maeskitchen

[maeskitchen]

Feliz Navidad!

Dinner for Christmas Eve was relaxed this year. I get so tired of the big production so, instead I made ... CARNITAS.

Three steps: Sear and brown in a skillet, slow cook in crockpot with stock, spice and allium matter, and shred/caramelize under a broiler. Sooooooo good, melt in your mouth goodness.

Mae secret spices: I season my pork shoulder with carribean jerk seasoning in addition to cumin, salt/pepper, cumin and marjoram. TrY It!

Accompianments:

Cabbage slaw: green cabbage, shredded carrot, cilantro with sour cream/lime dressing.

Refried pinto/black beans: onions, garlic, leak, bacon, beans and stock added from the carnitas slow cooker. Season with smoked paprika, dash of worchestershire, cumin and oregano.

Roasted Salsa Roja: peppers, onion, tomatoes, garlic, blended with fresh cilantro, dash of white vinegar, and 1/2 lime. Salt/pepper to taste.

Normally I would press my own tortillas but this year, my energy was a bit low. So, I totally cheated and bought the shells. The flour ones were decent, but yeah, I missed the taste of fresh, warm corn tortillas.

Cheers, all, and Happy Eats!

#my christmas eve dinner #feliz navidad #carnitas #recipes

[maeskitchen]

I got a small squash from my parents garden and baked it with cranberries and it was good. The baking happened some days ago, so it's all eaten now.

Here is the recipe!

(It's copied & pasted from my main blog where I posted it last autumn, in case anyone recognizes my badly lit squash photos and thinks I stole them.)

This is how my parents always cook squash, and it is Very Good, 10/10 highly recommend. We usually use buttercup squash (not to be confused with butternut squash) but it works just the same with acorn squash.

First you should wash it. Then knock the stem off. The side where the stem was is typically flatter, and has much thicker walls, so that will be the bottom and you’ll treat the blossom end as the top.

Cut it open like you would a pumpkin for Halloween and scoop out the guts.

Into your empty squash place a spoonful or two of brown sugar, and a nice big piece of butter.

Fill the rest of the space with cranberries. As many as you can shove in there while still being able to close the lid.

Put the lid on and place it on a pan.

Bake at about 190 C (375 F) until it’s all nice and soft, which is usually an hour and a half for me, but it depends on the size of the squash. I stab it with a fork after the first hour to see how it’s doing.

Scoop it all out into a bowl and stir it up! (carefully, without burning yourself. Probably best to wait for it to cool a little.) When it’s cooked all the way through you can get pretty much every bit of squash out, and just have a paper thin empty squash skin left in the pan. Very nice. Much nicer than this photo makes it look.

It also works on butternut squash, but you’ll want to cut it lengthwise and cover it with foil for that.

#recipes #squash

[maeskitchen]

Teganites

Teganites (Ancient Greek Pancakes)

1 cup (120G) whole wheat flour 

1 cup (235ml) water 

2 tablespoons honey 

¼ teaspoon salt 

Some Olive Oil for frying 

Optional Sesame seeds 

1. Toast the sesame seeds in a dry pan. 

2. Mix the salt into the water. Mix the salt water with the flour and honey and cover, letting it sit for 20 minutes. 

3. Heat enough olive oil in a pan to cover the bottom. Pour in some batter and cook for one and a half minutes. Flip the teganites and cook for another minute or until fully cooked. Repeat until all the batter has been used, adding additional olive oil as necessary. 

4. Serve hot with honey and optional sesame seeds.

Just made these for the first time, and they're fantastic. I copied the recipe from Tasting History over on YouTube. I'll reblog with the link.

#Teganites #Greek #recipes #cooking

[maeskitchen]

#lol

[maeskitchen]

Do you have a hankering for pasta that looks like wrinkly ball sacks? Well, have I found a product for you...

#pasta #my sense of humor is terrible #food funny

[maeskitchen]

It is disconcerting sometimes just how empty shelves are in some of our grocery stores. Like, there aren't major shortages of food here, but choice has dwindled and the places I have shopped since becoming a student are the places that are worst hit. Sometimes, I have to go into the more expensive stores just to find a staple (and it is jarring how much better these stores are stocked). Plus, these more expensive stores have jacked their prices way up, to add insult to injury.

#shopping woes #grocery woes #supply chain issues #inflation

[maeskitchen]

#food funny

[maeskitchen]

#lol #vegetables #true #tho i can confirm asparagus is the worst

[maeskitchen]

It's a bit of a tradition in my house that I have a grand ambition for a birthday cake, and then royally pooch it.

This poor creation begging to be put out of its misery is my sad attempt at a pineapple.

🤦🤷😅 can't be good at everything!

#baking fails #food funny

[maeskitchen]

i always see “tag fav fruit” posts but i’ve never seen a fav veg post so rb & tag your favourite vegetable

#green beans

[maeskitchen]

Garden update! I planted a variety of things, they have all taken off except for the Spanish onions of course. Those yeeted out of existence, not sure why. Still, I have corn stalks, squash, pumpkin and tomatoes going gangbusters!!! Excited 👍🙂

#adventures in gardening

[maeskitchen]

Someone tell me the secret to growing Spanish yellow onions because this is the second year in a row they fell on their swords and all I've got left are mutant white onions determined to take over the planet.

#gardening #spanish yellow onions all died #and who knew acorn squash grew like a swamp monster

[maeskitchen]

#haha plants

[maeskitchen]

Gardening 3.0.

I had great success with onions last year so I doubled down. I am also trying a few corn stalks, wish me luck!

I have forgone Broccoli. Can you believe my rabid broccoli from last year survived the winter? I had four of them that looked like Ents from the forests of middle earth. I had to dig them up though, cause they weren't going to to give me nice crowns.

I have also planted a couple squash plants and one watermelon (not in this pic). We will see how those go.

I highly recommend the garden bag you see in the middle here. I just fill with potting soil and plant! That way, I'm not fighting with the jungle roots of the weeds in my area.

#gardening

[maeskitchen]

So many people think they're incapable of cooking but like, you absolutely can cook. Everyone can. It's a learned skill that takes time and attempt to get better at it. "I can't even cook eggs" buddy as simple as cooking scrambled eggs might seem if you've never done it before it's got potential to get messed up. Some of us struggle with different things. "I can't even make toast" I know you're being funny but: if it's too burned for your liking, turn the setting down, if not burned enough, turn it up.

You are completely capable of cooking. Don't sell yourself short just because no one taught you or because of frustration. Cooking is an artform we can all do and you are capable of cool stuff.

#dont be afraid #no one is born knowing how to cook #its a learned skill

[maeskitchen]

Today has been a day of few successes and many failures. My projects today began last night with the soaking of soybeans and mung beans.

The mung beans will be sprouted. I drained off the water put them into colanders in big bowls, gave them their first watering, and then covered them with a dark towel.

My next task was rinsing the soybeans and removing their skins. Then I boiled them, drained them, added them to a blender with fresh cold water, and blended them to make soy milk. Then placed the soy milk through a nut milk bag and squeezed it to remove the pulp, or okara.

The soy milk was a success although it's got a decently strong beany flavor. Next up on the docket was taking eight cups of that soy milk bringing it almost to a boil, shutting off the heat, and adding an Epsom salt coagulant to try and separate the curds from the whey in order to make tofu. This was an unmitigated failure and I'm not sure why because I followed the recipe to a T. It started to separate and then never continued. So eight cups of soy milk literally went down the drain. (Featuring the tofu press for the tofu that never was 😭)

I also tried my hand at making homemade mayonnaise with vegetable oil, vinegar, and some of my homemade soy milk, but it refused to emulsify It's currently in the fridge and I will work on it later or repurpose it.

The grand success of the day has been dinner, which was general tso's tofu with broccoli over sticky rice.

#vegan food #i appreciate all the work in this

[maeskitchen]

“i feel like im no longer part of this family”

#they wouldn't daaaare