NulloModo

I think some are making to big a deal over codes. I am not sure of the legality here of installing professional ranges, but I know several people who have had it done. All you need is a contractor who is more interested in customer service than in following codes. I haven't asked but they probably had to pay more to have the ranges installed that it would've been for a basic one, and I'm not sure how it works if they ever try to sell the house, but if you know you are going to be staying where you are now, and have the money to spend on an AGA range to begin with, I doubt it would be a problem...

Inspired by the Cookoff III Thread, last night's dinner was Gumbo:

Good News for those of us in the NorthEast: I went to my local TJs last week to pick up some Superbowl supplies, and ended up engaging the manager in a conversation about Total Greek Yogurt. Apparently the holdup is that the Northeast stores share a Mass. based distribution center, and Total just doesn't have certification to move the yogurt through Mass. Apparently, however, this is all almost cleared up, and we should start seeing the Total Yogurt on store shelves in this area sometime into March. Here's hoping...

Generally most leftovers around my place are eaten again in the same style they were originally prepared. Things like pork butt become pork butt sandwhiches, pork butt salads, pork butt omelletes, etc, but it is still just pork butt used as the protein in standard dishes. Whenever I make a big pot of soup or casserole I generally just toss it into a bowl and use it as an easy 'scoop some into a tupperware dish' solution for preparing my lunch for work the next day. It may sound dull to eat the same thing for lunch all week, but I vary my breakfasts and my dinners, and I really don't get bored with it.

Well, I'm not sure how it tastes compared to a traditional flour roux, but it tasted pretty damn good, so I'm not worried. There was a discussion a bit back about whether or not making a dark roux actually causes a reduction in carbs or not, and I think the end result was that unless you carbonize (burn) the flour, the carbs are there, just cooked, so, they would still count. Either way, if pressed with the choice to have to not have gumbo, or to adapt the gumbo so that it fits the way I eat, I will adapt ;). When the adapted recipes actually work, so much the better.

I think that is a very good question, and it brings up that people have a variety of reasons for wanting to lose weight. Some choose health benefits, some social, some work/job related (which may be a blend of the previous two). For me personal appearance and the social aspects were my huge reasons. The health concerns of being obese were honestly not in my mind at all, I was just tired of being the object of public derision and of being ignored by all women in which I had even a passing interest. Once the weight started to come off the health benefits become more clear, and honestly, feeling as good as I do now, I had no idea how bad I felt before, and it is even more reason to keep the weight off, and will continue to be a reason as I age and the issues of sexuality become less salient.

Carbquick bake mix is a baking mix made from enzyme modified wheat flour that has only around 8 net carbs per cup, and tons of flour. It works in 90% or recipes 90% like bisquick, so I figured it was worth a shot. As for the Italian sausages, like I said before, it was what I had around. On with the progress: The veggies when they were cooked down: I did chop fairly big, for a couple reasons: this will be served sans rice, so I wanted a decent mouthfeel, also, I suck with a knife, and I didn't want to cut myself. They cooked down pretty well, I assure you, there is plenty of bell pepper and celery in there. Once the veggies were down I added the sausage back in, a can of chopped tomatoes, and the spice mix: Spices included cayenne pepper (the bright red stuff), garlic powder, onion powder, oregano, dried basil, thyme, tarragon, mustard powder, white pepper, chili powder, and celery salt. There might also be something else in that photo I forgot. Also present, but not pictured, is about two tablespoons of fresh ground black pepper (my pepper grinder is on the fritz so I had to use my spice grinder for it). Let this all simmer for around an hour or so, then served it up: My oh my, very tasty stuff. The okra and the little bit of roux made it nice and thick, but not too thick. There was no burnt taste, the veggies still had a little bith of toothiness to them, which I liked, and the okra added lots of great flavor. The spice mix was enough to make it flavorful without overpowering I think. I can be a bit heavy handed with cayenne on occasion, and I wanted to avoid that this time, which I think I accomplished. Anyway, the finished product, my roomate and I both quite enjoyed.

Hey all, I have just gotten home from work and started my gumbo adventure! First up is the trinity: around a pound and a half of okra (can't see it, it is on the bottom of the bowl), two green bell peppers, five or six stalks of celery, and a giant spanish onion: I browned around 3 lbs of Italian sausage, half hot, half sweet in my pot: Then I started with the roux, fully expecting to be stirring for half an hour: Well, it got to that state in about a minute and a half. As soon as I detected a burning flour smell I dumped in the trinity, figuring it was done, looks dark enough anyway. That is four tablespoons of oil and four tablespoons of carbquick bake mix. The veggies are now cooking down in the roux over lowish heat so that I will have room in the pot for everything else.

Hmmm, I have a cast iron skillet I could potentiall cook the roux in, but then that is a greater splatter hazard, plus I am worried about it sticking. Will non-stick make it not work or is it just the supposed dangers of overheating teflon? I personally don't care if this particular pot lives a long and happy life or not, as if it breaks I have a good excuse to buy something better. I'm also not particularly worried about the dangers of teflon fumes or whatever, so, as long as the cooking process will actually work inside of it, I will most likely just use that to only dirty one pot.

My pot is finally cleared out of the chili that I made for the superbowl, so I will be making my gumbo tonight. I have had some okra in the fridge that I picked up on Saturday, still looks good, and I got the celery and green bell peppers last night. I will definately use the okra, but I am thinking I will also do a small amount of roux, just because I have never made a roux before, and I am curious to see if the CarbQuick bake mix I have will work for one. I am thinking around 4 TBL of mix to 4 TBL of oil mixed with the thickening power of the okra will work out well. For the meat I will be using some hot italian sausage (it was on sale, my freezer is full of it), plus some frozen squid rounds (is it still calamari if it isn't breaded and fried?), and maybe some mystery chunks of meat living in the back of my freezer, if they don't smell bad when thawed. I have some fresh jalenpenos that also need to get used, so, those will most likely find themselves thrown in as well. I'm not sure what I will use for my spice mix. The times I have made gumbo in the past I have tossed in a creole blend that I make including paprika, cayenne, tarragon, thyme, oregano, salt, celery seed, garlic powder, black pepper, white pepper, and possibly a couple other things. It has a nice zing and full round flavor, but I wonder if perhaps gumbo might hold up to something a little more intense, so I will see what else I feel likeplaying with when it comes down to it. I don't have a big heavy steel pot, or a dutch oven, or anything like that. I do have a medium-large non-stick farberware pot that I use for all my soup/stew tasks, hopefully this won't cause issues while cooking my roux of the resultant gumbo.

I have the client, but I googled a bit and couldn't find a link to the Cook's Tour torrents. Would you care to share the link?

It is possible to get them even crispier without the flour, but you need meaty wings with some nice skin. If you get your oil blazing hot, have nice meaty wings that won't dry out fast, and don't overcrowd your fryer, you will get a great 'chicken cracklin' effect from the skin, cripsier and chewier than any bread crust.

Cilantro just makes more sense to keep it from getting confused with Coriander seed. Around here it has never been called anything other than Cilantro, at least not that I can recall, so I just stick with that name. I hated it the first time I had it, when I was around 12, but since then my taste buds have woken up to appreciate the flavor, and now I can't get enough.

I've been thinking about other things I have around which I could put into my gumbo: how do you think chicken livers would be? Is there any precedence for using organ meats in gumbo, or is it just not done?

What about reverse cocktails where the liquor is moved more into the forefront: such as a jack and coke or a gin and orange juice where the spirit suddenly becomes 50-75% of the gross volume of the drink.

Cluck-U makes hands down the best wings anywhere, ever, period. I too am a huge fan of the Global Thermonuclear sauce, a pile of those wings was my late night dinner of choice whenever I had to pull an all-nighter, and boy, would they keep my up... Anyway, a website appeared recently called Cluck-U-shop or something, and it looks like they will be selling their sauce to the public, they just don't have any up yet... bummer. I would just get them from the source, but they really need to offer their wings unbreaded as well as breaded. As for the recipe: I know it starts with a basic cayenne pepper sauce. I can tell there is a lot of black pepper in it, in fact, that is what convinced me to start adding black pepper to my wing sauce. I can tell a certain smokeyness, almost a sweetness, to it as well, so I'd wager that there is BBQ sauce or Chipotles ground up in there as well. The color is pretty dark red, so, there has to be something other than just cayenne and black pepper. Let me know if you get anywhere though, I would love to replicate those wings.

I love sage, rosemary, mint, cloves, cilantro, pretty much any herb, and most of them in great quantities. The only ones I really have trouble with if there is more than a hint are Tarragon and Thyme. Something about them seems overpoweringly leafy and bland even though they have a distinct taste. I will use them in spice blends and all, but I haven't been happy with anything I have cooked using either of those as the primary flavor element.

Well, pepper at least should be added as close to eating the food as possible, so it makes sense to save that off for the last possible minute. As for the cheese, it is more fun to watch it melt and get a bit soft on your hot food than it is if it comes out already like that.

I received a bottle of the Anchor Bar wing sauce that I tried out the other night, it wasn't bad, but it needed a bit of doctoring with my standard wing doctoring steps: My typcial recipe (for mild wings) is: Texas Pete Hot Sauce (so much better than Franks) Butter (salted is fine) a dash of vinegar several hearty shakes of worcestshire sauce loads of fresh cracked black pepper (secret ingredient, use way more than you think you should) garlic powder or fresh chopped garlic finely ground If you want it hotter, add some real hot sauce in addition, like Blair's After Death or any of the Capsicum enriched sauces. The key to good wings is the cayenne flavor dominates, so for extra heat the sauces that are all burn and not much flavor are actually a good bet. Not that habanero wings and other gourmet hot sauces don't work as well, they just don't make as traditional of wings. The wings absolutely positively must be deep fried, baking is not only a poor substitute, it ruins the texture of the product. I used to swear by only peanut oil, and I still prefer it, but I made my batch last night in Soybean oil because Safeway didn't have any peanut oil in bulk, and I was about to shell out $10 a pop for the five little bottles of the peanut oil I would've needed.

Oh whoops, somehow missed the pre-school comment. Oh well, a black rum cake made with rum flavoring instead of rum could still be very good.

A nice spice cake could be fun, or even better yet a jamaican black rum cake. Heck, anything soaked in liquor is bound to be a hot item.

Hmmm, I've been making my gumbo roux-less as of late, but I have come upon some flour subs that might work out very well flavor and texture wise, so I will have to check those out. My local safeway was having a clearance on Italian Sausage (Hatfield's brand) and I picked up around 10 lbs of it at around $1 a lb, so, I wonder how that might work in gumbo... I also have some frozen squid rings I need to use, I could toss them in too, and maybe give it some extra tomato kick for an Italian style gumbo.

I am personally not insulted by this. I like hot sauce on lots of things that it doesn't traditionally go with, and yes, I have to have it on almost any egg dish I eat. I have had food prepared very well, and I usually take a couple bites first to see how it is in its natural state, but that doesn't stop me from adding sauces later, it just adds to the taste. People have differing personal tastes, what is perfect to the chef might not be perfect to the diner, so if they enjoy it more with a little tabasco, ketchup (blech, not my preference, but whatever they want), or ranch dressing, what is wrong with that? Ranch dressing gets a bad wrap I think. The stuff just tastes plain good, as does blue cheese dressing, both can adorn my pizza, eggs, or other random things anytime. Sometimes I feel like them, sometimes I don't, but my decision to add them shouldn't ever be taken as an insult to whoever prepared the dish. Similarly with salt and pepper, there is no such thing as a universal perfect amount for a dish. I enjoy a good bit more pepper than most people, so, I almost always grind some extra to the food on my plate before eating it. Why should a diner eat a meal that isn't completely satisfying for him or her when all it would take to send it over the edge is a little condiment? A chef can take a meal 90% of the way to perfection, but sometimes the diner just needs that little bit extra to really make it feel right.

Eh, I live in Delaware, so, if I get cancer (which I have a pretty high chance of if I stay here the rest of my life, which I don't plan to) it will be thanks to DuPont or one of the other dozens of major chemical companies here. I tend not to worry about risks like that in food, and hey, this tea tastes a hell of a lot better than teflon.

Wow, everything looks very tasty so far. I have always wanted to try Jerusalem Artichokes, but they are impossible to find over here at all. So, living in Amsterdam, will there be a blogged visit to one of those 'special' cafes?