The Talked About Recipe Thread and Fun in the Kitchen

[DT]

For a lemon or lime ? If it's being used on a dish, like a shot of lime for the guac, hand squeezed, if it's to get all the juice out, like making a skinny marg' (yes, I have a theme ...) then we just use a simple, inexpensive little manual squeezer like so:

Now, if we're juicing oranges for actual OJ, yeah, bust out the electric, but that's very rarely used.

 

[Huntn]

For a lemon or lime ? If it's being used on a dish, like a shot of lime for the guac, hand squeezed, if it's to get all the juice out, like making a skinny marg' (yes, I have a theme ...) then we just use a simple, inexpensive little manual squeezer like so:

View attachment 7867


Now, if we're juicing oranges for actual OJ, yeah, bust out the electric, but that's very rarely used.

I’ve got one like your yellow one, but some of the lemons were too big to fit in it without cutting them into fourths. I really don’t want to spend $85 for an electric model for the frequency at which I squeeze lemons.

 

[DT]

I saw Amazon has several like this, it's "oversized", this one has killer reviews (4.7/5 @ 490 reviews), it's only $20:

Amazon.com

I think ours is actually larger too, it looks like the yellow one I posted, but it handles some BIG lemons

 

[Huntn]

I saw Amazon has several like this, it's "oversized", this one has killer reviews (4.7/5 @ 490 reviews), it's only $20:

Amazon.com

I think ours is actually larger too, it looks like the yellow one I posted, but it handles some BIG lemons

I might try this. I’m waiting for an answer about replacement from the company I purchased my current squeezer.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

How do you squeeze your lemons?*
* for use in the kitchen.

Back in December I purchased a robust looking lemon press, Moocii Brand. During that time I squeezed about 25lb of lemons about 65 lemons before it broke.

View attachment 7839
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So now I have a decision to make. As a hand press, this one is better than most with long handles providing better leverage, but squeeze enough lemons, and I can feel it in my hand. ($25) With light use I’d expect it to last longer.

I do have an old fashioned dome juicer, cut the lemon in half and twist it on the riged dome to extract the juice. (<$20) I’ve not used it a while for occasional juice extraction, maybe it will suffice.

Option 3 is an electric juicer, which I imagine is easiest but most expensive. ($80ish +).
Is it slow? A Lemmon press is a couple of seconds per lemon half.
Opinions?

Opinions?

View attachment 7840​

I still use my trusty old manual dome juicer each and every morning. (For lemons, oranges, and grapefruit). For some strange, inexplicable reason, I actually like the physical action of juicing lemons (and/or oranges, grapefruit etc) by hand.

And I have a citrus/lemon reamer, perfect for salad dressings.

 

[Huntn]

Update on the lemon squeezer, the item I purchased had a 6 month warranty. The company Moocii, or Moocii-US, whoever they are, I can find zero info on them, they have a store on Amazon but are completely shielded other than the abilty to send them messages and their response seems like from someone whose English is a second language. That bugs me a little that I can find no info. Anyway the item has a 6 months warranty on it, it is 8 months since purchase, but they have agreed to send me a replacement. So the issue is deferred for now.

 

[Huntn]

Boiled Shrimp
https://www.myrecipes.com/how-to/how-to-boil-shrimp

• Fresh Shrimp with shell on preferred. With shell off can become mushy during boiling.
• The more aromatic your boiling water, the more flavorful your shrimp. There’s no right or wrong combination of ingredients, so feel free to experiment with different amounts and types of spices and fresh or dried herbs until you find what you like best. Toss in aromatics like coriander seed, mustard seed, celery seed, whole allspice, and cloves—or keep it old-school with Old Bay Seasoning (if you're a paprika fan, you'll instantly fall in love). Whatever you do, aim for bold, but balanced flavors.

Options any combo with 1-2 lb of shrimp in mind:

• 3-4 bay leaves.
• 3 TBS Old Bay Seasoning (a must IMO)
• Pinch of Cayenne
• 2 Tsps of black peppercorns
• 1/2 head garlic, halved crosswise (I used minced garlic).
• 5 sprigs fresh parsley (I used dry parsley).
• 1 Cup apple Cider Vinegar
• 1 Lemon Halved.

Steps:

• Fill a large pot with water until a little more than halfway full.
• Stir in all of the aromatics except lemon (if using) and bring the water to a boil.
• While waiting fill a large bowl with ice to cool the shrimp after cooking so they don’t overcook.
• After the water boils, reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes to infuse the flavors.
• Squeeze the lemon juice into the water (toss in the lemon if you want).
• Add the shrimp (cook in two batches if more than 2 pounds of shrimp). and simmer 2-3 minutes until pink. Shrimp cook quickly!
• Remove shrimp with slotted spoon and place on ice. Serve immediately or chill on ice in the refrigerator.

Don’t forget the dipping sauce:

• Cocktail Sauce
• Remoulade Sauce
• Tartar Sauce
• or melted butter.

 

[Huntn]

not my image​

Crab Imperial (from the Maryland's Flavor cookbook 1981)
1 LB Crab meat (I use 3- 6 oz cans of lump crabmeat)
2 TBS Butter (6 TBS for triple sauce)
2 TBS Flour (6 TBS for triple sauce)
3/4 Cup Milk (2 1/4 Cups for triple sauce)
1 Egg Beaten
1 Hard boiled Egg (chopped fine)
1 TBS Mayonnaise
6 Drops Worcestershire Sauce
1/2 TSP Parsley Flakes
1/4 TSP Seafood Seasoning (I use Old Bay)
1/2 TSP Dry Mustard
1 Cup Bread Crumbs (for topping, you can purchase bread crumbs or crumble your own old, but not moldy bread. You can use fresh bread too to make crumbs, but if you premix the melted butter with it like I do, it can become somewhat of a glob of bread. )
1/4 Cup melted Butter (for topping)

This casserole recipe is not technically hard and is delicious. Preheat Oven 325°F. Place Crab Meat in large bowl removing any noticeable cartilage.

The sauce: Of note, I triple the sauce or the casserole comes out on the dry side. In a large shallow sauce pan, melt 2 TBS Butter over low heat, add Flour and stir into a paste. Slowly add milk, stirring constantly until all milk is added and sauce has thickened.

Reserve 6 TBS of sauce in a separate cup. (With triple sauce, I reserve 12 TBS. Note, this step is optional. If you don't do this, it makes no significant difference in the taste of the final dish IMO. )

Combine Ingredients: Add sauce to Crab Meat, along with Raw Egg, Hard Boiled Egg, Mayo, Worcestershire Sauce, Mustard, Parsley, and seasonings. Mix thoroughly, and pour in a 1 1/2 Qt Baking Dish. I use a 9x11" rectangular shallow glass baking dish.

Top with Bread Crumbs and melted Butter (I mix bread with melted butter before scattering on top), and then drop dollops of the reserved sauce on the top.

Bake for 45min or until brown on top.

 

[Huntn]

Nana’s Cornbread Stuffing +

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• 2 Apples (cut into small pieces).
• 2 Potatoes cubed (boiled).
• 2 Celery Stalks (chopped fine).
• 1 Green Pepper (chopped fine).
• 1 Onion (chopped).
• 2 Hard Boiled Eggs (chopped)
• 2 sticks of butter (8 oz total) melted.
• 1 package of cornbread mix.
• 1 package of chicken livers boiled (need 5), diced.
• Giblets, if included with a chicken your cooking, boil with livers.
• Broth from livers, Chicken broth (optional) or water. (personal taste).

Preparation

• Prepare ingredients as listed above.
• If you have giblets from a bird being prepared for dinner, boil these with chicken livers.
• Cube potatoes, skin on or off and boil till soft.
• Mix up cornbread and bake per mix instructions cook in a pan.
• Preheat oven to 375deg F.

Mix

• After the cornbread is baked. Crumble up and add to large mixing bowl.
• Add other ingredients as prepared above.
• Mix gently, if mixture seems dry add some of the left over liver water, chicken broth or plain water. The goal is to keep the mixture on the dry side, not real wet.
• Spread mixture in a 9x12” cooking pan.
• Cook at 375 deg F for 15 min.

 

[Huntn]

Green Bean Casserole
Easy

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Ingredients

• 1 can (10 1/2 ounces) Campbell’s® Condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup or 98% Fat Free Cream of Mushroom Soup or Condensed Unsalted Cream of Mushroom Soup
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon soy sauce
• 4 cups cooked cut green beans (I nuke them in Microwave.)
• 1 1/3 cups French's® French Fried Onions (amount divided in recipe steps below)

Steps

• Heat the oven to 350°F. Stir the soup, milk, soy sauce, beans and 2/3 cup onions in a 1 1/2-quart casserole. Season the mixture with salt and pepper.
• Bake for 25 minutes or until hot. Stir the bean mixture. Sprinkle with the remaining 2/3 cup onions.
• Bake for another 5 minutes or until the onions are golden brown.

 

[lizkat]

still use my trusty old manual dome juicer each and every morning. (For lemons, oranges, and grapefruit). For some strange, inexplicable reason, I actually like the physical action of juicing lemons (and/or oranges, grapefruit etc) by hand.

And I have a citrus/lemon reamer, perfect for salad dressings.

Yep, I stick with what still works okay for me, looks pretty much like this. Somewhere I have a two-piece alternative, a yellow plastic top part with straining capability and a cup underneath, so the seeds are kept out. But I usually want the pulp too and that yellow thing keeps too much of it out along with the seeds. So I persist in using the glass one, just fish the seeds out with a spoon

​

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Yep, I stick with what still works okay for me, looks pretty much like this. Somewhere I have a two-piece alternative, a yellow plastic top part with straining capability and a cup underneath, so the seeds are kept out. But I usually want the pulp too and that yellow thing keeps too much of it out along with the seeds. So I persist in using the glass one, just fish the seeds out with a spoon

View attachment 10038​

Ah, yes.

Actually, I still sometimes use my mother's trusty two-piece (yes, plastic); not only are the seeds kept out, but the pulp is, too. However, that means that the pulp can be spooned into a nearby conveniently greedily (open) mouth.

 

[Huntn]

Yep, I stick with what still works okay for me, looks pretty much like this. Somewhere I have a two-piece alternative, a yellow plastic top part with straining capability and a cup underneath, so the seeds are kept out. But I usually want the pulp too and that yellow thing keeps too much of it out along with the seeds. So I persist in using the glass one, just fish the seeds out with a spoon

View attachment 10038​

I remember those!

 

[Huntn]

Do you have a good stew recipe?

​

Basic Beef Stew

• 1 package of stew meat (cubed) 1.5-2lb, or if a piece of steak, cube it yourself.
• 1 large onion. Peel, slice and dice the onion.
• 3 large, or 7-8 small potatoes, wash and cut up into small pieces.
• 1 package of frozen corn (not on the cob).
• 1 package of frozen carrots or baby carrots, cut into small pieces as desired.
• 3 cans of beef broth. Beef and chicken broth are being sold in 1qt containers locally. If this case just 1 of those.
• White flour
• Vegetable oil (I used olive oil)
• Makes 4-8 portions for us. If this is the meal by itself, more like 5 portions.

Pour some flour in a bowl, then dump in the cubed beef and mix to coat each piece of beef. Brown this beef in a skillet with oil. You can be liberal with the flour because this will add body to the stew liquid.

Dump all of the ingredients in a pot or a slow cooker. Add water if needed to cover the ingredients. If you bought the 1quart container of beef broth, you can use all of it instead of adding water. I prefer a slow cooker, preparing it in the morning, and setting it to 6-8 hours and let it go for a tasty stew. If you cook it in a pot on low-med heat, you have to keep an eye on the liquid level and I assume this would be for a couple of hours.

Usually, I add some sprinkles of hot sauce to a bowl of the final product to excite it a little.
And we eat it with some hearty bread. I’ll buy a loaf of a grainy Italian bread loaf, slice it, add butter and some garlic salt and warm it up in the microwave.

I’ve seen variations of this recipe where wine is added.

 

[lizkat]

Do you have a good stew recipe?

View attachment 10578​

Basic Beef Stew

• 1 package of stew meat (cubed) 1.5-2lb, or if a piece of steak, cube it yourself.
• 1 large onion. Peel, slice and dice the onion.
• 3 large, or 7-8 small potatoes, wash and cut up into small pieces.
• 1 package of frozen corn (not on the cob).
• 1 package of frozen carrots or baby carrots, cut into small pieces as desired.
• 3 cans of beef broth. Beef and chicken broth are being sold in 1qt containers locally. If this case just 1 of those.
• White flour
• Vegetable oil (I used olive oil)
• Makes 4-8 portions for us. If this is the meal by itself, more like 5 portions.

Pour some flour in a bowl, then dump in the cubed beef and mix to coat each piece of beef. Brown this beef in a skillet with oil. You can be liberal with the flour because this will add body to the stew liquid.

Dump all of the ingredients in a pot or a slow cooker. Add water if needed to cover the ingredients. If you bought the 1quart container of beef broth, you can use all of it instead of adding water. I prefer a slow cooker, preparing it in the morning, and setting it to 6-8 hours and let it go for a tasty stew. If you cook it in a pot on low-med heat, you have to keep an eye on the liquid level and I assume this would be for a couple of hours.

Usually, I add some sprinkles of hot sauce to a bowl of the final product to excite it a little.
And we eat it with some hearty bread. I’ll buy a loaf of a grainy Italian bread loaf, slice it, add butter and some garlic salt and warm it up in the microwave.

I’ve seen variations of this recipe where wine is added.

That sounds pretty good! I make a lamb stew pretty much like that except that I do use a Dutch oven on the stove top, lamb instead of the beef, sliced mushrooms and (picked over, rinsed) brown lentils instead of the corn and generally a home-made vegetable stock in lieu of the beef stock. I dice some celery and put that and minced garlic in with the onion at the sauté stage after I've seared the cubed meat, and I put the potatoes in fairly far along in the simmering stage later on, so they don't disintegrate.

Sometimes the supermarkets here will have Australian lamb at this time of year, so it makes for a nice winter stew in the northern hemisphere, otherwise with locally raised lamb, it's a dish I make in in late winter, early spring. I serve it alongside some green beans cooked just prior to meal time, and some crusty bread that's been sliced, run under the broiler and rubbed with garlic.

This dish freezes well but if making it ahead for that purpose I omit the potatoes, then add them freshly cooked to the simmering stew after it has thawed. I also undercook the carrots if making the dish to freeze and use later.

 

[Huntn]

That sounds pretty good! I make a lamb stew pretty much like that except that I do use a Dutch oven on the stove top, lamb instead of the beef, sliced mushrooms and (picked over, rinsed) brown lentils instead of the corn and generally a home-made vegetable stock in lieu of the beef stock. I dice some celery and put that and minced garlic in with the onion at the sauté stage after I've seared the cubed meat, and I put the potatoes in fairly far along in the simmering stage later on, so they don't disintegrate.

Sometimes the supermarkets here will have Australian lamb at this time of year, so it makes for a nice winter stew in the northern hemisphere, otherwise with locally raised lamb, it's a dish I make in in late winter, early spring. I serve it alongside some green beans cooked just prior to meal time, and some crusty bread that's been sliced, run under the broiler and rubbed with garlic.

This dish freezes well but if making it ahead for that purpose I omit the potatoes, then add them freshly cooked to the simmering stew after it has thawed. I also undercook the carrots if making the dish to freeze and use later.

I’ve suggested adding some extra flavorings into our stew, mushrooms sound good, and she is adamant about the virgin recipe. In the slow cooker, the potatoes hold up well.

 

[lizkat]

I’ve suggested adding some extra flavorings into our stew, mushrooms sound good, and she is adamant about the virgin recipe. In the slow cooker, the potatoes hold up well.

I've been tempted to buy both a slow cooker and a rice cooker, but so far have resisted. I don't like the idea of having to put them away and fish them out from the base cupboards, as I haven't the counter space to devote to them just standing out at the ready.

In theory I've reduced my rice intake or at least switched over to brown rice, but in winter I invariably tire at some point of oatmeal and start cheating by having chili beans (or peanuts w/ a dash of soy) over... yeah, white rice... or a pilaf made of a mix of brown and white rice and some orzo.

As far as the slow cooker goes, I dunno. Still mulling over whether I'd use it enough. At the rate I'm progressing, by the time I decide, I'll be in my 90s and lucky to have enough wit left to be messing around in a kitchen at all.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Until the carer arrived in our lives, to care for my mother, - and made having a rice cooker something that was non-negotiable - I had never ever seen, let alone used, a rice cooker.

Now, to be absolutely honest, I swear by them.

Slow cooker, no; but, rice cooker - absolutely; it is never put away, for it is used (daily, when the carer lived with us), at least once or twice a week.

Okay, paella, and risotto, etc, I cook the old, proper, stove top way; that is the nature of such a dish, and that is how it has always been done. But, for almost everything else with rice - that is, anything with an Asian, rather than a European culinary ancestry - I will use the rice cooker.

And, for something such as Nasi Goreng, which calls for day old rice, I will cook the rice initially in the rice cooker, and then use the cooked rice the following day on the stove top.

 

[lizkat]

Until the carer arrived in our lives, to care for my mother, - and made having a rice cooker something that was non-negotiable - I had never ever seen, let alone used, a rice cooker.

Now, to be absolutely honest, I swear by them.

Slow cooker, no; but, rice cooker - absolutely; it is never put away, for it is used (daily, when the carer lived with us), at least once or twice a week.

Okay, paella, and risotto, etc, I cook the old, proper, stove top way; that is the nature of such a dish, and that is how it has always been done. But, for almost everything else with rice - that is, anything with an Asian, rather than a European culinary ancestry - I will use the rice cooker.

Have you a recommendation as to the brand of rice cooker? Or the size? I've not really shopped for one at all yet but I do think about it now and then. It would be handy not to have to keep an eye on rice taking its sweet time on the stove when the weather is better and I'm outside half the time.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Have you a recommendation as to the brand of rice cooker? Or the size? I've not really shopped for one at all yet but I do think about it now and then. It would be handy not to have to keep an eye on rice taking its sweet time on the stove when the weather is better and I'm outside half the time.

Re size, I would recommend a rice cooker for 1-3 people.

When the carer first arrived, the rice cooker that she brought with her (4-6) fed the family; after all, she was caring for my mother, (although Mother far preferred potatoes, and usually was given roasted potatoes as well) and me, whenever I was around, and whatever Filipina friends turned up (and we always encouraged her to have her friends to dinner).

Then, around a month or so after my mother's death, the carer left, heading off to a fresh family, but also sent her rice cooker back to her family in the Philippines.

Between positions, (and before Covid) she landed back with me for several weeks, - as far as I am concerned, her room is still hers, and some of her stuff is still here - which necesitated the purchase of a brand new rice cooker.

Anyway, as she is considerably more expert in such matters than I am, I gave her money to make the purchase, my only request being that she ensure that it was a good quality rice cooker.

So, the actual rice cooker is a Russell Hobbs - a very reputable brand, which came with a solid guarantee, and works beautifully well; the only problem is that the carer (possibly operating on autoomatic control) made the purchase on the assumption that it was a family purchase (as it would have been while my mother was alive) and bought a machine that would effortlessly feed 4-6 people, which, to be honest, is probably far too large (as I live toute seule these days) for my needs.

With all that said, I would recommend the small size (1-3 people) and that you invest in a reputable brand.