Cooking is intuitive and experimental until something gets set on fire: FOOD

[elpollodiablo]

And fried in oil, caramelized,
A dish forever idealized,
She would eat them on some fries,
The Lady of &c.

[YojimboMonkey]

There were some Shriners in the hardware store parking lot selling Vidalia onions on Sunday and I got to talking to one of them and he was a good buddy of my great uncle Harold (who is old as hell and super nutty and waaaaay into the Shriners) so I bought 10 pounds of Vidalia onions from them. Made some onion rings on Sunday. Burgers yesterday.  Still have a fuckload of Vidalia onions.  They say you can eat them like apples but I don't see myself doing that.

[mixed cats]

Caramelized onion and goat cheese galette with a little bit of thyme sprinkled on top!

[peacocks]

drooling over here. Y'know what's good with onions? MUSHROOMS! I just got some shitake, oyster, and golden mushrooms, along with carrot noodles(!) from the asian grocery (Dong: A Supermarket!) yesterday and last night's meal was superb.

[Bernard]

Persian breakfast: cucumber, feta, raw onions, tarragon, mint, rolled up in lavash. Fried egg-with-tomato. Hot, strong black tea that you sip around a sugar cube held between your front teeth.

You can eat even regular onions like an apple, let alone Vidalias. TRY IT!

[YojimboMonkey]

that sounds delicious. I mean, the persian breakfast, not the eating regular onions like apples. 

[mixed cats]

My cousin ate onions like apples when she was a toddler. Tears streaming down her face the whole time. It was cute. Now she is 20 and would probably gag if you told her about it.

[milesofsparks]

you can marinate them briefly with another veg or two--tomatoes are nice if you can find decent ones this early.

[Greg Nog]

I never actually eat whole onions that way, but often when I'm chopping them for something else, I'll eat a few pieces raw.  

[YojimboMonkey]

well sure, I munched on the little center pieces when separating the onions for onion rings. Tasty. I just can't see eating a baseball-sized onion that way

[Dick]

I don't even eat apples like apples very much.  I eat raw onion pretty regularly, though.  If I'm eating lentils and rice, there's going to be some onion going on.  Raw is alright, but what I really like is to cut up an onion into slices, cut up some green chilis (like...thai chilies?  I'm not sure of the chili taxonomy for the ones I'm thinking of), dump some salt and chili powder and lime juice on it, and let it sit for a while.  That's the business, right there.

[dumbfish]

Add radishes and green mango and a bit of sugar and you've got a really tasty salad-slaw thing they do in Trinidad.

[Dick]

Celery and radishes often go in too.  Never thought about the fruit + sugar possibilities, though.

[Bernard]

Just a pinch of sugar often 'warms' up the flavor of tangy things. Doesn't have to be enough to make them actually sweet.

[jm]

oh hey, yeah so I did the sugar cube tea thing for the first time a few months ago.  It's a bit of a trick, innit.

[Bernard]

Yeah, a little.

Incidentally I don't want to gloss over epd's excellent poem.

[FreddyKnuckles]

Tonight I'm doing arugula, mint, white mushrooms, scallions, avocado, and grape tomatoes.  Toss em in some lemon and lemon zest (adding lemon zest means you can add less lemon juice.  More lemon flavor with less sour/tart), olive oil, salt, and pepper. 

Then a baguette with some fucking olive oil and balsamic.

[peacocks]

there should be some kind of lptj cookbook out of all these ideas / recipes / pictures

[FreddyKnuckles]

I make some weird shit cause I got a reallllly finicky eater of a girlfriend.  No mayo (even in pasta/potato/egg salad), no pork (no bacon no ham makes nucks a dull boy), no milk (even in cooking, so no cream etc.), no marinara or tomato based pasta sauce. 

So pasta is one of those cheap staples and without cream or marinara its pretty tough.  Because she also prefers cold pastas, I've developed over time a recipe for some noodles (I typically load them down with some variation of mushrooms, scallions, tomatoes, or whatever's cheap/in season).

Basically what I do is I replace cream with avocado and gorgonzola/blue cheese.  So I drain the pasta (1 box), rinse it with cold water, then mix it with the veggies, a whole avocado, a decent sprinkling of crumbled cheese, 1 1/2 or 2 lemons depending on their size and juiciness, lemon zest, and a healthy drizzle of olive oil.  The pasta ends up held together and creamy without the use of cream, mostly by the avocado and cheese.  Basically you're exchanging one dairy for another, but she'll eat cheese so whatever.  It IS pretty dang good, I've got to say. 

I didn't just tell you how to make spaghetti, by the way.  I told you how to make pasta for a crazy person.

[peacocks]

I'm seriously no joke gonna make that tomorrow night. I'm gonna squeeze me a nice avocado right after work. So far tonight I have been sucked into the computer and forgot to eat. Yogurt?

[mixed cats]

My favorite thing at one of my favorite restaurants is sliders that are made with avocado, grape tomatoes, bleu cheese, and arugula on little brioche buns. Avocado and bleu also make great nachos.

[FreddyKnuckles]

It's just such a nice combination.  bleu cheese and avocado.  I'm surprised it isn't on more things.  There are few things better than a fat, charred up on the outside, juicy, barely pink on the inside, homestyle burger with a healthy dose of bleu cheese.  FUCK.

[Em]

I just discovered that I like falafel with ketchup. I guess most fried things go pretty well with ketchup, but it was really a pretty excellent lunch experience.

[FreddyKnuckles]

HEY NOG

http://consumerist.com/2011/05/gag-me-or-gimme-more-kfc-chinas-baileys-irish-cream-chicken.html

[mixed cats]

I want an Auntie Ann's cinnamon sugar pretzel so so so bad right now. I haven't had even a bite of one of those in like three years. rrrrgh