Cooking

I've decided to get a pork roast next time I go shopping. Pulled pork with Dr Pepper (yes, this is a legit recipe ), here I come!

Things like Dr. Pepper and Coca Cola do quite nicely in slow-cooking recipes like that. I know that my Dad sometimes adds Cola (if we have any) when he makes chili. Other times, he's also added a splash of ginger ale.

Incidentally, I’ll be making spicy pulled pork for Friday night’s dinner.

Turns out pork shoulder was a bit too expensive even for a huge recipe like that (almost 25 dollars for 4 pounds!) I'm waiting till it's on sale. I did get microwaveable pulled pork though, which isn't too bad.

I made ribs with a sweet pineapple and scotch bonnet sauce tonight, it was delicious. I love Steven Raichlen's cookbooks, I just wish the snow and cold would let me use the barbecue. The oven sufficed but there's nothing like slowly cooking food over a fire.

Looks like pork roast is on sale at my local Asian market ($2.88 a pound). That was quick. Looks like from scratch Crock Pot pulled pork is back on

I have good news and bad news about the big game on Sunday (I can't believe it's already upon us ). The good news I already know which team I want to win. :) ;) The bad news is... I have no idea what to cook for dinner that night to go with it. x_x ^_^;;

Update: About that pulled pork I mentioned the other day. I thought I did everything right, but for some reason the pork shoulder I used wouldn't quite so easily split apart when I pulled the two works in opposite directions (a trick my sister told me about). So I ended up having to slice and dice it up with a knife and fork. Sheesh; who'd have thought that preparing dinner could be an exercise in and of itself? ^_^;;

Edited by Demetrios on Feb 5th 2021 at 6:15:56 AM

Hmmmm, the Superbowl feels a bit like a fast food-type of event, doesn't it? You gather some buddies (OK, maybe not this year, but you know...) either at the stadium or in front of the TV, and there's a bunch of beer and snack foods, right?

As somebody who has never watched football, I associate the sport with hot dogs. Or popcorn. Would food with one of those work?

Now that you mention it, I do have some venison sausages.

The closest thing to popcorn I have at the moment is popcorn shrimp. ^_^;;

Edited by Demetrios on Feb 6th 2021 at 5:58:39 AM

So, turns out the pork roasts at my Asian market, while cheap, are way too big (7+ lbs to the recipe's max 5). And splitting them would be more trouble than it's worth, as they're bone-in.

*sigh* Back to playing the waiting game at my usual store, I guess.

I did find rice noodles though, and made a nice stir-fry with some leftover shrimp and tofu. So it's not all bad.

Since one of my friends and fellow Svengoolie fans mentioned it, I miss when he would show Japanese horror/kaiju movies. I liked to cook up nice steak and sushi dinners to go with it. :)

The day before Christmas Eve, when my brother came home, I made some Trim-A-Tree Dip after seeing it on this old episode of Good Mythical Morning.

And, honestly? It's one of the tastiest dips I've ever eaten. Seriously, if you can, try it - It's legit amazing!

I've been having a lot of fun researching authentic Chinese food. :)

At my old job (a Viking-Age museum/activity center) I used to make the same type of travel-bread as in this video, whenever we had school-children visiting or other groups that wanted to try this experience. I've made the bread at home as well, because I really like the taste.

It's a very simple recipe:

-4 dl of wheat flour (spelt if possible), but flour from rye or barley ought to work just as well.

-1.5 dl of water

-A tea-spoon of salt

Knead the dough into small balls and flatten them into disks, after which you fry them for a few minutes. Best results with a skillet over an open flame, but you can fry them on a stove as well. Still preferably with a pan made from iron and in butter, because it makes the taste better.

Because my wife does the LCHF-diet, I tried to see if I could make a version that suits her as well. By trying almond-flour and psyllium I've created by accident a new dish, because the bread is now fluffier and the butter makes it taste surprisingly sweet. Be warned, this version is more difficult to balance, because the psyllium needs more water to absorb. For me it works with almost double the amount of water, but you'll need to test your way to get it suitable.

Edited by Mara999 on Feb 11th 2021 at 8:38:52 PM

Made millionaire's shortbread a couple days ago (after Robin Hood brand flour posted a recipe in the midst of the recent stock shitstorm). I proceeded to eat the whole pan in two days lol.

Behold, the noble semla! Or fastlavnsbolle, or vastlakukkel or laskiaispulla, depending on where you're from.

Last Tuesday was Shrove Tuesday, and apparently some people 'round these parts don't know about this delectable treat. Well, then, I am here to fill you in!

Imagine a sweet, fluffy bread bun flavored with cardamom, hollowed out and filled with a mixture of almond paste, some of the crumbs from the bun when it was hollowed out and just a little bit of milk until it's just a bit creamy, topped with whipped cream and the bun's lid, sprinkled with powdered sugar. That's a semla, Swedish style! If you put it in a bowl with hot milk, it becomes a "hot wedge". Of course, in olden times, a "semla" was just that: A plain bun in a bowl of hot milk. We had a king who ate himself to death after a banquet that was topped off with hot wedges. Tasting History tells you more and presents some wonderful variants of it.

Of course, there are not only national variations,^note The Finnish version is filled with jam and predates the Christian origins of the Swedish semla. The Norwegian version is filled with jam and topped with icing. The Danish version is made with puff pastry, filled with cream and jam and topped with icing. The Faroe Islands and Iceland make them with choux pastry, The Faroe version being filled with vanilla cream, whipped cream and jam and the Icelandic version being reminiscient of the Danish version., but these days, they're flavored and filled with anything. My favorite is flavored with saffron.

But making them at home... It's been a while since I took a crack at it. The bun is really fluffy and soft, and the few times we have tried to make our own, we just never manage to get that texture. But I've been thinking of taking a crack at them: That way, I could have them whenever I want.

Edited by MagmaTeaMerry on Feb 19th 2021 at 7:53:53 PM

A linguistic issue for me is that it sounds so weird when Swedes refer to it as a "semla", because we say "bulle". In the Swedish dialects spoken in Finland the word semla is used for plain bread, in the shape of a bun. Our words are of older origin, as the language drift has grown after the "divorce" of 1809.

Anyhow, each year there is heated yet playful debate between people who prefer the almond-paste and those who prefer jam. I prefer the buns with jam, especially strawberry. Another nice pastry to eat around this time of year is the Runeberg torte, but unlike the Shrove Tuesday pastry it is unfortunately never any good when store-bought. They insist on putting a lot of rum in them, but I prefer my torte drier, without rum and with plenty of raspberry jam.

Well, that's understandable since that's what semla used to mean: A plain bun in hot milk.

We eventually decided to stuff 'em with decadent fillings because "lol, Lent."

Here's one of my favorite videos about where our favorite fruits and vegetables came from. :) XD

I finally found a decently priced pork shoulder. Pulled pork nachos time

I’m having shrimp tacos myself tonight.

Had to delay the pulled pork nachos to tomorrow night, as the recipe takes 4-5 hours in the Crock Pot, and I didn't get home from shopping till after 2 pm. Substituted a sandwich instead (Montreal smoked meat with cheese and Dijon mustard), with jalapeño popper flavoured chips on the side.

Sorry for the delay. :( The other one sounds good, though. :)

Pulled pork nachos were a success, although they did start to scorch a bit under the broiler (luckily I had the foresight to not stick sugar-laden meat under there).

The pork produced rather more juice than I thought it would, too.

Edited by Theatre_Maven_3695 on Feb 23rd 2021 at 6:02:55 AM

I've been doing the 5-2 diet since August, and I often find myself cooking vegetarian those days. That, or eggs. I also tend to freestyle and make things up because I can't be arsed to look up a recipe. Is it Laborious Laziness if I find it less of a bother to calculate the nutritional value on my own?

For tomorrow's lunch, I've made some kind of soup/stew with tomatoes, shallots, garlic, a splash of balsamic vinegar, a bouillon cube and buckwheat. I have no idea how it's going to turn out, we'll have to see.

Update: It was pretty good. Like a tomato stew, but thicker.

I find that my experimental approach to cooking has had some misfires. For example: Do not combine scrambled eggs, cottage cheese and boiled parsnips. It's not the grossest thing I've ever tasted, but there's no saving that texture of pure mush. Not that palatable, either. I have no idea why I thought that combination would work.

Edited by MagmaTeaMerry on Feb 25th 2021 at 8:24:42 PM