Cookaholics Bulletin Board

I can't pass up a Rick Bayless book. It's been around for a while, but I did wait until I could get it for $12! LOL

I haven't cooked anything from it yet, but I have read it cover to cover. As always, a lot of recipes I marked to make, and I noticed that he is trying to simplify some of the recipes, but not by leaving out essential ingredients, as many authors do. One thing that he did here was to incorporate the use of slow cookers, rice cookers, and pressure cookers into many of the recipes, even to the point of putting them in small chapters. And I noticed a lot of his "riffs" on the recipes were on going vegetarian.

One recipe I may make, just to see how it compares with the original, is his "cheater's" version of salsa Negra. He says he came up with this because NOBODY makes the original at home, given how long it takes. He doesn't realize that there are obsessed cooks, like me, that can't be without their salsa Negra?

I made my first recipe from the book - a squash blossom soup, which looked very similar to one in Mexican Kitchen, which I have made many times. When I checked, I found that the other has corn and potatoes in it, but is otherwise very similar. Both are delicious. I have a bunch more blossoms out there still, and too late for any more butternuts to mature, so maybe I'll harvest them, blanch them, and freeze them, so I can have this in the winter.

I didn't know you could use butternut blossoms for anything. Do they taste the same as zucchini blossoms?

You can use those, and the blossoms from any of the squash species, the same ways as zucchini blossoms. And winter squash have MANY more blossoms!

Dave, where'd you get it for $12? That's too good to pass up if it's still available at that price.

Emilie

I got it from TGC - The Good Cook club. They have these sales 3 or 4 times a year, and you get things for 15, 14, 13, or 12 dollars each, depending on how many you buy. And if you don't respond to the first email add, sometimes they eventually offer free shipping! They don't have anywhere near what they used to have, but often new books show up, and I just wait until these sales show up, and buy a couple gifts, in with what I want.

Dave,

Are you a fan of theirs? I have looked at them but they say in the FAQ and How it Works page that you "only have to buy a few more books per our membership agreement" but the membership agreement isn't available anywhere on the site, which feels shifty and makes me not want to sign up.

Thanks,

--Lisa

Lisa,
I looked, too. Here's what I found.

http://www.thegoodcook.com/membership-agreement

Whenever I signed up it was way before they were on the Internet, and I had to mail those little cards back to say I didn't want the offer, which is never as good as these occasional offers. SOW, I just got an offer for $13 books - a Columbus day Sale.

I made a cilantro pesto tonight - the one out of Rick Bayless's book, More Mexican Everyday. Here is the recipe, though the one in the book has 1/2 c more of oil. This says if you are going to save it, which most people will be doing (who's going to use all this at once?), float some olive oil on top, which the extra 1/2 cup does. I tried to get it sort of grainy, as it was in the photo in the book, and it came out pretty close, by using a medium speed on the blender. The cilantro flavor is not intense, but, as noted below, I haven't tested it in any dishes yet.
http://www.rickbayless.com/recipe/cilan ... urripesto/

And here is the finished product:


I also made another salsa - an easier form of Salsa Negra, using canned chiles. It was easier, but it took longer to cook down, and only time will tell how it stores. He says one or two months, while the old will last just about forever, as it has extra sugar in it, and cooks down to a solid paste. It is good; however, I was unable to test these in any dishes, as immediately after making these I started "purging" myself, for a medical procedure tomorrow (I have eaten nothing hot since that lentil salad Sun, which is a LONG time for me!). I had to taste these, and spit them out - what a waste! LOL For those who have trouble drinking that stuff, here's a tip: if your mouth is burning up, drinking anything helps, and that quart of cold water goes down fast! LOL

Here's the link to the new recipe for Salsa Negra:
http://www.rickbayless.com/recipe/salsa-negra/

And here is a photo of the old and new, the old on the right, and you can see the lines from the fork in it, it is so thick. I was surprised the new one came out as dark as it did. I'll update you on both of these, in a couple of days, when I try them in dishes. I don't think it will be as hot as the original, made with moritas, but it is definitely hot! This is one of those dishes I made exactly the same as in the book, just to see what it would be like, even though I may add a couple of moritas to it later on.