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 > 269
KitchenKatalog: Blog 269
Thursday, January 23, 2014, 07:37 PM
I made breakfast cupcakes for dinner using the regular method. For the filling, I started by sautéing half an onion and some canadian bacon (closer to ham than bacon). I then took that out of the pan and added 5 scrambled eggs. I combined them all and added it to the par-baked shells.
They came out pretty good. I overfilled the under layer and then didn't have enough for the top. And I forgot to salt the eggs but some salt at the end was enough.
I also made roasted(ish) asparagus. I usually do it at 425 for 10-15 minutes but I just did it at 350 for a bit longer and it worked fine. I liked chopping them into smaller pieces first since they get a bit stringy.
Overall, a pretty good and easy meal!
Edit/Update: (2014-01-24) As I think about it, I think this is an example where I could have cut calories/fat with half real eggs and half egg beaters. The flavors would have likely still been there. I'll do that next time
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 7177, 2014-01-23_193727
Wednesday, January 22, 2014, 08:39 PM
I kind of-sort-of-maybe-but-not-really made black bean falafel. I followed the basic falafel recipe and methodology but with a lot of changes. Obviously, I used black beans. Instead of cilantro and parsley, I used a mixture of herbs Meredith sent me home with. I think they were thai basil (though it may have been sweet/regular), mint and probably something else I can't remember. I And I mixed up the spices a bit by adding some Montreal chicken seasoning and going lighter on the others. I kept the olive oil, lemon juice, baking powder, and flour. I also am not sure if I added salt or not (I got distracted and couldn't remember).
I cooked them the same way but I let them go a bit longer since they were really wet and mushy. Even with that, the insides were much less cooked. I think that is simply the beans vs chick-peas.
Anyway, it was a fun way to use up the herbs and make an easy, fairly light meal (calories only really from the flour, beans, and the tiny bit of oil).
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 7173, 2014-01-22_203958
Tuesday, January 21, 2014, 08:48 PM
I made cauliflower fritters from the regular recipe with the following seasonings:
They were incredible good! I do not know why they were so good this time but they were! Maybe it was the feta (I used a bit more than regular though I do not know how much). Or the seasonings. Either way, they came out great
And I made a small amount of shrimp. I water-defrosted it and then I did something between pan-frying and sautéing (I added a tiny layer of oil. More than if I just used pam but less than if I were pan-frying). As soon as I thought they may be almost cooked, I took it off the heat and kept tossing. This is similar to what I did the other day and it was the only time that it was not overly overcooked! After they were done I tossed them with some salt, pepper and crushed red pepper.
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 7169, 2014-01-21_204855
Sunday, January 19, 2014, 04:22 PM
There were kind of two parts to this meal. The first was the papaya salad and the second was trying to roll it in rice papers.
First the salad. We julienne the green papaya at first by a mandoline and then manually which was a pain but I managed. We followed the recipe pretty faithfully except we increased the amount of dressing since we had a lot of papaya. And we used only 1/2 pound shrimp. Finally, we fried all of the scallions both for the dressing and the marinade. We skipped the peanuts but also added thai basil, mint, and cilantro. Meredith also did something like massage the papaya with the dry seasonings to soften it a bit. The salad was really good. A lot of flavor, though less than the one we have had at a restaurant. The herbs added a nice amount of nuance to the dish. I like the green papaya more than ripe since I have had pretty bad luck with papaya in the past.
The second part was trying to make summer rolls out of it with rice paper. The real problem was that these were too small of rice papers for what we tried to do. They just didn't come together well (though I think Meredith had more luck than I had). I think we would have had more luck with larger papers. I definitely want to try and do these again (with veggies and the more regular things inside). But with larger rolls!
Green Papaya Salad with Shrimp (from Splendid Table)
Local Copy -- password is the name of my dog, all lower case
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 7158, 2014-01-19_162220
Saturday, January 18, 2014, 04:21 PM
Meredith and I made fish, soup and braised leeks.
The fish was cod that we coated in a mixture of pecan meal, salt, pepper, and a bit of panko. We coated it all around and really patted it on. We then baked it for like 12-15 minutes at 350 (ish--with that oven). It came out pretty good. Not the most flavorful but you could really taste the fish. It probably would have been better if we marinated it or did something like that.
We made french onion soup (sans cheese) with lots of really well reduced/caramelized onions, Then, we made the soup with a mixture of beef and chicken broth and white wine (2:2:1 ratio or so). Not much else there. The soup was pretty simple and pretty good though not incredible. I do not know what I could do to make it more rich.
Finally, we did braised leeks. We cut off the greens and then peeled the outer layer. The rest was from the recipe below. Not too special to the recipe but they weren't very good. They were a bit mushy and stringy. I have never had braised leeks or leeks in any real form for that matter so I have little to compare it to.
It was certainly an acceptable meal but at no point was anything all that special. Maybe we will use some of these ideas again but with changes.
Braised Leeks (from Martha Stewart)
Local Copy -- password is the name of my dog, all lower case
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 7154, 2014-01-18_162124
Thursday, January 16, 2014, 08:42 AM
This was Meredith's idea and mostly her execution but I'll do my best to explain. We had socca (french chick-pea flour crepes) with all kinds of toppings inspired by a restaurant near us. I have my picture assembled. Here is everything we had. Note that everything was made by scratch:
So, it was a pretty easy and very pretty meal. We would certainly make it again!
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 7149, 2014-01-16_084242
Tuesday, January 14, 2014, 08:07 PM
I had heard of using eggplants as pizza crust (may or may not do in the future) but I decided to try to make open-face [almost] reubens instead.
I sliced an eggplant into about 1/4 to 1/3 thick slices (thicker than thickest mandoline setting). I pammed it, then sprinkled it with salt, pepper, and caraway (to fake rye bread flavor). I roasted it at 400 for 12 minutes. I then flipped them and did the same seasonings and roasted them for 5 minutes.
I then topped the eggplant slices with home-made fat free thousand island (see below), then [heated] sauerkraut, then pastrami (Hillshire Farms brand), then slices of swiss-cheese. The pastrami was 7 ounces which is a little bit less than I wanted but to be honest, it was enough. I roasted them for other 5-7 minutes to melt and heat it all
The dressing was from the recipe below. I upped the relish to a full tbsp since it needed it. I also did use low-sugar ketchup since I had it. The dressing was pretty good though I do not recall how other commercial ones. This was pretty easy and good though so I'd do it again.
Overall, they were pretty good. Nowhere near as good as a_real_ reuben, but good enough for dinner and was certainly healthier. I actually calculated the points below too. I would do it again for sure though two slices of rye bread wouldn't have been too many more calories/points that I may just consider that next time.
(oh, I also had leftover squash)
Fat Free Thousand Island Dressing (from Ari's Menu)
Local Copy -- password is the name of my dog, all lower case
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 7142, 2014-01-14_200726
Monday, January 13, 2014, 09:57 AM
I am still working through leftover moussakka, but today, I also roasted a kabocha squash. I followed the same as I did last time(sliced into crescents, 30 minutes at 400, flipped half way). I used pam, salt and pepper. The squash again came out really, really good. I thoroughly enjoyed eating it this way. I did east some of the skin but not all of it like last time. I wonder if it was a bit more roasted last time making the skin more edible (though the meat was fully cooked).
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 7138, 2014-01-13_095717