It's MAY 2021...What's cooking?

By the way, Lore, I'm taking a clue from YOU and simmering some garbanzo beans right now.

I saw a garbanzo bean 'stew' recipe that sounded interesting to me. I'll be serving it with (yet again) chicken thighs.

The recipe calls for about 1 cup of 'grated tomatoes', I can't find any flavorful tomatoes so I'll be using crushed fire-roasted canned tomatoes, fine diced onion, fine chopped zucchini and chopped red pepper. The spices are cloves, cumin, ginger, cinnamon, hot paprika, safron threads and parsley flakes.

Stay tuned to see the pictures of how it turns out when I post my evening supper pic!

LOL

Glad to have given a hint. I know that it's a small thing, but even as far as storage space is concerned, simmering them from the dry stage makes sense. Also, every can/jar/bottle we can keep out of the trash is good.

Next time I have to remember to start with 1 - 1/4 cup of dry garbanzos......

As they simmered I would 'taste-test' about every 10 minutes or so ~ ~ I love, Love, LOVE the texture as they get softer. I found myself testing not one but two or three at a time.....

Hopefully I'll have enough today for the recipe.......

LOL

Obviously I'm bored today......LOL


Here are some pics of my prep for the Garbanzo Bean Stew I'll be having for supper......



Vegetables & spices ready to be chopped.





Chopped & ready to cook.





Dried garbanzo beans were 'quick soaked' for an hour and then drained & rinsed.  Then I simmered them for about 1 - 1/2 hours, adding salt about half way through.





Veg is softened in olive oil.





Blooming spices.





Adding tomatoes & garbanzo beans and simmering for 15-20 minutes.

I really like the Jacques method of getting crispy skin chicken thighs. The underside (meat) is slit away from the bone ~ an advantage of this is more even cooking. The seasoned thighs are placed skin side down in a cold heavy bottom skillet (I use cast iron) and turned to a medium setting ~ placing a lid on the skillet. Leave, untouched, for 20 minutes, checking only to adjust the heat setting. At that time, the chicken should be completely cooked through (no pink!) and the skin nice and crispy. I do alter my cooking of the thighs to flip them for just a couple minutes to get a tiny bit of sear on the soft meat side.





My garbanzo stew got the 'seal-of-approval' from HIM ~ he took seconds so I have to assume he liked it somewhat. It was interesting.....it had similar spices to our Cuban Picadillo ~ cinnamon, cumin, etc. I personally loved the texture of the garbanzo beans, left with just a bit of toothsome bite without being crunchy or mealy. Only problem is there is SO much left over.....gonna test and see if it freezes OK....

From Lore:

"Tonight stir fried of onions, mushrooms and red peppers. Scallops served over rice cooked with some dehydrated vegetables Yumm!"

I just used some wide mouth mason jars I had in the garage storage ~ perfect example of me NEVER throwing anything away.  LOL

The mesh is simply some plastic cross stitch plastic from the hobby store that I had when someone was making table coasters to set wet drinks on ~ I just do NOT have the patience (or eyesight) for that any more.

Michelle had sent me a plastic wide mouth mesh lid to fit on a wide mouth mason canning jar.  The mesh is very fine so the very small seeds in the spicy blend don't wash out.

I was amazed how fast the mung beans started to sprout ~ just a fun (and hopefully tasty) experiment!

Yours look fantastic! (and probably much easier than the way I'm doing it......)



Tonight when I rinsed the sprouts I took the time to remove the green hulls from the mung beans. I'm hoping they'll continue growing to become big size.

Imelda HL wrote:

The hard part for me is to remove the green hulls of the mungbeans

Imelda, I didn't have much trouble.....I just flooded the jar with water and most of the hulls were floating in the water at the top. I just poured it out into a smaller sieve to catch any growing sprouts and got rid of the empty hulls. I probably flooded the jar three times.

I bought some special lids for the wide mouth mason jars. Mine are decorative, so my sprouts taste better! LOL From the Lee Valley store

I took Lyn to the orthopedic doctor for her broken foot today.

I had planned to have leftovers but, for some reason, I just couldn't face them.

So I stopped and got Chinese (MooShu Pork & Egg Roll) for me and HE wanted Taco Hell ~ easy enough and we were both happy.

Sun is out today, but still cold.  Fishing season starts May 15, (I think)  I know son has his boat back in his garage out of winter storage, so there will be fresh Lake Erie perch soon.  So, in honour of that, I am going to send a picture of my fishing sons to Beth.  Michael on the left with his Tilley hat.  Danny on the right.  The shed is Danny's garden shed where he has a "fish cleaning station"  Sink, running water (cold only) small bit of counter space.  

The other picture is another view of the shed, turned BARSH.  He cut a section of the north wall of the shed, hinged it so that it can be lifted up  to make a roof.  Installed a beautiful wood slab as a bar top, so it is converted to barshed or BARSH!









Thanks again, Beth! You can see that my sons take their beer as seriously as their fishing. Apparently since Danny did this to his shed, two of his friends are doing the same. There is, of course also a flat screen TV there so they can watch games or whatever, outside! Danny built the barstools also. I made cishions for them using leftover "zebra" fabric that I had. It adds to the outdoor feel! LOL

Lore, I always forget to ask......

Do you go out on the boat with Danny when he's going fishing?

Just curious.

bethk wrote:Lore, I always forget to ask......

Do you go out on the boat with Danny when he's going fishing?

Just curious.

Nope, never! No onlookers/visitors allowed! LOL Fishing is serious business. And, I really don't want to go either. It is big enough that he could have a toilet, but he doesn't. There is a small covered area on the boat where two or three people would have shelter in case of severe weather, and he wants to keep that space for emergency situation. I think that's good. I can't trust my almost 77 year old bladder and I don't want to have to use a bucket! LOL His wife has gone a couple of times as well as her father. But that is mostly so that they have two more bodies when there's a question of what they are fishing for. Walleye has a 6 person limit, so having two extra people is good. Lisa has a fishing license, her dad is a senior and doesn't need one. Danny is VERY strict in obeying the limits. There is no limit for Lake Erie perch, so they can catch whatever number they get.

Funny story about overfishing here. Someone who worked for my husband for years (not one of my favourite people) has a cottage about 250 miles northeast of here. He thought that he knows/knew everything. He and a buddy were out fishing in an area of a park where they should not have been fishing. Caught a large Muskie (out of season) and put it into a shallow little puddle/pond until they were going to gut and fillet it. Two cute, young women came by on a "hike" Started talking to Wally and the other guy, and they bragged about the fish. They admitted that they knew it was illegal and laughed about it. Young ladies left, and about 20 minutes later came back wearing their game warden uniforms. Arrested the guys, confiscated their equipment, including truck and boat. They ended up in jail one night, eventually got the equipment etc. back, but had to pay a $3,000 fine each! I thought this was wonderful Karma!

Too funny for Mr. Know-It-All !!!

I agree. There are rules for a reason. You don't get to decide which rules you observe and which you don't ~ ~ ~ unless it's on a cooking question. THEN you get to do what ever you like! LOL

Leftovers tonight ~ planned on having this last night but it just didn't sound good to me then.

Tonight it was just fine......

I added a salad and a roll from the freezer, toasted in the toaster oven.

I put some Tilapia in the oven, will have some brussels sprouts with it.  Not ambitious for my supper after making two pots of sauce to use tomorrow.

OK.  Sent a picture to you, Beth.  It actually looks very nice!

You may have a convert in her!

But I doubt she'll be sharing your chili paste. Sometimes old is too old to adjust to new tastes. LOL

Your soup does, truly, look fresh & delicious!

I made two pots full of marinara sauce yesterday. Today it's being converted into chili, sauce with meatballs, and chicken cacciatore. My kitchen is supposed to be taken out next week, getting ready for the new one. I expect to not have a functioning kitchen for 3-4 weeks.. My neighbours have gone to their summer place. I have their key and can use their freezer for storing prepared food.

My mung bean sprout experiment came to an end today ~ they were what's for supper! LOL

I learned something: You cannot have the growing sprouts in an area where they get light, even if it's just a little light. I had them in small wide mouth mason jars and rinsed/drained them twice a day. I leaned the jars in a container so the water didn't allow them to become water logged or soggy. They grew really fast ~ but they ended up being very stringy and had started growing leaves by this morning ~ ~ not the big, fat, white sprouts I was expecting.

But, hey, you live and learn. I'm going to try again in a dark environment.




The 'spicy' mix of sprouts that's in the other 2 jars are ready, I think, to be well rinsed/drained and stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator to be added to sandwiches or salads or as a bit of fru-fru garnish on a supper dish.



Supper was really tasty even if the bean sprouts wilted a lot because of their skinny size. But they were tasty with the beef & pea pods.