List your top three to fiveish typical dinner menus

[Seppia]

Wow I'm so proud you're trying it, what an honor!
Happy you enjoyed it.
I'll post risotto later today

[Seppia]

Ok so here we go.
I'm actually re-using recipes I posted on another forum (a fantastic dive watch forum, small community, great guys), so I have another 4/5 saved up that I'll share.

These come from the time when I was living in NYC with DW, so the kitchen is different from the one you will see when I'll start to post new recipes.

Btw, this might be a tad off topic, do you want me to start a "share your recipes" topic?

Here you go

Risotto

Risotto is a typical dish from northern Italy (where I'm from).
There's 15272736 types of risotto, yesterday I did a fairly basic one, "white", with a touch of sweet sausage.

First, you will need to prepare the base.
There's multiple ingredients you can put in your base but the only three you MUST have are carrots, celery and onion.
Obviously I didn't have any onion and used some garlic but this only proves:
1- I'm stupid (no news here)
2- cooking is not an exact science (except for baking. That's why I don't do baking).

Chop the veggies, and put in a pan/pot with a bit of oil and a bit of butter.
I also added 1 sweet sausage.



Let go on low flame for a loooooong time, the more the better.
Keep it moist by adding water whenever needed: the veggies don't have to get brown, ever.



Pro tip: if you have a hard cheese (ideally parmigiano, I used Piave because that's what I had), use the hard crust as a flavor enhancer. Just make sure you grate away the wax:



Chop the crust in small bits and add them to the mix



Let go on low flame for loooong. Ideally from start to when you put the rice you need to wait at least 30 minutes. Just make sure you add a bit of water whenever it gets dry.

Put some stock broth (veggie broth or chicken if you like a bit of added flavor) on low heat in a different pot. You will need it later, approx 2 quarts per 3-4 people.

After a while, let the veggies dry a bit and you can now add the rice.

Best rices for risotto include
- arborio
- vialone nano
- superfino roma
Thai rice or any long grain will be disastrous, try stick to the three above. They can be found (especially arborio) pretty much everywhere.
Remember rice grows a LOT. Notice the difference between this pic and the last ones.



Put the flame on high and stir for 5 minutes.



Once you've "toasted" the rice, add a full glas of white, dry wine.
Keep flame high.



Let go on high flame while stirring constantly till it's almost dry.



You will now have to slowly and gradually incorporate the broth and keep stirring.
The idea is: add the hot broth, stir stir stir till the rice sucks it up, then add some more.
You cannot cheat with this part.
If you add too much broth, the rice will boil.
If you do not stir continuously, the rice will stick and cook unevenly.
Basically, risotto is an hour long commitment.
Add broth, stir, let the rice suck it up, add more.
This is as liquid as the rice can be:



And this is as dry as it can be



Keep it between these two statuses at all times.

When it has almost reached your desired cooking level (has to be relatively al dente), let it dry down a bit, like so



Now turn off the flame, add a tiny piece of butter and some Parmesan. Adjust salt if needed.
Stir and let rest a few minutes.
Since the rice is alive, it will continue to suck up liquid.
Here's how it became after the wait


Put in plate and top with another bit of Parmesan.

[Solvent]

Thanks Seppia for sharing the recipes. I too love Italian food. I can never seem to make the simplicity work. Whenever I'm cooking I tend to chuck in loads of ingredients. When I eat a nice Italian meal I tend to look at it and think "How is this so good, I think there's only five ingredients in here..."

I make risotto the same as the above, except I probably don't take as much time as I should. I often do it with mushrooms - in a separate pan cook down the mushrooms with olive oil or butter, some garlic and maybe a few herbs. Cook a lot of the moisture out of it. Add it to the risotto just at the end.

A recipe I have on high rotation at the moment is vegetable pie:
Dice into 1.5cm cubes some potatoes, swede (rutabaga), and carrot. Turnip is fine also. Parboil, for say 2 minutes. In a separate pan cook down onion with garlic, or leeks, or fennel, with some butter and olive oil. Drain the root veg, add to the pan, chuck in also other veg like spinach, maybe broccoli. Cook it for a little bit. Then you want to add in about 200mL or so of chicken (or vegetable) stock. After this, sprinkle through enough cornflour (maybe 2 tsp or so?) to make the sauce turn a bit thick.

Let the mix cool a little, lay out some pastry in a tray/pie dish/whatever comes to hand. Pour in slightly cooled veggie mix. Put another sheet of pastry on top. Fold over edges. Bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes or so.

I could have sworn I had a picture of this somewhere but it's not turning up just now...

[Seppia]

I'll open a new recipe thread so we don't derail the conversation

[BRUTE]

brute made a vastly simplified tonnata sauce today. just tuna, olive oil, spices, and capers. still good thx for the recipe.

[Noedig]

Chorizo lentil dhal. Fry a couple of onions with ginger & garlic paste, plus turmeric and coriander, add some chorizo until the red oil starts to emerge, then add lentils (presoaked or otherwise) plus stock (chicken best, but stock cube will do). Cook till lentils done. Cheap and delicious. Often have with carrots cooked until al dente then drained & shaken in pot with butter and pepper.

Fish Pie or Lasagne made in bulk and from the freezer. Use Delia Smith's recipes for both. Bit time consuming, but results always garner praise and sighs of replete joy. Serve with bread.

Pasta and homemade sauce made of Onion/Bacon/Tomatoes/Mushrooms or Aubergine/Black olives/plenty of Olive Oil

[jennypenny]

What do you vegans cook on thanksgiving? On my first go round as a vegetarian, I cooked lots of high carb stuff. I try to avoid that now, plus I'm a celiac which naturally limits the carbs.

I'm doing a GF version of apple pie filling covered with homemade granola for dessert, but I need some ideas for the dinner. Someone else is making a turkey and stuffing and I'm supposed to be doing the rest.

[Ego]

Years ago when we were newly minted vegans we would take a few alternative dishes and maybe a tofurky just for the heck of it. We had a lot of fun tricking the kids into trying the strange loaf of fake meat, watching them gag and scream "bleck!" Now at least one of the bleckers is vegan herself. Hah!

These days we just aren't that picky. It's only one day of the year, after all, so if there is a little meat or whatever in there... so be it. I've come to the conclusion that 99% is good enough and that most of the insanity we get from vegans is contained in that last 1%.

If we find a Tofurky on sale with a coupon, we'll buy it and take it along. Mostly though, Mrs. Ego makes some healthy desert and a side dish.

[Ego]

Was in line at Grocery Outlet today when a buddy of mine got in line behind me. He had a Quorn Turk'y Roast in his basked so I asked him about it. He loves them. I had the checker scan his while I ran back and got one. Turns out it is not vegan.... it has egg white or milk protein.... oh well. Too frugal to worry about that. $5.99.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fT7An7NUaAs

[theanimal]

I have this on the holidays. Will be having it again this Thursday as well.

http://www.vegkitchen.com/recipes/heart ... e-pot-pie/

[Ego]

Vegan pizza

Trader Joe's Wholewheat Dough Ball $1.49
Go Veggie fake cheese $.99 at Grocery Outlet
http://www.goveggiefoods.com/products/s ... mozzarella

1 link of Tofurky Sausage Grocery Outlet $1.99 / 4 or .50 cents
http://www.tofurky.com/what-we-make/sausages/italian/

Total $2.99 plus a little olive oil and spices

[Farm_or]

1) salmon patties with counterfeit Chinese noodles and green beans

2) lamb tips over rice and sweet corn

3) Basque omelette (eggs, potatoes, sometimes with chorizo pieces)

[Ego]

We got a good coupon and tried the new Beyond Meat plant based burgers yesterday. For years we've been hearing that veggie burgers will be as tasty as the real thing. Well, that day has finally arrived. Granted, they are expensive, highly processed and they come with a lot of packaging, but for those of us who would like a meat-alternative that we can throw on the grill at a picnic, this is it.

Served with a big salad, sweet-potato fries and a dollop of hummus.

[cmonkey]

There are 10 minute pizza dough recipes out there.

I'll give it a go, the receipe could revolutionise Friday evenings. Thanks

Reading through this thread again, did you ever try this? It's still a staple here.

[jacob]

Ten minutes? Just mix water and flour until you have the consistency of a dough. Then roll that out on a pan and bake it until it barely starts to brown. Then add all the pizza stuff on top of it and put it back in the oven. You guys are overcontemplating this. Pizza should be simple.

[cmonkey]

I would think just flour and water would give a very tough dough?! The one I make is nice and fluffy and very easy. Actually it doesn't take ten minutes either. Last time I just mixed it all together, rolled it out, put everything on and baked.

[jacob]

It's basically unleavened bread. Not for first world wussies if you eat it as-is... however, if you put it under pizza filling, it's difficult to tell the difference since the moisture from the topping softens it up. I don't bother to go beyond my flour+water recipe when I've making pizza. People never complain but maybe they're just being polite.

[halfmoon]

1) salmon patties with counterfeit Chinese noodles and green beans

Okay; I have to ask. What are counterfeit Chinese noodles?? Anything like Jacob's counterfeit pizza dough?

If forced to "cook", my usual meal is finely chopped cabbage, maybe jalapenos if I have them, garlic and onion sauteed with olive oil and soy sauce. Add some cooked noodles if I they're left over in the fridge, chopped meat, grated cheese or eggs. Thai 'ground chili with fried garlic' relish on the side. If I'm feeling really lazy, I just microwave the whole thing for awhile instead of sauteeing, then sometimes pour balsamic vinegar over it.

This is why DH does 99.9% of the cooking.

[Farm_or]

That sounds delicious, like some kind of tai chow mein?

Almost as simple as Jacob's counterfeit. It's just angel hair pasta, melted butter and a left over packet from ramen noodles sprinkled over.

[halfmoon]

That sounds delicious, like some kind of tai chow mein?

Almost as simple as Jacob's counterfeit. It's just angel hair pasta, melted butter and a left over packet from ramen noodles sprinkled over.

Okay; call it chow mein. One of the joys of living within bus distance of Seattle's Chinatown is a huge array of sauces, relishes, curry paste, peppers, spices, cheap fresh ginger (I forgot: that also goes in my "chow mein"), miso, noodles, etc. It's pretty easy to fake cooking when you have access to this stuff.

You had me at angel hair and butter. YUM.