Apple Crisp

Making apple crisp this morning for the work potluck. It's got about 10 minutes to go and it smells SPECTACULAR. I am so so so tempted to just dive right into it when it comes out but NOOOO I must resist.

Apple Crisp

1 cup flour
1 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup oats
1/2 cup melted butter
1 tsp ground cinnamon

4-5 cups sliced apples

1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
1 tbsp cornstarch
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Mix flour, sugar, oats, cinnamon and butter until crumbly. Press half of mixture into a 9x13 dish. Top with apples.

In a small saucepan, bring sugar, water, cornstarch and vanilla extract to a boil (stirring) and cook (stirring) until thickened and clear (stirring). Pour over apples.

Top with remainder of oat mixture and bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

Ham-Potato-Cheese Casserole and Christmas review

So, Christmas dinner was ultimately as close to a disaster as I think I've ever had cooking (and that includes the time I scorched a beurre blanc sauce, the time I made approximately 8 gallons of beurre blanc for a meal for 4 people, the time I set a wok on fire [leading to the title of this blog], the time I caught a burner on fire while trying to a boil a pot of potatoes...). First off, I made two tins of "fudge". I say "fudge" in quotes because it wasn't real soft-ball stage fudge, it was a workaround that should taste about the same. I managed to spill incredibly sticky boiling sugar-evaporated milk mix all over the stovetop, sink, cabinets, and floor (it said use a 4-qt pot, I said "eh a 3-qt pot should be okay", YEAH RIGHT never underestimate the expansion properties of a pot of boiling sugar liquid). I swiffered until it didn't feel like it was sticking anymore, but 3 hours later I was still sticking/slipping everywhere. Ugh.

Then ham. Had to use an insanely big blue pot we took from Alex's parents' house a while back, because my standard "big pot" was approximately the same size as the ham. Put it in the cooking liquid, put it on stove, SMOKE EVERYWHERE from scorching sugar all over burner and burner area. Went "AHHH ALEX HELP" and he came out and went "wtf do you want me to do" and I said "I don't knoooow" so he made a frustrated noise and opened the patio door.

Ham cooked for 5 hours, during which time we dealt with Chestnuts of Doom. Then Alex got a splitting headache just in time for the ham to be taken out of the pot and covered with glaze, which was NOT a one-person job because the ham was 11 lbs and prone to falling apart or off the bone at this point (yeah. Note to self: if the recipe calls for a 4-5 lb boneless ham, and you can't find one, PICK A DIFFERENT RECIPE). So he came out, grumbling and being cranky, and we lifted the ham out of the pot onto a cutting board onto the counter, which dripped ham juices everywhere, and then he went to bed. I did not know this until I had finished cooking everything, made a plate, and went to take it to him. So that ruined my evening. Did some washing up, ate a plate (brussels sprouts were a tad underdone, and chestnuts were too crunchy , probably due to me buying fresh. Note to self: NEVER EVER BUY FRESH CHESTNUTS AGAIN EVER EVER), and sulked.

So tonight, since I have a tasty-but-pain-in-the-ass ham sitting in the fridge, I'm making ham-potato casserole, layered with a standard cream sauce (butter, flour, milk, onion, s&p) and with cheddar sprinkled on top. And garlic bread, which was bought from Hyvee and just needs to be heated up. Both should be pretty fail-proof as far as flavor, especially since I did wait for the cream sauce to thicken and boil before adding to the casserole. So, it should be a nice relief.

Shithead Alex (my coworker, not my husband) says he is bringing a home-cooked ham to the work potluck this Friday. He also listed polo shirts, in complete seriousness, as something his work Secret Santa should get him. I think he fails to understand the intricate subtleties dividing work Christmas and family Christmas. I made a home-cooked ham for Husband Alex, because I wanted to do a Christmas dinner and we're not going to be here on the day of, but I wouldn't dare go to all that effort for work. I'm making an apple crisp in a 13x9 dish, nothing gourmet or particularly complex about it, and that's good enough for me. Last time we had a work potluck, it was my shift lead's baby shower (funny story: she went into labor that morning, a month premature, so she wasn't even there), and he had been insisting he was going to make stuffed/rolled chicken breasts, but at the last minute decided it was too much work (ya think?) and made two huge pans of lasagna instead, most of which didn't get eaten because when 25 people are bringing food, you DON'T need to bring an entree like that, or at least not that much of it. It was supposed to be Mexican/Southwest themed, too, I thought I was pushing it with chili but LASAGNA? Plain old beef-ricotta-tomato-pasta lasagna? Not even close. (For the record, my chili was delicious as it always is, and plenty of it got eaten.)

He says his dad is a chef (he also says his dad is a deadbeat but that's another story) so I can only assume he thinks he inherited magical gourmet powers. And maybe he did, I have never actually eaten anything he's made so who knows. (His lasagna looked dry and grayish.) But he definitely does NOT have any powers of common sense when it comes to work stuff and seems to have this need to compete/outdo everyone. Which is funny, because nobody is trying to compete with him, and it mostly just makes him look stupid at best and like a complete ass at worst.

Chestnuts

Note to self: NEVER EVER BUY FRESH CHESTNUTS AGAIN.

...my poor fingernails...

(In other news, I'm making Nigella's ham and brussels sprouts for dinner tonight. The ham is twice as big as the one she requested, so that's twice the leftovers. Couldn't find a 4-5 lb uncooked ham to save my LIFE....)

Melt In Your Mouth Beef Ragout

Tonight I'm doing Melt in your Mouth Beef Ragout with garlic mashed potatoes. I don't think I've ever had Chianti before, and as I was pouring it into the measuring cup a few drops dribbled onto my finger and I licked it and it was surprisingly fruity. I'm not usually a huge fan of red wine but this may be pretty impressive.

Also I must say, the ragout smelled delicious even before it had started cooking. I am VERY much so looking forward to dinner tonight.

Baked Potato Soup

Tonight I did Baked Potato Soup, and it was rather underwhelming. Not TERRIBLE, just pretty bland, and overly thick. I probably let it heat up a bit too far and caused the milk to boil too much. Also, even though I cooked the onion/garlic in bacon fat rather than butter, it still needed more flavor. Maybe more cheese, or something. Oh well.

Baked Potato Soup

2 strips thick-cut bacon, diced
1/2 onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1/3 cup flour
3 medium russet potatoes (roughly 1.25 lb)
3 cups milk
2 tbsp sharp cheddar cheese
1/2 cup reduced-fat sour cream
Salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Bake potatoes 45 minutes or until tender. Let cool, then peel and mash roughly.

In a large saucepan, cook bacon over medium heat until crispy. Remove with a slotted spoon to paper towels to drain. Add onion and garlic to pot with bacon fat, cook until soft. Add flour, stir well. Gradually add milk and whisk to combine. Let sit on medium heat until thickened and bubbly.

Add mashed potatoes, cheddar, and plenty of salt and pepper. Remove from the heat. Add sour cream. Heat slowly until heated through (mine was heated through instantaneously, which is another reason I think I heated/thickened it too far).

Serve garnished with bacon, extra shredded cheddar, and plenty of black pepper.

Serves 4.

Garlic Lemon Chicken

Tonight I'm doing garlic lemon chicken, with goose fat roasted potatoes and sauteed cabbage. Should be easy enough. Gives me an excuse to use up some of that cup of goose fat I accumulated, and the cabbage is like, 10 minutes tops to done. As for the chicken, we're quite low on garlic and I actually do not have any chicken broth at the moment, but I'll substitute white wine instead and it should be fine. This is what I get for shopping for garlic at Hyvee, where the bulbs have like 5 cloves in them, rather than Dillon's or Hen House, where the bulbs have reliably at least 15.

Thanksgiving 2007: Post-Game

Goose: Moist, but ultimately not really different from any other goose recipe. I did get a lot of goose fat out of it though which I will save for future uses.
Roast Veg: Cooked well but not interesting enough to be repeatable. Alex says it was fine but he would have preferred broccoli/cauliflower/red potato/etc.
Apples: Good but mushier than I would have liked.
Corn Gratin: Couldn't taste the cheese. Didn't like the onion rings. Otherwise good, if a bit rich.
Cranberry Sauce: Didn't gel up. Also tasted mostly like cherries and not so much like cranberries.
Carrots: Not soft enough. Glaze was not a glaze at all, more of a sauce, and as a result they were not as flavorful as I wanted.
Salad/bread: not put on table due to too much food.
Mashed Potatoes: standard mashed potatoes.

Alex's mom made sweet potato casserole, which I didn't try but Alex said it was very sweet, and also some sort of weird hybrid dessert that didn't work so well. The bottom half was a apple cake, with thinly sliced apples layered in it (is that a tatin? I'm not so good with dessert names), but then it had a layer of like marshmallowy whipped cream with chocolate shavings on top. I personally was not a fan of the two layers together, particularly the chocolate in conjunction with the apple.

My personal overall verdict is that nothing I had was BAD, but overall not worth the effort, especially when I'm fairly exhausted anyway due to travel and lack of sleep. This seems to be a recurring theme with my bigger dinners. Oh well. I won't be cooking for Christmas this year because we'll be out of town but maybe I'll do something special in mid-December sometime (not too close to Christmas).

Thanksgiving 2007: Mid-Day

Carrots: chopped. Veggies: roasted. (Will need to be reheated and then tossed with red onion and apple cider vinegar later.) Goose: in oven. (Goddamn do we need a roasting pan with a rack in it. Cause we don't have one, so all our roast birds have to stew in their own juices (that or we use the broiler pan but that's not really an option I like) and we have a rack that is too long for any of our roasting pans so we thought maybe we'd just stick it on top of the pan but that made the whole thing like way too tall and I DO need to cook other things at the same time as the goose so BLAH!!!)

Still to do: make apples, cook carrots, bake corn gratin, reheat veg. That's really it. And the corn gratin is completely made, it just has to be tossed in the oven. Man. Easy as pie.

Alex's mom is ALSO apparently bringing a dessert of some kind. Which sucks because she tends to make her chocolate things rather bitter, or like bitter with a layer of sugar flavor on top, which I don't like. She (and perhaps the whole Russian culture, I don't know) tend to like lesserly sweet desserts, and I don't, and I tend to not like her desserts. Blug.

While I appreciate that she wants to help, I would really REALLY prefer for her to just leave me alone and let me cook everything. She is pushy as shit sometimes.

Thanksgiving 2007: Night Before

Alex's parents are coming over for Thanksgiving tomorrow and I got some of my cooking out of the way tonight.

The menu is:

Roast Goose with Caramelized Apples
Roasted Autumn Vegetables
Spiced Carrots
Creamed Corn Gratin with Fried Onions
Cranberry Sauce with Cherries and Cloves
Mashed Potatoes
Italian bread
Cabernet sauvignon
Salad (from a bag, blah. Was going to do a bacon-endive-Stilton salad but decided against it at the last minute)

Also Alex's mom is bringing glazed sweet potatoes, which kind of sucks because I have sweet potatoes in my roasted veg and nobody told me about this until AFTER purchases had been made. Oh well.

So tonight I did the cranberry sauce (smelled spectacular), and made the topping and content of the corn gratin (but did not bake, also smelled spectacular). Tomorrow I do goose, apples, roasted veg, and carrots.

I must say, it's really relaxing and almost sort of cathartic to do night-before prep with no real time frame or need to hurry. Just kind of casually loping along, none of my frantic "OH GOD WHAT NEXT AHHHH" thing. And I completely lucked out and EVERYTHING I'm baking tomorrow cooks at 350. So roasted veg go in first, when they come out goose goes in, when I flip it I add a pan of apples, then I put the corn in on a lower level, and then I put the topping on the corn right about the time the goose gets done so I can move the corn up to a higher level, and also then I put the roast veg back in to reheat. Carrots are stovetop and cranberry sauce is in fridge already (hopefully becoming nice and gelatinous... I didn't put it in the fridge immediately because the glass bowl was so hot I was worried that a drastic temperature change would make the bowl shatter, and so I HOPE when I wake up tomorrow morning I will have a nice jellied bowl of delicious fragrant [well probably not anymore but oh well] cranberries).

And this gives me a bit of time to sleep in in the morning, because I have presently been awake for 20 solid hours and while I'm not SLEEPY (for now, and I have been quite sleepy earlier in the day), I'm pretty damn worn out.

It's really good to get shit done ahead of time though.

Seven Onion Soup

We are very broke (or were, until we sold off my old computer parts for $100), so I took my last $20 and went to Hen House (love) and got a variety of onions. Also last night Alex picked up a take-and-bake loaf of ciabatta at Hyvee so I'll bake that too when the soup gets done simmering.

Seven Onion Soup

4 tbsp unsalted butter
3 slices thick-cut bacon
1.5 cups sliced white onion
1.5 cups sliced yellow onion
1.5 cups sliced red onion
1 cup sliced shallot
1 cup sliced leek
1 cup sliced scallions (bottoms only)
Salt and pepper
1/2 tsp thyme
1 bay leaf
2 quarts chicken stock
1 cup heavy cream
Chives and parmesan, for garnish

Slice up all your onions. Sob all over yourself. Melt butter over medium-high heat in large pot. Realize your large pot heated up in like 2 seconds, as butter melts rapidly the moment it touches the pot. Add bacon, saute for 7-10 minutes or until browned and crispy and fat has rendered. Remove bacon with slotted spoon, set aside. Add red onion, yellow onion, white onion, shallot, salt, pepper, bay leaf, and thyme. Stir until softened and beginning to caramelize, about 6-8 minutes. Add leek and scallion, cook 3-4 minutes. Add chicken stock, bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add cream, stir to combine and cook another 45 minutes. Puree (or don't; I won't be because Alex doesn't like pureed soups, and I just checked on it with 20 minutes of simmer until cream goes in and it's kind of pureeing itself anyway). Ladle into bowls and garnish with bacon, chives and parmesan.

Garlic Brussels Sprouts

I was one of the probable millions of kids in the US who grew up utterly convinced (without necessarily even having tried one! I know I didn't) that brussels sprouts were the DEVIL. I don't think I even knew what they looked like but I had read enough stories of kids being sent to bed without supper because they refused to eat the dreaded brussels sprouts that I was convinced that they were the most disgusting vegetable on the planet. I think this fear may have been instilled as well by my generation's parents, who were probably raised on boiled crappy sprouts with no seasoning, which I'm sure probably would be pretty gross.

Then a few months ago, on a whim, I bought a basket of sprouts at Dillon's, just to see if they were any good. If not, I'd never buy them again. I roasted them with garlic and was SURPRISED. They just tasted like cabbage! I like cabbage! What the hell. Since then I have also made them from frozen in butter sauce (also good).

Tonight I made chicken breasts in teriyaki sauce (Alex: not bad but the portions should have been smaller or flatter for better sauce-age; me: not bad but needed more spice and less sugar, which is funny because I actually ran out of sugar and wasn't able to put a full 1/2 cup in), as well as aromatic brown rice I had made previously (Alex: too dry, me: not done enough because for the life of me I cannot get the damn lid sealed tightly enough on the pot that the liquid doesn't evaporate before the rice is completely done, and also not enough garlic flavor because I screwed up and added my 2-clove pile instead of my 4-clove and had to toss more in near the end), and garlic brussels sprouts (Alex: no comment).

I made them from frozen, which some people say makes them disgusting. I also may have overcooked them; they were baby brussels sprouts so some of them were fairly tiny and quite soft to the bite. I don't really care though. So so good. And good for you too!

Garlic Brussels Sprouts

1 10-oz package frozen brussels sprouts
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp butter, divided
1 tsp olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
1/4 cup chicken broth

Heat olive oil and 1 tsp butter over medium heat. Add garlic, saute 2-3 minutes or until aromatic and golden. Add sprouts, toss to coat. Add broth, salt and pepper. Cover and simmer 13 minutes or until cooked through. Drain any remaining liquid; add remaining butter and toss until melted.

A food survey!

What's the last thing you ate? Bowl of Campbell's Chunky Chicken Pot Pie soup (I suck...)

What's your favorite cheese? Gouda

What's your favorite fish? Tilapia

What's your favorite fruit? A good peach is deeeelicious.

When, if ever, did you start liking olives? Never!

When, if ever, did you start liking beer? I generally don't but I can finish a cup of Miller Lite before it gets warm, so yay?

When, if ever, did you start liking shellfish? I still don't much like shrimp but I do like crab and scallops, which was probably about 2 years ago.

What was the best thing your mum/dad/guardian used to make? My mom makes good potato soup.

What's the native specialty of your home town? Lexington? I suppose stuff like derby pie and mint juleps but that's really more Louisville.

What's your comfort food(s)? Campbell's tomato soup, with a grilled cheese sandwich made with lots of butter, Wonder Bread (or equivalent spongy pre-sliced bread) and Kraft Singles. Sliced diagonally.

What's your favorite type of chocolate? Mint chocolate. Or if we mean chocolate candy, probably Raisinets.

How do you like your steak? Medium

How do you like your burger? Medium

How do you like your eggs? Swirled into egg drop soup. Alternately they're not bad in fried rice as long as the chunks are small and dry and not very eggy-tasting. I don't really like eggs for breakfast at all though.

How do you like your potatoes? Roasted with rosemary, thyme and garlic; mashed; scalloped with a nice cheese sauce

How do you take your coffee? Smelling up the grocery aisle. That's about it.

How do you take your tea? I don't but I'll make sweet tea for Alex if he requests it.

What's your favorite mug? I don't really have one, but that's probably because I'm not a huge fan of hot drinks.

What's your biscuit or cookie of choice? Chocolate chip. Peanut butter is a close second.

What's your ideal breakfast? 2 slices bacon (crispy but with a bit of chew to it still). Two pancakes with butter and maple syrup. One small bowl either fresh fruit (melon, grape, banana, etc) or baked apples. Small glass apple juice. One small bowl Frosted Flakes with milk and strawberries on top. (That's like, ultimate breakfast. I can't actually imagine eating all that in one sitting.)

What's your ideal sandwich? Turkey, melted swiss, bacon, tomato (GOOD tomato), shredded lettuce.

What's your ideal pizza (topping and base)? Thin crust, with bbq sauce instead of pizza sauce, and ham (or Canadian bacon) and pineapple chunks. Alternately, chicken instead of ham would work. It needs to be so overloaded with toppings though that it practically falls apart when you pick up the slice.

What's your ideal pie (sweet or savory)? Nana's cherry pie is still the best pie ever.

What's your ideal salad? Romaine, thinly sliced carrots, celery half-moons, green pepper strips (not rings, those are difficult to eat in salad), good (big) garlicky croutons, shredded cheddar, diced smoked ham, slices of cucumber, with honey french dressing.

What food(s) do you always like to have in the fridge? Chicken broth, leeks, fresh herbs, broccoli, zucchini.

What food do you always like to have in the freezer? Cabbage, potato or mushroom dumplings (preferably Alex's mom's varyeniki but from Ho's works too), frozen vegetables, boneless skinless chicken breasts

What food do you always like to have in the cupboard? Various oils/vinegars/cooking wines, soup mixes

What spices can you not live without? salt, pepper, rosemary, parsley, cayenne, basil, ginger

What sauces can you not live without? soy sauce, ketchup, applesauce

Where do you buy most of your food? Dillon's but I like to go to Hen House when I feel like spoiling myself.

How often do you go food shopping? Weekly.

What's the most you've spent on a single food item? Probably in the $20-$30 range for last year's Thanksgiving turkey or something.

What's the most expensive piece of kitchen equipment you own? Probably one of the Calphalon pans.

What's the last piece of equipment you bought for your kitchen? Alex's cast iron small teapot.

What piece of kitchen equipment could you not live without? Santoku.

How many times a week/month do you cook from raw ingredients? When I am being good, roughly 3x/week. When I am not being good so much, roughly 3x every 2 weeks.

What's the last thing you cooked from raw ingredients? Broccoli last night (which I posted about here)

What meats have you eaten besides cow, pig and poultry? Does seafood count? Oh wait I've had venison! Hah! It was really tasty too.

What's the last time you ate something that had fallen on the floor? I think a broccoli floret fell on the floor while I was chopping last night (or maybe it was a bit of mushroom the night I did risotto) and I picked it up within 1 second of it falling, inspected for grit, and then put it back on the cutting board and proceeded as normal. That's my usual procedure, if it doesn't have visible particles on it it's fine. And I've never had food poisoning so *shrug*

What's the last time you ate something you'd picked in the wild? I think I had mulberries or some other sort of wild berry once this summer from trees at Alex's parents' house.

Place in order of preference (greatest to least): Chinese, French, Italian, Mexican, Indian, Sushi,
Moroccan, Thai, (I have never had Moroccan or Thai)

Place in order of preference: garlic, basil, mint, caramel, ginger, lime, anise,

Place in order of preference: cherry, strawberry, apple, banana, orange, watermelon,

Place in order of preference: the internet, food, movies, sex, fashion, sports

Bread and spread? White toast with margarine spread. I am classy.

What's your fast food restaurant of choice, and what do you usually order? Panera Bread (I know, it's not REALLY fast food but it does have you walking to the counter to order so I think it counts), and I get a chicken caesar salad. If Panera Bread doesn't count, then Wendy's, and a #1 with cheese (no onion/tomato/mayo).

Pick a city. What are the best dining experiences you've had in that city? Madison WI: Laredo's. Ella's Deli. Noodles & Co (yeah, that's a chain but I haven't been to one outside of Madison even though there are some in KC that I know the location of). Culver's (also a chain but I was introduced to it in Madison and used to eat it almost religiously).

What's your choice of tipple at the end of a long day? Coke, generally. Apple juice sometimes though. Ooo or apple cider!

What's the next thing you'll eat? Tonight... likely some sprees. If I don't eat anything else tonight, then tomorrow morning I may have some of those vegetarian broccoli-cheese bites (even though they smell weird and give me icky burps, they TASTE fine), or maybe some of those Asian dumpling thingies... or the rest of the can of peaches I put in the fridge the other morning... or I may try to finish off some of the leftover fusilli or rigatoni before they go bad. (Not the risotto though... that first reheating convinced me that the rest of the leftovers are pretty much a wash.)

Risotto with Roasted Garlic, Mushrooms and Spinach

Last night I made risotto for the second time ever. Far better than the first attempt (first try had butternut squash in it and I have determined after several tastings that I just do not like butternut squash, at least not without many other complementary flavors to mask it [for instance I had storebought butternut squash soup and it would have been SO much better with apple blended into it]), but there were a few things about the recipe I'd change for personal preference reasons.

1) It had roasted garlic in it, which I've done many times before in the "chop off top of head, pour olive oil over, wrap in foil, bake" way, but this way wanted me to separate the cloves beforehand, which had the end result of having the side of the clove that was touching the bottom of the pan become dry and hard and burnt. Next time, I'll just roast the head whole and squeeze the cloves out.

2) It wanted dried porcini mushrooms and also wild mushrooms. I used crimini. I have also determined that I am not a huge fan of portobello because despite my careful cleaning they always have this icky black crap coming off of them (like black watery stuff) and taste like dirt. This wasn't a huge issue last night when the risotto was fresh, but I reheated it today and took it in my Mr. Bento to work (speaking of which I have been completely neglecting that in favor of McDonald's Monopoly stuff, oh god I suck) and the dirty crimini flavor had completely permeated throughout the risotto. Sigh.

3) Last time, with the failed butternut squash risotto, I made it the "authentic" way, by adding the broth in ladlefuls until all is absorbed and risotto is creamy. But it just came out sticky and gooey at the end (butternut squash may have contributed to this). Last night I just put all the broth in at once and let simmer until absorbed. And the creaminess factor was MUCH better. Huzzah!

So yeah. Recipe:

Roast 1-2 heads of garlic at 400 degrees for 50 minutes or until done. Let cool, squeeze cloves out and chop to get roughly 1/4 cup garlic.

Slice 12 oz mushrooms of your choice, saute in olive oil over med-hi heat until done. Season with salt and pepper, set aside.

In a large saucepan (I used a 3-qt one), cook 1/4 cup chopped shallots with a lot of thyme in olive oil over med-hi heat until tender. Add 1 1/2 cups arborio rice, stir to combine. Add 1/2 cup white wine, cook until nearly evaporated. (Mine vaporized nearly instantly, but I also only used about 1/4 cup because that was all that was left in the bottle). Add 3 cups chicken broth, bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until all is absorbed and risotto is creamy, adding more broth if it gets too dry too fast. Add mushrooms and 2 cups thinly sliced spinach, cook until spinach is wilted. Add plenty o Parmesan, season to taste with salt and pepper.

Broccoli in Soy Garlic Sauce

Tonight Alex did grilled ahi tuna steaks in a soy glaze (came out a bit dry and quite tangy but otherwise tasty... they may have marinated a bit too long or something), and so I boiled some broccoli and paired it with a DELICIOUS sauce that I got off allrecipes.com. The original recipe also included cashews, which I didn't have, but they would have been a delicious addition.

Broccoli in Soy Garlic Sauce

1 crown broccoli, chopped into bite-size pieces
3 tbsp butter
1 clove garlic, minced
1.5 tbsp soy sauce
1/2 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp white vinegar
1/8 tsp black pepper
Salted cashews (optional)

Pour 1" water into a pot. Add broccoli. Bring to a boil; reduce heat and cook 7 minutes or until broccoli is tender.

Meanwhile, melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat. When butter is melted, quickly add remaining ingredients and stir to combine. Let boil for a few seconds, then remove from heat. Toss with broccoli and eat immediately.

SO good.

Restaurant Review - Cyprus Grille

Yesterday was our first wedding anniversary and we went to St. Louis and stayed at Embassy Suites for the occasion. As I am not a huge fan of St. Louis, we opted to eat at the hotel restaurant, Cyprus Grille, rather than try to find a nice restaurant elsewhere. We both dressed up and I was under the impression that it was going to be pretty fancy.

First off, the menu was small. The appetizer selection was acceptable but the entree list was tiny. They only had two steak options, one of which was KC strip (as part of a surf-and-turf with jumbo shrimp scampi), and the other was flat iron. No ribeye, no sirloin even. There was a "sandwiches and pasta" section of the menu, with exactly one pasta dish in it, which was inexplicably not available after 5 PM.

Alex ended up getting the surf-and-turf (come to think of it, isn't surf-and-turf generally steak and lobster?), which came with seasonal vegetables and garlic mashed potatoes, and I got grilled chicken in a sage cream sauce, with garlic mashed potatoes and asparagus. I also ordered a glass of Chateau Ste. Michelle riesling (my favorite white wine), and a bowl of French onion soup, because I had actually never had it before.

Service was SLOW. It was a Saturday night at like 7 PM, and we were one of maybe 5 couples there (there were 20-25 tables it looked like). There is no reason it should have been that slow. It took nearly 30 minutes for my soup to even arrive. The first thing I noticed about the soup was that the green onion garnish had been chopped unevenly. This is not something I would previously have noticed, but I seem to have turned into a bit of a food snob. The soup itself was decent-tasting (though all the onions had sunk to the bottom, and the crouton was soggy... not sure if that's normal for French onion soup or not).

The rest of the meal arrived approximately 10 minutes after the soup. The chicken tasted okay but there were TWO breasts, pounded flat. I've never ordered anything in my life that came with two chicken breasts before (outside of like KFC). Also the asparagus, while cooked to an acceptable level of tenderness, had no seasoning at all on it. It could have at least done with some salt. It tasted boiled or steamed; roasting it would have helped tremendously. Also the stalks were very very thick, almost too thick.

Alex said his steak was overcooked (he ordered medium rare and it looked closer to medium or medium well to me) and chewy (owing to the cut of the steak). Also the scampi came lying on top of the steak, as opposed to in a saucer of garlic butter like all previous shrimp scampi I've seen. (He said they were good though.) Also his entire dish inexplicably had mint sprinkled all over everything. I have never seen that before, and I tried it for myself, it WAS mint. The only thing I can guess is that it was supposed to be parsley or cilantro and somebody in the kitchen got confused.

Final tab was $75. I threw in a 10% tip, because while the service wasn't HOSTILE, it was very very slow and unprofessional. (Also I was a bit perturbed coming into dinner because we had gone to the free alcohol reception, and I ordered a vodka-and-Sprite which tasted like a vodka-and-club-soda. Yuck.)

The next morning/noon we went to Denny's; I got a Super Bird and Alex got a BLT with extra bacon, and I must say, it was far more satisfying than Cyprus Grille. I was almost inclined to go back and tell them so, but we had already checked out by that point and I'm not really that evil.

Chicken and Polenta

So... that roast chicken I bought Friday night? Yeah it sat in the fridge all the way up until today. When I pulled it out to roast it it was smelling a bit funky. Then I slow-roasted it at 250, which was supposed to take 5 hours, and the thermometer was up at 2.5 hrs and all the juices were clear and the meat thermometer was reading 153-170 no matter where I stuck it. So uh...

So I made polenta with leeks, for the first time ever having or making polenta. First thing off, it was pretty bland. Even with plenty of salt and pepper and Parmesan and butter and of course leeks... still pretty bland. Secondly, when it says add polenta slowly while whisking, it means SLOW. It came out lumpy, and because I failed to notice I bought quick-cooking polenta, it thickened up faster than I could un-lump it. So I tried my best but oh well. Thirdly I cut my finger open like a dipshit while slicing leeks. It bled pretty good. I had even just been thinking "I'm supposed to curl my fingers under while slicing so I don't cut them."

The chicken tastes okay. Guess we'll find out soon whether we got food poisoning or not. The recipe wasn't anything too incredible though (maybe because it only cooked for about 3-3.5 hrs instead of 5). So yeah. Ditch the chicken recipe, cause it didn't WOW me, and while I'm not giving up on polenta yet, I have a lot to learn for next time.

(Also did some Green Giant mixed veg in garlic olive oil sauce, and apparently Alex got all the sauce cause mine just tasted plain. Blah!)

Pasta with Roasted Winter Vegetables

Last night we went to Hen House, the grocery store with the most orgasmic produce section in existence, and bought spinach and leeks and garlic and shallots (they sell individual shallots! out of a barrel! all the other stores sell them in little pre-made sacks and half of them are moldy already. oh my god I love Hen House) and a JAR OF ARBORIO RICE! not a tiny box! and a box of polenta! and hooray for Hen House.

Tonight I made rigatoni with roasted vegetables. It was really really easy, chopping took more time than anything, as far as actual effort. Although it was kind of... uninteresting. I think I'll keep the roasted vegetable recipe, cut out the rigatoni, and just use it as a side dish in the future.

Chop:
1 small eggplant into 3/4" chunks
2 small red potatoes (unpeeled) into 3/4" chunks
2 medium carrots, peeled, into thin diagonal slices
1 cup mushrooms into quarters
8 cloves garlic
1 large red onion into 1" chunks

Toss with:
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 tsp dried rosemary
1/2 tsp dried thyme
copious salt and pepper

Bake at 400 degrees, tossing occasionally, for 45 minutes.

Chop:

1 crown broccoli

Add, bake another 10 minutes or until broccoli is crisp-tender. Sprinkle with plenty of Parmesan.

Fusilli with Caraway, Cabbage and Ham

I am the slackiest slacker that ever slacked! I cooked tonight, it's sort of German and was quite tasty. Here's the recipe:

Fusilli with Caraway, Cabbage and Ham

3 slices thick-cut bacon
Canola oil
2 lb onions, sliced thinly
1/2 tsp caraway seeds
4 cups shredded cabbage
1 1/2 cups diced smoked ham
12 oz fusilli
1/3 cup Parmesan
Beef broth as needed
Salt/pepper

In a very large skillet, cook bacon over medium-heat until crisp and brown. Set aside to drain. Add enough canola oil to the skillet to equal 1/4 cup fat. Add onions and caraway seeds and saute 20 minutes or until well-browned. Add cabbage and ham, saute 8 minutes or until cabbage is wilted. Meanwhile, cook fusilli in boiling salted water until al dente. Drain pasta, add to onion mixture. Add Parmesan and crumbled bacon, mix well. Add beef broth as needed if mixture looks dry. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Chicken and Pasta with Soup Mix Sauce

I know, I know, I've been such a slacker! I haven't cooked much lately; the kitchen has been piled with dishes and I've been feeling lazy. We've been eating pizza and Chinese food mostly. Last night I did my old fallback guaranteed-good meal, Chicken and Pasta in Soup Mix Sauce. I think the actual name of it was something like Herbed Chicken Fettuccine, but 1) I rarely actually have fettuccine in the house and usually just use whatever pasta is around, and 2) if I CALL it that, Alex will not have any idea what I'm talking about. I have two other guaranteed-good dishes (which I have made numerous times), which are my chili and my bbq meatballs. Both are quite tasty, as long as I dice the onions small enough.

Before I get on to the recipe for the chicken, I'd just like to take this moment to point out that I got a fit-n-fresh "bento" kit yesterday for $20. It comes with a thermos, a salad bowl w/ built in dressing dispenser, and a box that holds a large entree and two sides. All of them come with ice packs that fit in neatly. Also Alex ordered me a Mr. Bento on Saturday! YAY!

So here's the chicken recipe.

Chicken and Pasta with Soup Mix Sauce

1 lb chicken breasts, cut into strips
1 tsp poultry seasoning
1-2 tsp salt-free seasoning blend
4 tbsp butter, divided
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp dry onion soup mix
1 packet savory herb and garlic soup mix, divided
2/3 cup water
1 tbsp teriyaki sauce
1 tbsp parmesan cheese
2 tbsp worcestershire sauce
8 oz uncooked pasta

Toss chicken with seasonings. Saute in 2 tbsp butter and 2 tbsp olive oil until cooked through, about 5 minutes. Add water, onion soup mix, 2 tbsp savory herb and garlic soup mix, and teriyaki sauce; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer 15 minutes. Meanwhile, bring pot of water to a boil and cook pasta until al dente. Drain pasta, add to skillet. Toss with remaining soup mix, remaining butter, parmesan, and worcestershire until well coated.

Beef Tenderloin with Roasted Shallot Port Sauce

Tonight I'm doing a roast beef tenderloin in a beef broth-roasted shallot-port-bacon sauce, with roasted potatoes and sugar snap peas. Also I burnt the top of my knuckle on the damn oven heating element thing. Again. Guh.

Hope it all tastes good.

edit: Oh wow. Oh wow. The sugar snap peas were a bit overdone (damn nuclear stovetop!) but still tasty, the potatoes were creamy with a crispy crust and perfectly seasoned with rosemary and thyme, and the beef. The beef. A nice medium rare throughout, tender and juicy, and that sauce. Wow. I accidentally over-reduced the beef broth and port (reduced it by 2/3 or 3/4 instead of 1/2), so I was a little worried it would be too strong, but when I added my roux, and butter, and then the roasted shallots and bacon... oh man. Heaven. Best beef gravy I may have ever had. And I did not know the wonders of a sweet, soft roasted shallot until tonight; they were sitting around for a while after roasting, waiting for the beef to get done, and the layers had separated a bit, as onions tend to do. So I picked up a tiny rogue layer and popped it in my mouth and HOLY CRAP. I had made roasted balsamic red onions before and hadn't been particularly thrilled, too oniony for me, but this was SO DIFFERENT. I could have just eaten them by themselves, as a side. Amazing.

Three thumbs up.

Chicken Dopiaza and Meez

You know, regardless of how much preparing I try to do ahead of time, why is it that when cooking Indian/Asian food I am ALWAYS scrambling and spilling and cursing and screaming at Alex to please come open this jar that is stuck I need it NOW NOW NOW NOW.

I'm making chicken dopiaza tonight. It is yellow and garlicky and spicy and smells delicious (and still has another 15 minutes in the oven to go). First disaster: no tomatoes. Had to go buy some. Second disaster: approximately 50% of my bag of shallots was moldy. Third disaster(s): Had to get Alex to open jar and unopened spice container, which were both stuck. Fourth disaster: Cat peed on the couch. Fifth disaster: I didn't cut nearly as much cheesecloth as needed to squeeze juice out of onion and had to resort to using a strainer, thus getting 2 more dishes dirty. Sixth disaster: For some reason all the spices I put in the pot sucked up the oil like NOTHING. Fuckers.

It damn well better taste good. And after dinner I am going to have to make a run to the 24-hr Walmart and buy some more cat litter and get the non-Littermaid box set up. Fucking cat.

More Bento

So lately I've been sticking with the Babybel-matzo-koala snack. Pretty tasty stuff. My main-dish has varied though. Yesterday, getting tired of the nutty pork stuff, I brought some pork-cabbage dumplings I bought at the Asian market, along with organic vichysoisse and edamame. (And forgot my pineapple juice because I was rushing due to cat piss on my backpack, but that's a story for the other blog.) The vichysoisse was a little more leek-y than the stuff I make at home, and very mild-tasting but otherwise not terrible. The dumplings, I was surprised to discover, taste exactly like my husband's mom's pyelmeni! Except less peppery, which is good for me, cause she puts WAY too much pepper in hers. I just ate them plain yesterday and found myself yearning for some butter and salt to put on top.

So today, more of the same. Probably not the vichysoisse today. Maybe some grapes or something. We'll see.

Also I have found I bought too many things that may go bad before I get a chance to use them, such as mango, grape tomatoes, a loaf of bread (we don't make sandwiches very often!), and a tub of roasted deli turkey. I must expand my horizons! Well, Labor Day is this weekend, and we both have arranged 4-day weekends for ourselves, so I may eat some of that stuff then.

Quasi-Bento

Is quasi-bento somewhere between "proto-bento" and just plain "bento"? I'll pretend it is.

This weekend we went out and got cupcake cups so yesterday I brought:
Brown rice w/ leftover sweet and sour pork on top (the pork did not taste right, it was all nutty and it hadn't been the night I cooked it)
Babybel gouda (does NOT taste like the gouda we usually get, tastes more like string cheese!)
Canned pear half in juice (in cupcake cup to prevent leakage)
About 2/3 of a salted matzo cracker.
3 Koala March cookies.

Had the gouda, crackers and cookies as a snack. The pear juice didn't LEAK, like out over the top of the cup or anything, but it did soak through and make the bits of matzo directly underneath a little moist. So today I arranged it differently and we'll see if it makes a difference. Also today I brought rice/pork again but rather than stacking them I put them side by side, it's more artistic and hell maybe it'll change the flavor, or something. Also EDAMAME!!!! today. Also I almost forgot to put the koala cookies in! I'll have to remedy that as soon as I finish this post which would beeeeee now!

Sweet and Sour Pork

I'm so excited. Today I get to go back to work and pack a lunch, AND I don't even necessarily have to use much of the things I bought at Ho's BECAUSE I have like a quart of The Best Sweet And Sour Pork In The Universe in my fridge. I made it last night and it was ASTOUNDINGLY good.

You start off by chopping your pork roast into bite-sized bites. Then you marinate it for at least an hour in a bit of soy sauce, sugar, salt, green onion, and an egg white. When you're ready to go, coat it in cornstarch and deep-fry it in batches at 365 degrees for 10 minutes. (These are delicious BY THEMSELVES. No sauce or veggies required.)

Then, saute up a chunked green pepper, 3 sliced stalks of celery, and a wedged onion in a bit of oil. In the meantime, mix ketchup, cider vinegar, sugar, salt, a dash of soy sauce, and water together and bring to a boil; add an 8 oz can of pineapple chunks w/ juice and bring back up to a boil. Then add 2 tbsp cornstarch mixed into 1/4 cup water, and bring to a boil again so it thickens up all nice. Then toss it briefly with your crunchy crispy pork bits and your crunch-tender veg and eat. OH MY GOD so good.

Bento creation on the horizon!

I'm very excited. Tonight we went to Dillon's and I bought a bunch of bentoey things. Like matzo crackers, and a mango, and grape tomatoes, and some pear slices in juice. Excited!

Ho's Day 2

Made another expedition to Ho's today, this time with a larger wallet and more time to kill (and the promise of going home immediately after, so no concern about frozen items thawing in the car).

We got pork-and-cabbage gyoza, mini steamed pork buns (which... we'll see. They felt softer than I thought they should have, and some of them appeared to have leaked a bit. Also the cooking directions are for bamboo steamer or rice cooker, neither of which I have, so I'll have to see if a microwave steamer would work as well), frozen edamame, green tea ice cream (for Alex, he was so happy), as well as shiro miso, wakame, Koala chocolate, a big can of wasabi peas (again for Alex), two porcelain (I think) soup spoons, hoisin sauce, and dark soy sauce.

It's always a little weird checking out at Ho's. Because virtually everyone there besides us was Asian of some sort, including all the employees, and I always kind of wonder to myself as the cashier is scanning our stuff if we got the generic crappy brand of stuff and she's all like eye-rolling. I can't tell, everything looks like roughly the same degree of quality to me and I have no idea which brands are like, gourmet brand. Oh well.

I did look for the little Japanese puddings I've seen in many people's bentos (visible in the lower right in the picture here) but didn't see them anywhere. Maybe I wasn't looking hard enough. I checked the dessert/candy aisles as thoroughly as I could. My stomach was acting up though so I was sort of distracted.

Also did not see anything resembling a bento box (though again, distracted). Which means I'll probably have to order one online, which I kinda figured. That's okay, I'm gonna have to order those little sauce dispenser containers from online too. In the meantime I have a bazillion rubbermaid small "leftover" containers lurking around that I can use, and I can always go to Target and see if they have anything with dividers built in. (I do have one square flat container with a divider as it is, but they just put in a smaller corner divider so there's a little triangular section in it which is not useful for much except maybe baby carrots or a dip. I've put applesauce in it before.)

Make-Up Dinner

First off, lunch was tasty but ultimately not very filling. The spaghetti sauce tasted a little weird (overly fruity) when I touched it to test for heat, but when added to the ravioli and used as a dipping sauce for the garlic toast, it was fine.

Tonight I cooked a relatively extravagant dinner for Alex, as an apology for letting my own feelings of annoyance get in the way of cheering him up last night. We ate on our wedding china (for the first time) and had wine (for the first time in months at our apartment), and I got out the bread basket and everything.

I made seared chicken with a butter-shallot-tarragon sauce, which I had made before and which was once again very tasty, as well as crumbled cauliflower (was supposed to be mashed but for the life of me I couldn't get it mushy enough to be mashable), canned green beans (would have used fresh but the stuff in the fridge had developed a weird white coating to it--some sort of preservative, cause when I initially opened the bag a week ago it had a STRANGE soapy smell, and when I rinsed the white goop off the beans were kind of soft and I said "forget it"), storebought baked-at-home garlic bread, and an apple pie that had been sitting in the freezer for months.

It was a good clean-out-the-fridge night: got rid of the cauliflower, the green beans (inadvertently), the pie and chicken out of the freezer, a stick of butter, a bag of shallot, and a package of tarragon. The tarragon is probably still usable and I should put it back but yet.

Also dinner was quite tasty and even though the wine didn't have a chance to chill before we drank it, it was still very good. Chateau Ste. Michelle riesling is our favorite wine.

Ravioli and Garlic Bread

I really need to get around to getting an actual bento and some of those mini-sauce holders shaped like fish and elephants and stuff. We're going to Ho's again this weekend (I hope) but I have no idea if they have them or not (we didn't have much time to really explore last time).

Today I'm taking storebought fresh 4-cheese ravioli, with Prego sausage-garlic tomato sauce, and homemade garlic bread (toast one slice of bread, slather it with margarine the second it pops out of the toaster, realize the margarine is not melting fast enough and microwave it for 10 seconds, then rub with a cut garlic clove and slice into quarters). Yesterday I was bad and had taco bell because I was really not in the mood for cooking and all my nice snacky things (grapes, grape tomatoes) were all gone. Also I'm all out of deli turkey now.

We should be going to the grocery store this weekend (the regular kind, and HOPEFULLY Hen House if I can convince Alex that the increased cost is worth it) and I intend to pick up lots of bentoriffic things.

Organic Soup and Brown Rice

For lunch today I poured a cup of the organic butternut squash soup I bought, and cooked some brown rice in the microwave. Both were crap. The end.

Nah. Well, the rice was annoying. I didn't want to make it stovetop because it would take too long, so I microwaved it, and our microwave is retarded when it comes to rice. Even at 50%, the water evaporates out long before the directions say the rice is done. So I had to keep constantly checking on it, and even had to add more water at one point.

And the soup... I'm sure it was fine, but this is the second butternut squash dish I've had (the first was a risotto, and coincidentally the first and only risotto I've ever made) and I have to say that so far, I am not incredibly thrilled with butternut squash. Too sweet.

For dinner we had Panda Express, which was satisfactory. I had chow mein (it had bean sprouts in it!), mushroom chicken, and broccoli beef. Would have gotten an egg roll too but they were out (and closing in like 30 minutes).

Dishes still aren't done, sigh.

BLTs and lunches

I haven't done much cooking lately. Well, that's not true, it just for some reason feels like I haven't.

Saturday night I was up until 2 making a corn salad, green beans w/ bacon, and corn muffins. The corn muffins were quite tasty and very corny (I put them in the fridge to prevent spoiling like happened with my last uber-moist cornbread), the green beans were, well, probably underdone (also my virtually brand new big wide deep frying pan has a dent in it! what the fuck!), and the corn salad I didn't end up trying. Alex didn't either, when I took it out of the fridge in the morning he went "ew." It had roma tomato, corn, jalapeno, roasted orange and green bell peppers, shallot, and a lime dressing.

Also that night I threw together beef fajitas-out-of-a-bag, which were quite underwhelming.

Travel was moderately acceptable for the picnic (the reason I did all that cooking), although about 1/3 of the muffins got smushed cause stupid me just tossed them in a ziploc bag and then set the green beans on top of them, and nobody ate the muffins because the fried chicken Dad bought came with biscuits. Also ants got everywhere, guh.

Beyond that I haven't done much in the way of cooking. I attempted to assemble a small bento for my 6 PM Monday class, since it's 3 hours long and I assumed there'd be a 15-min break or something, but all we got was a 5-minute break, which is not nearly long enough to eat a muffin, grapes and some cherry tomatoes, especially when eating is not allowed in the classroom.

Yesterday for lunch I took leftover udon noodles with a muffin and some deli turkey, and finished off the udon for dinner. Today I took deli turkey with olive oil-garlic whole wheat penne. Not too exciting. I haven't felt like cooking, mostly because the sink is overflowing with dirty dishes and it's intimidating, to be honest.

But tonight I knew we had bacon and romaine and fresh tomatoes we needed to use before they went bad, so I stopped at the grocery store on my way home and picked up a loaf of bread for BLTS. ...and a bag of mallowcreme pumpkins, and a few boxes of organic soup (butternut squash, sweet corn, and vichysoisse), and a box of brown rice, and a pack of fresh 4-cheese ravioli. I'm a terrible person.

The BLTs were good by the way.

Oh and Alex's work is having another chili cook-off next Wednesday, which I will of course be making my world-famous chili for, since I have an imaginary title to defend. (I didn't even place last time, but my chili got eaten way more than the winners' chilis so I figure I won the People's Choice Award)

Herbed Mushrooms/Proto-Bento

Tonight Alex did Parmesan-herb-encrusted Cornish game hen halves, which were actually QUITE tasty, and I napped and at the last minute threw together some steamed broccoli in the microwave and sauteed button mushrooms. The mushrooms actually turned out a little MORE intensely-flavored than I would have liked, because I cooked them at pretty high heat and they got quite browned (not burnt but yeah). After they had cooked for about 5 minutes in butter and olive oil, with me constantly stirring them, I added some minced shallot, cooked for another minute, and then sprinkled with dried parsley and tarragon (we actually did have fresh tarragon but I didn't want to mix and match and we didn't have fresh parsley... or actually maybe we do but if so it's close to a month old and it's the crappy curly Italian kind).

Also today for lunch I created a proto-bento. I sliced some English cucumber and romaine lettuce and arranged it neatly in a plastic container with a slice of lacy swiss cheese, a few thin slices of roasted turkey breast, and a few slices of dill pickle. I also brought in a pita (bread, not pocket, because I am an idiot and bought the wrong one), a light string cheese stick, and a roll of Smarties, as well as my usual can of Coke Zero. I learned some very valuable lessons.

1) Bring less toppings. I sliced WAY too much cucumber and lettuce.
2) Get a condiment dispenser. I had nothing to put mayonnaise in, especially since I don't like a whole lot of mayonnaise, so I ended up just squirting a few little dots over the top of everything, and when lunch rolled around and it was time to assemble my pita I had mayo all over my hands. Not cool.
3) Lacy swiss gets almost melty at room temperature.
4) Pita was the wrong choice, a whole wheat tortilla would probably have been better.
5) Get a real bento box!

I really like the idea of doing bentos for future work lunches, because up till now 90% of my lunches have been fast food or frozen Lean Cuisine/Healthy Choice/Smart Ones dinners. (I did bring a container of leftovers in when I made cod chowder... I had cod chowder with a side of applesauce... that was an easy-to-chew meal.) And finally I am getting sick of it. Especially now that we have found a good-sized Asian market nearby.

Also there is the rest of that bag of frozen tortellini in the freezer that is sitting there begging me to take it to work (cooked, of course). Problem is, I don't want to eat it plain, and while we do have a half-used jar of spaghetti sauce in the fridge I'm not sure that would be incredibly good for me.

Also I keep seeing pictures of bentos with gyoza and grape tomatoes and berries and spinach pasta in them and they look SO GOOD. I saw a recipe for a cucumber-radish-feta salad today and thought "Hmm I bet that would work well in a bento." I have become such a nerd. Also that salad is something I would never have considered eating a few years ago.

Tandoori Chicken Pops and Chana Masala

Today we made an expedition to Pak Halal, a local Arab/Muslim/Indian grocer/meat market. Picked up a large jar of ginger-garlic paste (I wanted something smaller but that was all they had), as well as a can of chickpeas, and then headed off to Dillon's to get spices/etc.

Tonight I'm making tandoori chicken pops and Alex and I are together making chana masala (chickpea curry). I've never had chickpeas or curry before so this should be interesting. Alex made a big deal the other night about how he feels like he can't cook because I cook so often and so well (whatever), so I said he should feel free to make something, and now he wants to make the chana masala together. Which theoretically I have no problem with except for the part where our kitchen is too small to comfortably fit two people. I guess we'll see.

--time cut!!--

Dinner is... well, I don't know. I've only had tandoori chicken once, and one thing I remember about it (aside from it being a bit underdone) was that it was a deep red color. This was NOT a deep red color. Part of it may be that it was fried, rather than baked/roasted (it was supposed to be Indian food-stall eats). But a big problem was that you take the chicken, still thoroughly coated in the thick yogurt marinade, and then toss it in flour and fry it. And for whatever reason, the flour would NOT stay on the chicken during frying. Slipped off. As for the flavor, not too spicy, but definitely something different from plain American-style fried chicken. I'm mostly just glad I got it cooked all the way through.

The curry is interesting though I'm not sure if I like the flavor. It's got some kick to it but isn't all that spicy. Strong cumin flavors. The chickpeas are an okay texture but don't add much in the way of flavor. It's a little soupier than I would have liked... it's not so much liquid to make it a soup but I thought it would be thicker. I even took the lid off at the end to try to evaporate some of the moisture but it didn't succeed very well. Also, it made a lot. The recipe said "Serves 2" and I should have known that meant as a main dish rather than a side dish.

On a side note, I'm washing it down with Mexican Coke, made with real cane sugar. Delicious.

Tuna Salad w/ Fennel, Cucumber, and Tarragon

It could have been so good. The pita was tasty, the cucumber was crisp and fresh, the tuna, while not being the high-quality olive-oil-packed kind they called for in the recipe, wasn't bad (and I'm not sure a higher-quality tuna would have saved it).

The problem, I think, was in the assortment of flavors. Cucumber, fennel, and tarragon DO go together, they all have a sort of watery, fresh, almost bitter taste. But together I think they amplified each other too much for my palate. I would have almost preferred to make the tuna-mayo-relish kind of tuna salad and slathered that on a pita. The pita was nice anyway.

This was my second time cooking with fennel bulbs; the previous time had been amid other roasted vegetables (carrot, turnip, parsnip, etc). This was also my second time working with tarragon as a major flavor; the previous time was in a DELICIOUS beurre blanc (my first time successfully making that, might I add) that I served atop seared chicken cutlets. Cucumber is cucumber; this was English cucumber but aside from the seed thing I noticed no real difference.

I'm not willing to give up on fennel yet. I've seen it used in salads/slaws with apples, which could be interesting; maybe the tartness of the apple would counteract the licoricey bitterness of the fennel. Also I didn't have any problems with it roasted (then again, I think there was less fennel in that dish than any of the other veg).

As I think this was an issue of my palate rather than an issue of a recipe just not working, here's the recipe.

Tuna Salad with Fennel, Cucumber and Tarragon

1/2 small shallot, finely chopped
2 tbsp white wine vinegar
1.5 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
3/4 tsp sugar
1/2 tbsp chopped tarragon
1/2 small fennel bulb, cored and small diced
1/4 English cucumber, peeled, seeded and diced
1 6-oz can tuna in vegetable oil, drained
Salt and pepper
Pita bread

In a small bowl, whisk shallot, vinegar, oil, sugar and tarragon. Add fennel and cucumber, let stand 5 minutes. Add tuna, season with salt and pepper, and serve atop pita bread. Serves 2.

Hen House Chinese Food

Feeling pretty lazy tonight. I wanted to just have leftovers because we have 2 portions of brussels sprouts au gratin, 1 bbq chicken leg, 1/2 a chicken-potato-cheese casserole, about 2-3 cups of udon noodles (no broth), and most of that stupid tortellini soup left. Alternately I would have made that tuna salad because I'm worried the fennel and English cucumber will get mushy/brown before I get a chance to use them, since they've been sitting in the fridge since I think Sunday. (Must make that tomorrow for lunch!) But Alex made a face and said "if you want," and said he was in the mood for Chinese, so we went to the nearest Chinese take-out, which is the not-horrible Chinese place in Hen House.

Not much to say about it, I got chow mein and beef/broccoli and Alex got fried rice and kung pao chicken and an egg roll. Would have been two egg rolls but they were closing in 15 minutes and only had one left. That's okay, I didn't need one anyway.

I mostly just wanted to post because previously, the chow mein had been my favorite part of Hen House Chinese food. Not sure why, I just really liked it. But after having made my own lo mein from scratch a few weeks ago (I have no idea how authentic it was but it tasted like take-out Chinese lo mein), Hen House chow mein has suffered. It was greasy, and the cabbage was a bit too raw and bitter for my liking. May have just been that we went at the end of the day when food quality was not going to be quite so good. Who knows.

(On a side note, what is the difference between lo mein and chow mein? It was labeled "chow mein" but it was identical in ingredients to the lo mein I made)

Sushi Gin

(A couple of nights ago there would have been a Brussels Sprouts au Gratin recipe here, but several video card driver crashes plus driver-upgrading reboots took up so much time that it didn't get posted. Let me just say the following things about the gratin: 1) needs less Dijon, since both Dijon mustard and wasabi taste like rubbing alcohol to me, 2) needs more sauce, 3) otherwise good.)

Alex had a pretty crappy day at work today, so I suggested we go out for dinner tonight, and he selected Sushi Gin. Neither of us had ever been there, and I would have suggested we go to our usual Japanese spot of Shogun but Shogun has hibachi, whereas it appeared Sushi Gin didn't, and neither of us was in a hibachi mood. Plus it's always nice to try new things, and I had been looking for a local (ie, not KC MO) non-hibachi Japanese restaurant.

We sat down on booth seating, with Pier One seat pads. While this isn't exactly traditional (as far as I know), it was for me much more comfortable than the crawling-under-the-table-no-shoes thing, which is kind of hard to get in and out of. Alex ordered hot sake and I ordered Coke (bad me!), and as for our orders, we got an appetizer of edamame, and I ordered shrimp/veg tempura with salad, and Alex got a sushi selection with miso soup.

Well, the soups came. I say plural because for some reason they gave me miso soup instead of salad. I had only had miso soup once before and I always liked the scallion broth soup better but they didn't have that here, and the miso was okay. Kinda wanted to try their salad dressing though, but oh well.

Then the edamame arrived, which was nicely de-fuzzed (the last batch of edamame we got from Shogun appeared to have all its fuzz still on), and then our actual dishes. Alex was quite pleased with his sushi, particularly the unagi and big-eye tuna (this was a special item which was not on the menu and so I don't know what the Japanese name for it is). The tempura was more filling than I had expected it to be (the Coke probably didn't help with this), and ultimately a bit underwhelming. I had specifically ordered it because I had never had vegetable tempura before, and I think I expected it to have more flavor. Even with the sauce, it mostly tasted like plain seasoningless cooked vegetables (broccoli, onion ring, mushroom, sweet potato, red bell pepper, green bell pepper, and asparagus) in a crispy batter. I think shrimp in and of itself probably had more flavor, which is why I like shrimp tempura better. Anyway, I filled up so quick that I ended up leaving the mushroom, half the onion ring, sweet potato, and 2 (out of 4) shrimp to Alex. Then he had green tea ice cream (his favorite) and i had oddly orange-colored vanilla ice cream. I swear, I thought it was mango, which is usually the non-green tea option, and I don't like mango ice cream all that much so I was going to be pissed if they had screwed up my dessert too. It was vanilla though, and a bit underflavored and overly-frozen (ice crystals). I think I've spoiled myself by snacking on Haagen Dazs extra rich light vanilla bean ice cream lately, but damn if that isn't delicious.

Ultimately though, it was only $49 plus tip, and Alex was so very pleased with the sushi (and the menu... I should have gotten udon instead, dammit!) that I'm sure we'll go back. It's a nice, more casual, closer option to Kabuki, which is difficult to get to because it's downtown and downtown is evil.

Sun-Dried Tomato Tortellini Soup - not!

I made the soup mentioned two posts ago for lunch today. Some of the reviews had mentioned "next time I make this I will add extra broth" and as I was ladling some into my plastic bowl for work it seemed fine to me. Got home, checked the pot, WAY too chunky. What happened to the broth?! I don't know.

So, as for the flavor/texture. Not very exciting. I was actually fairly disappointed. The bok choy was tasteless, the sun-dried tomatoes had an odd flavor/texture to them, the carrots and celery were a bit undercooked (which was probably my fault because I was rushing to get it done and didn't saute them as long as the recipe suggested), and for the first time I had the same sentiment my husband always has whenever I make vegetable soups: "Needs more meat." The tortellini was okay, though I don't think this was the right vehicle for them. The broth was the wrong flavor for it, and unfortunately I used 3/4 of the bag on this stupid soup, leaving me only a handful or two to thaw and pour spaghetti sauce on.

This made me wish I had instead made a soup I did well over a year ago. It had roasted red peppers rather than sun-dried tomatoes, as well as spinach, alfredo sauce, and some other things. Obviously I didn't, and can't really without major substitutions since I'm on a diet and alfredo sauce is no good for you, and I'm regretting it now.

So, rather than post the tortellini soup recipe, which I won't make again without major (fundamental) changes, I'll post the recipe for Florentine Chicken Soup, which is what I had hoped I was making a non-cream soup version of.

Florentine Chicken Soup (from Cooking for 2, fall 2005)

1 c uncooked penne or tube pasta
1 pkg ready-to-use chicken breast cuts
4 c chopped fresh spinach
1 jar (7.25 oz) roasted red peppers, drained and sliced
3 fresh rosemary sprigs, chopped
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp pepper
1 tbsp butter
1.5 c reduced sodium chicken broth
3/4 c alfredo sauce
3 tbsp pesto
2 tbsp pine nuts, toasted
1 tbsp shredded Parmesan

Cook pasta according to package directions. Meanwhile, in a large saucepan, saute chicken, spinach, red peppers, rosemary, garlic powder and peppers in butter until spinach is wilted.

Stir in broth, alfredo sauce, and pesto; cook for 4-5 minutes or until cooked through. Drain pasta and add to soup. Garnish with pine nuts and Parmesan.

Yield: 5 cups

Barbecued Chicken

Today was frustrating; one of our cats hit the button on my UPS and corrupted Windows so badly that the boot CD did not recognize that there was a preexisting XP install. So had to completely reload. Luckily I didn't lose any of my files.

To make myself feel better, I went to Hen House (their produce and meat departments are my happy place, I am rapidly coming to realize) and bought zucchini, mushrooms, a few chicken legs (99 cents a pound!), a bunch of scallions, and a bag of sun-dried tomatoes (huzzah!). Tonight we did barbecue chicken legs, from scratch, with stuffed zucchini and frozen rolls, which had been lurking in the freezer for months and avoiding being made because they had a minimum 90-minute rise time. They were pretty damn good, if I do say so myself.

The zucchinis were hollowed out and stuffed with a mix of scallion, mushroom, zucchini pulp, cooked down and thoroughly saturated with white wine, and then sprinkled with a Parmesan-asiago-Romano blend and baked for 15 minutes or so along with the chicken. Zucchini and mushroom go together much better than I had anticipated; this is a flavor combination I must be sure not to forget.

The chicken itself was prepared easily enough; brine in a mix of water, salt, brown sugar, thyme, and crushed garlic for at least 2 hours, refrigerated (we did ours for something like 4), then grill for 5 minutes per side and then bake at 375 degrees for 45 minutes, basting every 15 with sauce. The brine kept the chicken moist and juicy, and best of all, due to the brining which helped to fully defrost some perhaps not-completely-thawed chicken legs (it's HARD to microwave-defrost chicken on the bone!), I did NOT have my usual problem of undercooked meat. I'm fairly certain that incomplete defrosting is the problem there, cause I don't have problems when the meat doesn't hit the freezer in between the store and the plate.

Anyway, the best part in my opinion was the sauce. My three favorite things to do while cooking are slices, sautes, and sauces. Tossing a casserole or roast into the oven and walking away is not something I'm interested in; maybe I'm just not burnt out enough yet. In fact, I really don't like casseroles in general. While I'm all for mixing your mashed potatoes with the pile of corn next to it, there are some things like shepherd's pie that just... blah. I was never a fan of it growing up; aside from the fact that it was obvious "use up the leftovers" food, it just tasted very bland. My mom is actually a fairly conservative bland cook in general, and aside from her mom who loves baking, I don't know of anyone in my family besides me who enjoys cooking for the sake of COOKING, and not necessarily for family togetherness or any side benefits like that.

Oh man I'm full of tangents. Basically, if it involves standing over the stove stirring, or chopping like a madman, I'm all for it.

SO. Without further ado, here is the recipe for Fantastic BBQ Sauce (stolen shamelessly from Tyler Florence):

Ultimate Barbecue Sauce

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 slice bacon
1 bunch fresh thyme
1/2 cup onion, chopped finely
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 cups ketchup
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup molasses
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tbsp mustard powder
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp cumin
Pepper to taste

Heat oil in a small saucepan over medium heat. Wrap bacon around bunch of thyme and fry in oil 3-4 minutes. Remove bacon bundle and discard. Add onion and garlic and cook 5 minutes, avoiding coloring. Add remaining ingredients, stir, and turn down heat. Let sit for 20 minutes so flavors meld. Makes around 3 cups.

Tori Nanba Udon

This is the first entry on my new cooking blog. I won't profess to being a cooking expert or really much of an amateur; I don't know much about creating my own recipes, but I find I posted so often about food in my primary blog that it was probably annoying to anybody reading it. The title of the blog (at this time, Nuclear Stovetop) refers to the fact that my stovetop is seriously overpowered. I set a wok on fire because it heated up too far before I added the oil, which makes no sense because apparently restaurants do that all the time with no problems. Also it boils water quite rapidly.

Today we checked out a new (to us) Asian market in the area, Ho's Oriental Market. It's kinda hidden away behind an O'Reilly's so I actually didn't even know it was there. But hot damn, it's the biggest Asian market I've seen since I've lived in the KC area. Granted, the only other one I'd seen is (I think) KC Mabuhay Oriental Market, which was quite frankly tiny; we only bought I think Pocky and a bottle of banana extract there (which I have yet to find anything to do with). But Ho's is MUCH much larger. We bought a big bag of disposable chopsticks that turned out to be bamboo and not wood, which was a nice surprise, as well as a sake set for Alex, a box of dashi powder (pellet?) mix (bad idea, shoulda read up on the internet first and actually bought bonito flakes and kelp but oh well), and a big bottle of shaotsing wine, which would have been nice to have last week (or whenever it was that I made Ming Tsai's Asian coq au vin). And so would have been the copious amounts of baby bok choy. Very annoying; Hen House had the sign for it but no actual product and I had to sub in regular bok choy, which does not cook the same.

While we were out, we also stopped at Dillon's and picked up the ingredients for Sun-Dried Tomato Tortellini Soup as well as a tuna salad recipe out of Food and Wine. Couldn't find sun-dried tomatoes at Dillon's; they probably would have had them at Hen House but we still had to stop at a liquor store so Alex could buy some christening sake and frankly I was hot and tired.

Someday... someday I will have a big beautiful bright kitchen and make all sorts of tasty things in it and not constantly feel cramped and confined by my limited storage and countertop space. Curse apartments!

Tonight I made udon in a dashi-soy broth. I'd post pics but I can't at the moment for several reasons:
1) the nice camera is not mine and I don't really know how to use it; nor do I want to burden Alex with post-processing;
2) presentation is not my forte; and
3) we only have one (sort of two) style of dishes and they're not very exciting.

Anyway, here's what I did (based on recipe at foodnetwork.com):

Tori Nanba Udon (Udon w/ Chicken and Scallions)

8 cups dashi
2 tsp salt (do not add if you used dashi pellet mix like I did)
3 tbsp light soy sauce
3 tbsp tamari
2 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp mirin
1 lb boneless skinless chicken thighs or breasts, cut into bite size pieces
1/4 head napa cabbage, cut into 1" squares
6 green onions, sliced in half lengthwise and chopped into 2" pieces
4 fresh shiitake mushrooms, scored lightly with knife
1 lb fresh udon noodles

Bring dashi to a boil. Just as it reaches a boil, add salt, soy sauce, tamari, and sugar; stir to combine. Turn heat down to a simmer and add chicken. Cook 10 minutes or so (be sure to break up the chicken pieces while cooking or it will all stick together), skimming the foam. Add cabbage, onions and shiitake and cook another 3 minutes.

Meanwhile, bring a big pot of water to a boil (note to myself in the future: do NOT use the big aluminum stockpot for this, the damn thing takes decades to boil water). Add noodles, cook 3 minutes or until just softened. Drain in a colander and rinse VERY WELL with cold water, rubbing noodles to remove starch. Do NOT neglect to do this or within a few minutes your noodles will turn into a big glob of starch.

Put some noodles in a bowl, ladle broth/veg/meat on top. Serve hot.