fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3179 ]

[ SECRET POST #3179 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3179 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[Rupaul's Drag Race season 7]

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[Supernatural]

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[20th Century Boys]

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[The Mighty Boosh, Noel Fielding]

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 014 secrets from Secret Submission Post #454.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 2 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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What's your specialty, or your fallback reliable thing you make? Bonus points if recipes are included!

This is mine, Garlic Lime Chicken Breasts:

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/garlic-lime-chicken-breasts-100869

Anything crockpot. I make really good beef stew, lentil soup, and cheesy chicken and stuffing.

I am pretty good at baking. My go-to "want to impress" food is homemade cinnamon rolls. Though, I think I use a new recipe each time.

I make meat sauce and pasta as a fall back. I use homemade tomato sauce (I'm canning next week yay!) and it's just spices and tomatoes and that's it.

Another one is a baked chicken dish.

Take a 13x9 glass/ceramic baking dish. Spray with cookie spray. Add one cup of hot water with 3-4 Tbsp melted butter on the bottom. Spread one box of stove top stuffing. Take boneless skinless chicken breasts and dip them in olive oil and coat in bread crumbs. Cover the pan with chicken over the stuffing. Cover the pan with aluminum foil and bake in oven at 375 for 30 minutes. Take foil off and bake for 15 minutes longer.

YUM!

Lemon fish cakes. They're delicious. I wish salmon wasn't so expensive or I'd make them far more often.

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/3057/salmon-and-lemon-mini-fish-cakes

I don't think I have a specialty. There's nothing I feel confident enough about cooking to say that.

That said I have been making a lot of fresh pasta recently and I am a big fan of that process. Everybody make your own pasta. It's real easy and it tastes good.

I do side dishes really well, but very few entrees. Potato salad, fried rice, coleslaw... I can make a kickass meatloaf, so there's that.

Fallback failsafe = always eggs. Fried, scrambled, boiled, omelette, omelette that turned into scrambled eggs and veggies b/c I couldn't flip it right, custard if I'm feeling like eating completely unhealthy.

Fry an egg? Serve with matchstick potatoes: Preheat oven to 400F, slice potato in 2-4cm thick slices, spread in single layer on greased parchment paper, stick in oven as you fry the eggs. You can also slice bell pepper rings, and crack the eggs into them, then fry to desired doneness, for a veggie portion.

Scrambled? Add finely-diced onion, or onion powder, if you don't want to do the chopping. Stir with a whisk for extra-fluffy eggs.

Boiled eggs are a staple in the house; can be eaten plain, dipped in salt or whatever spices/condiments you prefer, sliced or mashed with mayo in a sandwich, deviled eggs, added to salad, blended up in a smoothie (warning warning this makes the resulting sludge a high-protein shake and very very thick).

Throw 4 beaten eggs in a greased glass pie plate, add chopped tomatoes, frozen chopped spinach, feta, and basil (S&P to taste), bake @ 375F until a knife comes out clean. Usually 45min. Bake the mixture in a pie crust, if you want to get fancy.

I make the greatest grilled cheese sandwiches in the world.

THE WORLD.

Yeah? How? What with? I just discovered the mayonaise trick, and I'm not sure if I like it. If I'm lazy my grilled cheese has sharp cheddar, onions, and chipotle powder on sourdough, cooked in butter (or, lately, mayo). If I'm feeling fancy/have all the ingredients on hand, I'll grate the cheese and onion/shallot along with an apple, add thyme, diced red bell pepper, a tiny bit of mustard, a little liquid smoke (because alas I'm vegetarian but damn I miss bacon) and the chipotle powder. Sometimes even more weird stuff works its way in. And I sandwich the resulting goop on sourdough and fry it in butter.

It's weird. I grew up not allowed white sugar or white flour or American cheese or instant ramen or, well, junk food. So a lot of stuff that's just food to other people, like instant ramen or American cheese grilled cheese, was the fucking Holy Grail when I was little. I loved cup o' soup beyond all reason, and lunchables. All the processed to hell and back junk. There's still a lot of gross processed crap I love, but give me my fancy-schmancy overseasoned grilled cheese over an American cheese extravaganza any day.

I'm South Asian so all the things I make have spice in them, even scrambled eggs. One of my favs is prawn dopiaza [http://cookingeatingandmore.blogspot.com/2012/12/yum-yum-golda-chingri-prawn-dopiaza.html].

Stir fry foreverrrrrrrr

I got into stir-frying when I was in Korea, and it's my fallback ever since. As long as I have onions and garlic, I can make it work with lots of vegetables. My favorites are mushroom, cauliflower, Napa cabbage, and those amazing East Asian eggplants.
I season with sesame oil, soy sauce, and pepper, and toss in whatever else I have. Cinnamon is good, chili flakes, teriyaki, tamarind paste... really, it's a "whatever I have" type dish for me.

Spaghetti Carbonara and any and all variations of it. At it's most basic it's basically:

Pasta (never mind which but I prefer long pasta you can twirl on a fork)
Ham or bacon (can be mixed, how much is up to taste; for two servings I usually use altogether)
Cream (can be substituted with sour creme, creme fraiche or similar, depending on what scraps I have left in the fridge)
Egg (necessary for a carbonara sauce but without egg it's simply a creme sauce which tastes also great)

Boil the pasta, dice ham (and/or bacon) and fry in butter. Make sauce by mixing egg and cream in a bowl and season with salt and pepper to your liking. Put the cooked pasta back in the pan (don't set the pan on the hot oven plate!) with a bit of butter, mix in the ham and then pour the sauce and mix again. If the pan is too hot the egg will curdle, which is why you're not supposed to put it back on the hot oven plate. If there's no egg in the sauce it doesn't matter.

And done. I always grate some parmesan as well; a hard goat or sheep cheese als tastes good. For variations you can add herbs to your sauce or put in corn or peas or whatever you like.

It's a great dish to use up any open (sour) cream or ham and we always have the ingredients at home.

Avgolemono soup is my family's all-purpose comfort food. You're supposed to make it from scratch with an actual chicken, but we cheat: we cook 1/2 cup of rice in 2 cups of chicken broth and add it to two cans of Progresso chicken rice soup, along with (usually) an extra cooked chicken breast or two, diced up small. Then you juice a couple of lemons so that you have about 1/4 to 1/3 cup of juice (we like a lot), and separate two eggs. First beat the whites until they form soft peaks; then add the yolks and beat them well; then add a cup of the hot broth from the soup in a slow stream, alternating with the lemon juice. This tempers the eggs so that they don't curdle when you add them back to the pot. Cook this over very low heat until it coats the spoon. You eat it with horiatiki salata and a lot of crusty bread.

Lasagna, spaghetti, meatloaf, pork roast, roast beef with roasted root vegetables. My specialty is mac and cheese with good gruyere cheese and thick-cut applewood-smoked bacon, I make that at Thanksgiving or Christmas because while its delicious the cheese is rather expensive.

There's a number of things I can easily cook, but there's two I default two if I'm not feeling well, because they're super-easy. OK, three, but I need help with the mixing of that one. I will include recipes!

1) Teriyaki chicken

You can do either baked chicken over rice (I suggest basmati or jasmine, but even plain ol' white rice works), or you can do this as a stir fry. If you do it as a stir fry, be very careful about what veggie mixes you pick up. Most "Asian" mixes are filled with American ingredients, like broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, red bell pepper, stuff like that. Look for ones with bean sprouts, mushrooms (Shitake and button mushrooms are especially nom), baby corns, water chestnuts, snap peas. This IS to taste, and hey, maybe you hate the latter, but if you've never tried it and these aren't things you're allergic to or something, give it a try. Also, if you're going to do a stir fry, you'll need to slice the meat into the sizes you want. You can also substitute beef or pork in a stir fry; that's harder to do with baked.

So, what I add is simple. I use Yoshida brand teriyaki sauce, which is sweet and savory, and Kikkoman teriyaki sauce, which is more sour. The combination of the two works really well. I sometimes will add a spice mix (sadly, my favorite, McCormick's Szezchuan mix, is discontinued), but you're going to get a lot of flavor from the sauces, so it's not a requirement. If you like spices, feel free to add your own. I do this for the stir fry too, but I cook the chicken in the sauce first and then add the veggies until they're done to the point I like. That will vary by taste. Some people like firm veggies, some like mooshy ones, some like it somewhere between (although getting that timed right is nnnngh).

2) Dill cream salmon.

Super-simple. Take whole salmon, or filets (Costco has a bag of about 8 serving size filets for around $20, and it tastes like it's fresh, which makes this an amazing deal if you have one nearby). I don't care for ones with the skin, myself, but that's up to you. Put salmon in pan, glass is my preference for ease of cleaning. Add lemon juice liberally. THEN. Pour cream over the salmon, to taste. You can either do a little bit as a dash or you can cover the whole damn fish. The lemon and cream will NOT curdle. Everyone asks me this when I mention this recipe. It won't. Promise.

Add dill to taste. If you have some other seasoning you like, feel free to add, but the lemon/cream/dill combo is really tasty. I have converted multiple salmon-haters with this recipe. ^_^

3) Meat loaf

This is rightfully my Mom's recipe (okay, so is the salmon one too), and it has ruined me for any other kind of meatloaf. It IS sweet and savory. Now, Mom tends to do most of her cooking by eye so getting a recipe was a bit of a pain, and I've made some slight changes to the measurements for simplicity. (For example, she lists 5/8 for one of the measurements, and I just change it to a 1/2 cup. Comes out fine.) Let me c&p her recipe and clean it up.

1 lb or more of lean hamburg (at least 80%, I personally use 90% or higher because meat fat is actively nausea-inducing, but a higher fat ratio does pick up flavor better, so this is completely to taste)
1 egg
1/2 cup ketchup (alt: 6oz of tomato paste, but this is not as sweet as ketchup)
2 tbsp molasses (alt1: Yoshida sauce if you hate molasses. my alt2: if you like molasses, just pour until it "looks" right; I probably put in an 1/8 to 1/5 a cup because my family looooves molasses)
1/2 cup bread crumbs (alt1: or you can toss 1 slice in the blender, 2 slices if you're working with 1.5lbs of meat. alt2: if you're on low carb, you can substitute oats or rice for the bread at 1/2 cup. Mom notes oats tend to work best, and she's had a lot of experience with cooking for Dad, who is diabetic and on a low carb diet to manage it.)

Cooking directions:

Mix this all together, in preferred manner. I've been known to wash my hands and mix it all by hand (literally). Wooden spoons are useful for this one.

Grease loaf pan, however you prefer. Dump meat into loaf pan. Squirt ketchup on the top of meat loaf, again, to taste. I've been known to make swirly designs on top of the meat loaf with ketchup. DECORATE YOUR MEAT. Um. *cough*

Bake at 350 for 40-45 min. Note: Some pans do not transmit the heat well, and your oven is also a factor. Glass pans seem to work best for heat transmission, but even then, I've had it take 60min in some ovens. My suggestion here is check at 40min, expect it to be 60min, be happily surprised and be ready to beat your neighbors away with a stick. (No, seriously, I've actually had a neighbor knock on the door to ask what was cooking because it smelled delicious. I'd cooked extra that night so I gave her a slice and the recipe.)

OH WAIT I HAVE ANOTHER. Well, I can't take credit for this one but it's easy and amazing. And it's DESSERT.

Mini Cherry Cheesecakes:

3 large eggs
1 cup sugar
3 8oz packages of Philadelphia Cream Cheese (soften a few hours in advance, or own a very good mixer)
Vanilla wafers (DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES GET THE LOW FAT ONES)
1 can pie filling (cherry / blueberry / raspberry / blackberry / etc)

Cooking directions:

Combine eggs, sugar, and cream cheese. Mix together until even. You want to work out the big clumps, but don't worry about it being perfectly smooth. It doesn't need to be, because the smaller cream cheese clumps will melt during cooking. :)

Heavy foil muffin cups are preferred, because these do tend to stick to the cups, so I'd use something disposable instead of silicone. Stick cups in muffin pan, place one vanilla wafer at the bottom of each cup. Fill each cup about halfway with the cream cheese mixture.

Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes. Let cool. You'll notice that as this has cooked, there will be a curved dimple in the cheesecake. Add desired pie filling into that spot, until you have what looks to be enough topping. Again, up to personal taste. Stick in fridge until cold.

This makes about two dozen. This recipe is perfect for family holiday dinners or work potlucks. My ex would make these for their workplace, and doubled the recipe (they had a lot of coworkers). They'd keep about a dozen for home, and take the other three dozen to work... and not a single one would come back.

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[ SECRET POST #3179 ]

What can you cook?

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