<a class="postlink" href="http://www.4hourrecipes.com/recipe/meatballs-and-gravy/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.4hourrecipes.com/recipe/meatballs-and-gravy/</a> Delicious, and healthier than normal.
What type of pan are you cooking the meat in? Most of the "depth" in a homemade gravy is using the burned on bits on the bottom of the pan. You lose a lot of that with non-stick cookware. Also, if you add just a touch of some type of vinegar or acid you can get some more depth of flavor.
This is great on just about anything, from sandwiches to fries to steak, it has some kick to it but the flavor is unbelievable. Chipotle Mayo 16-20 ounces of mayo 6 ounce can of chipotle chilis in adoba sauce If it is still to spicy add some brown sugar, it will take the edge off put in food processor or blender and mix until smooth
1 crockpot 1-2 lbs of boneless, skinless chicken breast can of chicken broth 2 jars of salsa - I like it hot. Use one jar in the crock pot, save the other jar for later. Throw it all in the crockpot and cook the chicken til it shreds. Once the chicken's done, use either red or green bell peppers. Cut the tops off, de-seed them. Shred the chicken, you can mix feta or cheddar (I like feta) in, along with some black beans and half a bag of frozen mixed vegetables. Stuff the chicken mixture into the bell peppers, top with salsa, and put into the oven until the peppers are done. I like to eat this with the salsa on top and some extra feta.
Spicy Tunabelly with mango [As always, if you are going to eat raw fish make sure it is good quality and well taken care of] Half pound of tuna belly, chopped (loins work fine as well) 1 tablespoon of Siracha 1 tablespoons sesame oil 2 tablespoons soy or ponzu sqeeze of lime Mix and add more of any of the above to taste Ripe Mango sliced any way you want.
I have the chicken mixture Shimmered described above in my slow cooker as we speak, and will report back shortly. However, while I waited for that to cook I put this together, and am pretty impressed. This probably has the best prep time to taste ratio of anything I've cooked bar fillet steak. Creamy Pesto Chicken Stir Fry. 800g pre-mixed stir fry vegetables 300g pre-mixed greens 500gm diced chicken (I used thigh, because it was cheap and I bought an astonishing amount of booze) 300ml cream (you could get away with probably half this, if you are health conscious) 250ml basil pesto (making your own is great and easy, but some days you just can't be arsed cleaning a blender. The bought stuff is fine). Rice to serve Basil leaves. 1. Start cooking rice in rice cooker. Fry chicken. Set aside. 2. Stir fry vegetables until slightly soft. (If pressed for time, add a cup of water and put the lid on the pan). Add mixed greens. 3. Add chicken, pesto, and cream to the pan. Stir until hot. Serve over rice, garnishing with basil leaves. This dish looks very pretty, and tastes exquisite.
Made this Chipotle Corn Soup last night, it came out really good. Could have used just a little bit more chipotle, but not too much more. If you blend it long enough and aren't too picky, you can skip the straining step. I topped mine with scallions, cilantro and Cojita. Awesome. <a class="postlink" href="http://www.chow.com/recipes/28537-chipotle-corn-soup" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.chow.com/recipes/28537-chipotle-corn-soup</a>
Thanks to years of watching my Grandma, Great Grandma and Mom cook my mashed potatoes and gravy and pretty damn good. When Turkey day rolls around I am always the designated gravy maker. Warning: not diet food. Gravy: Fry (or on Gobble day roast) meat, chicken, pork chops, chicken fried steak, whatever you're cooking. Remove from the pan, cover with foil and put in a warm oven. Turn off the heat and allow the bits and whatever you've used oil wise (NOT OLIVE OIL) to cool just a bit while scrapping the bits up from the bottom of the pan. In whatever container you want put in a cup or so (depending on how much you want to make) of flour, some seasonings (I repeat whatever I used to season the meat) and a package of that cheap ass gravy mix from the store in whatever flavor matches what you've cooked. I then add some cold water and mix up what's known as slurry, thoroughly. Next I turn the heat on med to med low, stir in the slurry and add REAL MILK (very important as the other kinds have way too much water content and ruin the gravy). Add enough milk, when you think you've added enough add a bit more because once it starts it gets thick fast. The thing with gravy is this, don't leave it alone. You have to babysit it, standing there with a whisk stirring and stirring until the desired constancy is reached. Taste, always taste and add more S&P if needed. As for taters, boil them, drain the water off, break the up with the beater off first, add S&P and some butter if you want. Beat in some, again, real milk*. Go light because with this unlike the gravy you can add more milk if needed. Then I beat the shit out of them, on super high speed, moving the pan around and the beaters back and forth round and round and so on. I do this for a good while. Taste to make sure your seasoning is right and there are no lumps. I add some butter on top. *My Mom uses heavy whipping cream for God sake. I don't go that far, I like my arteries to work
<a class="postlink" href="http://funnymike.posterous.com/how-to-make-chocolate-ice-cream-cups-using-ba" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://funnymike.posterous.com/how-to-m ... s-using-ba</a> Just randomly found this (thank you Stumbled Upon) and it is brilliant! I will be doing this one of these days.
I made these, and they were delicious! I added some Mexican rice and about 2 cups of frozen vegetables as suggested via pm, and ended up with so much tasty chicken mixture that after stuffing 4 peppers, I still have enough left for quesadillas for lunch. Mmm. The peppers themselves were excellent and easy as anything to put together. Each bite combines the sweetness of the peppers with the spicyness of the chicken, and then the sharpness of the feta comes along and kicks you in the face in the best possible way. I served them with sour cream because why not? They are also surprisingly filling. I'm a big guy and I eat big meals, but I just managed to get through two of these. I took photos, mostly to piss off that douche from a couple of pages back, but they turned out badly because I am photographically inept. All in all, highly successful and would make again! After eating them, I got drunk and stoned while watching the latest UFC Versus with friends, and decided to carry on my stuffed pepper activities with these: Lazy Man's Jalapeno Poppers. Ingredients: Jalapenos, halved Cream cheese Bacon Pre-heat oven to Riya Sen hot. Scoop out membranes and seeds from jalapenos. All the guides on the net say to wear gloves, which I guess you can do if you want to protect the moisturizing lotion on your delicate hands, fag, but what sort of bachelor has rubber gloves*? Cook bacon until it's about half cooked in frypan, and while frying fill chilis with cream cheese. Wrap in bacon, put in oven, and cook until bacon is crispy and edges of chili are just starting to blacken. Devour. Note: I suspect Emeril Lagasse's recipeis far better than mine, but mine is significantly quicker when you are hammered and hungry. *I washed my hands thoroughly after this, being an impeccably clever man. I washed them once with dishwashing liquid, then again with soap, and then yet again with soap. Then I went to the bathroom. Then I awkwardly held my crotch while waiting for the burning to stop while my housemates jeered at me. You've got as much chance of getting capsaicin oil off your hands with soap and water as a Vietnamese villager does of showering off the napalm. Use gloves to de-seed the chilis, or maybe tongs to assist your peeing. Trust me.
For some weird reason, I've been having a hankering for duck, but with the weather being what it has been, the thought of turning the oven on simply isn't an appealing option. Thus, I was thinking of picking up two ducks, splitting them into halves, and grilling them. Now, the problem is, duck has a copious amount of fat which I expect on the grill will cause a lot of flare-ups, burnt skin, uneven cooking, and a pissed off cook. When I cook duck or goose in the oven, I pierce the birds all over and pour boiling water over them a few times during the roasting process which melts much of the fat without drying out the meat, but you can see how this technique doesn't transfer to the grill. So, does anyone have an experience with grilling duck (and not just duck breasts) or suggestions? I think the length of a duck would eliminate the beer can method, and I don't have a spit (and don't plan on purchasing one).
Similar to your boiling water technique: I was watching Iron Chef last week, and a technique the chef used to get rid of a lot of excess fat and make the skin easily removable from the duck was to blanch it. That would also keep you from using your oven and heating the entire house up for an extended amount of time. Try blanching it on the stove and then cooking it fully on the grill.
Pretend the grill is the oven. Use a roasting pan you don't care much about, and set the grill up for indirect heat. Just watch the heat, because the grill is a little more sensitive, and don't open it often as it loses heat much more than an oven will. I've only done this on a gas grill, but I would assume you could do it on a charcoal as long as you keep an eye on the temp. I do this for holiday dinners for prime rib/roasts/whatever because it frees the oven up for more sides & pie. The nice thing about this, is that once it's done cooking, you can throw it directly on the hot grill grates to give it a quick char if that's what you're going for. Otherwise, it behaves just like an oven and won't heat the house. Just be forewarned; neighbors may come knocking at your door due to the awesome aroma you'll spew into the neighborhood.
You could also use a couple bricks wrapped in foil on top of the grill especially if you are splitting a full duck in half. Turn on the whole grill to high and put the wrapped bricks over the flame to heat them up. Give it about 10 minutes and then turn down one half of the grill and move the bricks over to that side.(careful they are going to be hot) Put the duck halves over the bricks and cook them like you normally would. The space between the flame and the brick will keep the flames from burning the skin and the indirect heat will keep the duck nice and moist. Once it's cooked to your liking, glaze with sauce if that's your thing and put over the flame to crisp the skin and get some grill marks and you'll be done. If you can find fire bricks get those as they are what pizza brick ovens are made of.
This thread is great. I've learned a ton from here, mainly from the excellent pictures that go along with the verbal descriptions. I wanted to ask you guys what advice you would give me for buying sushi-making lessons. My girlfriend loves sushi and she's very thrifty, so I know she'd be delighted to learn how to make sushi for herself. I wanted to buy her some lessons as part of her birthday gift, but I can't seem to find the type I had in mind. I wanted to find a program that she could do for 2-3 hours, once a week, that went on for a month or something. Pretty much everything I've found so far (A Whole Foods class and a Valkyrie Cooking class) has just been for 3 hours on a random week night. Is one session really enough to learn how to do this? I had a few friends who took classes and told me it was rather difficult to get the hang of. Anybody have a good experience with a particular company or lesson type? Both of the ones I'm looking at are listed as "hands-on," which seems pretty important. Neither is more than 80 bucks, though. I was looking to spend a bit more to make sure she got quality instruction. I live in Nashville, so it's not exactly the most cosmopolitan place in the U.S., but I was pretty surprised by the lack of offerings and thought maybe I was just missing something. I'd appreciate any advice.
Honestly, making sushi is more about getting the rice properly cooked than anything else. The actual construction of a sushi roll is about as difficult as making ravioli or making egg rolls. You lay out the nori wrap, add rice, add fish/crab/veggies, and use the bamboo mat to roll it up. Some tips: Don't overstuff. Your initial rolls will probably be a disaster as it's really easy to want to stuff the things so full of stuff. Buy fresh. This is one area you want to make sure you are buying really fresh ingredients. Don't overbuy. Unless you are going to be making A LOT of rolls, you don't need to buy an excess of product. Rice cooker. Spend the 20 bucks to buy one if you are going to be making sushi on a regular basis. Don't spring for one until you are making sushi more than 4 times a month. Google is your friend. There are a ton of sites that give recipes and instructions on how to construct a roll and what ingredients to use. Experiment. Don't just make California rolls. Find different things to try. Don't spend the money on a class. It's really really really easy to make sushi.
I just looked up guides online and that was enough for me. The poster above me is right when he says that the rice is the hardest part. The only tools you really need are rolling mats. If you really want to take a class, one is probably enough.
To agree with the two before me, the rice is the hardest thing to get just right. Also, don't skimp on fish quality, it makes a big difference.