What are you cooking?

[Mintochris]

Austrian themed Christmas Eve in progress.

Bratwurst also consumed. Home made schnitzel later.

[Mintochris]

I got too excited and started eating before I remembered to document schnitzelfest. Too full.

[Captbnut]

Those chips look awesome

[tomm_archer]

Xmas dinner has got a bit scientific this year. What is it they say about a watched turkey though?

Edit: Watched the James Webb launch at the same time for extra science.

“Oven temperature: Nominal”

[Mintochris]

Too much stuffing.

[Captbnut]

Nah. Too small a plate!

[Chewy77]

Glazed ham from yesterday. Glazing made with honey, brown sugar (for texture) pineapple juice and some salt and pepper.

It was de-lish, if it is wrong of me to say…

[GeeBizzle]

Salmon en croute with mushroom pate.

It looks more burned than it is.

Also some home brewed beer to accompany it.

[RogerBW]

This is arguably off-topic so if it gets big enough I’ll move it to its own thread, but anyway…

There is this thing called “cheesies”, basically little bits of cheese baked to crunchiness. They are very delicious. They are also £6.25/100g.

And it occurred to me that “take little bits of cheese and bake them” shouldn’t be all that hard to do for oneself. Maybe something like the process of making beef jerky, a long coolish cook with air circulation. (Though I haven’t done that either.)

Anyone have any advice?

[GabrielH]

We used to make cheese crisps with parchment/wax paper in the microwave; you’d just plonk one or more (with plenty of space) ~1cm cubes of cheese on the paper, and watch it until it stopped moving.

This results is something very flat, from what I’m seeing of the brand you mentioned, it looks to be more round, which should be achievable with a small cylindrical silicone mold.

One can do the same thing in an actual oven, but it’s not as much fun to watch.

[Captbnut]

I know to make sun dried ish tomatoes in the oven you put it on plate warming temperature and leave for an hour or so. I imagine you’d want a decent chunk of cheese, like cheddar or maybe feta. Rub in olive oil and add pepper, dried oregano and basil. Take a chunk out every half an hour to try it

[yashima]

I don’t know about the cube thing but I know you can make crisps from parmigiano by just putting it on parchment in the oven–obviously you want to use ground (?, gerieben) flakes for that. IMO, this works best with the youngest variety (24mo) as it melts best. here’s an example “recipe”

It’s probably pretty similar to what you want? I’ve made something like this and they are delicious.

edit 1: I’d just bake some very cheesy crackers instead. Maybe I’ll try my oat cakes with triple the amount of cheddar than I usually use and report on the result.

edit 2: also cheese puffs (my own trusted recipe)

edit 3: I know these last 2 aren’t exactly any answer to your question, but you know cheese cravings… can be satisfied in multiple ways.

[Griffster77]

Nigella"s Sweet Potato Macaroni Cheese. Banging.

[dscheidt]

Cheese melts at between 130 and 150F (you will have to adjust that to whatever foolish system you use). The temperature depends on the fat and moisture content of the cheese. Wetter fattier cheeses (mozzarella, for instance) melt at the low end, dryer ones at the higher end. To bake cheese without melting it, you’d want to keep less than the melting point, but high enough to drive off all the moisture. I’d probably look at using a food dehydrator.

but they may be melting he cheese. I had a cow-orker who didn’t eat carbs, and he made chips (crisps to you) out of cheese. The basic process was to grate some cheddar chese, put it tablespoon sized piles on parchment paper, and put it in the (hot) oven for a few minutes, until it was melted and bubbling, but before it browned. He usually put black pepper in there. They were quite good, crisp, and cheese tasting. I’d rather just eat the cheese, so I never presued a recipe or detailed procedure.

[Marx]

I tried to make enchiladas for the first time, using a modified version of the Adam Ragusea “Green Enchilada” recipe… linky-link.

Green Enchiladas

Big modification was an inability to make my own salsa verde… no tomatillos available in Kitchener, at the moment. As a result, I changed the filling to include the jalapeno (4 total, 1 with seeds), and then threw in a couple of green peppers and some mushrooms because vegetables (and fungi) are good and Adam’s recipe had neither.

Okay.
Pros: Delicious filling. Like, really, really delicious.
Cons: I don’t think baking the enchiladas buried in salsa verde actually adds anything to the dish. Granted, I am not a huge fan of “smother everything in cheese” when it comes to cooking, but even the light sprinkle I did seemed to be wasted, and the texture of the tortillas went… not ‘bad’, but weird. Like, almost slimey? But, I don’t think this is an Adam problem for two reasons: 1, the additional vegetation definitely results in a wetter sauce/filling, and 2, I get scared a lot faster about things burning than Adam does and so I probably didn’t reduce the sauce (which was delicious!) enough. It almost certainly was supposed to be thicker.

So, moral of the story: I will definitely make this filling again, but I will probably skip the enchilada part and just use it as burrito/fajita filling instead. That way I can also add sour cream and lettuce if desired (which I did), and everyone can add salsa verde according to personal taste.

[dscheidt]

Just a little restocking of the strategic cookie reserves. These are chocolate with mint candy pieces.

[Captbnut]

My wife doesn’t mess about with birthdays

[Whistle_Pig]

That is quite a cake!

[Griffster77]

[Chewy77]

It is all correct. I cannot believe the “boiling different kinds of pasta at once” isn’t there. Probably the Italians they asked about it died of brain implosion.