bethzaring
Master Chef
I am making macaroni and cheeses (cheddar, swiss and jack) with garlic spam.
What are you fixing?
What are you fixing?
Friday, Dec. 11/2015. What's cooking?
- Thread starter bethzaring
- Start date
The friendliest place on the web for anyone that enjoys cooking.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
Whiskadoodle
Executive Chef
I am making baked-fried chicken. I have been on a mashed potato kick lately, so I hope to make gravy too. Roasted carrots in with the chicken.
Dawgluver
Chef Extraordinaire
- Joined
- Apr 12, 2011
- Messages
- 25,033
Not sure. We've blown through most of the leftovers (Yay!) , maybe tuna salad and Triscuit.
Aunt Bea
Master Chef
Fried haddock and a salad.
salt and pepper
Executive Chef
Asian style mahi-mahi, shrimp cocktail, oyster shooter & veg.
tenspeed
Executive Chef
An Italian boneless chicken thigh and tomato stew, served over white basmati rice, with a side of broc. I've been upping the amount of anchovies every time I make this, and have come to the realization that anchovies in tomato sauces add a lot of flavor that you can't identify what the magic ingredient is.
GotGarlic
Chef Extraordinaire
After a long week, we decided to take it easy and order pizza 
Addie
Chef Extraordinaire
Baked Italian Sausages with fried onions. 
Andy M.
Certified Pretend Chef
French onion soup gratinée.
Kayelle
Chef Extraordinaire
I seasoned and browned four skinless bone-in chicky thighs, added a jar of TJ's Thai Green Curry simmer sauce and simmered till thighs were nearly done, then added an assortment of fresh veggies suitable for a stir fry, (also from TJ's). His was on Jasmine rice, mine was on a bed of wilted spinach.
Ohhhh Yeahhhh...
Ohhhh Yeahhhh...
Cheryl J
Chef Extraordinaire
I was planning on making a small pot of cream of broccoli soup today. My daughter called and said she and SIL wanted to go to the late afternoon matinee, so I was going to happily go over to their house to watch my 5 yr old grandson Tyler. I love to spend time with him. Plans changed and he came over here instead, and he ate all my broccoli. 
I've never seen a child love broccoli like he does.
We had deli ham, cheese and crackers, and a fresh fruit salad to round out the broccoli meal.
I've never seen a child love broccoli like he does. We had deli ham, cheese and crackers, and a fresh fruit salad to round out the broccoli meal.
Last edited:
Dawgluver
Chef Extraordinaire
- Joined
- Apr 12, 2011
- Messages
- 25,033
I was planning on making a small pot of cream of broccoli soup today. My daughter called and said she and SIL wanted to go to the late afternoon matinee, so I was going to happily go over to their house to watch my 5 yr old grandson Tyler. I love to spend time with him. Plans changed and he came over here, and he ate all my broccoli.
We had deli ham, cheese and crackers, and a fresh fruit salad to round out the broccoli meal.
This cracked me up!
Greg Who Cooks
Executive Chef
Hi all! I know I haven't been participating regularly, work and life distracts, but I had such a good dinner tonight I wanted to share:
I call this "Curried Chicken in Coconut Milk with Holy Basil Leaves" (you could Google that and get my website) but I shortcuted my basic recipe (skipped the "from scratch" curry paste recipe and used Mae Ploy (a fantastic Thai brand!) Panang curry sauce paste instead, and then added various fresh and refrigerator ingredients to "amp" it up. (Panang, red, etc. any of the varieties would have worked.)
Actually the recipe name is a misnomer, I use coconut cream, not coconut milk. The cream is the thick topping left when you process coconut milk, often present as a thick layer on the top of a can of coconut milk, but even better when you buy the cream because it is the essence!
Not to bore you but I mentioned the 5 weeks I spent cooking nothing but Thai recipes from my favorite Thai cookbooks, excepting a few days where I dined out with friends at the usual American restaurants. This was a very formative period of my amateur chef life where I acquired an instinctual understanding of "dash and splash" cooking for Thai cuisine. Leave off the measuring spoons and cups, to truly learn any cuisine you have to understand it at an instinctual level.
So tonight I (oddly) decided to saute my shrimp in ghee (an Indian ingredient) but I had some sitting around and it seemed fitting to saute tiger shrimp -- 12/16 per lb. -- in. Departing from my website recipe I chopped some Thai chilis (watch it, 4-6 of them did it for me) and after I sauteed my shrimp I began the continued prep by sauteing the chilis and quickly added a slosh of coconut cream and the the Mae Ploy Panang curry paste. It would have been good to saute some diced red onion or scallops before hitting it with the coconut cream but alas. (I also added some crushed/chopped lemongrass. Hit it with a mallet until you pulverize it, then chop or scissor it into your mixture.)
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I had prepared a slew of Thai basil ("holy basil" -- see my website) and gailan (kai lan, gai lan, a broccoli relative in the Brassica family, and one of my favorite vegetables. But of course I like broccoli, gailan is mostly leaves and few tops where broccoli is mostly tops and few leaves. In the eating, gailan is more like eating spinach that tastes like broccoli. I consider myself fortunate when I find flowering gailan because it is a happy medium between te two! You prepare it just like spinach, boil then strain. You reserve the Thai basil after manicuring it, for later addition to your recipe.
Meanwhile I had splashed some nam pla (fish sauce) and curry paste (do not EVER taste it out of the jar!) and grated some lime rind into the curry sauce mixture, as I stirred and added more coconut cream as required to keep the right consistency.
Meanwhile, back at the other ranch, my Thai Jasmine rice was cooking away! Things were beginning to synergize! I added the reserved shrimp back to the coconut milk curry mix, stirred the boiling gailan, checked the steaming Jasmine rice. It looked like we were headed for a showdown and we were!
In the end I drained the gailan through a strainer (just like spinach) and spooned it onto a heated plate. (My mom taught me you never serve on anything but heated dishes.) In a strange Americanism I slopped some margarine on it like I was eating spinach, served a huge amount of Jasmine rice on top.
And then the critical step: You MUST add the Thai basil (pre-chopped) to the shrimp and curry mixture IMMEDIATELY before serving! Trust me you do not want limp Thai basil, and cooking it will only degrade it. Serve it as soon as you get the shrimp (or other chicken, beef, pork, etc.) and curry paste plus coconut milk mixed with the Thai basil.
Well enough food porn. It came out great! (Or I wouldn't be posting.) I served my curried shrimp in coconut cream over gailan with Jasmine rice with a nice Chardonnay wine, and the end result was delicious!
I am a rather harsh judge of Thai restaurants even though we have plenty here in Los Angeles (we have a large Asian cultural presence). Regrettably I hate to be egotistical but this was equally good or better than most Thai restaurants and I have one, possibly two that cook comparable food. But alas, it is sometimes worth trading "almost as good" for a credit card swipe than all the prep work. It took me almost 2 hours to put my dinner together!
So all in all it was good to get back to my Thai roots (remember that 5 weeks? I'm just your typical American white guy except an amateur chef, no Thai in me at all) but I was very pleased to discover that when I go to the effort to get the right ingredients that I can still cook a great Thai dinner!
Too bad my desire to eat NOW always wins out over my desire to shoot pictures... It really looked good when I served it.
I know I haven't been participating regularly, work and life distracts, but I had such a good dinner tonight I wanted to share:I call this "Curried Chicken in Coconut Milk with Holy Basil Leaves" (you could Google that and get my website) but I shortcuted my basic recipe (skipped the "from scratch" curry paste recipe and used Mae Ploy (a fantastic Thai brand!) Panang curry sauce paste instead, and then added various fresh and refrigerator ingredients to "amp" it up. (Panang, red, etc. any of the varieties would have worked.)
Actually the recipe name is a misnomer, I use coconut cream, not coconut milk. The cream is the thick topping left when you process coconut milk, often present as a thick layer on the top of a can of coconut milk, but even better when you buy the cream because it is the essence!
Not to bore you but I mentioned the 5 weeks I spent cooking nothing but Thai recipes from my favorite Thai cookbooks, excepting a few days where I dined out with friends at the usual American restaurants. This was a very formative period of my amateur chef life where I acquired an instinctual understanding of "dash and splash" cooking for Thai cuisine. Leave off the measuring spoons and cups, to truly learn any cuisine you have to understand it at an instinctual level.
So tonight I (oddly) decided to saute my shrimp in ghee (an Indian ingredient) but I had some sitting around and it seemed fitting to saute tiger shrimp -- 12/16 per lb. -- in. Departing from my website recipe I chopped some Thai chilis (watch it, 4-6 of them did it for me) and after I sauteed my shrimp I began the continued prep by sauteing the chilis and quickly added a slosh of coconut cream and the the Mae Ploy Panang curry paste. It would have been good to saute some diced red onion or scallops before hitting it with the coconut cream but alas. (I also added some crushed/chopped lemongrass. Hit it with a mallet until you pulverize it, then chop or scissor it into your mixture.)
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I had prepared a slew of Thai basil ("holy basil" -- see my website) and gailan (kai lan, gai lan, a broccoli relative in the Brassica family, and one of my favorite vegetables. But of course I like broccoli, gailan is mostly leaves and few tops where broccoli is mostly tops and few leaves. In the eating, gailan is more like eating spinach that tastes like broccoli. I consider myself fortunate when I find flowering gailan because it is a happy medium between te two! You prepare it just like spinach, boil then strain. You reserve the Thai basil after manicuring it, for later addition to your recipe.
Meanwhile I had splashed some nam pla (fish sauce) and curry paste (do not EVER taste it out of the jar!) and grated some lime rind into the curry sauce mixture, as I stirred and added more coconut cream as required to keep the right consistency.
Meanwhile, back at the other ranch, my Thai Jasmine rice was cooking away! Things were beginning to synergize! I added the reserved shrimp back to the coconut milk curry mix, stirred the boiling gailan, checked the steaming Jasmine rice. It looked like we were headed for a showdown and we were!
In the end I drained the gailan through a strainer (just like spinach) and spooned it onto a heated plate. (My mom taught me you never serve on anything but heated dishes.) In a strange Americanism I slopped some margarine on it like I was eating spinach, served a huge amount of Jasmine rice on top.
And then the critical step: You MUST add the Thai basil (pre-chopped) to the shrimp and curry mixture IMMEDIATELY before serving! Trust me you do not want limp Thai basil, and cooking it will only degrade it. Serve it as soon as you get the shrimp (or other chicken, beef, pork, etc.) and curry paste plus coconut milk mixed with the Thai basil.
Well enough food porn. It came out great! (Or I wouldn't be posting.) I served my curried shrimp in coconut cream over gailan with Jasmine rice with a nice Chardonnay wine, and the end result was delicious!
I am a rather harsh judge of Thai restaurants even though we have plenty here in Los Angeles (we have a large Asian cultural presence). Regrettably I hate to be egotistical but this was equally good or better than most Thai restaurants and I have one, possibly two that cook comparable food. But alas, it is sometimes worth trading "almost as good" for a credit card swipe than all the prep work. It took me almost 2 hours to put my dinner together!
So all in all it was good to get back to my Thai roots (remember that 5 weeks? I'm just your typical American white guy except an amateur chef, no Thai in me at all) but I was very pleased to discover that when I go to the effort to get the right ingredients that I can still cook a great Thai dinner!
Too bad my desire to eat NOW always wins out over my desire to shoot pictures... It really looked good when I served it.
Greg Who Cooks
Executive Chef
I seasoned and browned four skinless bone-in chicky thighs, added a jar of TJ's Thai Green Curry simmer sauce and simmered till thighs were nearly done, then added an assortment of fresh veggies suitable for a stir fry, (also from TJ's). His was on Jasmine rice, mine was on a bed of wilted spinach.
Ohhhh Yeahhhh...
We seem to be of a like mind, Thai curry and Brassica. I hope you can locate a source of fresh gailan (kai lan) some day. I like broccoli, I like spinach, gailan is like he best of both!
Wow it's interesting that our dinners were so related!
Next time you do it, add some lime zest and a squeeze of lime juice (I neglected to mention the lime zest and lime wedges in my previous post).
Kaffir lime leaves would have been good. Alas I provisioned up in a Vietnamese owned market (99 Ranch) which does not stock Kaffir lime leaves. They are the Thai parallel to our bay leaves...
Dawgluver
Chef Extraordinaire
- Joined
- Apr 12, 2011
- Messages
- 25,033
Hi Greg, nice to see you!
Cheryl J
Chef Extraordinaire
Dawgluver
Chef Extraordinaire
- Joined
- Apr 12, 2011
- Messages
- 25,033
I agree! But cream of broccoli soup is so good!
What a nice grandma you are, Cheryl!
Cheryl J
Chef Extraordinaire
Thank you, Dawg. My little grands are my world.
--------------------
Good to see you again, Greg.
--------------------
Joey...great pic, your mahi mahi dish looks wonderful.
Great sounding dinners, everyone!
--------------------
Good to see you again, Greg.
--------------------
Joey...great pic, your mahi mahi dish looks wonderful.
Great sounding dinners, everyone!
