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.