Chocolate Bacon!
Posted on 03/19/2015 5:48:34 PM PDT by Jamestown1630
This week, we have Savory, with Fruit! (Heads-up, pugmama!)
I've never been a very fancy cook, though I do enjoy making food pretty and presentable and will go to some lengths for that. Otherwise, I'm into 'comfort' foods.
But I greatly enjoy having something very different and unusual from time to time; and some of my favorites have been dishes that are savory, but include a sweet element, usually fruit.
I once vacationed with friends who came from a restaurant background, and eating with them was always a great experience - always something unexpected and never before encountered.
About 25 years ago, at the beach, the lady accompanied her meat with a carrot recipe that I loved. She wrote it down for me, and I've made it ever since - but I've always been a little suspicious of the accuracy of the recipe because it used so many carrots! When I've made it, I use about half the carrots.
When I decided to post it here, I thought I'd look and see if it was online anywhere, and whether my recipe was accurate.
Lo and Behold, here it is, at a very interesting website; and Yes, it uses a whole 2-1/2 pounds of carrots. I should have just trusted a gal who grew up in her family's restaurants ;-)
Carrots Sauteed withToasted Walnuts and Figs: (Don't substitute any other kind of fig, in this recipe)
http://www.laurengroveman.com/recipes/vegetables/the-carrots-sauteed-with-toasted-walnuts-and-sliced-calimyrna-figs/
Second, is another one that I think I saw in the Washington Post almost 20 years ago; the raisin/caper sauce was a revelation, and this is still on the menu at Restaurant Jean-Georges in NYC:
Scallops with Cauliflower and Raisin/Caper sauce:
http://www.globalgourmet.com/food/special/jeangeorges/raisin.html#axzz3UCJovrc2
And Lastly: Green Apple Gado Gado
I'm confused about the Indonesian dish Gado Gado. The first recipe that I encountered some years ago, and still make frequently, seems very different from what I now read about the dish, as it has become more popular. I guess you can make it many different ways; or many different dishes carry the name.
Here's the Wiki on it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gado-gado
And here's the one that I make, which doesn't seem at all like the Wiki description, but was called Gado Gado in the newspaper where I found it - and it's wonderful in Summer:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59917-2004Jun22.html
Also made this last summer. I will make it again. It was delicious. I served it was a saffron type rice salad.
file:///recipes/susan%20feniger/Susan%20Feniger%27s%20Tunisian%20Chicken%20Kebabs%20with%20Currants%20and%20Olives%20Recipe%20|%20RECIPE%20CORNER.html
I like my bbq and spaghetti sauces sweet. Tonight, I'm making sweet and sour pork. Thrown together, so no recipe.
Having toast with homemade blackberry jelly now for breakfast.
Hunker down today. Central Texas is supposed to have 8" of much needed rain. Don't know if you'll be getting the same storm. Just came in from sweeping leaves off the front to give better drainage. Can't wait to see how the new roofline handles big rain so crossing fingers it doesn't come through the ceiling again.
We haven’t had carrot and raisin salad for forever either but have been making a bowl a week for a month now. Yum. I threw in some dried cranberries once and they were pretty good.
Talk to me about granite stones. I have a bunch of granite bricks in the yard so may have to wash one off. What are the dimensions? Are they placed in the bottom or on a rack?
I found a strawberry jello frosting recipe online this week that might put the birthday cake over the top:
Jello Frosting frosts 24 cupcakes or 9x13 cake
3 oz package Jello (not sugar free, check ounces)
2/3 C sugar
1 egg white
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 C boiling water (boiling to dissolve sugar)
Put everything except boiling water in bowl. Turn mixer to high & add in boiling water. Whip on high for exactly 5 mins.
Speaking of carrots, I’m on the hunt for a pickled shredded carrots recipe, German style. Spent some time in Germany in my youth. We ate jars and jars of shredded pickled celery, carrots, beets, etc. Really loved them. I would love to be able to reproduce the carrots.
Forget health fads and food fetishists...don’t listen to the Center For Science in the Public Interest! Those Nazi bastards have an unofficial motto of “If you like it, you CAN’T eat it!”. They’ve come out against fettucine alfredo, chicken-fried steak, movie popcorn, and just about every feel-good food you can imagine.
Makes me want to punch one of them....
Another salad we haven’t eaten in years but just started to again is:
A portion of a bag of frozen mixed fruit. Thaw completely or partially as you like. Stir in enough dry vanilla pudding mix to coat the fruit. Let set and the pudding will eventually dissolve on its own. Serve by itself or with a slice of cake.
I have one. No clue where I got it. It doesn’t work. Tried it once and it’s now taking up space in the draw. Need to toss it. I’d rather rub the spices/marinade/whatever on the meat or cut slits and insert by hand.
Chocolate Bacon!
Meat and Fruit? I dig this recipe....and it’s quick.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2705786/posts?page=18#18
Balsamic Caramelized Onions with Golden Raisins Sauce
(great with pork tenderloin)
Ah, KAPUSTA!! Are you Polish, Ukrainian, Russian or a combo of all three like me?
My grandmother and mom would chop an onion, cabbage, shredded carrots and sauerkraut, fry it in butter until browned and serve with kielbasa or pork cops. Serve with mashed potatoes and gorge yourself!
Our kids loved it. I need to make it tonight.
Did you try the frosting yet?
Yeah I just went to the store and picked up a pork loin so I could cut my own chops to make them with the fried kraut after posting that recipe. Have to make it tomorrow, meatless Friday today. I am 1/2 Polish and 1/2 Serbian. Rampant ethnic cuisine at our house. Even though I grew up right on the south side of Chicago, Grandpa would dig a pit in his backyard and roast a whole lamb and a whole pig for holidays, lamb especially at Easter. He had his own smokehouse and smoked all our meat and sausage. I make my own kraut a #8 and a #6 crock every year. Might sound like a lot for 3 people buut we go through it. (And it goes through us :) )
I only got as far as buying the jello this week but the pic looks so good. http://happierthanapiginmud.blogspot.com/2012/01/jello-frosting.html
Tip - Add jello powder to homemade yogurt that fails to firm up. Or koolaid powder to it if you want it to remain in drink form.
Any thermal mass in the bottom helps slow down that hi-lo effect (hysteresis) found in modern ovens.
It takes a little longer to heat up and cool down, but my oven varies by less than 10F rather than the normal +/-50F.
/johnny
They don’t harm the oven? Mine is a continuous cleaning oven that is really just a special finish what resists gunk. Stones might mar the finish. Still, it’s something to think on to use the bricks in SHTF. Most have sunk and disappeared around flower beds. Weirdest thing, can’t keep anything from sinking and disappearing in no time.
And my oven is a tool, like a saw, so I want functional, not pretty.
Married guys have to compromise. ;)
/johnny
Looks delicious.
/johnny
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