Dcarch, while I thoroughly enjoy most of your photos, your "krispys" remind me of mealworms, LOL!! I had to say something, please don't take offense!

That is so sweet, Dcarch! I should introduce myself here, I suppose.

I have been on GW for years, with a few years of break when I actually got OFF the internet, then iPad came along.....I have posted on Antique roses, and mostly Kitchens over the past couple of years. I used to post on Fine Cooking, LONG ago. I did not realize there was a GW Cooking forum, or I assumed it was one of those places with recent posts from 2001!! Sorry, y'all.

I recently moved from Texas to Kentucky, raise and train horses, and I am my MIL's caregiver. I now have a gorgeous area to landscape that is a blank slate, so I will be busy in the Spring!

I LOVE food, and cooking. We remodeled the kitchen in this house, and now I have a wonderful place to work, but I have to be careful, because I love to eat!

Nancy

Welcome Nancy! Someone else recently came over from Antique Roses also.......Strawberry maybe?

Did you post pictures on your kitchen remodel at Kitchens? I am at the start of my project as I type. I cannot decide on anything - except to get rid of a Pergo floor and go with hardwood.

Hope to see more of you here!

Teresa - kitchenless in Minnesota

Nancy, please post pictures of your horses too. I love looking at animal pics but no one provides pics of the big animals. Please?? Please??

Yes, DC is very thoughtful in addition to providing CF members with very creative plating.

Welcome newcomers and unlurkers.

dcarch, what a nice post. Though,I do have to agree about the mealworms. Can you dip them in something? I've seen many of your food photos and you are very creative.

I guess I'm sort of new here. Been on kitchen for 5 years and am just finishing the project. While I'm been cooking for many years the new kitchen has inspired me to branch out. Coming to the cooking forum I realized how little I know.

OMG debrak! I've been feeling that my kitchen will take me 5 years! Please tell me yours did not take that long!

And yes - this is a nice post. There have been a lot of new/returning members in recent months. I think Dcarch has done a great job of encouraging more to come out of the dark and join in!

Teresa

correcting the spelling of members - unless they want to be memebers!

This post was edited by teresa_mn on Sun, Jan 27, 13 at 20:56

A wonderful idea, dcarch. However I have to agree that those are not the most appealing pictures. I'm sure they taste great but mealworm was my first thought too. Cover them with chocolate? And while the fried rice sounds yummy, the combination of pink (on my monitor) rice with the hearts is kind of... not so good.

noinwi, thanks. I totally agree, as I have said in another thread. I discovered a couple of years ago, wild rice look very much like worms, and I used it in a Halloween dish. It was a big hit, a great ice breaker conversation piece and people couldn't stop eating it because it tasted very good.

springroz, welcome Nancy! I hope to see more of your cooking soon. I agree with beachlily, everyone will also enjoy seeing pictures of your horses too.

Cathy (Mustangs), Thanks. You are always so motivating!

debrak_2008, Not another worm hater! LOL! I have to confess. I have eaten worms before, on purpose. I have traveled to places and have tasted many different kinds of entomological protein. We all look forward to seeing more than soup from your brand new kitchen.

rosesstink, as a matter of fact, I was thinking of a chocolate coating on the wormy looking squares, but I discovered my block of dark chocolate, I am not making this up, had worms. I had no idea that moths can actually eat chocolate and lay eggs in chocolate! Thank you also for your comment regarding the pink rice. It is important for me to have different honest opinions because, as I had indicated on another thread, this is to be a dress rehearsal to dishes I will be making for a few parties. However, I have an excuse. It was not my design to have pink rice. I was planning on white rice with a few specks of red rice to give it interest, not knowing that red rice bleeds red and my white rice turned pink.

You gave me an idea. I will try another dish in pink, just for you, to make you a pink lover. :-)

-------------------------------------------------

To everyone, please introduce yourself and post your Valentine dishes. Although you may consider posting your creations on another current Valentine thread, where there are many more cooks far better than I am.

dcarch

I will bring Meyer lemons, too.

I'll introduce myself, although I'm not sure I'm a new poster. I've been on and off GW for years, beginning in the Hypertufa Forum, and in the Vegetable Gardening and Harvest Forums --which led me here. In 2011 we did a mini kitchen makeover and I got hooked on the kitchen forum then.

I have had the lovely opportunity to meet one CF member, SushiPup, last summer when my DH and I traveled across country car camping for 8 weeks. We had dinner at a local seafood place and had a lovely time!

I live in the midcoast area of Maine, with my DH in an old Cape. We have a big veggie garden, lots of perennial beds, and a small flock of laying hens. I love to cook and unfortunately, eat. I've often wished I enjoyed running as much as cooking and eating!

Thanks Dcarch for the offer to introduce ourselves, and for posting your lovely photos, I am always amazed.

Another lurker coming out of the dark corners to say hello to everyone. I've been around Garden Web a while & have actually posted before, although its probably been only half a dozen times.
Thanks to all who are so generous with posting their recipes and hints. I've found quite a few "Keepers" and also have a huge "to try" folder on the computer.

I live in the Pacific NW with DH, in a small city home complete with postage stamp size yard. I keep ripping out shrubbery I don't like so I'll have more room to grow herbs & vegetables.

I've set 2 missions for myself this year. One is to do more attractive plating. The other is to slim down the pantry. (I occasionally suffer from the "what the heck did I buy this for?" syndrome.)

Beachlily - contact me at Chickadeedeedee@gmail.com and I will send you gorgeous pictures.

seasyde, mabeldingeldine, Welcome and thanks for the introductions. Sounds like we are all gardeners. Let's see you cook something from your gardens!

----------------------------

Inspire by the pork chop thread. This may be on one of the Valentine menus. I removed the bones for making stock for another dish. Bascially sous vided, and by definition, the meat was cooked to perfection.

dcarch

How did you get those seared hearts on the chops?

I'm terribly sorry, but I have to agree. I have never seen anything look quite so much like a maggot patty, with all shapes and sizes represented.

Now those pork chops, you might be able to woo me with.

Teresa, I made something like a branding iron to sear the chops with the heart design.

jvanderh, Eactly! I have made that many times, without fail, that's the first thing everyone would say, "Them worms!". Then they couldn't stop eating them because they are light, crispy and more delicious than pop corn.

dcarch

This post was edited by dcarch on Thu, Jan 31, 13 at 8:31

The squares do look rather delicious, if you squint your eyes a little.

I am really not a newcomer.....more like a lurker.
I live in beautiful San Luis Obispo county and cannot think of living anywhere else.
I cook without recipes, grow vegetables and herbs and lots of flowers and have a huge Meyer lemon tree in our front yard.
I supply the neighborhood and then some.
I have two worm bins and use the casings in the garden in addition to using up kitchen scraps. I try to keep as much as I can out of landfills.
I cook from scratch almost every day and am blessed with a DH who doesn't mind cleaning the kitchen.
I really enjoy this site and have gotten some great recipes.
Thanks to all of you.

Carol, thanks for the introduction. You do live in a great area. I wish I had climate like yours in NY here.

I compost everything from the kitchen, including bones, meat----- All bio-degradable stuff.

-------------------------------------

Still more pork chops, with blackbean, muchroom cream gravy.

And

Anise flavored drumsticks on Saffron Risotto.

dcarch

Incredible.

Jim

Dcarch - is the green vegetable in the first pics Gai Lan?

The pictures are beautiful as always. Two pictures of each dish is not too many pics for me to view. Your food photos never get old to me.

What is in the mushroom gravy? It looks really rich.

Thanks Jim and Teresa.

The green vegetable are hearts of mustard green.

The mushroom sauce is using the hard stems of shiitake mushrooms, which many people just throw away, and blend them with cream, Chinese black beans, roasted garlic, wine and pepper. The mushroom stems have very nice flavor.

dcarch

Dcarch - I think I will try your idea out using some dried Morel stems I have. I got them from a guy that was selling fresh Morels at the market last spring. He cut part of the stem off - I think to make them look more appealing for the price he was charging. I asked how much he wanted for the stems. He wanted to trade for the soap I was selling. I was working for my friend Loretta the soap lady that day.

I took the stems home and dried them. I gave some to Loretta and she used them to make a mushroom soup which she said was fabulous.

I am going to make a mushroom sauce today. Maybe even a soup. I'm still cleaning out the cupboards - getting ready to refinish them. I also have dehydrated Chinese celery stalks and leaves. And I have dehydrated celeriac slices.

Thanks for the idea! This will be interesting.

I need to come up with a few dishes for the vegetarian guests.

The Wild Rice-A-Roni uses the basic Rice-A-Roni method, but made without butter. I added chestnuts and black garlic.

Wild Rice-A-Roni, the Minnesota treat! Thank you Teresa!

dcarch

Tofu "Steak" with Bean/Nut/Black Garlic Sauce

Baked Kabocha Wild Rice-A-Roni
{{gwi:1475348}}

THANK YOU, dcarch, this forum is never the same without your great pictures. I love the heartshaped presentation. BTW, I made fried tofu in black bean sauce once, it was quite good with bell peppers.

Since I recently eloped from the Roses & Antique Roses Forum, I only have bouquet of roses to compliment your dishes.

Thank you StrawberryHill. Thank you for the roses, my favorite blossom.

All the talk about scallops for Valentine. sound like a great idea. I made a typical pairing of bacon and scallops.

Needed to add another seafood, so I did a test run of sous vide salmon with polenta.

dcarch

All beautiful, dc. The krispies look great to me. Rich, brown-I don't know what a mealworm looks like. In my mind, mealworms are thin, white, critters, but I just made that up!

Anyway, all your lovely offerings are pretty and a feast for the, oh, everything, a feast for everything. Thanks for your efforts.

Dcarch, I love, love the last two pictures! it has everything that I would like in my plate. I like the combination of the sauces and the colors.

We went to Roy's Hawaiian fusion last Saturday and I had an incredible crispy skin trout, it does not look that good in the picture but it was! it also had black radish.

Silvia

Thank you Silvia, Lovely crispy skin trout. As a matter of fact the above two dishes are my regular exercise in how to achieve tenderness and crispiness in the same dish. The scallops were very tender sous vide cooked at 120F and the bacon was totally crispy. The salmon was sous vide cooked at 125F tender and the salmon skin was crackling crispy.

Thank you Westsider. I am glade you like the crispy wild rice, for you I am making another one, Wild Rice ice Cream. Yes, Wild Rice Ice Cream. It was very delicious. For sure I will make it again.

Again, thank you very much Teresa for your amazing real wild rice gift.

I do get many inspirations from the other Valentine thread. This is Meyer Lemon/mushroom chicken with crackling crispy skin and the chicken breast was sous vided at 150F, very tender.

Aww, how did y'all know I LOVE hearts??? Food and hearts?

I will try to post some horse pictures, When I get back to showing, they will be easy....but right now, my animals are furry, feral things. The new barn is 2/3 done. When that is done, though, I will not have much computer time, unless DH can fabricate an Ipad holder for my carriage! It is illegal to text and drive here in Kentucky, though.

From the heart,
Nancy

Dcarch, you are so creative with your heart ideas. Some of the old tavern/restaurants out in the rural areas around here feature stuffed veal or beef hearts on their menus for Valentine's Day. Have you ever made them?

springroz, I (we) look forward to pictures of your equestrian friends. Good luck with your barn.

Ruthanna, you must have ESP!

Just finished trying out calf's heart. 48 hours cooked at 133F in the sous vide cooker. Amazing! Still trying to perfect my version of Meyer lemon sauce.

dcarch

This post was edited by dcarch on Sun, Feb 10, 13 at 22:30

DC, You did it. You really did it. Luscious, smooth, creamy, rich, wild rice ice cream. Thank you. I imagine that tastes creamy and vanilla-ish and wild rice nutty. Vanilla and pecans or walnuts or wild rice? Pretty good. Unusual but in my tasting mind, it's good. How did it taste, DC?

Everything is pretty, creative, smart. Beet hearts. Beef hearts. DC hearts hearts.

Thank you Westsider.

Rice ice cream may sound a little strange to some, but rice ice cream is not new, The Japanese has it, the Chinese has it and the Italian has it.

Here is a recipe for Italian rice cream, I used wild rice instead of Arborio rice. The taste was just as you said, "Luscious, smooth, creamy, rich, wild rice ice cream. ---------- I imagine that tastes creamy and vanilla-ish and wild rice nutty. Vanilla and pecans or walnuts or wild rice"

GELATO DI RISO (RICE ICE CREAM)
Serving Size : 8 Preparation Time :0:00
Categories : Ice Cream Italian
Amount Measure Ingredient -- Preparation Method
-------- ------------ --------------------------------
1/2 c Arborio rice -- uncooked
3 c Milk
3 tb Granulated sugar
1 sm Piece vanilla bean
1 pn Salt
-----CUSTARD CREAM-----
3 Extra-large egg yolks
6 tb Granulated sugar
1/2 c Milk
-----PLUS-----
2 c Heavy cream
3 ts Confectioners' sugar
2 lb Rock salt
The rice is quite crunchy and gives an interesting
texture to the gelato. This ice cream is very popular
in Italy now.

Put the rice in a saucepan. Add the milk, vanilla
bean, sugar, and salt and brig to a boil over medium
heat, stirring costantly. Then simmer for about 12
minutes. Remove from the heat and let the rice cool
completely (about 2 hours).

Pour the contents of the pan through a colander and
drain off the excess liquid. Let the rice sit in the
colander for about 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, prepare the custard cream with the
ingredients listed above, following standard
directions.

Transfer the rice to a large bowl and remove the
vanilla bean. Then add the cooled custard cream to the
rice and combine well. Add the heavy cream and
confectioners' sugar and mix again.

Prepare the gelato, following ice-cream maker's
directions.

Source: Guiliano Bugialli's Classic Techniques of
Italian Cooking

-----------------------------------------------------------

Well, I'm inspired! I've been a GW member for quite a while but haven't taken advantage of this forum until recently.

I have a new-to-me, fancy oven that I feel should produce delectable dishes, so I'm looking for recipes and tips for help, LOL! One day, I might actually contribute something :)

I should introdue myself as I just started posting on here last week again after a long absence, I have been lurking for a long time now and I want to thank all of you who take the time to answer our questions and share your recipes, it is much appreciated. I live in the very center of the state of Washington--the apple capitol of the world. I am a wife and mother of four, grandmother of eleven and great grandmother of five. I love to spend time in the kitchen and working outside doing yard work. We are active in church activities and trying to keep up with all the birthdays and family celebrations--we are blessed!!

Welcome alex9179 and LindaA!

Teresa in Minnesota

Welcome alex9179! Show us what you will be doing with your new oven.

LindaA_Xoc , Welcome! Sounds like you have a great family. We all would like to see how you deal with a large family food-wise.

dcarch

I tried a couple more dishes:

Sous Vided rosemary leg Of lamb

Sous Vided duck breasts with star fruit/avocado sauce.

dcarch

I am glad that I have a chance to try out the many recipes and do some enhancements before I make the final versions.

A grilled shrimp dish. I decided that I need to make this dish very spicy.

dcarch