S.I.P./Quarantine Cooking

Well, we are all in a mess, so lets have some fun and learn a few things along the way!  First and foremost might be that...you can make a burrito at home!!!  That's a bit facetious talking to this crowd here on THP, who have some of the maddest cooking skills on the interwhebz. 
 
SO, lets post what we are cooking at home, what is made from the pantry, what was out of but substituted, all basic cooking skills.....
 
I'll get it started!
 
A couple days ago, talking with my son who is now 21 and living on his own for the last 2 years, he said..."I gotta go, Mom, the roasted chicken is done.  We're gonna eat dinner now."  :sniff:  AWW!!!!  I'm a happy mom.....
 
 Here's what we did for family entertainment last weekend.  We rented Milo and Otis...for the DOG to watch!!!

 
what's in the meat drawer- pork chops
Pantry- wild rice (doctored up majorly!)
Breading with pantry crackers
tomatoes (cuz that was the best FRESH veg I could come up with.)

 
I didn't have Panko, so I blitzed some Mary's pepper crackers in the food processor with some flour,  added some spices and pepper powders, dredged the chops in seasoned egg/milk wash and then cracker crumbs.  Pan Fry in cast iron skillet with a bit of oil until golden brown and done.
 

 
Rice- Saute rice mix in some butter (ala Rice-A-Roni) until toasty nutty done.  Add water and chicken base/boullion, cook until done.  Key notes!  Use broth as the cooking liquid and saute the rice mix before with butter!  There are lots of quinoa, rice mixes....just don't cook with plain water.  Saute in olive oil/butter or not,  or not, but definitely use seasoning in the water. 

 
Looks kind of blah, but was really yummy!

 
 
next up... Pork, shrimp, LO wild rice-vs-white rice, beans........and andoulle...
 
share what you got cooking.  Might make this into a competition of who had the best cooking Hack, or best out of nothing dish, to be awarded when all of this shite is over.
 
and my husband has developed a strange affinity for watching musicals.
 
Paint Your Wagon
Oklahoma
Dirty Dancing (OK...that one's mine... )
 
 
I'm queuing up
Pirates of Penzance,
Showboat
South Pacific...

 
and Floyd's final episodes.....

 

[The Hot Pepper]

Looks nice.
 
Food suggestions? Okay... how about the national dish of Portugal Peri Peri chicken...
 
Here's what I would do:
 
Blacken some fish and cook some white rice, maybe basmati. Put the rice on the plate, then the sauce, then the fish. Squeeze a lemon on top. The sauce does not mess up the blackened crust because it is under it and you get all that goodness in one bite.

 

[The Hot Pepper]

^
Or blacken chicken and do that.

 

[salsalady]

Well, that's kinda where I was going with the chicken tenders...lol...that Portugal dish...

I think I have some ahi steaks in ths freezer. That might be tomorrow.

 

[The Hot Pepper]

NICE!

 

[The Hot Pepper]

That makes me want to do something similar instead of my usual po boy.

 

[salsalady]

Make a blackened peri peri po boy,

Roll, Cole slaw, blackened (whatever), peri peri sauce?

 

[The Hot Pepper]

I want to try the blackened fish on top of sauce on top of rice because I saw someone do it on FB but the sauce was a shrimp cream sauce and it looked so killer the thing this dude made. I like the idea of the blackening not having anything on top but all that flavor under it. But yeah I could make a po boy too and sauce the bottom lol.  Sauce the bottom, dress the top (the usual suspects but add olives mmmmmm). Oh shit like a per peri vera cruz po boy!!!!!

 

[salsalady]

Inspired peri peri sauce.

Bit of slaw...

Ok this post frikin is notbworking....I'll sort it out when I'm back on a real computer.....



Ignore the drama,


Cook
Pics
Eat
Post



Repeat.....

 

[sinensis]

holy cow, i have so much to catch up on in this thread. been away too long.
 
anyway, just kind of getting into fishing as a hobby this summer. decided to keep a couple of small sunfish, probably bluegill. fresh out of the water, they did not smell good. they smelled kind of fishy and like mud/algae. i truly wondered if they would be of good quality for eating.
 
i descaled them, cut their heads off, and gutted them. fried them skin-on like this:

RIP to the kind man in the video.
 

 

 

 
 
not much to look at, but it tasted pretty darn good. no off tastes. good, mild, sweet flavor. not fishy.
 
encouraging results. i'll try catching more next time.

 

[luvmesump3pp3rz]

nothing wrong with fresh fish. fresh, never frozen fish in supermarkets is getting harder to find and more and more expensive. nice catch!

 

[sinensis]

last weekend, I did up sinensis's rib rub recipe with no salt (see post #428 for the recipe.  I had it in one of the pics but it's pretty fuzzy~)
 
white sugar with molasses, and all the spices.  I had to really work in the molasses with a spoon, I think I'll try just blitzing everything in the FP next time.  I like the NoSalt at the beginning.  I probably put too much dry spice mix on the ribs before smoking, they definitely needed the wet sauce at the end.  All in all, WAAAaaaayyyy better than the pile of chit I did before!.  Thanks sinensis!

IMG_20200517_103123.jpg
s
 

 
awesome, glad you liked it. it looked like it turned out pretty good.
 
also, sorry, i should have said that mixing the molasses in by hand takes some elbow grease. overall, which did you think was easier? un-bricking old brown sugar or mixing molasses into white sugar?
 
by all means, if you have fresh brown sugar on hand, or if you think it's easier to un-brick the old stuff, then do that. just use the combined weight of the white sugar + molasses in the recipe and sub in brown sugar.
 
what i do is try to pour the molasses in thin ribbons onto the sugar pile. then i give it a few stirs to break up the main clumps and get everything covered with sugar since you don't want anything super sticky. then i dump it in my blender (a vitamix these days) and pulse it. i pick up the jar and give it a few shakes between pulses, because it won't blend evenly otherwise. also, if you overdo it, you kind of end up with powdered sugar.
 
i think this method is relatively fast and easy. i haven't tried a food processor, and i wonder if that would work even better.
 
here's the end result of that mixing process:
 

 
as you can see, it's not perfect. there's some powdered sugar, there's some brown sugar, and there's some clumps. i think this is really not a big deal in this application.
 
also, if you're using the sugar+molasses in a baking recipe or something with wet ingredients, then it's even easier since the liquid will just dissolve everything.
 
but if you want perfect brown sugar, i think the best way is to use a large spoon and spend some time shearing the clumps along the wall of the bowl. or just buy it fresh from the store. i hate planning ahead though
 
so my overall workflow is blend up the sugar+molasses, then add paprika, garlic, onion, and ginger powders. then i move onto my un-ground ingredients which i measure on a more sensitive scale instead of my baking scale due to the smaller weights involved. i combine the rosemary, black peppercorn, chipotle, smoked hab flakes, and sichuan peppercorn in my spice grinder which is just a cheap krups coffee grinder. i actually weigh those ingredients in the grinder's lid. grind it up, add it back to the other ingredients, and stir.
 
here's the final rub with all ingredients added:
 

 
 
i'm doing a few racks of st louis ribs tomorrow!
they're defrosting now. in the morning, i'll pull the membrane and salt them. then a few hours later, i'll add the rub and throw them on the smoker.

 

[sinensis]

ok, it turns out your instincts are right, SL. using a food processor is the way to go, and i'm an idiot for doing it wrong so many times.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LF8cWXlNSEM

 

[salsalady]

The kid came over for a visit this weekend, so we are actually doing a breakfast.
Waffles with homemade blueberry syrup.

2 cups blueberries, 3/4 cup sugar

Practice

Nailed it!

Edit- cant get this pic to post at the top. This has happened before. I try to insert it at the top, but it keeps adding to the end. Whatever...

 

[The_NorthEast_ChileMan]

 

 

 

 

 
 

The kid came over for a visit this weekend, so we are actually doing a breakfast.
Waffles with homemade blueberry syrup.

Edit- cant get this pic to post at the top. This has happened before. I try to insert it at the top, but it keeps adding to the end. Whatever...

Dunno SL?

 

[salsalady]

Thanks NECM, it seems to only be fussy when I'm posting on the tablet.

 

[salsalady]

Last night, ciabatta roll burger with chips and Cole slaw, definitely qualifies for the drunken chef thread...

 

[sinensis]

amazing waffles, SL. love the OG griswold!
 
great burger, too.

 

[The Hot Pepper]

How did you catch fish when sheltering in place?

 

[salsalady]

How did you catch fish when sheltering in place?

Lol...it didnt make sense to me but fishing was shut down during the....shut down. Apparently, the logic was...
If you go fishing, you will go to the gas station
You will go to the convenience store for beer
You will go to the sporting goods store for new flies
You will not socially distance at the boat launch......


Seriously, dont these guys know that...
 
(in washington) ...

fishermen are more likely to hit the pot store as the beer store, and if a person is of the beer/cannabis consumption persuasion, they are gonna hit those stores whether they are going fishing or going home.

There's lots of gas in the tank cuz noone has gone anywhere...in WEEKS!

Most fishing in our area is along the banks of the river.....no boat launch

Noone cares about flies and lures cuz they really aren't fishing for food and most fishing is c&r. See point #1 re beer.


But regs were relaxed a couple weeks ago, I'm seeing lots of boats on the roads.

 

[The Hot Pepper]

Well I would I love him to say he just cast off the dock in his yard because then I would be jealous lol!