What did you eat today?

Off-topic Chatter
81

heheh ths made me want to cook with garlic and onion powder :smiley:
Besides the kid turns 13 tomorrow so the kitchen was and is full for the baking of a cake.
Try to make it better each year, this time, dang no real working space anymore
whipping/kneeding machine here, ingredients there, 1 white chocolate cake cut in two halfs over there, prepping a dark chocolate cake here.

(basic cake recipe:
250gr flour (secret, full grain spelt, adds a lot of depth and creamyness)
250gr butter
2 or 3 eggs
250gr honey
pinch salt
baking powder

chocolate so in one:
pinch of cayenne
100gr chopped white chocolate

in the other
pinch of cayenne
2 table spoon raw cacao powder
2 table spoon regular cacao powder for its deep dark color
This is a lot, I did not want this cake to be soo sweet, a hint of bitter is what I aimed for, t s ust a part of the cake, not all, was I making a cake for guests of friends, half of the cacao powders would do better.

cut the white one in half, when still a little warm and covered the two halfs while cooling.
lol using 4 large knifes to lift and transport the half
When the dark one was ready and cooled
melted down 150gr normal chocolate
placed bottom half of the white cake on a large plate, then with a brush some chocolate till it was covered and placed the dark cake on top of that.
again with a brush covered in thin layer of chocolate and the remaining half of the white cake.
That got a new thin layer of chocolate and I made a think slab on some parchement paper.
made a 1 and a 3, it is not hardering.
When hard, I am gonna melt white chocolate and make a thicker plate on parchment paper, place the 1 and 3 and then fold it below the 13 at an 90degree angle so a base is made.
when hardened and right after putting the whipped cream on the cake tomorrow I can place it and a elevated 13 should make him smile.

So besides cake stuff
Had the butternut squash, not a lot of space, not a lot of time and the will to use powders :smiley:
So i cut some sweet potatoe and while the white cake cooled to the point I could use it placed it in the oven with some olive oil, rosemary, smoked paprika, pepper. And some crumbled feta cheese
After the dark cake was done baking placed it back with some sliced butternut squash on top, with the same herb.

I did want to try something else then the almost boring squash soup, so but the remaining squash with peel in small dices, added it to 2.5L water, 0.5L tomato puree , salt, pepper, marjoram, thyme, rosemary, lovage, garlic, onion, smoked paprika, pinch of cayenne and let it simmer for 15 minutes.
All dried herbs, even the onion was dried and the garlic was powder. heheh, still tasted fantastic.
We had some sweet potatoe, squash and feta mixture and soup left over, I placed it all together with a little bit of extra water, two bay leaves, and let it simmer. wow this is good!
Tomorrow plan on splitting it, first blend, then sift.
the liquid is the soup for the day and the rest, probably gonna make some stuffed bell pepper for my wife while my son and I eat meat at the dinner, he choose the meal, but my wife is not a meat eater, only when we eat at others or one bite at home to taste the meat/sauce combinations.
One of the present for my son is a full set of good knifes, then he has his own chef, paring, and what not knifes. So I kind of hope and maybe even expect him to help tomorrow :slight_smile:
he has these interesting ideas that usually pan out great!

82

Your cooking skills and style are top notch. I was playing about powdered garlic. I use it a lot. Now if I used it in my restaurant kitchen I would prolly catch hell for using it. But hey, it was my kitchen and if they don’t like it, I suggest they come up with several hundred thousand dollars to open their own restaurant then they can say what they want right. Lol!
I see you like roasting a lot of veggies. I love roasted root vegetables. Those small blue and purple potatoes, carrots, parsnips, onions, garlic, tossed with some good o,I’ve oil salt, pepper, and roasted real hot to caramelize everything. That’s a good meal by itself, but paired with a nice steak or some thick cut of white fish. Yum!

83

Cat mouth! Hahaha!

84

Thanks, ye sounds good.

Yeah heheh
Say LB, do you like real old dry sausage?
Unami

85

To love the hard dry chorizo sausage. Anytime I make beans or bean soup, I slice a few up and put them in the beans. I make a killer white beans and greens(chopped spinach or collard greens) soup with the hard chorizo sometimes a few small cubed potatoes also, with some soft hot bread with lots of butter. That’s some good eats man!

86

I agree
The old dry sausage and cheese is packed with unami receptors tingling stuff
So I wonder if LB likes dry sausages.
I love adding some Parmesan to lots of things, you don’t need tobtaste it is there but it does something, like Cayenne too, use that a lot as well.

87

Like, Slim Jims? Those, yeah.

Like something I’d discover in my fridge from the Mesozoic Era, nope.

Gesundheit.

88

I take finely shredded Parmesan cover the bottom of à nonstick skillet, cook slowly until just golden brown then turn it out on an upside down bowl to form a bowl out of the cheese, let it cool and serve Caesar salad in it. The crispy caramelized cheese is awesome with the salad. I served Caesar salad in the cheese bowl at my restaurant and people loved it.

89

I’ve done that with I think it was mild Romano. Nice tang, not nearly as stinky.

Not to hold salad, but broken as “cheez-chips”.

90

:+1:

91

Today frutti di mare. As fresh as possible

92

Wow looks good!
How do you prepare them?

93

Went to a kosher deli today and had a roast beef (rare) on rye sandwich with french fries and a half sour pickle. It was awesome.

94

The Karl Elmer near where I work used to make really good sandwiches. Pile o’ meat (roast beast, Virginia ham, boiled ham, whatever they had at least a third of a pound) on a kaiser roll (buk extra for a hero), lettuce/tomato/onion included, your choice of cheese, mayo/mustard/whatever, all for 7bux.

Unfortunately, new ownership kinda let it slide downhill. Look in the display cases and it’s desolation. Now it’s also 9bux for the sandwich but includes a can of sody-pop or bottle of water. I once asked how much but without the can. “9bux.” Ooookay.

Kinda went the way of the definition of “quality fade”.

The area where I work really needs a good simple deli.

95

Wellp, today I stopped off at my fave bagel place, had the hungry-food dealy. Eggs, ham, bacon, cheese, on your choice of bagel, plus medium coffee (I went for the large). Pile o’ bacon, a good 4-5 strips, nice big slice of ham, dripping with cheese. I opted to have the “stuff” on a plate so I can have the buttered roll with the coffee. Yum!

My hands still stink like butter for some reason. Washed ’em like 5×.

Ooh, one thing I learned by accident. When I first asked for “the stuff on the side, with butter/salt/pepper” as I’d usually ask when getting the stuff on the bagel, he was a bit confused, and I got butter/salt/pepper on the bagel, too!

Okay, so the egg-bagel with butter is easy. Salt makes it taste a little like a salt-bagel, but the pepper on the buttered bagel gave it just something… extra. Was good, actually. Every now and then, just to be different, I’ll put pepper on my buttered bagel.

96

Not me. It was in Chinese street restaurant, so cook did that.
Mike

97

We are in our country house in Skåne (southernmost part of Sweden) and today we picked up takeout from a local Oktoberfest in the form of Schweinshaxe ( Schweinshaxe - Wikipedia ) with all the trimmings (sauerkraut, potatoes, sauce, fresh mustard and Brussels sprouts).

98

That looks tasty Rollerboy!

Trying to up my cooking game, a little story from where I came here.

I used to cut everything with an old little steak knife. Dull as ####, technique like ####. Now cutting with a decent chef knife *no real damascus bit still looking very pretty, most important, it hold really nice, technique OK. A nice thick bigger board on order.

You see this board is too small, some parts ended up besides it,
this one is 45x30x2,2cm and a 50x40x5 is on its way!

Pans, always a fan of stainless steel,using some cast iron, always hated non stick, and aluminium with emale as non stick.
My wife has this 28cm saute pan her mother bought when she was a little girl, it was a big deal or them, they went to Switzerland to get it. Copper on the outside, stainless steel on the inside (both pan and lid) with brass handle (again both pan and lid)
I didn’t know it was called a saute pan.
I hated it, the handles get hot and it was a b#### to keep nice and shiney so hardly used it.
Now that I am reading, trying I have come to really like it. Nice even and fast heat distribution, able to be put in the oven. The advantages of stainless steel.
Nowadays I often use 3 or more small pans at once, like making garlic/herbs infused oil in one, a roux in another, reducing wine in a third. For some tasks a heavy bottomed stainless steel is ideal, but for reductions or oil infusions fast direct heat control helps and I only have or had heavy bottomed stainless steel sauce pans, a couple even with plastic or wooden lids, and now I prefer something that can be put in the oven.
So I started looking as pans of the same ideal materials, copper outside, stainless steel inside.
DANG expensive even without lid.
Or with nasty non stick insides.

But then I thought: “wait a minute, if I hated these kind of pans, there must be others who want to sell pans like this” and started looking on Ebay.
Today the first arrived a sweet regular sauce pan, Swiss made (seller pics, but how it came)

A set of five without lids under way
and this cutey small saute pan with very beautiful lid.

Plan on hang the copper pans above the stove, there is a housing for a air filter (little bit like a fireplace) that should have enough space to hang it all with room for the measuring cups and spoon. That ought to give it a both beautiful and professional look when done.

99

Lamb and Pork. Yum.

100

That is really something in eastern Europe style but we do this:
lamb

pork: