Justin & Meredith Winokur's Kitchen Cooking Notebook
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Home > 337
KitchenKatalog: Blog 337
Monday, February 21, 2011, 11:31 PM
This is based on the recipe below.I actually do not know much about it because Meredith did all of it because I was stuck on campus until around 10:00pm that night.
It was a bit dry and flavorless but we both really liked the idea of it so we may try again with more seasonings.
**Mexican Braised Beef ** (from Thekitchn)
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Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1018, 2011-02-21_233107
Monday, February 21, 2011, 08:10 AM
We saw this recipe a while ago and it sounded easy and fast. The only major changes was we used really light whole wheat bread instead of what they suggest. We found bread with great nutritional information that was still okay. The bread flavor was strong so that may have affected it. We also used a bit more so I added a tad more vinegar.
I liked that this recipe was really low in points and healthy. Plus totally vegetarian. We will probably make it again. Also, despite being "Moroccan", it was rather light on the spices which was interesting. Sadly, we had to use pre-made tomato sauce but next time, we will try to make our own.
Moroccan Spinach and Chickpeas (from SeriousEats)
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Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1015, 2011-02-21_081007
Saturday, February 19, 2011, 10:22 PM
This was a good meal largely inspired by this blog post but with some serious changes. The thing is that their pasta recipe calls for 7 egg yolks though we would have halved it anyway. And it just doesn't sound healthy at all. We made the concession of just using white flour but that was too much egg. So we used egg beaters. Also, even though we had beets (which we roasted later), we did not have time to roast them first so we used canned and then puréed them. Well, still, it all came together strangely. I had to play with the dough a lot to get it the right moistness but it was a very, very streachy dough. After letting it rest for about 35 minutes we started rolling and cutting.
This dough was okay to roll but it did not want to be cut. We had to manually tear the cuts apart. And it was still very, very streachy. I also thought it would all stick but thankfully, in the boiling water, it came apart. I used a lot of salt in the water which did add a nice flavor to the pasta. It ended up fine and tasted good.
We basically followed their lead on the cod but it came out a bit salty. Also, despite our best efforts, it stuck to the pan a little bit. It was thankfully not over cooked but it was salty. Meredith liked it more than I did. Also, we used chives as a garnish/side.
Meredith found a few recipes and made a white wine sauce sans cream/milk, etc. It was okay but very thin. I like the shallot and leak scraps in it. I though they were good even if the sauce was thin.
Finally, we combined the beets we were going to use with some purple majesty potatoes and roasted them with olive oil, garlic and seasonings. It was funny because they were very hard to tell apart until you were in a different light. They were also good.
I had an interesting observation when making this. I have noticed that every time I have made pasta (not including ravioli), the seemingly straight strands twist a lot after coming out of the water. If you look back, this is fairly evident from the pictures. Today, while eating, I remember reading a thing about different dough kneading techniques and one of the things they said about using the stand mixer (my preferred method), was that it creates twisted gluten strands. I wonder if that is what was happening in the pasta and the twists cause them to curl in the heat of the water. Of course, I could imagine the twists counter acting each other but maybe a trend prevails. Just a thought. Maybe next time I will just use the food processor and compare. In that case, it is fully kneaded in like 3 minutes which seems too fast but we will see.
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Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1006, 2011-02-19_222259
Saturday, February 19, 2011, 11:20 AM
These were pretty easy for breakfast. We basically sautéed onions, peppers, some low(er) fat bacon and anything else that sounded good. We then added it to a pammed pyrex dish and poured egg in it. We did it in the microwave until it was done. It made somewhat of a mess in the microwave but nothing too bad. We cut them in half when we took them out and made one regular and one open-face sandwich.
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1002, 2011-02-19_112017
Thursday, February 17, 2011, 10:11 PM
This was roughly based on the recipe below but we made some major changes to make it healthy. First of all, we used almond milk instead of cream/milk. We also cut the butter and used Smart Balance (less of it too). Finally, we did it without a pie bottom and used Pillsbury reduced Fat crescents as a toping. We used lite Jarlsberg on top.
Honestly, it wasn't incredible. It just lacked some flavor. I do not think the missing flavor was butter but I do not know what it was. It just didn't taste like a "pot-pie". Oh well.
The artichokes were the canned ones we rinsed really well and topped with garlic, seasonings and a tad of bread crumbs. They were still rather salty
Point wise was okay. The mushroom stuff had very little points itself. The pillsbury was almost exactly 2.5 per sheet and there were 4 on the topping so it wasn't awful.
Torta Salata ai Funghi [Savory Mushroom Pie] (from Fresh mushrooms)
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Original Wordpress ID and Date: 999, 2011-02-17_221147
Thursday, February 17, 2011, 09:34 AM
We basically followed the recipe below on this one with only a few changes. I do not know the exact type of lentils we used but we used the ones with the lowest nutritional information. A few other changes were: Chopped the celery very fine and kept it, used some canned tomatoes (about half a can), used less pasta (about 4 oz) and it was whole wheat, skipped the parsley (forgot it), added chicken Better Than Bouillon to the water.
It was pretty good. I think it needs more tomatoes next time to help enhance the flavor. Other than that, I do not know what else we could add. It was not as good as our lentil soup last time.
Pasta e Lenticchie (From Mario Batali via The Food Network)
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Original Wordpress ID and Date: 996, 2011-02-17_093416
Thursday, February 17, 2011, 09:29 AM
The idea for this came from something Trader Joe's had but was very high in points. So, we decided to make our own. I read a bunch of recipes but most only called for buffalo sauce on top and not in the meatballs. Martha Stewart's recipe did have it in there so it is largely based on that.
We did not actually use butter but did just use Frank's Red Hot to get the same flavor. Also, we had to grind our own chicken. I read a few things on it and just used the food processor (and let the dishwasher clean the bowls afterwards.
I am not copying the recipe because I really didn't follow it very much. I cooked them at 400 for about 10-15 minutes.
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 993, 2011-02-17_092919
Sunday, February 13, 2011, 08:19 PM
We were faced with a dilemma for Valentine s Day. We didn't want to go out but we cook all the time so what makes it special. So, we decided to go a bit all out. We made a three course meal and cares less about calories, etc (though, the main course was not too bad).
The idea for these was based on this Epicurious post but we based a filling from the recipe below. We quartered the cheese and halved the spices, except for garlic.We just minced it all together. Also, we skipped the walnut oil
Most notably with that is we made out own mascarpone cheese. I do not remember the recipe for the cheese but it is heavy cream that is cooked then you add an acid. We used lemon juice. After sitting overnight draining, it thickened. Also we made a balsamic vinegar reduction. Again, I do not remember the recipe but you basically just reduce vinegar. Also, we did not use pine nuts
I should note that the cheese is not at all good for you, but we didn't need to use too much. We used 1/4 cup and had a lot of leftover.
The sandwiches were good. The beets did not have a huge amount of flavor but they looked really cool. The cupids arrow plate designs were Meredith. They looked good.
The beef was based on Ina Garten's recipe below. We followed it pretty closely except we halved it. Also, we used reduced fat, thick sliced, bacon instead of what they called for. And we used the more expensive, but more tender and less fatty sirloin steak. The only other change is we did not have the pearl onions. Also, we cooked it longer.
This was very, very good. It had a lot of flavor and we really enjoyed it. It took some time but was not overly difficult. We will definitely do this again. We bought really cheap red wine for it but it worked fine. One problem with putting the whole pan in the oven is when I took it back on the stove, I forgot it was in the oven, OUCH!
If we want to make it healthier, we may try turkey bacon. The thing is, surprisingly, turkey bacon and the reduced fat stuff have comparable nutrition information. But, based on the amount of fat left in the pan, I do not buy it. Oh well, it was worth it and not too bad.
The patatas bravas were just like last time. I again just threw it together. One interesting thing is I tasted the sauce and it didn't seem right. Meredith tried it and instantly identified that it needed the red wine vinegar. So, in the future, I need to make sure I remember that one.
We made the zabaglione based off the recipe below but used kaluha instead of Grand Marnier. It was pretty good itself. We didn't want to make too much because it was all egg yolk but it was enough. We also served it cold so as to not melt the bowl.
The real star was the chocolate bowl. Meredith had originally wanted to make these as a surprise (and kicked me out of the apartment to do so) I ended up helping when she wasn't sure if it would work. I do not know where the recipe is from but it basically entails chocolate covering an air-filled water balloon. The thing to be careful about it not using the chocolate when it is too hot because it will pop the balloon. From our own experience, when that happens, it shoots chocolate everywhere. For better or for worse, we found that they chocolate stayed melted to pretty low temperatures.
Actually, we think that our problem may have been that we used too high quality of chocolate. It was too soft. It melted easily and was very sticky. Still it worked well enough well. The center of the bowl had a hole but on top of the plate, it was okay. I do not know if the hole was from removing the deflated balloon, which was not easy, or just there. Also, with the high quality chocolate, it was so rich that eating the bowl was a bit much. Next time, we will use junkier chocolate.
We served it with blackberries and a dark chocolate heart (also fashioned by us).
Mascarpone Filling (From The Gilded Fork)
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Beef Bourguignon (From Ina Garten via The Food Network)
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Zabaglione (from Bon Appetit)
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Original Wordpress ID and Date: 983, 2011-02-13_201944