What was the last thing you Ate/Drank/What are you Eating/Drinking/General Food

[missmacabre]

Hint of lime Tostitos with spinich dip. strangely yummy.

[Elvis_Christ]

Excuse my ignorance but what is a Tostito?

[missmacabre]

Originally Posted by Elvis_Christ

Excuse my ignorance but what is a Tostito?

Just a brand name of corn chip. Made by the same people who make doritos and fritos and cheetos. I've never seen another brand make the lime flavoured ones.

[Disease]

Lots of beer and tequila as I watched Scotland lose 4 nil..... Then I ate nachos....

[The_Return]

Snackin' on some mini-marshmallows...these things are a fucking addiction.

[cheebacheeba]

We started preparing food for this evening last night, not really because we had to or anything, just that we were a little bored and we "could".

Tonight...I'll be drunk, so I thought I'd post this now..., we'll be having some chicken wings, roasted (kind of) potatoes, and a home made gravy from scratch.
I also picked up a few french stick loafs so that'll come into play as well.

(here you go, hammerfan & newb)

Now, with the chicken wings we generally cut them in three pieces, so that you have the middle piece and then the "drumette" kind've bit on the end there.
With the wingtips we generally retain them because they're not too palatable, though they do make for a rather good gravy, which we've already pretty much made.

So back to the wings for a sec, so you get these little segments rather than a whole wing...I find that when you're grilling them (as I do) as a whole wing, you don't get completely even distribution in the cooking process, sometimes if it's a particularly large wing you can still have slight pinkness towards the thicker end, and have it a little dry on the other...this is why I generally separate 'em for cooking too.

So chicken's good, hm?
You can pretty much throw whatever you like on chicken pre-grilling, and it'll taste good. One thing I've grown rather fond of is flouring it. It's not quite battering it, it's not quite breading it, but it's healthier than the aforementioned and it gives you a little bit more of a dimension to the texture, I find it also seals in the flavour/juices a little more as well.

So what I do with mine is, I dip 'em all in Worcestershire sauce then let them sit for a while. If you don't mind it being slightly less "healthy" ha, you can also coat 'em in egg yolks, but it's not really necessary. You can also use alternative liquids dependent upon their suitability to your intended flavours. Light soy, lemon juice, tawny port but to mention a few.
I make a mixture of plain (not raising) flour, a touch of salt, pepper to taste, a little chilli powder, some cinnamon powder, and some smoky paprika, along with a teaspoon or so of powdered VEGETABLE stock.
Just make a plate of that, or your desired flavours (even a good curry powder works here) and mix it all up.
Take your chicken wings/wingettes, and roll 'em around in it, until they're "dry" as in, no more of the mixture will cling to 'em.
I'd recommend if you were grilling on an indoor grill, just use a bit of canola/vegetable/olive oil spray rather than the actual oil itself, and you should be good to go. I know when chicken's ready by feel now, but if you have troubles here, just take a "sample portion" off the grill, make it one of the bigger pieces, cut into it and check it out. If it's not pink inside, the rest ought to be ready.
They should be golden brown and full of awesome.

You can of course make chicken gravy after roasting a whole bird, but this is how I'm doing it in this case, or if I don't happen to be cooking a whole chicken.

With the gravy, as I said we generally stock up on wingtips for this (purchased 5 kilos of whole wings for this amount) they're not a whole lot of good otherwise compared to what they can do now. My chick usually makes the gravy, and I assist when it comes to flavours, though I've been trained and observed/performed the process enough times, so you're in good enough hands.

Look if you haven't made one before it's pretty easy, and definitely better than the powdered brands...they call it that right? S'been a while here.
Anyways, moving on...
We have a wok, a BIG fucking wok. So we put our wingtips in their, and put it on medium/high heat. You can spray on a little oil, or add some butter if you don't wanna be too health conscious, I mean it's gravy anyway, right?
For this gravy, as we wanted it to be a little stronger, we also purchased a chicken carcass back, and 4 chicken necks.
Another thing you can do is use a few chicken livers also - they make the gravy SO good. But in this case, the carcass came with a bit of that still stuck in there along with the kidneys, so it wasn't needed.
So essentially fry this stuff up, season it a little - then let it stick to the pan and rip itself to pieces it's all good. Keep turning it.
Now, make yourself some vegetable stock liquid if you don't have any on hand.
The brands of v-stock are pretty good these days, though obviously if you've taken the time to make the real thing you can't go wrong there.
Now a few people might use chicken stock in this gravy, and also with the flour mixture I mentioned before. Chicken stock is ok, but vegetable stock has a greater range of flavour so we generally use that - the chicken can carry enough flavour of it's own for the chicken factor.
So anyways, mix up some water and stock powder/flakes/cubes.
Then pour in about a cups worth. Add a few splashes of Worcestershire at this stage, and also some dried sage...I think it goes GREAT with chicken, but you can use whatever flavour you like - go easy on the sage though, if you use too much it can get bitter. Maybe add a couple of peppercorns.
Let that cook down again, and let the pan/wok start to brown up, just as before, but this time let it go a little further.
As long as you're not cooking on stupidly high heat nothing should burn, just brown. You can throw in a little onion and garlic too. Let them cook along with it.
Make some more stock liquid and add another splash of Worcestershire.
For this amount of wingtips/chicken material, we make 2 litres of the liquid, to end up with about 1 - 1.25litres.
Add a small amount of the liquid, and attack the browned material with a wooden spoon, scrape it all up into the liquid. Then, pour in about half of the rest of your liquid straight up. Bring it to the boil, then go between simmer and boil for heat the rest of the way.
Now, I like to throw in a little bit of fresh thyme at this point. Dried is fine, but I'd really recommend growing it, it's a great all 'rounder, and a very hardy little plant.
When your mixture is reduced to about 1/3 of what it was, add about 1/4 of the liquid at a time, each time allowing the mixture to reduce a little more every time, say for each bit you add in, let about half disappear, stirring here'n there as you go.
Now when all the liquid has been added, let it simmer for maybe 4-5 minutes more, then it's time to remove all your bones 'n stuff.
Just pour it through a strainer into a big cooking pot or bowl, and allow the strainer to sit on top while pressing the solid material so as to get as much liquid out as possible, let it drip for a bit, then pour it back into your other pot/pan/wok you've been using, put the strainer back over the bowl etc.
Bring it up to the boil again, then down to a high simmer.
Should be a nice, almost butter-like colour by this stage.
Make yourself a slurry. This (generally speaking) is a mixture of water and something else, makes a "mortar" or sorts. To thicken, use cornflour.
Make sure it's CORN cornflour as long as nobody's allergic, as I find the other one "wheaten" cornflour has a gritty texture and doesn't thicken half as well.
So get like 2 tablespoons of this in a little bowl, and mix some water in.
You're not making silly putty, so it should be about 1.5 parts water to 1 part cornflour, so it's still relatively liquid just thicker than water.
While your mixture if still on high simmer, stir in some cornflour slurry bit by bit, you will notice that the mixture gets thicker as you go.
Check under your strainer again, you'll probably find there's more liquid waiting for you, throw that in, and dircard your bones 'n stuff.
Keep adding the cornflour mix until you're happy with the consistency.
Now, it will also reduce a little more during this stage - between this and the thickening agent, you should get a nice, rich gravy.

The potatoes...ha.
I'll make this quick 'cos it's pretty easy and I assume we know our potatoes?
Anyways,
Cut the potatoes up to your desired size, skin 'em if you like.
Boil some water. Add a touch of salt.
Throw in your potatoes.
Boil until they're about 25% less cooked than a ready boiled potato.
Prod 'em with a fork to check.
Take them out, allow water to drain.
Throw them into a big bowl.
Poke 'em all around with a fork, or scrape them with the fork, adds a nice surface.
Mix in some butter/spray oil/olive oil, whatever you like, with them.
I add dried oregano/basil and just a bit of sage, salt, and pepper to mine.
Cook on a medium high heat until golden brown, turn 'em once during the process.
Shouldn't take longer than a half hour in an oven, or 15-20 minutes in a contact grill like a Foreman (that's what I use at the moment, oven outta action :( )
Should be good.

So I figure I'll do what I did last night with a bit of the french stick loaf.
Cut it diagonally and rather thick, spray on some canola, season it, add oregano and basil, and grill it until partially blackened.

So hammer, there, now you can make it - If there's any questions, hit me up.

Also - right now having a coffee.
Gonna have a toasted crumpet with some vegemite on it in a bit.

[nightmare_of _death]

Dr.Pepper ......basically the only pop/soda I'll drink.

[Disease]

Chips and cheese and a diet Irn Brue

[1beastieibe]

Spaghetti, garlic bread, and Peas and a grape NOS to drink:D

[bloody_ribcut]

mmmmm, spagetti.......




i think i ate a total of four hamburgers through out the day, and a small bag of doritos.