You guys are making cumin and curry-esque foods. I don't like curry.

Might have to start modifying things a lot. heh.

I'm sure the squash soup would be fine without the curry flavors, Solo.

Bubba, your dish sounds delish but holy cow high fat.

Yeah I've seen recipes for squash soup that were flavored with just salt, pepper, nutmeg and heavy cream. I think it would taste delicious.

You can cook the meat and vegies with olive oil to cut down on the fat. Adding butter at the end is an absolute necessity though. It's the perfect dish for a cold winter day but yeah it's not healthy and not something I would recomend eating on a regular basis. It's comfort food at it's finest.

I'm a big fan of pizza and cream soups myself. Some of the best things in life are far from healthy.

Oh well at least I didn't say I'm a big fan of teh herp.

Well since OOT and EDF seem to have lost their food threads... =(

Here's some Heineken Lamb Stew I done did.

Looks delicious. How about the recipe, sir?

Sure. I basically didn't want to go to the store, so figured I'd piece together some leftovers I had with a frozen lamb shoulder I found in the freezer.



As you can tell, the outside has sinewy connective tissue and fat, which I'm not a big fan of. Naturally, I spent 20 minutes trimming all of that stuff off and cubing the meat (scraps go to the dog, obviously).

Ingredients:
1kg boneless lamb, cubed
1 large onion
1 carrot
1 stick of celery
4-5 button mushrooms
1 portobello cap
1/2 green pepper
4 potatoes
2 t dry coriander
2 T ketchup
1 t red thai chili paste
1 t Frank's hot sauce
1 t cayenne pepper
1 T worcester sauce
1 heineken
1 cup red wine
1 cup of water (replace with more beer to taste)
s + p

First I browned the meat on all sides, in butter and olive oil. Once every piece was browned, I transfered that to another bowl and sauteed the onions, carrots, peppers, mushrooms and celery in the same pan. After a moment of them softening up, I turned up the heat a bit and added the heineken to deglaze (scrape the pan to get the lamby bits). After a moment, I added all of the spices, a big squeeze of ketchup, another big squeeze of red chili sauce, and a cup of red wine. I then transferred the lamb back into the pot, realized I didn't have enough beer to fill the pot to the top, and added about a cup of water instead.

Cover, and let simmer for about a half hour before adding in the potatoes (unless you don't mind slightly mushier potatoes, where you should just toss them in immediately). After an additional hour (1.5 hours cooking total) the lamb and taters were tender and the broth really smelled strongly of lamb. Some salt + pepper and it's done.

Wow, that sounds good Supafrey! Feel free to post pics of your meals anytime. You inspire me.

My perfect roast potatoes

Roast spuds are essential with roast meat IMO and I'm always interested in different techniques. To start you off, here's my standby:

Use proper roasting potatoes - King Edwards, Maris Piper etc.

Peel and cut into chunks that are roughly the same size.

Boil. Don't just parboil, get them so they would be soft enough to eat even without roasting.

Leave in a colander for at least 10 minutes so that they lose as much water as possible.

Meantime put your baking tray with lots of olive oil into the oven the heat up (NB you can use the same tray as your meat is roasting in and this is preferable. I never have enough room personally. Other oils can be used and goose fat is probably the best).

Put the roasting tray on a low/medium flame on the hob. Shake your spuds up a bit in the colander so they fluff (you get crispier endges this way). Put your spuds in and turn rapidly so that they are all covered in oil.

Place in the top shelf of the oven at 180-200 deg cent for 50-60 mins turning about every 20 mins.

Hmm.. since this IS technically a food blog, here's a review I did for Sushi of Gari for some friends (warning: tl;dr) :

"Calling myself a foodie would probably be an insult to the true purebreds of the species: hyper-literate, obsessive food geeks that love gadgetry and infused oils as if they were their children. I am, at best, an average cook with a passion for good food and the habits of an unpretentious food critic. That aside, I relish any opportunity to try new meals from inspired chefs, and I just came back from New York city having done just that.

Sushi of Gari (402 East 78th Street, NYC) is a humbly-sized, intimate restaurant that specializes in modern versions of classical Japanese cuisine. For those of you who may not keep up with fine dining (and really, who actually does?) you should first know that this place was awarded a highly-coveted Michelin star rating, which is given to a select group of international restaurants that offer unparalleled dining experiences. In all of New York (a fine dining mecca) there are only 3 restaurants with the highest Michelin rating (3 stars), 5 with 2 stars, and less than two dozen with a single star. Getting even a single star is a ridiculously big deal for an aspiring chef, and to my knowledge no Canadian restaurant currently holds one. They're (literally) worth a fortune.

With this in mind, one would naturally expect more than just a simple meal from Chef Gari ... a challenge he is more than ready for. He is undeniably an artist - his love of modern Japanese fusion is only matched by his apparent hatred of soy sauce, which he claims ruins the vast majority of properly prepared sushi. After trying over a dozen of his immaculately prepared dishes, each with their own unique flavour balance and texture, it's hard to disagree with the man - putting soy sauce on sushi this good would be absurd. The salty soy has a place alongside the nigiri he serves, but even then only sparingly... as much as you may enjoy the stuff, it serves only to whitewash over his perfectly crafted blends of subtle flavours.

Okay - enough hype... what about the food?

I was dining with a pair of my friends and all three of us decided on Gari's Omikase dinner, an unknown sampling of the Chef's favourite dishes that serve as a tasting menu for the night. Like most tasting menus, this format allows for the most leeway in terms of creativity, and also affords the customer the privilege of sampling only the freshest cuts of fish that the restaurant has to offer. Tasting menus are (quite appropriately) usually fairly expensive, but allow for the chef to show off their best skills across a handful of dishes, experimenting with unique combinations of flavours that would otherwise be too risky for a single plate... At their best, modern Japanese tasting menus are exciting and creative, artfully presented, and leave you wondering as to how so many diverse dishes could come together so perfectly to comprise a "meal". At their worst, Japanese fusion is pretentious and overdone, masking wonderful ingredients under heavy sauces and eccentric foams or clumsy platings. Thankfully for Japanese "purists", Gari's had much more of the former, and far less of the latter.

Highlights of the meal:

First course:
Yam appetizer (light, creamy)
Mountain veggies in a vinaigrette (chewy, vinegary... a light salad in sharp contrast to the yam)
Black sesame tofu cube (Our favourite appetizer. Soft and creamy texture, with a nice hit of black sesame flavour. It leaves you wanting a full plate of the stuff.)

2nd course (Nigiri!):
bluefin tuna with creamy tofu sauce
2 gorgeous slices of toro (fatty tuna)
Shrimp tartar with lemon

3d course (Sushi! - only the most notable of our 15+ dishes mentioned):
Salmon topped with warm sauted tomatoes
Octopus in a monkfish liver sauce
Seared toro with marinated onions and crispy garlic
Black miso cod
Grilled oyster with roasted pistachio and rice, in shell
King clam with seaweed
Grilled toro
Abalone
Yellow-fin
Red snapper with salad and crispy wafer
Mackerel w/ marinated radish


My three favourite pieces of the night were probably the toro nigiri, the salmon topped with warm tomatoes, and the fried oyster. The red-tail was phenomenal. The toro was thick and beautifully marbled, and literally melted in your mouth... Gari is famous for the quality of his tuna and it was obvious why; This isn't your typical spicy tuna roll, but rather an oily delight of freshly cut tuna of the finest variety. The toro absolutely shines in all of Gari's different takes on the fish (it was present in 4 of our dishes), but the basic nigiri is where you can really appreciate just how good this stuff really is. I savoured every bit.

The salmon gets the silver medal because it best exemplifies Gari's greatest skill as a chef: surprises. I tried my best to eat every dish in the order they were presented, and hoped Gari would be taking us through a discernible beginning, middle and end with his dishes. Again, he didn't disappoint. Every single time you begin to wonder if you could handle another cold, salty piece of fish, it seemed as if Gari could magically sense your trepidation and reward you with a drastically differing morsel with a brand new texture and flavour combination. The salmon was the third piece of fish I had eaten, and after the first two I started to think I was beginning to understand what Gari was doing with his meal... the second that warm tomato hit my lips I let out a shocked gasp at the unexpected surprise... My companions were equally surprised and we all let out a communal "wow" at how incredible it was to be trying warm sushi at the exact moment we were all beginning to tire of the flavours we were quickly becoming accustomed to. Gari played with these temperature shifts throughout the entire meal, and did a similar trick with the textures as well. Every dish was a complete work in and of itself, but they also further seemed to magically fit in perfect harmony with the other three pieces from the course. Crunchy, salty, creamy, or crisp, each piece of sushi presented a unique experience that none of us had ever tried before.

Speaking of rarities, the fried oyster was served hot, in-shell, with a crispy pistachio topping and a wonderful surprise of gooey natural-flavoured rice nestled underneath. It was rich, decadent and delightfully fishy, all at the same time, and served as a satisfying end to our sushi after it was accidentally brought out as our final piece (the fresh and spicy mackerel with radish was supposed to be our cool, crisp finisher but there was a small delay with the oyster).

We then had fried vanilla ice cream with strawberry sauce for dessert. Yum.

In terms of negatives, there are very few to mention. We had an 8:30 reservation, and after getting crammed between two wealthy couples by the booths, we asked our waiter if we could move to a slightly more private area (which they immediately obliged). With most tasting menus, you REALLY should sit at the bar, which is usually a highly-prized seating area as you often get to interact with otherwise notoriously stoic chefs. On the other hand, we were three hungry 20-somethings with loud voices and a habit of telling jokes, so we sat slightly farther away with some semblance of privacy... I'd probably try the bar next time, if only for the experience.

The waiters were courteous and knowledgeable, and they kept our lone bottle of sake on ice throughout the meal and were ready to refill our glasses when they became half full. I'm not a wine fan, but the sake was clean and crisp, and was a great recommendation from our waiter that didn't interfere with any of the fish. Their explanations of each dish was a bit rushed, and I had to ask them to repeat some of them a few times to battle through their accents and slightly hurried tone. Additionally, I was a bit put off by how closely the host seemed to be hovering near our table, as the restaurant is admittedly rather small and the front door was awfully close by. We didn't feel rushed, but these small touches (along with the rather plain decor) are probably the only reasons Sushi of Gari wasn't awarded 2 or 3 Michelin stars. The food is incredible, but I could see many people being put off by the price, as our meal was over $400 for the sushi alone (the sake was ~$100, plus taxes and tips). Still.. you only live twice, and for many people this kind of a meal is a once in a lifetime experience that should be relished wholeheartedly. If you want to save a few bucks, just try the chef's toro dinner and I promise you'll have an absolutely marvelous time, but if you're truly looking for an example of perfect Omikase, you've got to give the larger meal a try. The sushi purist in you may be skeptical when you see some of the diverse "modern" creations Sushi of Gari comes up with, but I promise you won't be disappointed. I sure as heck wasn't."

Meals like that sound like one of the better reasons to get rich.

Just got an electric yoghurt maker. (It does not make electric yoghurt.) Very interested in seeing how the product turns out. It will make yoghurt much cheaper than storebought, and without all the sugar and chemical weirdness.

I bought a couple different cultures to start off with, and if you have live cultures from the store-bought stuff, you can use that too. Different starters, different flavors. Anyway, I love yoghurt and am keen on seeing how this turns out. Got a great book, "The Book of Yoghurt," that has really great looking recipes I'd love to try too. You can substitute yoghurt for lots of dairy stuff, like mayo and cream cheese and sour cream etc., with the right recipe, which sounds kind of fun to try. And there are all those Middle-Eastern and Eastern European ways to use the stuff, so I think there are lots of fun experiments in store here.

I'll start off slow, go into some cold soups and sauces next maybe, and see what happens. Even if I like nothing but regular yoghurt consumed as is, this still seems kinda fun and cool to me.

There's an Afghan dish I used to eat at restaurants and tried to make myself a few times. I can't remember the name. But it was sort of a beefaroni. But yogurt was mixed with the tomato sauce. So delicous.

I am really interested to see how this turns out for you. It sounds like a lot of fun and potentially cost saving. The all natural yogurt (only ingredients are milk and culture) I get is really expensive.

I cooked this tonight with a few modifications. One, I added some mild italian sausage. Two, I took Katy up on her cream suggestion, and 3, I added a tbsp or two of flour to help the sauce thicken w/ the cream. Oh, and I used spaghetti instead of angel hair. Still, this was quite tasty.

Next up, Blarg's soup.