I went grocery shopping today, which I have to do more frequently now since I am using only fresh or flash frozen, got home, and realized I had to deal with the foods that were going bad. Took an inventory of the old stuff, and I had two tomatoes, a half a bag of spinach, a red pepper, an spanish onion, a shallot. I knew I had a bag of frozen shrimp shells in the freezer from the last time I made shrimp a couple months ago, so I pulled that out and made some stock. Grabbed the three remaining cod filets from the other day, and defrosted them.
John Cole’s homemade fish stew (I’ve never made it before) was in progress.
Sliced up the onion and the red pepper and the tomatoes, added garlic and a tsp of olive oil and salt and pepper, cooked them until they were cooked down and pureed them.
Poured the shrimp stock and puree into a pot, added very coarsely diced cilantro and some finely diced celery, a can of crushed tomatoes, then added the fish. Slow cooked for a few hours at a simmer until everything broke down. Added the spinache and let it cook for another hour.
Put it in a bowl, and for shits and giggles, put just a touch of shaved parm on the top with some cracked pepper. Ate it with a side of steamed cauliflower with shredded cheddar.
If I do it again, I am going to add coarsely diced red pepper at the very end for some crunch, maybe a little bit more spinache, and if I really wanna go chowder style, some corn.
At any rate, my fridge is now stocked with new food and I didn’t waste anything, and it was tasty.
Winning.
I should probably add that 99% of what I am doing is just riffing off things my dad made. I’ve watched him make similar things, and just knew what I could do with the stuff I had leftover because I had seen things like this done before. I was (am) an obnoxious prick but I watched everything and for things like this I have a memory like an elephant.
JGabriel
John, FYI: Spinach is very amenable to freezing. Not so much for salads, as far as I know, but it still tastes pretty good if you buy it fresh, wash it, chop it yourself, and freeze it. Or even if you just buy it frozen, really.
On the other hand, frozen broccoli doesn’t taste as good as fresh – but it’s still better if you buy fresh, wash, chop, and freeze, than if you buy it frozen.
That’s my experience anyway. Don’t know why there would be a difference, but there is.
P.S. That stew sounds really good.
Eljai
I must say I do admire your culinary skills. I finally feel inspired to move on from the brown gazpacho incident of 2004.
John Cole
Also, I am down 7 lbs since I changed my diet, and it was all diet related, although I am moving and exercising more because I feel better and my joints don’t hurt. Day (I actually don’t remember) since I had an advil or an alleve.
I will never touch sugar, white flour, or wheat again.
John Cole
And the most astonishing thing is my knuckles are half the size they were a couple weeks ago.
cckids
@John Cole: That is wonderful, congrats! I am inspired by you to try to follow in your footsteps. I have serious inflammation issues & am hoping that losing the wheat will be helpful. Thanks for sharing, and good luck continuing on the path.
Mart
I love me the white flour – pizza, bread, and pasta; all hand prepared and yummy. I know it is bad for me, but it is so good. Plus, I do not rush to the grocery when a snowstorm is coming – because I can make my own bread. Why do you torment me Cole?
Fair Economist
I love how you think about food. Great improvising.
Bonnie
Any suggestions for someone who hates to cook. I do love reading about your cooking and admire your skills and abilities; but, none of that changes my dislike for cooking. When I did cook, it was all pretty awful, too.
MikeJ
@Bonnie: If you have to cook, it’s more enjoyable if you’re good at it. Pick a few simple recipes that you like and make them a lot, and make them mindfully. Actually think about each step and the right way to do it, and try to do it well.
Cook something you like. Cook something you know so you can accurately judge your final dish. Consider getting your recipe from a TV show. You can watch eps of most things on the web and then you can watch any steps you’re less sure of. Seeing it done is lot more helpful than just a list of steps. I like Alton Brown’s Good Eats. He’s entertaining, more of his recipes are towards the easy end of the spectrum (but not all, read it before you buy all ingredients.)
Be organized. Read the recipe several times before you even go in the kitchen and make sure you’re clear on how it all works. There are a lot of poorly written recipes out there that jump around or put things in the wrong order. Recopy and edit if you have to.
Before you do anything else, measure and chop everything you need for the dish. When you get to step 17 and it wants 1 2/3 cups of gooseberry juice you can just poor it in without worrying about measuring. And speaking of measuring, ignore the TV chefs who just grab a handful and say, “oh, that’s about a cup.” Eventually you may be able to estimate correctly, but you’ll get poor results if you don’t get the ratios right.
When you eat it, don’t think good/bad. Think about what you like and what you don’t. Keep in mind what you’re good at and mindfully try to improve those things you need work on. If you chop 1,000 onions without thinking about it you’ll eventually be able to do it pretty well. If you chop 20 and think about what you’re doing you’ll also do well. Save yourself a lot of onions and think about what you’re doing.
It’s an awful lot of work to put into something you hate doing. As you become more skillful the individual steps are easier to do, assembling gets easier, and your food starts to taste better. Even if it never becomes fun, it’s less of a drag to do something you dislike well than it is to struggle with every step. Since it’s something that you may have to do every day for the rest of your life, building at least a little skill will make that chore a lot easier.
sm*t cl*de
I hope the recipe also includes mustard.
Botsplainer
Christ on a stick…
Fuck the sick culture of rural Scots-Irish descendants in the Appalachians and the South. I’m sick of coddling them and pretending that they’re honest, hard working salt of the earth exemplars of Americana. They’re fucking disgusting, and outside of some outliers, generally incapable of beneficial change. When they move closer to a city to finally do some actual work (none of that to be found in their local shitholes, the local warlords control all of it), they don’t move all the way in because some people of color might be closeby. What they do is spread their filth around in the exurbs – all the way down to gathering in hives in trailer parks, engaging in idiot vehicle use for poaching, cooking met4 and committing !ncest.
MikeJ
@Botsplainer:
How about “Fuck the sick culture of the urban Jewish descendants in New York?”
That’s pretty vile. I don’t see any difference between your statement and the reworded version. Cut it the fuck out.
Botsplainer
@MikeJ:
They’re not torturing birds to death to gamble on, nor are they a lynchpin of a political movement whose purpose is to deprive people of color their voting and economic rights. They don’t collect government benefits while screaming about government, and they don’t dump their trash down the hillside.
suzie
WHEN are you coming to our house to cook and hang out?? P.S. all critters are welcome.
Yeah, we live in Alabama but don’t hold that against us.
gelfling545
Sounds like my “cream of leftover soup” which usually happens on a Thursday in preparation for shopping on Fri. or Sat. It often involves broccoli since we use a lot of broccoli & often have ends & bits, whatever other veg happens to be lurking in the refrigerator from the week before: sweet potato, white potato, spinach, kale, beans, corn, pepper, always onion/leek/shallot, generally ready to wilt celery and sometimes bits of leftover chicken or beef, though often vegetarian. (No fish, though. I just can’t eat the stuff. I wish I could & have tried but no go.) Oddly enough, my family seems to like this as well as the planned meals the ingredients came from.
Betsy
“Spinache” = spinach with panache
imonlylurking
@Bonnie: Hi Bonnie-
You can try some crockpot cooking. Throw everything together and turn it on, ignore for several hours.
Crockpot cooking still has a reputation-‘open these cans of cream soup and add these cans of vegetables” but I’ve seen some amazing recipes recently. I can dig through my crockpot cookbook for some easy ones if you want to try it.
Violet
@John Cole: So glad you are feeling better, but
Good luck with that. As someone on the same diet, it’s a challenge when you travel, when you go to a restaurant, when you get invited to someone’s home, when there’s hidden wheat–in sauces or whatever, when you’ve been doing this diet for six months and you’d kill for a sandwich. Etc. Just be sure you know ahead of time it can be a challenge, especially when you aren’t at home and can’t control what you eat. Plan for it.
Also, when you make broth, add a bit of an acid–I like squeezing a lemon or lime into the broth–to break down the bones or shells and get access to their minerals. Makes it that much better for you.
Omnes Omnibus
@Botsplainer: That whoosh you heard was MikeJ’s point rushing past your head.
@John Cole:
That seem a bit extreme.
Elizabelle
@gelfling545:
What do you use for the “cream” for leftovers? Milk? Half and half?
Howard Beale IV
If you start freeezing get a vacuum sealer. Works well for keeping stuff around.
Comrade Mary
@Howard Beale IV: Works well for keeping stuff in the fridge, too. I don’t freeze my cheddar because the texture suffers, but it can last a few months with no loss of quality if vac-sealed in the fridge.
Congrats on the tasty leftovers and improved health, John! So how much of the seven pounds came from your knuckles? :-)
(Listening to but not watching the gold medal curling game — too nervous!)
Just Some Fuckhead
Sounds delicious!
tybee
on the next fish stew, i’d recommend putting the fish in about 5 or 10 minutes before you eat.
cooking fish for hours tends to make more of a fish paste than fish chunks.
you’ll get the overcooked fish anyway if you make enough for leftovers but you don’t have to start out that way.
and i’ll second or third the recommendation for a vacuum sealer.
Elizabelle
@tybee:
Yeah, you said it nicer than I was thinking about the Long Cooking o the Cod. Respect that fish.
Otherwise, sounds delish!
Citizen_X
Spinache? What the fuck?
Nora Carrington
Did you really cook the fish for hours?!? What happened to the texture? Cod is so delicate…
Most recipes for fish stew like this call for the spinach and the fish to be added at the very end, i.e., T minus the cooking time of the fish, which depending on the size of the chunks isn’t more than 20 minutes, typically. If they were bite sized pieces even less, like 10-15.
JustRuss
Crap. Was going to pull chicken out of the freezer to thaw for tonight….and I’m at work and it’s still in the freezer. Had to hurry in to work to meet the tech who’s going to fix my laptop….and of course it fired up and worked just fine the first time he pressed the power button.
Gonna be one of those days.
Lizzy L
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’m here to tell you, not eating wheat, white flour, or sugar is not extreme. I’ve been eating just like this for nine months, and it’s easy. I cheat a little because I sometimes add honey to a dish to balance vinegar, but otherwise, mmm-mmm.
Oh, and it’s fine to eat fruit, which has sugar in it, because it also has fiber which allows your body to deal with the sugar.
John, your fish sounds wonderful.
My breakfast this morning: diced red onion and celery with chicken-apple sausage over lentils. Yum. If I’d had an egg around I might have added an egg. Or not. Secret ingredient: fennel seeds.
Judybird
It all sounds lovely, but a word of advice on the cilantro – wait until you’re ready to serve and put fresh cilantro on top. When cooked, it loses it’s unique flavor quickly and becomes just some green stuff.
WaterGirl
@imonlylurking: I would like some really good crockpot recipes! Please and thank you. (nothing with fish or seafood, please)
Sandia Blanca
One more suggestion for Bonnie–choose the best quality ingredients you can, preferably organic and/or local. It’s amazing how much better vegetables, meat, and fruit taste when they’re organic. Even though they may cost more, you will be more satisfied with smaller portions, so it all balances out.
Omnes Omnibus
@Lizzy L: I tend to see pretty much any “I will never do x again” statement as extreme.
that's (not) me
@imonlylurking: Crock pot recipes. Don’t miss the ones in the comments.
WaterGirl
@that’s (not) me: thanks!
bmoak
Late to the party, but how do you make fish stock out of just shrimp shells? I always assumed you needed to butcher some fish and have scraps/bones to get enough material for a stock, and I buy my fish in fillet for, so no scraps. I saved my shrimp tails/shells from the shrimp tacos I cooked tonight, and I have a pack of haddock fillets in the freezer, which will leave me with leftovers after I cook some of them in parchment with veggies. I have or will have veg for soup, though I can’t puree large batches cuz I only have a hand powered chopper. Just need to now the secret of seafood stock.
Mary Brown
I missed the party. Is the Quinoa salad recipe around?
Bonnie
@MikeJ: Thanks, Mike. I will try.
Bonnie
@imonlylurking: I have a crockpot and that is pretty much the only cooking utensil I use; but, it is a lot of food for one person. Oh, I am really good with a toaster, too. But, recently, I boiled potatoes and forgot them. Had to throw the pot out and air the apartment out in the middle of a cold spell (although not as cold as the rest of the country). So, I am still looking for some easy cooking for one person.
Bonnie
@Sandia Blanca: I like this suggestion; but, presently, I am without a car. When I get the car, I would probably shop at the one organic, fresh food store we have.