Giant California peaches and grapes.

Rachael Ray or Martha Stewart ?

Rachael Ray = Quick server healthy hot meals.

Martha Stewart = Slow cook , Rich, fatty ingredients, Wealthy elite fancy meals.

America needs to SLOW down and enjoy the meals.

Ray on weekdays, Stewart on weekends.

I just made a big giant pot of

Vegetable tajine:

This requires a lot of ingredients and some that you might have to prearrange for (the preserved lemons are definitely worth it) but it also feeds 5-6 easily. I also do a lamb variant which is very similar: substitute most of the aubergine with lamb goulash meat that you brown ahead of everything else and use veal stock insted of vegetable broth.

2-3 small onions
4 cloves of garlic
2 medium carrots
3 medium aubergines
1-2 stalks of cellery
1 can of chickpeas (rinsed)
2 cans of tomatoes (I used 1 can plus a handful of mini cherry tomatoes from the garden)
small handful of dried figs, apricots and tomatoes
1/2 preserved lemon (you can make these yourself or by them at the Persian shop)
1 tsp of Ras el-Hanout
1/2 tsp of extra cinammon (to taste, really)
1/2 of olive oil (incl. for sautéeing)
fresh (or dry) oregano
~1-2 cups of vegetable broth (or chicken... or whatever, this is not a fussy dish!)
Rice, greek yoghurt, feta, slices of fresh lemon and chopped parsley for serving

Dice onions, carrots and cellery, and press the garlic. Sautée everything except for garlic in olive oil in your biggest pan for a couple of minutes until the onions start to get soft. Add the garlic, spices and oregano and cook for another minute. Now add the cubed aubergines (I like mine on the small side), mix well and cook for about 10 minutes so the aubergines can soak up the flavours. Now add tomatoes, chickpeas and dried ingredients cut into stripes (or diced! I'm not your boss..) and cook until simmering. Now add the mixture into your tajine pot, or, if you don't have one, any other clay pot or dutch oven thing with a lid. Add the broth and olive oil now. It can be tricky to get the amount of broth just right, since the veg gives off liquid too and you don't want things to spill, but 1-2 cups is about right. Be conservative, you can always add more halfway through!

Cook for about an hour; basically until all the veg is tender but the carrots still have a little bit of bite. After it comes out of the oven, add the finely diced lemon, mix well and let sit for another ten minutes with the lid back on. Then serve over rice with generous amounts of yoghurt (try stirring in some harissa paste), feta and parsley. Squeeze some lemon juice over individual portions.

German Chocolate cake from a local grocery store bakery.
Man, This is the best chocolate cake topped with coconut frosting.
It’s really rich in ingredients.

$4 for a BIG slice. Enough for two people.

Will satisfy anyone’s chocolate cravings.

6 layer rich chocolate cake.
Chocolate frosting with chocolate shavings.
One slice Is enough for 3 people.
$4.99 per slice from local grocery store bakery.

Yummm....

GIB

https://y.yarn.co/a5e4e642-7b28-4016-9192-3b0 … b09_text_hi.gif

Man, That was enough chocolate to last me 10 years.
This stuff is so rich.

I could have me some Tres Leches right about.

By the way, my wife made some really good Gnocci yesterday from leftover mashed potatoes. Pan-fried in butter with a little bit of sage and garlic.

Too much of everything that is bad for me. At this rate, my corpse will last longer than a cockroach eating irradiated Twinkies after a nuclear war. 🤣

Lamb liver with caramelised onions and grapes, wild rice, a bit of parsnip mash and homemade sour tomatoes.

Sounds awesome! How do you make these "sour tomatoes"?

henryVK wrote:

Sounds awesome! How do you make these "sour tomatoes"?

Hi, the tomatoes are fermented in brine. This is a good recipe: https://www.healingharvesthomestead.com/home/ … nd-so-delicious

I must admit I’m a bit crazy about fermented foods, that must be my Russian roots speaking 😀

How cool, thanks! My wife loves this kind of stuff too and she's been dying to make something like mixed pickles. Her dad's side of the family is of Ukranian/Russian jewish decent -- maybe that's an explanation 🤣

I'm going to head out for lunch now and get myself some piping hot Thai green curry with soft tofu and those little Asian eggplants.

I have been making some cakes recently.....

Cake number one:
Spungy cake in layer, with vanilla cream. The bottom layer of cream, had thin slices of bannana on it, then a layer of cake and the top layer of vanilla cream had chunky pieces of dark chokolate on it and on the top a third layer of spungy cake. Then on top of it all, a classic frosting made from frosting sugar (powdered sugar) mixed with pure cocoa powder (ratio 1 spoonfull of cocoa and 3 spoonfull of sugar), were I just mixed it with boiling water to get a shiny finish. Topped it off with small pieces of coloured sugar springles. I forgot to take a picture of the cake, before it was nearly eaten by the guests.

Cake number two:
Same three spungy cake layers, yet it was all raspberry cream between and covered with the same cream. The cream was made from whipped cream, mixed with crushed fresh raspberry's and powdered sugar plus vanilla sugar added to the cream. Just to prevent that it became too sour. Just a perfect mix of sourness and sweetness. On top it I placed a couple of fresh raspberries.

Man, those cakes look so good, especially the raspberry one.

the cake is a lie!

...can I have some? :3

Well.... The raspberry one is easy to make. Just whip half a litre of cream, mash 20 grams of fresh raspberries, mix it into the whipped cream and add powdered sugar until it is your preferred balance between sour and sweet. Finish the cream, by adding a tiny bit of vanilla sugar or just plain real vanilla. (It is my mothers recepie)

EDIT:
You can use almost any type of berries. Black berries, strawberries, blue berries. Just use whatever you love the most.

*adds items to Google Task to buy at the grocery store*

Sounds like fun. Is there a temperature this needs to be at for cooking and the time frame?

bjwil1991 wrote:

*adds items to Google Task to buy at the grocery store*

Sounds like fun. Is there a temperature this needs to be at for cooking and the time frame?

Just keep it cool enough. It will start to go bad after around 4 hours. Just remember to use real 38% cream and none of that crappy spray cream.