What are you cooking?

[Bliss Doubt]

Made with fresh garden maters, fresh garden onion, fresh garden sweet peppers, frozen hot peppers from the garden, and Organic spices, tastes super, ain't nothing like the taste of fresh

So you dip something in it to eat it? Or spoon it over something?

Just wondering, since I know you don't eat corn tortilla chips.

 

[Jimi]

So you dip something in it to eat it? Or spoon it over something?

Just wondering, since I know you don't eat corn tortilla chips.

Yes I spoon it on my baked taders and eat it just as is, I just love the taste

 

[Jimi]

So you dip something in it to eat it? Or spoon it over something?

Just wondering, since I know you don't eat corn tortilla chips.

I decided to make some oven fries to dip in the salsa, might haveta make more salsa

 

[Jimi]

Made some chili with mostly garden ingredients
Garden onion
garden green/yellow/red peppers
Garden maters
(all fresh) and garden hot peppers from last year
canned beans
Organic spices



Of coarse I have already eaten a couple bowls, delicious
I like big chunks of maters onions and peppers, chunky chili
I like chili all year long

 

[Bliss Doubt]

I like chili all year long

Me too, any time, all year.

That looks delicious.

 

[Bliss Doubt]

I made ramen for dinner, all organic:

The noodles
baby bok choy
green onion
crushed garlic
salt
chili crisp
soy sauce

I always forget until I sit down to eat it, you need more water to make it soupy like the package ramen kits.
Mine tends to end up like spaghetti. It tastes great, but there's none of that last slurp after the noodles are all gone.

Greedy girl ate it up without taking a pic. If I can get more of the organic baby bok choy I'll make more and photograph it.

 

[Bliss Doubt]

When TV or online chefs rhapsodize about using strong herbs, they always say "just a pinch" or "just the merest touch" before kissing their fingers, m'wah! But I can never get enough. What's the point of having the flavor disappear so you don't even know what it is?

So here is the bowl of dill with tuna that was my breakfast lunch today.



That 3-4 tablespoons is a whole can of tuna. Did they shrink the can again?

It was delicious, with the organic salt & pepper crackers.

Maybe tomorrow I'll make a bowl of basil with spaghetti marinara and post that.

Mmmm fresh organic herbs.

 

[Jimi]

I can't have store bought catsup and had some maters sittin around that were ready to make something outta so I decided to make catsup
These are Amish Paste maters, sorta a roma mater only much larger and much much meatier, oh and they are much sweeter. I weighed a larger one 319 grams (between 11 and 12 ounces)

Here's a look at them sliced, very meaty and very few seeds, this is just some of them I am usin 7 and a half pounds



I ground them up put them in a pan added
organic date sugar,
organic allspice
organic apple cider vinegar
organic onion powder
organic mustard seed
organic celery seed
Organic cinnamon
and Sea salt
and cooked them down into THIS

This tastes so good, FAR better than any store bought.

 

[Bliss Doubt]

I can't have store bought catsup and had some maters sittin around that were ready to make something outta so I decided to make catsup
These are Amish Paste maters, sorta a roma mater only much larger and much much meatier, oh and they are much sweeter. I weighed a larger one 319 grams (between 11 and 12 ounces)

Here's a look at them sliced, very meaty and very few seeds, this is just some of them I am usin 7 and a half pounds



I ground them up put them in a pan added
organic date sugar,
organic allspice
organic onion powder
organic mustard seed
organic celery seed
Organic cinnamon
and Sea salt
and cooked them down into THISView attachment 217380

This tastes so good, FAR better than any store bought.

Jimi, that looks divine, and is probably much closer to the original or oldest concept of catsup.

 

[Jimi]

Jimi, that looks divine, and is probably much closer to the original or oldest concept of catsup.

The AP maters made it easy, hardly no seeds or juice, they were so clean I didn't haveta run them through a food mill

 

[Bliss Doubt]

As promised, here is that luscious bowl of basil with pasta marinara. Fresh basil only stays green and pretty for 2-3 days in the fridge, so use it or lose it, but I've heard it freezes to good effect.

For the marinara I used organic pizza sauce. The ones from Muir Glen and Whole Foods contain no sugar or corn syrup.

I also skinned a fat tomato, chopped and added that to the sauce, some red pepper flakes, salt and a ton of crushed garlic. Simmered just a few minutes. Then in with the angelhair noodles. They are so fine and thin, they cook right in the sauce in no time.

I photographed the dish it before adding some grated parm on top and folding it all together.



That was my breakfast-lunch today, so good. All that basil is like spinach with something extra. I can never get enough.

 

[Bliss Doubt]

When you see organic fruit cheaper per piece than a mass market candy bar, you know it's a great deal.
When I shopped early morning yesterday I found five varieties of organic stone fruit at 68 to 86 cents per piece: black plums, yellow peaches, pluots, red plums, white nectarines. They're all hard still, so I have them in a bag ripening (I hope). I'm stoked.

Also got boxes of kiwi, blackberries, mini cucumbers, grape tomatoes, a canteloupe, another 3-pack of baby bok choy, all organic.

And this watermelon, a beautiful splash of summer. I wanted to practice the sticks cut, and I managed it. All by myself. Without cutting my arm off.



Slurp! Love this time of year for produce.

 

[Bliss Doubt]

My delicious breakfast-lunch today: chai oatmeal.

I found this organic Chai concentrate, which comes without dairy, so you can make it creamy with your choice of plant milk, dairy milk or cream.



I have so much excellent organic fruit I bought this week, needing to be used up before it gets old and moldy while I eat tacos .

So I mixed up the Natures Path plain organic instant oatmeal with hot water and a dab of butter as usual, then poured in some of the chai (whitened with heavy cream, only a little cream), then sprinkled on some pumpkin seeds and added these fat juicy blackberries, and some blueberries.



Yumm.

 

[Bliss Doubt]

I finally made a baby bok choy dish turn out the way I want it, like Asian restaurants make it taste, and even better than the Central Market deli version.

As I mentioned, on my shopping expedition the other day I found another 3-pack of the organic baby bok. Now I wish I'd gotten two or three packs.



I washed it thoroughly to get out the dirt between the leaves. I would call this cooking process a steam blanch, because I used very little water and did it quick. I wanted them crisp tender. I added no salt. The other ingredients have salt. Drained them in the colander, and rinsed the pan.



Returned the pan to heat, added a ton of crushed garlic (garlic is life), about three tablespoons chili crisp, and let the garlic toast in the oil. Then added organic tamari to de-glaze the pan, and a tablespoon of maple syrup. Then added back the drained bok choy and tossed with tongs to get it all coated.

Here it is done:



OMG I could eat that sauce all day. I hope not to accidentally eat the whole dish before dinner. If it makes it to dinner, I'll accompany it with a bowl of, what else, ramen, probably using some of the same ingredients.

EDIT: Well yep, I accidentally ate it. All of it. As I began noshing, I felt it did need some salt for that much veg. Otherwise, excellent through and through.

 

[Jimi]

I finally made a baby bok choy dish turn out the way I want it, like Asian restaurants make it taste, and even better than the Central Market deli version.

As I mentioned, on my shopping expedition the other day I found another 3-pack of the organic baby bok. Now I wish I'd gotten two or three packs.

View attachment 217458

I washed it thoroughly to get out the dirt between the leaves. I would call this cooking process a steam blanch, because I used very little water and did it quick. I wanted them crisp tender. I added no salt. The other ingredients have salt. Drained them in the colander, and rinsed the pan.

View attachment 217459

Returned the pan to heat, added a ton of crushed garlic (garlic is life), about three tablespoons chili crisp, and let the garlic toast in the oil. Then added organic tamari to de-glaze the pan, and a tablespoon of maple syrup.

Here it is done:

View attachment 217460

OMG I could eat that sauce all day. I hope not to accidentally eat the whole dish before dinner. If it makes it to dinner, I'll accompany it with a bowl of, what else, ramen, probably using some of the same ingredients.

MMM that looks super my friend

 

[Bliss Doubt]

MMM that looks super my friend

I edited to say it does need some salt at the end.

 

[Jimi]

I edited to say it does need some salt at the end.

it looks delicious

 

[Jimi]

I couldn't resist makin some of these


Started w/young zuke sliced about 3/16 inch thick then added the goodies



Added some plant based cheese the heated them about half done then

put them back in the oven till they looked like this.
These are so delicious and the zuce gives it a sweet tastin crust

 

[SirKadly]

If anybody is serving guac (or I suppose it could work for other things as well) at a Halloween party this year, I saw an amusing serving idea.

 

[Bliss Doubt]

There are Asian dishes that are candy, like orange chicken, sweet & sour pork, things like that. A diabetic couldn't eat those.

But that's just to understand that a sweet dish is nothing unusual. There is a YouTube cooking trend going on, ginger ale ramen. I had to try it because it's ridiculous, but it also looks delicious when people make it on their YT channels. I don't think it's really necessary. The long way around is to just mince your fresh ginger and garlic, get out your tamari and your sesame oil, and get busy. A little sugar or maple syrup would add that sweet touch.

But I had to try the ginger ale concoction, and look what I found just at the right moment:



You have to squinch your eyes to see where it says "organic". For those unfamiliar with the difference between ginger ale and ginger beer, the ginger beer usually has a stronger ginger flavor and less sweetness. Generally it is not an alcoholic beverage, though I'm sure there are some with alcohol content. The one I used doesn't have alcohol. The bottles are small, 6.8 oz., just the right amount to make ramen for one with some water added to make the ramen soupy.

So first I set little piles of organic white sesame seeds and sliced almonds to toast in the oven just a few minutes, while I toasted the crushed garlic in the chili crisp in a pan on the stove. Then flooded the pan with organic tamari, then the bottle of ginger beer. When it came back to a simmer, added the noodles. Done, I topped the dish with broccolini heads, sliced green onion, some fresh basil leaves, the sesame seeds and almonds. This was my breakfast-lunch today:



It was delish!

 

[Jimi]

I have been gettin a few extra tomatoes so I took a few of these meaty maters (Amish paste maters) and peeled them
if you've never had these they are super meaty and sweet but still have that good old time mater taste

Then cut them up, here you can see just how meaty they are and very few seeds




Then in the pot they went with a few big thick slices of onion
I cooked it till onions were translucent and then tried usin a hand blender thingy
it didn't work so I had to put them in a food processer and grind it all up
then back into the pan with:
Organic mustard seed powder
Organic garlic powder, since I didn't have fresh today
Organic allspice
Organic basil
Organic maple syrup, small amount
Organic onion powder, I wasn't sure if I used enough onion so added powder
Organic Plant based butter Myc.
And a dash of salt
then I cooked it for about 2 hours on pretty high heat to render it down

Here's what it cooked down to
after a good cookin and coolin down I dished up a bowl to try

there's still small pieces of onion and mater in it.
After tryin it I swear this is the best and by far the most flavorful mater soup I have ever eaten in my entire life and pretty easy to make.

Ok some of you might be wonderin why doesn't he just open a can of soup.
Well I can't eat canned mater soup or canned maters because of my disease. Actually it's bad for everyone because of the spray lining they spray in the cans, mater acid attacks it and makes it leach into the food. AND most of all the taste cannot be matched

 

[Bliss Doubt]

I moved my spaghetti squash supper to the Diet Tips & Tricks thread, for reasons that will be very obvious when you read the calorie content.

 

[Bliss Doubt]

Farewell to summer.

With petroleum powered transport we get foods out of the seasons we understood when the world was simpler. Dunno about you, but here in south Texas we get a lot of produce from Mexico, and it is very high quality. Fresh corn is in the stores all year, but none of the fresh corn is organic, so for organic I buy these frozen organic mini-cobs. The package says "product of Mexico":



All of that is the long way around showing my farewell summer breakfast-lunch today. I wanted to make cajun corn, which is a restaurant trend lately. I had some recently, yeesh what a mouth watering addiction! I had to make it. Didn't want to buy five jars of various spices to make my own blend, so I bought Central Market organic cajun seasoning blend:


stock photo

Rolled the cobs in melted butter, baked until browned, then hot out of the oven sprinkled with the cajun seasoning. I threw some of the spice on the leftover potatoes I had too:



And the other sorrowful farewell of summer:



We have solstice and equinox markers of seasons, but I believe for most of us summer is the months when we were out of school, June-July-August. We had a mild summer this year here in SA, while I saw others writing of harsh high temps. Nonetheless I look forward to that first nip in the air and the cool breezes of autumn. I didn't make it to the ocean this summer, but I made it to friends' pools a couple of times.

 

[Bliss Doubt]

Yes I have gone totally insane. I want to look my best for a party later this month, so what do I do? Make cinnamon sugar biscuits from canned biscuits. There are a million recipes for it on YT, pretty much all the same.

I had a brand new bottle of cinnamon. The old one, not used often enough, was starting to taste like sawdust, so I pitched it and bought this:


(stock photo)

You have to use the biscuits that have flaky layers, so you can peel each biscuit into two halves. I used this one, organic, no bad seed oils:


(stock photo)

The recipes always show dipping each biscuit half into melted butter, then drenching it in a mixture of cinnamon and sugar, but then you see the person dealing with clumpy greasy cinnamon sugar. I felt that just having plenty of melted butter in the pan would be enough to make them rich, so I melted the butter, peeled each biscuit into halves, dredged each half in cinnamon sugar, stacked them back together two by two, and baked at 350, about 18 minutes I think. It took longer than I expected.

And I borrowed a screen shot from the YouTube vid because when I wanted to take a pic of mine, my phone battery was dead. This is how mine look:



These really are delicious. That cinnamon is fabulous. My apartment smells so cozy yummy. Wish I could give everybody one of these. I'm not going to eat them all myself, even though they are my only supper. The skinny guy across the hall is in for a treat.

 

[Burnie]

Smoking a Brisket today.

 

[Bliss Doubt]

I found this recipe on YouTube, wonderfully refreshing and delicious, such a treat. If you do it right, I believe it's suitable for a holiday table, better than that canned fruit & marshmallows salad.

I'm not listing ingredients, because it depends on how much you want to make.

First, spread your little pile of sliced almonds or pecans on a baking sheet, and crisp them up at 350 degrees for just a few minutes. Let them cool.

Wash and drain your grapes and pat them dry. The recipe called for red and green seedless grapes, but for organic, my grocery store had only the red seedless in stock.



Make your dressing, a mixture of equal parts sour cream and Neufchatel (low fat cream cheese), a little bit of maple syrup*, dash of vanilla, a little grated ginger or ginger powder, to taste, or cinnamon instead, mix it all up, then thin it out with a little milk, plant milk, cream or even water, just to make it a consistency that will easily toss with your grapes. Taste and see if it needs salt.

*Whenever I mention maple syrup in a recipe, I mean real, pure maple syrup, NOT pancake syrup. Pancake syrup has all sorts of bad ingredients, and is flavored with artificial maple flavoring. If that's all you have, substitute some honey or sugar.

Top with the cooled toasted nuts.

Yum yum, yumyumyum (but I forgot to sprinkle on the nuts before taking pics). My dinner tonite:



Okay, the mistake I made was making too much dressing right in the salad bowl, and then adding in the grapes. There's no backing out of excessive dressing when you do it that way, other than adding a few more grapes. I suggest making the dressing on the side, and adding as much as you feel is right. But I didn't mind. I could eat a bowl of that dressing by itself.