OT : Cooking

[Jazzepi]

You should be careful with nuts as a diet aid. They're actually loaded with calories.

I like a big salad with unsalted peanuts + raisins + fat free balsamic vinagarette. It's filling, but very light in calories and fat.

Jazzepi

[Gandalf Parker]

A handful is ok. And it was recommended by my doctor/dietician. One of the few suggestions I bothered taking.

[LoloMo]

Yep, those nuts are really nutrient dense, and I'm actually in need of calories as I do a lot of physical activities - weightlifting, fencing, wii boxing, worm farming (those worm boxes need moving around daily!) dom3 manual page flipping and search button tapping on the shrapnel forums =)

As an aside, Pine nuts seems to have the most calories per gram of any nuts, but they are expensive!

[tibbs]

Here's a super quick recipe for chicken noodle soup.

Ingredients:
1 rotisserie chicken
Big can of chicken broth
1 package of egg noodles

Go to grocery store and buy a cooked rotisserie chicken.
Buy a package of egg noodles which are found in the frozen section. Buy the large size of chicken broth.

Get the broth to boiling and then turn it down, tear the warm tender meat off the chicken and then thrown it in along with the noodles and some pepper and/or other seasonings. Simmer for about 10 minutes until the noodles are cooked. You're done.

Takes a total of about 15 minutes and it lasts for several meals for 1 or 2 people.

[HoneyBadger]

When I get some time I'll post a really great recipe I came up with for chicken alfredo with pine-nuts. It'll pack the calories on you like crazy. Be careful with pine-nuts though, they can have bugs.

[HoneyBadger]

Ok, here ya go.

You'll need:
approximately 1/2 lb of chicken breast-meat (white meat)
1 lemon (but get 2, they're cheap)
a pepper grinder
1 ripe avocado
atleast 2 cloves crushed garlic
1/4 lb pine nuts
1 large Portabella mushroom
1 lb pasta (this recipe will feed yourself and a date you want to impress)
olive oil, peanut oil, sesame oil-you can get away with one type of oil here
dried red pepper flakes-to taste, but don't overdo it
Worshershire sauce (Lea and Perrins is the best, but just use what you have)
a solid hunk of Parmezan cheese
1 stick of butter-preferrably unsalted, high quality butter-you can use the cheaper stuff, but the sauce WILL be greasier.
Heavy cream (or whipping cream-no, not the stuff that comes in a cannister and goes on banana splits or a kinky person, I mean the stuff that is sold by the pint and you put it in your coffee)

Take the chicken, cut it up into strips and marinate it in lemon juice-use half a lemon, fresh ground pepper, and crushed garlic, set it aside 1 hour before you put the pasta on.

Take your pine nuts and rinse them off under cold water, place them on a paper towel and use another paper towel to pat them dry 30 minutes before the pasta.

Cut up a portabella mushroom (also into thin strips) and put it into a bowl. Marinate it in a tablespoon of olive oil, more crushed garlic, dried red pepper flakes, a few drops of Worshershire sauce, and a little lemon juice. Put it in the fridge 30 minutes before the pasta.

Cut an avocado into strips and squeeze the lemon over it, set it aside in a bowl in the fridge 15 minutes before the pasta.

15 minutes before you cook the pasta, heat up a frying pan (on medium-high heat) for 5 minutes and then add a tablespoon of olive oil and the chicken. Cook the chicken for 10 minutes, stirring regularly. After 10 minutes of cooking, turn the heat off and put the chicken in a microwave bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic-wrap and microwave it for 1 minute on high heat (just to make sure this recipe doesn't kill anyone with salmonella or e-coli). Clean the frying pan out with cold water and paper towels (be careful not to burn yourself).

For the Alfredo sauce, you're going to want a solid block of Parmesan cheese. The grated stuff you buy in a can won't really cut it. The quality of the cheese does matter, but that's a matter of taste and experience choosing the right one. I personally like a nice American cheese that's been aged 6 months or so, just because the older, better cheeses tend to be very dry, which I don't like as well in the sauce, and they're like twice as expensive-this dish is expensive enough as it is.

Grate the cheese up and have it ready before you put the pasta on. The sauce is simple, just melt unsalted butter-Land 'o lakes is good-over low heat until it's completely melted and then add heavy cream-for the best cream for the recipe, check the back and choose the one with the most fat content.

When you add the cream, MAKE SURE to take the butter OFF the heat and add the cream slooooowly. Too much heat makes the cream angry and it will clot. That's bad. Heat the butter and the cream over LOW heat-halfway between off and medium-and add the grated cheese right after you've added the cream. Cook it-stirring regularly-for 5 minutes. After that, put the water for the pasta on to boil-at a guess, you want around half a gallon of water for a pound of pasta, but read the directions on the box-and turn the heat down to low-the first or second notch above off-and stir it occasionally with a fork.

You can use pretty much any pasta you want, but I encourage either the traditional fettucinni or a nice tri-color rotini. Cook it according to the directions on the box. When it's done, drain it and place it in a large salad-bowl.

While the pasta is cooking, place the pine nuts in a frying pan with a teaspoon of sesame oil and a teaspoon of peanut oil. Saute them on medium heat, stirring constantly, until they start to darken slightly in color. Take the pine nuts out (carefully-they'll be hot) and put them on a paper towel to dry.

Put the pan back on the heat and heat it on high heat for 3 minutes exactly.
Add the portabella mushrooms (don't add any liquid) and 1 tablespoon of butter at the same time. Heat for 2 minutes more, and then turn the heat completely off. Don't stir the mushrooms at all, just make sure they're well distributed across the surface of the pan, and leave them on the burner. This should intensify the flavor and make the mushrooms somewhat dry.

When you put the pasta in the bowl, pour the sauce over the pasta and mix together until the pasta is well-incorporated with the sauce. Arrange the chicken, avocado, Portabella mushroom, and pine nuts over the top in as artistic a way as you feel (but do it quickly so the pasta doesn't go cold) and serve-preferrably with wine, to a date.

Disclaimer: don't ever engage in any activity that may result in the following: burning yourself, cutting yourself, poisoning yourself, setting your hair on fire, poisoning others, spreading disease, or sueing me.

[Morkilus]

I love alfredo sauce and I love pine nuts. But putting them together sounds like sending Lore Masters in with your wrathing AQ. Pine nuts are expensive and have a subtle flavor, and any alfredo sauce I've ever had is anything but subtle.

So I don't sound like a troll, I'll soon add my personal Gingersnaps recipe for the forum's pleasure.

[HoneyBadger]

You might not be using the right kind of Alfredo sauce then. A good Alfredo should be delicate enough that it doesn't interfere with the pine nut flavor-besides which, they add pine nuts to pesto sauce, and pesto is a lot more aggressive than Alfredo.

[HoneyBadger]

Actually, for ultimate artery-exploding madness, you can add a handful of cashews along with the pine nuts-add them to the pine nuts at the very end of toasting them just as you're taking them off the heat, just to wake up the flavor a bit.

I don't suggest seafood however, if anyone was thinking of shrimp or something. It may seem like a good idea, but it's not that kind of dish-ofcourse, you can do what you want.

[Saulot]

Sorry to take it on a bit of a tangent, but I don't feel this warrants a brand new thread.

What are some of the snacks/drinks (ranging from easy to make to no effort to make) you enjoy during playing a game on your computer?

Snacks:
Almonds
Cottage cheese mixed with powdered soy protein
Half a bagel sandwich with salami and swiss cheese

Drinks:
Tea with honey and lemon
Water