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Posted

I like the idea of coke or sugar. I've heard its good (a friend at work uses a little brown sugar). I've also heard peanut butter but have not tried that yet.

 

P.S. here is a picture.

 

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Kettle Chips tortilla chips are the best tortilla chips on market, FYI.

Posted

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I made a bread and butter pudding last night.

 

Oh. Emm. Gee. Cold bread and butter pudding eaten the day after is the stuff of dreams.

Amazing.

Posted
I make chilli with:

 

beef mince + mushrooms (not many) + onion + garlic

 

+ chilli powder, pepper, half a glass of coca cola

 

+ red kidney beans

 

+ tinned toms, tomato puree.

 

 

I kinda like mine a bit plainer, with less combinations of spices (also I am cheap lol :heh:)

 

I add bbq sauce and beans to mine, rather than kidney beans or coke. But that sounds pretty wonderful!

Posted
So, despite being into food and cooking, I've never made, and aside from school dinners, never eaten, chilli.

 

I'm deprived, I know.

 

And this will be corrected within 7 days.

Posted

@ReZourceman just to say that you should check the ingredients for your chili powder, and next time make the chili without and see what you think...

 

My chili I made last weekend for a big batch had a lot of ingredients;

750g mince

2 x tins chopped tomatoes

400ml passata

two large onions

300g mushrooms

large red pepper

three large chili peppers

three large cloves of garlic

tin o' kidney beans

tin o' chick peas

tin o' mixed beans

tin o' baked beans in bbq sauce

4tbsp tomato puree

tablespoon sugar

red wine vinegar

 

1 tsp each;

oregano

cumin

coriander

marjoram

smoked paprika

 

2 tsp;

cayenne pepper!

 

season freely;

salt

pepper

 

(I think that's it)

 

I never make it the same way twice. Using a massive stock pot, I fry the onions with the beef, then when browned drain it and put it aside, then fry up the veg and chuck in some of the spices and garlic and stirfry for two mins, then pour the beef and onions back in and mix it up, then it's OPEN ALL TINS and chuck everything in - bring to boil then reduce to a simmer, add sugar and the herbs and remainder of spices and red wine vinegar. Leave for 40 mins on low-med heat with lid half-on. Come back, check on liquidity -- I usually chuck in a few squeezes of tomato paste then take the lid off and leave it for another half-hour. If I am impatient after 90 mins of it slow-cooking I'll use a slotted spoon to serve up the chili (in this case put it in a massve tub for the fridge) then have the stuff left over act as a kind of spicy soup - can chuck a dollop of sour cream in there or make up some potato in your favourite form and put it in the soup.

 

... Through the week I'll make a couple of wraps with the chili, sprinkle cheese on it too of course! I do want to make chili with chocolate... But this weekend I will probably just do big-batch fajitas

Posted
@ReZourceman just to say that you should check the ingredients for your chili powder, and next time make the chili without and see what you think...

 

Why did you say the first bit? I just had a look and it doesn't have an ingredients list. Am I missing something? :p

Posted

For breakfast (unfortunately no pictures).

 

Crumpets, little bit of butter.

 

Bacon placed on top

 

Egg on top of that

 

Cherry tomatoes on the side

 

 

I have it regularly, like now. Nomnomnom.

Posted

 

Why did you say the first bit? I just had a look and it doesn't have an ingredients list. Am I missing something? :p

I forgot to add that I also had a segment of lime squeezed into the mix too.

 

Anyway -- my chilli powder's ingredients;

chilli pepper

cayenne pepper

cumin

salt

oregano

garlic

 

Hence why I say there's little point in using it if you have all the other ingredients to hand already. Of course it could be economical to just

use this pre-packed mix, but I find I can get the same flavour/better if I combine them myself and leave the chilli powder alone.

 

p.s. I also have a picture on Instagram of the ingredients before I cooked it last week but I couldn't figure out how to link to it here. I had spring onions and stock cubes but never used the stock in the end.

Posted

Oh blimey, I had no idea. I'll see what happens when I leave it out. Have you tried with cinnamon before Jay? I thought it sounded slightly strange when it was suggested to me at work, but I absolutely wouldn't go back now...its delicious. I actually upped it to 1 teaspoon, the suggestion was half, but I loved the flavour.

Posted

When I learnt to use sugar to try to offset some of the acidity you can get with using tomatoes I did try cinnamon instead for a while -- but not sure I tried it in chillis, just bologneses.

 

Typically I never measured anything! Cinnamon does kinda ruin dishes when you use too much :P I still do go through phases of picking up a new herb/spice and trying it out loads. Bay leaves and marjoram are the new ones. I'm only able to do a big-bowl once a week, and I've just done stews and casseroles and chillis (and one really, really, really good red wine and chorizo tagliatelle bolognese).

 

First stage of cooking I went through was "add this! and this! AND THIS!!" to any recipe. Then I 'minimised' and tried to cook using fewer ingredients. Now I'm just trying to get better with using herbs and spices in terms of quantity, and trying to get better at cooking each ingredient more correctly. Still would consider myself an utter noob, completely self-taught. My aunt's offered a crash-course so we'll see how that goes. I basically have no ability to really believe in what I am tasting, and I worry that I'm shading my opinion with too much hope.

  • 3 weeks later...
Posted

So Jim and I recently bought some cheap cooking books. Today we tried our first easy recipe, just so we don't have to cook with pre-made sauces anymore to try and be healthier/save money. We started with something simple as I am not an amazing cook or anything, but it tasted really nice.

 

Jambalaya

 

IMG_20130811_210013.jpg

 

Here is the recipe (for Jayseven):

IMG_20130811_224552.jpg

 

We didn't use sweetcorn as we aren't fans, plus the chilli powder we had was mild, not hot. So if you want it more spicy, just use the hot one and use more of it. Oh and we used vegetable stock as Jim can't have the chicken one. =)

Posted

I was going to make that tonight but time was tight and I couldn't purchase the veggies. Ended up using my mixed-meat (burgers, sausages, kebabs) in combination with kidney beans, baked beans and mixed beans, throwing in paprika, garam masala, oregano, bay leaves (to fry with the meat), garlic, parsley, chicken stock and some lentils to soak up the sauce (and a dash of balsamic vinegar because fuck yeah). I'll be loading it up in wraps for lunch all week. It tastes... confusing, really. But good! Doubtlessly not as good as it could've been if I had followed the recipe properly. Mind you, I don't like the idea of boiling the chicken and rice together. Did you seal the meat first?

 

I didn't mention it on the comments on your pic, but @Fierce_LiNk "the [meat] might not go with the tomatoes" ... but it's meat!!

Posted
I was going to make that tonight but time was tight and I couldn't purchase the veggies. Ended up using my mixed-meat (burgers, sausages, kebabs) in combination with kidney beans, baked beans and mixed beans, throwing in paprika, garam masala, oregano, bay leaves (to fry with the meat), garlic, parsley, chicken stock and some lentils to soak up the sauce (and a dash of balsamic vinegar because fuck yeah). I'll be loading it up in wraps for lunch all week. It tastes... confusing, really. But good! Doubtlessly not as good as it could've been if I had followed the recipe properly. Mind you, I don't like the idea of boiling the chicken and rice together. Did you seal the meat first?

 

I didn't mention it on the comments on your pic, but @Fierce_LiNk "the [meat] might not go with the tomatoes" ... but it's meat!!

 

Sorry brah, but I can only imagine sausages, kebabs and burgers ruining that. It's got a sweet taste to it and your meats will ruin eet. Leave eet pure. :p

 

Second meal from the same cookbook. Chicken Tagine.

 

1003199_10201227988556091_679996753_n.jpg

 

Was beautiful.

Contains Chicken, chickpeas, apricots, peppers, onions, garlic, aubergine, cumin, cinnamon sticks and some parsley to garnish.

 

Loved it. :D

Posted
Mind you, I don't like the idea of boiling the chicken and rice together. Did you seal the meat first?

 

Nah we didn't seal the meat first, we threw it all in like the book suggested, and it actually turned out really nice. The chicken was nice and soft, really nice.

 

For the tagine we did seal the chicken first, but for that one we ended up having the chicken in just a tiny bit too long, so it ended up a bit dry-ish. Was still good though!

 

This is our first time properly cooking with spices and all that, and so far it is going quite well. =)

Posted

Well I just wanted to say that meat and tomatoes goes well. I mean... it's not the meat that contradicts sweetness or the herbs or spices... A bolognese is beef (and pork) with a tomato-based sauce.

 

Jambalaya is typically a dish that any kind of meat can suit, but what I thought was most curious about it was that typically jambalaya doesn't even require tomatoes in order to function as a jambalaya -- the dish is about peppers onions and celery, not the meat choice.

Posted

Spamming this thread haha.

 

Today we had another delicious meal, I preferred it over yesterdays. We did the rice again, except this time without almonds and pistachio nuts, so just the apricots and sultanas (and all the spices).

 

And then we had a king prawn Balti to go with it. Mmmmmm. I don't normally like prawns much, but these tasted great. I could have another batch right now if we had any left!

 

IMG_20130816_195404.jpg

Posted
You've eaten a lot of yellow lately.

 

The stuff is good. :D

 

In this case, the yellow is from the saffron infused water, which was added to the rice. That was for the last two rice meals.

 

Tasty food. Pretty good for you, too. There were only two spoons of yoghurt in this, and even then that was fat free. Rice is brown rice and we use half of what the recipe states. Prawns are quite low in calories. All fresh stuff. :D

Posted

Ok, this one is not that healthy (as it uses a shitload of butter), but it tasted great! Spaghetti with parsley, ginger, onion, lemon, stock, butter and chicken. Mmmm.

 

IMG_20130818_183711.jpg

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