Culinary Confession: guilty pleasures & culinary crimes

Mary Russell · Post by **Mary Russell** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 12:09 am

Cheese with potato soup for me! Mmm.

Post by **Darb** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 7:51 pm

harryhermionerw wrote:Any specific type of soup?

Nope ... whatever it goes with. It's a decent substitute for heavy cream. It melts right in, and dissipates. The only hitch is to avoid using cream cheese in soups that are too acidic ... it can curdle.

Mary Russell · Post by **Mary Russell** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 3:38 am

Cheese in tomato soup has never curdled for me though even though tomatoes are very acidic!

Post by **Darb** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 9:12 am

Mary Russell wrote:Cheese in tomato soup has never curdled for me though even though tomatoes are very acidic!

Tomato soup generally tends to be a bit lower in acid than, say, a freshly made tomato based pasta sauce, and therefore dairy is less likely to curdle in the former.

By 'acidic soups', I was implicitly referring to soups which have been finished with things like lemon or lime juice, vinegar, or tomatoes of an acidic variety.

Also, cream cheese is made from a cream that's been slightly soured. Dairy that's already been partially soured (ex: yogurt, sour cream) is more vulnerable to breakage than dairy that has not ... but higher fat contents also help to partially mitigate that, so you have to take both into account when adding dairy to hot liquids that contain acid.

Post by **Darb** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 11:01 am

Ok, confession time.

/me scuffs toe in dirt.

I like "military style" green beans ... simmered to death, until they are pale and lifeless, and suitable for the most dental-challenged baby or oldster.

Don't get me wrong ... i also like them raw, and al dente ... but unlike most other vegetables, I'm not adverse to cooking them into oblivion before eating them.

daetara · Post by **daetara** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 12:15 pm

if it makes you feel better...i prefer canned green beans to fresh. same with peaches.

tollbaby · Post by **tollbaby** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 12:18 pm

I'm with you on the peaches. I liked them canned or baked. I just don't like the stringy texture of fresh peaches (of course, I hate the skin as well, and we rarely get REALLY fresh peaches here... when I can get freestone, it's worth buying & flash-boiling them to remove the skins... freestone are rare birds up here though).

Post by **Darb** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 12:23 pm

I like my peaches slightly underripe, and a bit crunchy ... I eat them with a paring knife, and just pop out wedges, working my way around the pit.

I also have a foil pouch recipe for them, which I think I already posted somewhere, recently.

Hunter B · Post by **Hunter B** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 1:04 pm

Brad wrote: I also have a foil pouch recipe for them, which I think I already posted somewhere, recently.

This was all I could find, is it what you meant?

Brad wrote:Then I experimented with another recipe ... I'd spotted a recipe a few days earlier on one of alton brown's shows that called for making a foil pouch with ginger snap cookes, diced fresh plumbs, brown sugar, some chipped butter, and a little brandy, and then roasting it in a covered grill for 10 mins, to take advantage of leftover heat. Seemed interesting. Well, I didn't have any ginger snap cookies or plumbs handy, but I did have some nabisco nilla wafers, and a pair of white peaches (which I peeled and diced), so I made up a single serving pouch ... and I used dark rum instead of brandy. It was surprisingly good. The only thing missing was a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Anyway, I'll have to give it a whirl in a full size format on the grill, at my next big BBQ ... enough to serve 12-20 people. Should be fun, and dramatic. Heck, if I wanna really show off, I could finish it by opening the foil, still on the grill, pouring in a 2nd hit of rum, and then ignite it prior to serving it with ice cream. Could be fun.

If so, wouldn't adding a second shot of rum make the flavor too overpowering? or would you only add half in the beginning and half at the end?

Post by **Darb** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 1:17 pm

Ah yes, that's it.

I have a redlined version of that at home.

Lemme try to recall it from memory. This one uses less rum ... but it's still moderately alcoholic. I like it that way. It scales upward easily, to serve more people.

(serves 4 adults)

1 pt nabisco nilla wafers, coarsely crumbled
1/2 stick butter, chipped
1 qt stone fruits (nectarines, peaces, plumbs), pitted and diced 1/4"
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
3-4 fl oz Dark rum, bourbon, or brandy.
3-4 fl oz Simple Syrup, or corn syrup (or thinned honey, or 1/3 cup brown sugar thinned with 1/3 cup hot water)
--------------

Make a double-lined foil pouch, shiny side up, spray with oil, and arrange all non-liquid ingredients in layers, one atop the other, in a trench. Fold up sides, seal ends, add liquid ingredients and pinch closed top. Bake for 15 mins in a 400F oven, or 10-15 in a closed grill preheated to the same, or until fruits are tender, but not mushy, and the liquid and wafers have thickend ... stir well, spoon into mugs and top with vanilla ice cream.

Hunter B · Post by **Hunter B** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 1:23 pm

Haha, sounds good... I'll have to try that sometime

blueworld · Post by **blueworld** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 1:50 pm

I eat a lot of macaroni and cheese from a box

. I DO prefer Annie's (organic, "natural" brand) and its imitators, but still...

My favorite thing is to make the sauce with plain yogurt instead of milk and butter. It gives the cheese an extra sharp flavor, and adds a creamy texture without much fat.

tollbaby · Post by **tollbaby** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 3:52 pm

EWWW If there's one thing I *HATE* it's instant Mac & Cheese LOL Sorry, just can't stomach it. (the fact that I'm allergic to orange food dye doesn't help....)

daetara · Post by **daetara** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 4:09 pm

i really like the "blue box" mac and cheese, where the cheese is made from powder...i've never liked the ones where you had a squeeze packet of soft cheese (probably because it tasted too much like cheese - and i hated cheese as a child!

). actually, i don't really like mac and cheese unless i made it...other people do weird stuff to their mac.

p.s. - brad, i don't even like AB's mac'n'cheese!!!

blueworld · Post by **blueworld** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 4:31 pm

tollbaby wrote:(the fact that I'm allergic to orange food dye doesn't help....)

Both Trader Joe's and Annie's make "white cheddar" mac and cheese with no dye.

I actually do occasionally make mac and cheese from scratch, but the boxed stuff is somehow still addictive.

tollbaby · Post by **tollbaby** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 4:51 pm

white or orange, it's still gross and it's not food. Orange or white powder is NOT CHEESE, people! I will, however, make homemade mac & cheese with REAL cheese for my kids occasionally, and it's not bad

mccormack44 · Post by **mccormack44** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 5:45 pm

I don't care much for mac 'n' cheese myself, but when I DO make it, I make it from scratch. It's not that hard or that time consuming. If I'm in a hurry, I use real cheese, but grate it before stirring it into the hot macaroni. OtherwiseIf stir in cheese cubes over low heat till they melt.

Or I make a white sauce into which I have stirred in the cheese cubes, then pour this over the macaroni. Not "true" mac 'n' cheese, but very tasty.

Sue

Post by **Darb** » Sat Jul 15, 2006 3:07 pm

I rarely eat mac n cheese ... but when I do, it's from scratch.

KeE · Post by **KeE** » Thu Jul 20, 2006 11:53 am

Or I make a white sauce into which I have stirred in the cheese cubes, then pour this over the macaroni. Not "true" mac 'n' cheese, but very tasty

Try putting some chicken stock in the white sauce as well- a instant hit with my ladies (wife and daughter).
(managed to avoid the baad chicken stock/my chicks pun)
KEE

mccormack44 · Post by **mccormack44** » Thu Jul 20, 2006 1:06 pm

Good idea, I will try the chicken stock next time I make the cheese sauce.

I make my white sauce with a home-made mix which uses dry non-fat milk, so I can use any liquid in addition to the milk. What I usually use, since it is almost always on hand, is the juice which I have drained from canned green beans and then frozen. This is a very tasty addition to any white sauce.

Sue

Post by **Darb** » Thu Jul 20, 2006 1:19 pm

I've usually found it wise to limit the use of flavored stocks in starch-based dishes (in which the stock is not the primary flavor), to no more than, say, 50% of the total liquid. For instance, when I make polenta from semolina (which has a much lighter flavor than cornmeal), I'll use 50:50 chicken stock and milk. However, when I make it with cornmeal (strongly flavored in it's own right), I'll use 100% water.

So, for a white sauce, it's probably a good idea to limit chicken broth/stock to no more than 50%, so that the flavor doesn't dominate. You might also need to up the fat content of the dairy, to compensate for the loss of body ... or slightly increase the amount of roux.

Using some of the pasta water also helps, because it has both a little starch in it, as well as some of the flavor of the pasta.

tollbaby · Post by **tollbaby** » Thu Jul 20, 2006 2:17 pm

Brad wrote:So, for a white cause...

Now how on earth did you manage that? LOL

Post by **Darb** » Thu Jul 20, 2006 5:14 pm

Whoops ... typo corrected. Hope nobody thinks I'm a racist or something.

tollbaby · Post by **tollbaby** » Thu Jul 20, 2006 6:02 pm

hardly, but I had to laugh because it was such an unusual typo LOL

mccormack44 · Post by **mccormack44** » Thu Jul 20, 2006 6:24 pm

I read your post about liquids but was so bemused by the typo and Tollbaby's response to it that I forgot to respond.

I'll start freezing the pasta water for use in my white sauces in the future. We haven't noticed an extra taste when I use the green bean liquid, but perhaps we're not looking correctly?

If pasta water is good, would potato water (from peeled, boiled potatoes) and/or corn water (for those of you who boil corn ears) also be good as liquids?

Sue