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It's one of the ways we've been entertaining ourselves and spending time together and not just hanging on a screen all day. Here's a few new things we've been getting into.

Venezuelan arepas w/ cinnamon & anise
Smoked salmon using a brown sugar brine
Gazpacho
Grilled pizza (shrimp margherita)
Spinach strawberry & mozzarella salad
Guacamole shrimp po'boys on Cuban sweet bread
Poorman's meal
Maizena beverage
Mexican street corn
homemade french fries (not unique but something I've never done before)

Coming soon will be:
Cachapas
Rhode Island clam chowder
bacon pancakes


And one that's not new to me but it's my own simple creation... Shrimp Vidalia. Vidalia's are coming into season so pick some up and try it out.

Take a pound of the largest, freshest shrimp you can get and saute in too much butter(the excess butter will soak into the onions later). My two favorites are Mayport shrimp out of Jacksonville and Royal Reds from deep deep gulf waters but any shrimp will do. When they are most of the way cooked (I like them a little bit overcooked to make them nice and firm) add in a little salt and large chunks of chopped Vidalia onions. Cook until onions juuuuust begin to soften a little on the edges but not translucent so they still have some crunch. Serve with whatever you like, rice, pasta, veggies or whatever.

There's something about the Vidalias and the shrimp together that just sings. I've tried it with other onions, even ones labeled as sweet onions but it's just not the same.

It's been a long time since I've had this but, my g/f's mom wanted it for her 90th birthday two weeks ago...
Boiled cabbage wedges, potatoes and ham with mustard on the side. It's been so long it was like something new!

I’m not gonna lie. We eat out. A LOT. There’s a pizzeria we really dig, an award winning Italian place around the corner we’ve been going into since it opened 10-12 years ago, and a bunch of other stuff.

I’ve been working a metric fuck ton, and P ran a bar which is now closed and modeled in different countries that she now can’t travel to, so she’s basically a housewife for the first time since we’ve been together.

ALL this stuff is new. She’s been busting out Gorgonzola steaks, burgers, salads, she made a tortilla thing with black beans and cheese, some fried eggs and some Tobasco Chipotle sauce, a ton of shit I’ve never had before.

I didn’t marry this chick for her cooking skills and while she’s made me a few things over the years I’m shocked at the range she’s displayed the last month.

It’s been AWESOME.

Some of those sound pretty good. Some are things I've never really considered.

I like to cook and I cook a lot. My G/F is good at it, too, but she's a Quality Control manager for food services at a high school, so when she gets home, she doesn't necessarily want to deal with meal prep. Because of that, I probably do 75% of the cooking. We haven't really tried anything completely new, but we've been reaching back to things we liked that we haven't had in a while. The catch is available ingredients. Selections are a little thin right now and, honestly, I'm trying not to go to the store. We're using what we have and what I can get on a twice-monthly PPE-laden grocery run. Unimpressive recent meals:
* Fried Clam Po Boy Sammiches
* Patty Melts
* Caramelized Onion and Havarti Grilled Cheese (<-- Vidalia)
* Blackened Salmon with Cajun Crawfish & Shrimp Cream Sauce over Wild Rice w/Steamed Broccoli (one of my specialties)
* Broiled Sea Scallops with a Roasted Red Pepper Cheese Sauce
* Crispy Grilled Chicken Thighs
* Crock Pot Chuck Roast with Onions and Mashed Potatoes
* Bacon Cheeseburgers



P.S. I know, love and cook a mean New England Clam Chowder. If that's what you mean by "Rhode Island Clam Chowder", we're good. If not, and it's that nasty shit they serve in New York with a tomato base, we can't be friends

haven't really tried anything new other than gnocchi which came out...ok...lol.... will be trying again to get it right

IndyWS6 wrote:P.S. I know, love and cook a mean New England Clam Chowder. If that's what you mean by "Rhode Island Clam Chowder", we're good. If not, and it's that nasty shit they serve in New York with a tomato base, we can't be friends

Nah that's the Manhattan thing which I'm not a fan of either. RI clam chowder is a clear broth soup that looks to me more like a vegetable soup or stew than a chowder. I had never heard of it before until recently but have made an improvised seafood soup that was probably similar, using clams, shrimp pieces and scallop and had rice instead of potatoes. I loooove me some good ol' New England clam chowder

I always have enjoyed cooking but now I’m definitely trying out some new stuff and techniques. Making some pizzas from scratch, made saag paneer with naan and that was a lot of fun and also trying to mimic some stuff from restaurants we like that aren’t doing takeout.

We’re extremely fortunate that both of our jobs have been unaffected by this so we are doing one night of takeout each week from a couple nearby restaurants we really love.

Yeah we've still been getting take out too, and tipping hard. We're kinda slowing down on that though because work is now beginning to be affected fairly significantly. We're still good for now, kinda, so I'm not complaining. Some folks are hurting bad. A large part of my work is involved in the home rental industry and they were still fine in April but May & June aren't looking so hot. We're trying to generate more work through individual homeowners but some of them are hurting too. We'll see how it goes. I'm optimistic but also ready for times to get real lean.

Lots of good foods mentioned here so far.

We've been doing a lot more home prep meals in the past few weeks. We both like to cook, so if we ever argue about who's making supper it's more, "NO I AM!" "IT'S MY TURN!" We have made a few new things.

One I made was a pork loin, cut into portions, pounded flat. Fried with olive oil and butter, with minced garlic. Juice of a lemon to deglaze the pan, toss some capers in, then pour that over the loin. Use taters of some form to soak up the extra sauce. We used roasted golden taters just cause that was quick and easy, but mashed would work too. So fucking good and super quick.

Wife's been making a super simple tuna salad that's about as tasty as any tuna I've ever had. Just mayo, chopped kosher dills and some seasonings. Perfection.

We've also been eating a lot more fresh fruits and veggies, which is different from normal.

Crow pizza

So my 2nd attempt at gnocchi was MUCH better.... Will actually serve it to people lol.... need to find another simple dish to try now lol

Not new to me but I just made some bitching pulled pork and refried black beans tacos.

I've been trying my hand at SHTF/EOTW food skills. I like to cook anyway, and the free time has been fun to play around with making things from scratch that I ordinarily buy.


This week:

-Bootleg bourbon from water, everclear, woodchips, and vanilla. Came out better than expected, and now I have 2 gallons of it in ball jars.
-Homemade mozzarella (Found a farmer who will trade me free raw milk for half my product). It's so good.
-Homemade wine. Never again. awful. I suck at this, apparently.
-Homemade bread (the NYT no-knead recipe works really well). Super good.

Between the cheese and the bread, I made a grilled cheese sandwich basically from the earf.

Loop wrote:-Bootleg bourbon from water, everclear, woodchips, and vanilla. Came out better than expected, and now I have 2 gallons of it in ball jars.

This reminds me, I have several aging barrels full of *COUGH* product that I haven't checked in months. One of them was originally meant to be a fortified wine, like a port, and last I checked was aging quite nicely. It was basically just everclear and a sweet red wine balanced out to give about 125 proof so it would age correctly without spoilage. My eventual hope was to use that same barrel to age hot sauce somewhere down the line. I should really pull those out of the back room and check them again.

Loop wrote:I've been trying my hand at SHTF/EOTW food skills. I like to cook anyway, and the free time has been fun to play around with making things from scratch that I ordinarily buy.


This week:

-Bootleg bourbon from water, everclear, woodchips, and vanilla. Came out better than expected, and now I have 2 gallons of it in ball jars.
-Homemade mozzarella (Found a farmer who will trade me free raw milk for half my product). It's so good.
-Homemade wine. Never again. awful. I suck at this, apparently.
-Homemade bread (the NYT no-knead recipe works really well). Super good.

Between the cheese and the bread, I made a grilled cheese sandwich basically from the earf.

the bootleg bourbon sounds like it could go so wrong but also be so right lol..... I've always wanted to try making mozzarella but getting raw milk is next to impossible.

The only bread I make is focaccia which is super easy IMO... pretty much as easy as making pizza dough, with just a couple extra easy steps... I've wanted to try the no knead stuff out but when I want to make bread for it I want it now.. not tomorrow lol.. what recipe do you use?

Marc G wrote:

Loop wrote:I've been trying my hand at SHTF/EOTW food skills. I like to cook anyway, and the free time has been fun to play around with making things from scratch that I ordinarily buy.


This week:

-Bootleg bourbon from water, everclear, woodchips, and vanilla. Came out better than expected, and now I have 2 gallons of it in ball jars.
-Homemade mozzarella (Found a farmer who will trade me free raw milk for half my product). It's so good.
-Homemade wine. Never again. awful. I suck at this, apparently.
-Homemade bread (the NYT no-knead recipe works really well). Super good.

Between the cheese and the bread, I made a grilled cheese sandwich basically from the earf.

the bootleg bourbon sounds like it could go so wrong but also be so right lol..... I've always wanted to try making mozzarella but getting raw milk is next to impossible.

The only bread I make is focaccia which is super easy IMO... pretty much as easy as making pizza dough, with just a couple extra easy steps... I've wanted to try the no knead stuff out but when I want to make bread for it I want it now.. not tomorrow lol.. what recipe do you use?

Fresh mozzarella is like a whole different ballgame. It's so good. And not hard to make, as long as you can find animal rennet for curdling. I had to get it on Amazon.

The "homemade bourbon" thing is pretty cool. Whiskey is just grain alcohol aged in wood casks... so...Everclear works! If you don't want to wait for the proof to come down to a drinkable level, you can cheat and dilute it. I did a 40% distilled water dilution, which brought the proof down to a little over 100 (pretty normal whiskey range), then let it sit in hickory smoking woodchips and added vanilla. It's super drinkable.

Yes... the raw milk thing. It was crazy. I hunted for a week. Natural grocers, Farmers markets, etc.. finally an old lady at an organic meat market gave me a name of a farmer. I felt like I was entering some underworld of milk mafia lol.


Here's the bread:

https://leitesculinaria.com/93789/recip ... bread.html

Loop wrote:

Marc G wrote:

Loop wrote:I've been trying my hand at SHTF/EOTW food skills. I like to cook anyway, and the free time has been fun to play around with making things from scratch that I ordinarily buy.


This week:

-Bootleg bourbon from water, everclear, woodchips, and vanilla. Came out better than expected, and now I have 2 gallons of it in ball jars.
-Homemade mozzarella (Found a farmer who will trade me free raw milk for half my product). It's so good.
-Homemade wine. Never again. awful. I suck at this, apparently.
-Homemade bread (the NYT no-knead recipe works really well). Super good.

Between the cheese and the bread, I made a grilled cheese sandwich basically from the earf.

the bootleg bourbon sounds like it could go so wrong but also be so right lol..... I've always wanted to try making mozzarella but getting raw milk is next to impossible.

The only bread I make is focaccia which is super easy IMO... pretty much as easy as making pizza dough, with just a couple extra easy steps... I've wanted to try the no knead stuff out but when I want to make bread for it I want it now.. not tomorrow lol.. what recipe do you use?

Fresh mozzarella is like a whole different ballgame. It's so good. And not hard to make, as long as you can find animal rennet for curdling. I had to get it on Amazon.

The "homemade bourbon" thing is pretty cool. Whiskey is just grain alcohol aged in wood casks... so...Everclear works! If you don't want to wait for the proof to come down to a drinkable level, you can cheat and dilute it. I did a 40% distilled water dilution, which brought the proof down to a little over 100 (pretty normal whiskey range), then let it sit in hickory smoking woodchips and added vanilla. It's super drinkable.

Yes... the raw milk thing. It was crazy. I hunted for a week. Natural grocers, Farmers markets, etc.. finally an old lady at an organic meat market gave me a name of a farmer. I felt like I was entering some underworld of milk mafia lol.


Here's the bread:

https://leitesculinaria.com/93789/recip ... bread.html

You bite your tongue, mister. Good whiskey, especially scotch, is made with magic and mystery and flavored by demons and angels...

Loop wrote:

Marc G wrote:

Loop wrote:I've been trying my hand at SHTF/EOTW food skills. I like to cook anyway, and the free time has been fun to play around with making things from scratch that I ordinarily buy.


This week:

-Bootleg bourbon from water, everclear, woodchips, and vanilla. Came out better than expected, and now I have 2 gallons of it in ball jars.
-Homemade mozzarella (Found a farmer who will trade me free raw milk for half my product). It's so good.
-Homemade wine. Never again. awful. I suck at this, apparently.
-Homemade bread (the NYT no-knead recipe works really well). Super good.

Between the cheese and the bread, I made a grilled cheese sandwich basically from the earf.

the bootleg bourbon sounds like it could go so wrong but also be so right lol..... I've always wanted to try making mozzarella but getting raw milk is next to impossible.

The only bread I make is focaccia which is super easy IMO... pretty much as easy as making pizza dough, with just a couple extra easy steps... I've wanted to try the no knead stuff out but when I want to make bread for it I want it now.. not tomorrow lol.. what recipe do you use?

Fresh mozzarella is like a whole different ballgame. It's so good. And not hard to make, as long as you can find animal rennet for curdling. I had to get it on Amazon.

The "homemade bourbon" thing is pretty cool. Whiskey is just grain alcohol aged in wood casks... so...Everclear works! If you don't want to wait for the proof to come down to a drinkable level, you can cheat and dilute it. I did a 40% distilled water dilution, which brought the proof down to a little over 100 (pretty normal whiskey range), then let it sit in hickory smoking woodchips and added vanilla. It's super drinkable.

Yes... the raw milk thing. It was crazy. I hunted for a week. Natural grocers, Farmers markets, etc.. finally an old lady at an organic meat market gave me a name of a farmer. I felt like I was entering some underworld of milk mafia lol.


Here's the bread:

https://leitesculinaria.com/93789/recip ... bread.html

nice... how many loaves did you get from that recipe? seems like a lot of flour!

This thread is inspiring.

I've been making some new stuff but mostly because my standard meat counter is empty (only doing prepackaged now) and people are buying what meat there is like crazy.

One thing I will say is when I was working from home I was putting in A LOT of hours into the Sous Vide. Being able to prep and get dinner started at lunch time was GREAT. If you guys are out there and you're not cooking your steak this way get your life together and fix this.
I can buy cheap suboptimal cuts, spice and/or sauce it appropriately, throw in sous vide for 4+ hours at 135*, then sear at max heat on cast iron with butter and its fucking PERFECT every time. I've had fucking top round from Aldi come out of the sous vide tasting phenomenal.

It's not new to me, but I don't do it frequently. Smoked whole chickens. Working from home means you can smoke at home

I pulled the smoker out early this morning and cooked it at 235° for ~4 hours with alternating orange and apple wood chips. This one is going to be used for Smoked Chicken Salad and I've already picked the carcass clean...

IndyWS6 wrote: You bite your tongue, mister. Good whiskey, especially scotch, is made with magic and mystery and flavored by demons and angels...

Having read up on how the typical Islay scotch is made, this isn't far from the truth. What got me started researching was hearing the term Monkey Shoulder (which is now a scotch brand) was actually a real condition caused by the malters spending so much of their time stooped over turning the malt with a shovel. It's crazy the amount of work that goes into a good scotch.

Funny you mention making chicken salad with your smoked chicken. I just got done putting together a chicken salad for tonight, though with unsmoked chicken. I should have hit it with the infusion smoker first. Ah well.

nightflameauto wrote:

IndyWS6 wrote: You bite your tongue, mister. Good whiskey, especially scotch, is made with magic and mystery and flavored by demons and angels...

Having read up on how the typical Islay scotch is made, this isn't far from the truth. What got me started researching was hearing the term Monkey Shoulder (which is now a scotch brand) was actually a real condition caused by the malters spending so much of their time stooped over turning the malt with a shovel. It's crazy the amount of work that goes into a good scotch.

Funny you mention making chicken salad with your smoked chicken. I just got done putting together a chicken salad for tonight, though with unsmoked chicken. I should have hit it with the infusion smoker first. Ah well.

I have a bottle of Monkey Shoulder on the counter. Good stuff at a decent price...

Nope! We went hard Keto this week. I miss cheese...

The wife made baked aubergine/eggplant(?) yesterday.
onions, tomatos, eggplant. You bake the eggplant, then scoop out some of the "meat", and mix it with tomatos and onions.
Top with some bacon, bake until bacon is done, top with cheese.

It was lovely, and a real veggie bomb. The only meat was the bacon strips. So more or less a veggie lasagna with some cheat bacon on top

Apart from that, my appetite, isn't what it used to be. I worry a lot about the situation, and really only eat when I have to.