Food stuff

[daal]

Does anyone have suggestions for grilling for vegetarians? We will have no picky eaters (aside from the meat thing) or obscure dietary requirements. We will be using a standard charcoal grill. We like spicy food, but the food does not need to be spicy. Thanks!

There are some kinds of cheeses that you can grill, for example Halloumi, which is a sheep and goat's milk cheese from Cyprus that for some reason doesn't melt as quickly as regular cheeses. It develops a nice crust on a grill or in a frying pan, and makes a fine main course.

[daal]

Just make sure that they are cooked separately. I have been to places where people were willing to grill separately for my family but did so on top of a grill where they ha cooked meat! We could not eat them.

Did this go down well with your hosts? As I see it they first offered you food, you rudely declined claiming the food in question unfit for humans. (This is in any case most likely what your hosts interpreted it as.) Now, being good hosts they really try to accommodate you and arrange special preparation for your food, but in vain, since you invent some other circumstance to make it impossible to eat the food.

A guest and a host is bound by an agreement of mutual obligations. If your host gives you live larva, raw eyeballs of seals, and durian for dessert, you smile, eat it, and assure your hosts that you only throw up because some bug you caught (when it tried crawling off your plate most likely).

I read about a Japanese seller who was offered home-prepared blowfish. He did a quick calculation of how long it would take to get to the hospital before tasting. Now that was dedication.

Call me uncouth, but I did not sign this agreement. Social norms vary widely from place to place and from person to person. I for one would be aghast if my guest felt he had no choice but to break his personal vows to please the whims of an archaic protocol. If this is your protocol, bon appetit, but if you think someone rude to not abide by it, remember that the feeling could be mutual. In my circles for example, it is considered a no-no to present one's views as gospel.

[topazg]

I see six of one and half a dozen here. It is clear to me that both DrStraw and Helel have strongly held values, and each person's preferred behaviour in this instance would have violated the other person's values - neither are inherently unpleasant values, just very different. I fully respect decisions not to eat meat from both a dietary and ethical perspective, and I also respect Helel's judgements on the value of behaviour both as a good host and a good guest (on which he has posted in detail before). The fact that both of you make such strong ethical stands on issues you consider important I consider of more value than the conflict caused when those stands work in opposite directions.

I didn't see any of the posts as particularly unpleasant direct attacks against individuals, and I can see why both people found the other person's posts offensive. Instead, I again feel enlightened at seeing people's views and attitudes to life that I would not have seen without the forum. Life's too short to make it all personal, let's get back to the debate

[HermanHiddema]

Does anyone have suggestions for grilling for vegetarians? We will have no picky eaters (aside from the meat thing) or obscure dietary requirements. We will be using a standard charcoal grill. We like spicy food, but the food does not need to be spicy. Thanks!

Mushrooms!

I love the taste of mushrooms off the grill. Just put them straight on the grill and wait until they're shriveling and start leaking fluid from the stem

If you want, you can marinate them in advance, but you can also season them right before putting them on the grill, just put some herbs/spices in oil and brush it onto the mushroom.

If you have larger mushrooms, you can also fill them. Portabella mushrooms with blue cheese is a personal favorite of mine. Just put some blue cheese in the stem side of the mushroom, add some chopped shallots and some rosemary, and put it on the grill. Delicious!

[phrax]

Does anyone have suggestions for grilling for vegetarians? We will have no picky eaters (aside from the meat thing) or obscure dietary requirements. We will be using a standard charcoal grill. We like spicy food, but the food does not need to be spicy. Thanks!

Grilled bell peppers. Brush on a little oil, add some salt. I normally cut them into squares and use skewers. About 10mins with some occassional turning works well.

Btw, I second (or third) the grilled corn suggestion.

For a grilled dessert: split a banana, cover w/ some chocolate chips. Of course, now I made myself hungry...

Edit: I removed the "and marshmallows" since it has come to my attention those aren't actually vegetarian-qualified (at least not without special purchasing). (Thanks for the info Chew Terr.) I do think grilled bananas with chocolate chips are probably about just as good anyway...

[Chew Terr]

For a grilled dessert: split a banana, cover w/ some chocolate chips and marshmallows. Of course, now I made myself hungry...

Sounds good, but be careful. I figure most vegetarians know this, but I'm mostly saying it for people, like me, who are not vegetarian themselves but like cooking for vegetarians... marshmallows, like Jell-O, are normally not vegetarian unless the package says so specifically. Unless I am mistaken, one can assume that gelatin, an animal product, is in both.

[phrax]

For a grilled dessert: split a banana, cover w/ some chocolate chips and marshmallows. Of course, now I made myself hungry...

Sounds good, but be careful. I figure most vegetarians know this, but I'm mostly saying it for people, like me, who are not vegetarian themselves but like cooking for vegetarians... marshmallows, like Jell-O, are normally not vegetarian unless the package says so specifically. Unless I am mistaken, one can assume that gelatin, an animal product, is in both.

That's good to know, and I'll chalk that up as my bad. I kind of thought marshmallows were just sugar and air. And I ran over that recipe in my head like 3 times debating if I should include it (since its not really a vegetable-based recipe). I guess I coin-flipped it the wrong way. At least I can learn something new every day

[GoCat]

... Life's too short to make it all personal ...

Reading along in this thread, i was about to make a similar point, but topazg beat me to it. nonetheless:

IMHO: Folks here are taking themselves and each other much too seriously.

[daniel_the_smith]

Have to agree; helel's post was much worse. Hyperpape's post didn't even make sense (at least not to me), I don't know why it was the one that got edited. I thought helel was joking when he complained about it.

It was? I was only socializing with DrStraw in what I considered a polite way. Obviously he and some other in my point of view rather strange people didn't find it polite and amusing. Sorry about that.

It wasn't so much what you said as how you said it. FWIW, having seen how you tend to write in general I found your post to be humorous (though still a little over the line), but if that was the only thing of yours I'd ever seen I would have thought you were trying to be rude on purpose... Which is how DrStraw seems to have taken it.

Anyway, back to food... I made short ribs a couple nights ago... delicious!

[Chew Terr]

Anyway, back to food... I made short ribs a couple nights ago... delicious!

What exactly is required to make short ribs? I may live in Texas (so I should be an expert on ribs/barbecue/etc), but I'm pretty ignorant. =D

[dfan]

Have to agree; helel's post was much worse. Hyperpape's post didn't even make sense (at least not to me), I don't know why it was the one that got edited. I thought helel was joking when he complained about it.

It was? I was only socializing with DrStraw in what I considered a polite way. Obviously he and some other in my point of view rather strange people didn't find it polite and amusing. Sorry about that.

It wasn't so much what you said as how you said it. FWIW, having seen how you tend to write in general I found your post to be humorous (though still a little over the line), but if that was the only thing of yours I'd ever seen I would have thought you were trying to be rude on purpose... Which is how DrStraw seems to have taken it.

Well, it was the hundredth post or so of Helel's that I've seen and I thought he was trying to be rude on purpose. It is hard for me to imagine that he is serious when he claims that he thought it was "polite":

you rudely declined

claiming the food in question unfit for humans

you invent some other circumstance to make it impossible to eat the food

I just try to ignore many of Helel's posts in general since they often get my hackles up, but now that the subject's come up, there's my opinion. I'll try to stay out of it again now.

[daniel_the_smith]

Anyway, back to food... I made short ribs a couple nights ago... delicious!

What exactly is required to make short ribs? I may live in Texas (so I should be an expert on ribs/barbecue/etc), but I'm pretty ignorant. =D

I browned them in a frying pan and then put them in the oven for 90 minutes @ 350 F. Came out very tender. Next time I will use a little more pepper when browning them. The ones I got did not have bones, which is convenient but maybe not best for flavor? *shrug*

[dfan]

Beer bread

3 cups all-purpose flour
3 Tbsp light brown sugar
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 bottle or can of beer (12 oz)
4 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted

Preheat oven to 375F. Grease a 9x5 loaf pan. Mix dry ingredients. Pour in beer. Stir just enough to combine (like 20 strokes). Pour into the pan. Drizzle melted butter on top. Bake until top is crusty and a knife goes in smoothly (35-40 minutes). Eat warm.