Recipe Thread

Recently I've started cooking on weekends. Given my lack of experience, I've tried the easiest things to do and I've stumbled onto a dish I liked a lot. Unfortunately I haven't kept track of proportions or the amounts of ingredients, so I'm guessing a little here:

Nareed's Red Cabbage Soup

Ingredients:

1 red cabbage (mine are purple, though I understand they're called red) chopped
1 clove of garlic (actually I use two, or a very large one, but most people don't like it so much) finely chopped
5 small mushrooms chopped
1/2 onion chopped
1 carrot (I cut it into sticks, but go any way you like)
About 1/4 of a medium sized jicama (in sticks, too, or see about the carrot)
Chicken stock or broth (enough to cover the vegetables)
1 teaspoon olive oil (or more or less to taste; and you can use any kind of oil)
Ground black pepper
Oregano
Worcestershire sauce
Tabasco sauce

Preparation

Saute the garlic and onions with the olive oil in a sauce pan or a soup pot until the onion turns translucent. Then add the mushrooms, carrot, jicama and cabbage. Saute until the mushrooms are a light brown. While this is going on, add pepper and oregano to taste. I like my veggies to retain a bit of crunch. If you like them soft, saute a bit longer.

If you used a soup pot, add the chicken stock. If you used a saucepan, put the sauteed vegetables in a soup pot and add the stock. Add Worcestershire and Tabasco to taste.

Bring to a boil in medium heat, then go to low heat and let it simmer for a few minutes. Serve and enjoy (if you're of a mind to)

You may not want to use the whole cabbage. The ones I get here weight about a kilo and i don't use the whole head, say perhaps 4/5 of it. I save the rest for later.

Also I use ready-made chicken stock with tomato (it's what I had at home).

The result is more like a vegetable stew than soup. You may want to use less vegetables or more stock. I suppose you can also use some kind of vegetarian stock.

Thanks for sharing your recipe. I don't have the patience for cooking, but I welcome the contribution. However, I've never even heard of a jicama. They may be difficult to find in the US. Maybe Marianna's market will have them.

Quote: Wizard

However, I've never even heard of a jicama. They may be difficult to find in the US.

Nah, Jicama (hickama) is available everywhere, I use
it all the time.

Thank you. I will have to try this. I often have my own chicken stock frozen, but don't have any right now, so will have to use canned. It is getting to soup season.

I saw jicama today while doing the Saturday grocery shopping at Walmart.

It's becoming more of a mainstream vegetable.

Maybe Nareed could describe it for us. My wife doesn't care for it. I enjoy it raw, in sticks. Usually in a salad or wrap.

Quote: Wizard

Thanks for sharing your recipe. I don't have the patience for cooking, but I welcome the contribution.

From some disastrous attempts at making scrambled eggs I thought I lacked any talent. I guess eggs are harder than they seem :) Oatmeal gave a hard time, too, believe it or not (hint: cook to the consistency you want rather than to what the package's directions say)

Quote:

However, I've never even heard of a jicama. They may be difficult to find in the US. Maybe Marianna's market will have them.

1) That's why I added a link

2) For the soup it doesn't matter much. The thing is pretty much flavorless. You see, I have it for dinner almost every night, thinly sliced with carrots, radish and onion, drowned (lets' be frank here) in lime and a mild kind of salsa. Well, I wanted to add crunchiness to the soup without depleting my carrot supply. ergo jícama.

3) It's rather popular in parts of Asia, too. So you might want to try chinese or other Asian places.

Quote: teddys

Thank you. I will have to try this. I often have my own chicken stock frozen, but don't have any right now, so will have to use canned. It is getting to soup season.

I use a Campbell's brand that, as I said, I happened to have at home. It's fat-free, too, or so the package claims. I may get a chicken breast and leg and do my own, though. Maybe next week.

Other than the soup, all I've done is grilled chicken strips with onions and Worcestershire sauce, spaghetti with chunky pasta sauce (bottled sauce mixed with chopped onions, garlic, mushrooms and green bell peppers) and sandwiches (turkey-breast, low-fat mayo, mustard, green salsa, onions and fried beans). As you can see, I'd be lost without onions ;)

Quote: ten2win

Maybe Nareed could describe it for us.

There are pictures in the link provided. There's not much more to say about it. It's mostly water, more so than other vegetables, and it's nearly flavorless. It is high in fiber, though. And crunchy.

They have sliced jicama in the Rio Diamond Lounge often, along with the other raw veggies. I love it. It's the texture of apple or a firm watermelon, but not as sweet. Not exactly flavorless, but tasty.

I was a bachelor until my mid 30s, and to this day I'm the cook in our family. I think I know my sh*t.


Easy grilled chicken:

50-50 bottled bbq sauce and bottled Italian dressing
boneless skinless chicken thighs

You don't have to hit the mix 50-50. Originally it was 2:1, but I forgot which part was the 2; I've tried it both ways and it's not really sensitive to the proportion, so for the last 5 years or so I've mixed about 50-50. You can use any chicken meat, but darker meats work best. Dark meat today is what white meat was like 30 years ago. And you don't have to do the skinless boneless part. (I said it was easy.)

Marinate the thighs in the sauce/dressing mix for at least an hour. Then grill at medium temp until done. Brush some sauce mix on them as they grill. Serve with just the bbq sauce.



I have lots of recipes, but that's the simplest one that gets the most compliments.