The Food and Beverage Thread

**Watson** · 08-01-2009, 09:38 PM

Re: The Food and Beverage Thread

Weeds needs his own TV show

**Fresh Tendrils** · 08-02-2009, 12:01 AM

Re: The Food and Beverage Thread

Originally posted by WatsonTiger

Weeds needs his own TV show

What would it be called? Cooking With Weed?

Tonight I did some raspberry ice-cream. Went the simple route and got the half gallon ice-cream mix and crushed some frozen raspberries. Next time I would like to 1) get fresh, extra ripe raspberries and 2) use more fruit. Tastes really good though. Next up I'm going to do strawberry-banana.

Stumble, do you cook for a restaurant or in culinary school or something?

**Stumbleweed** · 08-02-2009, 02:53 AM

Re: The Food and Beverage Thread

Nah, I worked in restaurants when I Was younger, but I was never even a line cook. A few cool chefs taught me things in the slow times, but it was never a focus until the last few years. Really, the last year has been where it's really ramped up... trying to make my own doughs, going deep into Asian food, doing desserts. Normally I'd just make things for dinner that tasted good but weren't anything too special (good stir-fry, pasta, breakfasts, etc.).. I've just been making more of a conscious effort to expand my horizons and not be scared off by complicated things.

I'm still cooking as I type.. waiting for my filling to cool off some more so I can stuff the 16 or so wrappers I have ready and need to use. I have another ball of dough and hopefully will have about 30 pierogies when I'm done. I'm gonna freeze the vast majority of them -- you can just boil them for 8 mins or so then pan-fry them and they taste like they were made fresh... good quick meal.

I was running out of filling so I boiled another potato, browned up about a pound of ground beef with some onions and fennel seed... then added some ricotta. So these will be some bomb-*** pierogies.

**Stumbleweed** · 08-02-2009, 04:36 PM

Re: The Food and Beverage Thread

Holy crap, that was a dough-working marathon. It was very sticky the whole time, so I spent most of my time working flour into it hah.. gonna modify the recipe slightly next time.

Anyway, I ended up getting about 55 pierogies out of $6 of materials or so. There are 3 or 4 gigantic ones too that are like plate-sized pies, so that'll be nice. And I've managed to only eat 6 of them so far.

**JohnnytheSkin** · 08-02-2009, 09:00 PM

Re: The Food and Beverage Thread

Pierogies...

Does your last name end in -ski by chance?

My wife LOVES those things, but she is Polish, so I assume it comes with the territory.

**Stumbleweed** · 08-03-2009, 12:03 AM

Re: The Food and Beverage Thread

Nah, I actually used to eat Mrs. T's frozen pierogies back in the day (like 4th grade) at a friend's house... that's when I knew I enjoyed them. But the real pierogie experience didn't come until I went to "Piroshki, Piroshki" in Seattle and fell in love all over again... so good.

But yeah, I guess they're a big thing in Pittsburgh and some other areas with large Polish populations.

**Stumbleweed** · 08-06-2009, 02:01 AM

Re: The Food and Beverage Thread

This was the dessert I made last night (and again tonight since I had a pear covered in puff pastry leftover) -- Pear Tatin w/ homemade French Vanilla ice cream:

That recipe was shamelessly stolen from Gordon Ramsay... those of you who watch The F Word and saw last week's episode saw it. Pretty easy to do aside from the caramel (which is temperamental, but not horrible) and it tasted great... the caramel gets crispy on the pastry and makes a nice border on the pear and gives a nice texture contrast. Definitely making it again when the pears are sweet in the winter.. it's the wrong season for pears.

And here's a belated pic of the pierogies I ate for breakfast when I was making them:

And for good measure (the thread says "beverage" after all) Odell IPA -- yummy:

**wwharton** · 08-07-2009, 03:39 PM

Re: The Food and Beverage Thread

you're an IPA fiend. surprised you like the Dogfish 60 and 90 but haven't seen the 120 from you yet.

**Stumbleweed** · 08-07-2009, 03:46 PM

Re: The Food and Beverage Thread

They didn't have it when I went to the store, but it's on my list. 90-Minute was the best one they had... they were probably sold out after some IPA fiend came in and bought up the whole stock ha.

**DTX3** · 08-07-2009, 04:35 PM

Re: The Food and Beverage Thread

Tuna Helper. Replace the tuna with shrimp and broccoli. BOMB.

**JohnnytheSkin** · 08-07-2009, 09:28 PM

Re: The Food and Beverage Thread

Alright Stumble...I've never needed your help before (see the prior "San Marzano" discussion), but my wife has a **** load of zucchini growing in her garden. What should I do?

I've done the pasta sauce with and without tomato (tonight was an olive oil, garlic, zucchini, mint saute), done the grilled thing, and done the ratatouille. We've tried the cold thing in salads too, which is fine, it's just not our "favorite" presentation.

What else is there?

EDIT: And yes, we know about frying it up like an appetizer. It tastes FANTASTIC...yet my wife has some sort of issue about frying up the healthy, even if it does equal goodness, LOL.

**Husker_OS** · 08-08-2009, 08:41 PM

Re: The Food and Beverage Thread

2 Hebrew National hotdogs on the Foreman grill and some potato chips.

My beverage is a Sam Adams Imperial White. Goes sooooo good with the hotdogs. And yes...this is my Tampa Bay Bucs mug

**ezekiel55** · 08-11-2009, 12:39 PM

Re: The Food and Beverage Thread

I wanted to change it up this weekend so I made some burgers with a twist.

First was a ground pork and chorizo burger (three parts ground pork 1 part chorizo) topped with home made pico de gallo (tomatoes from my garden, red onion, cilantro, salt, pepper, and jalapeno) cotija cheese and a dollop of sour cream...they were excellent. I didnt add many spices to the patty mixture because I knew the chorizo would bring enough flavor profiles to the meat and I didnt want to over season it.

I was worried the pork would dry out a little bit, so I experimented by adding some heavy whipping cream (sounds weird) to the mixture and it worked very well. It really kept the patties moist and added nice fat content to the otherwise lean ground pork.

The next burger I made was a lamb burger. I used ground lamb spiced with a little cumin, oregano, and corriander toasted and ground. I topped off with a home made tzatziki (drained greek yogurt, garlic, grated cucumber, red wine wine vinegar, extra virgin olive oil, white pepper, and salt) greek olives and feta...it came out wonderful as well.

Definitely a nice weekend meal and some fresh ideas for burgers.

**Stumbleweed** · 08-11-2009, 01:17 PM

Re: The Food and Beverage Thread

Hell yeah, those are some burgers! Lamb burgers are my FAVORITE... so much more flavorful than beef (though a nice blend of chuck and sirloin makes a damn fine burger). Good call on the Cotija cheese for the other burger too, those both sound great.

We're having another dinner party this weekend... gonna make paella and a Persian cucumber salad. My friend has 2 gigantic cucumbers and about 20 tomatoes freshly harvested, so we might do a gazpacho too depending on how much the salad takes. Excited about the paella, I want to do a purely seafood one with white fish, mussels, clams, and shrimp...

**ezekiel55** · 08-11-2009, 02:19 PM

Re: The Food and Beverage Thread

Love paella...do you have a paella pan?

f you do, though, you can use it on a large grill (since it wont fit on home ranges), but dealing with the temperature of the fire can be a bit tempermental.

With the paella pan you get socarrat (the crispy fond created on the bottom of the pan) and that stuff is delicious.

The Food and Beverage Thread

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