What can you expect in the Food Thread on PF?

[turbo]

I made ham jambalaya last night and it was incredible. I made it with Rotel tomatoes for a little extra kick and I will never make it any other way from now on.

I've never see Ro*Tel tomatoes and chilis up this way, though I haven't been inside a supermarket for years, and I suppose that they might be featured in with the ethnic foods. No matter, really, since we add our canned (or fresh in season) chilis to practically every casserole-type dish, anyway.

 

[turbo]

I just polished off a vegetarian dagwood. My sister-in-law makes sandwiches at the local grocery store, and her sandwiches are killer. She bakes a pizza crust, cuts it in half and splits it to make a pita-like pocket, then loads that half with tomato, onion, green pepper, black olives and sliced cheese with a little lettuce (not much!). She always loads mine with jalapenos, too. I don't even bother with mayo or oil or seasonings - it's just a big double-handful of great-tasting vegetables in a big but thin pocket of bread, and she always gives me enough jalapenos to make my scalp sweat.

 

[turbo]

Tonight, my wife and I had stir-fry of tomatoes, mushrooms, onions and green peppers with pasta and some tossed salad on the side. I opened a jar of our canned jalapenos (much hotter than the commercially-available stuff) and added some to both the salad and the pasta dish. I'm hooked! I don't think I'll eat tossed salad again without jalapenos. I can cut 'way back on dressings that way. My wife has stopped using dressings on salads and adds some of our bread-and-butter pickles instead - now she's going to start adding our canned jalapenos, as well. We'll have to raise a LOT more peppers this summer to keep up with the demand.

 

[Astronuc]

http://www.thepastrygarden.com/index.html

 

[Ouabache]

How about some nice healthy cashew nut butter cookies?
With the magic of internet video, we can watch how they're made.

How about making your own maple syrup to go with your next batch of buckwheat pancakes... video clip Turbo & Astronuc, perhaps you can appreciate the aesthetic appeal of this method.

 

[Evo]

Apparently it's turkey season? The limit is two. The guy that works across from me shot a turkey on his way to work this morning. I have pictures. It was pretty.

Most of the guys I work with shoot their own meat. Not that I'm complaining as long as I get my share of the goodies. These guys are great cooks.

I think we should erect an Alton Brown turkey frying derrick.

 

[Astronuc]

shot a turkey on his way to work

Hopefully he was well off the road. I would think that someone getting out of a truck (I presume a truck with a gun rack) with a gun might freak out other drivers if it was on a well-traveled roadway.

 

[Astronuc]

How about making your own maple syrup to go with your next batch of buckwheat pancakes... video clip Turbo & Astronuc, perhaps you can appreciate the aesthetic appeal of this method.

Hah! That's great! The narrator even sounds like me, although my voice is perhaps a little deeper. Nothing like a homemade fireplace. When I was very young, we had a 55 gal drum which served as a backyard furnace. I spent a lot of time building fires. When I visited my maternal grandparents, I'd spend hours chopping wood. It was fun as well as being good exercise.

 

[Evo]

Hopefully he was well of the road. I would think that someone getting out of a truck (I presume a truck with a gun rack) with a gun might freak out other drivers if it was on a well-traveled roadway.

He was hunting out in a field near his house.

I know the first thing I think about on my way to work is to stop and shoot a couple of turkeys.

 

[turbo]

He was hunting out in a field near his house.

I know the first thing I think about on my way to work is to stop and shoot a couple of turkeys.

I worked for years with a woman that hunted before and after work, weekends, etc, and arranged her vacation time to coincide with hunting seasons. She routinely brought in pictures of herself with turkeys, deer, grouse, and one time a bear that she had shot. She and her husband are avid hunters. I have a petite cousin who is deadly with a bow and she bags deer regularly with it. She's a teacher's aide.

 

[Astronuc]

I worked for years with a woman that hunted before and after work, weekends, etc, and arranged her vacation time to coincide with hunting seasons. She routinely brought in pictures of herself with turkeys, deer, grouse, and one time a bear that she had shot. She and her husband are avid hunters.

There are a number of people in the nuclear industry who hunt and fish. Outages at some plants have to timed before hunting season.

I have a petite cousin who is deadly with a bow and she bags deer regularly with it. She's a teacher's aide.

And she enjoys Indian wrestling, right?

 

[ZapperZ]

The Food of Chicago

In anticipation of the upcoming unofficial PF Gathering in Chicago this summer, I'm going to list some of the food that are identified with Chicago. In case anyone is visiting the city some time soon, this would be a guide to some of the things you might want to try.

1. Deep dish pizza

This, of course, is probably the most popular food identified with Chicago. It was invented here at the first Gino's restaurant. It isn't your typical pizza. It is more like a pie. And unlike New York thin crust pizza, the sauce is pilled on top of the toppings, not at the bottom. And you don't eat it with your hands - you need a fork and knife to handle this one.

While Gino's is credited with inventing it, my personal favorite (and the favorite of many Chicagoans) for deep-dish pizza is http://www.loumalnatis.com/" . I know of many transplanted Chicagoans who would mail-order Lou Malnati's deep-dish pizza. It is THAT good.

2. Chicago-style hot dogs.

This is not what you would call a "minimalist" hot dog. Made with 100% "vienna beef" (whatever that means), Chicago-style hot dogs is famous with not just the dog, but what goes on on top of it. You get lettuce, sliced cucumber, sliced tomatoes, chopped onions, hot peppers, and celery salt. But the most unusual topping that makes it really unique is the fluorescent-green relish.

The best places to get good Chicago-style hot dogs are the various hamburger/hot-dog stands around the city such as Byron's. Many people swear that the hot dogs at Wrigley Field is one of the best. Popular TV sports commentator Bob Costas has been known to have some flown over to him.

3. Italian Beef sandwich

Again, another Chicago invention, and has no connection whatsoever with Italy. It is thinly sliced beef, cooked in seasoned broth, and then served in between a good french-type bread. You may ask for the optional hot/sweet/mild peppers, and a spinkling of parmesian cheese. There are also various ways to have this sandwich. You can just have it "dry" (the meat is still a bit wet since it was fished out of the broth), or you can have it medium to super juicy. Medium juicy is when they ladle a bit of the juicy broth onto the bread, whereas super juicy is when they quickly dipped the entire bread into the broth. Either way, this is as messy to eat as Philly cheese-steak sandwich. Expect the juicy to want to run down to your elbow or it isn't a good italian beef sandwich.

4. Stuff-crust pizza

A Chicago variation of the deep-dish pizza, which many has credited Giordano for the invention. Here, you start almost like a deep-dish pizza where you pile the "toppings" at the bottom. Then, rather than cover it with a thick layer of tomato sauce, you actually put down another layer of pizza dough, and then, cover it with a thick layer of tomato sauce and grated cheese. Again, you can only eat this with fork and knife, and you probably won't want to each for the next week after finish one of these beast.

The most favorite ingredient in the stuffing at Giordano is spinach.

5. Pizza Pot Pie

Purely an invention of the http://www.chicagopizzaandovengrinder.com/menu.htm" restaurant, and it is the only place to get it. Literally, it is a pot pie with pizza ingredients and sauce, surrounded with the pizza crust.

The restaurant had a very old-Chicago atmosphere, and rumor has it that Al Capone was a regular back during his days. If you don't have a reservation, don't even think about going there for dinner on Friday and Saturday.

As a side note, one of my most favorite places to eat in the neighborhood, especially for breakfast, Nookies Tree, has gone all trans-fat free! Hooray! I can have their thick onion rings again!

Zz.

 

[turbo]

My wife and I just came in from our first real summer cook-out. The temperature was 82 deg F and we grilled cheeseburgers on the back deck (served with our home-made green tomato salsa and canned habaneros) and a side dish of potato salad with Molson Goldens on ice. Maine's summers are short, and the evenings that are free of black flies and mosquitoes are precious. Glory!

 

[Evo]

I was weeding the garden the other day and I have TONS of wild garlic. It always smells so good I decided to look online to see if it was good to eat. I read a few recipes with it and decided to give them a try.

I chopped up enough to make about 2 cups, and chopped an onion, I sauteed the wild garlic and onion in butter until they onion was transparent, then tossed them with some freshly made hot couscous. OMG! That was the best dish ever! Now I fear that my craving for wild garlic will soon deplete my supply. To think for years I would throw pounds of them into the trash.

 

[Astronuc]

I chopped up enough to make about 2 cups, and chopped an onion, I sauteed the wild garlic and onion in butter until they onion was transparent, then tossed them with some freshly made hot couscous. OMG! That was the best dish ever! Now I fear that my craving for wild garlic will soon deplete my supply. To think for years I would throw pounds of them into the trash.

I don't suppose you saved any.

So is garlic, as opposed to wild onion? And did you make the couscous with semolina wheat and/or pureed chickpeas in addition to onion and garlic?

I am growing (well trying to at least) some garlic. The one of two original plants (which survived the winter) have been divided and distributed. It's my first experience/experiment growing garlic.

 

[mathwonk]

wow is this thread popular. my browser couldn't even find the last page.

i like a nice fresh plate of pasta with maybe arugula salad, pepper and good parmegiano, and a glass of red wine, maybe regusci, or 2000 la cardonne, or andrew will, if i could find it.we also enjoy the worlds most expensive blackberries once a year, by picking them from a view lot we own in washington, facing the olympic peninsula. that's all we use the lot for, so that why the berries cost tens of thousands of dollars a pound, so far.

 

[mathwonk]

heres a real recipe, but i am not really a cook.

take an egg or two and mix them up with a lot of really good parmegiana cheese, grated yourself from the good gourmet store, not out of the green can we used as a kid.the mixture should look heart stoppingly cholesterol laden. then cook some bacon, actually in extra olive oil, drain and set aside.

then make the pasta, with lots of water. as an italian friend says "foreigners never use enough water for pasta."

it is ready when it tastes as if it is ("al dente"), or as some people prefer, when it sticks to the ceiling when flung, but my wife frowns on this method.

then drain the pasta, and pour into a thingy with holes in the bottom (collander?), and add the egg parmegiana mixture and mix it up. the hot pasta cooks the eggs enough.

then add the crushed bacon and mix further amd serve.

have freshly ground pepper and more freshly grated parmesan for people to sprinkle.

although not a cook, actually even i have had a success with this. oh yes, serve good red wine and preferably a salad if you have someone with salad skills.

 

[Astronuc]

the mixture should look heart stoppingly cholesterol laden. then cook some bacon, actually in extra olive oil, drain and set aside.

Breakfast - coffee and cholestrol -

 

[Evo]

heres a real recipe, but i am not really a cook.

take an egg or two and mix them up with a lot of really good parmegiana cheese, grated yourself from the good gourmet store, not out of the green can we used as a kid.


the mixture should look heart stoppingly cholesterol laden. then cook some bacon, actually in extra olive oil, drain and set aside.

then make the pasta, with lots of water. as an italian friend says "foreigners never use enough water for pasta."

it is ready when it tastes as if it is ("al dente"), or as some people prefer, when it sticks to the ceiling when flung, but my wife frowns on this method.

then drain the pasta, and pour into a thingy with holes in the bottom (collander?), and add the egg parmegiana mixture and mix it up. the hot pasta cooks the eggs enough.

then add the crushed bacon and mix further amd serve.

have freshly ground pepper and more freshly grated parmesan for people to sprinkle.

although not a cook, actually even i have had a success with this. oh yes, serve good red wine and preferably a salad if you have someone with salad skills.

Ah, pasta carbonara. In Italy they use a type of cream which can't be purchased in the US and pancetta. It is to die for. :!)

 

[turbo]

I was weeding the garden the other day and I have TONS of wild garlic. It always smells so good I decided to look online to see if it was good to eat. I read a few recipes with it and decided to give them a try.

I chopped up enough to make about 2 cups, and chopped an onion, I sauteed the wild garlic and onion in butter until they onion was transparent, then tossed them with some freshly made hot couscous. OMG! That was the best dish ever! Now I fear that my craving for wild garlic will soon deplete my supply. To think for years I would throw pounds of them into the trash.

That's awful! There is a lot of wild stuff that is delicious and it's too bad to waste it. If the wild garlic divides well like the cultivated kind wait until fall, dig up a bunch, divide the bulbs into cloves and replant the cloves. Maybe you can get a patch going that will keep up with your demand. One of my neighbors raises garlic and last year he gave us some purple Russian garlic that tasted wonderful, so we put some in a batch of our habanero sauce-Mmmmm I may have to beg some bulbs of that from him and start my own patch this fall.

Fiddleheads (immature ostrich fern) will be out this weekend, and though we still have gallons of them frozen from last year, there is nothing like steaming some fresh-picked fiddleheads and serving with a little butter and cider vinegar.

 

[hypatia]

When I cook fiddlehead's {bracken or ostrich} I always boil them twice, with a change of water inbetween. I find they taste sweeter. In Japan they roast them with other spring veggies and ginger. It has a very savory taste.

 

[turbo]

We've tried fiddleheads a lot of ways, including casseroles, and have also par-boiled them until still crispy and tossed them in a stir fry.

 

[arunbg]

Just like mathwonk said, wow this thread really is popular and its even listed in the classics!
Yeah, I keep popping in every 10 pages or so to check if everything is allright.
And now I'm back at home, eating my favourite food, the mom special.

I thought I should share an experience I had long back, it reminds me of the good old days.
One fine day, my dad told me that we were all going crab hunting. Now, we were in a middle-east asian country and the sea was miles away, and so I took it as a joke. Whoever heard of "crab hunting" anyway ?

A few hours later I found myself in a car with my whole family, on the highway along with other family friends heading for the nearby coastal town. Needless to say I was excited, I had never even gone fishing before. When we finally got there it was already twilightish. The shoreline glimmered in the setting sun (am I being too romantic here?). Initially, I thought that we had come late, but when everybody waded into the water I joined in too. Now the only light available came from the night sky and the bright torches in the hands of the company's adults.

I was quite wary stepping into those dark uncertain waters but after some time the fear vanished. Then I think my dad shone his flashlight into the water. Initially, I couldn't see anything except the murky waters, a few fish and the vegetation on the seabed. Then I saw them - crabs running away from the light, lurking in crevices, they were everywhere.
Us kids had a jolly good time spotting them while the adults scooped them up with their nets. At the end of the hunt, I think we managed at least 30-40kgs of the crustascean. We took our share and went home.

Then it struck me that we had to kill them before we could eat them, I was so used to getting crab meat on my plate served with mom's wonderful gravy.
So I watched as my mom put them in the freezer, I felt so sorry for the guys. Next day when I was served crab, I took one look at the plate and couldn't bring myself to eating, conjured up images of them dying were stuck in my head now. So my parents had to finish it all up on their own

Now that I think about it, I don't think that such unauthorized "fishing" was even legal in those parts.

 

[Astronuc]

This restaurant has a great menu and is not too far from where I grew up in Houston.

Masraff's - on Post Oak Lane

http://208.106.136.226/mas/menu.asp?mcid=3

 

[Evo]

Then it struck me that we had to kill them before we could eat them, I was so used to getting crab meat on my plate served with mom's wonderful gravy.
So I watched as my mom put them in the freezer, I felt so sorry for the guys. Next day when I was served crab, I took one look at the plate and couldn't bring myself to eating, conjured up images of them dying were stuck in my head now. So my parents had to finish it all up on their own

Now that I think about it, I don't think that such unauthorized "fishing" was even legal in those parts.

I know, my mom took us crabbing when we were little, but then when it came time to boil them, they would scream. I'm still traumatized by it.

 

[mathwonk]

i was pretty surpized at the idea carbonara has cream in it, as that makes me think of alfredo recipes, but i did find some recipes with cream on the net.

my recipe was that of a family in Rome we knew and lived with for a few months. apparently some recipes have cream, some have white wine, or whatever. the one i gave is pretty rich without the cream though, especially if you grate in enough parmeggiana reggiano.

 

[turbo]

we also enjoy the worlds most expensive blackberries once a year, by picking them from a view lot we own in washington, facing the olympic peninsula. that's all we use the lot for, so that why the berries cost tens of thousands of dollars a pound, so far.

I have probably the cheapest blackberries around. They grow wild on our property and on the vacant woodlot across from us. I can usually get around a gallon or so every time I go out picking, and apart from those that we ate or those that we juiced and drank, we froze at least 20 gallons last summer. There is a black bear out back that gets his share of them, too. I don't mind him eating berries, but he often tramples canes to get to good clumps of berries, and I wish he'd learn to be more careful.

 

[Evo]

i was pretty surpized at the idea carbonara has cream in it, as that makes me think of alfredo recipes, but i did find some recipes with cream on the net.

my recipe was that of a family in Rome we knew and lived with for a few months. apparently some recipes have cream, some have white wine, or whatever. the one i gave is pretty rich without the cream though, especially if you grate in enough parmeggiana reggiano.

My recipe is from my ex-fiance that is Sicilian (lives in Sicily) and there it is made with that special thick cream that you can only get there. :!)

 

[mathwonk]

well our neighbors seem to have cheap berries too, from the vacant lot (ours) across from them, as the easy ones always look culled when we go there.

 

[Evo]

I need to hack a chicken apart.

I used to be an expert at this, but it's been years since I've done it and last week I hacked one apart and it was embarrassing.

I need to do it again. I plan to sautee the pieces with several chopped onions and then plate it over hot couscous.

I just can't see paying $3-$5 per pound for cut up chicken when I can buy an entire 5 lb chicken for $3.45.