Cooking and baking!

[Lonemathsytoothbrushthief]

Hey, my cooking has been progressing from the region of I am just about making food which pleases my taste buds, to I am genuinely proud of my accomplishments so I figure I can make a thread here for us to celebrate our cooking achievements? I've been cooking things from all sorts of places because I love a lot of Indian dishes, plus that's stuff which works with my preference for plant based milks in a lot of food. But I've also returned to things which my mum used to cook for us a loooooong time ago, traditional Austrian dishes like Griessschmarren and Kaiserschmarren, baking biscuits for christmas and sharing them, I even attempted to make this Topfenschnitten recipe though I won't repeat it, because the amount of dairy required in the recipes I used made me anxious about ingredients going off in the fridge too soon. Today I made my own fairly bad versions of a dal palak recipe, a second much worse chana/chole masala recipe with steamed rice. The dal palak turned out really really well! I tweaked it by adding some leftover coconut milk, since I didn't want to have nothing to do with it in the fridge and it adds some more fat to my dinner(because I have occasions where I struggle to eat on time/cook/shop on time, I don't like cooking meals which are missing more of the things which people worrying over gaining weight don't like, ie fats, and I also wanted more protein which is why I made dishes with lentils and chickpeas in them).

 

To keep the thread welcoming to everyone, I reckon it should avoid negativity around any particular food group and also fatphobia, though obviously it's ok if you just don't like a food group for yourself

[everywhere and nowhere]

I'm not the greatest cook, but I can make some dishes I very like. Today I made some barley groats with beans, zucchini and mushrooms (portobello) and it was very good.

Last night I made myself another veggie spread: beans with mushrooms (both forest mushrooms and portobellos). Unfortunately, this one wasn't very succesful... too salty and fatty, I would say.

At least my sandwich spread from last autumn - beans with small pieces of chanterelle mushrooms - was just wonderful.

[Logans]

Hey! It's nice to read about your progress! I have a question about Topfenschnitten is it similar to a cheesecake?
I am trying to increase my protein intake, too. Today I made a chickpea chocolate cake. Usually, I use canned chickpeas but because my country is in lockdown I had to do some adjustments using what I already have at home. I substitute canned chickpeas with chickpeas flour and I could not tell the difference between the two versions. 😊

[Lonemathsytoothbrushthief]

2 minutes ago, Logans said:

Hey! It's nice to read about your progress! I have a question about Topfenschnitten is it similar to a cheesecake?
I am trying to increase my protein intake, too. Today I made a chickpea chocolate cake. Usually, I use canned chickpeas but because my country is in lockdown I had to do some adjustments using what I already have at home. I substitute canned chickpeas with chickpeas flour and I could not tell the difference between the two versions. 😊

Yay, someone else cooking successfully with whatever ingredients available I can go shopping at the small local shops still, but used ingredients I already had for the recipes I made which was not much because the grocery shop I was hoping I could get delivered for this week had to be next monday but no the Topfenschnitten I made were very different! I found a recipe I used for the cake part here: https://www.gutekueche.at/topfenschnitten-rezept-4935

Then I used a different recipe for the topfen itself! This is the recipe I used for the filling, the whole recipe was very labour intensive because there was so much egg white needing beating, aaaaaaaand I did not have an electric whisk but if you do have one it's not so bad! https://www.food.com/recipe/topfenpalatschinken-crepes-with-quark-filling-476359

The reasoning for the recipes I used was because I missed the things you can get in viennese bakeries and also my mum used to make topfen pancakes. A lot of germans and austrians too to be fair seem to see topfen and quark as synonymous, but my mum never made it that way! And this recipe best reflects my memories.

[daveb]

Cooking and baking are good.

 

The last few days I made a couple of my usual staple dishes that make enough portions for several meals, of which I freeze some and eat some in the next few days. The first is spaghetti - I cook up a whole package of noodles and make a sauce using canned tomato sauce, herbs, and ground beef. The second dish is enchiladas, also made with ground beef. But this time, in both cases, I decided to try some plant-based "Beyond Meat". It actually worked well. Because it's mixed in with tomato sauce and herbs and spices and all that it tastes fine. I can't really tell much of a difference if any (and maybe only feel like I might because I know what's in it).

 

I also like to bake. My main specialty is chocolate chip cookies. I also make some things from mixes - cakes, brownies, cornbread.

 

There are a few more things I'd like to learn how to make some day.

[daveb]

6 minutes ago, Lonemathsytoothbrushthief said:

seem to see topfen and quark as synonymous

Quark filling? That sounds strange. I wonder what the flavor is like.

Spoiler

(physics joke  )

 

[Lonemathsytoothbrushthief]

1 minute ago, daveb said:

Quark filling? That sounds strange. I wonder what the flavor is like.

  Hide contents

(physics joke  )

 

Ehehe

[Logans]

18 minutes ago, Lonemathsytoothbrushthief said:

I found a recipe I used for the cake part here: https://www.gutekueche.at/topfenschnitten-rezept-4935

Thanks for the links! The lockdown is gonna last a few more weeks so I like to have new recipes to try. 😊

[Lonemathsytoothbrushthief]

30 minutes ago, Logans said:

Thanks for the links! The lockdown is gonna last a few more weeks so I like to have new recipes to try. 😊

Yessss! I did a big online shop in preparation, the main change for me is I got the ingredients for several rounds of Griessschmarren with either apple or blueberry compote(partly because of a friend's restrictions around fruit) as well as lemon cake. But I also took advantage of an offer to get a lot of fancy cheeses lol, it's definitely true that I spend more doing online shopping.

 

Edit: I also definitely recommend doing whatever fruit filling makes you happy! I filled my ones with topfen and sliced plums and when I brought a slice to give to my friend on campus, other students in our department started crowding to try it too I felt bad for her but she just let them all try it while they didn't realise I brought it for her.

[everywhere and nowhere]

I wanted to ask for advice.

I'm very, very bad at estimating quantities, distances and other measurements. I just can't "see" how much will there be when the dish is ready (very often I cook too much or too little pasta or rice because of that).

I wanted to make myself some chocojam. In fact, there is chocojam in Poland, but it contains hazelnuts and... well, I'm tolerably allergic to them, I'd have increased itching around my mouth and nothing more - but I also never liked nuts anyway.

My recipe for chocojam requires: cherries (in whatever form I'll get them), some ordinary milk chocolate, powdered cocoa and jellifying sugar (it's a mix of sugar and pectin, plus some citric acid, specifically for making jams and such stuff).

And now, question 1 is: what is the capacity of a jar which looks like this:

?

I read that it's 900 ml, is it true?

And question 2: if I have to use 50% as much sugar as cherries, if I use some 2/3 of a standard chocolate bar and some 2 spoonfuls chocolate, what amount of cherries do I need to use???????? I have no idea and I can't make more than will fit in the jar...

 

By the way, last year I made some great banana jam with a bit of white chocolate and ate omelettes with it (plus some banana-lavoured teas).

[Lonemathsytoothbrushthief]

@Nowhere Girl Does the jar not say a quantity in grams or millilitres?

[Samaro]

I really like to make sugo (Our version is pretty much a heavier, partially meat-based spaghetti sauce) with my dad. I wish he’d write down the recipe, but he does everything by look and taste! The meatballs we make have the same problem. I wish I could cook like him. Maybe I’m not as good because I’m only half Italian?
I will use my desire for delicious Italian food and not overdone pasta (I require al dente pasta! I will not accept anything less.) as motivation to improve and observe my father more closely in his cooking endeavors! Perhaps I ought to take notes? That’d be a bit weird.
Anyway, I love helping him in the kitchen. We were baking recently (thankfully that usually comes with a recipe) and we made some wonderful anise flavored pizzelles. They turned out beautifully! I wish I’d taken a picture.

[everywhere and nowhere]

6 minutes ago, Lonemathsytoothbrushthief said:

@Nowhere Girl Does the jar not say a quantity in grams or millilitres?

The ones I have at home don't. They just have a label with print such as "buckwheat honey, produced in that-and-that apiary", address etc.

[Lonemathsytoothbrushthief]

27 minutes ago, Nowhere Girl said:

The ones I have at home don't. They just have a label with print such as "buckwheat honey, produced in that-and-that apiary", address etc.

Well I just went on tesco online shopping and found some jars I know are close to the size  and they're 900g so...yes I think it's 900ml.

Edit: This is the picture:

I use the polish isle at tesco for sauerkraut and this jar is the same size as that one, which is why I reckon it's similar to yours if not the same size.

https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/263174621

[everywhere and nowhere]

By the way, why are they called "gherkins" and not "cucumbers"?

Sorry, I just must complain about anything. I just lost something I was typing.

[uniQChick]

Gherkin is a variety of cucumber: the West Indian or burr gherkin (Cucumis anguria), which produces a somewhat smaller fruit than the garden cucumber.  A pickled gherkin will be crispier than a pickled cucumber

[everywhere and nowhere]

OK, but if the jar has 0,9 l and the ingredients are as described above, what amount of cherries do I need?

It also, to some extent, influences what packaging variant I would buy (the variants are: frozen cherries, cherries in syrup, or waiting until summer and buying some fresh cherries - but I'd need to remove the pits and I couldn't tolerate sour juice running down my wounded fingers...)). Frozen cherries are in relatively big packages, and then I'd have to use up the rest. I would never eat cherries on their own - too sour. (Only sweet cherries - I love them - but in Polish ordinary cherries and sweet cherries are two different words, so thinking about czereśnie as "a kind of cherries" is not instinctive for me.) I love cherry ice cream (just milk ice, not sorbet), but I can't make ice cream due to a) lack of an ice cream making machine and b) poor manual skills. Actually, making ice cream despite a) is possible, but not so much if you also have b)...

[Lonemathsytoothbrushthief]

@Nowhere Girl you said you use 50% as much sugar as cherries, but haven't said what proportion of sugar to chocolate or cocoa powder or how much of chocojam a recipe with 2/3 of a chocolate bar's worth of chocolate makes. Or how much sugar you will use. That's why it can't be answered so far. And it also makes the point about the size of the jar unclear - are you worried it won't all fit?

 

So to answer the question you need to give the amount of sugar you're using.

[everywhere and nowhere]

30 minutes ago, Lonemathsytoothbrushthief said:

And it also makes the point about the size of the jar unclear - are you worried it won't all fit?

Yes, exactly this.

I can't know how much sugar I will use if I have no clue about the amount of cherries. I only know it's 50% of the weight of cherries.

Which can be interpreted as 3 weight units of cherries and sugar together. Their density is still different, but once cherries are cooked and some of the water evaportates, the density of the cooking jam will increase.

Cocoa - about 2 spoonfuls, chocolate - 2/3 of a bar because I think one bar is too much. But maybe I'm wrong.

 

Edit: maybe let's put it this way: what weight of cherries makes 900 ml? The number will still have to be modified to account for the other ingredients, but it's already something.

[Abigail Rose]

On 3/17/2020 at 3:54 PM, Nowhere Girl said:

I wanted to ask for advice.

I'm very, very bad at estimating quantities, distances and other measurements. I just can't "see" how much will there be when the dish is ready (very often I cook too much or too little pasta or rice because of that).

I wanted to make myself some chocojam. In fact, there is chocojam in Poland, but it contains hazelnuts and... well, I'm tolerably allergic to them, I'd have increased itching around my mouth and nothing more - but I also never liked nuts anyway.

My recipe for chocojam requires: cherries (in whatever form I'll get them), some ordinary milk chocolate, powdered cocoa and jellifying sugar (it's a mix of sugar and pectin, plus some citric acid, specifically for making jams and such stuff).

And now, question 1 is: what is the capacity of a jar which looks like this:

?

I read that it's 900 ml, is it true?

And question 2: if I have to use 50% as much sugar as cherries, if I use some 2/3 of a standard chocolate bar and some 2 spoonfuls chocolate, what amount of cherries do I need to use???????? I have no idea and I can't make more than will fit in the jar...

 

By the way, last year I made some great banana jam with a bit of white chocolate and ate omelettes with it (plus some banana-lavoured teas).

Use them all!   😋   Get more jars!

[Abigail Rose]

Most of my cooking has sadly been fast dishes to save time recently. Maybe once in a while, if the mood strikes me, I will cook something special. I make pineapple upside down cake. It goes great with coffee or a hot tea, like cinnamon or lemon flavor maybe.

[everywhere and nowhere]

1 hour ago, Silence4now said:

Use them all!   😋   Get more jars!

I can't make too much because... I just don't think that it will be edible for very long. A few weeks - yes, but I should use it up in that time.

[Abigail Rose]

2 minutes ago, Nowhere Girl said:

I can't make too much because... I just don't think that it will be edible for very long. A few weeks - yes, but I should use it up in that time.

With the right jars, your jelly would last a very long time. Years even. Sounds really tasty though so if I made it I would eat half of it as soon as it set up.  😋

[uniQChick]

@kiaroskuro  Vegan Cornmeal Pancakes recipe  

[kiaroskuro]

15 hours ago, uniQChick said:

@kiaroskuro  Vegan Cornmeal Pancakes recipe  

Brilliant, thanks a lot! You're so attentive 

I guess it means that have to try them out now. I have no more excuses not to, hehe.

 

[uniQChick]

4 hours ago, kiaroskuro said:

Brilliant, thanks a lot! You're so attentive 

I guess it means that have to try them out now. I have no more excuses not to, hehe.

If you would like to make butter yourself for the above pancakes, here is the recipe:

Vegan Butter: With only simple ingredients you know!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XegzKQDWPVI

Recipe: http://gourmetvegetariankitchen.com/2018/03/30/vegan-butter-simple-ingredients/

[kiaroskuro]

7 minutes ago, uniQChick said:

If you would like to make butter yourself for the above pancakes, here is the recipe:

Vegan Butter: With only simple ingredients you know!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XegzKQDWPVI

Recipe: http://gourmetvegetariankitchen.com/2018/03/30/vegan-butter-simple-ingredients/

Thank you! Just bookmarked it. I might indeed try it out some time, for a special occasion or when I feel adventurous. (I think I will get expelled from this thread when I reveal that I don't like spending too much time in the kitchen ...? )

The compote looks heavenly, though!! I sure wouldn't leave it out.

[Lonemathsytoothbrushthief]

On 3/20/2020 at 2:03 AM, Silence4now said:

Most of my cooking has sadly been fast dishes to save time recently. Maybe once in a while, if the mood strikes me, I will cook something special. I make pineapple upside down cake. It goes great with coffee or a hot tea, like cinnamon or lemon flavor maybe.

That sounds delicious!

[Lonemathsytoothbrushthief]

I really want to try to make germknoedel next. A dish which I only got when I visited my ex aunt, who sadly is a horrible piece of shit I will happily avoid forever. But sometimes the worst people are still great cooks.

[everywhere and nowhere]

I wanted to revive the topic in order to suggest some recipes if others are interested.

 

First, my today's dinner. I have eaten it before, but not recently because I haven't seen brown portobello mushrooms in the store for a while, and for some reason I just prefer brown ones for this dish.

Unfortunately, it's a little cumbersome to prepare because it requires several pots and pans.

Ingredients: natural tofu (I cook for one person, but can eat quite much in one go - I use about 2/3 of a package), green string-beans, brown portobello mushrooms, rice, coconut milk, garlic, salt, pepper, curry spice mix, oil

Cook the beans. Cut the tofu in small cubes and fry it. Put the beans, tofu and finely cut garlic in another pot and add coconut milk. Cook rice (I prefer parboiled rice because it's less sticky), cut mushrooms in pieces and fry them. After adding spices, rice and mushrooms cook the dish for a while.

Side note: in Poland most portobello mushrooms in stores are white, brown ones are less common. They are a little more expensive, but still portobello mushrooms are generally cheap - I would even say strikingly cheap compared to forest mushrooms. (Which is, of course, understandable, given the amount of work needed to harvest each kind.) Unfortunately, while I do like portobello mushrooms, I definitely prefer forest mushrooms. For example, I love risotto with zucchini and mushrooms and I eat it in variants with pored mushrooms such as Boletus or Xerocomus species, with chanterelles, with milk caps, but never with portobello mushrooms.

 

By the way, a recipe for that risotto.

Ingredients: risotto rice, zucchini, mushrooms (see note below), water, vegetable stock in cube, pepper, rosemary, thyme, parsley, oil, cheese to sprinkle on top

Cheese note: due to my allergy I only eat mozzarella, "ordinary yellow cheese" and cottage cheese, so I use my favourite kind of yellow cheese instead of parmesan - "exotic cheese" can really be dangerous for me, I have had an anaphylactic reaction after eating it. I consciously continue eating things I'm mildly allergic to because I just want to eat them, but "exotic cheeses", sesame, probably infamous peanuts (I wouldn't even dare try them...) are just too much of a risk.

Mushroom note:

Variant 1: dried pored mushrooms (I always have some at home). Leave to soak in water on the evening before, drain, cut in pieces and start cooking them together with rice at the beginning. Water from soaking the mushrooms can be used for cooking the rice and mushrooms, with more fresh water.

Variant 2: fresh pored mushrooms. Cut in pieces and fry a little before adding to the rice.

Variants 3 and 4: fresh chanterelles or milk caps (saffron milk cap, more precidely, known as "mleczaj rydz" or just "rydz" in Polish). Cut in pieces and fry, then add to the rice. Milk caps require a longer frying time than chanterelles.

Add two parts of water per one part rice, add mushrooms, vegetable stock (I use Rapunzel brand herbal bio vegetable stock, half a cube for one serving of risotto), rosemary and thyme (at least if they are dry) and start boiling. Cut zucchini in pieces, fry it and add to the rice. Cook for about 20 minutes altogether, then add parsley and sprinkle with cheese after serving.

Note that my risottoes include no wine - I just hate the taste of alcohol, feel disdain for its effects, so I prefer to consume exactly zero alcohol.

My dishes also include no onions where most people would add them. I hate onions - I can tolerate a little bit, but when cooking everything from scratch, I use no onions at all. My mom doesn't like onions too much, but still she doesn't understand that when I ask her to help me prepare dumplings with mushrooms or lentils, I want it entirely onion-free - she just think that it's some "must have", at least a little, and I don't - I dislike onions, so I simply don't use them.