What was the last thing you cooked?

[Jeff T]

Bought an uncooked pizza and threw it in the oven. The 15 minute wait was worth it.

I wonder what Ogg and his Stone-Tool Henchmen would have thought of this meal 10,000 years ago.

 

[Judge]

Pasta Parmesan casserole.

Angel Hair pasta, ground beef, red & green peppers, parsley all in a Parmesan cheese sauce.

Special culinary kudos to Rice-A-Roni.

 

[Yeshuasdaughter]

Last night: Pork fajitas with refried beans and rice. All from scratch.

Tonight: Slow, delicious, thick spaghetti sauce to top the noodles and meatballs my daughter made. All from scratch.

 

[Mary Terry]

Homemade nachos, with homemade nacho cheese sauce:

1 or 2 bags of the cheap tortilla chips you get in the stores. I don't recommend Tostitos, but if that's what you really want, it will work. But the thin chips in the paper bags tend to be perfect for nachos.

1 pound of pepper jack, manually shredded
0.5 pounds of sharp cheddar, manually shredded
1.5 cups of water
1.75-2 teaspoons of sodium citrate
Optional, but recommended: some pickled jalapeños, added a few at a time
Alternative to the jalapeños? 1 teaspoon of lime juice added at the VERY end, after the nacho cheese sauce has been removed from the heat and allowed to cool just a little bit

(A lot of recipes call for 1 cup of water, 1 cup of cheese, and 1 teaspoon of sodium citrate, but I've found that I tend to need more sodium citrate.)

Boil water on the stove.

When it's barely boiling, stir in the sodium citrate.

Stir in the cheese a few handfuls at a time.

You're not looking for it to be super super boiling. You just want the watery stuff on the top to not be there anymore, and for the stringy cheese on the bottom to not be stringy anymore. You want a sauce that's pretty much consistent all the way through, like the nacho cheese sauce you'd get in a convenience store. If the watery stuff on top and the stringy cheese on the bottom aren't coming together, add a little bit more sodium citrate, bit-by-bit.

Once the nacho cheese sauce comes together, it's going to taste pretty good. Let it cool for JUST a little bit(not too much, as if it gets too cool it can start to turn into solid not runny cheese). That's when you kick it up a notch by adding either a teaspoon of the juice from your pickled jalapeños, or a teaspoon of lime juice. Stir that stuff in.

Once you've stirred it in well, you can pour it over your chips. Add some pickled jalapeños if you want some jalapeños, but be careful not to add too many. A few at a time until it's perfect.

Wow! That's a very complex recipe for nachos. I bet it is delicious.

I spread Santita tortilla chips in a single layer on a lined sheet pan, put a generous amount of shredded sharp cheddar all over them, put a slice of pickled jalapeno pepper on each chip, and roast in preheated 375-degree F oven for about 15-20 minutes till cheese is melted and just starting to brown around the edges. Any kind of sharp cheese will work, except possibly bleu cheese but that might be tasty too.

 

[Judge]

I like to make nachos using broken up tostada tortillas from Guerrero. Less expensive and are usually fresher than typical name-brand tortilla chips.

 

[JayLapointe]

I didn't cook it, I carefully and meticulously selected it from a group of hundreds, so I hope it counts. The last thing I had was the most perfect Macintosh apple ever. Crisp but not tough, slightly sour but not too much, and not dried out, still juicy. I'm not a big apple man, but that perfect Mac gets me every time.

 

[TBRS1]

Made a really nice breakfast quiche.

 

[Judge]

Having my pasta leftovers now.

I sure hope AI was accurate about using Corel plates in my oven at 325 degrees.

It was fine, though I probably should have extended the heat to around 25 minutes.

 

[Mary Terry]

I'm making chicken and dumplings, southern style. I cut up a 6-pound chicken and am simmering it in a big pot of water with a couple of carrots and celery stalks, yellow onions, whole black peppercorns, fresh dill, parsley and bay leaves, for at least 2 hours to make the stock and cook the chicken. I'll strain the stock through a colander to remove the solids, set the chicken pieces aside on a plate to cool, and put the strained stock back on the stove to slowly simmer. I'll add a diced celery stalk and half an onion to cook in the stock.

Meanwhile, I'll make the dumplings with flour, lard and HOT chicken broth till I can form a dough ball, roll it out to about 1/4-inch thickness and cut it into ribbons (the dumplings). Add the dumplings to the hot stock, never stir them until they are set and cooked through, with the lid on the pot. That takes about 5-7 minutes to cook the dumplings. Then I'll shred the cooled chicken into bite size pieces and put it in the pot with the dumplings. If the stock is too thin, I'll mix 3 tablespoons of unsalted butter with 3 tablespoons of flour and add that to the hot stock to thicken it. Finally, I'll taste, add kosher salt as needed and lots of fresh ground black pepper.

This is how southerners make chicken and dumplings. We don't use storebought biscuits or Matzo flour and we don't put the dumplings on top of the soup/stew to cook. The trick to making good dumplings is to use hot stock (as hot as my hands can stand) to make the dough. Regular biscuits that you bake in the oven are made with COLD liquid, usually buttermilk or plain milk.

It's very cold here today and getting colder over the weekend so a hot bowl of chicken and dumplings are southern soul food.

 

[Aspie_With_Attitude]

Here's the taste of the Caribbean Islands and when I tasted it, it just taste like "ISLAND PARADISE"!

 

[Captain Jigglypuff]

I made a big pot of chili that came dried in a pouch and added some canned corn, scallions, and ground beef. It was perfect as my area was hit by the winter storm yesterday.

 

[Yeshuasdaughter]

Homemade chili and cornbread.

 

[Judge]

Having the last of my leftovers of beef fried rice for lunch today.

 

[Mary Terry]

I made a loaf of banana nut bread and used pecans instead of walnuts. Then, for some peculiar reason, I tossed in a handful of semi-sweet chocolate chips. Yuck. I didn't like it with the chocolate but husband devoured it. I'm a purist when it comes to banana nut bread.