Come all ye self-styled chefs and kitchen users, we must talk.

Oooo! Good idea. Will have to try that.

Lots of good ideas here for future mixes!

What is everyone making for the holiday weekend? We don't usually do standard holiday fare. Wife suggested fajitas but I want something we don't have 1-2 times a month minimum. So looking for inspiration.

If you're feeling Mexican or Mexican-adjacent, maybe enchiladas? This recipe takes enough work that it feels "special" for the holidays without actually being all that hard (and you can prepare it in advance so that you're not spending all of Christmas Day in the kitchen), and it's warm, hearty, filling, and can either feed a lot of people or make great leftovers.

We haven't decided what to do for Christmas Day yet, but we have a tradition of snack supper for Christmas Eve. It's more or less inspired by the menu at my grandmother's when I was growing up and different relatives would bring tamales, sandwiches, cookies, etc., and the chez bravado version has evolved into getting a variety of fun appetizer things from the Target freezer section.

This year's edition is going to feature bite-sized bao, spring rolls, mini-quiches, and elote bites. Nicely eclectic!

I brine for 24 hours and then roast in a bag with a couple cups of wine added. That and using the oven's "roast turkey" mode along with the temperature probe gives me consistently good results.

How have I never posted in this thread? I've always enjoyed cooking, but, since the pandemic started and I began working full-time from home again, it's been something I've really been focusing on far more, and I've really become a much better cook as it's become more and more a part of what I really enjoy, and, well, I'm getting much better in the kitchen. I've started a thing in my weekly team meetings for work where I show off all the food I've been making just as a fun thing to do every week, so, well, I have lots of pictures.

A few weeks ago, hit a few Southeastern Asian markets and went on a cooking binge. Drunken Noodles, Larb Gai, and a pickled daikon/carrot salad:

Got a hankering for some chilaquiles late summer, so went out to the garden to harvest tomatillos, and made a roasted tomatillo verde sauce with blue corn tortilla chips and homemade pickled red onions:

Then, hey, how about some vegetarian options; I've shifted pretty heavily towards plant-based cooking in the last four months or so since we became empty nesters, and have found myself realizing it's been a week since I've cooked meat and haven't missed it at all. So, tofu shawarma with a quick yogurt-lime sauce. Slightly over-charred tofu, but, all in all, a definitely interesting start for future playing around:

Nomnom. There's a restaurant here that does a Dungeness truffle mac 'n cheese which is DECADENT. Definitely a once a year meal at most.

I made Rick Bayless's version of Oaxacan black mole over the course of three days leading up to Xmas. It's definitely labor intensive, but stretching it out over multiple days helps a lot. I ran my family off to their bedrooms to escape the fumes from toasting the chiles and burning the seeds. It turned out great, with a really deep flavor profile like nothing else in any cooking tradition I know of. There's no "taste as you go" opportunity for adjustments because the flavors don't come together until the very end when you balance salt and sugar, but that transformation is really impressive. Suddenly you can taste all 30 or so ingredients and they all work together. I had to order the chilhuacle chiles, but everything else was available locally.

I think my mother had a Oaxacan black mole at one point, but the dermatologist said it was benign and took it right off.

(Actually the mole sounds really delicious, I love a good black mole.)

I haven't tried it, but a friend of mine made the famous year-old eggnog once and claimed it was very tasty. Supposedly safer to drink (in terms of chances of salmonella infection) than fresh eggnog.

I've used Ruhlman's recipe for the last half-dozen years or so, and even as someone who previously would have said I found eggnog disgusting, I find this recipe pretty damn good.

Last year was the first year where I had enough left over after the holidays to age for a whole year, and comparing that to this year's batch was kinda surprising. I wouldn't have expected as much difference as there was. For lack of a better way of describing it, I'd say the 1yr+ stuff had a depth of flavor that the 1 month stuff did not.

We have a KitchenAid mixer and I bought a grinder attachment years ago and have never used it. Do any of you grind your own meat? (this is the cooking thread... focus... focuuuuuuuus)

I'd like to make sausage at some point but for now I'm thinking about ground chicken and using it for meatballs or something. If you have any tip/tricks/seasonings/etc., please share! The only thing I know is to get rid of all the silver skin so it doesn't clog the grinder.

-BEP

It's like a pasta machine - you'll use it a couple times before deciding it's a massive pain in the ass, and the store-bought version is fiiiiiiiiiiine.

I say this as someone who owns both a pasta machine and a Kitchen Aid meat grinder attachment, both of which live in the cupboard.

In my defense, the former was an unasked for present, and the latter was the wife's purchase (who has subsequently barely used it). She says that she's had VERY mixed results with it - it has a tendency to end up producing mush instead of ground meat, and she's only gotten passable results (note, not great results) by pre-cubing the meat, then semi-freezing it, THEN only grinding it in very small batches. Massive pain in the butt for not very good end product.

Jonman is probably better at predicting my future, if the past has anything to say about it.

I watched this video a while ago. This recipe would make some interesting meatball sandwiches.

-BEP