What are you cooking for dinner this weekend?

[caleb]

Wow, nice work!

[jamesand]

Ancho Mole for a gathering tomorrow night; the final chocolate addition.

5518709954_7eb7c37ec4.jpg

[maunahaole]

jamesand - you gotta tell me how to make that.

[Derek Raymond]

Yeah fess up and I'll trade you my morning stuffed roasted peach recipe.

[jamesand]

Yo yo gents, I'll be posting it here. It is a simple recipe, but made a lot better by the addition of a few different chiles to alter the depth of flavor. I loosely followed the below, and made a double batch. During the soaking of the dried chiles, I added a few japones to the anchos, then blended them in. I could see using dried chipotles, but would stop short of, say, habaneros. As it was, the japones have quite a bite! Also, some high quality cayenne would give a nice kick up front, with the chile flavors bringing up the rear. I used 86% cacao for the chocolate. Overnight, the flavors really come together. I recommend using a blender instead of a food processor, and just blend in two batches.

Ancho Mole Recipe at Epicurious.com

Japones Chiles
Ancho Chile Article - Allrecipes.com

There are much more advanced mole recipes out there, but this is decent for a Friday night. :-)

[mnoble485]

One of the side benifits to Austin and NAHBS was the food. Had a chicken mole one night that was outstanding.

Mike

[maunahaole]

Jamesand, I am going to have to give that a try. I have anchos growing in the yard and some Hawaiian chili pepper as well. I like using the garden stuff when I can.

[rwsaunders]

After reading about that Mole, I just had to have a coffee with Mrs. RW's homemade cherry/almond biscotti.

[Nate@Scarab]

rabbit food:

[Tom]

New cookbook find: "India" compiled by Pushpesh Pant. Claims to have 1000 recipes, I don't doubt it. Encyclopaedic of the whole subcontinent from top to bottom, side to side. I made some red lentils and some chicken in a thick spicy sauce this weekend because they called for spices I had or could get at the supermarket. With crappy old spices they were delicious. Now to go over to the Pakistani grocery on State Street and load up on spices that Penzey's doesn't have. I'm very psyched. Pics to follow when I go nuts next time.

[Too Tall]

Tom that books sounds interesting. Thanks.

With the entire gang here from all over the globe to celebrate mom's 90th I've been busy.

Done alot of cooking for the masses and most noteable so far would have to be the simple straight up bone stock Italian dessert of fresh fruit with an warm Marsala custard. If you need a recipe it could not be easier:

1. boil water
2. in a glass or SS bowl nested above the water begin wisking 6 egg yolks / 3/4 cup sugar until they begin to show color. Don't beat them just keep them moving and incorporate air. Add 3/4 cup of Marsala wine now and begin to incorporate more air and test to see the custard will "ribbon" off your wisk and STOP now. Place the bowl briefly in an ice bath to stop the process so you don't make scrambled eggs and pour over fresh fruit.

To quote 99% of teenage Universe....OMG. Can't be any better.

Next up I'll post the marinate for flash BBQ'd shrimp. MANAHOLE please please rob a bank so you can afford to fly me over for some of your N.shore goods. You lucky dawg.

FLASH BBQ'd shrimp
Marinade for one hr. or less cleaned shrimp in:
1. Way too much fresh hard neck garlic (the good oily stuff). Mash the garlic so you have a paste by pressing the garlic into your cutting board and using the heel of your hand to smear the crushed garlic into the wood...scrape it up and repeat until it is creamy.
2. Lots of cracked pepper
3. plenty of good olive oil
4. toasted cumin seeds...toast in an cast iron pan and when they are colored on both sides and begin smoking give them a whirl in a spice grinder or use an mortar and pestle.
5. generous salt.

Add the above to the shrimp into an plastic baggie and store cold for 1 hrs.

For the grill. What you want is one even layer across the entire grill that is white hot. Season the grill with high heat tolerant oil (refined sesame) than place the skewered shrimp on FAST....cover and count two mins. Uncover and VERY fast give all an roll to the left. COVER IT and count 60 seconds than get them off!!!

I serve this over brown rice prepared with Iranian saffron made with homemade chicken stock. The "trick" if there is such a thing to making killer brown rice is to let the rice sit warm for an good hr. after it is done.

Enjoy.

[caleb]

rabbit food:

You made rabbit sausage? Cool!

[maunahaole]

TT, once again you are killing it. I'm surprised that you cooled the shrimp for that long. My experience has been that once i get the last of them on the grill, the first ones down are ready to turn. They get a little tough if over cooked. If you need a good temp. resistant oil, try macadamia nut. LMK if you can't find it in DC.

I could do some damage to the bbq crew here with that custard. Of course it would require a sat am trip to the big farmers market to get some choice fresh fruit.

Send happy b-day wishes to your mom from the islands.

[Too Tall]

TT, once again you are killing it. I'm surprised that you cooled the shrimp for that long. My experience has been that once i get the last of them on the grill, the first ones down are ready to turn. They get a little tough if over cooked. If you need a good temp. resistant oil, try macadamia nut. LMK if you can't find it in DC.

I could do some damage to the bbq crew here with that custard. Of course it would require a sat am trip to the big farmers market to get some choice fresh fruit.

Send happy b-day wishes to your mom from the islands.

Awesome clue wrt the oil cheif I'll give that whirl. I hear you, but I was able to get all the kebobs onto the BBQ surface in seconds...basically I slide the entire mess off a sheet tray straight onto the grill ;) < TOP SECRET ha ha.

[WadePatton]

two words:

morels
tempura

[Nate@Scarab]

Hey foodistas, can anyone suggest a veggie/protein-heavy cookbook with ingredients easily sourced from local grocers? I'd like to really rip through one and find some solid stuff I like. Up 'till now I've mostly cooked off of the internet and recipes I've made up, but I think it might help me quite a bit to stick with a book for a month or two and just work my way through it...I'm not picky in regards to cuisine, btw. Any culture is good for me. Love spicy.

thanks

[maunahaole]

I am not an expert on cookbooks, but I have a few. A couple to check out that seem to closely fit your criteria are anything by Bittman [sp?] and the Cook's Illustrated "Best Recipe" series. Both give you some solid basic recipes for staples. Anything after that is up to you. One of the nice features of the Cook's book is there are sidebar sections that explain how the stuff cooks, which for me is really helpful when I'm making up recipes based on what is in the refrig and cupboard, as it really helps to determine when to add stuff to the mix and what not to use together.

[Tom]

Hey foodistas, can anyone suggest a veggie/protein-heavy cookbook with ingredients easily sourced from local grocers? I'd like to really rip through one and find some solid stuff I like. Up 'till now I've mostly cooked off of the internet and recipes I've made up, but I think it might help me quite a bit to stick with a book for a month or two and just work my way through it...I'm not picky in regards to cuisine, btw. Any culture is good for me. Love spicy.

thanks

Tear out the 'Pulses' chapter from that "India" cookbook I mentioned. While you're at it, tear out the 'Rice' chapter, too.

I got way lucky with grocery stores. The Pakistani grocery was a little sketchy and light on ingredients and when I made the mistake of saying my wife doesn't cook, I do, there was the distinct impression that I had just lost all status... bad enough I'd be shopping for her but she doesn't cook? I think they thought maybe my wife was a man or something. So, I was looking for fermented soybean paste and at the bottom of the street across the park from me I see 'Oriental grocery'. I go in. They have everything you need for Indian cooking, and I do mean everything. Except I don't see fresh curry leaves. I ask, do you have fresh curry leaves? Thursday, the man says. We get them every Thursday. Then this woman walks in, goes to the back window and I swear to god they have a butcher shop in the back and out comes this leg of lamb and I almost started crying it was so beautiful. And the spices, you have no idea. Huge bags of spices, three dollars. I'm thinking OK, you'd have to buy about five of those little six dollar bottles of stale spices at the grocery, and that's just for the four or five types you could get at the grocery, so I'll take a risk. How bad can they be? They're not. When I got home I opened up the bag of black cardamom and nearly fell over backwards it was so fresh. I'm a lucky guy, I tell you.

[jscottyk]

Hey foodistas, can anyone suggest a veggie/protein-heavy cookbook with ingredients easily sourced from local grocers? I'd like to really rip through one and find some solid stuff I like. Up 'till now I've mostly cooked off of the internet and recipes I've made up, but I think it might help me quite a bit to stick with a book for a month or two and just work my way through it...I'm not picky in regards to cuisine, btw. Any culture is good for me. Love spicy.

thanks

Primal Blueprint Cookbook

The Paleo Diet Cookbook

[Too Tall]

I'm all about the Harrosett and Chopped Liver. Here are two really good Harrosett recipes, you can't really go wrong with chopped liver after all ;)

CHAROSET Americana

Makes about 2 cups 2 apples, peeled and cored 2 firm pears, peeled and cored

1 cup almonds

1 cup dried cherries

sugar to taste

lemon juice to taste

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

4 to 6 Tbs. sweet red Passover wine

Chop all ingredients in food processor until a rough paste forms.



Charoset from Bordeaux ( simple to make and a killer in taste)
Makes about 3 1/2 cups

( roast the nuts first)

2 apples, peeled and quartered

1 ¾ cups dates

1 ¾ cups walnuts

1 cup almonds

¼ cup hazelnuts
Working in two batches, put the fruits and nuts in a food processor and pulse until blended, stopping before they become completely puréed. Charoset should have some crunch