Sunday, I served Mexican: grilled chicken chili verde. After this meal, my fiance told me I was the best cook he had ever known. :D!!



( Click for recipe. )

There's this spanish dish that I *really* want to make for a special friend of mine. But I have no recipe and no clue. The dish is beef enchiladas with a green chili sauce. I know nothing about this! Could really use some input here.

I got a jar of Tahini the other day to make some hummus with (OMG, so good, I hate the store kind but this is a whole different animal!) and now have a whole peanutbutter jar size left. Oh dear.
I know ill be making hummus again, but, there has to be more to tahini than hummus. What do you do with it?

I also picked up a bottle of chili oil. The taste tells me its what's been missing from my peanut noodles & asian dishes, but I would love some specific recipes to experiment with this lovely condiment.

Extra credit if they involve seasame oil, the dark roasty kind, as I aquired some of that, too.

Also looking for a whole wheat tortilla recipe that doesn't taste like a shoe. Last night's attempt was totally a shoe. >.< can be a wheat/white blend if it has to be.

I need help!

(if this is too off topic, please feel free to remove, but I know that the community members here are my best shot and finding what I'm looking for!)

I'm going to a family reunion at the end of the month. I have a large family and we all love to give each other gifts and we all love FOOD. So, the obvious gift choice for me is food items, but I want to find really cool kind of obscure foods that would make interesting gifts. I picked up a chili-cinnimon chocolate bar recently, which is good, and some black sea salt, but I need more ideas. If anyone knows of a website that sells things like this, please pass it along! 

There are no real parameters - my family loves everything and especially loves trying new things.

TIA!!!

Quick and delicious food!

( Pasta with gravlax )

( Sweet chili chicken with couscous )

crossposted to my lj.

After three years of doing nearly all of my cooking in a 3 quart dutch oven, I received a 7 quart Le Creuset as a welcome-home gift from my mother. I think that it was equal parts gift and clue that she wanted me to take over cooking for the family, so I christened the pot with a giant batch of Texas red chili, recipe courtesy of Homesick Texan.


(click the photo for a slightly less pixelated version)

It's wetter than Homesick's, which I put down my family's absurd ideas about was constitutes a "cup" of coffee, but it tasted great and passed the spoon test so I'm counting it as a success.

Now I have a question for all of you more experienced foodies: would this reversible cast iron grill pan work on an induction cooktop? I learned to cook on gas, but while I was in London my family moved to a house with an induction cooktop and I'm still getting used to it. Would the pan heat evenly if laid across two different sized burners? Would it somehow damage the cooktop?

Thanks in advance!

Cross-posted to my site 101 Things Every Cook Should Cook



Lamb and lentils, lots of spices, this is a real midweek treat. That photo doesn't do it justice, I promise it's tastier than it looks. It takes less than an hour to make, and is a surprisingly low fat curry - always a bonus when you want Indian food but can't be doing with the usual pints of cream and/or oil it often involves. You can make it with chicken or beef, but I like it with lamb because it's a good way to use a tasty cheap cut like lamb neck.

Don't be put off by the list of ingredients, I bet you have half the stuff in your cupboard anyway and if you don’t then buying them will be a good investment for future Indian-food-making. And the world won't end if you miss out a few ingredients or have to improvise.

( Instructional Gubbins )

A leprechaun must have healed my camera yesterday, because the surly photo snapper that was refusing to upload photos for so long is now willing to share them with my computer once more! I must admit I feel a little ripped off since with a pot o' gold I could have just purchased a newer, better camera, but I'll take what I can get.
So now, I bring to you, my stash of amateur porn!

( Bad lighting and poor focus make it seem dirty AND sexy . . . )

There are some even more outdated photos I took earlier in the year, but I thought this would be enough for now. Let's just hope that my camera keeps functioning properly so I don't have to keep making my porn submissions in installments!

Today someone asked for a red enchilada sauce and I just found one that is as close to authentic as one can get. Keep in mind that traditional red enchiladas are made without any kind of meat and the sauce is made from a puree of only red chilies. In fact, most Mexicans will tell you that the only meat that should be used in enchiladas is chicken and that is usually done when using green chile sauce. No tomatoes are to be put in the sauce either since that would make them entomatadas (in tomato) rather than enchiladas (in chile). Also we never use any kinds of whole, chunky veggies in our enchiladas since enchiladas are a very simplistic kind of food that are essentially prepared using the dip roll and eat method. On the street in Mexico, you will find them dipped in sauce first, then fried briefly on a griddle and then plated with a sprinkling of queso fresco. Very simple, easy street fare. If you do plan to make the sauce from scratch I would suggest making extra because it freezes quite well and improves in flavor over time.


( recipe under the cut )

I can make a killer tomatillo enchilada sauce (green), but I've been using a pre-packaged kind for the red enchilada sauce and the taco seasonings, one that my hubby just loves.

Now I've been a good little food pornista and I've done a bit of reasearch and found several different red enchilada and taco seasoning recipes, but I'm looking for _your_ tried and true one.

My only other request is that it tastes as close to the packaged-store-bought products (or better!), either that or there may be a mutiny at the lovemonster household!

Thanks everyone... appreciate any and all feedback!
x-posted

Not only am I new to this community, but I've also never posted to a community before! How can that be?

I went dairy-free a month ago, as recommended by my boss (a naturopath). His wife gave me this outstanding recipe.

( Yams, Kale, and Smoky Quinoa... )

I myself am a complete chilli wuss. But this may interest some people.

Drilled chilli beef

Last night we prepared a recipe from the latest Bon Appetit magazine called, Bombay Sliders. I thought they sounded good but that turned out to be a major understatement, they were a mouthgasm! They were so good, in fact that cheferos asked me this morning, "Would it be appropriate to have sliders for breakfast?" with a hopeful look on his face. Moments later I sneezed and he said, "Oh honey, maybe you're allergic to the sliders. I guess I'll have to eat all the rest myself."

Um, yeah, I think NOT!


The sauce is sort of a curried aioli sauce. I made mine extra hot and spicy using Auntie Arwen's Fireball Freakout Hot Curry spice blend. I think the Hawaiian Rolls added another dimension, too, with their slightly sweet flavour.
( Recipe inside... )