B’dayda Zoop with scallions and mushrooms

I… promise it isn’t as greasy as the grainy picture is making it look?

You will need: several potatoes (I like reds because of their slight sweetness and smooth texture), a few scallions (they are like baby leeks - you can substitute leeks or shallots), some mushrooms (i used bellas for their darker flavour), butter, broth (i used my home-made beef, but veg or chicken will work fine, heck it’s not really necessary at all I just think it adds some flavour), milk, salt ‘n pepper, thyme, and brandy (optional); also a cast-iron pan (or a normal frying pan, but get a CIP soon), a small pot, and a big pot.

Put the broth and some water in a small pot and bring to a boil. Boil the potatoes in this until they are soft. B’daydas always take longer to cook than you think they will… So leave them for a while before proceeding.

When the potatoes are starting to get soft, sautee the chopped scallions & mushrooms with the thyme in butter, in your nice hot CIP. Then take a potato out and mash it into the pan, so that it browns some. This gives that nice fried potato flavour to the soup.

Then deglaze the pan by splashing some brandy (or a scoop of the potato-boiling broth if you don’t want to use brandy) into it and pushing the contents around with your spatula.

Then everything goes into the big pot, including the broth, which has been reduced by the potato-boiling. Add milk until it has slightly more volume than you want to end up with (it will reduce).

Mash up the potatoes in all of this with a wooden spoon or whatever is handy. They will fall apart some on their own while it simmers.

Simmer it, stirring often so that the milk does not get a skin, until it is nice and creamy. Add salt and pepper to taste. B’daydas always need more salt than you thought…

I made a tasty~

Fried Pasta Alfredo w Spinach

Start to cook pasta.

Melt some butter in a cast iron pan or just a pan if you don’t have a CIP which you should, they are great.

Brown some yellow onions in there.

Throw in some flour, some salt, some thyme and oregano, and brown. Put a li’l olive oil if it gets dry.

Put in some milk - not enough for a full on white sauce, but enough to cover everything. Like, half a cup or something.

Grate some parmesean in there.

Tear up some spinach and put that in. Poke it around for a bit until the milk has reduced to sauce-like consistency.

Your pasta should be cooked by now. Take that out and put it in the pan.

Poke it around until you’re satisfied.

Eat. Yum.

I was having a craving for orange zest, spices, and fluffy cake

specifically those things, all together

so I did it.

And then I failed at frosting and ended up soaking it in a rum/cream/sugar mixture.

It came out delicious :D

Adapted from a recipe for chiffon cake in The Science Of Cooking, which is a great book.

Gramercy Tavern’s Gingerbread

[recipe]

May I just say. Super duper gingerbread cake, with loads of spices and molasses, made with oatmeal stout (Samuel Smith’s Old Brewery Tadcaster, btw, recommended).

I DID IT

I made mine with butternut squash so it’s a little sweet very nice though

I also put a li’l cinnamon in the crust GOOD IDEA YES

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Brown Butter Cookies.

Recipe. :)

This is a dish creatively named ‘Piles of Meat’

because one day my mother asked me what do you want to eat for dinner and I replied ‘a pile of meat.’

This is what my amazing mother made, from that, and we liked it so much it became a staple at our house. Now that I am living on my own, here is my attempt at recreating it…

“Piles of Meat” with Nokedli

You will need: A saucepan, a large pot, a spatula and a slotted spoon. Ground lamb, a vidalia onion, flour, butter, salt, paprika, rosemary, milk.

Take about 2 tbsp of butter and melt it. Sautee the onions until they start getting translucent. Add the lamb in bits, stirring it around. It will start being juicy!

Add flour to absorb the juice and butter. Add the seasonings. Stir it all around! It will smell nice.

Add a little milk to loosen it all up. You could even add more milk and make it a legit sauce.

I don’t remember if I already gave the recipe for nokedli (did I post about csirke paprikas?), but here it is. I love them! Very easy. Might even be quicker than regular noodles.

So smitten kitchen taught me to poach an egg, and it’s pretty much the best thing. Om.

Here’s what I made with it. It’s vegetarian friendly, and surprisingly quick to make even having to do the eggs one at a time.

Spinach Risotto with Poached Eggs

4 eggs, vinegar, one small onion, olive oil, spinach, rice, paprika and other herbs/spices to taste

After poaching the eggs using the instructions above, mince a wee onion. Throw that in a pan over medium-high heat with some olive oil. After a minute add some paprika. Stir it all around! Let it fry until it starts looking deliciously brown. Then take ‘bout 3/4 c water (i used the egg water, it was already hot and filled with…. stuff. good egg stuff) and pour it in there. Stirrrrr and put in your risotto rice (normal rice is fine but apparently some rices are better for risotto than others). Keep an eye on this as it simmers, adding more water when it starts to get less soupy, until the rice gets sufficiently squishy. Add salt ‘n pepper, thyme, whatever you want to taste. Then put in some fresh spinach leaves, a handful at a time, turning it over to get the fresh ones nearer the heat. You only want them in there long enough to get wilted. Then put it on plates and put the eggs on top.

I made zucchini bread for the first time, it was yummy!

Recipe courtesy of my bud Carla at work:

You need:

a bread pan or brownie pan, two bowls, necessary utensils, including a knife or toothpick or fork for testing

3 eggs, 1 cup veg oil (i used sunflower), 3/4 c sugar (recipe called for 2 cups, but ughhhh it was plenty sweet), 2 tsp vanilla extract, 2 1/3 c flour, 1/4 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp salt, 2 cups grated zucchini (I bought one medium sized zuc and it came to exactly 2 cups, winning)

Preheat the oven to 350 F / 175 C

Grease your pan

Mix the dry and wet ingredients separately, then combine and spread into the pan

Bake 20 minutes (brownie pan) or more like 30 (loaf pan), using a toothpick or knife to test (if it comes out clean it’s done)

So the rabbit stew was amaaaaaazing. Doug liked it so much he proclaimed me the Stew Wizard.

The recipe is courtesy of my good buddy tumbler-snappr, whose blog, when he gets started, will include chemistry (the tasty kind, the explodey kind), made things, and general coolness. And he got it from the Everybody Eats Well in Belgium Cookbook, which is heartily recommended.

Rabbit Stewed in Abbey Ale with Mushrooms

Marinade:

1 carrot cut crosswise (I used 2 littler ones)

1 large onion

1 tsp thyme

1 bay leaf (not bayleef)

1 tsp black pepper

5 crushed juniper berries

2 bottles Abbey Ale (I used Ommegang, yum)

1/3 cup apple cider vinegar

Marinate your rabbits in this overnight. I split it into two plastic bags ‘cause I didn’t have anything better. My kitchen is still understocked.

For the stew:

Meat of 2 rabbits. You could totally stew the whole thing without removing the meat if you have a huge pot. I found it was easier to just put in the legs whole and let the meat cook off them, then spit out the bones. They’re tough little bastards. Also, disassembling a rabbit is not a task for the squeamish. Luckily I am not squeamish.

salt’n’pepper to taste

~1/2 c flour

butter as needed, roughly 5tbsp

1 lb mushrooms (I used baby bellas, cut in half; the recipe recommends ‘wild’ but that was too expensive for me.)

20 perl onions or 10 shallots (I forgot/left out this bit, which is probably for the best.)

3/4 c chicken broth or water

2 tsp sugar (I left it out)

1 tbsp red currant jelly (couldn’t get it)

2 tbsp parsley (forgot it)

Take the rabbits out of the marinade (fish the bay leaf out of the marinade and set it aside) and pat ‘em in the flour, s&p. Brown the meat in butter, working in batches so as not to crowd the pot. Throw any remaining flour in there with butter. Mmm, roux.

(that pan’s not hot, it’s just holding the browned meat.)

Once all of the meat has been browned, add the marinade back in with the rest of the rabbit. Stir it around. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and let simmer covered for 45 minutes.

While this cooks, sautee your mushrooms in butter, working in batches again. Then take your perl onions or shallots and put them in a pan with the water or broth and sugar. Let that simmer until it gets all syrupy and soft.

Add the mushrooms & onions into the pot when the 45 minutes is up, then place the lid askew and simmer that for an hour.

Askewwww

Then you’re supposed to boil it again, add in the currant jelly, and whisk it.

Then reduce it over high heat if it’s too soupy, and serve.

With the remaining beer from the 4-pack and spotted dick (shush) from a can for afters. :D