By popular demand, the Bourbon Slushies from meeting 11.

Bourbon Slushes

12 oz (16 oz) can frozen OJ

9 cups (12 cups) boiling H2O
12 oz (16 oz) Real Lemon Juice

1 1/2 cup (2 cups) sugar
4 (5) tea bags

2 cups (2 2/3 cups) bourbon

Put tea bags in 2 cups boiling water. In a bowl, mix OJ, lemon, sugar, and 7cups (10 cups) boiling water and bourbon. Remove the tea bags and add the tea mixture. Freeze for 24 hours overnight.

meeting # 10

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Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2009 19:30 CDT

Title: Atlantic Blend

Authors: Steph & Nathan
Categories: gastro-ph
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After an excessively long sabbatical, we came out of hiding and had a feast to celebrate! With Paella!

The ingredients in paella vary widely, but they generally agree that there should be a lot of meat and seafood. Some recipes suggest lobster claws; others octopus. Some even recommend sea urchins. We decided to go with one that used Spanish chorizo, chicken, squid, mussels, and shrimp.

First step: get the seafood. So we went to a well-yelped fish market in the West Loop called Isaacson & Stein's to get the squid, shrimp and mussels. Upon arrival we saw two packed rows full of open-air fish, and dived into the shrimp, squid and mussel buckets. We didn't realize this at the time, but when it comes to squid, the purple ones are fresher than the brown ones. Since Steph is attracted to bright colors anyway, we managed to come away with some nice ones. The fish market also cleans fish (not other types of seafood) for you after you buy it, so we highly recommend it.

Next step: clean the seafood. Turns out that squid are gross. To clean them you have to remove the quill and ink as well as some unrecognizable goo. Mussels are a little easier; you just soak them in water as long as possible and remove their "beards" made of some sort of vegetation.

Intermediate step: calm a very confused cat. Casper was very patient all afternoon and spent the next 3 days trying to find the source of the bacon-wrapped shrimp-stuffed chicken.Final step: cook paella! A yummy mixture of saffron rice, meats of all varieties and a few tomatoes, paella is not too difficult to make once you chop and clean everything. It's sort of like a more complicated version of risotto. One nice surprise is that as the chorizo heats up it oozes the most wonderful smelling fat into the mixture.

We served (Mexican) chorizo-stuffed dates wrapped in bacon as an appetizer while the paella was still cooking. Then we had Guinness floats and Guinness cake (made by the lovely Sophia & Ali) after dinner. It was St. Patrick's Day after all.

Meeting #9

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Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2008 19:00 CDT
Title: A taste of Thai
Authors: Chris & Sarah, w/ a big assist from Keren
Categories: gastro-ph
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The last meeting for 2008 was scheduled cunningly while sarah would be back in town (she came back just for us!!). Curry was to be the order of the day. We went for an all-vegetarian menu (prawns don't count!) since it was winter, and a change from heavy meaty things would be nice.

While I simmered away in the kitchen, sarah & keren rolled vietnamese-style summer rolls. These are pretty simple to make, but it takes a bit to get the hang of it. With carrot, capsicum, rice noodles, basil and spring-onion they were super-delicious. Combined with a fantastic cocounut-milk slice thing (originally planned for desert), and prawns fried with lime, chili, garlic and lemongrass, appetizers would have been enough.



But the main menu was still simmering away: Thai green curry. This is really incredibly simple to make. The key is simply good curry paste and timing. Start by cutting vegetables. Remember there are 7 things to get: red capsicum, carrot, broccoli, baby corn, mushrooms, zucchini and snow peas. Cut them into chunks or 1-inch strips, so they're all ready to go. Now fry 3 tablespoons of Mae Ploy curry paste (see picture) in a little oil for a minute or two in a large wok or pot (I sometime use a pressure cooker - any big pot will do). Add 2 or 3 cans of coconut milk, slowly stirring to mix. How much coconut milk depends on how much vegetable you add. Now comes the vegetables:

First in is the broccoli. Stove should be on a low-medium heat. You don't want it to boil! You want it just below the simmer...nice and hot. When you add the broccoli, add 1-2 desert spoons of palm sugar (or brown sugar if you have it. NOT! raw or white sugar!!). It shouldn't be sweet, but just balanced. At the same time at 1-2 tablespoons of fish sauce. About 5mins add the carrot. Give it another 5mins or so. When the carrot and broccoli is just starting to soften a little, add the capsicum, baby corn, snow peas and zucchini. Give it another 5 or 10mins...right at the end, add the mushroom. Serve with rice. The aim is to get all the vegetables cooked, but still a little crisp, and certainly not limp!

A final point. If you don't like hot curries, you will be tempted to cut the amount of curry paste you use. This is a mistake!! Really...I've tried to do that to please people before, but you're essentially removing all the flavour! Try adding a little extra coconut milk if it's too hot.






















Desert for the evening was courtesy of keren. Panna cotta, and it was delicious; plate-licking good, even, as the photos show :)