Alright, we all love eating. A lot of us love cooking. Now talk about it.

And post pics if you have 'em.

O.k. so today I made some ravioli.

Made some dough from flour and eggs. I highly recommend the imperia pasta press.



Cooked some italian sausage, chopped mortodello, and fried pancetta. Ran it through the food processor to make the filling have a very fine texture.



rolled out the dough, cut some manageable strips, fed it through the press, cut some rounds with a small tupperware, saved the trimmings to re-knead and repeated.



used two rounds per ravioli



the first few



a full plate



Made a sauce out of fresh tomatoes, red and green bell peppers, onion, garlic, salt, pepper, olive oil, basil, oregano, white sugar, baby portobellos, tomato paste... no pics of that process.

While some might say it's a pain in the ass, i think it's fun as hell. Plus it tastes totally different, read better.

It's been a good christmas break for cooking, i made a couple of great soups, but neglected to take pics.

O.k., go get cooking, so i can get ideas from you too.

...that's a shun knife!

That ravioli looks damn good. I got no pictures for mine though.

Nothing tricky, but I made up a couple pans of stuffed mushrooms for a New Year's party at the request of a friend who loves them. They're sitting in the fridge just waiting to get popped in the oven Wednesday night.

Just took a pound of Italian sausage, a big handful of bread crumbs, a big handful of grated Parmesan, a small diced onion, a couple cloves of chopped garlic, maybe a tablespoon of basil, salt, pepper and an egg and mixed it all together by hand. Wash the mushrooms and pull off the stems. Then just stuff some of the mixture into the caps. I'll bake them at about 375 for maybe 20 minutes or so and presto. Not health food, but damn tasty.

every time i make something for myself that i think is impressive, in comes phil with his fancypants recipes and do dads that puts my entire world to shame

please make sure that is on the houseguest menu for SXSW

It's what he does. It's his pleasure.



More to the point, we brined and roasted a turkey for the first time this past weekend, and holy fuck it came out juicy and delicious. Soaked it in unbelievably salty water for 24 hours, then rinsed it 4 or 5 times in cold water and baked it as per normal. No residual saltiness, but a helluva lot of moisture stays in. It was *almost* flakey.

hey, i just looked on ebay, and if you want that same pasta press, search for imperia pasta.

15 bucks with a buy it now. They're like 7 times that much at williams-sonoma.

I'd love to brine a turkey, but i never have room in the fridge. I dig the stuffed mushrooms too. Sometimes i'll do the same thing in a large portabello cap for a dinner entree. Sometimes i'll sub lump crab for the sausage.

And you're right, that's a shun. I gave myself a nice deep cut on my left thumb with the chef's knife as i was mincing ham for denver omelets this morning. It's clean though, doesn't throb or hurt. And i was being CAREFUL. Just slipped as i was tearing up from the onions. Still, that old adage about sharp knives being preferable to dull ones is way true.

I'm not sure how or why, but my money's on Todd being able to duplicate this thread before 2010.

boiled



with sauce



and parm

surprised the thumb's still there.

me too! I saw it happening like slow mo, and actually lifted my right arm up and away from the thumb, and i still got it good.

It was like that scene in the matrix where keanu dodged bullets but still got knicked in the arm, but not as cool. Probably because of the fluorescent lighting.

So how are the knives doing? Worth the money? What'd you get?


<--full of questions.

hey phil, where did you learn to cook?

Knives have made cooking even more fun. Totally worth it.

Got the Shun Classic 7 piece block set.

8 inch hollow ground chefs,
3.5 inch paring
6 inch utility
8 inch serrated utility (bread knife to me, but they don't call it that, there's another cooler looking bread knife)
Sharpening stone
Shears
bamboo block

I really wanted to check out the Alton's Angles series that they have, but they're not carried at Williams-Sonoma. Plus they come in an acrylic block so you can see which friggin' knife you're grabbing.

But they're at a wierd angle for dudes with big paws. Still, i wasn't gonna shell without holding them. So I went classic, because i couldn't justify the Ken Onions, but those feel awesome, and are ambidextrous.

Do you have a big ice chest? If so that will do the job. Keep the ice in a bag and put inside w/ the turkey & brine. Keep adding ice for 24 hours.

I have Global cooking knives, which I think for the price is the best on the market.

I had two busy parents and three hungry younger brothers. I sort of got forced into it really young, and just always had a knack for it.

I made a tuna noodle casserole when i was 8, my parents freaked out that i used the stove and the oven.

I pointed out that they'd never treated me like a kid, so why should they start now?

It snowballed from there. My first job in college was as a cook for a fraternity, and that also snowballed.

I thought about culinary school, but i know too many people who went who decided not to work in the field for various reasons.

phil when i open up my breakfast/lunch place, and i will, will you be my head chef

I'm fittin' to do up a citrus/jerk-inspired marinade that a pork loin is going to bathe in overnight for the grill tomorrow.

I did a buttermilk brined (free range organic) turkey for thanksgiving this year and it was fucking divine. a whole new level of moistness.

moist is an ugly word

oh damn. Buttermilk, you say. Fuck that sounds good.

Looks good Phil...I will post some photos as I cook more.. Ive recently gotten back into the game... I think I posted a food pron dish once...

Shuns are good knives compared to the mass produced stuff... Globals are great, but were better before the recent price hike...

*but* more than anything, knowing how to sharpen a knife is more important than buying a 'good' knife. Most people use dull knives no matter how much they might have spent on the knife when purchased. Japanese knives take more knowledge in general due to the hardness of the steel as well as the type of edge they generally use.

And this is my kitchen knife pron

[img][650:197]http://www.japanesechefsknife.com/images/Img548.jpg[/img]
Hattori HS Damascus Gyuto 210mm

those are sweet, deena really liked the feel of them. They felt a little light in my hand, i like a bit more weight. And since i do the bulk of the cooking, she deferred.

yes.