What are you having for dinner? (wanna share your recipe?)

[nursenurse]

Kidlet and fam are coming for dins Friday as I am working over Christmas. Could not find jarred butter beans to save my life, canned and frozen are kind of meh, so cooking my own: Butter beans with roasted cherry tomatoes | Ottolenghi Recipes stay tuned for more!

 

[nursenurse]

Making his breakfast boureka as well, cannot find the recipe to share as it is in his newest cookbook, Comfort, but filo wrapped around spinach and dill, feta and ricotta. A coiled spanakopita.

 

[nursenurse]

Ottolenghi’s ‘Prawns, Scallops & Clams with Tomato & Feta’ This is dish number three, minus the clams. I have shrimp and scallops. I am pretty sure everyone will love boureka, not so sure about the beans, limas have never been anyones fave except mine. We have scallop and shrimp lovers though, the kids not so much for clams so there is something for everyone. All of these dishes are mostly make ahead, which is my afternoon today. I will make a loaf of no knead bread, and cheat with Ghirardelli brownies, doctored up of course. Nothing is difficult or time consuming….still, here i sit drinking coffee and procrastinating.

 

[nursenurse]

There wasn’t a failure in any of the above dishes. Star was the boureka, it came out of the oven first, served with the suggested tomato -harissa fresh sauce, which was no more difficult that throwing a few chopped tomatoes, a good dose of harissa paste, a bit of salt and a glug of olive oil into my mini chop. That sauce you could eat with a spoon on its own.

 

[Teasel]

Sounds amazing, you like the book @nursenurse ?

 

[nursenurse]

@Teasel, I have almost every Ottolenghi book. Some recipes require lots of ingredients and seasonings hard to find at times. I have never had a failure. But his “Comfort” is easy (er) gives instructions to make ahead when possible, and the flavours are all there. The shrimp came from “Jerusalem” which is more resto like and some dishes more complicated ingredient and step wise, but if you like to cook and love mid Eastern flavours, or anything Mediterranean-ish, it too is a wonderful cookbook if you set aside the time. I also have Simple, Plenty, and Plenty More, the last two are vegetable forward and the first cookbooks I bought of his as my daughter is vegetarian. My daughter laughed at me last night as I told her I was going to make these recipes again. Other than lasagna, a few choice cakes/desserts and no knead bread, I have never made the same recipe twice for her. I consider them the family guinea pigs

 

[LuckiLee]

Texas Caviar aka Cowboy Caviar

2 cans (15 oz.) black eye peas
1 can (15 oz.) black beans, drained
1 C. red onion, minced
2 C. corn (fresh or frozen)
1 green pepper, diced
1 red pepper, diced
3 scallions, sliced thin
1 jalapeño, seeded and minced
5 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 C. minced cilantro
4 T. Olive oil
2 T. Red wine vinegar
2 t. Salt
Juice of one lime

Mix all ingredients, cover and chill for 1 hour or up to 24 hours. Serve as an appetizer with tortilla or corn chips. Or serve on burgers or as a side dish for chicken/fish. This recipe is very versatile as you can add or subtract ingredients to your liking.

Be careful. It's addictive.

 

[Friday]

Zuppa Toscana

I don’t like beans in my soup, not even chili, so I serve this with cannellini crostini (super easy, drained/rinsed cannellini beans, marinated in olive oil, salt, & sliced red onions, spooned over toast. The beans on toast makes a meal in an of itself, so served as a side it makes this a MUCH smaller soup bowl necessary! Tomatoes are not traditional in Tuscan soup, I add some over the top as a garnish, just because I like tomatoes. And no one, on planet earth, is more “Lets throw in some XYZ!” (Just because) than Italians. You like it? Add it. I have a very good friend -Roman- who tops their creamy Tuscan soup with anchovies & parm reg, because they adore how it becomes “Caesar dressing soup”. Also Roman’s tend to snub their nose at the rest of Italy, but, so does the rest of Italy roll their eyes at Roma.

- Italian Sausage chunks (stateside, Tuscan or Florentine fennel pancetta fresh sausage, or Sicilian grilled/smoked fresh pork & fennel sausage, everywhere else) <<< The pancetta in the northern sausage, that isn’t in us-Italian-sausage, is why we often add bacon to Tuscan soup stateside.
- (optional) Bacon or Pancetta
- red onions, diced
- garlic, minced or crushed
- waxy potatoes, peeled & cubed
- lacinate kale, or other bitter greens, torn into chunks
- chicken stock
- cream
- olive oil

Ring a soup pot with olive oil & sauté onions/garlic/bacon/sausage until veg is translucent & sausage browned. Add everything else, and simmer for about an hour.

Serve with crusty bread, or crostini.

OPTIONAL… If you have some stale crusty bread? Break into chunks with a hammer, and simmer in the soup for the last 15 min to half an hour. Long enough to soften, but not so long as to shred/dissolve, unless you like that kind of thing. Add more stock, as needed.

***
ETA ^^^ This is one of those soups that after it’s been in play for about a day, I’ll pour it over some spicy chicken & leeks & bake into a pie.

 

[Rose White]

Anyone use baking ratios for desserts like cookies and cakes?

My Goal: be able to make cookies without a recipe. Need ratios!

Thinking… 1 part fat, 1 part egg, 2 parts sweet, 5 parts flour. Bit o’ baking powder, salt, flavor extract. Mix-ins.

Sound reasonable? Flours I like: wheat, garbanzo, and/or almond. I don’t use coconut flour—it has strange need for lots of eggs?). Garbanzo flour soaks up a lot of moisture so I add less.

 

[Rose White]

Omg I accidentally made cookies that break the space-time continuum . Every time I eat one I yell, “Oh my God!” And feel a mix of enjoyment and rage—rage that the sensation is so fleeting.

How could divine eminence emerge from printed English words on Walmart Good Value almond flour plastic reclosable disposable packaging??

Basic gist of the recipe: almond flour, brown sugar, dried cranberries, unsweetened coconut flakes, coconut oil. I used special clear vanilla extract I picked up down in Mexico when I went to the dentist.

Lately I’ve been liking to underbake, let them cool on the sheet, then store in a container that is not airtight so they lose a bit of moisture every day, making them chewier.

 

[nursenurse]

Well it has been enrgizer soup in the north. I was going to make my Mom’s kapusta, she always puts in some sauerkraut with the cabbage. I don’t know how they fit 25 lbs of sauerkraut in a can…..at home I buy the fresh stuff from the Mennonites, sooo good. Up here they had cans…And it kept coming out and coming out and coming out. So the cabbage soup with sauerkraut became sauerkraut soup with sauerkraut. Onions, garlic sauteed until starting to brown. Dump the drained and rinsed sauerkraut in, saute a bit, add a carrot, handful of caraway seed, fresh ground black pepper, a few cubed potatoes, veggie stock or chicken, whatever you have, simmer until the veggies are done, add a can of diced tomatoes. Could throw in some ham or smoked sausage, or a few pork ribs. Lunch and dinner since before Christmas. Went out for dinner Christmas day though. thank goodness for ham and turkey. I have enough soup for the weekend too, along with the big pot of chili, because y’all know you can never make a small pot of soup, chili or spaghetti sauce…..

 

[Rose White]

@nursenurse you got me drooling