Best Recipes

[moda0306]

I am really trying to kick my cooking habit up a notch. You fine folks seem pretty resourceful and creative, so I thought a thread on good recipes would be in order. I'm doing this from my phone so I'll post one or two of mine, later.

Of key interest to myself and I believe most here would be the following traits:

- Ease of preparation (yes, Desert, you can still post your brisket recipe)
- Quality of meal (of course)
- ease of acquiring ingredients and cooking tools (yes, Desert, you can still post your brisket recipe)
- Uniqueness (something somewhat outside the box without being obscure is pretty cool)
- Healthy (light or no-go on added sugars, grains, vegetable oils, tons of cheese... High in micronutrition)


Obviously feel free to post whatever you want, but if I know the group here we will all be partial to some of the above traits.

I can't wait to see what we come up with!  And hopefully this can be a pleasant break from politics and raped glasses of water.

[ngcpa]

Best Salad
Break up a hard boiled egg with a whisk into small pieces.  Grate about 1/2 a wedge of parmesian cheese and squeeze one clove of garlic.  Add 2 oz. salad oil and 2 oz. red wine vinegar mix together with whisk.  Cut up either one red pepper or one tomato (I prefer red pepper) also romaine lettuce (or red leaf).  Toss and salt and pepper to taste.

[Jack Jones]

I really like this soup and make it a couple times a month:

http://earlyretirementextreme.com/cooki ... han-4.html

[MachineGhost]

Could we have more recipes with calories, please?  I'm not a womenz.  Thankx.

[Pointedstick]

Could we have more recipes with calories, please?  I'm not a womenz.  Thankx.

Make sure you drive your F-350 to the grocery store to buy the ingredients, too.

[mathjak107]

Yeah , salad and soups are not food. They go with food.

They  are the precursors that say food will soon arrive.!

[Mark Leavy]

Could we have more recipes with calories, please?  I'm not a womenz.  Thankx.

Best breakfast - fast, delicious, nutritious, keep you going all day.  Not suitable for dinner guests.

Beat 6 raw egg yolks into a half cup of heavy whipping cream.  Add a quarter ounce of dark rum.
Drink.

[MachineGhost]

Best breakfast - fast, delicious, nutritious, keep you going all day.  Not suitable for dinner guests.

Beat 6 raw egg yolks into a half cup of heavy whipping cream.  Add a quarter ounce of dark rum.
Drink.

That actually sounds pretty good right now...  let's call it Leavy's Eggnog.  I think I shall try it when I celebrate Festivus.

[WiseOne]

This would have gone over great in the USSR.  Standard breakfast as I recall was cigarettes and cognac.

I'd be interested in people's recipes, but not too sure about the breakfast of champions thing.  I'll contribute something if people are interested.

[hoost]

I haven't posted in a while, but this piqued my interest.  Here is a great recipe from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking:  Fondue de Poulet a la Creme.

http://darcy-dearest.blogspot.com/2012/ ... creme.html

It's more or less cream chicken.  There are a good number of steps to it, but I find if you prepare/measure all of the ingredients ahead of time, it's not too bad.  Takes about an hour.  I usually serve it over basmati rice, but it would probably be good with mashed potatoes, too.  The most important thing: keep your heat low.  You don't want to brown the chicken.  Use a thermometer to tell when the chicken is done.  I like 155 for while meat and 170-180 for the dark pieces.

Enjoy!

[WiseOne]

I like the concept of this thread, so here's a not terribly original contribution, though one of my favorites:  The Chicken Cycle.

Buy a whole chicken.  I get mine from a supremely awesome local poultry farm.
Stuff with sliced lemon and onion and salt, make a dry herb rub and tuck this + butter + garlic cloves under the skin.
You can either roast the chicken or freeze it for later.

This beats the pants off of rotisserie chicken, plus you get the lovely drippings.  I also surround the roast with cut up potatoes, sunchokes, parsnips, carrots, or whatever else you have by way of root vegetables.  Top these with the giblets & neck, unless you want to save them to feed the cats. (My cats by this point are usually hanging off my leg so I have to give them something :-)

After dinner, pick the meat off the chicken and save it as leftovers or to make other dishes.  Throw everything else (including skin) into a crock pot, instead of the garbage.  Throw in any vegetable scraps you have (I keep a bag of these in the freezer - no cruciferous veggies though).  Don't include the lemon rinds from the chicken cavity as the pith will make the stock too bitter.  Add a few peppercorns, salt, a pour of vinegar, bay leaf, and other herbs of choice.  Pour in water to cover and let the crock pot do its thing overnight.

Next day, strain out your stock into mason jars.  The fat will rise to the top and then form a seal helping to preserve the stock.  It freezes well.  If you planned ahead and bought mushrooms with your chicken, you can then proceed to make a most excellent mushroom soup.

By the way, especially if you bought a local free range chicken, don't throw away the fat!!  Food of the gods, that stuff is.  You can use for frying, making the roux for soups/sauces etc.  Saves on butter.

[Jack Jones]

I like the concept of this thread, so here's a not terribly original contribution, though one of my favorites:  The Chicken Cycle.

Whoah, this is great. Thanks WiseOne!

[Mountaineer]

I like the concept of this thread, so here's a not terribly original contribution, though one of my favorites:  The Chicken Cycle.

Buy a whole chicken.  I get mine from a supremely awesome local poultry farm.
Stuff with sliced lemon and onion and salt, make a dry herb rub and tuck this + butter + garlic cloves under the skin.
You can either roast the chicken or freeze it for later.

This beats the pants off of rotisserie chicken, plus you get the lovely drippings.  I also surround the roast with cut up potatoes, sunchokes, parsnips, carrots, or whatever else you have by way of root vegetables.  Top these with the giblets & neck, unless you want to save them to feed the cats. (My cats by this point are usually hanging off my leg so I have to give them something :-)

After dinner, pick the meat off the chicken and save it as leftovers or to make other dishes.  Throw everything else (including skin) into a crock pot, instead of the garbage.  Throw in any vegetable scraps you have (I keep a bag of these in the freezer - no cruciferous veggies though).  Don't include the lemon rinds from the chicken cavity as the pith will make the stock too bitter.  Add a few peppercorns, salt, a pour of vinegar, bay leaf, and other herbs of choice.  Pour in water to cover and let the crock pot do its thing overnight.

Next day, strain out your stock into mason jars.  The fat will rise to the top and then form a seal helping to preserve the stock.  It freezes well.  If you planned ahead and bought mushrooms with your chicken, you can then proceed to make a most excellent mushroom soup.

By the way, especially if you bought a local free range chicken, don't throw away the fat!!  Food of the gods, that stuff is.  You can use for frying, making the roux for soups/sauces etc.  Saves on butter.

This sounds really tasty.  I will try it.  Thanks.

... M

[goodasgold]

I like the concept of this thread, so here's a not terribly original contribution, though one of my favorites:  The Chicken Cycle....

Good posting on making chicken stock, WiseOne. I do the same with turkey leftovers on major holidays. I don't think it was quite explicit in your posting, but it is important to note that the chicken or turkey carcass should be included in the stockpot or crockpot. To fit in the pot, a turkey carcass usually requires a bit of home-style surgery (i.e., mashing it until it fits in the pot, covered by water.)

After straining the finished turkey stock, I let it cool a bit and then put it in a freezer-quality Ziploc for long-term storage.

And by the way, I make stock the old-fashioned way by simmering it in a stockpot on the stove for at least 4 hours. This process reduces the bulk of the stock, a useful consideration for small NY City fridge freezers.

Although I freeze some of the turkey stock, most of it is used immediately to make delicious one-serving portions of soup for freezing. With the prepared turkey stock as a base, I add some of the leftover turkey meat along with leftover gravy, stuffing and a little water. To this is added some pasta and corn, peas and carrots, bringing it to a low boil and simmering for about 20 minutes. Then each two-cup serving is placed in an individual Ziploc for freezing. When needed, the soup in each ziploc is thawed and re-heated in a saucepan. After taking it off the stove I add a half teaspoon or so of curry powder. Take it from me, this extra step (adding a hint of curry) turns the already delicious soup into absolute ambrosia.

[WiseOne]

Great tips goodasgold!!!  Yes, the entire chicken frame goes in, and yes I've made stock from holiday turkey frames also - hate like heck to let something that good go to waste!  Also like the idea of making single serving soups for later.  Ziploc bag to hold the stock is more space efficient than jars also. 

And, you can always do stock on the stovetop but I found it comes out so much better using the crock pot - the soak time is really important.  One year I had a Thanksgiving turkey in the stock pot and only managed to simmer it for 3 hours before going to bed.  So I boiled a few minutes, turned off the heat and let it sit on the stove overnight, and then brought it to a boil again in the morning before letting it simmer a few more hours.  That came out amazing.

BTW if you don't have a lot of onion bits in your vegetable scraps, one of those should go into the stock.  Celery is nice too, but I find it difficult to use a whole bag before it spoils so I don't often buy it.

Goodasgold, do you have space in your apartment for a small chest freezer?  There is one on Amazon I've been eyeing...very small footprint and it would solve a lot of storage problems.

[MachineGhost]

Goodasgold, do you have space in your apartment for a small chest freezer?  There is one on Amazon I've been eyeing...very small footprint and it would solve a lot of storage problems.

This is a better value probably...  http://www.bestbuy.com/site/igloo-5-1-c ... Id=4580018

They have an 6.9 upright too for $180: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/igloo-6-9-c ... Id=5143028

Just make sure you run it empty for the first 30 days.