*****Official Food Experimentation Thread*****
 

My New Year's Resolution is to make something I've never made before at least twice a week. This is three-fold benefit for me: (1) by forcing myself to cook more, I'll eat out less, which will in turn (2) help to eat more healthily; and (3) I'll open myself up to more kinds of foods and different recipes and, hopefully, find some new "go-to" meals when I'm lazy and need something quick and easy.

But part of this is learning to play with my food, and today I'm starting that by making carbonated fruit. I've got some dry ice that I'll put with some cut-up fruit into a plastic bottle. As the dry ice melts, the CO2 will pressurize the chamber and force itself into the fruit.

And since I have dry ice, experiment No. 2 will be homemade sorbet or ice cream made with dry ice.

So my challenge to my fellow ChiefsPlanet foodies is to play around this year and make something different. And post about it here.

The fruit (a combo of tangerines, apples, and grapes) is carbonating in the fridge.

I decided to make some vanilla bean ice cream, so cooked up a quick custard. Just finished. Wow. Really good, if a little strange. This will dissipate after 15 or 20 minutes, but straight out of the mixer, freshly frozen, the ice cream is carbonated. Super creamy, though, and very easy to do! This will be my new way of making homemade ice cream/sorbet from now on. Just outstanding.

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One thing I never did care for was baking or making desserts. I'm trying your bacon recipe soon (as just bumped the thread earlier) and I'll have to give this a try too.

I need to be more open minded this year when it comes to cooking.

Coincidence, or not.....?



Over the holidays, I spoke with family and friends, and we're going to try to set up a day, once a month, where we all get together to make a meal where we each make and bring something we've never made before. We'll rotate the dish (main, side, app, dessert), and we'll be brutally honest about each effort.

I don't know if it will work out, but it should be interesting to try.

That sounds fun! Cool idea. Good luck with it!

We occasionally pick some country and plan an entire meal around their culture. It's been fun, except maybe for Ethiopian night.

Thanks. If it works out, I'll try posting some items that get thumbs up, and maybe passing along some warning on the disasters.

Ethiopian is good! I dig it.

Apples, tangerines and grapes?

That sounds like a tasty mix, i'm wanting fruit now.

I've been trying to go meatless a couple of days (or more) per week. It's really easy to do with pasta and I've been doing beans in the crock pot with some really good results. I never realized how easy beans are to prep (from dry) and cook. Tons of flavor from garlic, fresh pepper, or whatever spice you like. Served over some basmati rice and it's killer.

Here's something my wife made recently that I really like: quinoa, steamed kale, kimchi, chopped almonds and tahini sauce. Just mix it all together. It has a lot of good flavors.

Can't wait to see what this thread brings up. I've been doing something similar, between trying new techniques and new ingredients. Recently made a steak sous vide. Almost creamed my pants. On the flip side, I tried to cook a fish en papilote (in parchment). I thought it was incredibly dry and flavorless. Anyone have success with this?

I don't know about fruit but we used to put dry ice in a pop bottle, add water and seal it. Used to make a really loud boom.

We actually do something similar at work where once a month we have a potluck and we come up with a theme and make something. It's been a great chance to share recipes and try new things. We have quite a few therapists from the Philippines and I can't get enough of their food!

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