I think I’ll make mushroom risotto for dinner tonight – so the big question is whether I want to stick with what I know’ll be tasty or whether I want to try to add bacon and a tiny bit of maple syrup to change things up a bit.
I’m not usually a fan of maple syrup, but I think the bacon I usually use (for breakfast and stuff, I haven’t tried it in risotto yet) will taste… classier… with a bit of syrup drizzled about.
ETA: a drizzle of maple syrup worked even better than I expected.
I made an impulse purchase of a huge, beautiful green papaya, and now I am figuring out what to do with it.
Seriously, the thing is big enough for more than one meal.
I’m thinking 1/4 of it can go into soup.
This recipe is simple, but it’s the most promising one I’ve found so far.
Here is a Filipino recipe for Green Papaya Chicken (Tinolang Manok)
Here is an indian side dish. It says that I can make it without the dal and it’ll just end up looser, but if I make the rice drier, it should all balance out.
OOoooo… or I could make spring rolls! That’ll only happen if it lasts until the weekend and is vaguely ripe when I cut it open, but aside from the herbs and a cucumber, I have all the other ingredients.
I think I do not want to make a chutney or a cold salad-type dish.
But I am certainly open to other suggestions and links.
It has been too hot to cook, so I made soup/stew at night over the weekend and have been making that last.
I had half a cabbage and (what I thought was) a spaghetti squash in my produce drawer, so I came up with a daring plan to try to make another soup/stew with the two of those, some ham, and chicken stock.
When I went to cut up the squash, however, it turned out to be a random asian melon.
It made a rather wonderful breakfast, but it was a surprise.
Food experiment: Tofu Shirataki
Yeah, so this was a total shot in the dark as to whether they would be edible, but they were both weird and on sale so they fit my standard requirements for a culinary adventure.
Shirataki noodles are made from a root (often translated on the packaging as yam) and – in this case – tofu. They are packaged wet, kind of like sauerkraut.
Because the packaging warned that they are often parboiled to get rid of the smell (other notes included “distinctive texture”), I drained the packaging liquid and set it to marinate in a spicy cooking sauce. Then, I fried it all up in a pan with eggplant and shredded cabbage.
Right after cooking – fairly tasty, but still not as sexy a texture as proper noodles… they ended up having an almost al dente texture. Maybe I should have parboiled, but I was more worried about the flavor.
After freezing – No. Just no. So the website has a warning not to freeze, but the packaging didn’t, and ew! It turned into thin strips of plastic, I swear! So I am picking those out and dropping them in my trash so I can eat the rest of the goody.
I think I am going to make soup tonight – maybe something vaguely ministrone-ish, but without white beans and I’m still waffling on the inclusion of pasta product.
I have stock, yellow squash, zucchini, canned tomatoes, roasted garlic, and greens. (ETA: onions, a couple baby carrots, and some seasonings.)
Is there anything else that would be really spiffy in the soup that I should run over to the farmer’s market across the street to buy before I go home?
Hmmm… I also have carrots. Is this a carrot kind of soup?
Comments – the only suggestions from those wise asses was celery