Cookin again

[Dannyalcatraz]

Re knives, I've began to make my own. And I do some woodworking, so here are two of my most recent additions.

Are you doing the smithing yourself?

 

[Zardnaar]

End of the week whatever I could find.

Vegetarian roast vegetable, salad, cheese egg and aioli plus sweet chilli sauce something between two wraps.

Kumura was a bit weird in it but it worked.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Are you doing the smithing yourself?

I do not. I have a blank, which I grind down and acid etch. I made a bunch of stuff from an old maple, and I had left over spalted scrap, so I made the knife handles out of that. I am really glad with how the knife holder turned out. Holds the knives up really well

 

[prabe]

I just realized this morning that I do have an oddball favorite. OXO make a set of nesting beakers, in sizes from 1 tsp to 1 cup. They don't take any more space than a 1-cup Pyrex, and they at least seem more accurate.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I love OXO products!

I have a whole bunch of their storage containers, plus a salad spinner and bunches of kitchen hand tools.

 

[prabe]

I love OXO products!

I have a whole bunch of their storage containers, plus a salad spinner and bunches of kitchen hand tools.

They're one of a handful of go-to brands, if I need a [thing] and I can't find reviews of the various brands of [thing].

 

[prabe]

Dinner tonight (a well-loved recipe, based on one from Cook's Illustrated:

Cuban Style Black Bean Stew

What you'll need

Ingredients

1 tablespoon olive oil
½ pound Spanish chorizo, diced
1 large onion, minced
1 large red bell pepper, stemmed, seeded, chopped fine
8 medium cloves garlic, minced or pressed (divided)
2 teaspoons dried oregano
1 ½ teaspoons ground cumin
4 cups low-sodium chicken broth
[at this point, I use water and 1 tsp of Penzeys Pork Base]
1 cup water
1 pound black beans, sorted, soaked overnight, and drained
2 bay leaves
1 oz. sun-dried tomatoes, minced (I usually use the ones in the resealable bags) [optional]
1 chipotle pepper in adobo, minced [optional]
2 tablespoons lime juice
½ cup chopped fresh cilantro leaves
Salt
Pepper
Tabasco sauce


Specific Equipment

a large Dutch oven (at least 5-quart)
a potato masher



What you'll do

1. Adjust an oven rack to the lower-middle position and heat the oven to 300 degrees.
2. Heat the oil in the Dutch oven over medium heat until shimmering.
3. Cook the chorizo in the oil, stirring frequently, until well-browned, about 6 minutes. Transfer to a small bowl (leaving the oil and grease in the Dutch oven) and set aside in refrigerator.
4. Return the Dutch oven with the drippings to medium heat until shimmering. Add onion, bell pepper, and ~3/4 teaspoon salt; cook, stirring occasionally, until softened and lightly browned, 10-12 minutes.
5. Add half the minced garlic, the oregano, and the cumin; cook until fragrant, about 1 minute.
6. Add the broth, water, beans, and bay leaves [and the sun-dried tomatoes and the chipotle]; bring to a simmer, skimming any foam from the surface.
7. Cover and transfer to the oven; cook until the beans are tender but not splitting, 1 ½ - 2 hours.
8. Transfer ~2 cups of the beans to a mixing bowl and mash with a potato masher; stir back into the stew. [Or, do what I do now, and just mash around in the soup until you like the texture.]
9. Add the remaining garlic, lime juice, cilantro, and the chorizo.
10. Season with salt, pepper, and Tabasco and serve. I like to top it with Mexican-style crema and grated cheese.

EDIT: Fixed the formatting so it was less huge.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Not feeling too hot tonight, but still needed to eat something so my evening meds would sit right. Needed to do likewise for Mom.

So I used one of my old bachelor tricks and stretched a pack of (low sodium) ramen with (low sodium) bullion, a few sliced baby carrots, a stalk of celery, and one whisked egg, i also put in a little parsely, chive and a half tablespoon of butter. I topped mine with radish sprouts.

Culinary art? Nah, but it definitely is keeping me whole.

 

[Umbran]

So I used one of my old bachelor tricks and stretched a pack of (low sodium) ramen with (low sodium) bullion, a few sliced baby carrots, a stalk of celery, and one whisked egg, i also put in a little parsely, chive and a half tablespoon of butter. I topped mine with radish sprouts.

Culinary art? Nah, but it definitely is keeping me whole.

Pleasing variation taught to me by some cookbook or other...

Replace the bullion/flavor packet in ramen with a teaspoon of white miso. Float a soft-boiled egg in there is you're feeling like that will fit the bill.

 

[Umbran]

I managed to (accidentally) remove the seasoning from my cast iron skillet three times in six months by, as best I could tell, cooking in it and cleaning it.

And, I know this is probably a dumb question - that cleaning it didn't involve any dish soap, right?

For other readers, my basic cleaning for cast iron is simple:

• Use no dish soap. Scrub out food bits. This make take some effort. If need be, fill the pan with water, and bring it to a simmer for a few minutes, then scrub again.
• Don't dry the pan. Put it on a burner set on high for a few minutes until the water in the pan has evaporated away.
• While still hot, spread a thin layer of vegetable oil on the inside of the pan.

Modern instructions don't have the heating step. I find oiling the pan while it is still hot goes a long way to preserve the seasoning.

They sell various forms of scrubbers for cast iron. I would not recommend any made of metal. Scrubbing a metal surface with another metal may embed microscopic bits of that other metal into your cookware. Different metals, in contact with each other, is a recipe for corrosion.


For future reference, if you ever want to venture that way again... if a cast iron pan loses its seasoning, you can re-season it. The process for this is super-easy:

• Wash thoroughly with dish soap (to remove anything left on it, this one time.
• Dry the pan completely
• Cover the pan with a thin layer of vegetable shortening or vegetable oil.
• Lay it upside-down in a 375 degree oven. Bake it for an hour. Allow it to cool.

I followed the instructions I could find as precisely as I could, and it still happened. I was never willing to do anything in it that involved any time, because I was convinced that anything with any acid would pull the seasoning off. I stopped cooking in it, and I ended up donating it to a thrift shop.

I'm sorry you had a bad experience. I probably woudn't make a long-slow simmered tomato sauce in cast iron, but other cooking should not remove seasoning.

I have a couple Le Creuset Dutch ovens (3-qt and 7-qt) and they're built like tanks, and I use them at every opportunity (the little one is my secret weapon for mac-cheese). Enameled cast iron is a marvelous thing; I've given up on seasoned cast iron.

I've got a big enameled dutch oven for braises and soups and some baking. Not Le Creuset, because those things are so damned expensive. I didn't have the cash for it in my younger days. I simply note that cast iron skillets and enameled cast iron dutch ovens are just for different uses, much like your saute pan and your soup pot are for different uses.

These days, you can certainly get by without cast iron - they make non-stick skillets that serve much the same role - though non-stick surfaces aren't rated for as high a temperature as cast iron. Repeatedlly driving a non-stick skillet to as high a temperature as cast iron will damage the surface over time... and possibly kill any birds in the house, as they are sensitive to the particles that come off non-stick surfaces when they get too hot.