FOOD!

[Faust]

Hi, My favorite is my own invention—a fusion of 'gratin dauphinois', English 'scalloped potatoes' and a Hungarian potato dish that my mom and grandma used to make. My French, Japanese and Malaysian friends named it 'Adam's Potatoes'...

Potato slices over-lapped in an oiled glass pie dish, sprinkled with nutmeg, salt, pepper and granulated dried garlic before being topped with mixed Cheddar and Emmental (or Gruyere) cheeses. Repeat, until potatoes are used up, top with cheese and 2" slices of bacon. Bake at 180°C (350°F) until cheese browns and bacon is crisp, about 50-60 minutes. Then hit the gym for two hours every day for two weeks.

Have Fun :)

Fixed!

[interest1]

[ Then hit the gym for two hours every day for two weeks. ]

You haven't heard? By sheer magic, calories don't count during the holidays. Not a one! It's kind of like how money spends differently when you're on vacation, so we usually don't count that, either.

I made coffee cake with icing sugar glaze the other night.





Must say, this baking & drinking thing is fabulous. Who knew?
More lambic, pleeeze!

[Faust]

LOL, so true about money and vacation. Sometimes I really wonder where my brain goes when I'm overseas...

[munch]

Thanks for the recipe Adam, will try. On the potato dish front, this is another one I'm going to try over the holidays:

http://www.seriouseats.com/2013/12/the-food-lab-hasselback-potato-gratin-the-best-potatoes-ever-recipe.html

For the geeky chefs here, the searzall kickstarter is in its last days. I need this.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...6/the-searzall

yeah those potatoes were pretty fantastic... do it.

and yup, searzall... want one for sure.
not sure if I'm convinced it'll be better than cast iron and smoking oil yet since just torch on meat is pretty awful and slow, which leaves gas taste... but definitely looks promising and quick here.
I like to use the torch to burn the fats a little to give it more 'grilled' flavour. works wonders for that though. and bubbling cheese on pizza.

luckily, Swedish christmas food (at least in my family) is so bad I will probably just lose weight during the holidays...

[endersgame]

i'm cleaning out my office and i found a shark's fin. exactly what they use for shark's fin soup. nevermind how i got it. it was used as a prop many years ago.

so i'm not going to eat this. i can't just throw it out. it must be worth a few hundred bucks. can i hock it in chinatown? i don't think i can ebay this thing...

[Atmosphere]

i'm cleaning out my office and i found a shark's fin. exactly what they use for shark's fin soup. nevermind how i got it. it was used as a prop many years ago.

so i'm not going to eat this. i can't just throw it out. it must be worth a few hundred bucks. can i hock it in chinatown? i don't think i can ebay this thing...

If I were you, I'd so make soup out of it. At that price point, it surely has to be good, right? Then you'll only have to try Bird's nest in order to be perceived as a HK billionaire

[endersgame]

i dunno how to make it. it tastes like glass noodles cooked al dente, but i guess you rehydrate it and stick it into a asian soup base (generally some nasty starchy soup). maybe i'll just put it in a jar as a kitchen display..

[lionlimb]

My folks got me this wonderful, IMMENSE Latin@ cookbook for christmas. I need to render lard and find a source for bitter orange before I can actually make anything out of it.

Recent:

oxtail pho, the first meal I cooked on my woodstove


about a billion batches of meyer lemon marmalade and candied kumquats. I got the flu, so I missed citron season


meyer lemon and pear tart


bourbon-prune pave (Also: PRUNES. Prunes are the delicious. Everybody deal. Haters to the left.)


You should all be jealous of my plump and deeply industrious Rhode Island Red biddies. And yes, when I am home I pretty much wear scandiclogs and IM Plantation / muumuus. Because woods.

[schemedream]

Meat / Protein alternatives

Being a vegetarian gets boring at points. I don't eat much processed food or meat substitutes so my options really come down to beans and rice or dairy for protein. I saw this article on Forbes and wanted to know what you folks thought about how this might effect culture universally as well as ecologically.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/rahimkanani/2014/03/06/the-future-of-meat-is-meatless-just-as-tasty-and-about-to-change-the-world/

It's crazy that even Bill Gates (Mr. Eugenics himself ) is on board with this project. I wonder if America could ever let go of those Big Macs and other comforts to support a change as drastic as this.

My question to you folks is this: If you eat meat, would you be willing to take the Pepsi challenge? If you chose the meatless product and actually enjoyed it, could you see yourself replacing meat with it? For the vegetarians, do you eat meat substitutes? Do you feel like processed soy and gluten is really a healthy option?

[boodude]

^^ good project. I have been vegg since 20 years so no meat subs for me cause of the heavy processing. I go with all the natural protein sources - beans, lentils, nuts, hemp seeds, pastired eggs etc. However for people used to meat this products would be great.

[profondo nero]

meat of the future

[Faust]

At this point, and probably for many years ahead, perhaps ever, no meat substitute will substitute meat because science does not fully understand the intricacies of human omnivore diet and all the benefits human organism derives from consuming meat. End of story. And I don't know why this deserves its own thread when we have a food thread.

[volta]

Do you feel like processed soy and gluten is really a healthy option?

soy gives you moobs.

perhaps ever

strong words, but wrong.

edit: does lab meat count as substitute?

[Ahimsa]

Being a vegetarian gets boring at points. I don't eat much processed food or meat substitutes so my options really come down to beans and rice or dairy for protein. I saw this article on Forbes and wanted to know what you folks thought about how this might effect culture universally as well as ecologically.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/rahimkanani/2014/03/06/the-future-of-meat-is-meatless-just-as-tasty-and-about-to-change-the-world/

I've totally had those chicken strips. My uncle loves them but I don't dig the flavor or texture at all. Maybe I'm too used to non-meat?
I never touch store bought/ pre-packaged seitan either, it doesn't even compare to when it's freshly made.

Soy has yet to give me moobs either.

[Faust]

FMC, I did not say anything just about those 3 elements but about a complexity of elements and how they interact in combinations with human body. I have met plenty of former vegetarians turned meat-eaters on doctors orders and who have felt healthier. My point is science does not yet know enough about the complexity of the interaction between food and bodies.

Two things are happening only now - intensive research into the stomach's microbiome, which hitherto had been near impossible, and archeologists arguing that the primitive nomads who relied on meat were taller, stronger, and healthier than their ancestors who moved on to the settled, agrarian lifestyle. One thing we DO know is that science's preoccupation for isolating and idolizing/demonizing this or that nutrient had been dead wrong.