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What was the last thing you cooked?

Hot off the stove, right now:

Double cheeseburgers with ketchup and dijon mustard on sourdough
Steamed fresh string beans
Stuffing with olives

To drink: for me, goat milk, but I think my daughter is having apple juice.

I have four peaches that are overripe. I think that before bed, I will whiz up a couple of peachy smoothies for dessert.
 
Breakfast bowl of 3 fried eggs, 3/4 cup rice and one of those foil packs of tuna with some cheese mixed in. I cook the rice in water with a couple chicken bouillon cubes to add some flavor, but the rice comes out good in broth too.
 
Stuffed hash browns, folded over a filling of chopped bacon and cheddar, topped with sausage gravy. An occassional treat. Nice for a rainy morning.
 
A risotto made with coconut milk spiced with lemongrass, galangal, kaffir lime, and finally, shrimp, basil, and jalapeno.
 
Yeshuasdaughter said:
Yesterday I canned (are you ready): "Sweet and Sour Crazy Berry Lemon Lime Cukes". It sounds weird and wild, right? But omg the flavor is out of this world! They smack you upside the head with the sour, but at the same time, they kiss it all better with the sweet. Best pickles ever!

I made a hot brine with vinegar, water, sugar, salt, mustard, lemon and lime juices, ground parsley, and some home-canned strawberry-grapeyberry sauce. The berry part sounds so insane, but it gives those bread and butter spears a real kick in the pants. Let's just say it works, really well. I could probably sell them.

********

Currently, I am canning a lovely condensed Eastern European Kompot.

I simmered pears and blueberries in just a little sugared water. I also added the tiniest kiss of vanilla, strawberries, and bananas. I then squeezed a key lime over everything. A lot of juice came out of the fruits, turning it into more of a condensed beverage, than a sauce- which is exactly what I was going for.

You can reconstitute it, like the frozen juices at the grocery store. You can pour it straight over yoghurt, cakes, or other baked goods. You can add it to other drinks, to flavor them.

It's a wonderful beverage. In the winter it's nice if it's drank hot.

*******

I also tried and failed at making and canning a spam style salmon cake recipe. I whipped everything together, like I was making salmon cakes. I intended to fill wide-mouthed jars with the batter, and then pressure can them.

Then, any time in the future, I could carefully pull out the salmon cake that had molded to the shape of the jar. I could slice it into patties, bread it, and then fry or grill the burgers.

Alas, I poured way too much salt in. I didn't notice until the end when I went to taste it. It was saltier than the ocean. So salty, in fact, I had to drink a quart of water, just to get the dry awful saltiness out of my mouth!

I never, ever throw food away, but this, alas, went in the trash. I feel so bad. because salmon is rare and costly. But I can't rinse the salt out, because it's all a puree.

Oh well. Sigh.

*********

Tomorrow, I want to can quick kraut. It's super easy. I have one of those pre-shredded coleslaw mixes from the store. I'm going to boil that in brine, and then can it like pickles. I'm excited for that. But no more canning today. I get so sleepy if I start working around 7 or 8. By 1 or 2, my arms are rubber, and it's time to rest.
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Have you thought of fermenting the cabbage? You put it in your fermenting jar cover it with room temperature brine and let it ferment for a couple of weeks. I use fermentation lids and weights to make certain that nothing is out of the brine or that batch is ruined. Tangy in a way that vinegared kraut isn't and vitamine enriched. I've done that and yesterday started a batch of hot peppers fermenting for hot sauce.
 
Metalhead said:
For me, I grilled some chicken thighs last night with some BBQ sauce, grilled some asparagus on the side, and made some yellow rice to go with it all.

What was the last thing you cooked?
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I just tossed a round roast into the sous vide. It comes out in 36 hours.
 
Lentil and spinach dal. But the lentils are still somewhat hard. I've been having that problem lately. Flavor is great, but I like the lentils to be mooshy.
 
Phew! Are you ready?

I made a vanilla creme tart. The base is a freshly baked, buttery pie crust. I filled it with homemade, rich, vanilla pudding*. I then topped the pudding with fresh peaches that were sauteed in butter and sugar. And on top of the peaches are sweet, juicy, tree-ripe yellow plums.

I made it in honor of my daughter who is going away to college. I miss her already. There are tears threatening my eyes at all times. It's her special dessert, so I am calling it "Bye Bye Pie".

I was gonna bake biscuits and gravy too. But after all that work, and kneading the biscuits, I asked my daughter to kindly finish the homemade hamburger gravy.

So.. that's what's for dinner.

I don't know what I'll have to drink. I think 2/3 punch. Thats where I fill a glass 1/3 of the way with homebrewed kombucha, another 1/3 of the way with juice, and third bit is either water, water kefir, or another kind of juice. I think tonight's 2/3 punch will be kombucha, apple juice, and water.

*Just so you know, pudding is one of the easiest "fancy" poor folks desserts you can make.
Here is the recipe:

In a medium pot, over medium heat, melt a half a stick of butter (1/4 cup).
Stir in 1/3 cup flour and a pinch of salt to make a roux
Once it's a paste, slowly stir in 1 cup of milk until it's a thin mixture of almost even consistency.
Stir in 1/3 cup white sugar and 1 teaspoon vanilla
Once it's all nicely combined, stir in 1 more cup of milk

Stand by the stove, stirring it on medium heat, constantly, to keep it from clumping or scorching, for about ten minutes or so. It will thicken, very slowly, but once it hits that magic spot, where it's almost as thick as pudding, and it just barely starts boiling, shut off the stove, and set it to the side to thicken for about ten more minutes, or to cool.

Enjoy
 
BBQ pork chops on a propane grill. I brined those suckers for 24 hours, slathered them in BBQ sauce and grilled them until they were thoroughly cooked.
 
It's roughly 96 degrees out, and I'm keeping it a cool 70 in the house. You know what that means? Canning fiesta!

It seems that this time of year is great for fresh produce at low prices, but also horrid heat. Needing to preserve food, in this weather is perhaps God's way of teaching us to endure hardship for a sweet reward, I suppose. The Bible says that God never gives us more than we can handle. I'm just thankful for air conditioning!

I'm pressure canning pints of pinto beans. That's so easy. 1/2 cup dry beans, 1/2 cup salt, fill it the rest of the way with water. The beans will cook and can all at once. 90 minutes on high pressure.

In a pot on the stove, I am doing something truly wild and crazy. I wanted to make a peachy applesauce. I had about eight apples and five peaches. I chopped them up into 1 inch cubes, and put them in a big pot. I wanted extra nutrition, so I left the skins on. I usually peel them. But I don't see anyone telling me I can't do it this way, so there!

But here's where it gets weirder- I have beets and carrots in the fridge. I got a crazy idea to chop up four beets and two carrots and throw them in with the peachy-apply chunk-o-rama. Because, why not ruin a good thing? Isn't that the auld saying "When life gives you delicious peaches, be sure to be a jerk, and mush beets into them?", right?

We shall see how it turns out. I am guessing it'll be good. If not, I'll be eating baby food I suppose.

Anyway, about the apple&etc chunk-o-rama, once it's all steamed and mashed, I'll put it into pint jars, and oven can it, the Iowa Redneck way that my ex sister in law, and practically her whole county does it.

It's gonna be fun. My house smells like frijoles and apple pie right now.

******
Edit: 7:18 pm
The apple sauce turned out incredibly yummers. It tastes like peach pie! Success!
 
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I started experimenting with using grilled sourdough bread for both grilled cheese sandwiches and as a substitute for a hamburger bun. Both turned out rather tasty.

I'm also storing a number of tightly wrapped slices of sourdough bread in the freezer, just to see how they do compared to hamburger buns which frankly don't last long.

Wondering what else I can do with sourdough. :cool:
 
I am making a spinach and brown rice casserole with lean ground beef and fresh jalapeños.
 
I fried up two homemade salmon burgers. Topped with home-canned spicy pickles, and homegrown parsley and green onions, on a nice rustic bread.

I made a whole lot of salmon burger mix, so I'm going to pressure can 2 pints of it.
 
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