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Weekend Cook and Tell: Pancakes Anytime

I feel guilty now, I would have posted pictures but the pancakes were scarfed before the camera got to action.

This year's pancakes? Green Thai chicken, cream cheese and spinach.

Sous Vide Smells?

Red meat = High in Iron = Iron trapped in steam ala smell
Red meat + Proteins breaking down = Bloody = Phosphates dissolve into the steam ala smell
Those are a couple of things I can think off...

Thin is now IN, Holidays are OUT

I don't know, it's pretty fun to be interesting with healthy foods.

Wholegrain savoury pancakes filled with Mexican shredded chicken, anyone?
Tin of Mackerel with sweated onions, baked with a topping of slivered sweet potato?
Lemon Sole on a bed of Lemon and parsley stewed Harricot beans?!

How exciting is this website?

Allo Miss Rebecca! Guy from the same side of the pond here!

One thing I'd definitely say about this site is go photograzing.

Some of the most important things you pick up here isn't recipes, but techniques. It's not s much what you cook with but HOW you cook. (Food sci 101!)

Weekend Cook and Tell: Cranberry Confidential

Strange, I'm going to be entering a baking competition on the weekend and I have a cranberry themed idea in mind...

TO THE KITCHENS!

The Tinier the Crummier

Personally I find the tiny desserts to be the tastiest!

Think truffles, think baby figs and mascarpone, think brownies, think... well normal desserts in tiny receptacles.

'Tis a shame about the dry cupcakes, I've found the tiny ones don't dry if the butter is fairly cold when you use it. (The butter 'melts' whilst cooking, meaning the more of water molecules in it are going from solid to liquid instead of liquid to gas.)

Crazy for Condiments

Custard is a given. Come on, if people can eat creme brule (custard with a fancy crust) straight or ice cream straight (frozen custard) then what's wrong with eating it in pure form straight?

Custard is simply a dessert version of soup in my mind.

Oh, I also eat mango chutney like crazy. Kay, I have no excuses, but I don't care if the world judges me!

foods to avoid on a date...

AVOID ribs. There is NO way you can eat that whilst trying to look sophisticated, and no, a top hat won't do it either.

How many do you have, and what spices can you not be without?

I have a lot of spices, that is all I know. Oh, and;

A life without cloves is a life without Winter.
A life without mint is a life without Spring.
A life without paprika is a life without Summer.
A life without cinnamon is a life without Autumn.

What to serve with duck breast?

How about some roasted red cabbage with a shredded bramley apple? Or some rice noodles with a balsamic reduction drizzled 'oh so seductively' on top? Some white rice with a splash of Cointreau?

What food smell do you hate?

The specific orange scent of Cointreau. Too much good and just a little bad can turn you against something for a lifetime. I don't think much more explanation is needed.

Fast Fixes after Screwing Up

Mayo cooking isn't dangerous, but still careful when heating it. Don't forget, it's got an egg base. It just might set on ya.
@_@'

My nourishment is talking to me... o_O

@ecca31; I don't know why but when I read your comment I was worried an argument would pop up about how a diet coke can sounds different to a regular coke can or something. I have known the type...

Personally I love the sound of when people actually enjoy the flavour of the food I cooked with a passion. You know, that sort of basal humming as they chew.
...
Actually I just might know some odd people. (:o)

Poll: Fruit on Pizza - Way or No Way?

One of the best pizzas I have ever had was a walnut, pear and gorgonzola pizza. Oh my, heaven on a bread base.

Harvard's New 'Healthy Eating Plate' Provides Alternative to USDA's MyPlate

@Ajmill1978; I understand where you are coming from, but when I say 'the meals balance out' I mean it in the standpoint of metabolic change too. The concepts I find wrong on the plate is that it gives the impression that people should be consuming the exact same balance at every meal. A carb heavy meal would be much preferred in the morning when the energy will be used up than in the evening, when carbohydrate metabolism slows down and instead gets stored. A protein rich meal would be better in the evening when the amino acids would be used to repair during the hours of slumber, etc.

A good better idea in my mind is maybe a 3 plate plan, so that people KNOW when they should be eating the different dietary components. Perhaps even better would be somehow explaining deanadoll's point, but I'm not quite sure how to fit all of that onto an A4 piece of paper. With pictures.

Harvard's New 'Healthy Eating Plate' Provides Alternative to USDA's MyPlate

I find the MyPlate concept wrong to begin with. We get our nutrition over the course of an entire day. Trying to give the basic concepts in 'plate' form makes it seem that every plateful we have has to be perfectly balanced, instead of the reality that we can have carb rich and protein rich platefuls, they just need to even out over time.

19 Ginger Dessert Recipes We Love

Ginger adds a really nice zing to a lemon cheesecake crust.

Crush ginger nut biscuits to make the crust instead of digestives!

Ironically ginger would then help your digestion more than digestive biscuits...

Oh, sorry. American.

Coo-kies.

Bake the Book: 'The Cookiepedia'

Technically shortbread, but I plan on making a much more interesting breakfast apple cheesecake cookie. Quark cheese, Bramley apples, Steel cut oats. Lovely and fairly healthy.

Recipes you can't screw up

Chilli Con Carne, Cottage pie, Shepards pie, Bolognese sauce. They all seem to follow the same basic technique and I don't think they can be messed up by ANYBODY.

Fine Dining - who understands/appreciates it?

Fine dining is only fine in my mind if you happen to have fine company. Food should be the matter of conversation, not the centre of attention because, really, how can you enjoy it without having a bit of talking fun at the same time?

SE Staff Picks: What's Your Favorite Taco Filling?

I feel like I have had a depraved life now, only having had taco's a couple of times AND I'M A STUDENT.

What I lived with was crepes with different fillings, my favourite being salmon, asparagus, spinach and cream cheese. So decadent. So nice...

Sponsored Giveaway: Enter to Win Tervis Products

My favourite cup isn't that usable. It's a lovely twirly shape that means it is aesthetically magnificent but you dribble if you try anything as brass as DRINKING from it. There is ONE angle that works, but at that point you have the handle in your mouth.

Are you a keeper or a giver?

I like the taste of slightly burnt food, my family don't.

It works out no hassle for us!

But portion wise I will always give the other person the larger piece. Been taught that since childhood.

Your most fun dish to make!

I love cooking risotto! Simply standing there, stirring rice slowly, adding ingredients to the pot at set times... The smells of spices beginning to infuse the air, steam rising from the pot... so relaxing. Like a bubble bath but hopefully less toxic chemicals.

But then I also love cooking stir fry. When I cook it everything goes wrong with everything flying around but the end result always turns out right. What's not to love?

Do You Drink Soy Milk Over Other Milks?

Strangely I find it tastes better in tea than regular milk even when it separates but sadly I do not enjoy this any more. I originally went for it due to the health benefits but after the testosterone/oestrogen debate came up about it...

Didn't help that I found out that it also didn't agree with my system. (Even sadder was that I found this out on a 6 1/2 hour train journey, but that is a story for another day.)

Soy Ice Cream is surprisingly nice also.

Best of the odd combinations?

Duck a l'orange
Pear and gorgonzola
Bacon and maple syrup

All dishes that are widely accepted in this day and age but do you think they didn't raise that empirical brow when first conceived? Odd combinations that work deliciously together, even though one might not expect as much, and after speaking to people it seems everyone has one that they attribute their name to!

A personal passion which people ponder is scrambled egg on granary toast with marmalade.

S-Eaters of the world, what is your inventive combo?!

Homemade Bagels, à la Jo Goldenberg

Homemade Bagels, à la Jo Goldenberg

[Photographs: Adam Kuban] This is my go-to recipe for homemade bagels. It's adapted from Bernard Clayton's Complete Book of Breads. Clayton, in turn, got the recipe from the folks at the now-defunct Jo Goldenberg's, the famous Jewish restaurant and delicatessen... More