asterroc: (Smoothie)
An update of this older pizza report, I now use this Epicurious pizza dough recipe, plus some rosemary and garlic powder. I suggest kneading for 5 minutes (set a timer) to get the right amount of gluten (stiffness to the crust). I still don't own a pizza stone, so I roll out the dough on a large cutting board using a rolling pin, then put flour on a 9x13" baking pan (flour so it doesn't stick), transfer the dough onto it, and squish up a little lip for the crust.

For toppings, I currently have my side be onion (1 bulb chopped), garlic (2 cloves thru a press), and basil (uh, some amount chopped). Both sides I put on mozzarella and sauce; on my side I interleave those with the veggies. Then I put on plenty of pepperoni on top of the cheese, sauce, and my veggies. And on T$'s side I squish in chunks of canned pineapple between his pepperonis.

Preheat oven to 450ºF (because Teflon / PFTE non-stick shouldn't be heated higher than this). Cook around 20-30 minutes, checking every 10 minutes or so. When it's done, the crust will be brown, the sauce is bubbling and dripping around the crust (and singeing where it overflows, but that's fine), and the pepperoni is past softening and is about to curl and brown on the edges.

Recipes

Mar. 24th, 2015 07:40 pm
In case you haven't heard, it's no longer the Food Pyramid, it's now My Plate (and has been for a few years now). I found myself back on that site b/c I was curious if potatoes counted as veggies (yes, in the subset of starchy veggies), and came across this two week list of recipes. Posting here to share and to remind myself next time I need food ideas.

Originally posted on Dreamwidth. comment count unavailable comments there. Comment here or there.
Time:
30min prep in the morning.
1hr-30min prep before serving.

Ingredients )

Directions )

Varieties )

Originally posted on Dreamwidth. comment count unavailable comments there. Comment here or there.
Recipe for Stuffed Mushrooms! )

Originally posted on Dreamwidth. comment count unavailable comments there. Comment here or there.
In case anybody is interested in easy-to-cook meals, here's a few recipes from the "menu" that T$ and I choose among when planning our dinners. We usually choose around 4-6 of meals before the start of the week, write all the ingredients on our grocery list, and get those for the week. Each item below includes the ingredients, total prep time, directions (I'm assuming basic cooking competency here), those sorts of things.

1. Pasta and sausage )

2. Tacos )

3. Jacket Potatoes )

4. Chicken Caesar Salad )

5. Trader Ming's Bags )

6. Pizza )

7. Beef with Oyster Sauce )

8. Veggie Burgers )

9. Fish Wheel )

More recipes at this LJ tag.

Originally posted on Dreamwidth. comment count unavailable comments there. Comment here or there.
asterroc: (Smoothie)
Adapted from this recipe

Ingredients )

Directions )

Makes 4 small (lunch sized) servings, or 2 dinner servings. Yum!
asterroc: (Smoothie)
Good for a hot summer's day.

instructions )
asterroc: (Smoothie)
A few weeks ago I decided I wanted to make pizza - and I mean *real* pizza with yeast and everything, not "buy a premade crust and marinara sauce". I started off with this crust recipe from Allrecipes.com and modified a bit (not hugely), so that plus the toppings recommendation are below.

Recipie and Ingredients and such )

So in short, it's not as much effort as lasagna, probably more on par with a taco kit though it's much more homemade than a taco kit! Quite yummy, I make it vegetarian, easily modifiable for vegan, probably modifiable for locovores.
asterroc: (Smoothie)
Ingredients:
* 1 lb shrimp (pre-cooked, de-veined, peeled for ease of use; I used cocktail shrimp)
* 1 bunch green onions / shallots / scallions (I get these mixed up, any will do)
* 1/2 box of pasta (I used whole wheat linguine)
* 1/2 container of Alfredo sauce
* 1 tbs butter
* 1 pre-made garlic bread unit

Steps:
The white colored ends of the green onions / shallots / scallions / whatever-they-are are a little more bitter, so they need more cooking. Chop these ends into small bits, and throw onto the pan (on medium) with the butter. Chop the rest into big pieces and set aside. Remove the tail things from the shrimp. Throw the shrimp in the pan. While waiting for the shrimp to warm (or cook if raw), start the pasta and garlic bread unit. Boil off some of the liquid in with the shrimp, but not all, and turn the heat down some. Add the Alfredo sauce (1/2 of a glass jar) and mix well. Add the rest of the green onions / shallots / scallions / whatever-they-are (you're adding them late so they don't wilt too much). When the pasta's done and the shrimp Alfredo sauce is the right temperature and consistency (whatever you like for that), serve over the pasta with the garlic bread on the side.

Makes dinner for me and T$ with one small leftover unit of shrimp and pasta (not quite lunch sized, more like snack sized) and a variable amount of leftover garlic bread (depends on what sized unit you used). Probably took me 30 minutes with peeling the tails off the cocktail shrimp. Yummy. :)
asterroc: (Smoothie)
This recipe comes from my Nga Boo (maternal grandmother), and I think it's the first thing I learned to cook. If you're vegetarian, you're out of luck.

Ingredients
* Oyster sauce - you can find this in the Asian section of many grocery stores, or else find an Asian grocery store
* Soy sauce
* Terriyaki sauce (optional)
* Corn starch
* cooking wine (optional)
* 1 yellow/white onion
* garlic (pre-minced, or else a couple cloves that you mince, optional)
* olive oil / sesame oil
* 0.7 - 1.0 lb beef - preferably flank steak (but it's hard to find and expensive when you do), second choice pre-cut stirfry beef, third choice get a decent cut of steak
* some veggie (Choice 1: bok choi, canned baby corn, and portabello mushroom; Choice 2: fresh string beans or frozen french-cut green beans; Nga Boo's Choice: asparagus)
* rice (I recommend 1-1.5 cups dry)

Marinate
The night before cooking this, marinate the meat. Cut into small pieces if you have the time, marinate whole if you do not. Put the meat into a tupperware and cover with soy sauce and sprinkle on corn starch - I'd say 2 tablespoons to a quarter cup of soy sauce, and up to 2 tablespoons of corn starch, but I generally eyeball it. You can add a tablespoon of a cooking wine now or later - not too much or it'll become a bit gelatin-y. Shake to distribute evenly.

This prep time is 15-30 minutes.

Cook
Rice takes the longest so I start that first, then chop the onion and garlic.

Saute onion over medium heat in a pan with the oil and the optional garlic until the union changes color to yellow (5-15 minutes?).

While onions are sauteeing, chop any fresh veggies and set aside. If using bok choi, I suggest separating the white stems from the green leaves, as they have different ideal cook times (cook the stems longer).

When onions are yellow, lower heat to medium-low and add beef. Also add a generous amount of oyster sauce (I think I do around 1/4 cup); optionally add more soy sauce, terriyaki, and cooking wine. Cover. Stir frequently. As it cooks, the sauce will first become more watery as the beef juices come out, and then thicken up a bit again as the moisture evaporates.

At/near sea level: Add the veggies when the meat has lost most of the pinkness, since they usually take less time. I suggest adding the veggies that take longer to cook sooner (e.g., bok choi stems, asparagus), and adding things that take shorter time to cook or come frozen or in a can later (e.g., mushrooms, canned baby corn, green bok choi leaves).

At high elevations: Add the veggies earlier than at sea level, while the meat is still mostly pink, as the lower temperature of the liquid means that they will take longer to cook than at sea level. Again, add in order of how long they take to cook.

Cooking/prep time: 1 hour. This serves 2-3 meals, depending on the size of your appetite. There will be LOTS of sauce, it's the best part.
asterroc: (Smoothie)
Ingredients:
0.6 lbs salmon per person, cut doesn't matter
olive oil
teriyaki sauce
basalmic vinegarette
other spices/sauces to taste (soy sauce, lemon juice, rosemary, lemon pepper salt, garlic, onion powder)

Coat bottom of pan with around 1/5 tbs of olive oil. Put on heat on med-low and put the fish atop it - if your piece has a skin side, start with that down as the first part down is most likely to stick and you'll least miss the skin. Pour around 1 tbs each of teriyaki and basalmic vinegarette over the salmon. Keep the heat low enough that the sauces are NOT boiling. Flip after around 5 minutes with a spatula (careful, as it cooks it will tend to fall apart), and liberally recoat with sauces - you can spoon up what's in there, or add more sauces to taste. I usually add the other sauces and dry spices after this first flip.

Continue flipping every 5 minutes or so while you prepare side dishes - I recommend basmati rice and corn. Add more sauces if it dries up, boils off, or if it starts to stick. You'll probably need to cook it around 20 minutes total, make sure you keep turning the flame down as time goes on so you don't overcook it. Poke it after a couple flips to see how it's cooking, and drizzle more sauce into the poked areas.

Enjoy!
asterroc: (Smoothie)
I was just browsing through my recipes tag, which doesn't have nearly enough entries, and cracked up at some of the bizarre things I said. Such as "8. Shake your butt to help with the sprinkling", and categorizing some of the chicken entires with the birds tag.
asterroc: (Smoothie)
I made crock pot chili today, thanks again to [livejournal.com profile] jethereal. Crock pots are so easy to use!

Chili )

And while I'm at it, beef stew!

Beef stew )
asterroc: (Smoothie)
Even my pea soup isn't vegetarian. )

Tomorrow morning it'll be done (after picking out bones and/or skin (if you used ham hocks)), and I will upload the before and after photos sometime. (Yeah, I'm a camera dork.) I haven't done this precise version, so how it comes out will be interesting (for example, I usually use 8 cups water but I wanted to try thicker), but every time is good. ^_^ The best part is waking up with the whole house smelling like lunch. *grin* If you do it during the day, you'll come home to the whole house smelling like dinner.
Should the Apocalypse come tomorrow and I am not transported bodily into Heaven (as I am sure I would not be), I now have around 5 quarts of chicken soup with rice in my fridge and freezer. I figure that'll last me up to a month, presuming that it's still warm enough in the world to melt them.

Recipie )

pea soup!

Jan. 6th, 2007 04:09 pm
asterroc: (Smoothie)
I made pea soup in my crock pot more-or-less according to this recipe. It is yummy in my tummy. ^_^
asterroc: (Smoothie)
So yesterday [livejournal.com profile] jethereal got me a popcorn popper (air popper this time, yay!) and a crock pot from Target. The person in line behind us told me that 1.5 qts was really small for a crock pot. She also told me what's so awesome about them is you can leave them on all day when you go to work. This morning I opened it and yea, she was right. It was only around the size of ... oh, a medium bowl of soup. So I took it back to Target and upgraded for only seven bucks to a 4 qt, which I think will do me well.

Then I came home and later went to make air popcorn. The thing rattled, the base part of it, this was before I did anything with it, and when I went to look at it I saw a bit of the plastic was cracked, but didn't think much of it. Before the popcorn did anything like popping though, the whole unit was smoking, and it had a plastic smell. :(

I decided to make beef stew overnight, and now I'm hoping that there's nothing wrong with it, and that it doesn't burn the whole house down. Chopping the ingredients takes just as long no matter what I'm cooking it in, but if I really don't have to stir it or anything that'll be nice. How hot does meat have to get internally to be safe to eat? As in killed all the bacteria in it. I'm thinking I've heard 180ºF for chicken, I'm cooking beef. I figure I'll stick a meat thermometer in the pot tomorrow morning when I stagger out of the bedroom and see how it's doing, and quite likely turn up the heat to high for an hour or two just to be sure.

In case you're curious, my special ingredients for beef stew are Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, basalmic vinegarette, and diced garlic. ^_^ This time I'm also trying bacon facon bits. Mmmmmm.... Now I'm hungry. I'm sad I didn't get airpop. :(
Lie chicken on its back, round (breast) side up, flat side down, so that the tail makes a little platform underneath the big hole where its butt used to be. Have this hole point towards your right (assuming you're a righty, reverse for lefties), with the body towards the left. Scoop the rice in a chinese soup spoon. Place the spoon atop the tail platform, holding the spoon in your right hand, leaning it slightly in towards the hole. With your left hand, take another spoon (any sort will do) and scoop the rice out of the spoon into the bird's anal cavity. Do this for a few spoonfuls, then use one of the spoons to shove/pack the rice in with your right hand while your left spoon stabilizes the bird by pushing back on the neck area. Repeat until you're out of rice or cavity. Extra rice can sometimes be shoved in the neck side. Some people sew up the cavity after.

Profile

asterroc

April 2017

S M T W T F S
      1
2345678
9101112131415
16171819202122
232425 26272829
30      

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jul. 11th, 2025 02:40 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios