What Have You Cooked Recently? -

[burntgrilledcheese]

Mediterranean Lamb Meatballs with homemade pita

 

[Helvítis Túristi]

For midsummer, I made prästostpaj, gravlax with dill mustard, and creamed dill potatoes. Served some spiced herring from the market as well. Drank it all down with homemade dill schnapps. Apparently I thought the sushi grade salmon at the store was more expensive than it really was. I think it was 5.99 and was enough for four people. The salmon sadly is farmed from Chili, so this might be a one time deal. Would like some sushi grade sockeye salmon though. Used prästost instead of västerbottenost since I couldn't find the latter.

 

[The Potatomatic 2000]

Yesterday I went nuts and decided "hey, how hard can it be to make gyoza from scratch"? It isn't and it was even cheap. I made the wrappers, rolled and cut all of them and all.
It isn't hard, but it takes so much freaking time, it's not even funny. So I had some shit reality show on in the background and went ahead. I made around a hundred of individual little things.
Turned out delicious, I still have three bags of them in my freezer, ready to fry up if I need them.

 

[Dr. Hannibal Buress]

Yesterday I went nuts and decided "hey, how hard can it be to make gyoza from scratch"? It isn't and it was even cheap. I made the wrappers, rolled and cut all of them and all.
It isn't hard, but it takes so much freaking time, it's not even funny. So I had some shit reality show on in the background and went ahead. I made around a hundred of individual little things.
Turned out delicious, I still have three bags of them in my freezer, ready to fry up if I need them.

Those bamboo steamer baskets are pretty cheap, and if you stack a couple of those over a boiling pot of water you can make some really good steamed dumplings like Chinese bao or soup dumplings.

if you've never had soup dumplings they are freaking amazing, you make a meatball soup, add a little gelatin or agar, chill it until it solidifies and then scoop out a meatball and some soup and wrap it coin purse style and steam it until it's nice and hot.

 

[AnOminous]

Took a couple leg quarters and separated them, used a dry jerk rub, then dipped in egg and then panko with more of the rub in it. Baked at 400 for 45 minutes, broiled for another 2-3. That part is a little tricky because it goes from almost done to overdone in about a 10 second period. Simple and easy otherwise.

I got the quarters for $5 for almost 10 pounds, which was 9 actual quarters, and used about 1 1/2 for each meal, along with a fresh vegetable or a baked potato. So the meat for each time I did this was less than a dollar each meal, nearly nothing to mix together spices I already had, and a couple bucks for panko total. A dollar for the main dish and something like fifty cents for the sides.

I don't really need to at the moment but for some reason it's really amusing me to figure out exactly how little I can spend on a meal that's still satisfying. The main part is buying in bulk and freezing in meal-sized portions. Once you have a library of main ingredients you can plan around them.

 

[The Potatomatic 2000]

Those bamboo steamer baskets are pretty cheap, and if you stack a couple of those over a boiling pot of water you can make some really good steamed dumplings like Chinese bao or soup dumplings.

if you've never had soup dumplings they are freaking amazing, you make a meatball soup, add a little gelatin or agar, chill it until it solidifies and then scoop out a meatball and some soup and wrap it coin purse style and steam it until it's nice and hot.

I do have agar left over from making my own gumdrops around Christmas. I'm kind of tempted to try this. Soon I will have a week off of work and then I will have time for these projects that take over my day, but hey, a bunch of these fiddlyy things can be frozen, so I can store them for busy days. .

 

[Fìddlesticks]

Deli style roast beef with dipping juice of course because the joint as per popular opinion is sold so lean.

Tuna salad. Ortiz tinned tuna which I mention as it is a Spanish brand, highly recommend. Egg. Radish. Gherkin. Anchovy stuffed olives. Celery. Lettuce. Dill. And store bought vinegrette.

Hamburger mixalot of whatever you have left in fridge going bad, so this was coeuegtte, cabbage, carrot and onion.