Let's Cooking: TNL!

I couldn't decide whether to make hot chocolate or coffee, so I ended up making both. I melted a few ounces of chocolate (Ghiradelli 60% cocoa chocolate chips to be exact) in a double broiler. I heated up 2 oz milk and 2 oz cream in the microwave, and added them to the chocolate. I then added between 6 and 8 ounces of strong French pressed coffee. It truly is the best of both worlds.

No dude, go make some hot chocolate and add a dash of white or cayenne pepper to it.

SRS BZNS.

That sounds so damn good, icarus.

I think I'll make another batch of split pea soup tomorrow. For how easy it is to make, it's pretty delicious.

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Originally Posted by icarusfall

At this very moment I'm frying Chorizo sausage to mix with a roasted tomato sauce and linguini. Fold in some fresh mozzarella and I"m gonna' sleep poorly!

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I love Chorizo so much but everytime I eat it I get the shits.

Edit: Tones have you posted the split pea soup recipe? If not please do cause I love me some pea soup.

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Originally Posted by Tones

I made bowtie pasta with a bacon cream sauce. It was exactly how you would imagine (basically, awesome).

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Bacon makes everything awesome.

AG, here's how I'm making it now:

1 lb bag split peas
2 tbsp butter
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
8 cups water
2 ham hocks
salt and pepper to taste

Melt the butter in a medium stock pot (I use an 8-quart) over medium-high heat, and add the butter. Sautee until it's light brown/soft, and add the garlic. Sautee for a minute or so. Add the water, peas, and ham hocks, and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer, and cook for about an hour and a half, until the peas are falling apart. Remove the ham hocks. Using small batches, puree about half of the pea/liquid mixture, and return it to the pot. Remove all of the meat from the hocks, dice, and return it to the soup. Salt and pepper to your heart's content.

IMO, the key are smocked ham hocks. They're easy to come by in the south; I don't know about other parts of the country. From my experience they add a much better flavor to soups and greens than other ham products. They don't add much meat, but I find it to be enough. One should be enough, but the smallest size packages I can find around here have them in pairs.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tones

AG, here's how I'm making it now:

1 lb bag split peas
2 tbsp butter
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
8 cups water
2 ham hocks
salt and pepper to taste

Melt the butter in a medium stock pot (I use an 8-quart) over medium-high heat, and add the butter. Sautee until it's light brown/soft, and add the garlic. Sautee for a minute or so. Add the water, peas, and ham hocks, and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer, and cook for about an hour and a half, until the peas are falling apart. Remove the ham hocks. Using small batches, puree about half of the pea/liquid mixture, and return it to the pot. Remove all of the meat from the hocks, dice, and return it to the soup. Salt and pepper to your heart's content.

IMO, the key are smocked ham hocks. They're easy to come by in the south; I don't know about other parts of the country. From my experience they add a much better flavor to soups and greens than other ham products. They don't add much meat, but I find it to be enough. One should be enough, but the smallest size packages I can find around here have them in pairs.

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Excellent. I have seen ham hocks at the store here so I am trying this for dinner tomorrow.

I have an interview at American Grocery tomorrow in the afternoon before work. It's a pretty big deal restaurant around here so I'm hoping it goes well. They were just written up in the Greenville magazine as one of the 7 top restaurants in town in their Culinary issue - it's a big deal to Greenville people that Tyler Florence is from here so they jump on food pretty hard.

I'm going to take an entirely different tact from my last interview and explain that I'm just looking for someone to give me a chance at the big time and that I really appreciate their cuisine. I kept all my tickets from tonight so they can see the workload I'm used to on a slow night, I printed out my resume on super fancy paper, and I'm writing down a couple recipes I created that I'm especially proud of.

I'm going with a pretzel encrusted pork loin served with sugar wine nectarines and sweet/sour spinach (not like sweet and sour sauce).

Wish me well.

Good luck to you.