Cookin again

Umbran

Mod Squad

Staff member

Supporter

• Oct 24, 2015

• #71

Today, my wife and I are going to a "soup swap". A bunch of folks get together. Each brings several (in our case, 6) quart-containers of homemade soup. There's a little song and dance of presenting and "selling" your soup, and then there's a round-robin of picking soups - you leave with as many containers as you brought.

We made a corn chowder, the ingredient list for which is deceptively simple. Corn, chicken broth, onions, cream, bacon, scallions, salt and pepper. The secret is in the method - some of the corn is canned, and that's made into a puree to thicken the soup. The rest of the corn is cut from cobs, and you include the cobs in the simmering step, to leech out all the corny goodness.

I have no idea what soups we'll get to leave with.

 

log in or register to remove this ad

Dannyalcatraz

Schmoderator

Staff member

Supporter

• Oct 24, 2015

• #72

Sounds like a cool thing to do. FWIW, I LOVE corn- it is among my favorite veggies. But I'm also slightly allergic to it, so I don't eat it often. That chowder sounds like one I'd leave with.

Sometimes, simpler is just better. On one episode of Kitchen Nightmares, Gordon Ramsey pitted his version of broccoli soup against that of the struggling restauranteur in a blindfolded taste test, and won in a "FLAWLESS VICTORY!!!". The restauranteur's recipe had 15+ ingredients, Gordon's was broccoli, water, salt and pepper.

 

Dannyalcatraz

Schmoderator

Staff member

Supporter

• Nov 11, 2015

• #73

Tried a little 'speriment tonight: instead of one of the usual meats- bacon, ham or sausage- for a pot of mustard greens I tried some smoked turkey necks and smoked turkey wings. (I wanted smoked thighs, but none were available.)

The result was perfectly tasty.

However, there were issues. I am not a fan of turkey necks myself, but chose to use them in the experiment because bones can add a lot of flavor and texture to a dish, and they did exactly that. But nibbling the meat off of them is a PITA. What I may do next time is use the smoked turkey necks to make a stock.

The wings, OTOH, were deemed "visually unappetizing" by Mom who is normally a wing fiend. I think that had I cooked them a bit longer before adding the greens themselves, they'd have fallen off the bones, and thus, more appealing.

All in all, though, a success. The overall flavor was reminiscent of ham, actually. So, with some thought and skill, I could use smoked turkey as a substitute for pork in all kinds of southern veggie recipes- greens of all kinds, green beans, red beans, white beans. Perhaps even gumbo.

This means I can open up my recipe playbook a bit more when entertaining my Jewish & Muslim friends.

Now all I need to do is start smoking my own meats so I can control the sodium levels...

 

Scott DeWar

Prof. Emeritus-Supernatural Events/Countermeasure

• Nov 12, 2015

• #74

preparing for three different dishes: Sausages and peppers, roasted chicken and you guessed it: TURKEY!!! Just need to get it cooked. also got the stuff for beef stroganoff too.

 

Dannyalcatraz

Schmoderator

Staff member

Supporter

• Nov 12, 2015

• #75

Turkey day is probably gonna be big, again. A ham, a fried turkey w/dirty rice, a steamed turkey w/mixed veg, gumbo, garlic slaw, mustard greens, deviled eggs, oyster dressing, a possible beef roast, and goodness knows what else.

 

Scott DeWar

Prof. Emeritus-Supernatural Events/Countermeasure

• Nov 12, 2015

• #76

I expect your turkey day to be no less then Big at Alcatraz Estates.

 

Umbran

Mod Squad

Staff member

Supporter

• Nov 12, 2015

• #77

Dannyalcatraz said:

Turkey day is probably gonna be big, again. A ham, a fried turkey w/dirty rice, a steamed turkey w/mixed veg, gumbo, garlic slaw, mustard greens, deviled eggs, oyster dressing, a possible beef roast, and goodness knows what else.

Click to expand...

We have a conundrum - the range in the number of people possibly attending. I think we are currently looking at... 8 to 15. That's difficult to plan for. 8 can be handled with one moderately sized turkey. For 15 we'd need to do some big-honkin' bird, and big-honkin' birds don't come out as well. And we only have one modest oven making multiple proteins a hassle.

 

Z

Zaukrie

New Publisher

• Nov 12, 2015

• #78

See if you can get one of those counter top oven like things like the nuwave. We did a turkey in one one. I liked the device, but my quote did not. The only hard part was turning the bird

 

Scott DeWar

Prof. Emeritus-Supernatural Events/Countermeasure

• Nov 12, 2015

• #79

Zaukrie said:

. . . . . I liked the device, but my quote did not. . . . . .

Click to expand...

uh. huh? What? Am I missing something here or is there an issue with auto correct?

 

Dannyalcatraz

Schmoderator

Staff member

Supporter

• Nov 12, 2015

• #80

My steaming technique results in tasty, juicy big birds. Barring that, though, using the roasting bags is- from what I have been told- similarly effective.

But yeah: having a minimum guest list of half your presumed max is tough to plan for. A highly variable guest list is our conundrum as well. We're sure to hit a dozen, but there are nearly that many we're trying to sort out...