Cooking thread, anyone?

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All this talk of doughs and sauces and cheese must have inspired my cooking tonight.

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Einkorn dough, tomato sauce I had in the freezer, Skellig and mozzarella cheeses, with sautéed mushrooms, onions, and bell peppers. I make two pizzas for our family to eat along with salad; there were four pieces left over.

I did use a bread maker for this dough, and I do find it a lovely convenience. I also have an old bread bucket that I use when I want to make large batches of something like bagels or multiple loaves of bread for the freezer. We purchased a used bread maker this summer so that I could cook bread without heating up the kitchen with the oven. Once the sun went behind clouds this afternoon the extra heat from cooking pizza was welcome.

I hadn't thought to use a bread maker in the summer. We have an old automatic bread maker kicking around, maybe I can find some good recipes.
 
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Nan just made waffles for New Year's Day. Made the batter the night before.


I'm making chili later. Nan always made chili on New Year's Day growing up. Will be making a variation on Perry Como's Favorite Chili from The International Chili Society Official Chili Cookbook. Have made a lot of varieties of chili, but that's our favorite.


The ICS web site: https://chilicookoff.com/
 
Apparently the state legislature made chili the official dish of Texas in 1977. The statute is quite a read.

My nine-year-old son cooked pancakes for the family this morning.

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The menu for the day is grilled cheese and salad for lunch, split pea soup for dinner. It should be black-eyed peas (yum), but I was using ingredients in my freezer and pantry.

Chili is on the menu for Friday when my stove insert is supposed to be installed. My husband and I like to offer to feed workmen when they are at our home for long days. Only after I asked if I could make a pot of chili for him, and he accepted, did he tell me that he had trained as a chef. Gulp.
 
This was the stuffed chicken parm that I cooked today, it tasted very good. The next time I make it, I;ll do a better job making the cavity bigger for the filling.
 

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I made a slight variant on Bob's Lobster Mac and Cheese, added some scallops to it along with 3 lobster tails and a sprinkling of breadcrumbs on top. It was very popular. Everyone had seconds.

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I hadn't thought to use a bread maker in the summer. We have an old automatic bread maker kicking around, maybe I can find some good recipes.
My wife is a trained baker that worked commercial for several years. She loves her breadmaker, but is pretty fussy about them. It took a couple months for her to come up with a good wholewheat bread recipe that works well, but since then her bread has been perfect.
 
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Chicken parm looks good. Yum. :)
 
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Another batch of chocolate chip cookies. This time whole grain from scratch using the Joy of Cooking recipe. Since the chips we can get locally are large and flat I use 2/3 cup instead of 1/2 cup. The chips for some reason always end up on the bottom. This is the first whole grain recipe that my wife has agreed is just as good or better than using white flour.
 

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I made a slight variant on Bob's Lobster Mac and Cheese, added some scallops to it along with 3 lobster tails and a sprinkling of breadcrumbs on top. It was very popular. Everyone had seconds.

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"
Only thing that possibly could make this even better is some Crab Meat. Fried Rice is good with those as well.
 
This was the stuffed chicken parm that I cooked today, it tasted very good. The next time I make it, I;ll do a better job making the cavity bigger for the filling.

Yum.
 
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Only thing that possibly could make this even better is some Crab Meat. Fried Rice is good with those as well.
My wife makes a seafood pasta for Christmas Eve with crab and shrimp.

Most of the time crabbing comes in the summer during super low tides, but then it never makes it into a prepared dish. We always eat it right after the catch. Impatient I guess.
 
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We had a chili dinner last night for which I had made a sourdough einkorn cornbread. I processed some of the leftovers tonight with garlic and salt and pepper and fried up some cornbread crusted tilapia. It turned out nicely, and I put the bag of leftover breadcrumbs in the freezer. We had English peas on the side.

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It was so good I forgot to take pics, but I made Lamb Vindaloo with roasted potatoes and broccoli on the side. All from scratch and the lamb soaked in the marsala for 24 hours.
 
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Since we were having some White Bean soup with a salad, my wife wanted some parm twists, pictured is the first batch minus 1 .

Ingredients :
Puff Pastry
Egg Wash
Garlic
Italian Seasoning
Parmesan Cheese
Preheat Oven to 375 and bake for 15-20 minutes
 

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Great Northern White Bean Soup
  • 8 oz. dried Great Northern White Beans
  • 4 Cups Chicken Broth
  • 3 slices of bacon, chopped
  • 1 cup of minced onion
  • 2 stalks of celery, minced
  • 4 gloves of garlic, minced
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 1 teasp. Lemon juice
  • salt & pepper to taste
  • 2 tbsp. Grated parm cheese
  • Soak beans overnight. Cook bacon in stock pot until crispy, remove bacon. Over medium heat add onion, celery & garlic to the bacon fat, sauté until tender. Add beans, chicken broth and bay leaf. Simmer until beans are tender – about 2 hrs. (Add stock or water as needed). When beans are cooked, discard bay leaf. Adjust consistency with stock or water as necessary. Serve with , pepper, salt and grated cheese.
 
great northern white bean soup recipe looks very similar to pasta fazool (white not red) minus the bacon and add the pasta and take a quarter of the beans out mash them then put it back in. it thickens up the soup.
 
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great northern white bean soup recipe looks very similar to pasta fazool (white not red) minus the bacon and add the pasta and take a quarter of the beans out mash them then put it back in. it thickens up the soup.
I prefer to cook the beans until they turn to mashed consistency
 
My husband and I used to have a lot of fun cooking various Indian dishes together. He loves lamb Vindaloo, but it’s a bit too hot for me. I’m more of a Korma of Biriyani type. Sadly one of our children is allergic to a chemical in many plants and spices (similar to an aspirin allergy). We don’t eat much Indian food as a family because of that, though this summer I did make smoothies in the style of a mango lassi, and that was a big hit.

Today I used the rest of my cornbread crumbs to make chicken nuggets. I cooked half for lunch and froze the rest for another time. BEF751AC-D416-4F74-9566-3E1A9CCC002A.jpeg

Tonight’s dinner was a slow cooker French onion soup.
 
My husband and I used to have a lot of fun cooking various Indian dishes together. He loves lamb Vindaloo, but it’s a bit too hot for me. I’m more of a Korma of Biriyani type. Sadly one of our children is allergic to a chemical in many plants and spices (similar to an aspirin allergy). We don’t eat much Indian food as a family because of that, though this summer I did make smoothies in the style of a mango lassi, and that was a big hit.

Today I used the rest of my cornbread crumbs to make chicken nuggets. I cooked half for lunch and froze the rest for another time. View attachment 254934

Tonight’s dinner was a slow cooker French onion soup.
Cornbread crumbs sound like an awesome breading.
 
This thread is killing me. I have to wipe the drool off of my keyboard.
 
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This thread is killing me. I have to wipe the drool off of my keyboard.
Maybe I can get the wife to make the cinnamon buns before the ice storm hits.
 

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I have to make cinnamon rolls soon. Just one left in the freezer. I make two trays at a time, 24 cinnamon rolls. The trays freeze very well.

I just use the standard recipe a lot of folks post. I found it on a Dutch oven cooking web site from aBoy Scout troop from Texas. Been making them since 2007. Have made them over 150 times. :)

I posted the recipe I follow on the old recipezaar.com. It's now ...

 
Sugar cookies were mentioned. Here's a really good recipe from an old Farm Journal cookbook, which I mentioned in the Comments section..

 
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