[109] Sherried Tomato Soup

Cover of The Pioneer Woman Cooks by Ree Drummond

I made this soup based entirely on the name and the photos in the cookbook. It’s right next to the cornbread recipe, which is my new always & forever cornbread recipe (unless I have to make some other recipe to advance the challenge, I suppose), and it taunts me every time I go to make cornbread.

That’s more often than you might think, actually. We’ve become a little obsessed with “her cornbread”:http://www.metacookbook.com/archives/123-67-Skillet-Cornbread.html because it’s delicious.

I have to admit, I rarely am motivated to try something just because it sounds or looks good. Obviously, that’s a pivotal part of the process, but it doesn’t usually start there. Usually, it starts because I have an ingredient I want to try or use up, or I have a method I want to learn more about, or I’m “desperately seeking a vegetarian meal”:http://metacookbook.com/archives/211-Whats-the-longest-youve-gone-without-eating-meat.html… Continue reading →

[108] Maple-Baked Apple Butter Baked Beans

Cover of How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, by Mark Bittman

If you want a truly authentic Tasha & Bill experience, you need to add some amount of chaos to the cooking of this recipe.

Start by not being really sure about this “bean soaking” thing, because neither of you has done much with dry beans before (a.k.a. only one of you has cooked with them, and they’re all documented on this blog, probably under the “how to cook anything” tag). Refer back to the page he tells you to refer to about soaking, and then be unsure how far into everything to go. Be pretty sure you don’t want “cooked” beans, but there’s actually no specific directions on soaking. Feel like a bit of an idiot. Say, “Well, he says you can also do this recipe with unsoaked beans, it’ll just take an hour longer” to each other, and decide to do that.… Continue reading →

The other meat

  • Posted by
  • Sunday, February 27, 2011
  • In Other
  • 1 Comments
  • Tagged as

I have to admit, when I made a kind of flip comment the other day about meat being defined as “having a face” in the footnote of a “post”:http://metacookbook.com/archives/211-Whats-the-longest-youve-gone-without-eating-meat.html about how often we eat meat, “this wasn’t what I was thinking of, but it qualifies.”:http://www.girlmeetsbug.com/

Of course, I should have thought of it, since I’ve eaten bugs a couple of times. To me, they don’t taste like much of anything at all. I guess I should experiment more.

What about you? If I told you that eating bugs really isn’t unpleasant at all, would you try them? Does the fact that, apparently, raising & eating bugs answers a lot of the issues brought up in the previous posts and comments sway you?

I should totally see if I can find a recipe for chapulines.… Continue reading →

Limited entries this weekend

  • Posted by
  • Friday, February 25, 2011
  • In Other
  • 0 Comments
  • Tagged as

Hi guys! Okay, unlike last weekend, this weekend I have reason to expect you won’t see much activity on MetaCookbook. I’m expecting to get another entry out today, but one total for today, tomorrow and Sunday is about what I expect. This weekend is looking rather busy (at least I know in advance), so I figured you deserved a heads-up.

Worst-case scenario: You’ll see something new and interesting Monday. It will probably involve beans.… Continue reading →

What’s the longest you’ve gone without eating meat?

  • Posted by
  • Thursday, February 24, 2011
  • In Other
  • 6 Comments
  • Tagged as

Well, I was planning to post a recipe and my cooking failures along with it today (I have a lot of bean recipes coming up, and it turns out I am terrible at cooking beans), but I got distracted by a comment some random person made elsewhere on the internet.

Yes, yes, I know. If I spend all my time on other places on the internet, allowing myself to get distracted by the comments I read, I’m probably going to stop cooking. And eating. And sleeping. And taking bathroom breaks. The internet is vast. Thus, I promise not to do this terribly often, but I thought it was worth considering once it happened this time. Especially once I’d had a conversation with my good friend Angelique and realized it was blog-fodder.… Continue reading →