Food, Cookery and Recipes

Gesine · Post by **Gesine** » February 11th, 2006, 5:18 am

Lovely, Peter, thank you. This will be a perfect dish for the Maltese Spring, which should start any minute now... I'm sure it'll be nice with baby new potatos.

Peter Why · Post by **Peter Why** » February 11th, 2006, 2:38 pm

I'm sure it will, too.

Somewhere I have a lovely recipe for spicy tomato soup which I devised (which yields a thick, bright red-orange, smooth soup); I'll put it on here when I can find it.

kri · Post by **kri** » February 11th, 2006, 2:44 pm

Ohhhh you are all making me hungry.

thistlechick · Post by **thistlechick** » February 11th, 2006, 7:14 pm

aww.. all of you vegetable eating people....

we've got a venison roast going in the crockpot ... with potatoes and carrots... that's as close as we usually get to eating vegetables... it sure is smelling wonderful... mmm

kri · Post by **kri** » February 11th, 2006, 7:22 pm

thistlechick wrote:aww.. all of you vegetable eating people....

we've got a venison roast going in the crockpot ... with potatoes and carrots... that's as close as we usually get to eating vegetables... it sure is smelling wonderful... mmm

Vegetables and meat!! They're all good if cooked well.

vee · Post by **vee** » February 11th, 2006, 7:42 pm

If you guys like spicy food, I just made some kim-chee fried rice to go with my beef filet and bearnaise sauce. Some grilled asparagus (olive oil and basalmic vinegar dressing). mmmmm....

pberinstein · Post by **pberinstein** » February 11th, 2006, 8:36 pm

kri wrote:
Vegetables and meat!! They're all good if cooked well.

Oh, man. We'd have trouble eating at the same table. I like my meat virtually raw.

Peter Why · Post by **Peter Why** » February 12th, 2006, 3:17 am

Here you go:

Spicy Tomato Soup (my recipe) - about enough for four bowls

One medium onion, chopped
One or two large cloves of garlic, chopped
One red pepper, de-seeded and coarsely chopped
Olive oil
One tsp (from level to rounded) of cumin seeds
One 400g tin of chopped tomatoes
Half-to-one level tsp of paprika
(optional) Vecon (vegetable stock concentrate); soy sauce
One medium-sized potato, diced
Salt and pepper,

(optional) fresh coriander (one rounded desertspoonful), or a couple of finely chopped pickled gherkins, or yogurt (preferably sharp-tasting).

Heat about a tablespoon of olive oil in a saucepan. When hot, add the cumin seeds and stir for a moment, until they start to brown. Add the onion, garlic and red pepper. Stir occasionally until the onion becomes translucent, (perhaps until there are brown specks on the garlic). Add the tin of tomatoes and the paprika. Bring to a simmer. (If used, add about a level tsp of Vecon and a desertspoon of soy sauce.) Add the potato, plus half a cup of water, if it looks too thick. Simmer, covered, until the potato is tender. Take off the heat, add another half cup (or more) of cold water, stir, and allow to cool a little (i.e. thin it a little, and cool it so as not to damage the blender). Blend until smooth; rinsing the excess soup from the blender with some more water, back into the saucepan. Bring back to a simmer and add salt and pepper to taste.

Into each bowl you can make one of these additions:

1 Some coarsely chopped fresh coriander.

2 A swirl of yogurt to each bowlful.

3 About a heaped teaspoonful of finely chopped gherkins.

raouf · Post by **raouf** » February 12th, 2006, 12:51 pm

Great tomato soup recipe Peter!

Here is one for lentil soup.
It is quick, high-protein and fat-free

2 cups red lentil washed
2 quarts water
2 bouillon cubes
2 tablespoons ground cumin
2 skinned tomatoes
1 carrot chopped
1 zuchinni chopped
salt to taste
dash cayenne pepper

Put all in a pot bring to a boil, let simmer for 20~25 minutes until the lentils disintegrate in the soup. Blend using a wand or blender.

The key to this recipe is the cumin, add more or less to suit your taste.
If your cumin is more than 3 month old, get some fresh.
If you put the cumin in the beginning it will be just barely felt in the background (many people will not be able to identify that ingredient), if you use it towards the end of cooking it will be bright and obvious.

This is dedicated to those who are currently dealing with the snow storm as well as those who live in cold climes such as the Upper Peninsula.
If you are lucky enough to visit the Upper Peninsula make sure you taste the smoked whitefish and the cornish pasties. (I am glad I am not librivoxing this message because I am sure to mispronounce the last word of the previous sentence).

Recipe variations:
- Use full grain lentils instead of red lentils.
- Mix a tablespoon of butter at the end.
- Use a lot more cumin and/or a lot more cayenne pepper.
- Strain the soup for a silky consistency
- Use a bone knuckle with marrow and stir the cooked marrow in the mix.

pberinstein · Post by **pberinstein** » February 12th, 2006, 12:53 pm

In my Harry Potter game, "pasties" is pronounced "PASS-tees."

For what it's worth.

thistlechick · Post by **thistlechick** » February 12th, 2006, 1:20 pm

pberinstein wrote:In my Harry Potter game, "pasties" is pronounced "PASS-tees."

For what it's worth.

Yes, PASS-tees is correct... PACE-tees are those little titty covers worn by exotic dancers.

In my area Pasties are very common as the Cornish miners brought this tradition to our area in the late 1800s ... we have several shops specializing in them in my town and I eat a Pasty at least once a week....with gravy, though many people enjoy them with ketchup... it's like eating pot roast in a crust... mmmm

Peter Why · Post by **Peter Why** » February 12th, 2006, 3:34 pm

Thanks for the lentil and vegetable soup, Raouf; I'll give it a try next week. Cumin is one of my favourite spices!

And cornish pasties .... after long years when commercial pasties in London (U.K.) have been filled with indeterminate sludge, there is at least one company that now sells proper pasties. (I think they call themselves the Cornish Pasty Company, or something like that. You sometimes see their shops in mainline rail stations in London, and I know there's one - or one of a similar quality - in Keswick, in the Lake District) ... but they do Cornish; Lamb and Mint; Chicken and Vegetable; Chicken Balti ... vegetarian ones ... nearly all excellent (I didn't like their Broccoli and Cheese one).

thistlechick · Post by **thistlechick** » February 12th, 2006, 3:37 pm

there are several shops here that will ship them half-baked... here's one: http://pasty.com/order.html

Aldark · Post by **Aldark** » February 13th, 2006, 7:51 am

thistlechick wrote: Yes, PASS-tees is correct... PACE-tees are those little titty covers worn by exotic dancers.

"Excuse me waiter... there are pasties in my soup.... "

ChipDoc · Post by **ChipDoc** » February 13th, 2006, 8:35 am

thistlechick wrote:In my area Pasties are very common as the Cornish miners brought this tradition to our area in the late 1800s ... we have several shops specializing in them in my town and I eat a Pasty at least once a week....with gravy, though many people enjoy them with ketchup... it's like eating pot roast in a crust... mmmm

It does stand to reason that exotic dancers would be popular with the Cornish mining community, but I must confess that I'm surprised to discover that they EAT those pasties with gravy...

In real life, I actually worked in one of those places for a couple of years. You know what those pasties are made of? Warm stucco. They keep the stuff warm in a crock pot in the backstage area. They tint it and shape it to look roughly like an aureole, and it sticks quite well without any fuss.