What's for Dinner part 8.

[Maithanet]

I'm going to make "real" lasagna for the first time this weekend.  Here's the recipe if you're curious.

By real, I mean making the marinara and bechamel sauces myself.  I'm not going to make the pasta myself, I've never had a lot of luck making pasta.  Making the sauces is definitely more work than just using jars, so I'm curious how it'll turn out, but one of my friends made a lasagna that was just dramatically better than mine (and mine isn't bad), so I really want to push myself to learn a better way to do this.  I'm going to at least mostly follow the recipe, something I rarely do.  The only exception is I'm going to use turkey sausage and ground turkey, since our family doesn't eat beef or pork. 

I'll check in on monday to let everyone know how it goes!

[ithanos]

On 8/20/2020 at 10:05 PM, maarsen said:

My mother was Dutch and she made her own on occasion. I loathe the stuff. 

I guess if it I had been introduced to it as a kid I might not enjoy it as I do now.  Coincidentally I was in my local Aldi store and came across a jar from The Netherlands - will have to give this a go sometime.

 

14 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

Germans make excellent sauerkraut as well, look for it in cans. They can compress and pack one heck of a lot into a can, btw.

Polish people make some excellent dishes with sauerkraut. Look up Bigos (Hunters Stew). Or Kapusta, a mix of cabbage and sauerkraut. I really got into experimenting with various recipes these last few months, I don’t bake bread! Always rinse sauerkraut when you use it in cooking, too much acidic will affect other ingredients. 

Bigos sounds delicious. It's also possible I've inadvertently been making a similar variation with leftover meats.

 

[kairparavel]

On 8/20/2020 at 12:35 AM, ithanos said:

Has anywhere else in the world perfected capturing nature's transforms of the humble cabbage?

Kimchi would like a word with you!

[Filippa Eilhart]

23 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

Or Kapusta, a mix of cabbage and sauerkraut

what? lol. is that a Canadian thing? kapusta just means cabbage.

[Fragile Bird]

8 minutes ago, Filippa Eilhart said:

what? lol. is that a Canadian thing? kapusta just means cabbage.

Lol, I meant to distinguish between sauerkraut and raw cabbage. But yes, the dish has always been referred to as Kapusta, and my parents were born and raised in Poland.

https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/23362/kapusta/

[Filippa Eilhart]

interesting, it would always be qualified in some way in Poland. The one you linked would be “kapusta z grzybami”. Otherwise who could tell what kind of kapusta you’re talking about?

I don’t think my family mixed raw cabbage and sauerkraut often. It was usually one or the other. Bigos is an exception.

 

edit: it’s baked? whaaaaat. lol

 

edit 2: I mean there’s probably as many ways to make cabbage as there are families, I don’t mean to diss anyone’s way

Edited August 22, 2020 by Filippa Eilhart

[kairparavel]

8 hours ago, kairparavel said:

Kimchi would like a word with you!

Oh, and curtido!

MC has been fermenting up a storm of cabbage stuffs since stay at home orders began in March. We have a batch sauerkraut that turned out really well, and a couple of curtido and kimchi. We actually need to make some more kimchi. 

Other lactobacillus fermentation projects - three batches of pickles, two batches of hot peppers, one batch of sweet peppers, dilly beans, asparagus, carrots and giardiniera. Also a very impressive sourdough starter and four batches of kombucha. 

Our gut biomes are mighty!

[Fragile Bird]

57 minutes ago, Filippa Eilhart said:

interesting, it would always be qualified in some way in Poland. The one you linked would be “kapusta z grzybami”. Otherwise who could tell what kind of kapusta you’re talking about?

I don’t think my family mixed raw cabbage and sauerkraut often. It was usually one or the other. Bigos is an exception.

 

edit: it’s baked? whaaaaat. lol

 

edit 2: I mean there’s probably as many ways to make cabbage as there are families, I don’t mean to diss anyone’s way

Oh, I just posted the first recipe I saw, I never bake mine! Weird.

[ithanos]

3 hours ago, kairparavel said:

Oh, and curtido!

MC has been fermenting up a storm of cabbage stuffs since stay at home orders began in March. We have a batch sauerkraut that turned out really well, and a couple of curtido and kimchi. We actually need to make some more kimchi. 

Other lactobacillus fermentation projects - three batches of pickles, two batches of hot peppers, one batch of sweet peppers, dilly beans, asparagus, carrots and giardiniera. Also a very impressive sourdough starter and four batches of kombucha. 

Our gut biomes are mighty!

Emphasis mine, QFT!

Never heard of Curtido, it sounds interesting though, especially if it's also spiced. Kimchi I have had before, but only in restaurant settings where the portions were small enough that it never really shone above what was eaten with it - BBQ meat! And unfortunately I can't find a place close to where I am that provides it in home quantities.

I'm relatively new to many of these fermented foods. I love Kombucha. Never tried it until about a couple years ago. Now I drink it often. My boss' wife makes it for her family and she has several SCOBYs on hand if ever I need one, but I don't have the space and glassware to make it in my small unit - yet. Sourdough is about only type of wheat bread I can eat that doesn't cause me joint inflammation. Dark Rye Sourdough is heaven.         

[Tywin et al.]

Not dinner, but I seriously underestimated the impact a ghost pepper would have on the salsa. My plant has like a dozen more on it and 3 are ripe. The jalapenos growing out of the same pot are also insanely hot compared to the other plants in different pots ( I've got some hot and sweet banana peppers, red and yellow cayenne peppers and some kind of Asian pepper my grandfather gave me). The tomatoes also came out of the garden. Damn this shit is hot....

[maarsen]

1 minute ago, Tywin et al. said:

Not dinner, but I seriously underestimated the impact a ghost pepper would have on the salsa. My plant has like a dozen more on it and 3 are ripe. The jalapenos growing out of the same pot are also insanely hot compared to the other plants in different pots ( I've got some hot and sweet banana peppers, red and yellow cayenne peppers and some kind of Asian pepper my grandfather gave me). The tomatoes also came out of the garden. Damn this shit is hot....

The shit is hot coming out too.

[Fragile Bird]

14 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Not dinner, but I seriously underestimated the impact a ghost pepper would have on the salsa. My plant has like a dozen more on it and 3 are ripe. The jalapenos growing out of the same pot are also insanely hot compared to the other plants in different pots ( I've got some hot and sweet banana peppers, red and yellow cayenne peppers and some kind of Asian pepper my grandfather gave me). The tomatoes also came out of the garden. Damn this shit is hot....

Ah ha! People made Ghost Pepper vodka for shots at a couple of BwB parties at Worldcon, and there are various stories about guests who are still cursing the BwB to this day.

[Tywin et al.]

43 minutes ago, maarsen said:

The shit is hot coming out too.

I am aware of the suicide pact my mouth made with my ass.

29 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Ah ha! People made Ghost Pepper vodka for shots at a couple of BwB parties at Worldcon, and there are various stories about guests who are still cursing the BwB to this day.

I'm just happy this plant worked. My last two produced next to nothing, but this one still has three giant red ones on it and several smaller ones. My section of the garden has gone really well this year. It's one of the few net pluses of 2020 (watch another storm roll through now and just fuck everything up, garden has survived to recent mild hail storms and a lot of thunderstorms as the skies are angry!!!!!).

[Maithanet]

On 8/21/2020 at 3:23 PM, Maithanet said:

I'm going to make "real" lasagna for the first time this weekend.  Here's the recipe if you're curious.

So the lasagna came out pretty good.  Making two sauces definitely takes a lot of time, and I think by the end, I had built up the idea that this lasagna was going to be OMG amazing that when it was only very good, I was a little disappointed.  The perils of expectations. 

I also think that in retrospect, choosing a lasagna without any green vegetables in it was a mistake.  I'm not a huge fan of mushrooms and squash in lasagna, but no spinach seemed very strange.  Plus I followed that recipe's bechamel sauce, and in retrospect I should have just made a white sauce my way, because this sauce was too liquidy and took forever.  I think that if I did this a second time I'd be able to do it much more easily, and I could customize it more confidently. 

[BigFatCoward]

5 hours ago, bad robot productions said:

I had a bowl of beef and barley with veggies -- and added garlic and butter. With a package of bacon, 6 sausage links, 5 clementines, 5 chocolate chips cookies, and Yakisoba Teriyaki Beef noodles. 

Munchies? 

Sri lankan curry, with crispy chicken thighs. 

Edited August 28, 2020 by BigFatCoward

[Inkdaub]

Black Phillip whispers

Live your life deliciously

Eat Beyond Burgers

[Soylent Brown]

If you're a vegetarian/vegan, I guess, though I think if I were then I'd rather just dodge burgers altogether. They have quite a bitter aftertaste, and they're pretty expensive too.

Regular burgers for me tonight. Nothing crazy, just with cheese, raw onion and tomato.

[Inkdaub]

I'm hooked on the things.

[kairparavel]

Beyond Burgers aren't bad taste-wise but they are far from the answer when you consider all the processing and pieces to glue them together whereas beef is ground cow. Period. The sodium alone is enough to give pause.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/impossible-and-beyond-how-healthy-are-these-meatless-burgers-2019081517448

I think eating an occasional beef burger is a better way all around but that's just me.

[BigFatCoward]

Whatever is in the fridge when I get in from work about midnight.  or just loads of crisps, ice cream, chocolate and beer.