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what'sfor dinner, your own recipes

NightClub, I do copy a lot of your recipes, it is refreshing to see someone who tries to balance a vegy diet, so many guys get vegy wrong
as a side note
I have a great book called, Almost Vegetarian cooking that is how to serve a dinner to both your vegy chord, but have the side dishes for the rest, ever seen that one?
 
I am about to experiment with a thing I have in Jamaica every time I go down there to visit my relatives, they call them Johny cakes, but they are really a cross between a corn bread and a biscuit, the are not as heavy or dry as cornbread, but not a fluffy as a wheat biscuit. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
 
Jusatele said:
NightClub, I do copy a lot of your recipes, it is refreshing to see someone who tries to balance a vegy diet, so many guys get vegy wrong
as a side note
I have a great book called, Almost Vegetarian cooking that is how to serve a dinner to both your vegy chord, but have the side dishes for the rest, ever seen that one?
Click to expand...

I have seen that book.  I don't have it, but I've perused it in the book store.

I cook a lot of vegetarian because my partner is a lifelong vegetarian (well she eats some seafood, so technically not a total veg), however I eat meat.  Since I do most of the cooking I make most everything vegetarian so we can both eat it.  Then if I want to eat meat I just make myself a meat dish on the side.  The result is that I eat less meat, which is healthy, but when I do eat meat I make sure I am eating a good piece usually from a local farmer.  It makes the meat more of a special treat than if I ate it at every meal.

The hardest thing about cooking vegetarian was weaning myelf off of putting chicken broth in a lot of the things I cook.  Its such a versatile ingredient and I felt lost by not using it.  Whenever I need a cooking liquid I usually make a quick broth out of the scraps and peels of the vegetables that I am putting in the main meal.  Even boiling onion skin and garlic skin (the papery stuff you usually throw away) for 20 minutes makes a surprisingly  flavorful broth that you can then use to make rice or whatever else you need a liquid for.
 
Again a recipe, the broth
I was a vegetarian for about 5 years, can say it was the healthiest years I was on the planet, not a vegan, I based a lot of the diet off what a vegetarian in nature eats, ther is no animal that will not eat an egg if they come to one, many traditional vegetarians also eat fish, so what I was limiting myself was any form of meat you would have had to hunt or sluaghter in you had no markets to buy from.
Basically any flesh of a land animal and a would eat an egg or 2 a week and maybe a bit of seafood every week or 2. I really was in great shape.
Since that time I got married to a meat eating woman and have gained a lot of weight, I have in the last year started cooking a much more vegetarian diet, so as you can see the recipes you post are really a help.
Oh I love the use of the word perused, it is a word I would use and so many guys look at you strange not wanting to ask what it means. Hopefully they look it up when they get home.
 
I agree with your style of vegetarianism.  I find vegan cooking very limiting.  Plus, where do you draw the line?  Technically, if your vegetables were brought to market in a truck, that truck probably killed a few bugs on the way to market, so is that food strictly still vegan?

We used to have a vegan guest at our Thursday Night Dinner, but we converted her to regular vegetarianism when she saw everything she was missing out on.

In the end I try to eat "sustainably."  I try to avoid factory farmed meat or vegetables and buy local (or grow my own) whenever I can.  We buy most of our food at the weekly farmer's market, but surprisingly, we buy most of the rest at Costco.  They actually have excellent produce at a decent price and contrary to popular thought, they sell it in sizes that our family of 2 can eat in a week before it goes bad.  Costco pays their workers a decent wage and they source as much as possible from domestic suppliers.

Probably the biggest thing we do for our health, wallet and the environment is that we make all of our own food from fresh ingredients.  We rarely buy packaged or frozen foods.  In the end I'll eat whatever I want, but I usually keep those simple concepts in mind and it works out pretty well.

Oh, and the broth I mentioned, you can pretty much throw any vegetable scraps you have in there.  I also throw in the stems from herbs.  Basically anything that you would have thrown out can usually be made into a broth that becomes the basis for the rest of the meal.  If you eat meat you can save your chicken bones in a bag in the freezer and throw them in too.  Proportions don't really matter, it will come out good with whatever you have on hand.  I feel like I'm getting more for my money when I recycle food like this.  Its also in line with the Native American tradition to respect your food and use every part of it.
 
You should see my landscaping, it was on this years tour of gardens in our city, it is a Water Wise set up with all the planters are a cross between flower and vegetables, My front Yard is crushed gravel with containers populating it all over that 1/2 of grow herbs, and then I have cactus and succulents. I grow 80 percent of my spices, all my peppers and sweet peppers, and I use a lot of sweet peppers in cooking, enough summer squash to eat it 4 or 5 times a week, a few melons and pumpkin each fall. all that and I only spend about 15 minutes a day during the week and an hour on Sunday in the garden, Oh I do have a few 3 hour days each spring during planting. I just harvested Garlic last week and have enough till the end of the year and will replant that area in 2 weeks for next year, and best part is I control the the things going on a lot of my food, I use certain flowers for bug control, have a bee hive so I get great pollination and Honey each year. I trade out my queens 2 times a year to prevent Africanation of the hive with queens I get from a local Bee guy, he gets them from Hawaii and they should never get African bees there. I have 2 mulch spinners I designed so I can be feeding one while the other is finishing and am in the planning stage of turning the back yard into a raised bed garden that is as trouble free as the front. I was asked to write a bi weekly column for the paper in waterwise gardening as it is so unique they way I have combined the gardens to appear like landscaping. I just might do that.
 
Sounds really great. There are ordinances against doing such a thing here. I imagine if people did what you describe, it might not be such a Bad Thing, but it's one of those "give 'em and inch and they'll take a mile" deals where some people would be raising chickens and growing weed farms and just generally destroying the appearance of the neighborhood. So, once again the minority ruins it for the majority.
 
Ok ... Dwight & Jusatele have inspired me to post this one. I didn't cook it tonight but we make this at least once a week.

My wife and I are both vege, have been for about 5 years now. We eat eggs and dairy, but not seafood.

Was reading what Dwight was saying about vege broth to cook with as a substitute for chicken broth. Well I've got an alternative.
We often often make our own paneer. It's a fresh cheese that's similar to ricotta and haloumi. It's great on homemade pizza or fried up and tossed in with salads or pasta or (more traditionally) with a spicy spinach sauce in an Indian dish called Palak Paneer (that's a recipe for another post, let me know if you're interested).

So what's cheese got to do with broth? Well the biproduct of making paneer is a liquid called whey (remember the 'Little Miss Muffet' nursery rhyme). This stuff is vegetarian broth GOLD! Use it to flavour sauces, cook veges in it, basically add it to anything savoury that needs liquid. Although if you use it to cook rice it takes longer as the rice doesn't absorb it as well. And if you're cooking dhal (lentils/legumes), cook in water first and then add at the end to add flavour. My wife says it's like MSG without the side effects!

To make paneer (and whey) you need the juice of one large lemon and 2 litres of un-homogenised fresh milk. The first time you do this don't skimp on the lemon juice—it all happens pretty quickly and it's better to have too much on hand than not enough. Heat the milk up in a heavy based saucepan to the point that it just starts to boil—you can tell because the milk starts to froth on the top. When you see the milk start to rise up, take the saucepan OFF the heat. Start adding the lemon juice, VERY SLOWLY and stir gently with a large slotted spoon. The milk will start to form clumps—this is the curd (paneer). Stop adding lemon juice when you notice the liquid going greenish. A few more stirs and your done! Pour the contents through a wire strainer (or similar) catching the curd. Make sure you've got a bowl underneath to collect the whey. Allow the curd to cool and then tip it onto a plate—voila! Paneer!

Put the whey into a container (our milk cartons are plastic so I just refill it with the whey) and put it in the fridge, it'll keep for 4-5 days. Paneer will last in the fridge for 4-5 days too but I doubt it'll last that long!  :icon_thumright:
 
Stew, sounds great, but I am trying to cut cheese from the diet, and in doing so am really experimenting with Pizza.
Also, do either of you make your own Marinara? I started to a few years back after I saw how much sugar goes into the normal bottle of Spaghetti sauce you get at the store
normally I will dice and caramelize and onion, when that is about half done throw in 2 diced sweet peppers so they do not cook down so much and a few cloves of garlic, let it go till the onions are done and add a small can of tomato paste and a large can of stewed tomatoes, (check the paste can for ingredients, some of them are not good) let that go a bit then go to the garden and pick the herbs you want. It is so much tastier than the bottled stuff. and when making your pizza you can put full leaves of Basil and Oregano on top plus fresh rosemary.
 
Cagey said:
Sounds really great. There are ordinances against doing such a thing here. I imagine if people did what you describe, it might not be such a Bad Thing, but it's one of those "give 'em and inch and they'll take a mile" deals where some people would be raising chickens and growing weed farms and just generally destroying the appearance of the neighborhood. So, once again the minority ruins it for the majority.
Click to expand...
Cagey, I can see the need for the ordinance, guys go way to far with stuff like this, There is 2 guys I know whos front yards are huge vege gardens, Yea not really what you want to see in the neighborhood, fortunately neither is on my street. 1 is a block over and one is about 7 blocks down, mine looks like a well done floral garden with vege plants mixed in. I just did a big harvest as August here is brutal, over 100 every day and it is just best to harvest and pull a lot of plants, other wise I could show pics of it in it's glory, If I posted pics of it right now it has bare patches and a few containers (pots) are empty or cut way back  It still looks good just my grand design is lacking a bit. I will be putting in new winter stuff near the end of Sept when it coos down. Our winters are mild here so I can grow mustard, spinach and cabbage real easy,, the pots I grow winter flowers in till next year, my pepper plants I will need to pull around the end of October. Anyway, I most of my neighbors compliment my gardens and are shocked to see that half of them are vegetables.
 
The paneer sounds really easy.  I've used store bought paneer in Indian dishes and knew it was simple, but your description really clears up the process.  I have trouble digesting lactose, but my partner gets a large part of her protein from cheese, so I think I'l give your paneer making idea a shot.

And yes to the home made marinara too.  I basically do the same as you, but I don't use any tomato paste, and I use cans of simple crushed or chunked tomatoes in mine.  I also tend to go heavy on onions in my version.  Its so much cheaper and healthier than store bought sauce, and it couldn't be any easier or quicker to make.

This time of year when the tomatoes are coming in fresh I like to make a fresh tomato sauce thats barely cooked.  I basically de-seed tomatoes (cut them in half and just scoop out the seeds and liquidy part with a finger) and cut the tomatoes into a fine dice.  No need to skin the tomatoes  Lightly crush a few cloves of garlic (or many cloves if you are a garlic lover like me) and put the garlic into the chopped tomatoes.  You want to keep the garlic more or less intact, just crushed so that the oils can mix with the tomatoes--you'll be fishing the garlic out later.  Add minced fresh basil or whatever other herbs you like (oregano and or thyme work well).  I like to slice up a few shallots as fine as I can slice them with a very sharp and thin Japanese knife--add the shallots to the tomatoes.  Start cooking your pasta, and while the pasta cooks dump your fresh tomato mixure into a large skillet with some good extra virgin olive oil and just heat it through.  You don't really have to cook it, you're just heating it up so it can be served hot.  Fish the garlic out (you could leave it in there, but since this is an uncooked sauce the garlic will be strong and overpowering.)  Combine the pasta with the warmed sauce. 

This sauce will have a fresh tomato taste unlike any other sauce you have ever eaten.  Its only possible with fresh tomatoes at the peak of season, so you have to make it right now while its still tomato season.

I live in the city, so my garden is in containers in my front yard too.  I grow basil, oregano, thyme, rosemary, cucumber, several varieties of heirloom tomatoes, and several different varieties of sweet and hot peppers.  I let my peppers mature till they are very colorful well into the fall and I always get compliments on how good the garden looks even though its just vegetables.

One more crop I grow in our backyard is both for food and beauty.  There is a variety of native sunflower that has an edible tuber root.  You see them sold in the grocery as either sunchokes or Jerusalem artichokes.  The tuber basically looks like a small misshapen potato.  A few years ago I bought some of the sunchokes from one of our farmers at the market, and I planted them in the backyard.  They grow a bushy sunflower about 6 feet tall that puts out numerous small yellow sunflowers all over it.  In the fall when it starts to die back I pull up the plants and dig around in the soil and there are numerous little sunchoke tubers attached to the root system.  The first year we grew them we put 5 or 6 little potato sized tubers in the ground and harvested a 5 gallon bucket of the things in the fall.  Look around at the grocery or farmer's market starting in about September,  Just put them into the ground and they'll do the rest.  Its a native plant and it doesn't really require anything to grow it.  The flowers are pretty and the tuber roots are really tasty to eat.

You can boil the sunchokes like potatoes, or slice them thin and either eat them raw in salads or sauteed like in a stir fry.  I usually boil them and treat them like potatoes.  They have a complex sugar that some people have trouble digesting, but I've never had a problem unless I ate way too much of them at once.
 
When it's Velcroman, it's not the grammar police, it's the left-field police.  Long time no see, v-man! 
 
I grew up in New England where they take lobster seriously.  Now that I'm living in Pittsburgh I don't get to eat it as much, but our local fishmonger had a wonderful sale on small lobsters this week so I had to stock up on several.

I've eaten lobster every way you could prepare it.  Its all usually good, just some ways are "more good" than others.  Hint: don't fall for grilled lobster like you might see at a touristy restaurant.  Only the tourists eat it that way.

In my opinion the best way to eat lobster is the hot lobster roll.  Various chefs have tried to modernize this recipe and make it gourmet, but don't pay any attention to that.  The best way is the most simple.

Steam or boil your lobster till they turn bright red.  I usually let mine go about 5 minutes, then I check the pot, move them around a little, and let them go another few minutes.  Fish them out with tongs and run under cool water so you can handle them.  Twist off the tail and claws.  If your lobster isn't too big you can usually use kitchen shears to cut a slice in the shell (or the soft underside in the case of the tail) to make it easier to pull the meat out.  With care you should be able to get the tail and claws out in one piece.  The knuckles are sometimes a bit more difficult.  For the purpose of this recipe we will not be delving into the actual body of the lobster, though you may do so if you want.

The only other things you need for your hot lobster roll is a hotdog roll (footlong work best) and melted butter.  You may roughly chop the lobster meat if you wish, briefly saute it in your melted butter just to warm it back up,  load it onto a toasted hotdog roll and pour your melted butter on top.  I like to use a ton of butter, heck, you're eating lobster, right?

Thats it.  You can squeeze a lemon over it if you wish, but I don't even do that.  Just lobster, roll and butter.  Doesn't get any better than that.

Hurricane bonus tip for the kids: walk the beach right after the hurricane comes thorugh and you can sometimes find lobsters washed up on shore.  Just don't eat them if they're already dead--they spoil fast.
 
Came home from work and my wife had prepared a whole branzino coated with olive oil sprinkled with salt and pepper then stuffed with lemon, thyme, parsley and shallots.  I made a quinoa pilaf (quinoa, chicken broth 1:2, toasted pine nuts and a few small pieces of chopped jalapeño and salt) and she made a fresh cucumber salad featuring trader Joe's cucumbers and some special lemon cucumbers from my band mates garden!.
Grilled the branzino 6 minutes per side on a hot grill. Fantastique!

Oh yea, a Lake county California Chardonnay too.
IMG_0063.jpg
 
PT said:
Came home from work and my wife had prepared a whole branzino coated with olive oil sprinkled with salt and pepper then stuffed with lemon, thyme, parsley and shallots.  I made a quinoa pilaf (quinoa, chicken broth 1:2, toasted pine nuts and a few small pieces of chopped jalapeño and salt) and she made a fresh cucumber salad featuring trader Joe's cucumbers and some special lemon cucumbers from my band mates garden!.
Grilled the branzino 6 minutes per side on a hot grill. Fantastique!

Oh yea, a Lake county California Chardonnay too.
IMG_0063.jpg
Click to expand...

I've read about branzino, its quite the item at the expensive restaurants.  But I've not yet tasted it.  What is it like?  I assume its a white fleshed fish, relatively mild?
 
Nightclub Dwight said:
PT said:
Came home from work and my wife had prepared a whole branzino coated with olive oil sprinkled with salt and pepper then stuffed with lemon, thyme, parsley and shallots.  I made a quinoa pilaf (quinoa, chicken broth 1:2, toasted pine nuts and a few small pieces of chopped jalapeño and salt) and she made a fresh cucumber salad featuring trader Joe's cucumbers and some special lemon cucumbers from my band mates garden!.
Grilled the branzino 6 minutes per side on a hot grill. Fantastique!

Oh yea, a Lake county California Chardonnay too.
IMG_0063.jpg
Click to expand...

I've read about branzino, its quite the item at the expensive restaurants.  But I've not yet tasted it.  What is it like?  I assume its a white fleshed fish, relatively mild?
Click to expand...
Mild white fish. Delish, especially with crispy skin. Whole foods has it for a relatively decent price. Great night, a friend from Austria came to visit.
 
I saw some great looking broccoli rabe (rapini) at the market today, so I dusted off one of my favorite meals that I haven't had in awhile.  Broccoli rabe sort of looks like leafy broccoli with miniscule little flower heads (where real broccoli has huge flower heads but only a little bit of leaves).  Its not really like broccoli at all, I don't even think they are closely related.  You cook it like other greens (collard, kale, or turnip greens etc).  It has a bitter flavor that I didn't like when I was a kid, but have grown to love as an adult.  I find it particularly good to serve with rich foods, like macaroni and cheese for example.  Its flavor is a nice contrast and sort of cleanses the palate.

Its simple to cook.  First, trim off the thick stems, keeping the flowerettes and leaves.  Rinse them in a bowl of cold water a few times to make sure all the dirt is gone.  Meanwhile, in a large heavy pot, saute red hot pepper flakes and minced garlic in olive oil over medium high heat.  I used several good sized pinches of aleppo pepper and one moderate pinch of hot pepper flakes, and two good sized garlic cloves, minced.  Its ok to let the garlic brown a bit but be careful to not let it burn.  You basically want the pepper and garlic to infuse the olive oil with their flavor. 

After sauteing the pepper and garlic for a few minutes, throw your broccoli rabe into the pot.  You want it to be sort of wet from washing it because the water on the leaves will actually steam the vegetable.  Watch out, the oil will want to sputter when the water hits it, so I like to dump the broccoli rabe in pretty quickly.  It will wilt and nearly instantly shrink in size to just a quarter of its previous volume.  Put a lid on the pot and reduce heat to medium.  I like to add a pinch of sugar too to tame some of the bitterness.  You can check it a few times, stirring to make sure the garlic and pepper get nicely distributed.  Its OK to add a tablespoon of water if you're not getting any steam going in there, but you definitely don't want too much water.  After about 10 minutes its basically done.  I like to add a can of drained white beans for the last few minutes.  Its a basic beans and greens.

Its really simple to make and comes out delicious.  Plus you can impress your guests because not a lot of people know how to cook this vegetable--even though it couldn't be easier.  Enjoy!
 
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