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  • Member since
    September 2006
  • From: Bethlehem PA
Posted by the Baron on Wednesday, January 16, 2019 3:13 PM

Real G

...Thinking about it, Costo frozen meatballs are just convenient, not really tastier than home-made.  They are also a lot saltier.  I guess the frozen/instant/canned stuff typically are like that.  I’m trying to eat healthier now, and it is kind of shocking how over seasoned premade stuff is...

That is an excellent point!  It's also a good reason to learn to cook, so you can control things like salt, or fat, if you want to or must.  When I cook, I use next to no salt-basically only what a baking recipe calls for, where it's often necessary for chemical reactions.

If you're watching your sodium intake, you can replace salt by cooking with wine.  Many wines contain potassium chloride, and it's the chloride that provides the salt taste, not the sodium.  And wines provide a richness to sauces, or marinades.

Just don't use cooking wines.  Wines sold specifically for cooking often have sodium chloride added, which defeats the purpose.  An old rule I learned, when cooking with wine, was that it should a wine you would drink.  If it doesn't taste good when you drink it, then why would you want to add it to your food?

You can also add some stronger flavors, like garlic, to help balance the flavors if you have to cut back on salt.

After you cut back on salt, you can find that packaged foods, or fast foods, taste really, really salty.

The bigger the government, the smaller the citizen.

 

 

  • Member since
    September 2006
  • From: Bethlehem PA
Posted by the Baron on Wednesday, January 16, 2019 3:06 PM

Real G

Somebody please invite me over to a home cooked pasta sauce dinner!  Stick out tongue  I love pasta, but I don't have the time to cook the sauce for 5 hours after I get home - if I did, dinner would be past midnight!...

You can make it ahead of time, too.  Make a batch on the weekend, and then use it during the week, or freeze it.   The longer the sauce cooks, whether all in one shot on a Sunday, or over a couple of re-heatings, the more it will mellow.

The bigger the government, the smaller the citizen.

 

 

  • Member since
    February 2016
  • From: Ice coated north 40 saskatchewan
Posted by German Armour on Monday, January 14, 2019 5:28 PM
Well I just made a cinnamon-sugar roll-up cracker. Can't post pics though. Its been eaten. All I do to make it is to spread margerin on the "cracker", then add cinnamon. Then broil at 450 until lightly browned.

 Never give up, never quit, never stop modelling.Idea

 

  • Member since
    February 2016
  • From: Ice coated north 40 saskatchewan
Posted by German Armour on Monday, January 14, 2019 2:22 PM
Boy, I sure need to post some of my meals/food I make. :)

 Never give up, never quit, never stop modelling.Idea

 

  • Member since
    January 2009
  • From: hamburg michigan
Posted by fermis on Monday, January 14, 2019 2:06 PM

 Had my wifes half-brother (long story), his wife and her brothers out over the weekend. Her brothers are new to the world of firearms...so my bro-in-law and I got em schooled up a bit. We had a BLAST!!!!

 After that....

Bacon wrapped backstrap...aka...woods meat, filet mignon! Also had green beans and cheesy taters...but those aint important!

  • Member since
    May 2011
  • From: Honolulu, Hawaii
Posted by Real G on Monday, January 14, 2019 1:37 PM

hogfanfs

Real G, you are invited for my home made Lasagna next weekend!

I've been requested by my Mother-n-Law to make my Lasagna. I only make it on weekends because it's an all day affair to make my sauce. If interested, I'll post pictures on Sunday or Monday.  

Hogfanfs,

Thank you for the generous invite!  Please posts photos so we can enjoy your lasagne vicariously!  Gosh I love lasagne...

Thinking about it, Costo frozen meatballs are just convenient, not really tastier than home-made.  They are also a lot saltier.  I guess the frozen/instant/canned stuff typically are like that.  I’m trying to eat healthier now, and it is kind of shocking how over seasoned premade stuff is.

Rock on Plastic Chefs, and keep the pics coming!

“Ya ya ya, unicorn papoi!”

  • Member since
    May 2013
  • From: From the Mit, but live in Mason, O high ho
Posted by hogfanfs on Monday, January 14, 2019 1:35 PM

GMorrison

Have you  tried ready to bake lasagna noodles? I think they work fine, and certainly save a step.

Great looking meatballs. 

You guys are great cooks!

 

 

I have and I really do not like them. As much as I would like to make my my own noodles from scratch (One of these days I will, although, my wife and I have made Spaghetti noodles from scratch), I use Brailla noodles and I only boil them until they are pliable so when the lasagna bakes they soak up some of the juices. 

 Bruce

 

 On the bench:  1/48 Eduard MiG-21MF

                        1/35 Takom Merkava Mk.I

 

  • Member since
    March 2015
  • From: Close to Chicago
Posted by JohnnyK on Monday, January 14, 2019 1:18 PM

the Baron

 

Christmas is a big baking time, naturally.  Here are some examples of my baking list every year...

 

Wow!! I am really impressed by your baking skills. I'll bet that your baked goods taste as good as they look. 

John

Your comments and questions are always welcome.

  • Member since
    September 2012
Posted by GMorrison on Monday, January 14, 2019 12:42 PM

Have you  tried ready to bake lasagna noodles? I think they work fine, and certainly save a step.

Great looking meatballs. 

You guys are great cooks!

 Modeling is an excuse to buy books.

 

  • Member since
    May 2013
  • From: From the Mit, but live in Mason, O high ho
Posted by hogfanfs on Monday, January 14, 2019 12:40 PM

Real G

Somebody please invite me over to a home cooked pasta sauce dinner!  Stick out tongue  I love pasta, but I don't have the time to cook the sauce for 5 hours after I get home - if I did, dinner would be past midnight!  I will sometimes make something like beef stew, which does take 3 hours from start to finish, but a 10:00 pm dinner is my limit.

I will up front confess to being one of those beastly jar pasta users!  Hey at least the meatballs are home made in the pic below.

https://flic.kr/p/bv52WV] [/url]Meatball Spaghetti Dinner by N.T. Izumi, on Flickr

 

Real G, you are invited for my home made Lasagna next weekend!

I've been requested by my Mother-n-Law to make my Lasagna. I only make it on weekends because it's an all day affair to make my sauce. If interested, I'll post pictures on Sunday or Monday. 

 Bruce

 

 On the bench:  1/48 Eduard MiG-21MF

                        1/35 Takom Merkava Mk.I

 

  • Member since
    September 2012
Posted by GMorrison on Monday, January 14, 2019 12:37 PM

Ragu is indeed a brand name, but it is also a term for a type of pasta sauce, generally one with meat, onions and tomatoes that doesn't have to cook for a long time. Anyone wants to argue that, I will post my friend Cara C.'s family recipe (it includes brains).

Left over beef stew  (the meat from it)makes great pasta sauce.

 Modeling is an excuse to buy books.

 

  • Member since
    May 2011
  • From: Honolulu, Hawaii
Posted by Real G on Monday, January 14, 2019 11:46 AM

Somebody please invite me over to a home cooked pasta sauce dinner!  Stick out tongue  I love pasta, but I don't have the time to cook the sauce for 5 hours after I get home - if I did, dinner would be past midnight!  I will sometimes make something like beef stew, which does take 3 hours from start to finish, but a 10:00 pm dinner is my limit.

I will up front confess to being one of those beastly jar pasta users!  Hey at least the meatballs are home made in the pic below.

https://flic.kr/p/bv52WV] [/url]Meatball Spaghetti Dinner by N.T. Izumi, on Flickr

“Ya ya ya, unicorn papoi!”

  • Member since
    September 2006
  • From: Bethlehem PA
Posted by the Baron on Monday, January 14, 2019 11:31 AM

BlackSheepTwoOneFour

...Ragu from a jar is a lazy man’s way to make Italian sauce. NEVER, EVERiI invite an Italian to dinner if you’re serving Ragu sauce in a jar. I’m married to an Italian family and they frown upon jar sauce of any kind. LOL!

Amen to that!  But it's a source of debate now with my aunt and her kids.  She will often use Ragu or some other jar of sauce Ick! and frozen meatballs from the bulk grocery!  She "doctors up" the sauce, as she calls it.  But the debate comes about, because they all insist that my grandmother sometimes used Ragu, too.  I say I cannot believe it, because when I used to go visit her on Sundays for dinner, she'd have a pot of sauce on the stove, and it had been simmering from 5 in the morning till I got there around 1.  She'd meet me at the door with a hug and with a loaf of bread, and we'd go and dip a couple pieces in the sauce to taste.  I just can't believe Nana ever used a jar of sauce.

It's actually pretty easy to make, and just tastes better than sauce from a jar.  I learned the basic recipe from Nana.  It's tomato puree, either from the garden, or canned puree, when we use up what we canned the year before, about a quart; a cup of red wine; some crushed garlic; minced onion; basil, oregano, and parsley; three bay leaves; a little black pepper; and once we make the meatballs and sausage, we brown them in a pan, then deglaze the pan with a little red wine, and add the liquid to the pot, along with the meat.  The chief element is time.  It needs to cook long and slow, a couple hours is best.

The wife of a buddy of mine also used short ribs as the meat, and they worked, too.

The bigger the government, the smaller the citizen.

 

 

  • Member since
    September 2006
  • From: Bethlehem PA
Posted by the Baron on Monday, January 14, 2019 11:18 AM

keavdog

Ohhhh we have a Baker in the mix!  I love bannana bread.   Now that was something my mom did well.  

I bake, too.  It's part of my belief that if there are things I want to eat, I have to learn how to make 'em.  And many of the things I make, are to remember.

Christmas is a big baking time, naturally.  Here are some examples of my baking list every year...

First, I bake a two batches of Dresdener Stollen, one at St. Nicolas' Day (the 6th) and a second on Christmas Eve.  Here is one such batch, fresh out of the oven:

Then it's a batch of kiffels and cups.  These were introduced by many of the people who emigrated to the Lehigh Valley from Central Europe. They're made with a rich pastry dough.  Kiffels are rolled into crescents (in German, Kipferln), and filled with sweet filling.  The cups (aka "tossies", from the German Tasse, a tea or coffee cup) are made in miniature muffin pans, and filled with a filling like that of a pecan pie-sugar, eggs, and ground nuts.  This is a lot of work, and years ago, we organized "Kiffle Day" in our family, to get all hands on deck and crank 'em out:

And then I make a couple other German cookies.  One type is the Springerle, which are flavored with anis and rolled out with rolling pins with shapes carved into them.  When they bake, the dough rises-"springen", to jump, and that's where the name comes from, "little jumpers".  The other is Lebkuchen, German gingerbread cookies.

And I make a batch of Toll House, and chocolate cookies with peanut butter chips:

(I didn't make the Slovak Kolach roll on that tray.  That, we buy.)

At Easter time, it's rice and ricotta pies.  The basic filling is ricotta, eggs, and rice.  Then we make some sweet, with candied fruit peel, cinnamon, anise, and chocolate chips; and some savory, with prosciutto, diced ham, grated Parmesan-real, fresh grated, not that stuff in a jar-and Romano cheeses, and black pepper:

As far as other baking goes, I make a banana cake, because I always have bananas and they often get over-ripe before I can eat them all.  It's my grandmother's recipe, very simple, and I make it in the Bundform.  Simple cake, simple presentation:

Sometimes I make a peanut butter icing for it:

Sometimes I make that in a rectangular baking pan, too.  Nana used to make it as a layer cake, but that's trickier.  I can never get the layers even.

But like I said, these are things I like, and I make them to remember, they're tradition.

The bigger the government, the smaller the citizen.

 

 

  • Member since
    November 2003
  • From: Naples, FL
Posted by tempestjohnny on Monday, January 14, 2019 7:27 AM
Now that is a proper Sunday dinner Bish. My mom taught my wife how to make Yorkshire puds and gravy. She does them excellent. Once we get settled here in the new house my wife said she is doing the full roast treatment. Yum

 

  • Member since
    December 2002
  • From: Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, England
Posted by Bish on Monday, January 14, 2019 7:03 AM

It was very nice. We both like our beef medium rare and the joints i get from Tesco are always nice and tendar. My Mrs isn't fussy about a suunday dinner but i am,so i always end up cooking on a Sunday.

So your mum must have cooked you a pot of scouse.

That looks interesting, but whats tri tip.

I am a Norfolk man and i glory in being so

 

On the bench: Airfix 1/72nd Harrier GR.3/Fujimi 1/72nd Ju 87D-3

  • Member since
    April 2003
  • From: USA
Posted by keavdog on Sunday, January 13, 2019 10:13 PM

That looks awesome bish.  My mom was English (Liverpool) and we'd have dinner like that every Sunday. 

For this Sunday - A tri tip with peppers and onions.

 

Thanks,

John

  • Member since
    December 2002
  • From: Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, England
Posted by Bish on Sunday, January 13, 2019 11:31 AM

A Sunday roast is as English as fish & chip's, a cloudy pint and spanking the French. While it can be with chicken, pork or lamb, for me, the true roast is the old fashioned way with a good joint of beef. With roast spuds, veg and of course not complete without Yorkshire puddings.

I am a Norfolk man and i glory in being so

 

On the bench: Airfix 1/72nd Harrier GR.3/Fujimi 1/72nd Ju 87D-3

  • Member since
    March 2015
  • From: Close to Chicago
Posted by JohnnyK on Sunday, January 13, 2019 10:40 AM

Tonight we are going to make Chicken Marbella. It's good for us older folks because it has prunes in it Confused

Your comments and questions are always welcome.

  • Member since
    June 2014
  • From: New Braunfels , Texas
Posted by Tanker - Builder on Sunday, January 13, 2019 6:21 AM

MMMMMMM;

 Grilled Cheese and Bacon,Bacon,Bacon,Bacon !!!!

  • Member since
    April 2003
  • From: USA
Posted by keavdog on Sunday, January 13, 2019 1:24 AM

Tonights dinner - Broccoli beef with toasted almonds and kimchi

Thanks,

John

  • Member since
    February 2016
  • From: Ice coated north 40 saskatchewan
Posted by German Armour on Saturday, January 12, 2019 8:53 AM

Yes, that's a good idea Black Sheep, For me, I've made grasshobber pie before, bread, and 1 pot meals, also chocolate bark, apple crumble. Also I've been experimenting with meals in my instat pot.

 Never give up, never quit, never stop modelling.Idea

 

  • Member since
    January 2013
Posted by BlackSheepTwoOneFour on Saturday, January 12, 2019 8:48 AM

Zero negative attitude given GM. 

Ragu from a jar is a lazy man’s way to make Italian sauce. NEVER, EVERiI invite an Italian to dinner if you’re serving Ragu sauce in a jar. I’m married to an Italian family and they frown upon jar sauce of any kind. LOL!

  • Member since
    January 2013
Posted by BlackSheepTwoOneFour on Saturday, January 12, 2019 8:45 AM

Banana bread with cranberries? Sounds good alternative to chocolate chips.

  • Member since
    April 2003
  • From: USA
Posted by keavdog on Saturday, January 12, 2019 3:37 AM

Ohhhh we have a Baker in the mix!  I love bannana bread.   Now that was something my mom did well.  

Thanks,

John

  • Member since
    July 2008
  • From: Vancouver, the "wet coast"
Posted by castelnuovo on Saturday, January 12, 2019 12:41 AM

No photos here but my specialty is foccacia bread and my award winning blackberry and peach pie. I won 2nd place in a baking contest with it Smile. Bannana bread with cranberrys and wallnuts is also pretty good, even if I say so myself Smile. My daughter loves almond balls but my wife thinks they are a bit dry Sad. Oh well, more for us Smile

  • Member since
    September 2012
Posted by GMorrison on Friday, January 11, 2019 9:00 PM

London Broil is great for a real steak treatment. It can work well with the cut known as top sirloin. Not a lot of fat, but lean and responds really well to a good rub, broil and bake.

 Modeling is an excuse to buy books.

 

  • Member since
    September 2012
Posted by GMorrison on Friday, January 11, 2019 8:36 PM

BlackSheepTwoOneFour

 

 
GMorrison

Oh my that will be good! Slow cook some Ragu mixed with a little pork.

You are all impressive cooks. Real G, healthy eating habit there.

Yes 214, we need some art!

You meatloaf guys, try adding shitake or other fragrant mushrooms to the mix, even a little tomato paste.

Good work, men!

 

 

 

Ragu? Gag....... Gross.

Now venison meatloaf is dynamite. My bro-in-law made some before the holidays. Wow!

 

Now look, negative attitudes don't wash with me. 

ra·gu
/raˈɡo͞o/
noun
 
  1. (in Italian cooking) a sauce typically made with ground meat, onions, tomato puree, and red wine, and served with pasta.

 Modeling is an excuse to buy books.

 

  • Member since
    April 2003
  • From: USA
Posted by keavdog on Friday, January 11, 2019 7:04 PM

 

Bacon wrapped meat-loaf....brilliant!

 

Had a friend in NC that was a big hunter.  Slow cooked venison over a fire on foil all day while we went out plinking.  Came back and fork shredded it, poured a bottle of salsa over the top and we made sandwiches.... man that was good.  Big fan of venison jerky.

 

My mom used to make London Broil - tough as leather as I recall.  Another friend of mine uses the top round (often used for London Broil) to make jerky.

 

Thanks,

John

  • Member since
    January 2013
Posted by BlackSheepTwoOneFour on Friday, January 11, 2019 5:46 PM

GMorrison

Oh my that will be good! Slow cook some Ragu mixed with a little pork.

You are all impressive cooks. Real G, healthy eating habit there.

Yes 214, we need some art!

You meatloaf guys, try adding shitake or other fragrant mushrooms to the mix, even a little tomato paste.

Good work, men!

 

Ragu? Gag....... Gross.

Now venison meatloaf is dynamite. My bro-in-law made some before the holidays. Wow!

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