What was the last meal you cooked?

Dutch almond macaroons (bitterkoekjes) is a great thing to do at dinner party. Extremely easy and a lovely show off thing to bake something from scratch when there are lot of people over for dinne rif you are serving something that creates egg white lefovers. I serve these with shot glassees of amaretto for dipping the cookies into.

My first experience of this kind of cooking theatre was at a girlfriend's house when she had 8 people over for dinner. After dinner she plonked down at the table with a big bag of apples and started peeling. When asked what she was doing, she replied "I am making tarte tatin, do you want to volunteer to peel and slice some apples?". She proceeded to remove the plastic handle from her largest sautee pan with a screw driver, then fry the apple slices with butter and sugar. She covered the cooked apples with ready made puff pastry, poking holes with a knife to allow steam to escape. After about 25-30 minutes, or whatever the instructions were for the freezer puff pastry we had a tarte tatin.

We made dutch bitterkoekjes tonight (almond macaroons) as a way of using up the egg whites left over from carbonara. The whole process takes about 15 minutes. In a food processor put 2 egg whites, 150 g almonds, 150 g sugar, 1 teaspoon of almond extract. Blitz to a paste. Fill a a ziplock bag with the dough and cut off a corner. Pipe large nipples onto a silicon lined cookie sheet. Bake 10 minutes at 190C.

k8eekins wrote: »

@acpgee ... Much appreciation for having shared the Cambodian pumpkin custard, my sister 777Gemma888 shared with me yesterday. Looked it up ... The written and the vids. Fascinating spiel to how I'm acclimated to seeing vanilla custard, only in this case, coconut milk custard in a pumpkin or squash.

Really am loving all the updates and the descriptions, and the photo logs ... Thank you everyone!

The pumpkin custard looks really impressive. I actually cook this in a microwave instead of in the steamer as recommended by most recipes. If you stick to a fairly low setting in gradients until the centre is barely set it should be okay. It is a few years ago since I last made it (after returning from vacation from Cambodia) so I don't remember exact temperatures or cooking times.

just_Tomek wrote: »

Pho.

Now I want Pho.

https://whatmollymade.com/the-best-healthy-chicken-soup-recipe/

Instead of brown rice though, I cooked a pot of elbow macaroni on the side. I put a little in my soup, and my kids and husband added lots!

Last night was grilled chicken apple sausage dogs with wheat buns and cucumber salad.

I'm a foodie and love to cook, mostly comfort foods, however, since starting this, I am trying to find healthier ways to cook my favorite foods. Last weekend I made eggplant. Normally, I fry it, then adds gobs of cheese and serve it with garlic cheese bread. I toned it down by baking it and only adding a small amount of grated parmesan cheese, opted for a lower sodium marinara sauce and skipped the bread entirely. I love to bake and have been craving chocolate chip cookies. I want to stear clear of that for a while, so I found a flourless one. I also love that frozen cauliflower rice. I make my own taco seasoning, then add a veggie style meat product, (yes, I am a vegetarian), and some other veggies. Weekends are the worst for me, but, little steps in the right direction is better than always going in the wrong direction.

Cambodian corn reads like an unlikely recipe but is actually delish. Coconut milk, fish sauce, sugar and green onions coat the corn prior to barbecuing or roasting. These were done in an air fryer.

Cambodian pumpkin and coconut custard made in the tiny seed cavity of a butternut squash got a little overheated in the microwave and curdled.

Last night's dinner party. Bagna cauda, linguine carbonara stretched with spiralized courgette, dutch bitterkoekjes for dipping in amretto.

Pad-Thai-inspired Veggie Disaster:

Spiralized kohlrabi, Chayote and zucchini (raw) with roasted marinated pulled king-oyster mushroom, ground peanuts, mint and cilantro.

Dressing/sauce of coconut aminos, lime, ginger, chile, peanut powder, tamarind paste, fish sauce.

Avocado on top. Because it was ripe and because Avocado.

I made stuffed pepper soup with brown rice last night, and we had the leftovers again tonight.

Reading through this thread has me feeling like a kitchen slacker LOL!
Last night I heated up a leftover grilled chicken breast and I topped it with sauteed mushrooms and a little pepper jack cheese.
My cooking skills are limited, usually involves the BBQ grill for that night's meat and the microwave to steam some veggies.

Mesquite turkey burgers and rice

It's my turn to cook tonight. Trying out adaptations of my standard super easy dinner party menu for future guests with restricted diets. Menu is bagna cauda, carbonara, and almond macaroons dipped in amaretto made with the leftover egg whites from carbonara.

In a couple of weeks having someone over who has recently been diagnosed as FODMAPS intolerant, so testing out whether bagna cauda made with chive instead of garlic is any good. On easter weekend having someone over who doesn't eat pork so testing out carbonara made with home cured duck prosciutto instead of pancetta.