosemary. The result wasn't terrible, just worse than without it.
theweaselking: (Default)
Meant to post this Tuesday, didn't.

 photo IMG_20130528_175653b_zps709df955.jpg

So! Week 2 of Local Vegetables From A Box.

Left to right, those are:
One normal cucumber, 3 Lebanese cucumbers, green onions, orange pepper, yellow pepper, asparagus, chives, radishes, "spring mix" salad (in the baggie at the back), a head of spinach, and 3 tomatoes. In front, low-sugar strawberry jam.

Leftover from last week: the head of spinach, one tomato, one bundle of asparagus. All still edible and We Have Plans For Those.

Went bad before being used: Some of the chives, but that's because we didn't store them well, and that was only about 10% of the bundle. We ate the rest.

So far, so good!
theweaselking: (Default)
And other reasons John is no longer allowed in the kitchen unsupervised.

So! Since I have a massive pile of veggies to get through, I decided to try [livejournal.com profile] glenn_3's suggestion of "Chard, with bacon" to use up my Chard.

Short version: REALLY DAMN GOOD. Would be better if Chard didn't kind of taste like dirt, but it made the Chard awesome regardless, and other people who like earthy greens more than me are waxing rhapsodic over it. So: A great recipe, and will be used again on more chard or spinach or something if those show up.

Reproducing recipe here to add notes and prevent linkrot: )

This is..... pretty much as delicious as chard (a spinach-like leaf vegetable with an earthier, more beet-like taste) is likely to get. Although I'll certainly try one of the other chard recipes if they give me more, the THIRD chard bunch is totally going to be this one again.
theweaselking: (Default)
We signed up for a local farming collective's "big box of local veggies every week". This is week 1!

 photo IMG_20130521_182419_a_zpse3afd9d5.jpg

Those are, left to right: three Lebanese cucumbers and one standard cucumber, a whole head of spinach, a pile of really nice green onions, a bundle of garlic chives, three large carrots, a bundle of swiss chard, a baggie of "spring mix" salad greens, about 2kg of asparagus, a bundle of radishes, a baggie of last year's frozen raspberries and one of blueberries, and four tomatoes.

(The white paper bag in the back is the last of the delicious jalapeno cheddar bread from the local bakery. It wasn't in the box, just in the picture.)

So far we've used: One lebanese cucumber, one carrot, half the green onions, some of the radishes, and one tomato. I think I'm going to keep track of what we get and what we use, each week.

(I don't think I've ever EATEN chard. Suggestions?)

Profile

theweaselking: (Default)theweaselking
Page generated Jul. 10th, 2025 07:17 am