Prog Chefs Unite!!!

I'll certainly give it a go - since making Goulash with pork I've not gone back to using beef in that yet.

I always toast spices beforehand, rather than adding them to the liquid - this is the way they do things in India, where they know a thing or two about using spices. As to the problem of getting a spice-flavoured pan afterwards, I find that using good-quality nonstick cookware is a good solution.

Back to chili, I know that Texans frown upon adding either beans or tomatoes. Personally, I can do without beans (though I like them), but not without tomatoes - it's probably the Italian in me speaking. Yesterday I used cubed beef instead of ground, and the results were excellent. We'll definitely have the leftovers for lunch, together with the cornbread. I've yet to try pork in chili, but I'll be sure to do so in the near future. With the weather we've been having lately, it's just what the doctor ordered!

Salt to make the skin super crunchy? We tend to throw away left over chili onece before it even grows a skin...

Deep fried shrimp and rice pilaf tonight.  

Unless we go out some place: Today is our eleven year "dating" anniversary. 

(Even though we never really "dated" since we met online and saw each other about three times a year )


Edited by Epignosis - February 06 2010 at 08:14

Talking of what, I'll have to think about what to do on Valentine's Day... I suppose a heart-shaped chocolate cake is in order!

Dean wrote: Even though we love to cook, I think there would be little disagreement from us old romantics in which option to go for.

Yes, but we're poor and anyway we will likely have to watch my wife's four-year-old brother tonight.

My wife says she has a surprise for me today; I know it isn't sex, because she mentioned it costs $32. 

Epignosis wrote: Dean wrote: Even though we love to cook, I think there would be little disagreement from us old romantics in which option to go for. Yes, but we're poor and anyway we will likely have to watch my wife's four-year-old brother tonight. My wife says she has a surprise for me today; I know it isn't sex, because she mentioned it costs $32.

Shrimp and Pilaf it is then

I had a job in a kitchen once as a summer job as the chef's slave. Anybody ever made Hollandaise sauce? Well it's a bitch at 4:30 in the morning with a pounding hangover kicking in and separating the egg white from the egg yolk, whisking and pouring the clarified butter. And then when it breaks you have to start all over again.  Then you open your big mouth and your girlfriend's mother finds out that you can make the sh*t from scratch and thinks that your some sort of saucier and thinks it's really great to have a man in the kitchen and everytime you come over for breakfast you have to make it so you can have eggs bennedict. Believe it or not I can still remember how to make it with the reduction, clarified butter, lemon juice, a pinch of tobasco. It's the subject of many hellish nightmares.

Edited by Vibrationbaby - February 06 2010 at 11:43

Angelo wrote: Ham with thyme and honey tonight, served with fried patatoes slices and courgette.

oh ... yeah

Vibrationbaby wrote: I had a job in a kitchen once as a summer job as the chef's slave. Anybody ever made Hollandaise sauce? Well it's a bitch at 4:30 in the morning with a pounding hangover kicking in and separating the egg white from the egg yolk, whisking and pouring the clarified butter. And then when it breaks you have to start all over again.  Then you open your big mouth and your girlfriend's mother finds out that you can make the sh*t from scratch and thinks that your some sort of saucier and thinks it's really great to have a man in the kitchen and everytime you come over for breakfast you have to make it so you can have eggs bennedict. Believe it or not I can still remember how to make it with the reduction, clarified butter, lemon juice, a pinch of tobasco. It's the subject of many hellish nightmares.

you should read Tony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential for tons of similar stories, a great read