topic Re: Avoiding shopping with creative recipes in The Lounge

Avoiding shopping with creative recipes

ichor — Thu, 26 Mar 2020 15:14:03 GMT

Anyone else coming up with some creative food recipes in this time of self-isolation? I have plenty of ingredients in the house, but not a lot go well together and I don't want to go to the store.

Ham and nettle lasagne wasn't a great pairing, but edible.
Brocolli and anchovies pasta with an excess of garlic was fantastic!
cabbage pancakes were better with bacon
Today attempt: spicycock and blue cheese scones.

Re: Avoiding shopping with creative recipes

computergeek541 — Thu, 26 Mar 2020 21:43:21 GMT

The good new is how ingredients that don't go well together don't always have to be mixed together in a single dish. If not sure of how well the pair of ingredients is, I would consider consuming each separately. I believe also think that we're usually lucky to have so much choice of what to eat, but as long as there's something, we'll be okay. In a pinch, I could simply have rice and beans or spaghetti with ketchup every day. Meal time would get pretty boring, but I'd get by.

Re: Avoiding shopping with creative recipes

ichor — Thu, 26 Mar 2020 21:56:14 GMT

It's amazing how wonderfully well most things go with pasta.

We've been having trouble finding pasta in the shops but I always keep a lot in the house and have almost a months supply if I can keep it down to one pasta meal a day. It's hard going but things could be worse. Almost time to dust off my pasta maker.

It feels like I've fallen into one of my grandmother's stories about wartime rationing.

Re: Avoiding shopping with creative recipes

darlicious — Sat, 28 Mar 2020 09:22:57 GMT

@ichor Post what you have in your fridge and your pantry and I'll come up with a good recipe for you.

Re: Avoiding shopping with creative recipes

will13am — Sat, 28 Mar 2020 13:45:10 GMT

I have lots of dry starch in the form of rice and spaghetti. What hit me yesterday was the lack of salt. Never have I ever cooked so much at home. A tube of salt usually lasts a long, long time, buy these are unusual times. Yesterday I went out to buy some groceries and included salt in the shopping list on top of the usual perishables. The hoarding seems to have subsided or the stores have stepped on filling the shelves. Only bread was in short supply whereas everything was a couple of weeks ago.

@darlicious , stop the Michelin chef thing already! How about some pictures of white rice with soya sauce? Maybe just the rice.

Re: Avoiding shopping with creative recipes

ichor — Sat, 28 Mar 2020 15:19:05 GMT

@will13am wrote:
... stop the Michelin chef thing already! How about some pictures of white rice with soya sauce? Maybe just the rice.

I ran out of soya sauce.

Re: Avoiding shopping with creative recipes

ichor — Sat, 28 Mar 2020 15:20:55 GMT

There are three salmon in the freezer that people keep giving us. Most of it's cleaned but whole. I guess it's time to ask google how to cook it.

Re: Avoiding shopping with creative recipes

darlicious — Sat, 28 Mar 2020 19:32:41 GMT

@ichor Unless your salmon is vacuum packed it has a short freezer life. It easily gets freezer burn and that unpalatable fishy taste. If I get fresh salmon ( I love that 4th year sockeye salmon run that gets the whole fish price down to $5/lb.) I fillet it and portion it out and use my vacuum sealer (food saver 2000 $29.99 at LD boxing wk. great deal I should have bought 2!) to package them and they'll last a year in the freezer and still taste fresh.

The easiest way to deal with a whole frozen salmon would be to defrost overnight in cold water completely covered in your sink or a cooler. Stuff the cavity with fresh herbs (dill if possible but you can use from a garden....fennel, thyme, oregano mint, parsley or even rosemary, sage or lemon balm. Butter or olive oil, a generous amount of preferably course salt, fresh ground pepper and thinly sliced lemon (lemons are pricey so limes are great or an orange even an old one from the bottom of the fridge.) Stuff the cavity and tie with butcher string. try to get the stuffing to even out the thickness of salmon so the stuffed cavity and backbone side are even. Make a few slashes with a knife on each side of the fish to allow the heat to penetrate the thickest part of the flesh.

Wrap tightly in a few layers of aluminum foil and roast in the oven or on the bbq on a baking sheet (to help in flipping halfway thru cooking and less mess if it leaks) at about 425 for 40 min or more depending on the size. Use a thermometer for doneness 120 for med rare 140 for "cooked" allow to rest the internal temp will rise another 5 degrees. If you don't have a thermometer use the tip of a knife insert and hold for 10-15 sec and make sure the tip is warm to the touch.

Serve with grilled veggies or a big salad and basmati rice (the only low glycemic and whole grain white rice and the healthiest kind) add salt, pepper, a knob of butter or olive oil, 1/2-1 tsp of ground cumin, a bay leaf and/or a small cinnamon stick for a more aromatic rice you can add a handful of frozen peas for the last 2 min of cook time, let them steam on warm for 5 more min and mix in evenly.

Once cool remove all the leftover salmon from the bone (the carcass can be give to the cats to snack from or used for dog food by grinding up the backbone and fleshy bits....) Use leftovers for cold salmon on a big salad, salmon salad for sandwiches or my fave fish cakes!

Combine cold mash potatoes, salmon, finely diced onion, chopped parsley, dill, cilantro or chives, salt & pepper, if you have....add a tablespoon of grainy mustard, fine diced sweet bell pepper, pickled hot peppers, the gherkins or dill pickle. Any or all if you have. Use an egg to bind together if needed. Cool in fridge. Form into 2-3 inch balls, flatten into patties in breadcrumbs and pan fry a few minutes on each side. Serve with homemade tartar or remoulade sauce and salad.

Re: Avoiding shopping with creative recipes

ichor — Sat, 28 Mar 2020 19:12:25 GMT

@darlicious wrote:
@ichor Unless your salmon is vacuum packed it has a short freezer life.

They were vacuumed packed and quick frozen on the boat somehow. But whole (except for the guts).

Re: Avoiding shopping with creative recipes

darlicious — Sat, 28 Mar 2020 19:28:33 GMT

@will13am wrote:
I have lots of dry starch in the form of rice and spaghetti. What hit me yesterday was the lack of salt. Never have I ever cooked so much at home. A tube of salt usually lasts a long, long time, buy these are unusual times. Yesterday I went out to buy some groceries and included salt in the shopping list on top of the usual perishables. The hoarding seems to have subsided or the stores have stepped on filling the shelves. Only bread was in short supply whereas everything was a couple of weeks ago.

@darlicious , stop the Michelin chef thing already! How about some pictures of white rice with soya sauce? Maybe just the rice.

@will13am A tube of salt? If you look in dollarama you can occasionally find the large Himalayan salt grinders for $2 everywhere else reg. $8.

Re: Avoiding shopping with creative recipes

darlicious — Sat, 28 Mar 2020 19:38:53 GMT

@ichor wrote:
@darlicious wrote:
@ichor Unless your salmon is vacuum packed it has a short freezer life.
They were vacuumed packed and quick frozen on the boat somehow. But whole (except for the guts).

@ichor Perfect they'll last a long time in the freezer then. Defrost the same way and you can fillet if you want but food safe says you can't refreeze unless cooked but the unfried salmon cake balls or unbreaded patties can be frozen for future use.

Re: Avoiding shopping with creative recipes

will13am — Sat, 28 Mar 2020 20:27:18 GMT

@darlicious , I refer to the packaging as a tube because the salt is in a tube shape plastic container. A buck a tube.

Re: Avoiding shopping with creative recipes

darlicious — Sat, 28 Mar 2020 20:30:19 GMT

@will13am Ohhhhhh...got it. My salt mostly comes in box shapes. I guess I could call it rectangles of salt.

Re: Avoiding shopping with creative recipes

ichor — Sat, 28 Mar 2020 21:07:30 GMT

I buy salt by the kilo and usually keep five or so on hand.

It's my inner prepper showing because if we have an earthquake that knocks out the power to the freezer and fridge, I can preserve just about anything in salt.

A friend owns a shop and came to work an hour early so we could have a private shopping session. We got milk, a few more packs of pasta, and some fresh veg. I'm good for another 10-14 days, but will probably be getting creative in the kitchen again in less than a week.

Last night, Tuna-rice-concoction. It's leftover rice fried with celery, carrots, tuna, and hot sauce. I found some young green onions in the garden and the local brewery now delivers beer to the door (for only $5 extra) and are officially my personal covid-heros.

Re: Avoiding shopping with creative recipes

darlicious — Sat, 28 Mar 2020 21:40:45 GMT

@ichor The "trinity" or mirepoix of European dishes is onion, celery and carrot. Cajun substitute the celery with green pepper and Chinese cuisine garlic, ginger and green onion. To give any fried rice or stir fry concoction an Asian flavour use the above base flavour ingredients (reg onion is just fine) and have soy sauce and sesame oil (a little goes a long way use it in addition to veg oil at the beginning of a recipe) on hand. Green onion and/or chopped cilantro for garnish. Use a little cornstarch mixed in a little water for thickener in stirfries and some juice to balance the sauce. Orange, pineapple, lemonade and mango work well or if you have no juice water and a little honey or brown sugar.

Re: Avoiding shopping with creative recipes

darlicious — Wed, 01 Apr 2020 18:14:19 GMT

@CannonFodder Since you were having trouble finding this thread I thought I would mention you...

Re: Avoiding shopping with creative recipes

CannonFodder — Wed, 01 Apr 2020 18:26:41 GMT

@darlicious wrote:
@ichor Post what you have in your fridge and your pantry and I'll come up with a good recipe for you.

Dang, even though I'm still having brunch, while checkin' out the pics, I'm gettin' hungry all of a sudden! 👀

Re: Avoiding shopping with creative recipes

CannonFodder — Wed, 01 Apr 2020 18:34:31 GMT

@ichor wrote:
Anyone else coming up with some creative food recipes in this time of self-isolation? I have plenty of ingredients in the house, but not a lot go well together and I don't want to go to the store.

cabbage pancakes were better with bacon

C'mon now, that's a no-brainer - EVERYTHING is better with bacon! 🤣

As for the topic, my wife came up with a bunch of recipes she scooped from the 'net, and we went shopping yesterday, to get some of the ingredients we don't have, and I guess some of those recipes won't be getting made..... there was ZERO baking powder, at 3 different grocery stores, only one of them had any flour, in the HUGE bag(which we didn't take), only one of them had any baking soda, and the BIG problem..... none of them had any toilet paper!!! Well, ok, that last ingredient wasn't really necessary for the recipes, but would've been nice to find nonetheless. 😉

Re: Avoiding shopping with creative recipes

ichor — Wed, 01 Apr 2020 18:37:11 GMT

@CannonFodder wrote:

a no-brainer - EVERYTHING is better with bacon! 🤣

Bravo!

Re: Avoiding shopping with creative recipes

darlicious — Wed, 01 Apr 2020 19:29:16 GMT

@CannonFodder Dang and I'm only looking for the big bag of flour....going out today to hopefully get some at no frills. If you have a SDM near you with the food section....great place to get those baking needs that most people don't think of....and reasonable. Try there for baking powder, cornstarch or icing sugar.....

Now you see why I rarely eat out.....and I have far too many food pics....