The Food Thread

Astronuc

I have not idea. She hasn't tried it on me yet.

Evo

Mmmmm, the office animal killer just brought me some deer tenderloin he cooked. WOW, it's excellent!!!

The girl in the cube next to mine refused to try it, she said she's sure there are still parts of the animal on his bumper. She said it was road kill.

The flavor and texture of deer always reminds me of good beef liver. Now I'm craving liver and onions. But all I can ever find anymore is thick frozen slabs. I'm going to have to go to a real butcher shop to get some decent thinly sliced fresh liver.

Oooh catnog...

turbo

Mmmmm! Venison. I struck out this year. The too-warm weather this fall meant that almost everything except trees and some berry bushes were still vegetative into December, and the deer didn't have to forage much. It's hard to find deer when they can sleep comfortably all day.

Evo

We started to have an Indian summer, then WHAM, we're having the worse winter in the 14 years I've lived here and it's not even winter yet!!! They're saying we're going to get another 5" of snow tonight. This is very unusual here.

Evo

ALERT ALERT!!!!!!

Food dilema!!!

It will probably be snowing when I leave work so I don't want to drive to the store and all I have in the fridge is a bunch of pork necks. (don't ask)

I was originally going to make some soup, but I just got through eating the last pot of soup I made and I'm sick of soup.

What else can I do with these? I have canned tomatoes, a dozen different types of beans, some pasta.

They are pretty meaty and Dr Foofer is pretty excited, he's been camping in front of the fridge waiting for them to come out.

turbo

Cube the pork (small) and either stir-fry it in a wok or in a pretty hot cast-iron pan with peanut oil, chopped onions and green peppers, salt and pepper. Mix in some curry powder and serve over noodles.

That's a pretty quick meal, and just the smells from the stir-fry ought to get your taste buds going. For variety, you might want to include snow peas, broccoli, brussels sprouts or some other vegetable with a distinctive flavor.

Andre

Alternately, how about 'porc au vin'?

Cube porks, chopped onions, some kind of smoked meat for flavor if avaible, a bit garlic, seasoning, whatever. fry until the onions are a bit glazed then pour some ounces of cheap red wine on it until the mass is partly covered. Simmer for 30 minutes. Add some sauce thickener, whatever you call it at the end. Serve with rice, mashed patatoes, couscous, spaghetti, whatever is around.

Evo

This sounds great, but I don't have any veggies.

Oh, I have the ingredients for this!!!

turbo

You don't have fresh staple vegetables (onion, green pepper, garlic, etc) on hand? I am confused. How can you cook without them? I'd feel like I was handcuffed if I didn't have at least those 3 fresh vegetables available, not to mention potatoes, pastas, canned and dried beans and our fresh-frozen garden vegetables. If you've got meats and the fresh staple vegetables, a stir-fry is just minutes away. You can whip it up while the egg noodles are cooking.

2 food-thread demerits for being unprepared!

Evo

Since I'm all alone, I just don't keep as much fresh produce on hand as I used to. By the time I get off from work, I'm too tired to stop at the store.

I have one potato, some onions and a few baby carrots.

I'm not going to tell you that I've been known to eat cold soup right out of the can, the condensed kind, not the "ready to eat". Did you know that Cream of Mushroom soup eaten out of the can has the consistency of cold snot?

Andre

Then, just try it, I'm convinced that you won't be disappointed. The orginal recipe is about "cocq au vin" of course, but with pork it works too. The seasoning is called 'bouquet garni' and should contain cloves and bay laurel leafs.

scorpa

That is unfortunate Turbo. From what I hear it was a pretty good season here, apparently at home all you heard was the popping of shotguns. Our poor dog isn't very couragous so he spends most of hunting season huddled up in our porch....he is a 80 pound chicken :P


I have no food right now. My fridge contents include an old bag of carrots, some ketchup, cream cheese and 2 three year old beers. I'm going home next wednesday so I don't want to get groceries. I've made it for 4 weeks so perhaps I can make 5....or maybe I will have to get some this weekend if I can tear myself away from studying :(

turbo

Oh, man! You are just begging for more food-thread demerits!! How can you abuse yourself this way? Canned soup is 'way bad, and cold canned soup is piling insult upon injury. I may be able to fix you up with a woods-bound mountain-man if you bring in a trailer-load of canned goods as a dowry, but if you don't learn to cook with some real food, you'll be dumped after the first winter.

My newest neighbor (Maine native who moved to Mass in 1969 and moved back this year) still doesn't know how to properly gut and clean out a deer. I promised to teach him, but neither of us even caught a glimpse of a white-tail this year due to the unseasonably warm temperatures. I'll teach him eventually, and we are going to list each other as alternates on next year's moose permit applications.

turbo

Darn! The deer that got hauled into the weighing stations were fat and healthy, but they were few and far between.

My brother-in-law Jim (now deceased of pancreatic cancer that went into remission and came back to kill him 10 years later) had a pointer named Quincy. He was a friendly, quirky dog, and every time there was a thunderstorm, he would run to the front door and quiver and shake all over wanting to be let out. He was convinced that someone was hunting without him, and with each crack of thunder, he'd work the tree-lines looking for birds to retrieve. He was a nut, but such a sweetie, too!

Get some food, Scorpa! Even a little fry-up of hamburg, onion, garlic, peppers, etc can give you a boost, especially when you combine that with some potato, pasta, or basmati rice. You've got to make a little bit of time every day to cook, because you are what you eat. That sounds like a cliche, but it's true.

turbo

I've got to mention that my finances in college depended greatly on my ability to buy/sell guitars and amps, and milk what money I made playing frat parties on weekends. Sometimes things got a bit lean, and I would make some pea soup, lentil soup, or baked beans during the weekend, with varying appearances of bacon, ham, etc. Good weekends often found me making batches of Spanish rice, spaghetti, or even lasagna. The really lean weekends found me making "Fench soup" which consisted of a thin soup of rice, potato, onion, and canned tomatoes.

Evo

I pretty much live on lentils and other legumes, loved them all my life. There is a French soup my mother used to make for us when we were sick, onions, potatoes and carrots, pureed with a pat of butter floated in the bowl.. I used to look forward to getting sick so I could have that soup.

I still eat very frugally most of the time, only splurging once in awhile. Probably why my cholesteral and blood sugar levels are so good.

turbo

When things were getting lean, my mother would send me down into the cellar to bring up a jar of salted leeks and some canned tomatoes. She would combine these with potatoes, rice, and onions to make "French Soup" that was to die for. A nice hot bowl of that soup with a stack of Saltines and some butter was a killer meal.