What did you have for dinner?

[The Jade Knight]

So, I was quite hungry and tired tonight, but with nothing easy to make lying around.  So I did a little experiment and came up with the following for dinner:

Sliced up some young potatoes (I used 4) and some yellow bell pepper (I used about 3/5 one) and some green onions (maybe 3?).  Put the potatoes in a pan with some low-grade olive oil, covered, turned the heat to low, and left for a while.  Checked/turned occasionally.  When the potatoes were almost done, I added the peppers and onions, and turned the heat to medium.  Added garlic salt, rosemary, creole seasoning, and just a touch of seasoned pepper, and stir-fried for a few minutes (until potatoes started to brown).  And that's it.

It's actually quite delicious (as it has the potatoes, doesn't need rice or anything to accompany), though if I were to do again, I'd probably use slightly less creole seasoning (the flavor of the dish doesn't require so much kick).

Anyway, figured I'd turn this into a general thread where people can talk about what they're eating, especially if they cooked it themselves.

[ryos]

I ate leftover peanut sauce on leftover rice (it's best with chicken also, but I didn't have any).

The sauce is made thusly (since I made this up I don't measure ingredients, just throw them in): Start with a bit of water, add soy sauce, sugar (lots of sugar - it's a sweet sauce), sriracha sauce, chunky peanut butter (I know many prefer smooth, which in my view is just wrong), and a touch of vinegar. Heat over med-high heat, stirring frequently, until it starts to bubble. Reduce heat to low (if you have it up too high it will spatter you which hurts like crazy) and heat, again stirring frequently, until sauce is thick.

What can I say, I'm a bachelor and a college student. We eat weird stuff.

[The Jade Knight]

I have their chili-garlic sauce.  Is it similar to sriracha?

Also, I love Thai peanut sauces.  Does this taste like one?

[Renoard]

Cooking is my hobby so last night I fixed my Orangey Chicken from scratch.  It's a reduction of Cali White and orange juice with spices and a splash of soy, poured over crisp fried chicken nuggets.  Hmm let check for left overs. . .

[The Jade Knight]

"With spices"?

[Renoard]

Yeah spices.    the blend is proprietary but if it goes with pastry, it's probably in the blend.

[The Jade Knight]

Proprietary?  A regular keeper of secrets, are you?

[Patriotic Kaz]

I had pork tamales and corn with salsa..

[Eerongal]

so what you made was almost EXACTLY a recipe for rosemary potatoes (maybe without the creole seasoning, but i could see it being fine with it to spice em up a bit), which are VERY good. If you throw a little bit of onions in that, and some chicken, and grill it up nice and fine, you can have some pretty good pan-fry rosemary chicken and potatoes. Steam it all in a bit of sauce (whatever sauces you think would work well for you) for flavor before hand, and you can have a nice chinese-esque stir-fry of rosemary chicken, too.


One of my favorite things to make of all times is chili, because i make it slightly different every time, and test out all kinds of new ideas to flavor it.

[Patriotic Kaz]

Texas's state food is chili...venison chili is the best! If you add beans to it it is no longer chili but bean soup and any major competition won't allow it...

[The Jade Knight]

Eerongal:  What made the potatoes so good was the yellow bell pepper and green onion (and the garlic salt) (and the way I pan-fried them).  The rosemary and creole seasoning simply helped to complicate the flavour, and were the icing on the cake, so to speak.

[SarahG]

I tried a Cameroonian recipe last night called Egussi Soup.  It's a tomato-based beef stew, with fresh parsley, onion, garlic, and ginger.  The egussi part refers to a paste made of pumpkin seeds (it's supposed to be egussi seeds, but those are harder to find in the U.S.), which helps to thicken the stew but doesn't change the taste much.  I served it over rice, with fried plantains on the side.  It's OK, has some interesting flavors, but not by any means my favorite African recipe.  The plantains were a treat though, I need to have those more often.

[Eerongal]

Eerongal:  What made the potatoes so good was the yellow bell pepper and green onion (and the garlic salt) (and the way I pan-fried them).  The rosemary and creole seasoning simply helped to complicate the flavour, and were the icing on the cake, so to speak.

bell peppers and onions pan-fried with anything is excellent. Gotta be careful not to overcook the peppers, though.  Ive always noticed that flavor cooks out of those things too fast. IMO the best way to cook em is so that they're soft, but still have a bit of a "crunch" to em when you bite down on em.

Texas's state food is chili...venison chili is the best! If you add beans to it it is no longer chili but bean soup and any major competition won't allow it...

heh, maybe it's because of local differences, but I don't like chili without beans, has to have beans for me. Everywhere here serves it with beans, though, so I'm set.

[The Jade Knight]

Yeah, I think I got the peppers just perfect last night.  They were juicy, crunchy, and just beginning to brown in spots.  (That's one of the things I picked up from Thai cooking—not to overcook vegetables in a pan.)

[ryos]

I have their chili-garlic sauce.  Is it similar to sriracha?

Also, I love Thai peanut sauces.  Does this taste like one?

Not...really. The sriracha has a lot less garlic, and is sweeter. It has a unique flavor that goes great with most asiany things (and, unfortunately, not much else, despite what their marketing copy says).

Thai peanut sauce was the ideal I was going for, but it's not quite there yet. Think of it as poor man's Thai peanut sauce; I don't know what magic pixie dust they put in that stuff to make it so good, but this is cheap and easy to make and still very delicious.