Tried to have some fun with something new, so I cooked a fisherman's stew today. More of a play on the cioppino recipe, but in a stew form. Chopped and cooked a fennel bulb with yellow onion and garlic, then boiled it in water, clam juice and crushed tomatoes with some spices for the broth. Boiled half an hour, then added some butter, mussels, squid, shrimp, and scallops. Turned out pretty well. May add slightly less garlic next time, boil the squid a little longer, and add a bit more red pepper flakes for spice. Not bad for a first attempt though, and gave me a few solid meals.
Coming from Cape Town we're doing south african cooking this evening - boerewors, milie pap, with tomato & onion gravy ☺
Been trying things I haven't before recently. I have a lot of ground turkey because it was on sale, so I've been making some meals from it. Finally made my own meatballs for spaghetti at the start of the weekend, which were pretty successful. Not a single one fell apart! The sauce I needed to double though because it soaked into the meatballs, so that was unfortunate. It was close to being a decent meal. Made chili for the first time tonight as well. Took an hour longer than I had hoped, but it was well worth the wait. Mountain of ingredients, but they're mostly dense items, so I'm able to get quite a few little meals out of the pot. The only thing is the chili taste seems to be hovering in the house no matter where I go. I'm deciding if that's a bad thing still.
Crock pots are excellent for chili. Sweat your veggies, brown your meat, dump everything in (onions first help stop burning, but I haven't had much of a problem) put the top on, 3-4 hours on high (if you use beans, put them in in the last half hour or they'll just thicken your broth) and you're done.
Tonight’s going to be taco salad. It’s one of things my husband said he was hungry for last time I asked him. I just hope the avocados aren’t too green or too ripe.
I haven't finished the process yet (just put the pork to marinate) but I'm trying out an authentic Goan recipe for pork vindaloo. And I have to say, the marinade smells gorgeous. Vindaloo is synonymous with 'macho hot' here in the UK, but in fact, it doesn't have to be hot at all. It's a marinade (of Portugese origin) made with vinegar and spices ...odd ones for Indian cooking. Mostly cinnamon, cardamom, black pepper, ground kashmiri chilis (seeds removed) cloves, garlic and ginger. No turmeric or cumin or coriander. And lots of vinegar. I'm using malt vinegar, which seems just right for this dish. I'll marinate it for 24 hours, then cook it tomorrow night with lots of onion, a bit more vinegar and some brown sugar, and not eat it till Thursday. Apparently it's a dish that's best eaten the day after it's made. So that's three days of torture before I can eat it. The smell is killing me.
Sauteed pork loin strips with onions, canned corn, and supermarket taco seasoning (kicked up with some more cumin and habanero powder, natch) served with olive-oiled couscous. Wish I'd had some black olives to go with it, but it was pretty good and really simple.
Took a stab at making a lasagna last night and it turned out really well! Pretty simple recipe, but just tedious because you need to cook the noodles al dente and make the meat sauce first, then mix up the ricotta cheese and other stuff mix, and finally bake for an hour. So a two hour ordeal, but it came out nice and is large enough for a few days of enjoyment. I honestly thought I was screwing it up at first because my layering was way smaller than my glass baking dish, but it expanded correctly and came out very nicely. I'll only make it again when I have a good amount of time.
I stopped making lasagna years ago because of the time involved. Switched to baked rigatoni... way better and much easier.
I don't know about better, but I've heard elsewhere it's quite a bit easier. I'm a fan of that as well, but never really made it yet. Maybe that'll be an upcoming one I try.
I've had pretty good luck just putting the dry noodles in and leaving the sauce rather wet. Edges of the top layer are the only problems I've had.
Depends on how you feel about ricotta bukkake. I like small, ravioli sized portions, but not 10000 popped zit globs.
