Where my fellow cooks at???

[count2infinity]

Not sure I like the host from those few minutes of her talking, but it certainly looks awesome.

[count2infinity]

bought a dozen eggs, a pack of 8 turkey sausage patties, a dozen english muffins, and some cheddar cheese.

I love starting the day out with an english muffin breakfast sandwich, but usually don't feel like making them when I wake up, so I made up a dozen sandwiches 8 with sausage, the other 4 with some ham I had in the fridge. Wrapped them in parchment paper and threw them in the freezer. Wake up, pop one in the microwave and I'm good to go. I'll report back after I try the first one.

microwaved one this morning just before walking out the door. obviously not anywhere close to as good as making it all fresh, but it's still really good. great to eat on my way to work.

[mac5155]

Weird request... anyone have a dog treat recipe that would qualify as grain free?

[columbia]

I've made cracklins from the skin of pork shoulder....and believe me, my dog loved them.
So, yes.

Also, cheap frozen salmon cooks down nicely for an extra treat to throw in the dog food bowl.

[canaan]

bought a dozen eggs, a pack of 8 turkey sausage patties, a dozen english muffins, and some cheddar cheese.

I love starting the day out with an english muffin breakfast sandwich, but usually don't feel like making them when I wake up, so I made up a dozen sandwiches 8 with sausage, the other 4 with some ham I had in the fridge. Wrapped them in parchment paper and threw them in the freezer. Wake up, pop one in the microwave and I'm good to go. I'll report back after I try the first one.

microwaved one this morning just before walking out the door. obviously not anywhere close to as good as making it all fresh, but it's still really good. great to eat on my way to work.

I do this for the wife every week. This week is burritos. She digs it. I'm not much of a breakfast person, but it gives her time to get the little one ready for the day.

[columbia]

Smothered chicken on the menu for tonight:
http://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1016 ... ed-chicken" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[the wicked child]

We're having our second annual Octoberfest tonight. I'm making Geschnetzeltes. Also on the menu: brats, German Potato salad, beer cheese + pretzels and for dessert, Black Forest Cheesecake.

And of course an assortment of beer.

[columbia]

Per columbia's request in the beer thread...

Tonight I made Jagerschnitzel. Now I will admit that I somewhat cheated on the gravy, but I made due with what I had. Anywho... it goes something like this.

Gravy:

Slice up some bacon and brown it in a pan. Remove and set aside, leaving the grease. Slice some onions up into smallish pieces and saute in the pan, seasoning w a bit of salt n pepper when they are about done (turning translucent) and set aside w bacon. Now add some mushrooms to the pan (I had sliced portobella, but go w whatever you want) and saute till they're cooked through, season w a bit of salt n pepper at the end. Set them aside w the bacon & onions.

Now at this point, if I had a good pork stock or even some pork base, I would have made a roux w flour & the grease and then made gravy from there. I did not, but I did have a jar of Heinz pork gravy in the cabinet, so I drained the grease, then dumped it into the pan. Then I stirred in the bacon, onions and mushrooms and kept it on medium, then lowered the heat after it was warmed up and let the flavors cook together for a bit.

Schnitzel:

Got some thin pork cutlets from the Iggle. Pounded these out slightly, but wasn't much to do since they were so thin. Set up a breading station of flour + essence, eggs + essence and some panko. After a run through the 3 stations, I put a thin layer of oil in the bottom of a pan and cooked the schnitzel on both sides until they were golden brown.

To serve, simply top the schnitzel with the gravy.

I also made some german potato salad, but the recipe was disappointing, so I won't rehash it here. Sauce ended up far too sweet for my liking.

Washed it all down with a Weihenstephaner Dark Weisse. Results?

Spoiler:

Yum.

From early last year. I did make this and just might have to again next week.

[the wicked child]

Jagerschnitzel is awesome. I need to make it again sometime myself.

[Froggy]

We're having our second annual Octoberfest tonight. I'm making Geschnetzeltes. Also on the menu: brats, German Potato salad, beer cheese + pretzels and for dessert, Black Forest Cheesecake.

And of course an assortment of beer.

Awwwww yeah

[PensFanInDC]

We're having our second annual Octoberfest tonight. I'm making Geschnetzeltes. Also on the menu: brats, German Potato salad, beer cheese + pretzels and for dessert, Black Forest Cheesecake.

And of course an assortment of beer.

Awwwww yeah

Ill be there next year :pop:

[columbia]

Smothered chicken on the menu for tonight:
http://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1016 ... ed-chicken" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This was pretty damn tasty, although it definitely didn't turn out as "pretty" as the one in the video. It's probably a lot easier to just roast a chicken and make some nice gravy with the drippings from that. The real takeaway was that buying one of those fancy/pricey chickens at Whole Foods is worth it. I only cook a whole chicken every few months and the upcharge is definitely worth it (for me): it was definitely on a different level than those crappy (and overly large) chickens at the supermarket.

[shmenguin]

Good chicken recipe...

Put whole 5lb ish bird in the crock pot. Set it on top of equal parts chopped and finely grated zucchini, onion, carrot and celery. Grating the veggies turns the whole thing into a broth. Add some poultry herbs/spices. At the end, you're left with a bangin chicken soup. Serve over rice.

[the wicked child]

Never sure if it's better to talk about this in this or the TV thread, but... Top Chef: Duels finale....

Spoiler:

I enjoyed the first 9 episodes, with the caveat that a couple of the battles involved some of my least favorite people on TC. I was wondering, how are they possibly going to handle 10 remaining chefs in only 1 hour. The answer, as I suspected, was not very well.

Why can't TC get finales right anymore? The last good finale I can recall was the last Masters finale (which was surprising given how awful the season was as a whole). You have all of these great chefs and you just start cutting people out/sending them to the finale based on one or two silly dishes.

Now I will say that my enjoyment of this episode was also muted by the fact that Tiffani and Kevin are two of my least favorite people on TC ever. Nothing to do with their cooking, I just don't like them. The show put me in a position where I had to root for CJ, who while I'm not a major fan of, Tiffani winning would have ruined the entire thing for me.

So great season ruined by a **** finale. We've been ehre before, TC... get to your game!

[tifosi77]

Poached Halibut, Pickled Beets, Coriander Broth, Citrus Oil

[OutofFoil]

Beautiful Tif! Looks scrumptious.

[PensFanInDC]

Beets are the devil's veggie. Vile weed. I CURSE THEE AND THOSE WHO ENJOY YOUR BITTER TAINT!

[tifosi77]

Hmm, I really like beets.

One thing I will say, not cooking with them very frequently. If you are cooking with red beets and golden beets, within 90 seconds of playing you will have all red beets.

[PensFanInDC]

My hate of beets was founded the first time I ate them. Long story short, I took a big bite of canned red beets on Halloween when I was 8 and spit it out because i thought it was cranberry sauce. When you expect cranberry and get beet it changes a man...

My above comment was probably a tad harsh :-)

[PensFanInDC]

Also I would kill for some fresh Alaskan halibut. Its so expensive though.

[tifosi77]

Yeah, nothing makes me feel like a tool worse than paying a lot of money for a product and then overcooking it. Probably 5°F over on doneness, but that's the difference between flaky and unctuous and flaky and cardboard.

All good things to those who wait, however....... test firing my latest kitchen toy - the Anova immersion circulator.



First cook: A 63° egg. (That I did not photograph) One thing the test fire revealed is that I do not currently possess a tall enough vessel* for the circulator to be safely clamped on the pot and not have the bottom of the unit resting on the bottom of the vessel. A quick trip to the restaurant supply store this weekend will sort that right out.






* Notwithstanding the 80 qt stock pot Mrs Tif purchased for a chili cookoff at her work two years ago. But that's a little impractical.

[columbia]

Did you also buy a vacuum sealer?

[tifosi77]

Not yet. I'm weighing the pros-cons of buying a used one off eBay or wherever. The cheapest chamber sealer is more than twice the money I just paid for those two circulators, so it's not a small investment. (The bar sealers like Food Saver and whatnot are next to useless for serious cooking.)

[shmenguin]

i've started frying with bacon fat more and more lately. it's like natural MSG - it just elevates everything.

made fried rice over the weekend. used bacon fat for cooking the egg in the wok. superb.

[blackjack68]

I use it as a base for my roux for Bacon Mac and Cheese, in my spicy corn chowder, and many more dishes. Good stuff.