Cooking In General

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I'm always down for fudge.

 

I made two dinners last night: chicken and veggie stir-fry over brown rice, for immediate consumption, and vegetarian chili, which will be heated up by my dear WAH Hubby so we can get to a 6:30 appointment without gulping bites as we walk out the door.

 

Chucked some turnips with a pizza into the oven just yesterday, a little soy-sauce and salt to go and mmboy, were they ever delish!

 

Thanks to the fact neither of us went to the grocery store, I had to fire up plan D for supper... and plan D turned out pretty good, if I daresay.

I had cheese, pitas, frozen pre-cooked meatballs and spaghetti sauce left. I grated what was left of the cheese, thawed the meatballs in the microwave (it is a perfectly viable option, judging by the cooking instructions on the box) and heated up the spaghetti sauce.

Then, I spreaded a layer of spaghetti sauce on the pita, then a hint of cheese. Added the meatballs, another layer of spaghetti sauce, then another of cheese, then dropped it for five minutes in the oven. Picked up, rolled it like a burrito, and took a bite. A bit strange at first, but turned out pretty darn good.

 

Does anyone know how to make tapioca pudding from scratch with medium sized tapioca? I made the tapioca plain the other day and it took 1.5 hours to cook. My mother suggested that I soak it for a while although the instructions on this brand never told me to soak it. (I usually take my mothers advice when it comes to cooking.)

I now need a recipe to make pudding out of it. Since it takes so long to cook I'm assuming that you can't cook it from the start with the milk and sugar etc. Help me please .

 

The last time I made tapioca pudding, I followed the recipe on the back of the package, to great success. I don't know how a pudding will turn out using pre-cooked tapioca, because the starges that release from the granules during cooking are what help the milk and sugar thicken into pudding. At this point, you might want to try making a simple vanilla pudding and stirring in the tapioca when it's almost done cooking. Here's a list of what Food Network has for tapioca pudding - maybe you can adapt something for pre-cooked tapioca?

As for searching up a recipe on the internet... I have to tell you, I've found that most recipes you search up from a random source absolutely SUCK. Two sites where I have consistently good results are Food Network's site, and Epicurious. Most other recipe collections - ESPECIALLY About.com! - send me running away, screaming.

 

Well the first recipe listed on the Food Network site is what I'm looking for, unfortunatly I don't have a slow cooker.

I don't have to use precooked tapioca. I actually still have 1/2 package of the uncooked medium tapioca pearls. I'm thinking I should just look for another brand so that I can get a recipe off the back of the package. This package only had instructions how took cook the pearls with water. Hence my problem with making the pudding.

I agree with you about searching for a recipe off the net, Rally. I wasn't having much luck with that in the first place and so I thought maybe I could find some suggestions here. BTW - I like the recipe that comes on the minute tapioca box. It doesn't use cream, just milk. I would like to try using that recipe and just cooking it a long time with soaked med. tapioca pearls but I'm unsure of how much I should use. Maybe I will just have to experiment.

I also wanted to mention that I used the other tapioca pearls I cooked in a very tasty way. I rinsed all the slime off of them and then added them to strawberry and banana smoothies to make a fruity variety of bubble tea. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubble_tea All of the family loved it and it was well worth making.

 

I am SO going to try that! Nothing like getting extra nutrition into the kiddies!

 

Rally, please tell me what you and your family think of the smoothies with "bubbles" when you try it. My smallest guy especially loved it because he thought he was eating gummy candies in his drink. My husband was a little wary when I first handed it to him but he really liked it when he tried it. The only problem was finding wide enough straws in my local grocery store.

 

I shall be sharing my Insanely Easy Yet Lovely pasta bake with you people

- 1 cup of mushrooms, unsliced (I used flatcap, most varieties work well..)
- 3 bell peppers (I used green, red and yellow)
- 1 small red onion
- butter
- olive oil
- 1/2 cup of wheat flour
- 1/4 cup of wine
- 1 cup of water
- 1/2 cup of cream
- 1/2 cup of shredded mozarella
- 2 cups of pasta (cooked!)
- spicy cheese of some kind, enough to cover the top of whatever pan you wnat to bake it in

On a pan, heat up butter and olive oil and then add sliced onion, peppers and mushrooms. Cook depending on your stove until the msuhrooms are cooked through.

add the flour and stir quickly, so it soaks up the butter/oil btu do not let it brown. then add the water. stir, then add the cream and the wine. add liquid if the consistency requires it - this is supposed to be saucelike, not gloopy! then, add the mozzarella and stir - any other cheese that melts well can also be used. Even processed stuff.

once you have the sauce, you layer it with pasta in a pan of suitable size - the pasta should be cooked beforehand. I used tricolor fussili, which worked great. topmost layer should be sauce. Cover that with cheese, I used edam with chili flakes in it, then a bit more mozarella to cover the bits the slices didn;t cover.

approx. 20 minutes in 200C and voila, you have enough pasta to feed three hungry goths twice - in other words, feeds six. And tastesgreat when reheated, too

 

Red Thai Prawn Curry

This is my mothers recipe, it produces quite a large quantity but it can easily be heated up again if neccessary. She serves it with rice and sometimes get's a pack of small naan breads which go well with it.

Apparently this works well with pre cooked chopped up chicken too – take out prawns and all other ingredients stay in – even the fish sauce.


1 tablespoon oil

1-6 spring onions sliced at an angle

1.5 tablespoons red Thai curry paste (I use a small jar)

1 can coconut milk (400ml)

250ml chicken or vegetable stock (I only use vegetable)

2 teaspoons fish sauce (nam pla)

350g sweet potato cut up small and boiled in advance – takes 5 mins – I use approx 3 med-large potatoes)

200g frozen king prawns

1 lime (squeezed)

150g fresh diced mango (I use dried mango – a pack does several curries – just cut it up very small)

Chopped fresh coriander



· Pre cook the sweet potatoes and set to one side

· Heat oil and fry spring onions for 1 minute then add the curry paste

· Add in stock, coconut milk and fish sauce and bring to the boil

· Add potato back to curry

· Add prawns – bring back to the boil

· Add lime juice and mango – cook for one minute

· Sprinkle with chopped coriander

· Serve with boiled rice or noodles.

 

With years and years and bloody years of making ham sandwiches for myself consisting of naught but ham and cheese, I bring you my exprience in the form of...
Deathmage's Happyfun Ham Sandwich Variants

General Tips:
- Fewer slices is better than more.
- Spread the sauce/condiments/whatever onto the edges too, because those are the boringest bits.
- Slicing the sandwich in half makes for a more pleasant eating experience.
- Birds like to eat unwanted sides.
- Spread out the slices of ham, don't let them curl up, otherwise they become dry and boring.
- Sauces are absolutely necessary because otherwise the sandwich is dry and gross.

Stuff:
1) Salt, light spreading of. It brings out the flavour, but I don't recommend too much of it.
2) Basic combination is ham + cheese + mayonnaise, which is nice enough...
3) Consider using Japanese mayonnaise, which is thicker and creamier; which means it does not go with some of the more extreme tastes.
4) Margerine is an alternative to mayonnaise, but don't have them together.
5) Mustard + mayonnaise + black cracked pepper, if you're sick of mayonnaise.
6) White pepper can bring out the choke...thereotically...because I've never used enough of it to notice the flavour. Perhaps in conjunction with salt?
7) Steak sauce. We have this really nice one that's all peppery 'n stuff. Old Oaks or something. Very good.
8) Peri Peri seasoning is great to add. I dunno what kind of stuff you guys have, but the MasterFoods one is quite lemony and generally good to add. If I want spiciness, I add Nandos Peri Peri instead.
9) Garlic granules or garlic salt, preferably the former. It can go well with mayonnaise.
10) Tartare sauce is an alternative if you're really bored.
11) I just made a new combination with parmesan sprinkly-cheese (the ones for pastas) and salad dressing. We'll see how it turns out.
12) You can, of course, add cucumbers/zuccinis/carrots to all of these, I'm just generally lazy.
13) Consider varying the type of cheese.
14) I'm really sick of ham sandwiches. Can you tell?

 

Deathmage...honestly...you should write a cookbook. With lots of illustrations .

 

Look, that's the problem of being an only child. Parents buy a pack of food that only you will eat? You gotta EAT THEM ALL. Ham sandwiches. Every day. Every single freakin' day.

 

dangit deathmage! now i want a ham sandwich & there is no ham in the house!
the worst part is i went to the store today, i can't believe i forgot ham.

 

DM, your list sounds like my fridge...

(The joy of a student's life, and mess hall lunches.)

I should go and get some real food...

Pasta or pancakes?

 

Summer time and I just had to get out the ice-cream maker again. Last night I made strawberry ice-cream with and old fashion custard based vanilla ice-cream recipe. My favorite recipe so far has to be for orange sherbet. I never realized that I liked sherbet until I made a home made batch and realized that it is a thousand times better than anything you can buy premade. Here is the recipe that I use.


Orange Sherbet

1 1/2 T. grated orange rind
1 1/2 C. sugar
1/4 C. fresh-squeezed lemon juice
1 1/2 C. fresh-squeezed orange juice
1 t. vanilla
4 C. very cold milk

Stir together grated orange rind and sugar. Stir in lemon juice, orange juice and vanilla and continue stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Add milk.

Put the mixture in an icecream freezer and freeze according to directions.

It does make a fairly large amount so I usually end up freezing some left over liquid in popsicle containers. It is very lovely to taste and not heavy with cream so it makes a great dessert after a heavy meal.

I have also substituted lime juice for the lemon juice and even blended a can of pineapple once and used that instead of the orange juice. The pineapple variety of sherbet was very delicious too.

 

A version of Raphaelos

This is how my mom makes them. My cooking terminology is rather awful, but hopefully understandable.

Raphaelos:​

300g of sugar
1 small cup of water (tea cup, coffee cup)
250g of margarine (hard kind, for cooking)
500g of powdered milk
300 g of coconut "flour" (it's referred to as flour here, but I'm not sure if the term describes the same thing everywhere. Basically, this is dried and finely shredded "meat" of the coconut. It doesn't exactly have the consistency of flour, the particles are larger)
*optional - various nuts for filling the raphaelos (almonds, pistachios, hazelnuts... even walnuts)

Melt the sugar over fire (with the cup of water) (as if you started to make caramel, or jam or something - it takes about 5 minutes or less).
Add margarine.
When it melts add powdered milk and stir vigorously until the mass evens out and unifies.
Add coconut "flour" and mix it into the mass.
Leave the mass to cool down (you can put it in the fridge for under an hour).
Make raphaelo balls.
*Fill them with almonds (or any other type of filling you have) - this step is purely optional. They taste great even without it.
Roll the balls into coconut bits.
Eat.

I apologize for the linguistic mistakes and hope that you like the raphaelos.

 

A bit of a different take on a stir fry is
Marinate your chicken in lime juice (fresh) for a couple of hours then slowly oven bake it
Stir fry a red pepper, red onion and some cherry tomatos (halved)
wilt down some spinach in a pan with some creme fraiche and brown suger (however much you feel like)
stir fry some noodles and chuck everything together

It's a bit different from the usual bean sprouts and bamboo shoots!