KitchenKatalog: Blog 155

I made Enchilada Casserole the night before for us (including my mom). I made it with 2 lbs of ground turkey. The only thing I needed to do to accommodate my mom was to make sure the red chile sauce didn't have flour. That was not a problem since Santa Fe Ole was gluten free.

It made a lot of it and I used the entire jar of sauce. It came out really good, though way too wet. I also made two extra little ones (and the main one was way too full)

Carne Adovada

I didn't take a photo but I made a big thing of Carne Adovada. I basically followed the recipe but noted that you can adjust the heat with the amount of the water. I cut up the pork loin into smaller pieces so they were bite sides. I liked it a lot and let it simmer for ~4 hours covered¹ plus 1/2 an hour uncovered to reduce. It was really good!

I recall doing it at 310°F since I think the oven is a bit cool ↩

Huevos

I made huevos rancheros for Meredith and my mom. My mom doesn't like any runny egg so on hers (lower) I separately fried and fully cooked eggs. Meredith had a normal one and I had the small one since I wasn't too hungry. I did it with green chile and leftover rotisserie chicken.

Sun-dried Tomato Pesto Eggs Benedict

First time cooking since we had Caroline! I made Meredith some sun-dried tomato pesto eggs benedict. I just used that basic recipe for the hollandaise. I cheated on the eggs and fried them (and for a little bit too long...oops). I used Boars Head Tavern ham.

Turkey Tacos

Biscotti (Christmas Style & Lemon Poppy seed)

I thought it would be nice to make and bring biscotti to the hospital for all of the doctors and nurses. I figured I'd make them ahead of time and freeze them.

So I pulled out my dad's trusty biscotti recipe and, without thinking, planned to make the basic kind I made for christmas. Unfortunately, that required I made my own candied cherries since they are hard to find this time of year (see below). In making them, I also figured out a trick to transfer (see below).

But anyway, the first (and originally only) batch came out pretty good, but I was looking at my dad's recipe and realized I really missed an opportunity. Meredith really likes lemon poppy seed and I didn't even think to make them. So what was I to do? I made another batch the next day. I used the recipe with the tips at the bottom though I went even heavier on both lemon ingredients. I also sliced these a bit thicker just to make my life easier. They also came out really good. Not the rich lemon flavor I was originally hoping for, but unmistakably lemon. According to my Dad, Emily sometimes uses lemon extract so maybe that is worth trying in the future too.

Anyway, now I have two giant bags of biscotti to bring with us! (and there were smaller bags leftover from each batch. We still have the lemon but we brought the Christmas-style to a friends' house)

Tips for transferring biscotti

I think I finally got it, though I broke one of the logs "getting it". After the biscotti have cooled for the 10 minutes, the first goal is to get them off of a rimmed sheet so you can more easily get in there.

To do this, I slide a big cutting board under the silpat from the long side (I originally did the short way and broke one). Then, I used a pastry spatula to slide under. Then, using another cutting board of the same thickness, I slid it over with the short side first (so I could better place it). It wasn't perfect, but seemed to work well enough

Cherries

As I noted above, I had to make my own cherries since I couldn't find them². I used the recipe from King Arthur Flour (LOCAL) and intended to stay pretty true to it. The only planned change was the reduce the final temp by about 10°F to align with the boiling point of water in Albuquerque¹. However, it went from needing 10° more to being 25° over! Oops! I made the "executive decision" to take them out of the liquid while they were hot as opposed to letting it cool as per the recipe. This was a good idea since the remaining sugar turned into a tough taffy and I would have never been able to free them.

I ended up adding them to the batter one-by-one (as I could free them) so they wouldn’t all stick. That also made them break up a bit more than they would have otherwise but I think that is fine.

When it comes to candy making, adjusting for altitude is actually a bit easier than other types of baking. Temperature is a proxy for the ratio since you are constantly at the boiling point. Since the boiling point for water is depressed by the lack of pressure at high-altitude, the candy should be adjusted the same. ↩
My Dad later told me that he has seen them at craft stores like Michael's. I didn't think to look there and just tried WalMart since someone on the internet said they found them there. ↩

Chicken cordon Bleu

I made Chicken Cordon Bleu following the recipe pretty closely. I tried to butterfly the chicken breast first and then pound it thin which resulted in unevenly sized servings. I used ham from Trader Joes and Jarlsberg cheese.

THe biggest thing is that I had trouble rolling them and the cheese was very much not inside very well. This played out when we baked it and most of the cheese oozed out. Oh well.

I actually prepped them on Sunday and then breaded and baked them later in the week. I also baked them with the leave-in thermometer which made it very easy

Lettuce Wraps

I made lettuce wraps. I actually prepped it yesterday with four things of noodles and a finely diced block of Trader Joes Super Firm Tofu. I tried to go a bit heavy on the ingredients since it seemed like a lot of noodles. That helped though I thought they could have used a bit more flavor. It may have also soaked less into the tofu than the chicken usually.