Create my meal – the game

[kayb]

Well, it's not going to happen early this week; I've just learned I have meetings each of the coming three evenings, so that does for cooking. Will go ahead and start the steak marinating today and plan to have it Thursday. Meanwhile, I'm going to choose Lisa Shock to share her ingredients, and perhaps whoever else is in the pipeline can cook and report back before I can.

 

 

[Smithy]

On 7/28/2016 at 5:22 PM, sartoric said:

I think we can take something from @kayb's post above. If the player knows they have commitments, say so and offer a timeframe. That won't cover black swan events, but at least manages expectations.

 

"Black swan events" indeed. What with a 5-day power failure, trading in our Princessmobile, and assorted other events that don't bear discussion here, I've had a bevy of 'em flapping around.  I think the dust is starting to settle so I'll be able to participate again.  

 

The rapid-fire aspect of this topic as originally proposed is part of its charm, but as noted above 24 hours may be too rapid-fire for many.  Offering a timeframe is a sensible way to manage expectations.  Having people pop up with their own takes on the list of ingredients also sounds like a good way to keep the topic going. I've already seen a lovely group of suggestions crop up that I'd like to try.

 

Since I got an honorable mention and a couple of pokes, I'll throw out a list.  Like @kayb above, I have a freezer full of stuff (blessedly still good despite the power failure).  Just to grab a few items:

 

Frozen chicken thighs

Frozen shrimp - raw in shell as well as cooked and peeled

Frozen ground pork

Frozen corn from last year

Frozen tomatoes, ditto

A mess of unused herbs in the garden: sorrel, basil, chives, lovage and parsley

A large head of cabbage, purchased at a farm stand before the black swans arrived

A large head of cauliflower that may still be salvageable

Bell peppers (ripe, NOT green)

Fresh snap peas

 

I know I cheated slightly with the herbs and shrimp as far as the count goes, but it may help give someone ideas.  Then someone can give me ideas! 

Edited August 1, 2016 by Smithy
Added the food list (log)

[Smithy]

Oh, I forgot the timeframe bit.  AFAIK I'll be able to cook from this list tomorrow (Tuesday) evening, so rapid-fire on ideas works for me.

[sartoric]

Cabbage rolls using the frozen pork in a tomato/pepper sauce. 

Paella with the chicken and shrimp, tomatoes and peppers.

[ElainaA]

This list hooked me. 

I see two options:
1. Ground pork burgers - either this one  http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/chipotle-pork-cheeseburgers-353670  with chipolte, avacado and tomatillo

 or this one: http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/asian-style-pork-burgers  with ginger, sesame oil  and garlic.

Also a cabbage slaw. - Maybe I thought of this because I just put a bowl of my brother's cabbage and sweet red pepper slaw with hot dressing into the refrigerator for tonight's dinner. 

And a side dish of sauteed corn with basil and scallion (or onions if you don't have scallions).

 

2. Similar to Sartoric's suggestion - a variation on Mark Bittman's Unstuffed cabbage from this NY Times article http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/17/magazine/a-dozen-slawless-cabbage-recipes.html  Sub the pork for the ground beef. Use your frozen tomatoes rather than canned. And whatever cabbage you have rather than insisting on savoy. I like to serve this over rice. I'd still make the corn and basil sauté to go with.

 

If you have lots of time and feel ambitious you could grill the shrimp as a starter. 

 

No dessert?

[Lisa Shock]

I'll step up when there's a gap, better for those who have not cooked to have a chance....

 

Just a suggestion:

shrimp soft taco appetizer

'Arroz' con Pollo, but with the cauliflower as 'rice' (uses tomatoes, peppers, cauliflower, and chicken -peas are also traditional as is corn) THIS recipe appears to use boneless/skinless chicken, for regular thighs, brown thoroughly on both sides before adding other ingredients.

Ensalada de Repollo

 

 

 

Edited August 1, 2016 by Lisa Shock
clarity (log)

[Smithy]

All good ideas, folks.  Keep 'em coming, please!

[Smithy]

@ElainaA, please tell me more about this cabbage slaw:

Quote

Also a cabbage slaw. - Maybe I thought of this because I just put a bowl of my brother's cabbage and sweet red pepper slaw with hot dressing into the refrigerator for tonight's dinner. 

 

[ElainaA]

5 minutes ago, Smithy said:

@ElainaA, please tell me more about this cabbage slaw:

 

Perfect timing - I just posted a picture on the dinner thread that includes it. It is a recipe that I got years ago from my brother. Shredded cabbage, sweet red pepper, onion (I usually use red onion) and grated carrot, all tossed together. The dressing is: 1 cup sugar, 1 t. salt, 1 t. dry mustard, 1 t. celery seed, 1 c. cider vinegar  all combined in a pan and brought to a boil. Stir in 2/3 c. olive oil. Bring back to a boil, pour over vegetables and mix well. Chill.

The amount of dressing is for a LARGE cabbage - I do half or sometimes less. 

Since my brother has almost totally unreadable hand writing this may, in fact, not be his recipe.   In any case, I like it. 

[Smithy]

I'm about to start mixing the pork burgers; I mixed the slaw earlier.  Thanks to all three of you for the suggestions; @ElainaA, you're up either before or after @kayb reports on her success.    I'll posts my photos later.

[ElainaA]

OK - Here is my list.  I could cook from this list on Thursday or not until Sunday due to other commitments.

From the garden:
Lots of green beans

cabbage (green - the red is not ready yet)

zucchini - gold or green

a few small beets

lots of basil

cucumbers

 

From the freezer:

pork tenderloin

4 steelhead trout fillets  (however I am planning on using most of this for a dinner party I am hosting on Saturday and I am not sure how much more I can        get. I can commit 1 to this.)

chicken thighs

garlic scape pesto

 

From a local farm stand: 

fresh corn

good tomatoes

fruit: peaches, plums, blueberries

 

Did I go over the limit?  oops. 

 

I do not have any of the appliances often discussed here - just a basic gas stove and an outdoor gas grill. 

Edited August 3, 2016 by ElainaA (log)

[sartoric]

A Chinese banquet. Corn and egg soup, pork fillets stir fried with hoisin, green beans with ginger/garlic and sesame oil, braised cabbage (with a bit of trout perhaps) served with rice. Kylie Kwong has some easy and delicious recipes. I am naturally repellent to technology, so can't provide links, but Google should find her.

 

ETA, she also has a fantastic cucumber salad recipe which I've made a lot.

If you're interested I'll post the recipe.

Edited August 3, 2016 by sartoric
Add (log)

[Smithy]

Dinner tonight was an interesting exercise that came out well, although not at all as intended by the recipe writers. The slaw was easy and delicious: reminiscent of @kayb's jail slaw, with a slight adjustment in the dressing.  I had a large head of cabbage, and since half of it filled my largest bread-mixing bowl I stopped there.  The hot dressing went on early this afternoon, and the slaw had the afternoon and evening to marry.  I had no carrots.  I didn't miss them.

 

The pork was the more problematic.  Whether because of its age or leanness, I quickly realized that the mixture as specified in the recipe would not hold together for burgers.  I added an egg. I added bread crumbs. I added another egg, and more bread crumbs. At that point it held together enough to be fried in a skillet, but the patties looked far more like my mother's hash browns than burgers.

 

 

Whoops!  It was at about this point that I read the Food & Wine recipe carefully enough to see that I needed to have reserved some slaw mix for the soy/sesame/rice vinegar dressing. Oh, well.  I used some of the slaw I'd made earlier in the day. 

 

Dinner!

 

It's hardly the prettiest presentation, but despite miscalculations it tasted good.  We'll be enjoying the slaw, and I'll try the burgers at another point when I have my brain fully engaged. I liked the flavor a lot. 

 

The bonus is that now there's only half a cabbage, and the ground pork package is gone.

 

 

[Thanks for the Crepes]

Your pork and slaw burgers look great. Great save on the pork burgers.

 

I think your problem was neither age not leanness. I learned a while ago that if I wanted coherent burgers from ground beef that I had to make them into patties before freezing. I suspect that is the problem with your previously frozen pork, although I haven't tried to make burgers or meatballs out of frozen pork. The freezing does something to the frozen ground beef, that it also refuses to cling together into burgers. I always use freshly ground chuck at 20 percent fat for burgers, but if frozen, Julia Child herself, could not make them stick together unless they are frozen in patty form. So I think you did very well to make them work with your inclusions. 

[ElainaA]

9 hours ago, sartoric said:

A Chinese banquet. Corn and egg soup, pork fillets stir fried with hoisin, green beans with ginger/garlic and sesame oil, braised cabbage (with a bit of trout perhaps) served with rice. Kylie Kwong has some easy and delicious recipes. I am naturally repellent to technology, so can't provide links, but Google should find her.

 

ETA, she also has a fantastic cucumber salad recipe which I've made a lot.

If you're interested I'll post the recipe.

 

Nice ideas! I would love to see the cucumber salad recipe.

[sartoric]

Okay, first catch your cucumbers, ha ha.

Peel 5 small cucumbers, cut in half lengthwise and scoop out seeds, then slice on the diagonal into 1.5 cm pieces. Place in a bowl and sprinkle with 1 Tbs white sugar & 1 tsp salt. Mix well and fridge for 30 minutes. 

Make a dressing with 2 tbs light soy, 2 cloves garlic finely chopped, 1tbs grated ginger and 1/2 tsp sesame oil.

Hand squeeze the cukes, mix with dressing, sprinkle with pepper. They end up silky and crunchy.

[ElainaA]

Thanks @sartoric  Thanks for the recipe. As things have developed here I will not be able to cook from this thread until Sunday or Monday. So maybe there will be more suggestions? However the Chinese meal sounds very good. 

Edited August 4, 2016 by ElainaA (log)

[kayb]

Well, I got around to at least two-thirds of my Hawaiian meal tonight. We decided we weren't hungry enough for steak, so we had the tuna poke with rice as an entree, along with the Hawaiian potato salad and  some cucumber salad I threw together for good measure.

 

 

The poke was excellent. I chilled the tuna for about 45 minutes in a dressing of soy sauce, sesame oil, ginger and a bit of mirin. Tossed it with chopped pineapple just before serving. Forgot the sesame seeds. Rice was plain brown rice cooked in the IP.

 

Sweet potato salad holds promise; I'll try it again tomorrow to see what I think after the flavors have more time to meld. Sweet potato chunks and more pineapple, some chopped bacon and scallions,  dressing of mayo, soy sauce, sesame oil, and a dash of Sriracha to liven it up. Off the top, I'll ditch the bacon next time; I love bacon as well as the next guy, but it hit a false note with me on this. Dressing could have been a touch sweeter; recipe called for sweetening to taste with agave and I didn't have any, so I used a teaspoon of white corn syrup. Could have stood another one.

 

Cucumbers had a dressing of gonger, soy sauce, mirin, rice vinegar and sesame oil. Standard issue stuff, and we love it.

 

Hawaiian ribeye will marinate another day (I would have been nervous about that, but the recipe says it can marinate up to three days), and I'll grill it tomorrow. We'll have sweet potato fries in the CSO, and maybe more cucumbers.  Meanwhile, I have leftover rice for breakfast tomorrow.

[Thanks for the Crepes]

On 8/2/2016 at 8:59 PM, ElainaA said:

OK - Here is my list.  I could cook from this list on Thursday or not until Sunday due to other commitments.

From the garden:
Lots of green beans

cabbage (green - the red is not ready yet)

zucchini - gold or green

a few small beets

lots of basil

cucumbers

 

From the freezer:

pork tenderloin

4 steelhead trout fillets  (however I am planning on using most of this for a dinner party I am hosting on Saturday and I am not sure how much more I can        get. I can commit 1 to this.)

chicken thighs

garlic scape pesto

 

From a local farm stand: 

fresh corn

good tomatoes

fruit: peaches, plums, blueberries

 

Did I go over the limit?  oops. 

 

I do not have any of the appliances often discussed here - just a basic gas stove and an outdoor gas grill. 

 

 

Elaina,

 

Since you asked for more suggestions, I will offer my simple ones. I would thaw, salt and pepper chicken thighs and roast them with lots of chopped basil near the end of cooking. If you have rosemary I would add dried at the start, or fresh later, but not as late as the basil. I'd slice the zukes into lengthwise planks, shake with a little flour to coat in a clean produce bag and shallow fry them in oil in a skillet, drain, blot on paper towels, and all they need is a little kosher salt coming out. About five minutes per side for 1/4" (.635 cm) to 3/8" (.95 cm) planks. (We had this tonight as a side to leftovers.) Just sliced garden tomatoes with more kosher salt is always great for me. (ditto) Peach and plum split in half and destoned and pan grilled in a little butter. (also ditto)

 

But I know my tastes are simpler than many of the other members here.

 

 

[kayb]

On 8/2/2016 at 7:59 PM, ElainaA said:

OK - Here is my list.  I could cook from this list on Thursday or not until Sunday due to other commitments.

From the garden:
Lots of green beans

cabbage (green - the red is not ready yet)

zucchini - gold or green

a few small beets

lots of basil

cucumbers

 

From the freezer:

pork tenderloin

4 steelhead trout fillets  (however I am planning on using most of this for a dinner party I am hosting on Saturday and I am not sure how much more I can        get. I can commit 1 to this.)

chicken thighs

garlic scape pesto

 

From a local farm stand: 

fresh corn

good tomatoes

fruit: peaches, plums, blueberries

 

Did I go over the limit?  oops. 

 

I do not have any of the appliances often discussed here - just a basic gas stove and an outdoor gas grill. 

 

I would poach a couple of chicken thighs, shred them, mix with corn kernels and basil, and use to stuff zucchini I'd then either grill or roast in the oven, depending on my mood and the climate. Sliced tomatoes on the side, as well as maybe some stir-fried green beans.

 

[robirdstx]

On August 2, 2016 at 7:59 PM, ElainaA said:

OK - Here is my list.  I could cook from this list on Thursday or not until Sunday due to other commitments.

From the garden:
Lots of green beans

cabbage (green - the red is not ready yet)

zucchini - gold or green

a few small beets

lots of basil

cucumbers

 

From the freezer:

pork tenderloin

4 steelhead trout fillets  (however I am planning on using most of this for a dinner party I am hosting on Saturday and I am not sure how much more I can        get. I can commit 1 to this.)

chicken thighs

garlic scape pesto

 

From a local farm stand: 

fresh corn

good tomatoes

fruit: peaches, plums, blueberries

 

Did I go over the limit?  oops. 

 

I do not have any of the appliances often discussed here - just a basic gas stove and an outdoor gas grill. 

 

 

On the grill: Chicken thighs and zucchini 

Corn the cob, slathered with butter, then salted and peppered

Salad of tomatoes, cucumber, basil and Italian dressing

[ElainaA]

Thanks for all the ideas! I have company here all weekend including a dinner party Saturday night so I will cook on Monday. Everything sounds really good - I am going to go with the first suggestions - @sartoric 's Chinese meal. It's the one that differs most from what we have been eating here this summer. I like to cook Asian food although I do not promise authenticity. I may follow the meal with @Thanks for the Crepes  grilled peaches. I haven't done that for ages and I remember how good and simple it is. 

So, Sartoric, if you choose, you are up again. 

[sartoric]

2 hours ago, ElainaA said:

Thanks for all the ideas! I have company here all weekend including a dinner party Saturday night so I will cook on Monday. Everything sounds really good - I am going to go with the first suggestions - @sartoric 's Chinese meal. It's the one that differs most from what we have been eating here this summer. I like to cook Asian food although I do not promise authenticity. I may follow the meal with @Thanks for the Crepes  grilled peaches. I haven't done that for ages and I remember how good and simple it is. 

So, Sartoric, if you choose, you are up again. 

I look forward to seeing the result @ElainaA. 

I'll be away from home for a week, so perhaps we could ask for volunteers? 

@robirdstx, @Lisa Shock, @gfweb anyone......

[Lisa Shock]

I could cook tomorrow night.

Here's my list:

cheese: swiss, Dubliner, mozzerella, parmesan

1pt cream

white onions

fresh NM green chiles

russet potatoes

celery

cabbage, regular green type

firm tofu

18 eggs

8 limes

chives

 

4 cans coconut milk

pretty well stocked vegetarian dry pantry including Chinese and Japanese items like noodles, wood ear, dry mushrooms, etc.

breadmaking flours, pastry stuff (butter, chocolates, syrups, sugars), semolina flour

a variety of dry beans and rices

some canned veg: tomatoes, olives, mini corn, bamboo shoots

lots of condiments

 

I also plan on going out to Sprouts and Winco tomorrow, so, I could pick up missing items. I definitely need more vegetables, like broccoli.

 

I like cooking Indian food as well as Japanese and Chinese. I like other South Asian cuisines, just haven't made much beyond a vegan pho and some pad thai. I used to live in New Mexico and often cook in Northern style. Don't know much about central/south america.  I am pretty familiar with much of Europe, except for the East and Germany -I'd like to know more about them, at least with vegetarian dishes.

 

Edited August 5, 2016 by Lisa Shock (log)

[sartoric]

There's some great vegetarian food in India. I'd be tempted to go for tofu in a spicy tomato sauce, cabbage sautéed with mustard seeds and green chillies, onion relish with mint, and maybe make parathas.