The Cooking Thread

I'm sure it's off the charts. Baseline minimum would be about 1000mg.

Just checked: In the neighborhood of 1,076.1 mg for a 12oz serving.

If you're drinking 12 ounces of cake flavored vodka, I'm pretty sure sodium isn't high on your list of concerns.

Speaking of vodka, I've decided that my baking addiction has gone on long enough to justify making my own vanilla extract. I'm tired of running out of the little bottles. We shall see how this goes.

I think it takes a month or so to make, but you can re-use the beans several times.

Why not just use vanilla instead of extract then?

Not sure what you mean. Are you talking about using vanilla beans instead of extract?

Yes.

He was asking about my chili...I thought.

The flavor is more concentrated in extract, so you get more out of a bean (which can be expensive!)

Anyone have any surefire suggestions for what to do with about a pound of fresh shiitakes? I'm stemming them now and should probably cook them in the next day or two. I don't generally cook with mushrooms and am not quite sure why I bought them in the first place, except that they were dirt cheap.

I figure that's not really enough for bourguignon, and I've already thrown a few into fried rice.

A pound of mushrooms is a good amount for 4 people so a stir fry, or anything else that uses mushrooms is fine. I did a sauce yesterday where I sauteed mushrooms with a tablespoon of butter, sprinkled with a tablespoon of flour, and then deglazed the pan with white wine and chicken stock. It was served with egg noodles and sauteed chicken.

I loooooooooooove hot pot made of fresh veggies, and fresh mushrooms are critical. That would be my vote.

Stir fry is great also. Oh so is putting them on the grill with your steaks/beef (size-allowing, naturally). Hell I'd throw plain mushrooms into just about everything though so I might be biased. ;)

OMG

I made miniature apple pies.

Used golden delicious this time.

They are DELICIOUS. They look pretty ugly though.

ETA: Yep.

Not to mention that extract is a much more effective way of incorporating vanilla flavor into a batter than vanilla beans. Just goes right in with the wet ingredients.

I've got a recipe for an awesome shiitake risotto. Use about a liter vegetable stock with a quarter cup of soy sauce and a table spoon of sambal oeleck for every cup and half of arborio rice for your liquid. Otherwise it's typical risotto; saute onions in olive oil add the sliced shiitakes then garlic and rice, deglaze with white wine. We usually make some seasoned roasted tofu with it but there's like a half dozen spices in it and I can't remember what they all are.

Depends: do you like the flavor or do you like the chew?

There's mock eel (deep-fried shiitakes cut into long strips) in a spicy-sweet Chinese-American sauce (although any soy-based sauce would work beautifully) if you like the chew. If you like the flavor, there's steamed shiitake and chicken (or whitefish) with rice wine.

Here is a sort of cooking related question: how do I tell my mother that her hard boiled eggs are crap? She massively over cooks them, such that the white is rubbery and the yolk is powdery (not to mention that unpleasant sulfury green color). I've tried to gently nudge her toward a better path, but she refuses!

I think that your proposed course of action is the way to go. Offer--non-confrontationally!--to show her how you cook them, and see what she thinks. If she resists, just say "Hey, just try it this once, what is it going to hurt?"

We like to steam ours.

She boils them for fifteen (!!!) minutes.

Whoah.

That's not cooking them, that's murdering them.

Holiday Baking Extravaganza Part 6 ended in failure. Made both doughs for the pinwheel cookies (a process that involved making one dough, washing the needed dishes, then making the second one), manhandled them into the fridge to chill, rolled them out (which took no small amount of arm strength), and then.. rolled them from the wrong side. Wound up with something too fat to bake. 90 minutes of hands-on work, down the drain. I'm going to cry now.

Get her drunk, do it the right way and do a blind taste test.

'Mom, I love your cooking. But can I please get my egg only boiled for (fill in preference, i.e. 3) minutes ? I prefer that.'

Ok, just take the pot away from her and do it yourself.

Like, with water actually on a full boil for 15 minutes? Has she ever eaten the result of this?

My preferred method of hard-boiled eggs is to bring the water to a boil with the eggs already in it, then turn off the heat and slap on the lid once the water hits a full boil. Let the eggs sits for 10 minutes, then fish them out. Perfect every time.

Is that a cheese-free risotto?

Pumpkin cinnamon rolls: awesome. Fork-whisked cream cheese glaze: tasty, but looks revolting. Decision to dye it blue to cover up strange gray color: NOT A POSITIVE ONE.

...I'd blame the drugs, but I actually haven't taken any today. This was totally normal Speak-brain. >.<

I made some cinnamon rolls. I used this recipe for the rolls, and this one for the icing. I also baked them in cake pans instead of on a sheet pan.

Yeah, I'm reviewing a recipe and I didn't follow it exactly. I'm that guy. Deal with it. That icing recipe is my
favorite and I'll never deviate from it. I'm giving these away for Christmas gifts to some family and neighbors, so I needed to make sure they'd bake properly that way.

ANYWAY I have a problem. I dont want to give any of these away. These things are fucking awesome. They're soft and delicious and they tower out of the pans and they have this aroma of cinnamon and lemon and I have to stop talking about them or I'm going to go eat one right now. I'll take a photo in the morning. You should make these. They beat every cinnamon roll I've ever tried to make, and pretty much all the ones I've ever bought commercially.

This is my experiment for the week. A brownie version of peppermint bark. Looking forward to trying it as soon as it is cool enough.

Anyone have any guidelines on shipping fudge? Possibly internationally? Not that I'm asking for any particular reason... >.>

Make sure that you check very carefully on the laws on shipping food to the destination country. If it's allowed, wrap the fudge tightly with plastic wrap, possibly two layers, to keep it from drying out. Temperature won't be a problem because fudge doesn't melt, and cold won't really bother it.

Pray that customs doesn't eat it. No kidding - a friend of mine got a full box of cookies from her mother around Christmas, sent from the US. When the package arrived, the box was only half full and a 'checked by customs' slip of paper was in it.

Behold!

Yes it is. It's (clearly) an asian inspired risotto, I think I forgot to mention but there's also ginger in there.

The tofu cubes add quite a bit as there's curry powder, five spice powder and other asian spices in it. With a vegetable side it's a complete meal. I'd have to get the recipe from home to post it all. The original also calls for a miso broth instead of vegetable stock but after the soy and sambal oeleck the miso gets a little lost and I haven't noticed much difference just using stock.

Would you ?

I'll post it tonight, if I remember... with me that's a big 'if' though.

If you can, that would be really cool - thanks !

I could feel my arteries tightening just looking at that.

Alright I can't really do much gifting this year for family for logistical reasons (traveling by plane is a big one) but they all have been asking to try some candy since I've been fiddling with that more seriously over the last six months. I can make a bunch, pack it in airtights, then put it in check-in for the one hour flight and that won't be a big deal. Then I can put it all out for everyone to have a family-sharing Christmas and I will have none of the guilts. Don't like this one? Fine, try that one. Don't like any of them? You are stupid. My shopping list is already fucked though, because I want to get real experiemental on this shit. Sure I'll make some basic stuff like caramel corn, but molasses taffy and peanut butter cheese fudge are a new thing. Here's the game plan.

My "make this week and take with" list:

• peanut butter cheese fudge
• white divinity with pecans
• red divinity with cherries
• green divinity (no add-ins)
• peppermint bark
• pralines
• molasses taffy
• white marshmallows
• red marshmallows (strawberry)
• green marshmallows (minty fresh)

My "make there in mom's kitchen" list:

• caramel popcorn
• candied bacon (plain)
• candied bacon with cinnamon
• candied bacon with peanut butter
• candied bacon with chocolate
• candy sushi (done up Christmas-like)

I've got some marzipan I can make into little decorations and ideas about taking like fruit roll-ups and cutting them into ribbons and so on, but any other ideas? Is there any traditional/obvious Christmastime candy that I'm missing? (I have not started working with chocolate yet so aside from the bark I am trying to avoid that if possible.)

Yes, the box you send to me!