What's cookin', good lookin'?

[Aluris]

At the moment, carrot salad. It's so good whilst summer is holding out here.

 

[La damnee elle la licorne]

 

[seela]

I've made a little progress with my ABC cooking during my hiatus.

Q for Qatar was moutabel, which is practically baba ganoush. It was good though. Served with lamb ribs and watermelon salad.

R for Romania was apple cake. Really simple and good, and actually J was the one who made it. I sent the leftovers to J's friends when they had a little boys' gathering, and J said it was even better the next day.

Next up Slovenia.

Today I made coconut-lime-lemongrass-cilantro pannacotta with lime&chile granita, toasted lime cookie crumb and chile marinated peaches, some toasted shaved coconut there too. It was goooood. I really enjoyed the juxtaposition of the cold heat of the granita and the creamy sweetness of the panna cotta.

 

[MeekMe]

That all looks amazing, seela!

 

[La damnee elle la licorne]

 

[MeekMe]

I enjoyed a whole wheat bagel with mustard and natto.

 

[Collar_N_Cuffs]

It really does.

Today I am going to try making apple butter. I make jams and jelly so and fruit cheese happily, but never made nor I think tasted a fruit butter.

I think it only stores three months, so we'll probably only use a jar so I'll make a small quantity and if I go over the jar hopefully it will be ok so I can give excess away.

Apple butter is a staple where I am from, and I used to love it when apples would go on sale at the end of the summer. That hasn't happened much lately, as storage has gotten so much better and apples of all sorts are very year round. I always make mine in the crock pot, simple! I hope you enjoy
Mmmmm... fresh apple butter with a dash of cinnamon on toast... yum!

 

[La damnee elle la licorne]

 

[desertslave]

It's beautiful and looks tasty!

 

[Collar_N_Cuffs]

I don't think you have enough icing on there, Elle

 

[La damnee elle la licorne]

 

[La damnee elle la licorne]

 

[desertslave]

Today I found some garlic I had failed to deal with. If you leave the flowers on the seeds are little tiny garlics. I never heard them being used but wasn't going to waste them so I used them with lemon juice and parsley with chicken. We also had sweet potato and some creamed spinach. ( I love spinach. I think Popeyes might be a relative)


I took a picture of the garlics I found that I had failed to deal with, about half a dozen ish.....the little night light is to give scale.

http://i1240.photobucket.com/albums/gg491/onceuponatimetherewasapicture/private/f287c3db26b99ec62322827f4a307529_zpsrv3lsut2.jpg

I've used chive flowers in salads. I suspect the garlic flowers would be tasty too.

 

[La damnee elle la licorne]

 

[Collar_N_Cuffs]

Yes, chive flowers are great.

Normally you snip the stem of the garlic flower off, because it drains from the ....bulb, the garlic, the bit you want. So you do it before the flower is open. However, these stems are a DELICIOUS crop in their own right. And beautiful too.

Is it called the bolt, just as with an onion?
I always like to snip then and use them in flower arrangements. They lay a long, long time!

 

[Vixandra]

Buddy got me a Smart Cookie thing used for storing cookie dough so you don't have to bake it all at once. It also portions out the dough evenly, which is pretty important for even baking among other things.

It also perfectly fits Half-batch Chocolate Chip Cookies which pleases me greatly. Chocolate chip cookies and milk for the win.

 

[La damnee elle la licorne]

 

[La damnee elle la licorne]

 

[desertslave]

Pancetta, goat cheese and fresh tomato omelettes for breakfast this morning. I grabbed a pretty yellow heirloom tomato a few days ago, nice and meaty for this.

 

[La damnee elle la licorne]

 

[IrisAlthea]

Polpette made from ground lamb and pesto in a tomatoe and lemon sauce with pasta.
Yummy!

 

[La damnee elle la licorne]

 

[BiBunny]

I have a question for all the Lit food experts.

I have recently acquired what can only be considered a metric buttload of chestnuts. For the last couple of days, I've just left them sitting on my counter in the grocery bag they were given to me in because I have no clue what to do with them.

I do like chestnuts, but there's no way I can eat all these things. So...what do I do with them exactly? Can they be frozen, like shelled pecans? And if so, do I need to shell them first? What is the easiest way for me to store them for later? I really don't want them to ruin and me to have to end up throwing them out.

Help. Please.

 

[La damnee elle la licorne]

 

[BiBunny]

Do you have a food processor? If so and you also like chestnut purée its an option. Chestnut chocolate cake, chestnut purée on toast, chestnut purée on crepes........I love chestnut purée. How best to store this? I would probably freeze this here rather than can it.

You can buy unsweetened purée so presumably you could do the same with this. This is great for stuffed cabbage. I mainly use the bought vaccuum packed ones.


Actually....I KNOW you can freeze chestnuts! because i have seen them with brussel sprouts in the frozen vegetable section. So I guess peel and freeze?

Awesome! Thank you so much 'cause I had no idea what to do with these suckers.

Also, pretty sure I'm going to try to find myself a recipe for chestnut chocolate cake now because that sounds amazing.