gocubs88 wrote:to add to the celery craze; its leaves are valuable in salads to me

As much as I hate celery per se, it seems the leaves are very handy, given the right (or deft) hand.

gocubs88 wrote:to add to the celery craze; its leaves are valuable in salads to me

I've been throwing those out. Shame on me.

Thanks to this thread I made a trip to GNR Spice House & picked up white peppercorn, that I used in dish for Superbowl Party, as well as mace.

A few weeks back I tried this recipe for an Italian take on braised celery from Saveur and thought it was pretty incredible.

White pepper is a fave, especially used in major doses. Puts the hot in hot and sour soup and also my favorite dish at LSC, Sole Fish Filet with Sour Pickle in Spicy Soup.

I never knew what to do with green onions until I discovered real vietnamese cuisine, they add so much brightness and freshness to a dish. I need to start using them more.

Similarly fresh chives. Especially if you grow them yourself in a pot on the windowsill.

mrbarolo wrote:Similarly fresh chives. Especially if you grow them yourself in a pot on the windowsill.

Get Ad Hoc at home from Keller. We have been buying chives every week since we got that book!!

The person who lived in this house before me planted chives in the front garden. That was more than 10 years ago. I've done nothing to encourage them. They keep coming up and seem to be spreading. Plant a few chives and you'll probably never have to buy them again.

Katie wrote:The person who lived in this house before me planted chives in the front garden. That was more than 10 years ago. I've done nothing to encourage them. They keep coming up and seem to be spreading. Plant a few chives and you'll probably never have to buy them again.

Oh a garden...sensitive topic. Unfortunately I live in an apartment with no good spot to grow anything!

Sorry about that, duck (the sensitive subject, that is; not that you live in an apartment).

I don't know how well chives do in containers, but as stubbornly prolific as they are in the garden, I would guess they'd do well.

About all I know for sure about growing herbs is not to ever plant mint in anything BUT a container - or you'll be wishing you could charge admission to Mintley World in a few years.

Katie wrote:About all I know for sure about growing herbs is not to ever plant mint in anything BUT a container - or you'll be wishing you could charge admission to Mintley World in a few years.

Mint, Horseradish, Horsetails (not edible in the slightest, but again, ridiculously aggressive in spreading).
I'm starting to think I either need to eat a LOT more sage, or put it in a container just to stunt it. It's turning into a sizeable shrub.

JoelF wrote:

Katie wrote:About all I know for sure about growing herbs is not to ever plant mint in anything BUT a container - or you'll be wishing you could charge admission to Mintley World in a few years.

Mint, Horseradish, Horsetails (not edible in the slightest, but again, ridiculously aggressive in spreading).
I'm starting to think I either need to eat a LOT more sage, or put it in a container just to stunt it. It's turning into a sizeable shrub.

You can also dry it out and make sage tea. Sage tea is good for your kidneys or so it is believed in the Mediterranean region if you believe in this sort of things. Regardless, it makes a yummy tea!

JoelF wrote:I'm starting to think I either need to eat a LOT more sage, or put it in a container just to stunt it. It's turning into a sizeable shrub.

Try the leaves tempura style. Wonderful.

LAZ wrote:

JoelF wrote:I'm starting to think I either need to eat a LOT more sage, or put it in a container just to stunt it. It's turning into a sizeable shrub.

Try the leaves tempura style. Wonderful.

Soul Kitchen used to serve Fried sage leaves Yum! ( this was back in mid to late '90's) at their second location in Wicker Park

mhill95149 wrote:Soul Kitchen used to serve Fried sage leaves Yum! ( this was back in mid to late '90's) at their second location in Wicker Park

Yes indeed. Those were what I was thinking of.

Vinegar, cilantro, lemon, fresh spices. (Until I tried great spices, I thought pepper was pepper or that cardamom, cumin, chili powder etc. were the pretty much the same.)

PHÔ! Home made, with leftover rib eye slices for the 'eating' beef. Went down to the Viet market on r. St-Denis, and told the butcher I was making phô. He smiled and assembled a kit of bones, oxtails, tripe, tendon and beef meatballs. Cooked and cooked, and it's ready to go. Sure makes a Winter house smell good!

Geo

Sugar-a touch on vegetables is fantastic for roasting
Coconut Milk-- the Asian stuff-- this just makes everything taste better & exotic in an accessible way
Butter- I really should use it more, but it's always interesting how it rounds out a sauce, even a tomato sauce, in a way that olive oil just can't.

pairs4life wrote:Coconut Milk-- the Asian stuff-- this just makes everything taste better & exotic in an accessible way

I've started keeping coconut milk in the pantry as a staple. I use it as a base for curry sauces, as a substitute for heavy cream, for making rice pudding, and sometimes just add a little honey and eat it for desert.

I remember back in the day I'd take a small handful of sugar, add it to a can of coconut milk, and drink the whole damn thing. Then I realized there's like 70% saturated fat in one can, and I figured I'd do my heart a favor and stop doing that.

redhanded wrote:I use it as a base for curry sauces, as a substitute for heavy cream, for making rice pudding, and sometimes just add a little honey and eat it for desert.

How do you use it for rice pudding? Do you substitute it 1:1 for cow milk or do you dilute it?

stevez wrote:

redhanded wrote:I use it as a base for curry sauces, as a substitute for heavy cream, for making rice pudding, and sometimes just add a little honey and eat it for desert.

How do you use it for rice pudding? Do you substitute it 1:1 for cow milk or do you dilute it?

Actually, I think I've only used it with leftover cooked rice. Like, "Hey, what do I do with this leftover rice? Let's throw it in a pot with some coconut milk and dried cherries..." So, if I was starting with uncooked rice, I'd I might dilute it.

As mentioned in this thread, I've recently been turned on to roasted green cabbage. Before that, I mostly ate cabbage raw, usually as cole slaw; I'm not much of a fan of the usual sorts of cooked cabbage dishes (e.g. stuffed cabbage, corned beef and cabbage), in which the cabbage is boiled, soggy and strong tasting, although German-style braised red cabbage can be OK.

Now, I'm wondering if I've been missing out on something. What do you do with cabbage?

Celery gets some love from Mark Bittman:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/magaz ... y.html?hpw

Luckyguy wrote:Celery gets some love from Mark Bittman:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/magaz ... y.html?hpw

Bittman's recipes are somewhat annoying in that he gives few measurements and only says "Salt and pepper are a given in most of these recipes," without spelling out which. An experienced cook won't have trouble with most of them, but I'd hesitate over a few. Still, the ideas are interesting.

Of note to Chicago hot dog aficionados: Homemade celery salt.

Bittman comments, "Finally, celery’s cheap — use lots." That's one of the things that attracted me to cabbage, which is even cheaper. Even though I had no idea what I'd do with it, I couldn't resist picking up a 25-cent head in the St. Patrick's Day sales. It strikes me that some of Bittman's celery ideas would work just as well with cabbage. I'll also note that cabbage, well wrapped, keeps better than celery, which I find usually goes limp well before I use the whole bunch.

Thanks for posting, Luckyguy!

My pleasure, LAZ. And you're right: I think I some of these dishes (less the celery salt recipe, of course) would work with a cabbage substitution. To me, your brainstorm is an example of what I like best about Bittman's kind of freestyle, sketch-like approach to recipes. He gives you an implicit invitation to experiment (or, as I've discovered, a lot of rope with which to hang yourself). As a tire-kicker in the kitchen, I find his approach totally simpatico with my culinary "skills." I am curious to give the celery salt a go.

Luckyguy wrote:To me, your brainstorm is an example of what I like best about Bittman's kind of freestyle, sketch-like approach to recipes. He gives you an implicit invitation to experiment (or, as I've discovered, a lot of rope with which to hang yourself). As a tire-kicker in the kitchen, I find his approach totally simpatico with my culinary "skills."

I'm fine with Bittman's approach on something like the pasta with celery, but when it comes to dishes containing pricey ingredients like lamb, I want a little more guidance than "Stir-fry rice, celery (leaves too), onion and lamb with cumin, peanut oil and chilies." He doesn't even say whether to use whole or ground cumin, let alone how much.

If a recipe is well-written, any cook should be able to create with a reasonable facsimile of the dish made by the originator. Even well-written recipes can be challenging to some cooks, though, and I have a lot of experience answering cooking questions to go by. Maybe you can get away with this kind of sketchy recipe writing in the ivory towers of the NYT, but I guarantee that any community newspaper that tried it would have their phones ringing off the hook.

I entirely agree, LAZ. There are many, many occasions I want to minimize variables in a recipe and work from a tight script, especially when I'm working with ingredients that are dear, or when I'm cooking for a special event. But for day-to-day cooking I like improv, too, and that's the space Bittman's always filled for me. He sets the scene, but where the story finally goes is up to me. But I can totally see how that approach could be impractical or even indulgent when you're committing it to print.

Now, I'm wondering if I've been missing out on something. What do you do with cabbage?

I love roasted cabbage. I made a big batch of sweet and sour cabbage soup with the cheep cabbage and froze a lot. I made Runza's, sort of a bun with cabbage, onion and ground beef inside. I love to use roasted cabbage in a Bubble and Squeak.

Hi,

I just looked over Bittman's recipes. Rather sketchy like you saw in old receipt (sic) books. It is expected you know how to cook and with this rough list of ingredients will know what to do from your experience and taste.

On the other had, he may not be paid for a full recipe development and delivers precisely what he was paid to do.

Regards,