sausage and peppers and beer

sausage and peppers with a sauce made of tomato paste and beer. mmm. a little heavy, but heavy can be good. (recipe)

peanut sesame noodles

YUCK. i didn’t have exactly the ingredients the recipe called for, so i made a few substitutions, but nothing extreme, or even daring. the noodles were way too sesame oil-y. this is the first thing i’ve made here in madison that i flat out disliked. (joy of cooking)

vichyssoise

it’s fun to say. it’s easy to make. it’s tasty. everybody wins. (joy of cooking)

basic strata

aka an egg bake. mmm, brunch. (joy of cooking 140ish)

pad thai

i thought i’d take a risk and try to make some pad thai, minus the shrimp. overall, i would qualify this dish as a minor cooking catastrophe, but the end result, after all the toil and irritations was a tasty noodle dish (even though it didn’t taste at all like pad thai). all in all, i probably won’t make it again, just because it was such a pain to make. (joy of cooking)

mulligatawny soup

another online find. this is the recipe, doubled.

ingredients:

• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 4 stalks celery, chopped
• 2 carrots, diced
• 1/2 cup butter
• 3 tbsp all-purpose flour
• 3 tsp curry powder
• 8 cups chicken broth
• 1 apple, cored and chopped
• 1/2 cup white rice
• 1# chicken parts, cut into cubes
• 2 pinches dried thyme
• salt and ground black pepper to taste
• 1 cup heavy cream, heated

prep:

• saute onions, celery, carrot, and butter in large soup pot. add flour and curry, cook 5 minutes more. add chicken stock, mix well, bring to boil. simmer about 20 minutes.
• add apple, rice, chicken, salt, pepper, and thyme. simmer about 30 minutes, or until rice is done.
• when serving, add hot cream.

black bean soup

i found a recipe online for black bean soup that i actually liked. here’s what i ended up cooking up:

ingredients:

• vegetable oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 carrot, chopped
• about a tablespoon each of chili powder and cumin
• 3 cups beef stock (2×1.5cup cans)
• 2×15oz cans black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1×10oz can whole kernel corn
• 1×14.5oz can stewed tomatoes
• ground black pepper
• 1 green bell pepper, chopped
• 1/2 red pepper, chopped

prep: with food processor or blender, puree together tomatoes and 1 can black beans; set aside. in large saucpan, heat oil over medium heat; cook onion, garlic, carrots, peppers, stirring occasionally, until onion is softened, about 5 minutes. add chili powder and cumin; cook, stirring, for 1 minute. add stock, 1 can beans, corn, ground pepper; bring to boil. add tomato mixture, reduce heat, cover, simmer for 15 minutes or until carrots are tender.

i also added about a cup and a half of cooked rice to the finished mix, to make it more of a rice-soup blend; i could probably have added a cup, or three quarters of a cup, of rice instead for a proper “spicy black bean with rice” sort of soup, like they serve back home at hogan brothers. subbing out the beef stock for vegetable stock would make it a veggie dish, too.

shepherd’s pie

quick and easy to prepare; brown the ground beef, dump in the condensed creams of mushroom and celery and some mixed veggies, top with instant mashed potatoes. not too shabby, for all that. next time, though, i think i’ll use lamb, and mash my own potatoes, and use fresh veggies, etc, etc.

tacosagna

sometimes you take chances and they don’t work out as well as you hoped; i didn’t really care for this when i ate it last night. fortunately, it’s better after being reheated. it would be even better if i had any sour cream. i think that were i to make something like this again, i would try using tortillas instead of lasagna noodles. (recipe)

la paella

this restaurant specializes in seafood, i guess. some of the tapas was good, but none of the entrees really did it for me. a little pricey. not good enough to warrant a repeat visit. (website, isthmus)