What's for supper? (Chat)

Self | 8/22/04 | Self

[EvaClement]

What are FReepers fixing to eat during these hot August days? I try to have something substantial without heating up the kitchen. We have only a charcoal grill and concluded a few weeks back that it's too much work to use very often -- no doubt those w/ gas grills are using them regularly as they aren't as much trouble.

[Texan5]

I plug my crock pot in out on the deck if I use it in the summer.

Thanks for the recipe-I usually just throw my fajitas on the grill, and serve them with slices of onion, tomato, avocado, pico de gallo and avocado-with a small stack of tortillas and just let everyone roll their own, so to speak.

When I was a kid, my grandmother used to use an assembly line approach when she had a bunch of us grandkids visiting in the summer-for breakfast, she'd put a bowl of huevos con chorizo, a bowl of refried beans, a bowl of rice, picante sauce and tortillas-we'd pass the stuff around and make our own breakfast tacos. You had to be fast, though or the older kids would get all the eggs and sausage and all you'd be left with was rice and beans for your tacos.

[hispanarepublicana]

huevos con chorizo

Ahhh, I was just craving some good red chorizo with eggs this morning.......A delicacy that only a small part of the population knows and loves...... By the way, since you're into "non-processed", you might be interested to know that chorizo can be made "from scratch" at home. I have no idea how, but Mr. H.R. claims he did this when he had to live "Up North" for a while out of sheer desperation because he couldn't find it in the grocery stores. Of course, that was back before the Illegal Mexican Invasion of the Midwest.

[hispanarepublicana]

Yikes....I left out the 1 package of taco seasoning that the roast should be rubbed down with.

[Texan5]

I'd love to know how to do that-if he'll share the secret. My kidnapped yankee husband (met and nabbed him when he was stationed at Ft. Sam Houston) has come to love most of our Tex-Mex food-especially homemade chili. I was terrified that when he retired from the Army, he'd take a job offer from his home town (Seattle), and we'd have to move there but fortunately, he liked one he got here instead. I had heard that there are no tortillas, chorizo, or any of the other staples in Seattle. Between that lack, the constant rain and the liberals, I'd have hated living there.

[EvaClement]

Just back from Wal*Mart. The plastic microwave rice cooker is a different brand now, Mainstays, and costs $5.96, but it's there. Works just like a little pressure cooker.

One other thing, if you do get fastfood, try the Arby's chicken salad -- has grapes, apples, and walnuts in it.

[EvaClement]

Hi T5,

sounds great!

thanks, EvaClement

[EvaClement]

too funny, saving FReeper marriages and keeping FReeper children from starving during more active FReeper episodes. LOL.

Thanks!

[diamond6]

YUM!

[EvaClement]

[sounds wonderful!!! ... so the recipe including taco seasoning would be ... ]

CROCKPOT FAJITAS:

Rub one packet of taco seasoning onto a beef rump or shoulder roast.

Into a crockpot/slow cooker, stack in this order:
1 beef rump or shoulder roast
1 cup dried pinto beans, washed
1 small can chopped green chiles
1 can cream of mushroom soup, undiluted
1 onion, chopped
1 can Rotel chopped tomatoes and green chiles
1 can water
Stack in order above. DO NOT MIX. Cover and cook on low for 9 to 10 hours (the longer the better). DO NOT OPEN LID. DO NOT STIR. Do not even look at it until it's done. When done, remove all but the liquid from the crockpot and put into a large casserole dish. Drain off excess liquid. With large forks, shred the roast and mix up the whole thing.
Serve with flour tortillas and eat like fajitas. Garnish with cheese, sour cream, etc.
Makes A LOT of food.

[diamond6]

Two great sites for recipes would be Foodtv.com and allrecipes.com. The later has a rating scale where people not only rate, but add their comments, suggestions and revisions.

[EvaClement]

hi D6,

another site I like for recipes is

http://www.americanprofile.com/recipes/

thanks for your help!
EvaClement

[Clinging Bitterly]

One of my favorites (and I don't make it often enough), stolen from an old friend who actually made this meal for a feature in Sunset Magazine:

It has no name really, I'll just call it Al Fresco poached salmon fillet:

You can do this on a gas grill or charcoal.

Use a large shallow roasting dish or a cookie sheet with sides, line with foil.

Coat the bottom of the cooking dish with butter and place one or two salmon fillets skin side down. Spread softened butter on top of fillets, sprinkle with plenty of lemon pepper, and salt to taste. Pour beer over top of fish until it is about 1/4" deep in bottom of cooking dish.

Cook until fish is done halfway through (doesn't take long), pouring on more beer as needed to maintain liquid level. Carefully flip the fillets (to avoid breakage, it's easier with four hands and two large spatulas), then coat the cooked side with butter and sprinkle on more lemon pepper, and pour on a bit more beer. Cook until done (and again it will cook rather quickly), then flip skin side down onto a serving dish.

Garnish as desired. For dinner I suggest serving with grilled chunks of marinated summer vegetables and your favorite dipping sauce - but this also makes an excellent brunch served with egg dishes.

On the patio I use a gas grill for economy and convenience, but I almost think charcoal cooks better (I hate those gas grill flare ups) and have been thinking about getting one of those big charcoal grill carts with the warming chamber on the side.

Also indispensable on the patio is a Coleman Steel Belted cooler stocked with a variety of cold beers. The Steel Belted will melt about a bag of ice a day in the 80s, nothing else can touch it.

[EvaClement]

Beer on salmon?

Sounds wonderful. Thanks very much.

Speaking of salmon, I will put my salmon recipe in a separate post.

Thanks again.

[EvaClement]

Baked Fish
per Joy of Cooking by Irma S. Rombauer
pages 397-398
interspersed with my comments

Buy fresh salmon [four pieces, $8.14 at Wal-Mart SuperCenter]

Pierce fish skin several places w/ knife point. Squeeze lemon juice [and a little lime jc.] over both sides. Leave w/ skin-side up and put in fridge.

{If possible do the following in a Pyrex measuring cup, 1 c. or 2 c. size.}

In microwave use "defrost" setting to melt a stick of butter, must be REAL butter. Takes approx. six minutes if you use the DEFROST setting. Only takes one minute if you use the high setting but don't b/c it gets ruined easily that way. When melted, remove from microwave, let stand a few minutes.

Skim butter fat from the top, slowly pour clear yellow 'clarified' butter into a container, leaving milk solids in bottom of original container. The clarified butter should be kept near the stove where it will stay slightly warm so it doesn't solidify.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees -- no more. Line cookie sheet with aluminum foil, put rack on it, spray rack w/ baking spray [generic Pam Spray]. Place fish on rack, skin-side down at first. "Basting": with spoon, spread clarified butter on salmon, meat-side first, skin-side second, leave w/ skin-side up. Leave clarified butter near the stove. Put fish in oven; bake a total of thirty minutes, turning over and basting after the first ten minutes. Bake with skin-side down last twenty minutes.

Doneness: Stick a toothpick into the thickest part of the fish, if it meets little resistance and comes away clean, it is in all likelihood done. A "rule of finger" is to press it as you would a cake to see if the flesh returns to its original shape. Disappearance of translucency and flaking easily are also indications of doneness. Guard against overdoneness.

Served w/ salad, rice, and green beans, 5/2/04

[I typed this up for my 20-something kids' benefit, hence the laborious explanation of clarifying butter and so on ... mothering from afar.]

[EvaClement]

Dave said, 'On the patio I use a gas grill for economy and convenience, but I almost think charcoal cooks better (I hate those gas grill flare ups) and have been thinking about getting one of those big charcoal grill carts with the warming chamber on the side. Also indispensable on the patio is a Coleman Steel Belted cooler stocked with a variety of cold beers. The Steel Belted will melt about a bag of ice a day in the 80s, nothing else can touch it.'



There are an amazing variety of grills to choose from nowadays aren't there?

Thanks for the comments.

[Clinging Bitterly]

Beer on salmon?

Yes, when you try it I think you'll like it. Salmon doesn't have a great flavor of it's own, at least to my taste, but maybe that's because I grew up in a salmon fishing town and had plenty of it over the years that was just chopped into steaks and thrown in the oven until overdone (my mom didn't know how to cook seafood - she could make good southern fried chicken and could do wonderful things with just about any part of a pig, but bless her heart couldn't cook a fish to save her life). I like salmon, like most of my fish, spiced up, hence the pepper in the poached I described, and the butter probably helps too. I really like it smoked.

Beer adds an interesting flavor to a variety of foods, and also makes it more fun to cook. Another of my favorite grill recipes is something called three beer chicken, which actually contains no beer itself, you just drink three beers while cooking it. I suppose I come off like a drunk but really I don't pound 'em down all that much. I'm in the last two days of a four day weekend to sort of decompress from an incredibly busy time at work (and catch up on household chores & such) and I have had one beer since Friday.

One of the charcoal grills I'm looking at is a fairly large sized unit, sort of a split barrel shape with porcelain enameled racks for the briquets and the food, not really as large, and built out of heavier gauge metal than a barrel. It is on a heavy duty cart and has a variety of vents and dampers that can be adjusted to vary the cooking temperature and the amount of smoke retained in the unit. It also has a heat duct going from the main firebox area over to a rectangular box on the side with adjustable racks, which can be used as a sort of warming oven or maybe as a smoker.

I used to have a real nice personal sized charcoal grill and I really enjoyed cooking on it, but when I got married the wife got me a gas grill she figured would be better for our larger, blended gang. I always thought the gas grill was more of a chore to use (mostly a struggle to avoid flareups) than the charcoal, but kept at it. After the first gas grill wore out she got me a bit nicer one (but still in the sub $200.00 price range, because our budget is what it is), but I still think the charcoal cooks better. For that kind of money you can get an awesome charcoal grill, so when it's time to replace it, I think that's the way I'm going to go.

I hear some localities are regulating or banning use of charcoal briquets supposedly due to air pollution, but that probably won't happen here in my lifetime. The Kingsford plant is just across town, and the trucking company that hauls for them is next door to where I work. They have to pay for and keep anything that they damage so they split them with our shop just to be neighborly. There is almost always a pallet of perfectly good Kingsford briquets in my warehouse, with maybe one or two torn bags, all free for the taking.

[Clinging Bitterly]

...beer and herbs (yeah, from the garden).

Okay - I have done well at digging potatoes and onions and pulling beans and herbs from my garden, but how are you getting beer?

[Clinging Bitterly]

I had heard that there are no tortillas, chorizo, or any of the other staples in Seattle. Between that lack, the constant rain and the liberals, I'd have hated living there.

Dunno about Seattle, but in Oregon we can get the chorizo and all the other stuff & I imagine you could get it in Seattle too. In Eugene we have a barely tolerable level of rain and liberals, but Seattle has all that & more, plus terrible traffic and it's a frighteningly expensive place to live. I think I'm as far north as I'd ever want to go.

As for Texas, I could probably deal. I have actually never been there, but you Texans are the coolest bunch on FR bar none, and you can't ask for more than good neighbors who can cook up good food, wherever you are. If I had real good reasons to get out of Dodge I'd give the place a look, and maybe at least try snowbirding there when I retire.

[jellybean]

Carlo, seems Eva's lookin' for supper. You wanna give her a hand in the kitchen?

[carlo3b]

It's summer, and nothing is more satisfying as fresh chilled Italian vegetable soup. Here is a southern Italian, full flavor version of gazpacho soup. It's an excellent make ahead dish for summer parties. People on a low-carb diet such as the South Beach Diet can serve this soup with grilled chicken or fish for a satisfying, healthy lunch or dinner..

LowCarb Appleton Gazpacho

• 3 cups tomatoes, red ripe, seeded and diced
• 2 cups red bell pepper, diced medium
• 2 cups red onions, diced medium
• 1/2 cup celery, diced medium
• 2 cups cucumber, diced medium
• 1 teaspoon garlic, minced
• 1/4 cup red wine vinegar
• 2 cups vegetable juice
• 1-2 pinch cayenne
• 1 teaspoon cumin

1) Mix diced tomato, peppers, red onions, celery and cucumber together in a medium bowl. Divide the mixture in half and separate in two bowls.
2) Add garlic to one of the bowls and empty into blender. Add vinegar to the blender and puree until smooth.
3) Add the vegetable juice, cayenne and cumin to the blender. Blend.
4) Add the puree to the bowl of diced vegetables.
It is best served when refrigerate overnight.
Garnish with lemon and cilantro.
Serving Size: 8