Topic: What are you eating / What did you eat.

[6pairsofshoes]

I'm constantly impressed at your penchant for invention given oddball ingredients.  You usually manage to rise to the occasion.  I don't know about tater tots, though.  I love hash browns.  I expect they're like that only with a chewy center.  Sounds super fattening.  I love potatoes.

[8ullfrog]

Pretty much identical to hash browns, maybe a bit less crispy.

[8ullfrog]

Double update, and apologies for the double posting.

On cinco de mayo, which was made famous in the US by Corona Brewing Company, mom made beef enchiladas.

We've had arguments before, she likes the green sauce more than the red sauce, but the green sauce requires a lot more prep, and you're "supposed" to use it for chicken.

She had me cook the meat, then took over. We used El Pato red enchilada sauce, which gets an 88% approval rating from some random website. I like El Pato sauces first for their old school duck logo, and secondly because they don't pump that poo full of preservatives. I believe there are nine ingredients, none of them a benzite or sorbate.

I think the only real "trick" to enchiladas is making sure you bake them seam side down. Either way, they are one of the few foods that actually tastes better as leftovers. I don't know how that works, but it does.

Tonight I did a franken-meal, where I mix together what I have, rather than what I want.

One ingredient was a bag of Bird's eye broccoli, shredded carrot, and I forget the third thing, but it wasn't cauliflower. These veggies were underwhelming, and a surprisingly low yield once I got the bag torn open. (You steam it in the bag)

The next ingredient were some frozen pre-prepared chicken slices, which kind of look like fingers. They're un-breaded. Nothing to write home about, I shredded them up with a fork in a bowl. This was actually a bit easier than shredding a chicken breast, and I might steal this method from myself the next time I need to make chicken salad. I HATE shredding chicken. But who likes doing that?

Mom can't have soy sauce, so I gave hers a Tostito's queso cup, which was kind of like a jello cup filled with nacho cheese sauce. It didn't come with heating instructions, and I know not to put foil in the microwave, so I microwaved some water up to scalding, dumped the cup in, and covered it with a temperature sensitive pot lid. (Thermo-something) I gave that a few minutes to heat up, and stirred together the lackluster veggies and unimpressive chicken. It was not a pretty dish, and I would definitely not post it on social media.

Once the sauce was heated up enough, I spooned it into the individual bowls for the meal, and stirred it up. That made it REALLY ugly.

Tasted ok. I put about a teaspoon of soy sauce in mine, that wasn't a great idea, made it really salty.

I'd make the MEAL again, but Bird's eye is bless'ed fired out of the rotation. I'd probably just steam the broccoli myself and run a fresh carrot through a potato peeler. Might even manage to make it look presentable if I cooked the chicken from scratch.

As to the cheese sauce, I'd lazy it up again. Buying a cheese packet means you never have to "First, make a roux" which are words I occasionally say to my mom when we're in a car going somewhere to watch her eyes get all pissed off.

I was going to do a big pancake thing for mothers day, but we're both sick. Sucks.

[6pairsofshoes]

I hope you are both feeling better now.  We recently discovered Frontera salsas and like all of them.  I've scoured the island and they don't seem to have any more in stock, so that's a bummer.  I may have to resort to Pace brand, which is mediocre.  I doubt there's any Pato brand here.

I'm making the first of a series of big pots of vegetable soup:  celery, onion, carrot, tomato, zucchini, cabbage, butter beans, potatoes, with chicken stock seasoned with basil, bay leaves and red pepper flakes.  Olive oil to start the cooking.  It smells pretty good.  It freezes well, too.  I'll make two more pots.  My feet are sore from chopping enough vegetables for three batches in one go, but it's a good deal easier to put the 2nd and 3rd together.  It's for our father, since it's easy to take a serving out of the freezer, thaw and nuke it.  I usually fill the freezer every couple of months.  We eat simply here. 

Today:  Quorn (veggie) burger on wheat bread with mustard.  Not much excitement going on except that the neighbor's dog is visiting.  She's a real sweetie and she chases lizards, which is a plus.

[8ullfrog]

I botched nachos.

Which was really sad, because the filling came out great.

Problem was the chips. I bought Tapatio Doritos because I figured a hot sauce based chip would make it great, instead the powder coating burned, making the entire tray taste kind of crap.

We've been half heartedly picking at the leftovers, but it wasn't great.

I will reiterate that the filling came out fantastic, and here's the video I followed:

Marrying the onion, garlic, and meat is something I've done many a time for recipes, but mixing in the beans with some water is not something I've done before. I was very pleased with the outcome. I'm also super jealous of her frying pan. I always wondered why some frying pans have that lip, and after watching the video, it's fairly obvious. It makes draining the fat much easier.

I think I might buy another of those onion chopper infomercial things, I really hate dicing onions.

Tonight I made sandwiches. Super boring, super basic. Potato bread, Chipotle chicken, Muenster cheese, brown mustard, some pepper, and a stupidly pretentious mayo because grocery outlet hasn't been stocking mayo. Sir Kensington's Mayonnaise. Can't say I'm a fan, as it uses safflower oil. At least they're upfront about it, there is a picture of a sun flower on the label.

Mom's off at a friends house, so there's no need to fire up stove or oven.

[6pairsofshoes]

I laughed at the Sir Kensington's mayo reference.  Pretentious for sure.  I mean, come on.  WTF does some British sounding lord have to do with a sauce more typically associated with the French?  I was then intrigued by the issue of where the name originated and so dug into Wikipedia.  Here, for your entertainment, is the relevant section.

Before the sauce called Mayonnaise appeared in French cookbooks in the 18th century, several versions of similar sauces existed in Spain and in France.

In 1750, Francesc Roger Gomila, a Valencian friar, published a recipe for a sauce similar to mayonnaise in Art de la Cuina ('The Art of Cooking'). He calls the sauce aioli bo. Earlier recipes of similar emulsified sauces, usually bearing garlic, appear in a number of Spanish recipe books, dating all the way back to the 14th century Llibre de Sent Soví, where it is called all-i-oli, literally 'garlic and oil' in Catalan. This sauce had clearly spread throughout the Crown of Aragon, for Juan de Altamiras gives a recipe for it in his celebrated 1745 recipe book Nuevo Arte de Cocina ('New Art of Cooking').

On April 18, 1756, the Duke of Richelieu invaded Menorca and took the port of Mahon. A theory states that the aioli bo sauce was thereafter adopted by the cook of the Duke of Richelieu, who upon his return to France made the sauce famous in the French court. At that point, the sauce became known as mahonnaise (indicating it was named after the city of Mahon). A number of legends arose relating how the Duke of Richelieu first tried the sauce, including his discovery of the sauce in a local inn of Mahon where he would have allegedly asked the innkeeper to make him some dinner during the siege of Mahon, and even that he invented it himself as a quick garnish.

Other sauces similar to mayonnaise seem to have existed in France prior to the conquest of Mahon by Richelieu.  In a book published in 1742, François Marin gives a recipe for a sauce that is close to modern mayonnaise, and inspired by remoulade sauce, and by aioli.

Another version is Grimod de La Reynière's 1808 bayonnaise sauce which is a sort of aspic: "But if one wants to make from this cold chicken, a dish of distinction, one composes a bayonnaise, whose green jelly, of a good consistency, forms the most worthy ornament of poultry and fish salads." The earliest known French recipes of the sauce appear to be recipes for an aspic, not a sauce; Viard's 1806 recipe for "poulets en mayonnaise" describes a sauce involving a velouté, gelatin, vinegar, and an optional egg to thicken it, which gels like an aspic.  The word "mayonnaise" is attested to in English in 1815.

Auguste Escoffier wrote that mayonnaise was a French mother sauce of cold sauces, just like Espagnole or Velouté.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayonnaise

Menorca is one of the Spanish Balearic islands and Mahon is a port on that island.

[8ullfrog]

I looked it up, faux snootiness, Sir Kensington's is *GASP* American.

Makes good chicken salad. Like I said before, not a big fan of safflower oil, I really like olive oil mayo. But I had some leftover chicken from that veggies and chicken meal that had one day left on the meter.

I hit the mayo and chicken with some black pepper and mustard, it came out nice. Would have been better with a bit of lemon juice, but I'm fresh out.

Definitely a better use for the chicken than that veggie meal, that was a bomb.

In future I'd probably do something to dry the chicken out a bit, it was way too wet to begin with.


Oh man, their website is hilarious. They talk about being fancy and "Magnifique" but the reviews do not bear that out.

TWO STAR REVIEW:

The new recipe however has the texture of hair products, lardy with almost a white translucency. It feels like the egg yokes/mustard are missing and the taste of the oil reminds me of a stale product. Extremely sad

ONE STAR REVIEW:

There is nothing "improved" about this new recipe. Now it just tastes like any other commercial mayo, maybe even a bit worse, flat with no depth or complexity, and just a smidge of chemicals and plastic. Seriously disappointed.

ANOTHER ONE STAR:

IMPROVED RECIPE" = BLAND FLAVOR
You definitely had quality control issues that needed attention, but now you've gone ahead and changed the formula and ruined what had been a uniquely delicious product! So very disappointed.

At least now I know how Sir Fancypants ended up at grocery outlet.

In one response, they admit they cut two ingredients - mustard flour and black pepper.

I guess that's what made my chicken salad enjoyable. Why would you turf your product like that?

One more one star, because this is bless'ed fun -

TASTES AWFUL... NOT WHAT IT USED TO BE
I have no idea why they thought it was a good idea to throw out a winner. The new recipe is awful. Where their old recipe was soft and creamy, the new one is gelatinous. Where the old one had a wonderful hint of savory seasonings, the new one has a sterile and metallic flavor.

I’m absolutely baffled at how such an abomination made it through the company’s decision process and ruined a good product.

I guess I should give kudos that they left these reviews up on their own website.

Huh, I went and checked. I've got "Original recipe"

[6pairsofshoes]

Those reviews are pretty funny.  Every now and then ibotta, the rebate app, would have rebates for buying it, but I was never tempted. 

I made some very good tuna salad for lunch today:  celery, shallot, some dried oregano with Super U tuna (line caught) and Lesieur Mayonnaise (douce made with free range chicken egg yolks) along with a mix of Super U Moutarde Douce (mild) and Super U Moutarde Fine et Forte (fine and strong-packs a punch).  This is all stuff off the shelf and most of it store brand.  The tuna was, unlike the tinned American stuff, actually generously packed in the can so there wasn't 50% water).  The Mayo is basically very good, using huile de colza (rapeseed oil), egg yolks, vinegar (white wine), sugar, salt and a few other odd items.  I'll miss this mayo when I go home.  But Heinz, Hellmann's are generally fine with me.  Not so good as this, but we don't have much choice given the main division between Unilever and Kraft in the food aisles of most American supermarkets.  There's stuff I miss here, but not much.  There's no Sir Kensington's here, for example.  I have a friend who lives in Hungary and his mother made mayo once with sour cream.  It was to die for.  I've never made it myself, but if you get up a good head of steam with an egg beater or a whisk, I imagine it's not that hard.

Has anyone on here ever made mayo at home?

[smokester]

... and we Brits refused to recognise that garlic was edible until (at the very earliest) the 1970s. Until then it was filthy foreign muck that made Frenchmen smell. Or maybe Spaniards.

Brits have always made a fine art of xenophobia.

You reminded me of these sketches. Absolutely hilarious!

[TNG]

Pizza hut now sells a "Sunday Roast" pizza. It's not that great. I don't know what they were smoking when they came up with this. Stick with the pepperoni.

[dweez]

For the most part, I hate these "novelty" pizzas (Dessert pizzas on the other hand, are awesome). Papa John's has a "Cheeseburger" pizza that I've tried a couple times. Every time, it smells great, but tastes like (what I imagine) vomit (tastes like).

The only novelty pizzas I really like are hot wing pizzas (name varies) and the universally hated ham and pineapple.

BTW TNG, love the avatar, though crossing DC/Marvel could get you in trouble in some circles.

[8ullfrog]

Cheeseburger pizza is amazing when it's done properly. Unfortunately, a lot of places "wing it". I doubt you'll ever be in Bridgewater NJ, but if you do oddly find yourself there, http://carlospizzaandpasta.com/

Dude was super prickly, but he liked my Uncle.

I hate the smell of a meat lovers pizza, but I enjoy the taste just fine.

I know I'll probably recoil in horror, but what is on a Sunday Roast pizza?

[TNG]

The only novelty pizzas I really like are hot wing pizzas (name varies) and the universally hated ham and pineapple.

Ham and pineapple is not a novelty, it's the pinnacle of pizza. I was lucky I ordered a ham and pineapple as well because the Sunday roast sure as hell wasn't going to feed me.

BTW TNG, love the avatar, though crossing DC/Marvel could get you in trouble in some circles.

They can try it on, see where it gets them. They don't know what I'm capable of.

I know I'll probably recoil in horror, but what is on a Sunday Roast pizza?

English style roast beef with sage & onion stuffing, roast potato slices and red onions, all on a red wine gravy base (may contain alcohol) - from the pizza hut site.

The beef and stuffing are tasty, and potato on a pizza is also great. Where it goes wrong though is with the "gravy base". The onions are caramelised or something, which are nice with some things, but on this pizza with the gravy is not it chief.

[6pairsofshoes]

Pizza is one of my favorite foods.  A simple cheese slice, maybe with some mushrooms is fine by me. 

Here, the French think that, because their country has 5000 different kinds of cheeses, they should put as many as possible on their pizza.  The result is that pizza here sucks, unless your goal is to up your cholesterol count as quickly as possible.  Then, you're golden with the local pizzas.  A few new pizzerias have opened here in the last month and I might give them a try, just to see if there's been any improvements.  On the Dutch side, there's a Dominos, but I avoid them like the plague.  Better to eat a bowl of thin gruel and some fruit.

It's hot so I had salad for dinner.  I sure would have loved a good slice of pizza, though.

[8ullfrog]

When in CA you live by a blondies. I am insanely jealous. Have you ever been? Is Rasputin Records next door still in business?

I don't miss much from my childhood. Times were tough. Blondies was a bit of a refuge. I'd go there, play a little Street Fighter 2, which was still there in 2002, and enjoy a slice.

I don't have anything like that here. We have a local pizza place but the owner is mean. And not in a "He'll warm up to you over time" way. Dude is just a surly bottom like Moe Szylak.

I just checked. Blondies is permanently closed. golly. That's gonna make my mom sad when I tell her tomorrow.

Apparently that's happened twice, they've reopened in the same location but apparently it was poo both times it reopened.

Guess it's like blockbuster, something to live fondly in memory, not in the world.

I can't remember the last time I played an arcade game.

To Reorient back on topic, we did basic burritos tonight, nothing fancy. Quite a bit of cheese.

They didn't have tubs of sour cream so we got the daisy squeeze tube. It's quite convenient for putting on a burrito but feels like a giant toothpaste tube in practice.

I re-simmered the already cooked meat in 1/3 cup water, some chili powder and some cayenne pepper. Woke the leftovers up nicely.

Cayenne certainly reminds you once you've eaten it.