rubrifolia's Profile
Lunch Help: Veg, Non-Perishable, Non-Sandwich, Non-Salad, Non-Hummus
I'm on the road visiting accounts all day. I use a freezer pak in a simple tote during the summer or just the tote in the winter. Some of my fave lunches: baked tofu tossed into whatever veggies are in the cooler. Vietnamese pickle all by itself or with tofu or tempeh . Yotam Ottolenghi's super beet salad with avocado and limas. Green or regular gazpacho in a wide mouth thermos. Avocados mooshed up with just about anything. Corn, tomato and feta salad with or without beans.
Chengdu West Hartford - going downhill?
yes, the last couple of takeouts have been overcooked, greasy and really just like an awful corner chopshop. No more Chengdu for us.
Wong Toy? Oriental vegetable
terrrific. thanks all. will do a quick stir fry with garlic and chilis to go with some braised pork belly. Now....Adongs also had humungous bamboo shoots. Size of a small elephants foot. I did not bring that home. In my former garden I had a running bamboo that we used to control by eating the shoots every spring, but those shoots were no more than thumb size. How would one manage these humungous shoots?
Wong Toy? Oriental vegetable
On my home I stopped at Adongs, West Hartford's great Oriental supermarket for some bbq ducks. Going through the veggies, there was this bag labeled Wong Toy. Long, hollow stems with a narrowly tapering leaf, the whole shebang maybe 15 inches long or so. Nice dark green color. A quick taste of the leaves yields a spinachy-grassy sensation. Anyone know this? A woman picking up her bag said, "soup, soup." Google failed.
Lost little red covered Tex-Mex cookbook.
I used to have a nifty little tex-mex cookbook, had a red cover (recipe titles like quit yer beeffin' this and that). It had a great recipe for a party-like dish with carne deshebrada (beef brisket slow roasted with onions and garlic) and a chipotle-lime salsa. Very, very simple recipes but I can no longer quite make the chipotle salsa with just that right mixture of smokey heat and soothing coolness that I remember. Does this cookbook strike a chord for anyone? I would really like to get it back again. As I recall, the chipotle sauce was whizzed together in the cusinart with chipotles, lime juice, olive oil, and coriander, but as I say, I am missing something in the recollection cause my sauce doesn't hold together and doesn't carry the right balance anymore.
Hartford/West Hartford area moderately priced restaurant with good food
The Half Door, very good pub food with better burgers than Plan B which one day can cook em just right and the next day overcook everything.
-----
Half Door
270 Sisson Ave, Hartford, CT 06105
Plan B
4 Railroad St, Simsbury, CT 06070
what exactly is a spoon roast & how do I cook it?
it looks like a piece of sirloin, but I was told to put it in a low, 325 oven for 15 to 20 minutes a pound.
thats it? no searing first? can this be cooked rare or is it like pot roast & always slow cooked well done? which then begs for all those good things like onions mushrooms garlic wine etc etc.
thanks thanks thanks.
Dumplings for Goulash????
mmmm, all I know is that the grands and great grands of the family were proud Czech. Of course it was all Austria Hungary when they left. So, what Hungarian journalist??
Spaetzle is much more soft than my remembered dumplings, and small as Nyleve points out. The dumplings I remember had just the right bite/chew under all that rich gulyas. Egg noodles always strike me as ho hum, actually too slippery. We've used potatoes and you are right that the news are grand, but I am nostalgic for my Grand Aunt who was a wonderful demon in the kitchen. Crippled from polio, getting about with 2 canes.
Dumplings for Goulash????
Wonderful. thank you. Funny, I thought the word was Nock-el-nay (phonetically speaking). I did remember that they were ridiculously simple and that it was all in the patience of the tiny knife cuts.
Gulyas is very simple. Brown off cubed pork shoulder. In that fat saute a nice bundle of onions with some garlic, no color, just till soft. Stir in good quality paprika...this is what makes the whole shebang work. Friends brought back a baggie from Spain that still lingers in memory, but now I use the smoked Spanish paprika Safinter. I like a mix of both the hot and sweet but when my daughter is here we use only the sweet paprika.
Stir the paprika around, coating everything until the aroma envelopes the kitchen.
Add some good sauerkraut, preferably not the canned, and enough stock to keep everything moist. Cover & braise till tender. Now take a container of Sour Cream, stir in just a little flour or starch of choice to stabilize the sour cream and gently stir into the stew. Dont boil or it will curdle.
Make the dumplings. and uuuuummmmm.
Dumplings for Goulash????
My birthday dinner was always Székelygulyás, that wonderful Czech stew of pork with Sauerkraut & paprika finished with sour cream. My Great Grand Aunt used to make beyond wonderful dumplings to go with.
All I can remember is a very simple mixing of an egg with some flour and then she would have the shaggy dough on a cutting board which she held over the pot of boiling water, slicing off thin thin thin wedges. They were wonderful. Just the right texture to hold up to the gulyas.
Anyone know this????
Busines Lunch around St Francis off of Asylum in Hartford??
A safe generic business lunch for several people who dont know the area....
So this Fresh Ham steak
Came into the kitchen this week from the Farm Share. Originally asked for Shoulder Steak but they were out, so we went with the Ham cut.
I kind of braised it with cider and onions and a touch of balsamic. Sauce was great but the Ham Steak itself just got harder and harder and harder & thinking about all the variety of 'hams' that I know and have eaten, they all are sliced thin. Why? Because this cut is so dense, without marbling.
I dont think there is enough 'meltiness' to try the braise again for the other half of the steak. Maybe an adobo rub or smoked paprika for a fast saute, out of the pan to rest and then make a paprikash sauce or rajas....has anyone else had success with fresh ham slices from the leg? Happy Tday tomorrow and may your ovens rock!
Help fill out my vegetarian Thanksgiving feast
Hey there, how about grilled portobellos? toss them in a little EVO & Sherry Vinegar & then grill or run under the broiler in the oven. You can then stuff them or not.
Stuffed Eggplants with pinenuts and tomatoes, stuffed any vegetable really.
Take those mini pumpkins, take off the top, scoop em out, roast em and then fill them back up with wonderful roasted veg medleys.
Kale stir fry
What do vegans eat on Thanksgiving?
Last year we had a vegan Tgiving.
Risotto made with water and parmesan, old school Italian simple and amazing
Stuffed eggplants with pinenuts
Caramelized brussel sprouts
other ideas
Grill Portobellos after tossing w/ Sherry Vinegar & EVO
Roast Butternut Squash/Garlic heads/Red Onion
Braised Kale with Cannellinnis
Italian Greens Pie
Canned Tomatoes; check to make sure Calcium Chloride is NOT an ingrediant!!
actually, I would be more concerned about the BPA that is in the can liner which leaches into the tomatoes and seems to be a Not Good Thing for our endocrne system etc etc. So tomatoes either in glass or the Pom would be preferable.
super crispy/caramelly Tarte Tatin
A couple of years ago I was given an aMAzing recipe for Tarte Tatin. It came out with a caramel that was sooooo crisp that it literally shattered when cut. Of course I have lost the recipe.
All I can remember is a ridiculously long cooking time and that you really needed to use a heavy copper pan. Anyone????
Traditional Chinese breakfast of soft tofu
thanks!
I picked up Nasoya soft tofu. While definitely tasty, I mean what could be bad with soy/sesame combo? but it was more like scrambled eggs. In that photo, the tofu looks super creamy, like yogurt. I have 2 really good Oriental markets here, but what would I be asking for? Language will be an issue :)
I know in NYC one can find fresh made tofu, but up here in the wilds of CT????
now to try the rice flour flatbread/pancake.....
Traditional Chinese breakfast of soft tofu
In Tuesday's Times there is a photo essay about Heshun China and this gorgeous photo of a 'traditional Chinese breakfast" of soft tofu drizzled with soy and sesame oil on top of a toasted rice pancake...
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/10/27/travel/20091027-heshun-slide-show_6.html
anyone have any ideas how to make this????
