what to cook for my family?

Food artists, eaters, etc., I'd like to cook for my family a couple times a week while I'm home. Everyone's busy and I don't do anything and I like cooking new things. I'm a capable chef, just give me some recipes you like. We eat meat, but I like vegetarian food too.

Im in the process of cooking steak and Leffe pie. Its easy, stew some beef, button mushrooms, carrot, onion, garlic, bay leaf, tyme and what ever beer you want. Then add puff pastry and cook for another 30 mins.

Edit:Seems I was advocating cooking a bear.

My mini-meatloaves are always a hit, with a side of rosemary-garlic mashed potatoes and steamed string beans...

Links to recipes appreciated.

They havent come up with a hyperlink to my head yet. Google steak and ale pie.

Eggplant Lasagna:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/danny-boome/eggplant-lasagna-recipe/index.html

delicious brussels sprouts super fast:

slice in half, place on a cookie sheet cut side down.

add a little bit of olive oil and a little bit of salt.

broil on high for 5-7 minutes, rotate pan 180 degrees.

broil for another 3-4 minutes.

remove when top layers are blackened and crunchy.

DEVOUR.

amazing black beans:

add 1 tbsp butter to a pot on low-med heat.

add a bunch of cumin, rosemary, and fresh garlic.

simmer until garlic is lightly browned.

add 1-2 cans of black beans w/some of the water from the cans.

add 1/2 tomato or 2 broiled tomatillos.

let simmer on stove until most of the water is gone.

DEVOUR.

curry

and soup, just throw everything in thur

I eat a lot of potatoes and onions.

2 potatoes

1 onion

Tofu

Black beans

Cook in covered pan with olive oil. Takes about 20 minutes. Super easy to cook and clean up.

Make some thai food.

Chicken

Coconut milk

Red Curry Paste

Fish Sauce

Sugar

Kaffir Lime Leaves

Red Pepper Fruit

Egg plant

Rice

Oil

Pour some oil in a pot, put in the red curry paste (it's hard to say how much because some red curry paste is hot as hell but I usually put in a lump half the size of a postit note) and wait a couple of minutes until the oil starts to do its magic. Just make sure not to burn the curry paste because it'll taste like shit. Pour in the coconut milk (1-2 cans (300 ml) for one person so you can add it up to how big your family is). Stir until the coconut milk gets red and then throw in the chicken (sliced up chicken that is) and let it fry/boil. Chop up the pepper fruits, egg plant, and kaffir lime and let it boil for a minute or so. Put in 1 spoonful of fish sauce and don't get any on your hands because it'll make you puke.

Depending on how hot you want it you can let it simmer for some time. Prepare the rice and serve with some home baked bread or something.

It usually takes me about 20 minutes to make.

peep that slow cooker thread from keltoi. I put my favorite pork tacos in there. I suggest those.

after watching a few shows of gordon ramsay's Hell's Kitchen, I've come to the conclusion that scallops and risotto are very important ambrosiac foods for the gods thats worthy of getting pretty fucking pissed fucking off about fuckingfuck fuuuck

it seems to be a pretty big deal, so i suggest you take that or GET OUT! GET THE FUCK OUT! TAKE OFF YOUR APRON AND FUCK OFF!

  On 12/14/2010 at 9:26 PM, Squee said:

Make some thai food.

 

Chicken

Coconut milk

Red Curry Paste

Fish Sauce

Sugar

Kaffir Lime Leaves

Red Pepper Fruit

Egg plant

Rice

Oil

 

Pour some oil in a pot, put in the red curry paste (it's hard to say how much because some red curry paste is hot as hell but I usually put in a lump half the size of a postit note) and wait a couple of minutes until the oil starts to do its magic. Just make sure not to burn the curry paste because it'll taste like shit. Pour in the coconut milk (1-2 cans (300 ml) for one person so you can add it up to how big your family is). Stir until the coconut milk gets red and then throw in the chicken (sliced up chicken that is) and let it fry/boil. Chop up the pepper fruits, egg plant, and kaffir lime and let it boil for a minute or so. Put in 1 spoonful of fish sauce and don't get any on your hands because it'll make you puke.

 

Depending on how hot you want it you can let it simmer for some time. Prepare the rice and serve with some home baked bread or something.

It usually takes me about 20 minutes to make.

I am also a friend of this. Does that red curry paste even have a name? I too just call it "the red curry paste". It comes in a little bag within a cardboard can, I'm sure there's something written on it, but what? There's a yellow one too but the red one's better. My cousin once made an improvised dish with the stuff and it was so heavenly, he never got it to work like that again though. He only put in:

Red Curry Paste

Coconut milk

Chicken

Bits of banana

Some little red Thai-Chilis

not sure about the spices he used, we ate it with rice (didn't mix it up, just put on top of the rice on our plates, white rice, cooked for a good while) - the banana was rocking the whole thing. He put in like two or three bananas, sliced them up, and the chicken had been cooked so long that you couldn't tell which was chicken and which was banana until you had it in your mouth. It was an awesome meal to push your limits in terms of hotness too, I remember struggling quite a bit with it but the banana sort of cooled it down. Now I'd probably laugh at the level of chili that got me sweating back then, but it would still kill most white people. I wish he'd pull that one off again, it was crazy.

i'd recommend a healthy pot roast, chicken or beef.. with loads of veggies (carrots, onions, red potatoes) thrown in and seasoned.

i like garlic, rosemary, and thyme.. on the chicken atleast.

super easy set it and forget it style, and provides food for later when you're hungry. :)

crock pots are awesome.

  On 12/14/2010 at 10:11 PM, Terpentintollwut said:

  On 12/14/2010 at 9:26 PM, Squee said:

Make some thai food.

 

Chicken

Coconut milk

Red Curry Paste

Fish Sauce

Sugar

Kaffir Lime Leaves

Red Pepper Fruit

Egg plant

Rice

Oil

 

Pour some oil in a pot, put in the red curry paste (it's hard to say how much because some red curry paste is hot as hell but I usually put in a lump half the size of a postit note) and wait a couple of minutes until the oil starts to do its magic. Just make sure not to burn the curry paste because it'll taste like shit. Pour in the coconut milk (1-2 cans (300 ml) for one person so you can add it up to how big your family is). Stir until the coconut milk gets red and then throw in the chicken (sliced up chicken that is) and let it fry/boil. Chop up the pepper fruits, egg plant, and kaffir lime and let it boil for a minute or so. Put in 1 spoonful of fish sauce and don't get any on your hands because it'll make you puke.

 

Depending on how hot you want it you can let it simmer for some time. Prepare the rice and serve with some home baked bread or something.

It usually takes me about 20 minutes to make.

 

I am also a friend of this. Does that red curry paste even have a name? I too just call it "the red curry paste". It comes in a little bag within a cardboard can, I'm sure there's something written on it, but what? There's a yellow one too but the red one's better. My cousin once made an improvised dish with the stuff and it was so heavenly, he never got it to work like that again though. He only put in:

 

Red Curry Paste ™

Coconut milk

Chicken

Bits of banana

Some little red Thai-Chilis

 

not sure about the spices he used, we ate it with rice (didn't mix it up, just put on top of the rice on our plates, white rice, cooked for a good while) - the banana was rocking the whole thing. He put in like two or three bananas, sliced them up, and the chicken had been cooked so long that you couldn't tell which was chicken and which was banana until you had it in your mouth. It was an awesome meal to push your limits in terms of hotness too, I remember struggling quite a bit with it but the banana sort of cooled it down. Now I'd probably laugh at the level of chili that got me sweating back then, but it would still kill most white people. I wish he'd pull that one off again, it was crazy.

The whole banana thing sounds interesting but I've never seen it in a red curry dish before. I first got red curry thai dish in Brooklyn and I'm telling you... it was like there was a party in my mouth and everybody was massaging my taste buds. Then when I got home I went to a thai restaurant that I had been to before (actually quite a few times) and found out that they too had the red curry dish and it was equally fantastic. I then started to dissect the dish (the same went for the dish with green curry paste) and tried making my own, but it was nowhere near as hot as it was in the thai restaurant. I then decided to try out different kinds of curry paste because it just didn't seem right to put piri piri chili into the curry dish and after months and months of trying my friend and I finally narrowed it down to this one:

Panang Curry Paste!

I'm actually going to eat at the thai restaurant tomorrow. Maybe I should ask them about the banana thing.

EDIT: Oh shit - I almost forgot about the lemon grass. You'll need lemon grass for this dish. Beat the shit out of it with a hammer or the bottom of a knife) and throw it into the pot.

  On 12/14/2010 at 10:30 PM, Squee said:

Panang Curry Paste!

 

I'm actually going to eat at the thai restaurant tomorrow. Maybe I should ask them about the banana thing.

Ha, I checked and I got the same one, only they photoshopped in different, less tasty looking contents of the bowl, and removed the Panang name for some reason. But it's still got the cock brand logo.

I don't think bananas are traditionally in this dish, it was just a lucky experiment.

I see you have the Sriracha sauce too, I love it. First saw it on the country fair when some people selling Currywurst had it on their shelve. I got hooked immediately, now I always take half the bottle when I buy something to eat there until they tell me "Oi! Be careful, that ain't no Ketchup you're usin' there ... !", and I'm like

I'll tell you a recipe that I came up with and then I got addicted to it. It's pretty much just paprika with a single addition but the combination is the shit, it goes best with anything potato-based. Give me a minute, I'll put some pictures in.

Jeez why am I even doing this NOW when I'm on a diet and am only gonna eat some more salad today ... Well Friday's the deadline, that concludes almost a month of barely eating anything and drinking 10+ liters of water a day, plus I'm doing the "food combining" thing on top of it all, whether it works or not, it's pretty hardcore and probably not too healthy, but I'm impatient and lost a good couple kg's, could be more than 10 even (20 pounds a month, not too bad), I didn't check my weight though, just getting rid of the 2010-fat-look, I had too much of the burger before.

I actually just made a lot of mashed potatoes with various fresh vegetables. I didn't eat all of it so I'm thinking about making potato pancakes out the rest of it. Maybe I should have some Sriracha sauce with that?

@Happy Case

You could also make some fresh spring rolls. They're DA BOMB and people are always going nuts over them whenever I serve them. Plus, it's hella easy to make.

Rice wrappers/Rice Paper Pancakes

All sorts of chopped up vegetables (cucumber, pepper fruits, carrots, spring onion and so on...)

Coriander

Fresh sweet basil/Thai basil

Bean sprouts

Some sort of meat (red meat, shrimps, chicken or whatever you feel like. I'd recommend frying the shrimps and/or the chicken in soya sauce, chili, honey, and ginger)

Peanut butter dressing

Sriracha sauce

And a bowl of water

Put all the ingredients on the table, put a rice pancake in the bowl of water and take it out once it has gone soft. Dry it, put it on your plate and start putting your desired ingredients onto the pancake. Once you're done, wrap it up and it eat. Yum.

It's not that often that you get FRESH vegetables. People usually fry or boil the shit out of vegetables so it's nice to eat raw vegatables for a change.

Look at that!

Yum.

hot pockets

This would probably put off most families that come over for Christmas (although we are having it for Christmas). It's for anyone like Squee who enjoys some good chili based food.

AWESOME "PAPRIKA"-DISH

Get some bell peppers, like this, color doesn't matter. I usually mix up red green yellow, had mostly orange ones on that occasion only. I personally find that yellow is best. Don't do green-only!

Chop 'em up into bits like these:

Take a pan, preferably one that has a U shaped frame rather than a V shaped one. Put in some olive oil, just enough to cover the bottom of the pan. You can put in a bit of the chopped pepper, to see when the oil's hot enough (once it starts doing some noise, it'll do) - Ignore the other pot in the picture.

Put it all in (that's what she said - well I hope not, that'd be kinda bad for you) - turn down the stove to about a third of what it's capable of. It will take some time, the slower you let it do its thing the better, be careful not to burn the whole thing. You need to stir it a bit every now and then.

Chop up some garlic, about three or four cloves, throw it in too. Add a bit of salt, I like to take just a little bit between my fingers cause I'm not into salt. You can also add some nutmeg if you like.

Now we're getting to the important bit - get these fuckers:

Yellow Habanero (better than the red version as they give more taste) - They can be a bit difficult to get, but they're worth it. They revolutionized my cooking, and that was after red chili paste and other discoveries. You can either get some seeds and grow them yourself, or see if a bigger fruit import store has them. Supermarkets usually don't, but I get mine from the METRO. I know an afroshop in my town has them as well. Be careful when handling them, they are the world's 2nd hottest chili after all (depends on breed), don't rub your eyes and do not, DO NOT touch your cock, I speak from experience.

As you probably know, the seeds contain most capsaicin, as do the little white inner "walls". Don't use them if you like, but I usually put two whole Habaneros in, including seeds and all. You can carefully cut out very thin slices off the outer edge of the Habanero's lower end, just that tiny bit until you can see the inner part - this bit doesn't contain any capsaicin (which few people know) and can be eaten by anyone without any trouble. But a couple of micrometers on, you get the really hot stuff. If you're a big pussy you can use that non-hot stuff only as it will still give off a lot of flavor, but come on.

Chop up good the bit you decided to use and throw it all in once the bell peppers look about like this:

If you use lots of Habanero, some deadly capsaicin-cloud will rise and make you cough and sneeze, which is hilarious.

Five more minutes, and you're done. The bell pepper will taste intensely like Habanero chilis, which is a taste than can not be compared to anything, and it's hard to describe. It's a warm and "sunny" broad taste, much unlike the sharp thai-chilis. Eat this with all potato-based stuff, meat, fish, rice, you name it. It's the shit!

cook them... the family... you're a cannibal right?

ten-minute smoked salmon and rice in a cream sauce

ingredients

salmon

1 medium smoked salmon, deboned and made into 1cm cubes

1 big, mild onion, roughly chopped

1 big, mild chili, deseeded and finely chopped

1 big green or yellow pepper, roughly chopped

2 big cloves of garlic, finely chopped

a hefty handful of fresh sugar snap peas

butter

sauce

330ml fresh cream

3 or 4 nice sprigs of finely chopped fresh thyme

2 or 3 nice sprigs of finely chopped fresh coriander

lots of freshly ground black pepper

1 glass good dry white wine

1 big lemon

butter

rice

boil-in-the-bag rice

method

fry, in butter, the pepper, onion, garlic and chili (adding in that order) on a high heat (in a NON non-stick pan, a big heavy iron one is best) - until the onion is light gold, about two minutes.

add the salmon and sugar snap peas, then switch to a low heat.

cook for three minutes, stirring continuously.

get your rice on.

raise the heat to gas 6, and add the white wine!

this will deglaze the pan; use a wooden spatula to scrape up all that flavoursome stuff, and stir it about on a high heat for 30 seconds.

lower the heat to gas 1, and add the cream. mix it up good. simmer for about a minute.

add the thyme, coriander, and pepper, and simmer for a further three minutes.

squeeze a half a lemon over the pan - get as much juice as possible out of it

serve with the other half of the lemon squeezed over a bed of rice.

  On 12/15/2010 at 12:14 AM, Terpentintollwut said:

epic post!

parma ham and blue cheese canneloni

this serves 2 as a main course with salad, so adjust quantities accordingly

ingredients

canneloni

a dash of good olive oil

6 sheets of lasagne pasta

400g of blue cheese (i used bleu d'auvergne)

6 slices of parma ham (the thinner the better)

3 cloves of finely diced garlic

a finely diced shallot

black pepper, chives

sauce

i use a jar of standard pasta sauce; i like the paul newmans one with chilli. if you want a better one... i suppose a glass of red wine in the dish never hurt anyone

method

crumble up the cheese, the garlic and the shallot, and mix in a bowl. the ratio is entirely up to you, go nuts! think the quantity you'd spread on slice of bread for each cannelone.

meanwhile get lots of salted water boiling, stick the pasta in and get it al dente, observing the usual shit to keep em from sticking to each other. when you remove the sheets, rinse em in cold water, and layer in the bottom of a casserole dish brushed with olive oil.

layer a slice of parma ham on each lasagne sheet, spread the lovely blue cheese mix over nice and thick, season with chives and black pepper, and roll the whole lot up into a cylinder. keep going until all your stuff is used up, arranging the canneloni tetris style. then cover it with the sauce (last time i cooked this i sprinkled with a handful of pine nuts as well), cover the casserole dish, and bake in a low oven (gas 3-4) for 45 minutes.

this can be quite salty, so offset it with a salad with a sharp citrus-y dressing.