Justin & Meredith Winokur's Kitchen Cooking Notebook
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Home > 220
KitchenKatalog: Blog 220
Thursday, January 07, 2016, 12:00 AM
(Meredith made this entire meal. I am roughly transcribing her comments)
We were reading a few Ottolenghi books and used his Tahini Sauce 1 but scaled way back. (around 3 tbsp tahini and 2 tbsp water).
For the squash, Meredith cut them into rounds and sprinkled with
Roasted at 375 for 40 minutes (rotated half way). Topped with the sauce
Pretty standard and simple seared scallops. We used fresh ones from Whole Foods (the "dry" type). They came out pretty good, though maybe a tad overcooked
Heat cast iron pan on medium-high.
Drain, pat dry, and remove the extra muscle on the scallops. Then add salt and pepper to taste.
Melt butter and sear scallops for about 2 minutes, flip, then 1 more minute. Do not overcook. Serve with a wedge of lemon
Done previously on Sabih + Tahini Sauce + Zhoug (2016-06-01) ↩
Wednesday, January 06, 2016, 06:00 PM
We made a pretty simple meal of turkey and cauliflower. The cauliflower was based on my Curry Roasted Cauliflower Recipe except I used Tandoor Chicken Masala (same as used on 2015-11-11). I was weary of using too much since I recalled it being spicy, but it was fine. Actually, the cauliflower was really, really good. Lots of flavor and really tasty!
We did the turkey breast on the cast-iron pan with McCormick Montreal Chicken Seasoning. I think we overcooked them a little bit but not much. They came out really good. And low points!
)[^1]](/media/2015/11/2015-11-08_185555.jpg)
We just used the tandoori seasoning ↩
Wednesday, January 06, 2016, 08:00 AM
Meredith made a kale salad for lunches. She used this Bon Appetit recipe (no local, See below) for the dressing only and then just did the rest herself. She massaged the dressing with the [Lacinato /"dino"] kale and topped with rotisserie chicken, sunflower seeds, and lite feta.
The sunflower seeds really added a lot of flavor and texture.
Rather than a local copy of the dressing recipe, she essentially just did as follows.
Combine in a mortar and pestle:
She then whisked in:
Massaged this into the kale and tossed in
Topped with other ingredients as noted above
Tuesday, January 05, 2016, 12:00 AM
We are starting out the new year cooking healthily (and plan to continue). This was our ease-into-it meal.
We made simple seared salmon with dill. Nothing special but really good as always. The shape of it made it hard to estimate when it was done though.
The main star of the meal with Hasselback Tots but done with Patatas Bravas sauce. I actually just updated that recipe too to account for how I did it. Note that it doesn't make a ton of sauce but it was enough since we didn't have a lot of potatoes.
We made the tots using the same technique from 2015-12-05 except much less oil (but still tossed a second time) and with purple potatoes.
One problem with this meal was that after I tossed the potatoes the second time and put them back on the tray, I forgot that the tray just came out of the oven. I grabbed it with my whole hand. I let go quickly but not before dropping everything on the floor and giving myself a nasty burn
Thursday, December 31, 2015, 12:00 AM
We made a New Years Eve party at my Mom's house. The basic cooking, planning, and execution was done by me, Meredith and our friends, Sam and Ron.
We had 10 people (though we really only thought 9 while planning) but still managed to make enough food for 30. The idea was that we would not do a real meal and would instead have tons of appetizers
Below is the list we made to remember everything that had to go out. And, I think we added to this after I took the picture 1. Again, way too much food.
(For the record, we served "mousse" and not "moose").
We had:
I made the kale salad similar to 2013-11-09 with the same recipe except that I skipped the rice and (accidentally) skipped the feta. I do think I went too heavy on the citrus. It was super lemony. And I may have gone light on the nuts.
Meredith made a huge batch of her guac. I do not know exactly what she uses but I know she basically does it to taste and includes:
The chips were the Food Should Taste Good ones
Meredith made the black-eyed-peas bean dip from 2013-01-25 with the same recipe. Black-eyed peas are considered good luck (in the Southern tradition)2 for New Years and apparently, everyone else also knew this since we had a hell of a time finding them. We did eventually find cans of it, but first, bought (and used) a can of Hoppin' John which has the black-eyed peas (and we checked to make sure there wasn't any meat-products in there).
Meredith made two types of Deviled Eggs. I did the boiling (steaming) with this method but I think I took it off too soon. The yolks were just under done. Perfect for eating them but a bit tough for deviled eggs. Oh well.
The ones in the back of the picture were "traditional" ones with (all to taste)
The others are "Smoky Deviled Eggs with Greek Yogurt & Frizzled Shallots" from The Kitchn (local). Meredith really just used this as a base. Her changes were:
They were pretty good though they came out very salty (maybe in overcompensating for forgetting it with frying them).
The flavor was still really good and this is a pretty easy recipe. Just less salt!
Smoky Deviled Eggs with Greek Yogurt (from The Kitchn)
Local Copy (U: guest, P: name of my dog, lower case)
These were purchased from Costco. The samosa was just baked but the dumplings took a good bit of labor. They were already made, but we pan fried them rather than steam. I think it made a huge difference and they were much better than they would have been. But also took a lot longer. (Thanks Ron for doing all the work on them)
The butternut squash was just roasted with my Mom's recipe. (to follow later)
The pretzels were a Pretzel Tray from a chain in Philly. They were really good
Tomato pie was from Wegmans
We only made one of dessert items ourselves. The "moose" was my Grandmother's fat-free chocolate mousse. My dad made a lemon cake (and biscotti that was not on the list)
Emily made "her balls" (ie, the peanut butter truffle balls)
(Not pictured)
Recipe to follow but you essentially make rice-Krispie treats with Golden Grams and add chocolate. Also, we used extra butter as we discovered in the past to make it more gooey. Sam made them so I will update this with her input when I get it.
Sunday, December 27, 2015, 12:00 AM
Meredith's mom gifted a cooking class at Sur La Table for the four of us (including Brooke).
I am not going to go through all the details since I really just wanted to have a place for the recipes.
It was a great experience and a lot of fun.
See Local Recipe Page (U: guest, Password: Name of my dog in lower case)
Tuesday, December 22, 2015, 12:00 AM
Meredith made a frittata for dinner. She followed this Kitchn recipe (we just used the baking instructions so I won't copy the recipe).
We made it with:
This was really pretty good and easy. You really could taste the feta and all of the flavors.
It is nothing like the frittata I am used to thinking of (where you sauté everything and then add egg) but it was much easier and still pretty good. Actually, the recipe calls itself a pie, and not even a frittata but I still liked it! Probably only really works with already soft ingredients like we used. Otherwise, you'd have to sauté ahead of time. (Also, the recipe doesn't call itself a frittata but Oh Well
Sunday, December 20, 2015, 12:00 AM
We were at a holiday event and someone brought these. They were so good that we had to ask what they were and how to make them. It turns out that they are made from Rollos. The recipe is super, super simple. Place a Rollo on each pretzel, bake at 350 for 4 minutes, then quickly press on a pecan. Let cool (we used the cool garage).
They were so simple and also really good. Actually, perhaps too good! More than a few people reported that this was their favorite of our candy. And we barely made it.
We made this from this Kraft Recipe (local). We followed the recipe pretty closely except we used Greek Yogurt cream cheese (about the same calories but more protein, less fat). We dipped them in dark semi-sweet chocolate (which we also thinned with coconut oil).
They also came out really good. Easy ingredients but actually pretty labor intensive
Oreo Truffles (from Kraft Recipes)
Local Copy (U: guest, P: Name of my dog, all lower case)
Meredith had made these for me a while ago and they were really good so we decided to try them again. We used the recipe from So How's it Taste? (local). The recipe is actually pretty simple. I think the hardest thing is (a) the temperature adjustment and (b) not stirring the sugar.
On the note of altitude, we followed many guides that said to basically just linearly adjust the temperature based on the boiling point of water. Essentially, just decrease by 10F
They were really good. I think we just have to be more careful about using too much grease on the pan. Also wrapping them is a royal pain. We ended up using parchment and tape to hold it.
Salted Whiskey Caramels (from So How's it Taste?)
Local Copy (U: guest, P: Name of my dog, all lower case)
We love honeycomb candy we used to buy at the grocery store so we decided to make it. We used this Joy The Baker recipe (local) and followed it closely except again the temperature (see above). However, we had trouble with the combination of candy and digital thermometers. Before I knew it, the temp had gone to 300°F (where it was supposed to be if not for the adjustment).
It became really hard to stir and control. I think it was too hard/too hot. It kind of became a sticky mess as you can see from the photos. And a ton left on the pan.
They did mostly work. There was certainly a honeycomb structure but it was smaller than we would have happen. I would try it again but I would be more careful about the temperatures. It goes up in temp really quickly.
As you can see in the top picture, we dipped it in chocolate.
Homemade Honeycomb (from Joy The Baker)
Local Copy (U: guest, P: Name of my dog, all lower case)
We made divinity again like last year. Again, we used the Paula Dean Recipe (local) but I think that was a mistake. It was so sticky. We could barely work with it. It stuck to the parchment paper and everything else. Also, it wasn't as good this year (as our second last year) but that could also have a lot to do with the fact that we made it about 5-6 days before we ate any. Also, we did salt them but didn't use salted nuts. I liked the salted nuts in there too. And, again, as noted above, we adjusted for the altitude.
I looked at some other recipes that seem to use less sugar. I think I would try that in the future. Also, I will lay them out of silpats since they won't tear while peeling them off.
We [tried] to make Rosemary Shortbread again like 2015-11-06 with this recipe. The only difference to the recipe being that we didn't want to use the egg-wash and we went heavier on the rosemary.
However, we somehow really messed it up. While we prepped everything over the weekend, we wanted the cookies to be fresh so we prepped the dough, then refrigerated it for two days. Then we warmed it enough to roll into a log (we wanted to make them round and this is an easier way to cut them).
Well, the combination of the refrigeration and everything must have messed them up because they spread everywhere on the pan. Or, it could have to do with the silpat, but I highly doubt that. The crumbs were amazing though!