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kagredon

Let's Get Drunk Watching: Game of Thrones

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SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER

"Slam Your Drink: If any major character dies."

...there's gonna be a lot of people calling in "sick" on the Mondays after the last episode or two.

Let's Get Drunk Watching: Game of Thrones

My rules for the last two seasons were pretty simple: a sip for every instance of nudity, death, or alcohol.

(This really accentuates how much both Cersei and Tyrion drink. I'm not sure there's a single episode in season 2 where neither one drinks.)

What was the first dish you called your own?

A tomato-cream sauce that I got from some "Easy 20-minute recipes" book when I was around 12. It was very, very standard (pasta, olive oil, canned tomatoes, heavy cream, garlic, sherry), but the adults in my family would encourage me to make it (probably because it was something that everyone could enjoy and that the kid could make without supervision or destroying the kitchen, heh), so it became "my" recipe.

Richard Blais's Aioli

Boiling for 6 minutes seems like waaaaay too long, though. That gets you a soft-boiled egg, not a pasteurized-but-still-liquidy one.

Richard Blais's Aioli

"1 Fill a small saucepan with 3 inches of water and bring to a boil over medium heat. With a slotted spoon, lower the egg into the water and boil for 6 minutes. Remove the egg and put it in a small bowl of cold water until cool enough to handle. Peel the egg."

What the hell?

Crispy Buffalo Fried Cauliflower (Vegan)

So, if you were making a vegetarian-but-not-vegan version of this recipe, would you use butter to dress it? Or is the oil version better for the particular taste/texture? (I know that it's not directly testable right now, but any conjecture?)

Please Stop Pairing Red Wine and Chocolate

"Here's why the combination of red wine and chocolate is never going to truly taste good. Sugar. A sip of dry red wine without any perceptible sweetness will turn bitter and sour when taken with sweetened chocolate."

>>implying all red wine is dry
>>implying all chocolate is sweet

Serious Entertaining: 'I'm Sick, Make Me My Dinner!'

Thorium is an alpha-emitting heavy metal, so I would hope your kale isn't packed with it (I think that was supposed to be thiamine.)

Get well soon!

My mea culpa moment! My pantry door was left open....

Life's too short to be embarrassed by what you eat.

But for pantry teasing stories: one time I had friends over and they wound up looking into my pantry (no, I'm not sure why, apart from it being a magical den of many wonders.) They went through and counted how many different kinds of vinegar I had. It was an improbably high 9. It became a bit of an in-joke.

The Food Lab: Roast Turkey Breast For A Small Gathering

You could also buy some turkey legs if you don't have a butcher who will halve the turkey as JulietRomeo suggest, though I'm not sure how much adding dark meat would change the cooking time.

Salted Chocolate Pecan Pie

Is this just fantasy?

Crispy Enoki and Onion Fritters with Thai Curry Mayo

Would whiskey work in place of vodka? Or would the flavor clash with the other ingredients?

Where is Cakespy?

It's only been one week, and the Monday of that week was a holiday in the U.S.

Bottom Shelf Beer Olympics: Canada

Kokanee is pretty good (I prefer it to Molson's, haven't tried the others) and cheap, even as an import. It's pretty readily available in Washington state, but my understanding is that it's not that common out east in either Canada or the U.S.

Cook the Book: 'Susan Feniger's Street Food'

Tacos!

Simmered Quail with Mustard and Capers

Does this recipe actually use 6 quail...?

Rainbow Ice Cream Pops

"And the snozzberries taste like snozzberries!"

Ugh. Need restrictive diet dessert?

Is honey an option?

Hawksworth's Blue Lavender

Nice idea to have some non-alcoholic cocktails available too (though, if you wanted to booze it up, I bet this would be good with a shot of gin added.)

Where to Drink Coffee in Vancouver, BC

Aww, and this article comes right after I get back from a week-long trip to Vancouver, too! A lovely city with lots of great food/drink (though as far as US comparisons go, I'd say it's more like San Francisco....)

Forget Tahini; Make Hummus with Peanut Butter Instead

Why not just use sesame seeds?

The Best Cocktails We Drank in April

Is that sumac on the rim of the Alma Blanco? It's an interesting idea, I could see it tasting good with the agave/pineapple/corn combination.

Pickled Fiddlehead Ferns

Make sure you know what species of fern you're getting, some (ostrich ferns) can cause food poisoning if they're not cooked to temp:
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00032588.htm

The Vegan Experience Day 19: Breaking Down Bread

Good vegan sticky buns kind of makes sense, actually. Sticky buns already tend to be a bit denser than other baked goods, and the flavor is more citrusy/spicy than buttery, so the butter and eggs wouldn't be missed as much as they would in most other baked goods.

Vegan Kimchi As Good As The Real Thing

Could doenjang be used in the place of red miso, or is there something preferable about the taste/texture of the miso?

Appliance Showdown: There Can Be Only One

My microwave died this week, the victim of a short circuit. (Or the socket may have been the victim of the microwave. Not really sure.) Anyway, I've been coveting a stand mixer for a while, but holding off because the only counter space it could fit on was...occupied by the microwave. So now, I'm weighing the relative pros and cons: could I learn to live with rewarming everything with the coffeemaker/stove/oven if it meant constant fresh bread? (The real answer is "get a bigger apartment", but darn it, I love my 15 minute walking commute more than any appliance. Though I'm not sure I love it more than the combination of a microwave, mixer, and dishwasher....)

What would you choose, if you could only get (keep?) one? What are other appliance/kitchen space dilemmas you've faced?

What do you do when a recipe doesn't turn out?

So, this Sunday I made green rice, and...I really didn't like it. (Not a slam on the recipe--I didn't salt it enough, and I think maybe I just don't care for the taste/aroma of leeks, this being my first time eating them.) Still, it seemed like a terrible waste to throw out what amounted to nearly a week's worth of meals, so I started throwing some Vietnamese chili paste over it, since I'll eat pretty much anything with chili paste on it. Tonight, I tried some canned chipotles, and it was quite tasty--the smokiness kind of balances things out.

Now I'm curious: what things have you tried to doctor up food that you might otherwise not want to eat?

Dinner Tonight: Porcini-Rubbed Pork Chops

Dinner Tonight: Porcini-Rubbed Pork Chops

I'm relatively familiar with the wonder that is the porcini mushroom. Usually sold dried, they are probably the most meaty, heady, fragrant mushrooms readily available for the home cook. But I've never seen a use for porcinis quite like this. In this recipe from Friday Night Dinners, they're ground up into a powder to become the backbone of a dry rub that's complemented by dry mustard and garlic powder. More