Cooking thread

Quote: Nareed

I wound up having four pots boiling or simmering on the stove at the same time.

I also discovered a blender is not the tool to make hummus with. It works, but once the bottom portion of chickpeas and oil have turned into a paste, the vortex simply disappears. Therefore the rest of the portions on top don't get blended. I had to stir, empty the blender, refill it, stir again, and I wound up with rather coarse hummus with some very intact chickpeas.

The chicken soup did improve, but it's still off. This time, though, I did add pasta and chickpeas.

Food processor for sure. Plenty of tahini. Roasted gah-lic and lemon juice. Add some water to thin it out, start processing, take a quick nap and when you awaken... viola!

If you cook your own chicks make sure they're nice and soft. They work better than canned.

Quote: pew

If you cook your own chicks make sure they're nice and soft. They work better than canned.

Oh, I do.

For one thing I get them free that way <WINK> (that's a hard wink). For another, I'm a fan of doing as much as possible from scratch, which often comes back to bite me, but it's much more satisfying.

It's not even a matter of how it tastes in the end (though I like my tomato soup best of all the ones I've tried), but rather of being able to do it, and being able of enjoying it.

I may just do bean soup from scratch next week.

I forgot next weekend is Super Sunday and I'll have to come to the office a bit. So no complicated, time-consuming dishes.

I'll have some chicken left from last week, and some rice, too. Maybe I'll compromise and make beans and rice with tomato sauce and something added on.

On the docket for this weekend:

Onion soup stew

Rice

Pecan jello.

I managed the first two.

BTW, here's what a whole week of 14+ hour days does to you:

I wasn't too tired to cook on Saturday, but I was definitely off. For example, I was gathering utensils and ingredients, when I thought to get the chicken breast out of the freezer. only then did I realize the frozen chicken couldn't be cooked until it defrosted. So best to put the beans in water overnight and put everything else away. Right. But then I put the chicken back in the effing freezer!

Oh, I got it out a few minutes later, but still.

I didn't get to the jello (long pointless story), but I did get to cook my latest idea. Pretty much is 1) make onion soup, 2) now cook the beans in the soup, then add chicken, then add rice.

ON deck for the weekend:

Bean soup, featuring white beans (do they have a name in English?) and lima beans.

Beef lazy lasagna, only I'll try putting ricotta cheese on top after it comes out of the oven.

If time permits, a second crack at hummus.


BTW, has anyone heard of an Egyptian fast food type (ie street style) dish called something like "coshery"?

Quote: Nareed

BTW, has anyone heard of an Egyptian fast food type (ie street style) dish called something like "coshery"?

Never mind, I found it. It's called "koshari" and sounds delicious: lentils, rice, garbanzo beans, noodles, onions, garlic, tomatoes and spices.

I wonder if I could use Fritos in an entre...

I wanted to make koshari, but I did the onion soup stew with chickpeas and lima beans, and then bean soup the next week, so I decide to give legumes the week off. So I made Italian chicken and mashed potatoes.

I've some ideas for potatoes next week to go with the koshari. I'm having trouble with spices, though, as several recipes I like recommend using cloves. I don't particularly cloves, though I can take them in small amounts in a good mix. The problem is I have none in my pantry, and I don't want to pay about $6 for a small jar of ground cloves I'll likely never use again. As they're sweet, I'm thinking of using cinnamon or cardamom instead.