Mods y u no put food & drink forum link in lefthand column?

Allegedly coming sometime next week

hopefully sidebar link will show up soon.

excited to see your contributions.

This is long overdue, but mega kudos on presentation, they always look great, I suck in that department. Too match-matchy and symmetrical, I'm trying to learn to be more abstract (if thats possible)

Thoughts on how this would turn out cooked on a Foreman grill?

I am SO PUMPED with how these gnocchi turned out. I came up with the idea of a 'steak and potatoes' dish where the potatoes is gnocchi done in the style of a baked potato. And it gave me an excuse to try out homemade creme fraiche thickened by the xanthan gum I just got in the mail. I think the creme fraiche would be good a little thinner, but the gnocchi overall was absolutely amazing. It tasted so good and it went perfectly with the steak. You could close your eyes and taste baked potato but it looked elegant on the plate and still had perfect gnocchi texture.

Since Wylie Dufresne talks about using "meat glue" to extrude a shrimp puree in the shape of noodles, I wonder if someone has done some sort of modernist cooking technique to make some sort of "steak" gnocchi to go with potato gnocchi. Perhaps tossed with a pureed vegetable sauce to do a take on the traditional meat/starch/veg trinity.

Not a great pic, but made a turkey using Alton's method



Being of the 'let's make everything as difficult as possible' school of thought, I actually made the veggie stock myself thinking "well, I have a ton of carrots and onions, this should be cheaper than $2 / quart stock that trader Joe's has". WRONG. Especially when you have to go to whole foods late night to pick up some $2/lb celery.

Despite that monetary setback, the stock turned out nice (though it was only used for brine - so massive waste) as did the turkey. Very moist and the brine imparted light flavor that wasn't overpowering.

I kinda botched the planning as I didn't bother to make any dressings (need to put together a killer sausage stuffing recipe), and didn't even bother to make gravy (which was a shame as the drippings were DELICIOUS and I ended up just throwing most of them away).

Still, great recipe overall.

Yeah, if you're making stock, whether it be chicken or vegetable or something else, the cost-effective way to do it is to save the trimmings from your regular cooking and make the stock when you have enough.

a few things I made last week. plating and photography went by the wayside

Gordon Ramsay's Crispy Salmon with warm potato and crab salad


Chicken liver pate with onion jam and maple bacon (going for a liver and onions sort of deal), probably the most delicious thing I made last week though it looks like dogfood.



Scarpetta Spaghetti, winged it with this one, should have used less olive oil but flavor was really nice.



pseudo Linguini pad kee mao topped with fried eggs

gnocchi recipe? my girlfriend dies for that stuff but we only buy it in the store. how would you rate the difficulty?

picked up some steamer clams from costco here in scottsdale...

butter
onions
bacon
garlic
beer
salt/pepper

simmered for 5-7 mins and then brought to a boil then added clams

served with crispy bread

clams cooking



finished product, some of the clams actually slipped out of their shell so I had to go fishing in the broth (no worries there)

forgot to mention the obvious lemon slices and squeezed lemons over the clams during cooking

Insanely easy. If I had to choose one thing to make with a child that he would be able to help with every step, it would be gnocchi.

Cook a potato however you like. It helps if it's slightly overcooked and dry, and dry methods are preferred. I actually cut two potatoes in half and microwaved them for like 10 minutes. Use a potato ricer and rice it into a bowl. Wait for it to cool so you can work with the potato easily with your hands (it will be very hot). Add an egg, some salt, and some flour and combine all. Work it into a dough, moist but not sticky. It's good not to overwork it but you definitely don't want it sticky.

Roll the dough into a half inch thick log on a cutting board. Cut the gnocchi however long you want. Put some dimples on it with the tines of a fork. Boil some water, drop the gnocchi in. When it rises to the top, wait a few seconds and pull them out.

They're ready to sauce however you like now. The preparation of those in the picture were done by sauteeing them in brown butter to get some texture, tossing them with chives and grating sharp cheddar. Parm-reg is more traditional though. Pesto sauce is awesome.

All,

Lately I've been cooking a lot of omelets and burgers.

For learning how to make omelets, I really love this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57afEWn-QDg
I like the second style, the classic french omelet (starts around 3min in).



For burgers, I've been trying a bunch of different recipes from http://aht.seriouseats.com/recipes/?ref=sectionnav

My favorite so far has been this super simple recipe: http://aht.seriouseats.com/archives/...?ref=obnetwork

I add some cheese, grilled diced onions, and a sauce of 40% ketchup, 20% mayo, 20% mustard, 20% relish.

Looking for recommendations for a potato ricer.

PG,

Depending on what you're looking to do, you may want to consider getting a food mill instead. I have this one: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B000I0MGKE

If you have the chance, go buy it in a store. A potato ricer should be decently heavy. The first one I bought years ago was cheap tin and it bent and warped every time I used it.

Otherwise, this one looks decent enough.

http://www.oxo.com/p-1164-3-in-1-adj...ato-ricer.aspx

This is the one I'm using. It may be the best purchase I've ever made in my life.

is the main application of the ricer in the gnocchi to finely mash it, separate the skin from the potato, or both? can i get away with doing this without buying a $30 gadget?

I think you can definitely get by mashing the potatoes by hand, it'll just take a bit more work. If they're still not fine enough, you can press them through a fine mesh strainer for the same (if not finer) effect. Even a food processor or mixer might work well for you as the potatoes are pretty soft by the time you're 'mashing' them. It just depends on what you have. A ricer is not mandatory.

a+ curd on that omelet, diablo.

Anybody got a good recommendation for a relatively cheap non-stick pan? My 10" pan hasn't been non stick for quite a while and needs replacing.

I picked this up about 2 months ago:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...ls_o05_s00_i00

No complaints so far. Good reviews too.

Not to be snobby, but I legitimately don't remember the last time I used a non-stick pan. They're just so hard to keep in good shape if ANYONE else uses them. It's the same with a nice knife, though in that case, it's a little easier to tuck away in a safe place.

That said, this place has 30% off your first item, and I've been pretty happy with the Cuisinart set I got from Costco (which actually my GF who uses our non-stick stuff bought an entire set pretty cheap - so another place to check out for sure). Check em out. Also - for anyone who wants to go through the pain of trying to figure out how to season carbon steel with me - they have De Buyer french skillets as well (which I may get the smaller version of just because).

http://www.casa.com/subcat=Cookware-...ans+-and-+Woks