The Food Thread

I tried a new recipe, eggplant and red pepper soup. After I cooked the veggies and veggie stock (new recipe, too) I put the veggies in a food processor, and ended up with a light, sweet, smooth-ish soup. I'm pretty happy with it.

Ms. Haiku said:

F Me In The Brain said:

Tough to avoid them but Pasta is where I cut back the most a few years back.  Used to make a great pasta dinner at least 1x a week but am probably down to 1x a month.  I love pasta, and it is what I cook the best, but I cannot have just one serving. 
Could start The Pasta Thread and go on and on about the many different ways to make/enjoy pasta. 
Sigh.
Perhaps when I am older and don't give a shit about being a big 'un, I can eat pizza & pasta every other day.

Pasta rocks my world. I don't eat it as much as I did a few years back, but the world is on the right axis when I am eating pasta.

So much good food to eat....but GREAT pasta?  Wow, it is pretty damn amazing.

 Haiku said:

PJ_Soul said:

F Me In The Brain said:

Tough to avoid them but Pasta is where I cut back the most a few years back.  Used to make a great pasta dinner at least 1x a week but am probably down to 1x a month.  I love pasta, and it is what I cook the best, but I cannot have just one serving. 
Could start The Pasta Thread and go on and on about the many different ways to make/enjoy pasta. 
Sigh.
Perhaps when I am older and don't give a shit about being a big 'un, I can eat pizza & pasta every other day.

Yes, I missed pasta too... I did find that spaghetti squash was a nice side to replace a carb side dish though. Tasty, and kinda-sorta of has the same sort of bite as pasta has if you prepare it right I guess.

Do you bake it cut in half, and then mess up the insides so they look like spaghetti? I haven't tried it, but it looked good. 

"Mess up the insides." Yes, exactly. Baked in a glass or stoneware lasagna pan is best. Don't forget The layer of water in the pan.  The one thing you need to be careful about is doneness. I find that it has to be perfect. A little undone or a little too done, and It's not not as good, and the size of the squash impacts that. This just takes a bit of practice I guess. Luckily, it's a fairly inexpensive trial and error process.

hauntingfamiliar said:

^ The thing is a bitch and a half to cut when it's raw. Through several trials and painful errors, I found a way that works best for me. I stab it with a fork all over and throw it in the microwave for about 8 minutes. At that point you can cut it open with ease, then scoop out the guts, drizzle cut side with olive oil and salt n pepper. Then bake it cut side down at 425 for about a half hour. This method doesn't call for water in the pan... maybe because it steams first in the microwave? 

I never found that it was hard to cut in half myself - just used a big sharp knife. As for seasoning.... that makes all the difference of course. So does using the right amount of butter. At the end of the day, I find this to be a very simple dish to make, but only after trying it a number of times to get everything right, the way I like it best.

hauntingfamiliar said:

^ I definitely could use a better knife and I really don't know that I've ever sharpened the thing in the last 12 or so years...  

Haha, yes, I think that is probably the problem!

hauntingfamiliar said:

^

I'll work on this!

I think maybe knives are a valid point of discussion in this thread actually. A good knife/knife set is a super valuable cooking tool that shouldn't be underrated! I recently got the kitchen-aid professional set. Not my first choice, but I couldn't afford anything better (even that goes for $700 for only the 7-piece, $900 for the 11-peice, but I bought it with airmiles, whoohoo). Good knives are fucking expensive. Anyway, it is wonderful to prepare food with a great, sharp knife set! And those kitchen shears are fantastic - I should have got some of those years ago. I do need a sharpening stone still though. Sharpening steels alone don't do the whole job.

It's a Bukowski Tavern night!

Chicken Bomb
Sautéed shaved chicken smothered in a cheese dip (a warm concoction of American cheese, green chilis, jalapeños, diced tomatoes and diced onions), roasted red peppers and caramelized onions on a baguette. 

Served with fries.

The Juggler said:

There are no better knives on this planet than Cutco Cutlery. 

I use Cutco!

I tried to sell them when I was jobless in a new city, that didn't go so well.
It's almost a pyramid scheme, maybe not almost, I dunno.

I did make enough to pay off my sales sample kit, so it wasn't all bad.
Great knives, that was 8 years ago and they haven't been sharpened but they are still sharper than a brand new cheap knife.
The ones I rarely use are wicked sharp.  I've never cut myself, but I've unwittingly removed frightfully large pieces of fingernail like it was sliding through and onion.  My mother in law had to get stitches because she grabbed one in the dishwater on accident.
Now she's afraid of them and won't use them lol