Cucumber, red onion, home canned black beans and chickpeas, carrots, bacon, craisins, greek seasoning, salt, olive oil, lemon juice.

Wife says I need to make this every two weeks.

Cost per person, $2.50

Mrs. T with Cajun and black pepper, Grandma Utz's kettle chips and an MF Coke.

Tomatoes from the garden.

Cost per person $1.10

Turkey (I was given a turkey and canned it), discount seedy bread, mayo mustard, onion, Gardenaera, salt, pepper,

Carrots, soy sauce, paprika, brown sugar, red pepper flakes.

Cost per person $0.97

The taste is unlike anything I've tried, but it certainly makes me think of the forest. It's sweet and fruity, but with a little bitter aftertaste, similar to that of lingonberries. The color is a dark red-orange when made following the recipe, and a pink-orange when diluted as in the photo.

Process-wise, it's important to freeze the berries first to break down the starch into sugar, and to boil it to break down the parasorbic acid into sorbic acid.

It took a couple of hours time to forage for enough berries, but I found about 280 grams, enough for about 1 liter of juice. It was a bit of a hassle to pick the berries clean afterwards and avoid yucky insects.

I now look at the rowan trees around me in a very different way, because they suddenly became food, haha

Recipe: https://www.epimel.es/recipes/rognebaersaft

Ricotta dumplings and tomatoes. They turned out slightly less dense than I wanted but still very good. Next time less egg or more flour.

The sauce is olive oil, tomatoes, salt and basil. It requires bright acidic tomatoes you can't buy in stores. These came from my garden.

Cost per person $3.75

Pepperoni, meatballs, garden tomatoes and jalapenos, olives, moz, green can parmesan, and sauce.

I added a little fennel seed to the dough which offered some great depth of flavor.

Total cost $6

Too many tomatoes from the garden. So I made some tomato butter to use instead of mayo. I regret not putting more of it on. But I'll use the leftover for some pasta dish.

Cost per person $2.85

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/51739480

This came out really good as a side dish next to baked salmon.

Half a can of corn, half a can of peas,
Two tablespoons butter, two tablespoons cream cheese.
That's really the recipe. I know—it seems strange.
But give it a chance before making a change.

Put everything into a small baking dish,
No seasoning needed, no complicated wish.
Four hundred degrees, then give it some time—
Thirty short minutes from simple to sublime.

At fifteen, pull it out, give everything a stir,
The butter and cream cheese are starting to merge.
Then back in the oven for fifteen once more,
And wait for the magic behind that hot door.

Because corn tastes like corn, and peas taste like peas,
And everybody knows the flavor of cheese.
But somehow together, baked up this way,
They turn into something I can't quite explain.

It's creamy and savory, a little bit sweet,
The kind of strange side dish you weren't expecting to meet.
Four humble ingredients walked into the heat...

And came out tasting far fancier than anything
this ridiculously easy has a right to be.

The Secret Ingredient

People ask Marilyn for her meatball soup recipe.

I don't think they're asking the right question.

The real question is...

"How do you make a house smell like nobody's having a bad day?"

Well...

First invite the onions in.

They're always the first to arrive.

The garlic isn't far behind.
Three cloves.

They're inseparable.

Give them a few minutes together in the pan.

Trust me.

They've been getting along longer than most married couples.

Now the tomatoes hear everyone's having a party. They heard it through the grapevine, but don't get me started on that.

In they come.

Tomatoes are dramatic that way.

Not to be left out, the celery and carrots pile in too.

Five more minutes.

Just enough time for everybody to introduce themselves.

Then comes the beef stock.

Bring it all to a boil...

Then tell them to settle down.

This is soup.

Not a riot.

Twenty minutes of gentle simmering.

Now...

About those meatballs.

Marilyn doesn't throw raw meatballs into her soup.

Oh no.

These are honored guests.

They've already been cooked.

Think of it as letting the celebrities arrive fashionably late.

Ours are made from beef...

Pork...

And chicken.

Three meats.

One mission.

Making you wonder why every meatball doesn't get along this well.

Now, if you've got another favorite...

Go for it.

Turkey?

Wonderful.

Venison?

Absolutely.

Whatever makes your family smile.

Just be easy with the fennel!

Unless fennel is your thing.

If that's your thing...

Who am I to stand between you and happiness?

Now let those meatballs ease themselves into the soup.

Twenty...

Maybe thirty more minutes.

There's no stopwatch in Marilyn's kitchen.

Only the little voice that says,

"Yep...

They're ready."

Keep an eye on the broth.

It likes to sneak away while nobody's looking.

If the level drops...

Add a little water.

No lectures.

No judgement.

Just enough to remind the soup who's in charge.

Now...

Let's talk about jasmine rice.

It's completely optional.

The soup will never hold it against you.

But if you do add some...

It's like inviting one more really nice person to dinner.

It doesn't steal the conversation.

It just somehow makes everyone happier it came.

And when it's finally time to fill the bowls...

Do yourself a favor.

Don't ask Marilyn whether you want the small bowl...

...or the big bowl.

Trust me on this one.

Just remember...

The bowl may be bigger...

That doesn't necessarily mean you'll get more soup.

I learned that lesson the delicious way.

And that's why people ask for the recipe.

They're convinced it's the onions...

Or the garlic...

Or the meatballs.

They're wrong.

The secret ingredient has always been Marilyn.

She just insists on letting the veggies take the credit.

Since my wife had to work today I tried to make a nice dinner with no pretense of vegetables. I sous vide the lobster at 140f for 45 minutes (luckily I was given some frozen lobster tails a few weeks ago) and cooked the steak on a hot cast iron pan for about 6-7 minutes each side. We shared the single steak since we had so much lobster to eat.

Grilled on the flattop, burger inside bell pepper with provolone cheese and pulled pork on top. Dope.

Life is crazy right now. I had to rebuild my cell phone today and my wife is craving comfort food with no nutritional value.

All cooking counts if it stops you from paying $5 to $6 for a single grilled cheese and fries at someplace that actually offers that.

Cost per person, $1.20

Phone surgery was a success. New battery and screen. But this is temporary because this model goes EOL next month.

I know it's supposed to be baby ribs, but these were on discount so I knew I gotta do it!

Tonite we tried making pasta alfredo for the first time. We used the (recently trending?) bowl method so we

1. Cooked the pasta (about ~8oz of cellentani/cavatappi)
2. Scooped it all directly from the water into a big metal bowl
3. Added about ~3tbsp butter, cut into separate pads
4. Stir/shook it all til the butter melted (I thought we did it pretty vigorously!)
5. Slowly added in ~1c of parmesan that we'd grated ourselves while continuing to stir & shake
6. Noticed that the cheese was becoming a bit stuck together/gloopy despite adding it slowly
7. Tried adding some more butter & pasta water while stirring and shaking
8. Put it back in the (empty) pasta pot to try to use some of that residual heat to melt the cheese more, still stirring/shaking

Putting it back in the warm pot did seem to help the cheese melt a bit better, but it still ended up kinda gloopy/cheese stringy rather than a creamy sauce, even after we added a bit more butter & reserved pasta water.

We still added some pepper and ate it, along with the chicken we'd made to add too, it wasn't a bad meal overall, it just wasn't the creamy sauce we were going for.

Do you think maybe we lost too much heat while waiting for the butter to melt? Or did we need a specific kind of parm rather than just a regular one that we grated ourselves? Or our stir & shake wasn't vigorous enough despite our best efforts?

I know you can't say for certain, but any tips to help improve our chances of success next time would be so appreciated! Thanks! :)

I'm looking to do a labour day cookout with some burgers, and I have some potatoes that are getting a bit old. Does anyone have a recipe for potato buns they like that I could try?

Pati Jinich really opened my eyes to guacamole's full potential. In the states, a lot of food people have an incredibly rigid idea of what is and is not guac. Pati revealed to me that in Mexico there are no rules with guac. Makes the purists here freaking out look super silly. Guacamole is a mole. And like all moles, there are infinite variations, the only necessary thread being the aguacate.

So what about you? Any food/cooking lessons you'd like to share?

Or if you're from there, "Sahth Shawh Bah Pie."

Thought I'd try something new. Very easy homemade dough, 4½ hours total proofing. The trick is to grease the pan with solid shortening; it just helps get the bottom crisp.

Bake it wicked hot (550F), when the crust is browning, take it out of the pan and finish on a stone. Made two 10" pies.

All credit to Sam The Cooking Guy. He used a bunch of fancy toppings, but pepperoni, shrooms, and basil remains my wife's fave.

Plums at the farmers market looked great so we made a tart! Some almond extract and orange zest in the batter complements the plums beautifully.