Love pine nuts. Pinole cookies are

*pignole cookies are my favorite

That looks awesome, duds. People who say they don't like kale haven't had it cooked creatively. And mac-and-cheese is irresistible in any form.

Crispy kale is an unsung gem. And so easy - just toss in a little oil, salt + spices if you want (I used smoked paprika here. Pairs nicely with the sweetness of butternut squash) and pop on a sheet tray for 15 minutes.

Yummy! if that was for breakfast , I wonder what was for lunch!!!

Probably a nap!

Haha, a salad if I recall correctly.

It was not as rich as it might look. There were just a few thin slices of cheese, and four eggs for the whole dish. 

That looks fantastic! I love a good breakfast

It's one of the most important meals of the day! Along with lunch and supper.

That seems to be so good! I'd love to have it for breakfast. Gonna try it on Saturday.

You've managed to show two dishes in a row that make me want to eat squash--that's saying something!

Squash is great if you treat it right! Like all things, I suppose.

Believe me, I've tried. For many years we grew several hundred pounds of different types. I probably just got sick of it, actually. I do like it sometimes, especially butternut.

I think I'd get sick of several *hundred* pounds of anything! Butternut is a workhorse, but my real favorites are delicata & spaghetti. Last fall I made a surprisingly delicious spaghetti squash pad thai and a pretty interesting spaghetti squash carbonara. It's all about mixing up the flavors so you don't feel like you're eating the same thing every day for a month.

LOL, yeah we fed a lot to our pigs and later to our compost pile. But we ate a lot too. My MIL grows delicata and it is good too. Nobody in my family likes spaghetti squash, which is too bad because I think it's good for some things--just not to replace pasta, if you're of Italian heritage. That said, we have a lot of guanciale in the freezer, maybe I'll find some spaghetti squash and make something carbonara-like.

https://web.archive.org/web/20150912034417/http://en.recidemia.com/wiki/Caldillo_de_Congrio

Sometimes I like how cream pulls disparate flavors and textures together, but I can see why you'd want those ingredients to stand on their own.

Looks good! What do you use for batter?

Just use milk and egg, then a mix of flour ,bread crumbs, salt, pepper, and a little dried parsley.

yep! and olive oil with some butter.

Damn, made some banging Barbacoa tacos and homemade salsa with roasted poblanos, Anaheim’s, etc...fried corn tortillas, avacado sauce....the other day...forgot to take pics.

Classic. Looks great!

Oh man, that looks good. Someone just gave my MIL a leg of lamb that we'll have for Christmas--I hope she makes something like that.

We're having lamb tonight. The season of feasting begins (see below). I'm so excited.

Agree on Broccoli Rabe. My favorite use of it is Broccoli Rabe with home made orecchiette and fennel sausage.

It's really a perfect vegetable.

And very healthy

I roasted some Brocolli Rabe (aka brocollini and other names) for dinner last night, and though of this thread. Not really photo-worthy but like many vegetables, Rabe takes well to roasting.

WOW. Sounds amazing. Also, I need to know how you stay so skinny.

Dog needs two walks a day. That & a lot of hiking when the weather permits.

Sounds great. All our holiday events are cancelled (some by necessity, others by me) so no family feast.

My line up for feasting season is green chili for Christmas Eve, prime rib for Christmas day, and pigs in a blanket for New Years Eve. My kids will make the pigs in a blanket meal.

So this is what it takes for a wood guy thumbs down? To clarify, my parents are inside our social bubble, so the little one gets to see his grandparents. Everyone else (inc aunts/cousins, even my grand mother). Sorta looking forward to calm holiday not filled with crammed and loud dinner parties.

Sorry, I meant to clarify--boo that you have to cancel plans, +++++ for being a responsible citizen. Binary communication leaves room for misunderstanding ;-)

I've never had lamb... and I would not know what do to with it. I think that Gordon Ramsay would pop out of my pantry and call me a wanker if I ever tried to cook a rack and left it 8 seconds too long in the pan.

I hope it tastes as good as its carbon footprint!

Rando, don't worry, the carrots are organic.

the best way to cook lamb is to go to a restaurant with a good chef

organic farming produces more emissions than conventional farming though ;-)

fine... I guess my joke was lost on this crowd.

Just needs a bit of seasoning.

Rando, I'd need to see some stats on that... but if you're talking about Big Organic vs Big Conventional ag, you might be right. Organic will have less negative impact on the soil though.

I grow my own using beyond-organic techniques, or from local farmers who do the same. I guarantee our carbon footprints are lower than most Americans'.

Aps, I hope it's good. Why did you choose Australian lamb instead of locally grown? The leg of lamb my MIL got was a gift from a carpenter working on her house. (We're building the addition featured here: https://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/article/all-about-helical-piles.) He raises sheep and does other farming on the side. We get along well ;-)

Non, I haven't cooked a lot of lamb but find low, slow cooking in an oven works well with most red meat, after searing on the stovetop. Last night I did that with country ribs from our pigs. It's a pretty forgiving method. If you don't like the flavor on its own, chop it up and put it in a strongly flavored stew. 

Organic veggies require more land (lower yields per hectare) and that results in more deforestation.

“ Organically farmed food has a bigger climate impact than conventionally farmed food, due to the greater areas of land required.” https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/12/181213101308.htm

Rando, that might be true but it's one factor in a very complicated equation. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-05956-1#:~:text=Organic%20agriculture%20has%2C%20per%20unit,on%20reducing%20its%20yield%20variability.

Carbon Footprint Ranking of Food

no.1 Lamb 39.2 kilos CO2 equivalent or 91 car miles equivalent: https://www.greeneatz.com/foods-carbon-footprint.html

Rando, lamb grown locally 100% on pasture with abundant water available is not the same as factory farming operations.

M’y jive is with the label and how it’s convince so many that it’s better because of the label. It’s not, at least not without a whole bunch more context, but the average wanker consumer only has time to read part of a one headline in their Facebook feed before making life philosophy choices.

Excuse moi, french keyboard on. Makes for odd word autochoices. No regrets, leaving as is.

It’s a more complicated equation rando. Need to take into account depletion of top soil, embodied energy of transport, embodied energy of chemical herbicide production and its usage impact, etc. An acre or permaculture land is not as destructive as an acre of monoculture land, and it has a greater carbon sequestration potential and overall lower impact in terms of harvest and management.

*pesticide

Forest farming is really interesting. Anyone experiment with this method?

Non, I totally agree, and the organic farming community was mostly against the government taking over the term 20+ years ago. The best term I've heard, and used above, for those who practice truly organic (restorative, not extractive) agriculture is "beyond organic." It's still not a great term. Another is "restoration agriculture" but that doesn't always cover annual crops very well.

X-jla, I have a couple of books on it and have thought a LOT about how I could do more on my land, which is mostly wooded. I think it has potential for small-scale homesteaders but hard to scale in a way that would have broad impact. What do you know about it? 

I like the idea, but don’t have much firsthand experience being I live in a desert climate. It seems that there is maybe more potential for livestock. In Spain, they raise their best pigs in pine forests, from what I remember...

Ah, I didn't realize you were a desert-dweller. I have 30 acres, only about 2.5 of which are cleared. When we raise pigs they are partly on pasture and partly in open forest. Our town is named Palermo, so we jokingly call our pork "jamon Palermico," a play on "jamon Iberico," the most famous of the Spanish pigs raised in open woodland, the Dehesa. Unfortunately we don't have centuries-old nut trees to feed the pigs, so ours get a lot of grain. I've tried to get our goats into the woods but they are terrified of being away from the pasture they're used to.

“ Rando, lamb grown locally 100% on pasture with abundant water available is not the same as factory farming operations.”

No it’s not the same, but looking at things holistically from a global perspective, if everyone would grow their lamb like that more forests would have to be chopped down to make way for pasture...it might still look sustainable from a personal perspective, but once you zoom out it’s a different story.

Rando, I'm all for a good reductio ad absurdum (it is, afterall, one of my primary modus operandi), but everything becomes the worst thing ever if you zoom out enough.

Rando, globally I'll agree. Maine, where I live, is by far the most heavily forested state in of the lower 48 and we also have the second most organic farms per capita in the country, but we also have a tiny population--only 1.3 million people, a mid-sized city at best anywhere else in the world. In the mid-1800s much of this area was cleared for sheep farming to fulfill a need for wool. It's a good example of why eating what is produced locally (without undue effort) is the most sustainable approach. In some places (Maine, New Zealand) that might mean sheep. Elsewhere it might mean mangoes.

You're in Canada? I thought you were in Europe for some reason. I agree that local is not always cheaper than imported food. As far as I'm concerned, though, price is the least important factor when buying food. When I was young and poor I felt differently, and even my now-financially secure mom can't pass up meat on sale for a dollar a pound. She also has good health insurance. I don't, and pay more for food I trust instead.

I was born in Europe, partially educated there, partially in Canada - worked in Canada, Europe, Middle East, Caribbean...in other words, all screwed up...:)))...!

For the price of that lamb leg I paid here, I could have had the whole lamb roasted on a spit in some parts of Europe...and lamb that ate local grass, and roamed the local fields. This one was probably raised in a factory, and fed all kinds of chemicals. But hey, what can you do when you live in a fast  country...

lamb in patagonia

The only issue I have with that method is all the juices run off. You catch all the tasty juices when done on the spit.

Is that your set-up there Aps? I have family that competes in (amateur) BBQ competitions and I'm always in awe with what they do with their grilling toys.

Nope, I wish it was. There are ethnic restaurants/stores in Toronto/Mississauga where you can order them for festive occasions.

Show me the $20 price for an organic tomato. Seriously. I want proof. It must be tiring to go through life with such a huge chip on your shoulder. You sound paranoid and out of touch.

Aps, I trust "big organic" only slightly more than "big conventional" ag. But my wife and I buy most of our food from local farmers, many of whom we know personally and some who have become friends or clients. It's hard to grow enough food to feed yourself--I know, I've tried--but it's possible in many places to know where your food comes from. On the rare occasions we buy exotic food like avocados or citrus, we try to buy direct from established farms with a reputation for quality. It costs more than what you find at the grocery store, but that's why we make it a luxury, not a staple. Nobody needs to drink orange juice every morning, even if TV ads say you should. "Cheep food" is often a false economy.

And so instead you get your lamb all the way from Australia...you don’t trust your neighbours and local community, but eat what’s grown at the other end of the earth, something doesn’t add up here ;-)

I'd pay $20 for locally grown banana if it came from Timmins.

I'm waiting for climate change so that they can grow them there!

Climate change is here, but bananas won't be for a lot longer. Every banana we eat is a clone of a single plant and extremely susceptible to mounting pest and disease pressure. Eat 'em while you can!

And chocolate :(

Really? I didn't know that about chocolate. Boo.

Unfortunately
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2018/01/01/is-chocolate-going-extinct-whats-being-done-to-prevent-this-disaster/amp/

How do you make the broth? We save any meat bones to make broth/stock (I'm not sure if there is a difference). We also keep the feet from butchered birds to make a creepy-looking but tasty broth.

This was my first time making ramen base. It's a little more complicated than what I usually do. 

For my "normal" broths, I love to save veggie clippings and parmesan rinds in the freezer & once a year turn it into the most amazing parmesan broth. And a couple times I've taken the turkey carcass from thanksgiving and made soup out of that. Those are pretty straightforward - boil it for a few hours with your favorite aromatics & then strain. 

For ramen, you're making three parts. First is the broth (tonkotsu for this weekend) - which is a *ton* of bones & fat & bits. I got about 4lbs of pork trotters, 1.5lbs chicken feet, and a pound of pork belly (plus 2 more pounds to braise for serving). Plus one onion, about 6oz of cremini mushrooms, a head of garlic, and 2" ginger. I sauteed the non-meats for a few minutes then added the meat parts, covered with water and boiled for about 8 hours (topping off whenever the water level got below the solids), then strained. Part 2 is the Dashi: Soaked dried kombu in cold water for 2 hours, then slowly brought it up to almost a simmer (don't boil! It ruins the taste), removed the kombu and added dried shiitake. Steeped for another 45 minutes on barely a simmer, then set aside. Part 3 is Tare, which is a flavor bomb. Chicken broth, soy, mirin, more ginger, brown sugar, and rice vinegar. Boiled it to reduce by 50-70%. 

At dinner time, you combine the dashi & tonkotsu broth in a big pot and simmer. A little bit of tare goes into each bowl as you serve.

@ WG - Broth includes meat which renders out its fats and proteins into the liquid. Stock is made with bones and scraps.

Duds, that sounds like a lot of work but I'm sure it's worth it. I know I enjoy asian soups of all sorts, and have wondered what made them so good.

Arch, thanks, that makes sense. I guess what I make is in between, mostly bones but with some meat scraps as well, cooked until I can crush the bones easily, anywhere from one to three days. Sometimes more than one batch from the same bones.

"...I steamed up every window in the house and the dog was going nuts over the smell..." LOL!!!

It's a lot of time but less effort than I thought it'd be. That said, I'm doing this as a birthday present to my wife because she loves ramen and we've been missing it during the pandemic times since it's one of the few things I can't easily re-create at home. I dunno if I'd do this for just any old dinner.

Those all look tasty, b3. I can't recall having chocolate and blueberries together--does any blueberry flavor come through? I'm a sucker for fudge and mixing heat with chocolate. I'm also a sucker for baklava, and yours looks amazing, not slimy with sugar--what did you use for a sweetener if not corn syrup or honey?

The blueberries get pureed so the flavor is subtle, but it's rich. The baklava is made with date syrup, and thickened. There's sweetness, but not an overwhelming sweetness. The fudge, only 5 ingredients! I am making a tiramisu today, that is also using unrefined sugar, and is vegan and gluten-free.

I tried the baklava today, good, not super sweet and sticky, but good. I'm mostly making and giving it away.

Sounds good to me. I love dates but don't recall having or seeing date syrup. We get maple syrup from local farmers and go through a few gallons a year. That shocks some people but we use it as a concentrate to flavor carbonated water, on cereal, etc.. It would probably make a decent baklava as well.

I enjoy baba ganoush when done well. Unfortunately, most of the time the texture is too much like snot, and the flavor is not strong enough to make you think otherwise. Keeping it chunky and adding pecans instead of tahini probably helps the texture? Eggplants don't grow reliably here but we often make a baba-like dish with zucchini.

That sounds amazing. What can I bring?  =O]

*plates “Indigo Storm” by Faye Toogood!

You can put Sazon on an old shoe and it would taste good. That msg is yummy

I'm sorry to hear she has Covid, but agree that Sazon is tasty stuff. The myth around MSG is pervasive. (Cue someone claiming they're "allergic"...)

Ah crap x-jla! As losing sense of taste is one of the symptoms it probably doesn’t matter what you cook for her anyways...

She did lose her taste and smell, but is feeling better. No more fever for 2 days.

Absolutely! Or here is fine, up to you. I love a good Scotch, in small quantities. My wife can drink it neat but I need ice or water. We've been learning about wine for the last few months--it's been a fun distraction. We kicked it off with this movie, not bad: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2204371/.

I’ll be having a 14y glenlfiddich soon.

Tduds, you need to fully circumcise the top of the bottle. No need to keep part of the foil wrapper up there.

Non, I used your circumcision comment on my wife last night when we opened a bottle of wine. It would have been hilarious if I hadn't needed to explain it. I laughed, anyway.

Very good WG. It’s a comment I make often (less so now because COVID), but I mentioned to a buddy a while back on a 18y bottle and I was shocked, then angry, that the label on an expensive battle was a sticker. Not foil. A glued on sticker. Left white paper marks on the neck. Real sloppy circoncision job that night.

My keyboard decided to use the French word. I’ll leave it.

"Miss, I'd like my fries the same temperature as the surface of Mercury."  Straight-out-of-the-fryer = delicious.

BB, I typically eat fast food once or twice a year, but in the year of Covid it's been more--when I'm out at lunchtime I just don't trust most of the mom-and-pop shops, even when I can find one, to follow safe practices, based on observation.

They also seem to have forgotten the 'fast' part, with drive through lanes backing up into traffic.

Beige and beautiful!

Yep, at least three different shades of beige.

I remember in elementary school, once a week we'd have what I called "yellow lunch." While pretty colors can make a meal seem appealing, your beige lunch looks pretty tasty too!

Too small of a portion, imo.

I like myself at the size I am.

Too small portion? That plate's like half a meter diameter!

20 dumplings only! Tiny portion.

Tiny? Those dumplings are at least the size of an egg of the Canadian goose!

You're both wrong, but they are very filling little things.

I know, was just pulling aps’ leg...

___ | ___

I have hunted, but not actively anymore. And I could never do large mammals. 

Most memorable meal of my lifetime though was foraged berries and asparagus, fresh caught trout, and a couple of grouse we bagged while backpacking deep in Colorado wilderness. Cooked over an open campfire with just salt and wild herbs as seasonings. It is seared into my brain.

I've had a hunting license since I was 12 but have never actually hunted. When we moved to our farm I wanted to be closer to the food we eat and I debated between taking up hunting or raising meat animals. Decided to go with raising pigs, and eventually chickens, turkeys and maybe rabbits. Currently pausing those activities because it requires a lot of time for the reward, and it can be kind of gut wrenching. I'd like to take up hunting when I'm older and have more time. Or maybe just walk in the woods more.

That salsa will have mfers thinking they have covid the next day...my esophagus feels like I ate fire ants.

There's only one flavor you taste on both its way in and its way out...

Mixing linguine with spaghetti? My Sicilian FIL would roll in his grave! Looks beautiful, though.

if only your political and cultural views could rise to the level of your tacos....

^ Wrong thread.

Yeah let's try to keep this a place where we all share a love of food and/or cooking. I have to get bloodwork tomorrow morning so no dinner tonight--these posts are making my stomach growl!

Oh, the avianity!     ;o]

I took a home-economics-style course in high school (don't recall the name other than it was not "home ec," but essentially the same without the stigma of the name). Cooking was part of it and we learned hands-on how to cut up a whole chicken as part of the course. I remember enough of it to agree with the superpower feeling, but I'd have to get a refresher on it if I wanted to wield the power properly.

Ooh, nice knife! That's one thing on my wish list. I have a good quality Henkels boning knife but it's lightweight, made more for fish I think. My world opened up when YouTube taught me how to break down chickens! I love knowing *just* where to put the knife to separate the leg, etc.. Need more practice, though.

The leg joint hack is amazing! There's a litlte bit there that you'd think was a bone, but no! Just poke it with the knife tip and the whole thing falls right off.

That & different ways of using gravity to make cuts pull away (rather than using extra force with the knife) were the best lessons of the day.

Lemon curd pastries is the fastest way to get into my pants.

Looks beautiful

Man you're on another level. And I'm with Non on lemon curd pastries.

Applied with a spatula or serving spoon, Non?

Tomatoes, onion, poblanos, lime, ancho chilli powder, salt, pepper, cumin for the sauce...then I like to remove sauce from pan, put some olive oil without washing it, and fry some corn tortillas gives them good flavor...and some fried jalapeños to wake me up. Get the corn tortillas from a great little local Mexican market...