Culinary Confession: guilty pleasures & culinary crimes

Topics include: Cooking (recipes, techniques & equipment); Beverages (appreciating & making your favorites); Food Philosophy, and various books, articles, blogs, and related discussions.

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Darb
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Post by Darb »

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?
Worth a try ... but definitely *NOT* worth the effort of freezing.
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Mary Russell
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Post by Mary Russell »

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.
Me too!!! I actually don't like it when green beans are crunchy. Squeaky beans IMO are gross!!! Soft is the way to go! I noticed that apart from my family, Ethiopians also make their green beans nice and soft and NOT squeaky!!
I like canned peaches. I can't stand the fuzzy skin of fresh peaches. Fuzzy skin is in the same category as squeaky beans.
I like my peaches slightly underripe, and a bit crunchy
Same with nectarines and pears!! I don't like soft pears (picky eater, I know.) and crunchy nectarines are just so fun to eat!
Kraft Mac'n'Cheese is my fave!! For years I would only ever eat the boxed macaroni and cheese and hated the homemade stuff. A quick "homemade" macaroni that I like is pasta with tomato sauce and grated cheese.
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Post by Darb »

Ok, here's another occasional guilty pleasure of mine: I like rare roast beef (from a deli), sliced thin ... I'll spread a slice with a little softened butter spread (or lite mayo), a small grind of pepper, and just roll it up and eat it. Alternately, I'll de-seed and julienne a good summer tomato, and roll pieces ofit it in roast beef with a drizzle of ketchup.
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laurie
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Post by laurie »

Brad wrote:Ok, here's another occasional guilty pleasure of mine: I like rare roast beef (from a deli), sliced thin ... I'll spread a slice with a little softened butter spread (or lite mayo), a small grind of pepper, and just roll it up and eat it. Alternately, I'll de-seed and julienne a good summer tomato, and roll pieces ofit it in roast beef with a drizzle of ketchup.
I do the roast beef and tomato roll-up too, but I put a little ranch dressing on it rather than ketchup. (rare roast beef + ketchup = ewwww!)
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Darb
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Post by Darb »

Ok, here's a snippet about a recent meal my wife helped me prepare. Enjoy.
A Bowl of Love

When you're feeling like crap, nothing does more to salve the soul (aside from prescription strength pain killers that is) than a bowl of pure love ... and love means PORK.

My beloved Wife came home with an armload of groceries yesturday, and the weekly special meat du jour she grabbed was a 2 1/2 lb chunk of boneless pork loin. Boring stuff. People who know me know my opinion of low-quality ultra-lean supermarket pork ... especially the boneless cuts. Bland. Lifeless. Textureless. The only thing it offered was a blank canvas upon which to haul forth the classic time honored big guns of old school classical technique. Sacred words came to mind, muttered in hushed tones of reverence ... cast iron ... browned meat ... slowly braised ... milk fed ... mmmmm ... the mind began to whirl, and the awful constant drumbeat post operative pain began, if only briefly, to recede.

Like a muttering wizard retreating into the candle lit depths of his librum arcana, I glided over to my racks of culinary lore. My hand hovered over Marcella Hazan's "Essentials of Classic Italian Cuisine", remembering the glory of her pork roast braised in milk and sage ... however, I'd made a dish a few days earlier that featured sage, so my hand glided next to "The River Cottage MEAT Book", for an Anglicized variation that called for thyme and bay instead of Sage, and also added a whisper of nutmeg and brown sugar to the fray. My fingers dragged the sacred text from it's niche, and off I sauntered to my culinary workroom.

My pain made it's presence felt again, so my loving wife descended into the dungeon and prompty returned with my well-blackened cast iron dutch oven. Dusting the roast with salt, pepper, and half of a freshly grated nutmeg, I lightly browned it on all sides in clarified butter, then added 3 goblets of whole milk, returned it to the barest simmer, added a heaping spoonful of brown sugar, a pair of bay leaves, and a small sprinkle of thyme, and then my Alewife eased it, lid slightly ajar, into the welcoming perdition of a 325F oven, where it's sins of mediocrity slowly dissipated in cleansing heat and hot mother's milk. As for myself, I reclined against a colpac, sins intact, once again clutched tight in pain's unwelcome embrace.

After two and a half hours, we hauled the cast iron basinet out from it's hellacious incubator (along with a pair of hastily added, and well forked, tubers), and lifted the lid, and beheld a now lovely roast, awash in steaming milk, browned curds, and a lovely slick of golden clarified butter, redolent with the aromas of pork, milk fudge, and thyme.

I closed the sacred tome, no longer in need of guidance. I eased the baby (read: pork loin roast) out of it's bath onto a trencherboard, to rest, while I set about turning it's bathwater into gravy.

Deglazing the sides of the cauldron (read: cast iron dutch oven) with generous splashing and scraping, I reduced the milky liquid further, and sifted in a little flour and a small knob of brown roux from my fridge, until it thickened and bubbled, filled with little caramelized clots of whey. It was done. My lovely wife felt the need for a vegetable, but I had eyes only for my culinary homonculus (read: braised and rested pork roast), waiting patiently to be carved. A few quick sweeps with my hand-honed slicing knife, and the deed was done. After a brief pause for a picture, I served my beloved, then paused to consider my own plate. Opting to forgo fork and knife for the adolecent joys of a large spoon, I coarsely shredded and chopped several slices into a small bowl, ladeled in some of the milk-gravy, and after a recriminating stare from my beloved, an obligatory dollup of microwaved frozen peas.

At last, a bowl of LOVE to drive my sorrows away.
Last edited by Darb on Tue Apr 21, 2009 10:26 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Mary Russell
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Post by Mary Russell »

Mmm. You're making me hungry! I'm so sick of cafeteria food!!!
"People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa....It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege." ~David Livingstone
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voralfred
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Post by voralfred »

Brad wrote:Ok, here's a snipped from a blog about tonite's repast. Enjoy.
A Bowl of Love

When you're feeling like crap, nothing does more to salve the soul (aside from prescription strength pain killers that is) than a bowl of pure love ... and love means PORK.

My beloved Wife came home (...)
Brad, you are a real poet :worship:

This page does not belong here, but in the "Quill and Fountain" thread... or even in a poetry magazine....
Human is as human does....Animals don't weep, Nine

[i]LMB, The Labyrinth [/i]
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tollbaby
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Post by tollbaby »

Someday he may grace us with a cookbook if we keep nagging him ;)
And what manner of jackassery must we put up with today? ~ Danae, Non Sequitur
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