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Post by virgilgal on Jul 13, 2012 14:26:57 GMT -5
Yum!!! Thanks Chris and Clipper! I would never have expected so many cherry peppers! And the salami sounds good too; a little different. I do like escarole very much and forget about it as I don't always see it around. Next time I shop I will scout for it!
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Post by chris on Jul 13, 2012 14:36:19 GMT -5
Beans and greens are good too!!!!
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Post by Clipper on Jul 13, 2012 15:52:25 GMT -5
I like it spicy. If you don't want it so spicy, only use 3 or 4 peppers and less crushed red pepper flakes. It is a trial and error thing. I like more garlic than some recipes call for so I put more garlic in many dishes. When we eat greens we smell like garlic for a week, LOL. For that recipe I use 4 or 5 cloves or a heaping tablespoon of the minced garlic in a jar. That amount makes it VERY garlicky. How do you do the beans and greens Chris? Do you use Cannellini beans or garbanzo's? I have seen recipes for both ways. Kathy has been known to just throw a can of white beans in with the greens when they are almost done so the beans don't get too mushy, but I prefer just the plain greens with the sausage and peppers and no beans.
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Post by chris on Jul 13, 2012 20:31:48 GMT -5
i use the cannellini
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Post by Clipper on Jul 13, 2012 22:29:56 GMT -5
I looked at a can of beans we have in the pantry. The "white beans" we buy in a can are actually Great Northern beans, which are cannellini beans. Just plain old white beans by two different names.
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Post by virgilgal on Jul 14, 2012 7:31:14 GMT -5
I never realized cannellini and Great Northern are the same! I made a Blackened Tuna Steak in a frying pan last night and finally made it come out like I wanted. I mixed ground Chipotle peppers, paprika, salt, white pepper and garlic powder and rolled the steak in it. Heated the frying pan and added a little butter and heated it until it was ready to smoke, threw the steak in long enough to sear it and turned it down to low. I have tried this numerous times and didn't quite get it. They are best done on a grill which I don't have. Somehow I hit it right and the outside was crispy and spicy and the outside was moist. P&C/Tops had yellowfin tuna steaks this week for $7.95 #. Two individually frozen and packaged steaks in a bag. You can't beat that price!
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Post by Clipper on Jul 14, 2012 8:57:17 GMT -5
I was not totally aware of that fact either VG. Curiosity drove me to Google to find out. I remember we used to use cannellini beans in pasta fagioli when we lived up North. It simply occurred to me that the great northern beans we use for bean soup looked and tasted no different than those beans we purchased in Utica that we called cannellini beans.
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Post by Clipper on Jul 14, 2012 9:58:10 GMT -5
The tuna steaks sound wonderful VG. That is a great price too. Can't beat getting two 8 oz. servings of high quality, healthy protein for 8 bucks. I have only eaten a tuna steak on one occasion. It was marinated in orange juice, soy sauce, garlic and some other things and grilled to a medium rare. It was at an upscale restaurant in Nashville, and it was delicious. The only fish I have eaten "blackened" is salmon. It was delish. Sadly our fish choices here are very limited. Seafood markets are almost nonexistent and what we find in supermarkets is limited and always frozen and thawed. What they call fresh is damn sure NOT. We normally see only Cod, Tilapia, catfish, and salmon. Our only haddock is found in the form of small filets, frozen and in bags. Totally flavorless and mushy when cooked. I bought fish yesterday to cook today. It is called Swai. It is farm raised in Vietnam and is a variety of catfish, but is much whiter and more firm than the normal catfish filets we see every day, and hopefully not mushy when cooked like tilapia often is. I had never seen it before. Kathy is going to lightly flour it and cook it in a frying pan on top of the stove. Wish us luck. We are desperate "haddock deprived" individuals looking for a simple fish that flakes with a fork and remains firm when cooked.
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Post by virgilgal on Jul 14, 2012 19:30:16 GMT -5
Swai is the new haddock. Environmentally sustainable (at least for awhile). I had it once and liked it and once and was not impressed. Tuna is another environmental disaster but I love it. One of my dreams for years was to catch a monster tuna back when it was common to catch 4-500 lb-ers. Now they run to about 50 max from overfishing so we are usually eating baby tuna whether in the can or pan! There is a guide to sustainable fish here that I have (tried) to use for years. Tuna always kills my efforts. www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/cr_seafoodwatch/download.aspx
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Post by Clipper on Jul 14, 2012 21:39:54 GMT -5
When I was in California for a while in the 60's there were fresh whole tuna being sold out of the back of pickup trucks full of crushed ice down on the piers on Terminal Island. We used to go to family gatherings with a Mexican fellow that lived in our apartment building. At one of those Sunday gatherings, he bought a tuna that probably weighed about 20-25 lbs and his mom did it in the oven with some sort of stuffing and it was melt in your mouth delicious. Flaky, firm and succulent. I guess I have been spoiled by living near the ocean both in California for a while and close enough to New England to get truly fresh seafood. We are lost here in Tennessee with nothing but frozen and thawed or processed fish and seafood. We used to go to Cape Cod and Boston several times a year, and I would eat seafood until I almost sprouted fins and gills. Mrs. Pauls and the Gorton fisherman don't satisfy that craving.
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Post by chris on Jul 16, 2012 0:35:57 GMT -5
VG ...you won't catch me eating anything I can't pronounce let alone one sprouting whiskers to boot.
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Post by chris on Jul 16, 2012 0:44:22 GMT -5
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Post by kit on Jul 16, 2012 7:23:08 GMT -5
Virgilgal... backing up just a little...
Here's the rule-of-thumb for cooking steaks in a frying pan or on a grill that works every time. It's best to set the heat depending on the thickness of the cut and don't change it during cooking. Here's the rule-of-thumb:
1 The thinner the meat, the hotter the heat (and it cooks quickly) 2 The thicker the meat, the lower the heat (and it takes a bit longer)
The idea is to brown the outside to perfection in the same time it takes to cook the inside to your preference of rare, medium or well. It's all done at once and doesn't require changing the heat setting and doing both inside and outside separately. That's much too confusing and usually doesn't work.
A thin steak requires very high heat to sear the outside quickly, then get it off the heat so the inside doesn't overcook. I've cooked thin steaks in less than 60 seconds that turned out just right.
A thicker steak requires a lower heat setting so as the heat slowly penetrates to cook the inside, the outside is browning slowly so it doesn't burn. In either case, the meat retains it's natural moisture and juiciness (except in the case of 'well-done' where there are no guarantees) A 1-1/2" filet mignon could take 5 minutes on a side at lower heat, but the results are truly worth the wait. Disappointments are no fun at all.
I'm not much of a fish person, but this technique is true there as well. The heat must be a little higher and the cooking time is less to avoid overcooking resulting in a tough or rubbery texture, but the same rules of physics apply.
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Post by Clipper on Jul 16, 2012 8:58:19 GMT -5
Thanks for correcting my misinformation concerning the cannellini vs. great northern beans Chris. I guess we have lived here and bought the great northerns in a can for so long that I forgot what the genuine cannellini looked and tasted like. It is not often that we use the canned beans and I guess I made a snap judgement based on appearance and size. I guess pasta fagioli is just one more thing that we won't be able to make with authentic ingredients while living here, lol.
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Post by virgilgal on Jul 16, 2012 20:17:53 GMT -5
I understand the theory for cooking those steaks Kit but I've always had a hard time getting just the right temperature. I use an induction cooker that concentrates the heat in a small area and I seem to be doing better with this than with my good old gas stove of many years. I would never try it on the woodstove; too difficult to manage the temp over such a short cooking time. Clipper I'm going to dream about that baked stuffed tuna!!!!
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