cooking

[Master Ray]

Well, tonight I cooked up a whole bunch of oven chips, enough to pile up on a plate, threw in some 'bacon bits', melted a shitload of cheese on top, splattered barbecue sauce over the whole pile and had a bottle of mayo on the side just in case I found a bit later on that wasn't 'gooey' enough.

I'm expecting my second heart attack any day soon.   

[cthulhu]

Wow, what a menue! And did you have a bottle of Chateau d'expensive Wine go with it?;-)
So that one here is for you
Heart Attack Man
;-)

But i have some questions: you used frozen potatoes and put the bacon and cheese on and in it and then alltogether in the oven?

i use sometimes tortilla crisps with some cheese on it in the oven and the eat them with salsa.

[Master Ray]

McCains frozen oven chips, cook through 75% of the recommended cooking time, then turn them over.  In the meantime, slice a decent cheese (I'd recommend White Cheshire, it's tasty and crumbly) into thin slices, throw in the bacon bits, mix them all up and then pour over the chips for the remainder of the cooking time.  Should be all gooey and hot by the end.

Best drink to go along with that is ice-cold Diet Coke, seeing as you'd have to be drunk as hell already to cook up such a thing...     

[cthulhu]

Well, that's a recipe!
Thank you for sharing your secrets about the wonderstuff. I'm tempted to get drunk right now in the morning, so i can cook that thing up for lunch;-)

[Master Ray]

For the record, I do usually eat healthier dishes, but once in a while it's fun (and so tasty!) to just cram on the calories and DARE your arteries to complain about it... 

[cthulhu]

I'm really convinced that the most important part of staying healthy is to enjoy what you do. So i think your meal was healthy

[cthulhu]

Here are the fruits of my labour in the spring:

Doesn't that look good? I've got potatoes, paprika, peperoni, zucchini, parsnip (love that one, the white turnip on the right, tastes a little between parsley and celery) kohlrabi, spring onions and lovage as a seasoning.

I made a stew out of it and it was so delicious!

[Ghosttrain]

Great produce you can't beat fresh home grown veg..............i really miss my allotment... ...

[cthulhu]

Yep, havin a piece of land, a garden is a real treasure. I moved next to my parents ground, where i grew up, i mean really next, so i can work in their garden. I must admit that i'm way too lazy to become a good gardener, but all the vegetables there i planted myself. And before that i worked on the ground, to plant them in.
That will be the next thing to do, to prepare the ground for the winter and spring.

[Ghosttrain]

I have just made a batch of mixed Bell Peppers and Celery soup.....and very tasty it is too (even if i say so myself)..... .....

[Tarsier]

As this is cooking related, posting here...

Happened a month or two ago. I was cooking at home, had NMA playing in random mode from my laptop through stereos, I was a happy camper. As a side dish I steamed/fried sliced carrots and kohlrabi. As sauce I used ready-made asparagus soup from supermarket, added black pepper and cream. Diced some pork meat, threw it into the frying pan, nice & sizzling, spiced it with salt, black pepper, garlic and....... then realized I didn't have any thyme left. Shops were already closed plus the rest of the food was nice, ready & waiting. If you didn't already guess what song happened to be playing from stereos at that exact moment, I can reveal to you that it indeed was "I Need More Time". Yes. I did sing it along, with ever-so-slightly altered lyrics. I put a lot of emotion to the end of the song, dramatically singing "I need more thyme.... I need mmooore ttthyme!!"

You know, that was kind of a food that thyme was like Dude Lebowski's carpet, it really tied the whole thing together.

Needless to say but for a while, this incident ruined one of my favourite songs for me. (If it did the same for you now, I'm sorry for posting this.)

Now I have a proper stash of thyme at home and, I'm again able to listen "I Need More Time" as it should be listened.

All is well that ends well.

[fiddlesticks]

  that's brilliant.

[Ghosttrain]

This morning pickling shallots.............this afternoon making pork and stilton sausage rolls...a slightly different recipe to the one i normally use..hope they are as nice.... ...

[Tarsier]

This morning pickling shallots.............this afternoon making pork and stilton sausage rolls...a slightly different recipe to the one i normally use..hope they are as nice.... ...

Made me drooling...

During Christmas/new year, eating all cookings all my friends made, I've been so over-fed that I haven't been able to cook anything myself for a while... Was so proud today: I made some salad! Like, healthy stuff! It's been a while...

[cthulhu]

It was again those time, when you are working the weekends and loose track of what day it is, so that you notice you have no bread and want to buy one, but it is sunday. So finally i was prepared for that event and made my own, which i wanted to do for a long time, but maybe was too lazy. And it always seemed like a huge undertaking to make the dough, but it just isn't.

With prepared i mean, that i bought some dry yeast, the only ingredience i normally have not at home.

So this is like ten minutes work, wait for an hour for the dough and the in the oven...

I used this:

- 250g flour
- one teaspoon dry yeast
- one teaspoon salt
- one teaspoon sugar
- 1,5 teaspoon coriander
- caraway seed
- three tablespoons yogurt
- 100ml milk
- shot olive oil

So easy!
Dissolve the yeast in some warm water
Mix the flour with the seasoning, make a whole in the middle and pour in the yeast and yogurt and work on that dough. Add the milk so that you get a good feeling for a firm dough.
Let it grow for about an hour in a warm place

I also experimented with the cooking, i made some in the oven and tried some for the pan. Both ways are good, but the oven is more easy to do and has less fat.
The two darker ones in the foto are from the pan.