What do your meals look like (show me pictures)....

@acpgee - 😋 🍣!!!

Made a chicken-cauli curry tonight for dinner using a 350-year-old recipe with a couple of mods.

Not my 1st time with this dish or variations, but 1st time with my wife at home to try it. She's not one for heat (spice), so I dusted mine with a little cayenne. Pretty simple, pretty healthy. On brown rice.

Adventurista wrote: »

Ooh, recipe @mjbnj0001 ?

I had been browsing veggie pics and was considering looking for one. I also prefer mild to mid heat...

Assumed this is curried cauliflower. Not sure on dip, but was thinking tatziki.

source recipe is at https://youtu.be/Zgi4Gbu1ZFE?si=PWzwZ8GFeQXXeDHY

very simple basis but you can go to town with it to be as elaborate as you want. for this particular batch i swapped out butter for coconut oil, and replaced dairy cream with coconut milk. i also added garlic powder and dried cilantro to the flavorings. i held the cauliflower out as a last addition so it retained some crunch, being in effect blanched. in other batches, i have used broccoli, frozen veg mixes of various types, frozen peas, etc., and occasionally just vegan as a changeup.

interestingly, the flavorings are quite simple as presented: powdered ginger and turmeric, salt, pepper and lemon. fresh finely grated ginger kicks up the flavor real well. i bought a hunk of fresh turmeric earlier this year to see how that worked out, but got distracted and wasnt able to complete that experiment before it went bad thru neglect. simplicity of ingredients is one of my overarching goals, so i like knowing what exactly is in here. i have "cheated" a few times with commercial madras curry spice mix or garam masala to get more of a restaurant feel. even with the coconut, this recipe's sauce is a little watery vs. restaurants. when it's just me, i add some heat, too.

Consistent with 350 year old instructions, measurements aren't precise, i just go as the spirit moves me. i do not think i have made it exactly the same way twice lol.

i ran across the townsends youtube channel during the pandemic when i was looking for creative ways to use the basic ingredients that we were able to get our hands on (we were visiting our daughter in canada when the borders were closing, getting back when we were still able, but after the grocery stores were ravaged by then by panic buying. the first few weeks were a little trying). anyway, going back to the 17th century gave me some hints and recipes, and i continue to look in on them when the mood hits, including just for educational entertainment. the presenter in this video isnt the original or main presenter of the channel, who i prefer, but does do a decent job. i have made a number of recipes presented, doing them in a modern-adapted fashion rather than the historical re-enactments that they do.

good luck!

Pinhead oat (=steelcut in the US) risotto with edamame, peas, and serrano ham which I forgot to stir in. Wings dressed with miso caramel that overbrowned.

Ty @mjbnj0001 - gives me courage to curry up some cauliflower
- i also have let things expire gathering courage to try or for doing other, unplanned items. I am trying to do better with that; use or preserve instead of toss.


Chicken & chicken sausage, mixed vegetable soup with french bread for dipping for dinner tonight.



Made another large batch of mixed bones broth and veggie trimmings I had gathered in the freezer for soups this week. Rest is stored in ziplocks to use in soups, stews and sauces.

@Adventurista @acpgee

when you collect your veg scraps, what are you collecting? peels/skins, cores, "ugly bits" (lol), etc ...

To all those that can make homemade bone broth -I salute you - my homemade bone broth and all attempts at leftover turkey soup have been revolting.

On a yummier note:
Green shakes and eggs and squash for brekkie.

I've come to the conclusion of my latest experiment(s), extracting the liquid whey from yogurt and using the resulting components in a couple of ways (wheys? lol). The previous steps are posted above from various days.

Tonight was seeing how well liquid whey acted as a chicken marinade. I've known a long time that marinading in yogurt does great things for chicken, but reasoned that the whey was the critical component, not the milk solids, so, with leftover liquid whey available from the prior parts of the experiment, I gave some chicken a 2hr whey bath. To simplify, I didn't add flavorings until afterwards, and I rinsed off the surface whey from the chicken so its being cooked, too, didn't impact the results. All my online sources didn't bother with all that, just flavoring and cooking without that separate strictness; maybe I'll do this again after the holidays. That's how tandoori yogurt and tzatziki marinades work.

Anyway, it did have a pleasing effect, making the cooked chicken a little tenderer and moister, just as regular yogurt marinading does. In other words, I didn't see much of an amplification of the effect, and at this point I am not sure the extraction process is worth it except to get the whey and Greekified yogurt components for other uses, of which there are many. I'm open to hearing from others on their experiences. Longer marinade? Leave it on for the cook? Cook it other than oven roast? Other ingredients in a marinade?

Anyway, I want to thank you all following along on this particular journey. To paraphrase Frank Sinatra, "The end is here, ..., I did it my whey." Ooh, bad pun, but worth at least a little chuckle?

Pics:

1. At the conclusion of the plain whey marinade "bath." I'm about to get rid of the liquid. Forgot to mention above, I half expected a pronounced visiual change to the chicken, whitening or something, and plainly that didn't occur.
2. End of the bake. I did a fairly simple herbal rub. The roasted carrots have a lite sweet-hot glaze (mostly honey, soy sauce, butter and some cayenne). The other side for tonight was the rest of that throw-together pasta/chickpea/veg concoction from yesterday.

Chicken lok lak. I made extra stir fry sauce on Monday, making further remditions of lok lak quicker and easier.

Friday night we mostly go out. Szechuan near the flat.

Adventurista wrote: »

@mjbnj0001 - re stock, we have been using whole chickens instead of parts to gather bones over time, and we freeze parts & bits of unused veggies, freezing before they go bad and tossing like we used to.



A fast quick & easy soup, broth, some quinoa, after a few minutes, add frozen veggies and pre-cooked meat on hand, spice to taste. Added shred cheese after dished up.

@Adventurista Yum 😋- love this!

acpgee wrote: »

So what does everyone use their stock for.

You can use it to cook grains. Rice or barley does really good with stock. If you're feeling ambitious, risotto. Pulses do well with broth too - lentils and split peas; mmmm. I actually like to make rice with split peas or lentils; you have to add all the liquid at first and add the pulses after the brown rice is halfway done or it turns to mush.

I wonder what about soup upsets his stomach. That doesn't really make sense; it's just food with some liquid. A soup that's one of my favorites but that I don't make much starts with a nice broth. Cook up just a little celery and potato and maybe just a few veggies. When you're almost ready to serve, toss in a whole bunch of steamer clams until they open and are just done. Serve in warm bowls. It's like a bunch of steamers with broth as a bonus. I call it "Northwest Style Clam Chowder." I was inspired by some I had in Port Townsend.

Any savory dish that calls for liquid or water can benefit by the right broth.

You'll just have to imagine what this looked like. It was kind of beige so probably wouldn't have photographed well. It was tasty though.

Imagine a turquoise Fiesta Ware "salad plate." Yeah. Like that. Now picture a serving of short-grain brown rice off on one side - perfectly cooked. Yeah. Like that! Now imagine what came out of the oven....

It started as a small head of cauliflower that I planned to roast whole. I skipped that and instead broke it into pieces, tossed with olive oil, smoked paprika, Madras curry, yellow mustard powder, garlic powder, and salt, then roasted in the convection oven until brown and a little crispy outside.

Yeah - just like that!

Hubby complains that having a large amount of liquids upsets his stomach.