Author Topic: What are your favorite end of summer recipes?  (Read 3486 times)

Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: What are your favorite end of summer recipes?
« Reply #10 on: September 13, 2022, 10:35:56 am »
I can't say the Cowboy Salsa was a big hit because I brought it at about 5 pm when most of the people at the block party had already eaten. It took longer than I thought it would to dice up the peppers and cut the kernels off the corn cobs (I used already diced tomatoes and onions). And it also took some time to get the lime juice/salt dressing just right. I'm taking the leftovers to my daughter's house so I'll have a verdict after that.

I feel that I should try some sheet pan recipes because they are so popular right now. But the photos are very unappealing. Does anyone have feedback on sheet pan cooking?
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Offline serious crayons

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Re: What are your favorite end of summer recipes?
« Reply #11 on: September 14, 2022, 12:35:02 pm »
I can't say the Cowboy Salsa was a big hit because I brought it at about 5 pm when most of the people at the block party had already eaten. It took longer than I thought it would to dice up the peppers and cut the kernels off the corn cobs (I used already diced tomatoes and onions). And it also took some time to get the lime juice/salt dressing just right. I'm taking the leftovers to my daughter's house so I'll have a verdict after that.

I feel that I should try some sheet pan recipes because they are so popular right now. But the photos are very unappealing. Does anyone have feedback on sheet pan cooking?

People had already eaten by 5 p.m.? That's crazy. I mean, I know I'm weird the other way because I generally eat dinner around 9. But I would have thought 6 was the time normal people ate.

I keep putting off making my corn chowder because other things come up -- and frankly I'm getting lazier and lazier about cooking -- but I'm hoping to make it tonight. Luckily corn in MN is so good it stays delicious in the fridge for a while. I'm going to make it with bacon, even though yesterday I visited a sanctuary farm where they take in abused or neglected farm animals and help them live out their lives in comfortable friendly settings. The owner is vegan and the message is pretty vegan. I can totally understand the vegan position, think that people of the future may look back and see factory farming as our era's big hard-to-understand cruelty. But there I go compartmentalizing my own meat eating out of the equation. I went home and ate a hamburger for dinner.

I do try to get responsibly raised food when possible, though. The woman at the farm told me that "free range" eggs just mean the barn doors are kept open -- not necessarily that the chickens go outside and run around. And of course I did know that "cage free" just means chickens aren't kept in literal boxes, but may still be packed tightly into a barn. So that explains why "pasture-raised" eggs are more expensive than others. Eggs are cheap enough that I don't mind throwing in an extra couple of bucks, but it's too bad that eating responsibly raised animal products or organic produce is not available to poor people.

I make "sheet pan" dinners when I'm making food that you'd cook on a sheet pan. For example I get these really good frozen pre-breaded fish filets and might roast some broccolini to go with them. I've roasted a mixture of fall vegetables on sheet pans. But I've never made whole complex recipes on a sheet pan.





 

Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: What are your favorite end of summer recipes?
« Reply #12 on: September 15, 2022, 06:01:22 pm »
Now that I look back on it, my dish was on the appetizer table and they were pretty much done with those by 5 pm. There was such a riot of food at that shindig! Later on I had some pulled pork that was delicious, in case anyone is thinking I've gone vegetarian. But I haven't had any meat since then this whole week.

What satisfies me more than eating meat is having the "free range" eggs my daughter's hens lay. You can just tell they are more nutritious. The yolks are large and yellow-orange, and they sit up tall in the pan like a floating beach ball. Lately I've started adding miscellaneous fresh herbs. Surprising how delicious fresh rosemary is on eggs, toast, or both.

I have a good gas oven and a good broiler, some excellent olive oil, and a sheet pan...two of them in fact. But I can't bring myself to do any roasting no matter how much the New York Times urges me to. I'm just afraid everything would be bitter or raw. Maybe I'll do some grilling instead.
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Offline serious crayons

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Re: What are your favorite end of summer recipes?
« Reply #13 on: September 15, 2022, 06:37:30 pm »
On Tuesday
I have a good gas oven and a good broiler, some excellent olive oil, and a sheet pan...two of them in fact. But I can't bring myself to do any roasting no matter how much the New York Times urges me to. I'm just afraid everything would be bitter or raw. Maybe I'll do some grilling instead.

You mean, even for vegetables, like Brussels sprouts, broccolini or cauliflower? They're pretty easy, actually. You set the oven to about 410, toss the vegetables in olive oil and whatever other seasonings you want (garlic, herbs, mustard, a few drops of maple syrup) and roast them for maybe 10 minutes (it varies with the density of the vegetable, and you should double check a recipe to make sure I've got those numbers right). Check them and/or flip them as they go. Worst I've ever had happen is they get slightly too singed, but that can happen on the grill.

But maybe you're thinking of something more complex.





Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: What are your favorite end of summer recipes?
« Reply #14 on: September 15, 2022, 08:52:06 pm »
I have a good gas oven and a good broiler, some excellent olive oil, and a sheet pan...two of them in fact. But I can't bring myself to do any roasting no matter how much the New York Times urges me to. I'm just afraid everything would be bitter or raw. Maybe I'll do some grilling instead.

I prefer gas for cooking. I think you can control things better than you can with electricity. With gas, if you shut off the burner, you shut off the burner, and I believe the heat may be steadier.

My dad's kitchen has an electric stove, and we both hate it.
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Re: What are your favorite end of summer recipes?
« Reply #15 on: September 16, 2022, 09:39:47 am »
I agree, Jeff, but regulators seem to be heading towards all electric for new housing.

I'll try that method, crayons, when the weather gets a bit cooler.

Now here's a sheet pan foccacia that's appealing to me. The way the NYT does it is half-eaten already with crumbs spilling all over.  :-\
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Offline serious crayons

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Re: What are your favorite end of summer recipes?
« Reply #16 on: September 16, 2022, 10:20:44 am »
I can't stand the electric stovetop in my apartment. I grew up with electric but had a gas stove in my first apartment in 1981 and have had gas in all subsequent homes. Gas is far superior for controlling temperature. When I cook something on my electric stove, I have to kind of vaguely guess where to set the temp, then adjust as needed if it's too hot or not hot enough, but then it takes forever to heat up or cool down.

Unfortunately, my city (no longer Minneapolis -- I'm now living in a suburb across the street from Minneapolis) bans gas stoves in multi-unit housing.

Meanwhile, gas stoves are bad for the environment and there's recent concern that gas stoves emit more dangerous levels of indoor air pollution than previously thought. I googled just now and found headlines saying they're more dangerous and headlines saying nah, they're actually not that bad. So who knows. Seems to have to do with asthma and at my age I feel somewhat unlikely to develop asthma. Meanwhile my ex-husband, who does have asthma, has never seemed to have a problem with gas stoves.

Here's a fairly recent article:

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katiecamero/gas-stoves

 

Offline serious crayons

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Re: What are your favorite end of summer recipes?
« Reply #17 on: September 16, 2022, 10:22:44 am »
The sheet-pan focaccia is pretty, but looks like some bites would be very oniony.



Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: What are your favorite end of summer recipes?
« Reply #18 on: September 16, 2022, 11:30:05 am »
I'm glad to know others share my opinion of gas v. electric stoves. Maybe if you use it more often you get used to it--I don't know--but with my dad's stove, it seems to take forever for things to boil, and then you have to watch like a hawk so things don't boil over.

I'm sure it's lovely to have everything in the house, including the kitchen, electric when the power goes out.  ::)

So these sheet pan meals you all are talking about. Is that the same sort of pan you would use to bake a cake, or is it shallower?
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Offline serious crayons

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Re: What are your favorite end of summer recipes?
« Reply #19 on: September 16, 2022, 12:12:56 pm »
I'm glad to know others share my opinion of gas v. electric stoves. Maybe if you use it more often you get used to it--I don't know--but with my dad's stove, it seems to take forever for things to boil, and then you have to watch like a hawk so things don't boil over.

I'm sure it's lovely to have everything in the house, including the kitchen, electric when the power goes out.  ::)

So these sheet pan meals you all are talking about. Is that the same sort of pan you would use to bake a cake, or is it shallower?


Shallower. More like a cookie sheet but the edges come up a half inch or so on all sides. Frankly, aside from roasting I don't fully understand the advantages of using it like you would a regular pan with sides, but I may be missing something.

My former stove used electricity to start the burners and display the oven heat, but if the electricity went out I'm sure I could have turned the gas on and held a match to it and guessed with the oven.

As for ovens themselves, power issues aside I don't notice too much difference between electric and gas.