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How do?

So at the weekend, my flatmates moved out, leaving me all alone (awwwww!) in my flat. And as one of them used to do the cooking, it's time for yours truly to once again roll up his sleeves and get busy rattlin' them pots and pans (The Two Granny's Mystery taught me well).

Now I've not regularly cooked for a little over a year, so I'm having to remember my old repertoire. And with the colder months hurtling towards us, combined with a long commute home, I'm thinking of focussing my efforts on food that's warming, or good for the soul. Or indeed both.

For clarity, whilst I do make what I laughingly call Creole and Cajun dishes. I'm not meaning the exact US definition of Soul Food - I'd never insult such a great cuisine. Instead, its more those dishes from your past which take a wee bit of effort/planning to get right, but can feed a single, hungry bloke for a few days. Anything that I can leave to keep warm for days on end in the slow cooker/crockpot is a big win for me!

Having just issued some vague, but heartfelt praise for US cuisine, I'd like to share with you my slow cooker/crockpot Beef Stew. It's pretty straight forward, with the only real effort coming from chopping the sodding turnip, on account that plant species seems curiously resistant to my otherwise excellent knives!

Done right, it's a punchy flavour readily ladelled out the pot straight into your bowl. It'll fill you up, warm you up, and is just all round win!

First? The meat. To be honest, any cheap sinewy cut will do. It's going to be slow cooked, so all that fat will render down and add to the flavour. Even if your health conscious, lean meat will do in a pinch, but it won't be quite as rich. Roughly 900 grams to 1kg should do you. Roll it in some seasoned flour (nowt fancy, just salt and pepper), then set aside.

The veg? Well, I favour turnip, carrot, parsnip and potato. But you can use pretty much whatever winter veg tickles your fancy. 1 turnip, couple of spuds. You'll be wanting to dice those to get some chunky in your stew. Carrots and turnip can either be cut into batons or just sliced. Again, this isn't a fancy dish - it's a flavourful one,

Now....now for the stock. Couple of OXO beef cubes, or two/three teaspoons of beef gravy granules. Mix it with some boiling water from the kettle - but just enough to dissolve. Because we're not using wussy water oh no....we're using Red Wine. But not just any old cheap plonk. Give yourself over to the wisdom of Keith Floyd. If you wouldn't drink it, don't cook with it. Just any 'Saturday night in front of the telly' Red Wine will do.

Now, I like to bed the slow cooker pot with the veg, then put the meat on top. From there, I add in the beef stock (remember, just enough water to dissolve!), followed by the Red Wine. You need to add enough Red Wine to just about cover the top of the other ingredients.

Whack the slow cooker on Hot, and leave it alone for around 10 hours. At that point, it's ready to eat! But....for goodness sake taste it first. You may want to balance out the flavours with the spices or flavouring of your choice. Bay leaf or two can work, but it's really up to you. They're your tastebuds after all. Me? I like it get it into the Bowl, then tinker with the flavour for that serving. Squirt of tomato purée, or a few dashes of Worcester sauce can give you a very different dish to that left in the Slow Cooker!

Serving suggestion? In a bowl, good crusty bread on the side.

Right, that's my tastebuds tickling, it's over to you!

I love crockpoting food.

You can make a tasty "Italian" beef with just a cheap roast, probably about 1 kg, a couple packets of italian seasoning dressing, some pepperoncinis, and some dark beer (or water) to cover.

Mix it all together, put it on low while out at work (or asleep) and then when you come back to it, serve on hoagies or some other dense roll. Adding onions is usually a safe bet as well.

I think I ate that probably 25% of the time when I lived alone.

 daedalus wrote:
I love crockpoting food.

You can make a tasty "Italian" beef with just a cheap roast, probably about 1 kg, a couple packets of italian seasoning dressing, some pepperoncinis, and some dark beer (or water) to cover.

Mix it all together, put it on low while out at work (or asleep) and then when you come back to it, serve on hoagies or some other dense roll. Adding onions is usually a safe bet as well.

I think I ate that probably 25% of the time when I lived alone.

Instead of water, I use beef stock. Makes it sooooo much better. I only recently made the change after I had some amazing Italian beef and had to ask why it was so delicious. Also, instead of Italian seasoning dressing, I use Louie's Seasoning

Pop an onion in it and get some mozzarella ready to melt on top of the bun. Perfection. Just my two cents.

I love my crock pot. I have a similar recipe for beef stew, I usually go for Chuck steak/roast and chop it up myself rather than going for the pre cut stew cubes some stores have. Usually cheaper that way. For veggies I use like 1 average sized onion, 2-3 carrots, a couple celery stalks and 2 potatoes or 6-8 little red potatoes.. all cubed up. And like 37 cloves of garlic too. The little italian in me also makes me add pasta just because. I'll usually cook like a half pkg of elbow macaroni and cook it till it's almost squishy, so that it doesn't absorb all the broth. I hate that. Then I just dump it in at the end.

I also love to make pulled pork and pulled beef in my slow cooker. I'll usually just throw in a big hunk of meat, some broth and some off the shelf seasoning. For pork I usually use a BBQ dry rub and for beef I use Montreal steak seasoning. And plenty of garlic too. Gotta keep the vamps away somehow.

Oof. As a transplanted New Yorker, one of the things that disturbed me most about moving the the US midwest was the predilection they have for taking a perfectly good roast and throwing it in a crock pot until it turns into a soggy mess.

I think crock pots are great for making beef stew, enchilada meat, inferior-to-smoked pulled pork, and to be honest, very little else. This is not an opinion that has endeared me to my co-workers or wife's family.

Oh you New Yorkers.

I actually blame Chicago for the soggy roasts. That's where I think I had it for the first time commercially. That's what the guy I know who's a transplant from Connecticut calls it "Chicago Beef" also.

Also, crock pots are good for bratwurst too.

I don't know if it qualifies as Soul Food, but when working long hours, I like to make big pots of things like Chili con Carne, Cajun chicken, "zuurkoolstamppot" (saurkraut mash, I suppose it'd be called in English), spaghetti sauce etc. Cook it once, then put it in the refrigerator and microwave at work for the rest of the week. Especially good if you're on nightshifts, as I tend to be.

(Note: although a lot of people make these things rather devoid of ingredients, I tend to prefer an "everything including the kitchen sink" approach to these things.)

 daedalus wrote:
Oh you New Yorkers.

I actually blame Chicago for the soggy roasts.

Not to mention their "pizza", but that's another thread

Chicago does good, well, "pizza". I don't think its pizza, but it's tasty. I gotta say that NY style is the one "true" pizza. Unfortunately, it's very hard to get a pizza in St. Louis that isn't either a chain pizza or a piece of cardboard covered in melted plastic. I swear every good exception to that rule around here closes down within about a year of me discovering it.

But I'm getting off topic! Ignore me.

A someone recently single and cooking for one, here are a few of my go-tos.

Phoned in burritos. They aren’t authentic, and never claimed to be. But they are quick, easy, and leftovers reheat well. Cook up some ground beef/turkey with asst. texmex-ish spices (chili powder, cilantro, cyan pepper, cumin) When it’s getting close to done, drop in a can of beans (black or kidney, but any will do) and a hefty dollop of salsa. Cook a bit more, thicken if needed. Serve in a tortilla with cheese.

Quiche. Pre made pie crust. 3 eggs, cup and a half of milk. Salt, Pepper, and whatever you have lurking in the fridge/freezer. I’ll dice up random ham, frozen peas, leftover veggies. handful of cheese. Cook at 325-350 ish for 30-45min.

I’ve been making more pasta carbonara lately. Basically beat some eggs and parm cheese together, drop some hot pasta on it, and toss to cook the eggs into a sauce. Then add bacon. There is more to it, but it’s cheep and good.

Pasta w/ white sauce. Make a roux. Add milk. Add frozen/leftover veg/ham/bacon/chicken to taste.

Chicken with crumbs: Put chicken breasts into baking dish (whole or cut into bites, either works) Mix a can of cream of chicken soup with about a half cup of white wine; pour over/mix in with the chicken. Top with dried stuffing mix (I’ve always used pepridge farms herbed stuffing) drizzle butter over stuffing. Bake until done. Serve with rice and peas (cranberry sauce if you have it, I rarely do) One can of soup should cover a 9x13 baking dish, I freeze half a can with some wine mixed in and just do a 9x9 these days.

As we get into soup and stew weather, I’ll start up pots of those. Split pea w/ham, chili (both a classic red, and a white chicken based one) beef stew, and a german potato soup (smoky ham stock, with shredded carrots, onions and potatoes)

A tray of lasagnia will last a long time, and are not hard to make. Just a lot of prep steps.

And for solid comfort food, bake some bread. Yeast breads are not hard to do, and there is nothing like them fresh out of the oven.

My Favorite is a Turkey Meatloaf(Long ago I stopped trying to eat so much red meat, and the dietician recommend I do turkey loaf instead of meat loaf, and I love it more than regular loaf
I sometimes make a nice sandwhich out of the loaf with Olie oil Mayo, spicy mustade and Bannana peppers with melter pepper jack

I make a bastardised version of.... something, no idea what. I found a recipe, screwed around with it, and now it bears no resemblance to anything-but it's bloody tasty.

I usually make it when I have the flu, or feel a bit under the weather-perks you right up.

Lots of calabrese sausage, chilli, cayenne pepper, veggies, herbs and stock, with rice thrown in a few hours before eating.

Absolutely fantastic. Feeds me for days, and keeps me feeling well.

Here are a couple of my favourites;

Balti Butter chicken;
Ingredients;
150ml plain unsweetened yoghurt.
50g of ground almonds.
¼ tsp of bayleaves.
1 1/2 tsp of chilli powder.
¼ tsp of ground cloves.
¼ tsp of ground cinnamon.
1 tsp of garam masala.
4 Green Cardamom pods.
1 tsp grated ginger.
1tsp of crushed garlic.

Put all that in a bowel and mix.
Add 1x 400g tin of chopped tomatoes to the bowel with a pinch of salt.
Add 1kg of Chicken.
Melt 75g of butter with 1 tbsp of oil in a frying pan/heavy based saucepan and fry 2 brown onions.
Add the chicken and spice mix, cook on high heat for 10min.
Add 2 tbsp of Coriander (ground or tightly packed fresh).
Add 60ml of cream.
Serve (or alternately before adding the cream put in crock pot to simmer and add cream before serving).
Best served with basmati rice and naan bread.

Leek and potato soup.
Boil 1lb of floury potatoes.
Fry 2 large leeks (make sure to chop length wise and wash) in ½ of butter.
When fried off add 1 pint of chicken stock and seasoning to taste.
Add ¼ pint of skimmed milk.
Drain potatoes and add to mix.
Simmer for as long as you can be bothered.
Blitz, blend or serve as is. Best with fresh bread.

I have always loved this quick and easy breakfast.

My mother would make it for me and call it huevos rancheros, which wasn't quite what it really was.
I jokingly call them, breakfast nachos.

Need:
Tortilla chips
Eggs (1-2, preference varies)
Salsa
Cheese

Cook the eggs in any way you prefer in a pan (I recommend sunny side up)
Heat up the salsa in a small pot
Lay the chips out on a plate, crush down slightly to make it easy to eat with a fork
Cover the chips in cheese
Place eggs on cheese covered chips
Top with Salsa

It makes a quick and easy breakfast that stays with you for a while. You can add other things to this but this is the basic, quick, recipe.

Very nice!

Also, just remembered there's a spitroast restaurant round my way, with an actual, honest to goodness 'Automatic Dog Baffler' spitroast in the main dining room.

Need to head back there with my chums soon I think. I know Americans have their Barbecue, and us Scots will deep fry and eat just about anything, but seriously, nobody does spitroast beefs like the English. And certainly 10 or so years ago, that place was fantastic.

In Scotland now, actually.
Had my first portion of stovies yesterday. Very tasty, me likey.
Still a little hesitant to try a deep-fried Mars bar though.

Ahh, Stovies. A name without a dish, on account everyone makes it very differently!

It's definitely the second best thing about a good Beef joint.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I find it no surprise that most nations have a 'best-loved' dish which is based on one pot cooking using leftovers.

You can stick your prime steak, and forget about your caviar. Just give me honest to goodness 'best to use it all up' traditional peasant dishes every time. All about packing that flavour into a cheap, easily made dish

My favourite Scottish comfort food would be Mince 'n Tatties.
Usually served with doughballs.
Get some nice lean beef mince, fry it off in a little oil. add a diced onion, cook on a fairly high heat until softened.
add beef stock to the level of the surface of the mince and simmer for about 15 mins. Make douballs as follows. 2 parts suet, 1 part self raising flour, pinch of salt, enough cold water to make a stiff dough. Place on top of the mince and simmer for further 20 mins.
Serve with mashed potato and garden peas.

ingtaer wrote:

Put all that in a bowel and mix.

Isn't that where everything we eat ends up, anyway?


Anyway, most of my comfort foods tend to involve my stockpot or dutch oven.
I like to make big batches of chili that I'll just eat on for days. I make mine with brisket, diced tomatoes, onions, poblano peppers, and lots of Pendery's original. No beans.
I'll sometimes make a big pot of beef stroganoff: lots of mushrooms, thinly sliced brisket, beef broth, liberal amounts of worcestershire sauce (yeah, I'm one of those people) and a tub of sour cream added in at the end. I use spaetzle instead of noodles.
There's a Belgian (I think) dish I like where I take lots of sliced onions, some thinly sliced brisket, and a big bottle of Chimay Blue, cook for a couple hours, and serve that over noodles/spaetzle.

And, of course, pizza.

Y'all might have noticed a theme of me using brisket in a lot of the stew-type stuff I make. It costs about the same as any decent stew/roast cuts. If I get just the flat cut, there's so much less work to trim off the excess fat. And it cooks up so wonderfully tender after a couple hours of low and slow.

Ha good spot! Really should proof read stuff. Time for some dessert?

This recipe takes me right back to my youth and its many and varied shenanigans;

Cherry bakewell.
Ingredients
500g/1lb 2oz sweet shortcrust pastry
3 tbsp icing sugar, plus extra for dusting
175g/6oz butter, softened
175g/6oz caster sugar
4 free-range eggs
175g/6oz ground almonds
300g/11oz ready-made raspberry jam
40g/1½oz flaked toasted almonds.


1.Preheat the oven to 190C/375F/Gas 5.
2.Roll the sweet shortcrust pastry out onto a lightly dusted work surface to a 0.5cm/¼in thickness.
3.Carefully; line a 23cm/9in, deep-sided tart tin with the pastry, pressing the pastry into the edges of the tin.
4.Line the pastry case with greaseproof paper and fill with baking beans or rice.
5.Place the tart tin onto a baking tray, then bake in the oven for 15 minutes.
6.Remove the greaseproof paper and baking beans or rice, then return the tart case to the oven and bake for a further 8-10 minutes, or until the pastry is crisp and pale golden-brown. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool slightly.
7.Meanwhile, beat the butter and sugar together in a bowl until pale and fluffy.
8.Crack in the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition, until all of the eggs have been fully incorporated into the mixture.
9.Fold in the ground almonds until well combined.
10.When the pastry case has cooled, spread the raspberry jam in an even layer all over the bottom of the tart.
11.Spoon in the almond mixture and smooth the surface with a palette knife.
12.Dust the top of the tart with icing sugar, then sprinkle over the flaked almonds.
13.Return the tart to the oven and continue to cook for 25-30 minutes, or until the filling has risen and is cooked through and the surface is pale golden-brown. (NB: The filling is cooked through when a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.)
14.Remove the tart from the oven and set aside to cool slightly before serving.