Please help me use up Ingredient X.
Posted by Heliamphora on Feb 13, 2009 · Member since Oct 2006 · 4798 posts
Ahoy folks! I thought I'd start a thread where you can ask for recipes and advice on how to use up an ingredient (e.g. a vegetable, fruit, grain, bean, etc.) of which you have lots and lots and lots; or which is new to you and you don't know where to start with it.
I'll go first. :P I have many, many tasty carrots from the farmers' market which I need to use before they go soft.
Recipes, please.
I know, I know, carrots - simple - should be a no-brainer... but I was not fond of them for a long time, simply because I'd never known anything but raw or steamed carrots with very little flavour. I like to do INTERESTING things with them. They're so adaptable! Gimme your adaptations! :D
All I can think of is... let it dry out and save it? The leaves will come off the twig very easily once it's dried out.
Also: roasted with potatoes.
Do you have RHIW? There's a recipe for rosemary white beans with artichoke and sun dried tomato that's awesome. And I think a few other recipes with rosemary.
Also, I use the rosemary bread recipe as pizza crust sometimes and it's really good. Or you could do any pizza crust recipe and add rosemary to it.
I also like rosemary in savory pies (with things like potatoes, sweet potatoes, pumpkin, etc.) or in stews with winter vegetables. Or this pea soup (shameless self promotion): http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=26101.msg277478#msg277478 (please review it if you make it). :) Um...rosemary white bean dip (I cook white beans with rosemary, drain them, add some garlic and sun dried tomatoes, and blend it all up), add to lasagna or other baked pasta dishes, stick a few sprigs in some nice olive oil to make rosemary-infused oil (which can then be used to marinate things like roasted red peppers), use in risotto...that's all I can think of.
If you want a non-food use for rosemary: Wrap it onto floral picks and stick them into a wreath form. Makes a very fragrant decoration. dried rosemary can be used in bath sachets, just slip some into a muslin bag or even just wrap a square of fabric arround it and tie it with string/yarn. I make some that are 1 part rosemary, 1 part lavender and 2 parts sea salt. Plunk into the bathtub and enjoy.
Rosemary.
Apart from the rosemary bread from here. I trimmed my rosemary bush today and now have 3 carrier bags full of the stuff. I do use it in regular cooking but not that much!
Rosemary and garlic oil. Put some in a bottle with a couple of bruised cloves of garlic, top up with olive oil and let it infuse for a week or so.
Ditto herbed wine vinegar. If you have say a half-bottle of wine left over some night, add a cup of organic cider vinegar, some rosemary, bay leaf and thyme, cork it up and let it sit for about a month, shaking every week.
Dry it and save it for when you need some, though if you have a bush...
Locally it is popular at processions, they strew it on the ground and people walk/drive over it and the smell is heavenly. You might just dump the cuttings on your driveway to have a fragrant welcome home/goodbye factor.
MAKE 10 MILLION LOAVES OF FOCACCIA
FREEZE THEM
?????
PROFIT
^ pretty much what i would do
We decided to get a box of produce from Organics to You in Portland. There were sunchokes/Jerusalem artichokes in the box and I have never seen them before. The only recipe they gave said to use them like potatoes. Supercook.com was not helpful at all. Help!
Well, yes, you can cook them and mash them like potatoes, but we used to peel them raw, slice them and drop them in water with lemon juice for a few minutes. Use in salad. They are crisp and nice, kind of like water chestnuts. You could use them as an exchange for WC, you know, like in stirfries and stuff.
I bought some Indian melon seeds. Apparently they're used as a thickener? I have about a cupful. Do I soak them first, or just grind them up in the spice grinder?
No one replied to my question re: Indian melon seeds, probably because I posted during the Great Meltdown of a few months back. I have about a cup and a half. What can I use them for? I have read that they can be used as a thickener, but how?
Is anybody on here?
Yabbit, here goes a few attempts:
http://www.manjulaskitchen.com/2009/02/15/whole-wheat-gaund-panjiri/
http://indiacuisine.blogspot.com/2005/12/curried-baby-potatoes_16.html
http://food.sulekha.com/recipes-with-ingredient-melon-seeds.htm This one is a link to a list of recipies. Some are veg*n, some not but it is divided into sections
I can not vouch for any of these but hope it helps.
Thanks, honey. Did you get my PM? I just kinda wanna know if it worked.
Yikes, I thought I sent you a PM back. I am so glad it wirked, I was not sure what you would do with it . Personally, I am not into hot spicy food or much pickled but your lemon pickles sound, well, interesting.
Anyone have a good okra recipe? We always get a lot of it in the garden and I want to try something different. I just brought some nutritional yeast and I have never used it before so where to start? I also have a huge bag of flax seed and I have never used that before either.
For the okra, I like it battered and fried, but some people don't. This recipe for Bindhi Masala uses canned but you could use fresh, too. http://vegweb.com/recipes/quick-and-easy-bhindi-masala (If you don't have kalonji, just leave it out. I love it and put it in a lot of things.)
Flax seed is used as an egg-replacer in some things, look at the Food and Cooking FAQ thread on that.
I haven't used nooch much myself but a lot of us like it sprinkled on popcorn!
Okra is a lot more versatile than I used to think - tends to be good chopped up small and mixed in with veggie sautes or stir-fries.
As for nutritional yeast and flax... everything! :) Nutritional yeast is great sprinkled over popcorn or really any savory dish to give it a kind of creamy taste. It's also good blended into pesto or dips, or as a base for anything vegan that is billed as "cheezy."
Flax seeds are great mixed into smoothies, chia pudding, or nearly anything involving fruit. Ground flax can be used as an egg replacer in most baking recipes. To replace one egg, mix one Tbsp ground flax with 3 Tbsp water, and let sit for a few minutes before using. Sometimes I use the whole seeds on salads or in recipes instead of sesame seeds. Hope this helps!
P.S. A note re: nutritional yeast: 3 months living on an animal sanctuary taught me that cats really love it too. It doesn't usually need to be kept cold, but after our dear cat broke into the pantry for the 3rd time or so, we started keeping it in the refrigerator...
Okra is a lot more versatile than I used to think - tends to be good chopped up small and mixed in with veggie sautes or stir-fries.
As for nutritional yeast and flax... everything! :) Nutritional yeast is great sprinkled over popcorn or really any savory dish to give it a kind of creamy taste. It's also good blended into pesto or dips, or as a base for anything vegan that is billed as "cheezy." I've found cats really love it too. It doesn't usually need to be kept cold, but after our dear cat broke into the pantry for the 3rd time or so, we started keeping it in the refrigerator...
Flax seeds are great mixed into smoothies, chia pudding, or nearly anything involving fruit. Ground flax can be used as an egg replacer in most baking recipes. To replace one egg, mix one Tbsp ground flax with 3 Tbsp water, and let sit for a few minutes before using. Sometimes I use the whole seeds on salads or in recipes instead of sesame seeds. Hope this helps!
Whoops! I'm sorry. The computer double-posted, and I can't delete - but that was not intentional. Can admin possibly delete the first post? Thanks! <3
Thanks for your suggestions! Now tell me what do I do with quinoa? What's the best way to use it?
Thanks for your suggestions! Now tell me what do I do with quinoa? What's the best way to use it?
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