Share a recipe or food thought - General Discussion.

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#2745876 17-Jul-2021 18:04

Mac & cheese is one of those GPF dishes that often, sadly, over-promises & under-delivers. Also, there's a lot of effort required to make this fairly bland dish, with all the stirring & careful heat adjustment required for decent cheese sauce.

Not any more!

My re-imagined Mac & Cheese:

Preheat oven to 200.

Throw into an oven dish some cherry tomatoes, 2 roughly chopped onions, plenty of crushed garlic & fresh chili according to taste. Add one whole tub of cream cheese, splash generously with olive oil & bang it into the oven.

Now boil 1.5 cups of macaroni elbows. When they're ready, check the oven. What you're looking for is a burnt char on the cream cheese & some of the tomatoes - usually this occurs right around the time that the pasta is ready.

Drain the macaroni, splash with olive oil & toss lightly. Now tip that pasta into the oven dish & stir through. That's it, you're done.

Serve.

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blackjack17

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#2745907 17-Jul-2021 18:59

Have a whole lot of silver beet in the garden that I never really know how to use.

Tried this along side a curried mince meal.

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/indian-spiced-greens

didn't put in peas and used chilli flakes but was damn tasty as a side. Could be used with any excess greens.

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1024kb

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#2747143 20-Jul-2021 14:26

Not a recipe as such but a very handy cooking tip.

When cooking kale, it's best to coat liberally with olive oil. That way it slides easily off the plate & into the compost bucket.

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networkn

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#2747146 20-Jul-2021 14:30

The weekend past I put 3.5KG of Boneless Scotch into a Dry Age bag in the fridge for 35 days. It's my first attempt to dry age and hoping it goes well.

outdoorsnz

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#2747169 20-Jul-2021 15:26

1024kb: Mac & cheese is one of those GPF dishes that often, sadly, over-promises & under-delivers. Also, there's a lot of effort required to make this fairly bland dish, with all the stirring & careful heat adjustment required for decent cheese sauce.

Not any more!

My re-imagined Mac & Cheese:

Preheat oven to 200.

Throw into an oven dish some cherry tomatoes, 2 roughly chopped onions, plenty of crushed garlic & fresh chili according to taste. Add one whole tub of cream cheese, splash generously with olive oil & bang it into the oven.

Now boil 1.5 cups of macaroni elbows. When they're ready, check the oven. What you're looking for is a burnt char on the cream cheese & some of the tomatoes - usually this occurs right around the time that the pasta is ready.

Drain the macaroni, splash with olive oil & toss lightly. Now tip that pasta into the oven dish & stir through. That's it, you're done.

Serve.

I am a big mac & cheese fan def will try this version!

Traditional mac and cheese is quite time consuming to make. My version involves cooking onions, garlic, and option ginger / garlic with oil, choice of meat which is usually bacon or left overs such as sausages etc, Tio Pablo red chilpotle salt or random spices such as coriander, cumin, smoked paprika, turmeric etc. For the liquid. 1 can of coconut milk which gives a nice flavor.

Add pasta, heat and eat or combine, and add to a large dish, with cheese / breadcrumbs / finely sliced onions topping, and bake in oven for 15 mins or so.

Tinkerisk

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#2752994 31-Jul-2021 17:08

Ottolenghi :-)

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#2753545 2-Aug-2021 10:32

I was a bit disappointed by the Food Show this year. It was noticeably smaller, many of the stalwarts obviously opted not to come. It wasn't tiny, by any stretch, but also the variety of vendors was pretty average. Each year there is a trend and this year seemed to be plant-based stuff and freeze-dried fruit.

I do wonder, if the trend is toward less processed food, plant-based foods, also on-trend, seem to conflict with this, along with the 'whole' foods trend.

I was pleasantly surprised by Oat Milk, it was a decent alternative to Dairy. Usually, dairy alternatives make me feel queasy, esp soy based products, but this was pretty good. Except for the price. At $5 for a litre, that's quite a significant premium, not to mention how labour intensive it must be to milk oats!

On the plus side, there were a lot more seats around the place. I was a bit sad they ended the late day option they had in 2020, which we really liked. It meant last year we could attend 1-2 events too.

SirHumphreyAppleby

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#2753550 2-Aug-2021 11:04

networkn:

I was a bit disappointed by the Food Show this year. It was noticeably smaller, many of the stalwarts obviously opted not to come. It wasn't tiny, by any stretch, but also the variety of vendors was pretty average. Each year there is a trend and this year seemed to be plant-based stuff and freeze-dried fruit.

The last couple of years have felt a bit lacking for me, but this year left me questioning if I will even bother going next year.

It's interesting you should mention more freeze dried food as I am keen to get my own freeze dryer. Fresh As has been a regular at the show for a while and their products are excellent. Another freeze dried fruit vendor had what was easily the most disgusting thing I tried at the show. They had freeze dried mango, which is usually delicious, but it left a horrible taste in my mouth. Horrible. Imported rubbish (from India) and the strawberries which I saw subsequently weren't even ripe. I was pleased the hot sauce was just around the corner to get rid of the taste.

networkn

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#2753557 2-Aug-2021 11:11

SirHumphreyAppleby:

The last couple of years have felt a bit lacking for me, but this year left me questioning if I will even bother going next year.

It's interesting you should mention more freeze dried food as I am keen to get my own freeze dryer. Fresh As has been a regular at the show for a while and their products are excellent. Another freeze dried fruit vendor had what was easily the most disgusting thing I tried at the show. They had freeze dried mango, which is usually delicious, but it left a horrible taste in my mouth. Horrible. Imported rubbish (from India) and the strawberries which I saw subsequently weren't even ripe. I was pleased the hot sauce was just around the corner to get rid of the taste.

Heh (was that next to the malt drink place?), I thought the mango was nice actually, each to their own.

I was happy to see the countdown people were actually selling or giving away their produce this year, though some of the prices were very LOL. $5 per KG of apples, when they are half that in the actual supermarkets etc. Tomatoes being advertised despite it not really being prime season for them...

I know some stallholders didn't attend this year due to staffing issues. I really hope next year it's better. I liked 2020, but thought 2019 was very average.

Meatstock and the Food Show are my two favourite events each year, I hope they can recover.

SirHumphreyAppleby

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#2753563 2-Aug-2021 11:22

networkn:

Heh (was that next to the malt drink place?), I thought the mango was nice actually, each to their own.

I was happy to see the countdown people were actually selling or giving away their produce this year, though some of the prices were very LOL.

There were two freeze dried vendors in that area, but yes, the one to the right of the malt drink place. Definitely not to my taste.

IIRC, there wasn't a Countdown stall last year. Several vendors exhibit their own products under the Countdown banner so they were probably peddling their premium products which our local Countdowns (South Auckland) don't seem to stock.

networkn

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#2753654 2-Aug-2021 13:09

SirHumphreyAppleby:

There were two freeze dried vendors in that area, but yes, the one to the right of the malt drink place. Definitely not to my taste.

IIRC, there wasn't a Countdown stall last year. Several vendors exhibit their own products under the Countdown banner so they were probably peddling their premium products which our local Countdowns (South Auckland) don't seem to stock.

Yes, I think you might be correct. I've been so many years, they kinda all blur together at this stage.

msukiwi

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#2753662 2-Aug-2021 13:50

I stopped going to the Christchurch Food Show, as it got "boring" and too commercial, you paid to get in and then paid again to try almost anything.

networkn

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#2753715 2-Aug-2021 13:56

msukiwi:

I stopped going to the Christchurch Food Show, as it got "boring" and too commercial, you paid to get in and then paid again to try almost anything.

Really? Meatstock is like that, but then they aren't really doing 'samples' as such, but other than a hotdog my son wanted to try (which was freaking amazing - I highly recommend the Dog Father), I didn't pay for any samples any time I've been to the food show. I would stop going if they tried that here.

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#2758631 11-Aug-2021 15:20

I have to give a shout out to a few restaurants that are among the few in NZ to consistently deliver a fantastic dining experience. One of my bugbears, is the fact you'll go to a restaurant a few times, and get a completely (often worse the subsequent times which is weird) different experience.

My awards for the most consistent dining experiences in Auckland across a few years:

These are in no particular order:

1) Depot.

2) Honolulu LuLu. (for the best Poké and some of the best burgers you can get in NZ)

3) Sidart.

4) One Tree Grill.

6) Prego (Food and service is always to a high standard), but the experience can differ based on the crowd there at the time. Noise can be a real issue.

Takeaways are the worst, we rarely get consistently good experiences. Dumplings are about the best of it. Mr Zhou's on Mt Eden Road are always good.

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#2764884 22-Aug-2021 14:42

Pulled the Scotch I dry-aged out of the fridge. Was going to take photos in case anyone was interested, but thought there are plenty of places to look at what dry-age looks like.

Trimmed it. I suspect we lost around 40% by the time the thing was trimmed. We went on the side of cautious this time to be safe. Ended up being around 30 days, I wanted 35, but it suited for meals.

In terms of cooking it, I have cut into 1.5-2" inch thick steaks (which I will post a photo of) and will sous vide the entire lot tonight, then put 4 of the steaks in the fridge for Tuesday.

The thing we noticed right away when trimming, is how much darker the interior was, as a result of dehydration.

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