Justin & Meredith Winokur's Kitchen Cooking Notebook
Sitemap ·
Our Recipe Book ·
Steven's Recipe Book ·
Ann's Recipe Book ·
Meal Ideas ·
Copied Recipes
Random ·
Random Links
Home > 266
KitchenKatalog: Blog 266
Sunday, February 23, 2014, 08:55 PM
I made spaghetti squash casserole and roasted sweet potato chips. After last night's success with the chips, I decided to try with sweet potatoes. I did the same thing I did on 2013-12-15(also with spaghetti squash) but I sliced them into 1/8" slices first. I baked them at 450 for 10 minutes, flipped them, and did another 10. Some were crispy but most were a bit mushy. Certainly not as crispy as yesterday's potatoes. I will do more reading and come up with something better.
I also made the pretty standard spaghetti-squash with homemade sauce. It made a lot so I have 2 lunches and 1 dinner. I used a smoked turkey sausage I got at Kroger which I really liked. Though, had I known I was going to get 3 servings, I would have used more links.
So, overall, nothing too amazing but certainly a pretty good meal.
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 7510, 2014-02-23_205526
Friday, February 21, 2014, 08:41 PM
This was a big but not-too-difficult meal. I made roasted crispy potato chips (with some experimentation), Shishito / Twist Peppers (with dip) and a sautéed chicken breast.
I have been trying to perfect roasted potato chips and I think this is the closest I have come. I was inspired by the technique for crispy roasted potatoes so that was the basis. I sliced a russet potato into 1/8" slices (second-smallest on the mandoline) and I put them into_rolling_ boiling water with a bit of vinegar and salt for 3.5 minutes. I wanted to make sure I was fully boiling since the time was pretty low. I drained the water, and rinsed them with cold water. I blotted them dry and placed half on parchment paper directly on the dray and half on a cooling rack (see photos below). I sprayed them with pam and the topped them with salt and pepper. I roasted them at 450 for 10 minutes, flipped them, and did another 10.
First of all, the ones right on the pan were crispier. For some reason, the ones on the cooling rack were crispy on the outside but less so in the middle. The chips in general were great! They were the best ones I have ever done in the oven. I wonder if a lower temperature for longer would be better next time? Some were a bit burned. And I wouldn't mind them drying out more. And next time, I'll skip the cooling rack
(This has been added to My Recipe Book)
Meredith and I have had shishitos before at a restaurant and really liked them. We finally found them at an asian supermarket and I brought some home. I roasted them following the directions from Love and Lemons. I did the following:
Layed them out on a tray with Aluminum foil. Sprayed them with pam and topped them with salt and pepper. I sealed it with more aluminum foil and roasted at 450 for 5-7 minutes (I did 7). Then I turned on the broiler, removed the aluminum foil and broiled them. The recipe calls for 2 minutes but they didn't seem done so I did them for 4. Next time, 3 would suffice.
They were pretty good though not as good as the restaurant. I have some left so I will experiment. Many web sites call for doing them in a cast-iron pan instead of the oven/broiler. I'll investigate that.
Exact Instructions:
For the Shishitos: Wrap the peppers in foil with a bit of olive oil and salt, and roast in a 450 degree oven for 5-7 minutes. Open the foil, turn the heat up to broil, and continue roasting for another 2 minutes, or until they begin to blacken and blister.
I had them with a dip I'll explain next.
I threw together a dip with the ingredients you can see in the picture. The base was low fat mayo (which apparently has a "best by" of over 15 months ago. Oops. Oh Well...)
The dip was okay. Nothing too fancy but it served the purpose. I actually really liked it on the chips
The chicken was pretty straight-forward. I flattened out a breast and I topped one side with salt, pepper and Trader Joes 21 Seasoning Salute. I cooked it in a frying pan, seasoning side down, and then seasoned the other side.
Nothing too fancy with it but it was surprisingly good. Not dry and it had enough flavor. I would do it again.
I figured I would include some photos as I went.
This page was converted from Wordpress with a custom script by Justin Winokur. Most links and images should still work. However, if any links are broken, see the HTML (or Markdown) source to try to deduce the intended destination.
Original WP Post ID: 7490
Original WP Pub Date: 2014-02-21_204123
Tuesday, February 18, 2014, 10:19 PM
I wanted a simple and fairly light meal so I madezucchini fritters (no real changes or anything) and some steamed edamame. Pretty straight forward.
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 7482, 2014-02-18_221948
Tuesday, February 18, 2014, 09:43 AM
I had some leftover potatoes from yesterday's moussaka so I made home-fries. I first sautéd a really small onion and then I put in diced leftover potatoes (They were par cooked from yesterday). As they neared completion, I added some (too much) salt and pepper. I finally topped them with two over-medium fried eggs. A fairly quick and simple breakfast!
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 7478, 2014-02-18_094305
Monday, February 17, 2014, 11:08 PM
I made the pretty standard Lentil Moussaka at Meredith's. I had a bit trouble with the eggplant because (a) I had to slice it by hand so it was perfectly even and (b), I had to use a gas broiler drawer which I am not used to.
It came out really good. One thing I did was to actually use the parmesan cheese that is suggested. I think that helped a lot. I also did the béchamel with two real eggs instead of 3 egg beaters. I also added a tiny bit extra almond milk and flour to make a bit extra sauce.
I also went heavy on the lentils because I was going to make extra sauce but I ended up not doing it. This made the sauce a bit thicker than usual.
I do not know why, but this held together better than usual. You can see we were able to get real slices out of it.
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 7473, 2014-02-17_230822
Monday, February 17, 2014, 10:02 AM
We made crepes for breakfast. I followed the recipe in my Ratio book. It basically called for 2:2:1
I did almond milk, 4 eggs (it's suggestion) and a scant 1 cup flour.
Anyway, I mixed it all and let it sit for about 40 minutes. There were still some flour clumps but it worked pretty well. I kept having some trouble flipping and/or spreading them but they eventually came out. I lost a few but we just ate them without filling. Honestly, I thought it tasted a bit eggy. I wish I had read around because I have since found Alton Brown's which use less egg but more liquid. His isn't as pliable with the liquid choice but I think I would use this as a jumping-off point for next time and I'll modify the liquids as I see fit.
Anyway, I made savory crepes that had scrambled eggs, thick-cut bacon and a bit of Meredith's harissa. Plus salt and pepper. Meredith made sweet crepes. She made two "sauces" out of part-skim ricotta. One had powdered sugar and lemon zest while the other was TJ's fig butter. And she macerated strawberries. We tried a tiny bit of sweetened condensed milk on a few but it wasn't as good as we had hoped.
I folded mine like a burrito which worked fine but I like how Meredith's looked better. She put all of the toppings on a corner and then folded it into a triangle.
I want to explore making other types of crepes by modifying the recipe and fillings. We will see what I come up with.
This page was converted from Wordpress with a custom script by Justin Winokur. Most links and images should still work. However, if any links are broken, see the HTML (or Markdown) source to try to deduce the intended destination.
Original WP Post ID: 7449
Original WP Pub Date: 2014-02-17_100216
Sunday, February 16, 2014, 12:07 PM
We took two Vietnamese dishes and combined them. We used Meredith's Mushroom Pate, sliced cucumbers, Meredith's pickled carrots, sliced jalapeños, cilantro and Pan-Seared Tofu.
The Tofu was based on Kenji's Method (from Serious Eats). You use boiling water to get more water out of the tofu. Then you press the tofu and finally, pan-fry/sear it. You do not marinate it but after it is cooked, you can then put it in the sauce. We used a mixture of TJ's Soyaki (aka Soy Vay), sriracha and a squeeze of fresh lemon juice. The tofu was very good.
The rolls themselves were good. Some were better and more tightly rolled than others but they were all flavorful. The mushroom pate got kind of lost in them which is unfortunate since it's so good. A tip Meredith discovered is to put down on the bottom whatever you want to be most visible.
We made tuna, avocado and cucumber sushi. We found that at The Fresh Market, they will sell you still vacuum and frozen sashimi grade tuna for a really amazing price! You just have to ask for the still-frozen stuff. We used that and it tasted fine. No fishy flavor at all. Very clean but flavorful.
Cutting it was kind-of a nightmare. It wasn't clear which way the grain went and we forgot whether or not you are supposed to cut along it or against it. Still, we managed to get the 7ozpiece sufficiently cut.
More details on the rice below.
We made the sushi rice using Alton Brown's recipe (also below). The recipe worked well enough. Some layer of rice burned on the bottom but we carefully scraped off of it to avoid the burned flavor. Otherwise, the only change was to go a bit light on the salt since we (a) had less rice and (b) were using a different and potentially more fine salt.
It came out very flavorful but way too sticky. As you can see from some of the pictures, we had a lot of trouble getting a thin layer on the nori and did not have a great rice coating. I need to read up on how to spread it and/or look at other recipes. I did really like the flavor though.
We forgot to buy wasabi so we served with sriracha (which we also had out for the rolls). And soy sauce. We also had some peanut sauce from Whole Foods that wasn't very good. I mixed in a bit of sriracha which helped a little but not much.
Sushi Rice (from Alton Brown)
Local Copy -- password is the name of my dog, all lower case
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 7444, 2014-02-16_120721
Thursday, February 13, 2014, 05:29 PM
There wasn't much to this meal. I took half a package of gimme lean and I cooked it on the grill pan. I then put on some of Meredith's homemade harissa (recipe to come...eventually) and then melted some cheese. I put it on two pieces of toasted rye. Really simple, fast and good.
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 7436, 2014-02-13_172946