> nommage

Linguine and Clams with Tomato-Fennel Salsa

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 02:22:00 +0000

i’m back! sorry for the super-long delay in posting (and sorry to myself for the super-long delay in cooking!), but i’ve been really busy with work.

but in any case, back to the linguine. i had some leftover basil and red onion in the fridge so i decided to search epicurious to see if i could find something that would use up those ingredients. and voila, linguine and clams with tomato-fennel salsa!

this was my first time cooking with a fennel bulb, and i was apprehensive because i don’t really like the taste of licorice. however, it really does add a nice background flavor to the pasta, so i had nothing to be afraid of! also, at the store, they had littleneck clams and manila clams. the littleneck ones were ginormous – i don’t remember them being that big (and i was afraid they were indeed too big for the dish) -- so i got the smaller manila ones instead. still tastes great!

i was also very (very) apprehensive because i only skimmed the recipe before deciding i wanted to make it, and there’s no picture of it on the site, so i didn’t know there was practically no sauce! i normally LOVE sauce because i’m afraid there won’t be any flavor with it, but alas, i was very pleasantly surprised. more than enough flavor to go around!

(my changes: whole wheat pasta instead of regular, omission of fennel seeds).

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some background as to a change in the type of recipes i’m going to be trying to make from now on—a couple weeks ago i went to the doctor for a checkup, my first in five years. and, as part of it, of course, they do a cholesterol test. umm, yeah. so i’m at 257 (you shouldn’t be over 200), so i have three months to diet (HA!) and exercise (double HA!) my way to better health before they put me on meds.

i’ve been eating healthy for the past three days now, and i must say, i’m quite proud of myself. i haven’t had anything junk-y and i haven’t even had major cravings for sweets. i’m going to meet with a nutritionist tomorrow to see if she can give me advice on how to curb my snacking pangs, though. wish me luck!

Salmon with Snap Peas, Yellow Peppers, and Dill-Pistachio Pistou + Käsespätzle

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Mon, 03 May 2010 05:21:00 +0000

let me start off by saying i have no clue what a pistou is. i thought maybe it was something you make with a pestle (pistou, pestle, get it?), but FINE FINE i just looked it up in wikipedia. oh. a pistou is basically a pesto without a pine nuts. hrmph. (which is a yay since imho that’s the worst part of a pesto!)

ah HA! i knew it! “Traditionally, the ingredients are crushed and mixed together in a mortar with a pestle, (pistou means pounded in the Provençal language).” i’m willing to bet there’s a common word ancestor there.

anyways, this is a blog about food, not about linguistics (unfortunately).

i’d been craving something salmon-y and found this recipe. i was a bit sketch on it because i don’t particularly enjoy dill (the bf does, perhaps a bit too much, but he’s not here so that fact is kind of irrelevant lol), and i don’t really enjoy pistachios, either (suffice it to say, i didn’t bother hunting for or using pistachio oil). OTOH, the combination sounded too good to pass up.

i’m also really unlucky with fish. either i seem to overcook it or undercook it; it never comes out just right, so i really was taking chances with this recipe!

link to recipe on epicurious.

the first thing the recipe called for was pistachios. do you know how hard it is to find them in my local slightly-ghetto supermarket? i had to get a pistachio snack pack! you’d think they’d sell pistachios with the shells removed, but i guess not. :\ “Art’s Good For You California Pistachios” LOL

i haven’t eaten pistachios since i was a kid, let alone cooked with them, so i didn’t know what to do with the little husks that kind of flake off. i tried putting them into a ziploc back and mushing them around to get the husks to fall off, but all i did was make a hole in the bag :\. some husks did pulverize into into a coarse powder, though, so it was slightly effective. i’m thinking i would have been fine if i left them there.

the recipe said to use a “heavy large skillet” so i brought out the ol’ cast iron. which i hate. it’s not only heavy but you can’t wash it and because of that it LOOKS gross. bah. well, i figure, i never use the damn thing anyways so i might as well, if only to say i got some use out of it.

toasting the nuts: (uhh, how do you know when they’re toasted? i just left them on until i smelled them roasting.)

that chopper i bought when i made the lobster mac and cheese came in very handy during this recipe! nut and herb chopping by hand = bull crap. lol so much better when you can just pound it out, literally!

it was at this time that i started making the spätzle, which i got at dittmer’s when i went there yesterday with dave (i don’t know why i’m regaling you with this; it’s irrelevant as well). suffice it to say, i’ve been wanting to go there for a long time and i stocked up on all sorts of german goodies! there were several brands of spätzle there but i trust knorr. even if the packaging is in english. and even if it’s owned by unilever. (p.s. no leberkäse at dittmer’s? boo!)

here’s the completed pistou (*snort*). it was all very very approximate since i halved the recipe but didn’t really measure anything out. “eh, this looks like the right amount of dill.” “eh, maybe a bit more oil.” you get the picture.

(i was worried it wasn’t going to be enough, but spoiler: it was!)

i used one yellow bell pepper. seriously this sad specimen was the best one they had. i’mma have to start going to the safeway instead of the lucky, even though it’s 5 minutes further away. :\

popped the sliced bell pepper into the skillet and started getting the sugar snap peas ready. psych! (or however you spell it.) thanks to modern technology all’s i needed was a pre-prepared bag! open, dump. easy. yayyy for my lazy ass.

by now the spätzle was all done. i just found the way some bits got stuck in the colander to be a cool picture. so here you go.

i grated up the last of the cheese (a whole block of cheddar, i think) from the mac and cheese adventure and added it in. s&p and voila, easy käsespätzle. if i had some bacon, i’d have tossed that in, too, but alas, no.

here are the cooked vegetables. let it be known i normally dislike stir-fry everything, too, but another spoiler: it was good! (i find stir-fry vegetables to be really bland; for some reason i prefer boiled!)

ok, the fish. eek! i didn’t like the fact that there was color added and that it was raised on a farm, but at least it was fresh. (maybe i should just buy my seafood from the chinese supermarket. i’m always under the impression it’s better quality there? i dunno. i mean, how often do you see people buying anything at the butcher/seafood counter in a uhh, white supermarket? rarely, if ever. how often do you see people buying stuff at the butcher/seafood counters at a chinese supermarket? all the time! so much so that you have to take numbers!)

the fillets, with s&p, in the skillet:

i flipped:

and then the tricky part – when to stop cooking! ugh. i thought it was done, but then i cut open the thickest part of one of the fillets and nope. i’m not making sushi here!

i put them back in the skillet, but i think i put them in for slightly too long. the picture in the recipe had some raw meat showing, but i took mine off too late. i remembered from watching cooking shows that meat will still continue to cook for a while after you take it off, so it’s best to remove early, but i didn’t know exactly when or how much it’d keep cooking. oh well.

here it is, though, all assembled! i don’t know why i even bothered to put it in anything fancy, since a) i’m not serving it, and b) it was a b!tch to scoop back out with the high sides :\

all plated up, with the käsespätzle:

so, how did it taste? i was very pleasantly surprised! the dill and green onion in the pistou (*snort* again) made it light and refreshing, perfect for a(n early) summer-ish day here in the bay area. i couldn’t really tell there were pistachios (other than the texture), which was totally fine by me. i was worried that since the pistachios were pre-salted, it would make the pistou too salty, but that definitely wasn’t the case (i didn’t add any extra). to my surprise, the fish and the vegetables were cooked very well. the fish wasn’t too overdone and the vegetables were not too crisp (i don’t like them too crunchy) or too mushy.

hooray me! totally easy recipe, and really yummy! seriously the hardest part was cracking open all those pistachios. i’m still a bit wary of cooking fish, but i think with practice i’ll be ok.

i don’t think i’ll ever be ok with using a cast-iron skillet, tho. bah!

Carrot Cupcakes with Ginger-Cream Cheese Frosting

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 22:42:00 +0000

around lunchtime i was hit with a craving for some cupcakes, and apparently the only cupcake place around me has gotten some mediocre ratings on yelp. well, then! i decided to just go ahead and make my own. besides, it’s been a while since this house was filled with the aroma of freshly-baked goods anyways.

flipped through some recipes on marthastewart.com but decided they were wayyyy too complicated for a quick indulgence, so went back to my old standby, epicurious, and found this one.

extra bonus because the recipe doesn’t require cake flour, so i had most of the ingredients i needed (hooray for getting rolling on this whole cooking thing—the kitchen cupboard is getting well-stocked!).

how keeyute are these cupcake liners i found at the supermarket?

i’ve always cut off the tips and top parts of carrots—is that what people do? i’m not sure why i started doing that.

and y’all, what do you do with the pieces that don’t make it through the food processor? i’m too lazy to cut/chop/shred these leftovers by hand, so i just toss ‘em :\

because my cheap, non-baking ass doesn’t have a sifter, i just dumped the dry ingredients into a bowl and whisked them using the whisk attachment on the kitchenaid. i stopped and manually whisked around a bit to make sure there was nothing stuck at the bottom.

(EDIT: forgot to mention i increased the cinnamon from 1/2 tsp to 3/4 tsp, and in hindsight, i think maybe some nutmeg would also have been nice.)

note to self: paddle attachment likes to fling flour everywhere. turn mixer to a lower speed, pour slowly, or turn off all the way.

after the addition of the carrots and crushed pineapple (which, btw, are a pain to drain):

luckily the dried ingredients that were stuck on the side of the bowl got incorporated once the batter got bulked up with the veggies. (and yes, i’m counting these as vegetable servings.)

into the cups! (and yes, i wiped off all the excess dough on the pan before popping it in the oven.)

while the cupcakes were baking, i tried to make some poor man’s ginger-cream cheese frosting by combining some grated ginger with canned (tubbed?) cream cheese frosting. i grated some ginger but it came out really really wet (and it didn’t give me as much as i thought it’d give me, especially after squeezing it dry/drier), so i supplemented with some ground ginger powder (don’t ask why i have it; i forgot which recipe that went with lol).

i tried to sample it while i was mixing, but i couldn’t really taste any ginger, but i didn’t want to overdo it, just in case. i probably ended up adding 3/4 to 1 tsp of ginger powder?

the cupcakes, fresh from the oven:

i’ve been writing this post since they came out, but i don’t think they’re cool enough to frost yet. :\ ugh, i hate waiting!

btw, i’m writing this post using Windows Live Writer. pretty nifty! it can do fancy things to pictures!

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UPDATE:

the cupcakes have cooled and are frosted. i’m pleasantly surprised. the cake isn’t too sweet (it could maybe have benefitted from another 1/4 cup of sugar, but maybe it’s because i have a total sweet tooth), and the frosting is quite good, with just a hint of ginger. nom nom!

good enough, at least, that i felt comfortable giving 3 away to my neighbors :P

Lobster Macaroni and Cheese

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 01:15:00 +0000

i was browsing around foodnetwork.com looking for things to make when this recipe for lobster macaroni and cheese caught my eye. i love mac and cheese, and i love lobster, so how could this go wrong? (eep!) besides, the bf really likes the neelys, so that was another point in its favor.

i went to target to get another pot (since we only have one big pot and, by watching the video, you can see it goes a lot better if you have two big pots) and saw these mini bottles of white wine! perfect for someone like me who only uses wine for cooking and would otherwise just waste an entire bottle! i don't think i would have noticed except some other people were looking at box wine (is it finally cool to drink box wine?) and these four-packs were on the same shelf.

the first step was to grease a pan with butter. umm, are there any better ways to do it than (literally) by hand? so messy :\ (tho this would pale in comparison to the mess that would come later...)

another thing i bought at target! a chopper! (since we all know by now how terrible i am at chopping!) unfortunately one of the shallots i got at the store had started going bad (i think? it had like black stuff inside) so i only had one instead of two :(

i really wanted to use my favorite shape of pasta, campanelle, but my local slightly-ghetto supermarket didn't have it so i used penne like the recipe called for.

i was all about approximation cooking this. thanks to google, i discovered that 5 tbsp is about .3 cups, so i used a little less than 1/3 of a cup (since who wants to count out 5 tbsp? not i!). i'd also never used tomato paste from a tube before (i usually get canned), but since the neelys used tube sauce, i did, too.

now it gets sketch. in the video the roux looked nice and compact, like dough, but i couldn't get it to look like that, so i added an extra tablespoon or so of flour.

well, then the recipe said to add in the white wine and let it reduce. uhh, i added the wine and there was nothing to reduce! the clump (it was now a clump) stayed a clump! i even added maybe 50% more wine, but it still stayed clumpy. oh well. i gave up. :P

once i added the cream (and paprika and cayenne -- both very approximate measurements -- and bay leaf), though, it looked OK. btw, a big F U to whoever invented milk cartons!

i totally overbought cheese, too (which is pricey!!!). i got two packages each of the gruyere and the cheddar, but it turns out i only need one. now i know -- 8 oz of cheese shreds to be about 2 cups. hrmph. oh well. now i just need to find another cheesy recipe (can't be hard) to use it up with.

the recipe said to wait until the sauce could coat a spoon, but umm, it was able to coat a spoon since the beginning, so i just waited a couple minutes for it to reduce (you know, just for show), then added the cheese.

now, i should have just been smart and bought frozen lobster tails, but no. i had to be adventurous and opt for live. O_O wtf was i thinking? i was hoping at the (chinese) grocery store they could just give me tail, but no, he just quartered them.

i knew i was in for trouble, but it didn't hit me until i took them out of the bag. W.T.F. was i supposed to do with raw quartered lobster?!

i pulled on a pair of latex gloves and went to town, just trying to pull as much meat as i could out of every corner of the lobster, but i soon gave up and was satisfied with just extracting larger chunks of meat. um, did you know the meat really really sticks to the shell? ugh. this was all i was able to (err, was willing to) extract from two lobsters. what a waste of money! ($33!!!)

oh well. good enough! of course, by this time, the pasta had become nicely accustomed to the shape of the colander :\ and yes, the lobster is already in the sauce, but of course you can barely see it given the tiny amount that actually went in!

it all came out nicely in the pan, though. topped with panko and chopped parsley.

and after coming out of the oven, still all bubbly:

ready to eat!

verdict? hmm. not bad. definitely could use some lobster. i've taken 3 bites already but haven't yet encountered any lobster meat lol. i also had to add a bit of s&p; it could probably have used more of both during the preparation process. i can really taste the wine, too -- it's obvious i used too much. not really a bad thing, though.

it's really oily, and i don't know if that's because i used way too much butter in buttering the pan? but still, it's good. i probably won't make it again, but if i do, i'll be sure to use frozen lobster :\

p.s. love love LOVE the panko!!! it gives it such great texture!

UPDATE: p.p.s. i think it might be the cheese that's making it oily. i remember while the sauce was simmering after i added the cheese (while i was trying in vain to get lobster meat...) streaks of oil would rise up to the top. hmm.

and yes, it needs moar lobster!

Buffaloco Moco

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 20:31:00 +0000

as i was getting ready for bed last night (after a great Oribtal concert, btw, but that's another story for another blog) i was overcome with a hankering for some loco moco. which is odd because i've only ever had a bite of a friend's at a zippy's in honolulu, so i'm not really quite sure exactly how it's supposed to taste.

one recipe seems to be quite popular, from big island grinds. truth be told, it's not really that complicated, but i figure something to go off of was better than nothing!

at the same time, i was craving buffalo meat, but again, i've only ever had once before about a decade ago when i was trying random meat (like ostrich, etc.) -- haven't had it since. so, what a perfect chance to combine those two cravings for an adventure -- loco moco made with buffalo meat! so i used the big island grinds recipe but took a couple of additional liberties, which i'll mention during the course of the post.

of course, i needed something to snack on while cooking, since i didn't really eat a decent dinner last night.

i used a sweet onion -- quite a bit of it, actually, maybe a good 1/3 to 1/2 cup or so. i really need to get a slapchop (warning, page is really annoying) or something. you can see as i was chopping (i'm left-handed, so it goes left to right) the pieces kept getting bigger and bigger. i only ended up using the left half, though.

one pound of buffalo meat, with onions and salt and pepper.

after made the patties, though, i thought to myself, "self, you should probably add some garlic, too!" cue a spoonful of minced garlic (from a jar, thankyouverymuch).

the recipe called for not-lean beef, and i remember reading somewhere that buffalo is extra lean, and since i'm with paula deen, i used a lot of butter in the pan when cooking the patties up.

while the meat was cooking, i looked ahead in the recipe and saw i needed to mix some flour and water to make a thickener for the sauce. uhh, what? O_o i just dumped 1/4 cup of flour in a bowl and started adding water. clearly this wasn't enough:

i added more and got something slightly runnier than glue, and decided to stick with this.

by this time, the meat had finished cooking. note to self -- extra onion means extra-fragile patties. (the patties were so thick i had to turn down the heat and just let them cook a bit longer than stated in the recipe.)

is beef stock the same thing as beef broth? i got this because the recipe called for "good" beef broth and the container looked fancy. yes, that's how i judge, by the cover. p.s. we have to import our beef stock from canada? really?

i added the flour thickener and thought i could just whisk away the lumps, but no! eep!

i googled and it said you could put the gravy in a blender to try and remove the lumps, but we don't have a blender(!) so i tried the kitchenaid with the whisk attachment. umm, even on high, it wasn't de-lumping the gravy :\

then i remembered we have a stick blender! yay! which worked great!

i fried up some eggs:

and assembled:

how does it taste? not too bad. i'm quite proud of myself for trying this, but next time i'll use real beef or maybe add some barbecue sauce to the buffalo since it came out quite bland due to its leanness. maybe add a bit of pepper on top. or furikake?

Clam and Corn Chowder

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 03:04:00 +0000

BONUS NOM!

i wasn't planning to cook anything today, but i really was craving some sort of chowder (clam, corn, cheddar cheese, whatever) this afternoon, so i made a rash decision i'd probably have more luck (and definitely more fun, given how great yesterday's experience was) making it myself rather than having to hunt a good restaurant down.

i've made shellfish once (a martha stewart mussel recipe) and i've been to the oyster farms up in marin, but i've never actually bought and cooked clams before, i don't think.

i found this recipe on epicurious and well, it had both clams and corn and bacon, so how could i say no? i called to make sure my local semi-ghetto supermarket had clams in, and they did, so off i went.

they had these "fresh venus clams" (in the back, not the oysters in front) but hey, like i said, it's not a fancy supermarket and i thought they'd be at least double the price, so i wasn't quite sure how good they would be. i had no idea if venus is a good type or a crappy species (i mean, now that i'm eating the chowder as i type, it's definitely not a bad clam).

at home, i set up my ipad(!) using the epicurious app and started getting at it. (i probably should have encased it in a plastic bag or put some saran wrap over it, but i figured it wasn't a messy recipe -- it ended up just fine.)

the recipe called for "baking potatoes", but i had no idea what was considered a baking potato (none of the potatoes at the supermarket were marked "baking", at least :P) so thanks to google, i now know reds or yukon golds fall into that category. (i swear, i don't know what i did before god invented smartphones.) the red potatoes looked kind of meh so i went for the more decent-looking yukon golds.

i was gonna add four strips of bacon (since who doesn't like bacon) even though the recipe only needed three, but i got thick cut so i figured that'd be enough. (i'm glad i didn't add another strip since the chowder ended up almost too salty, even though i added no salt, but i did use salted butter.)

you're not supposed to use the rooty tips of green onions, right? (i'm pretty sure i never saw them being used, so i dumped them.)

i really need to learn how to use a knife. it's painful (luckily not literally) trying to chop things!

the butter, green onions, and bacon:

i was going to use canned corn, but someone mentioned in a comment on the original recipe that they used frozen, so frozen it was! also glad i got the sweet white corn. mmm.

i've never used clam juice before (in fact, i wasn't even really sure they made such a thing) -- i expected it to smell more umm, clammy, but really it didn't have an overpowering smell.

here's everything before the addition of the clams:

the ingredient list stated "well scrubbed" clams so i bought a brush that i shall use just for scrubbing food. (i also used it on the potatoes, though i'm not quite sure why since i had to peel them anyways lol.)

the clams added:

some of them opened up right away, some others took a bit, but i had no duds!

i was really worried because my potatoes hadn't cooked all the way through by this time, even though according to the recipe they should have, so i turned the heat down to a simmer and went and put my laundry away. came back and it was all good. added the milk and cream: (the black thing on the left is my spatula/turner doohickey)

ladle some in a bowl, add some toast, and voila!

verdict? well, like i said, it came out a bit saltier than i expected, but as i'm nearing the end of my first bowl, either i've gotten used to it (likely) or it wasn't really as bad as i thought (also kinda likely).

sooo easy to make! i'll never buy canned chowder again! most most delicious, and for sure i satisfied my craving.

Tava (Cypriot baked lamb and potatoes with cumin and tomatoes)

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 00:06:00 +0000

this week's recipe comes from @catty who tweeted about how great it smelled while it was cooking last week. i may not have a fancy le creuset pot like she does, but i looovvvee lamb and never really get to make it for myself because chaddy's not a big fan.

i guess this recipe is a take on a take, since she already subbed carrots and sweet potatoes for regular potatoes. i figure heck, since she's already using sweet potatoes, i'mma use yams, since well, they're sweeter. (at least, according to the website i googled while at the grocery store, since i'm always confused which is which and the differences between them.) i'm afraid they might not hold up well or be just completely wrong on taste, but i'm sure it'll be fine. i think. maybe.

the recipe called for a kilo of lamb, which, if my memory serves me correctly, is about 2.2 lbs. the smallest leg of lamb they sold at the store was 2.9, but i trimmed a bit of the fat off and figure the bone had to add a teeny bit of weight, so i probably just came out a bit over.

i'm clearly not a butcher, so a lot of meat went to waste.

i'm not really an onion-cutter, either (despite the fact that they are my favorite vegetable), but there was plenty to go around, so i didn't feel bad about not really giving them the attention they deserve.

and i didn't notice this at the store, but haha, this yam looks like a...

teehee. ok, yes, i'm immature.

it was at this point i noticed that my white casserole dish wasn't gonna be big enough :\ (good thing i had a 13x9 baking dish or i'd have to make an emergency run to the store)

OH! i finally got a chance to discover cumin. i've smelled this smell in many places during my travels but never knew that was what it was. the smell totally brings me back. india, morocco, egypt, turkey maybe? in any case, it evokes memories of all those places.

doesn't this look absolutely wonderful? i've always groaned when tv chefs extol the wonderful vibrant colors of their dishes, but this really was impressive. maybe not so in the picture, but in real life, it really was eye-popping. (this was taken after all the ingredients come together but before mixing them.)

the recipe called for 4-5 tomatoes but since i'm not a big fan i just left it at 3. there were two choices at the store -- roma or hothouse. i got the hothouse since they were on the vine and thought they were prettier. (and on sale.) *shrug* who knows.

nom nom nom! just had to add the butter on top and into the oven it went. oh, i added pepper on top in addition to just the salt as the recipe directed because i don't think i added enough the first time around.

the recipe said to "dot the butter" but i wasn't sure what that meant so i just cut it up into little bits and placed them randomly on top.

it's in the oven now (ugh, why so looonnnnggg) and i can't really smell anything yet from the other side of the house, but i think that's because i have the window open and the neighbor is using some sort of adhesive (they're redoing their kitchen) so the vapors from that are kind of overpowering anything in here.

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ok i just went to tilt the dish from side to side and yum it's definitely starting to smell good! unfortunately still 2 hours to go :\

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two hours up, 45 minutes left. i can't believe my kitchen actually smells like this. i'm going to have to turn on some cypriot music! the sweet potatoes aren't holding up too well, but i'm pretty sure regular potatoes would be just as mushy after two hours.

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sh!t! i was wondering why, with 15 minutes left, there was so much liquid left in the pan (despite @catty's assurance that at the beginning of the 45 minutes, it'd still be quite liquidy). i realized i forgot to turn the heat up to 400. bah! i don't know what to do now. 15 minutes left and we're still very soupy in there!

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well, it came out liquidy, but easy enough to strain :P

well, since the recipe is already twice removed from authenticity, i've turned on some moroccan music courtesy last.fm and i'm armed with my trusty coke zero.

the meat is nice and soft -- it's very clear it's been slow-cooked -- but unfortunately so is the yam. you wouldn't know by looking (or maybe you would) but the yam is pretty much mush at this point. i guess that's a bad thing, though. the texture works well with the rice and the meat, and like i said, i'm a fan of yam, so really, you can't go wrong.

hmm. there's something a bit too familiar about the dish. I think next time I'm going to add more cumin or saffron or something to punch it up a bit. still, definitely good, although i have a sneaking suspicion i did something wrong so it could be better.

Creamy Matzo-Apple Kugel

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 02:32:00 +0000

i'm still kicking myself for not cooking anything last week, but i was swamped with work. slightly better this week, but i forced myself to cook despite the workload (and i'm glad i did). i wasn't sure what to make, then i saw easter recipes on the food network website and thought oh wait, it's passover too, and passover is jewish and i know a jewish dish, kugel!

i've only ever had (and made) a noodle kugel, so this matzo-based one (with fruit!) was completely new to me. the recipe is here.

first up, the apples.

the recipe called for mcintosh apples but the store didn't have any. sure, they had about 8 different varieties, but oh no, not mcintoshes. thanks to my good friend google, i discovered you could substitute gala apples, which they had. i wasn't sure how large mcintosh apples were so i got 5 galas (which i think should be ok because a reviewer on the recipe page said she used 5 apples).

i didn't realize until i got home that this recipe would involve peeling apples. umm, yeah, so i'm 32 and i don't really know how to peel one. my parents always did any necessary peeling while growing up, and i developed an allergy for raw apples during puberty (omg yes i just said puberty in a food blog post) so didn't really ever deal with them since. anyways, thanks to @mztizzle for cluing me in to a vegetable peeler! (otherwise i may have sliced off a finger, klutz that i am.) sorry for the super-yellowish in this picture but i'm not knowledgeable enough about photoshop to fix. (the auto options really whack out the colors.)

btw, let me tell you, it's easier to peel vertically vs. horizontally. i thought i could make those long spiral peels, but nope! i'd be lucky if i could get more than an inch going horizontally.

sauteing the apples:

thanks to wiki, i now know why it said "NOT FOR PASSOVER" on the matzo box. (but it's ok since i'm a goy. apologies if you're jewish and want to come over to eat some. not like i know anyone who'd take me up on that offer, but i digress.)

before soaking and crumbling:

after soaking and mixing with the beaten eggs:

the cooked apples and raisins:

in the kitchenaid, the sour cream and cream cheese mixture (i used extra cream cheese because i lurvs it), topped with the matzo and egg mixture, then sugar and cinnamon. i didn't add salt because i used salted butter instead of unsalted.

i forgot to add the apples and raisins until i started mixing, but it all came together just fine. (thank goodness for the kitchenaid, or my arm would be dead).

ready for the oven!

and here it is out of the oven! mmm, it smells great!

off to take a shower while it cools, then i'll give it a shot. i can't wait!

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ok, it's cooled down enough for me to try it. yum! it's pretty good! it tastes just like an apple pie but it's dry. you know what would make it great? cool whip. err, cool hwip. must stop by the store tomorrow. oh and also, if i ever make this again, i'mma double the amount of raisins. not enough for my taste.

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oops! just did some research and discovered that cool whip is not ok for passover because it contains corn syrup, which is chametz. well, since i f'd it up already by using non-passover matzo, i figure the harm's already done!

ah, forgot to mention i didn't put any nuts in because i normally don't like cooked nuts, but now that i'm eating it, i think it would benefit from the extra texture that the sliced almonds would provide.

Shrimp Etouffee with Steamed Rice

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 19:51:00 +0000

i was looking around this morning for something to cook, discarding recipes left and right because i didn't want to make another dessert and so many recipes required rolling out dough (including the maultaschen i want to make), and we don't have the counter space for that. :\

but i was browsing my main recipe source, the food network, and it dawned on me to make an etoufee! anyways, i did some searching and found a highly-rated recipe that didn't rely on crawfish (since, according to my brother, it's really only available if you get it shipped). i've only had etouffee a couple times (at most), with the most memorable being at a brunch i went to with a friend while i was still living in chicago (around 1999-2000ish). stuck with me that long, that was how good it was! i was worried it was going to come out too stew-like (i really don't enjoy stews), but it looked good enough to take a chance on.

and, even though i don't really like emeril (he kinda reminds me of an ape, the way he looks and hounds over the stove as he's cooking, tho i'm sure he's a nice guy), i couldn't resist.

the recipe

here are the changes i made to the recipe:

i don't like celery, so i took that out and substituted more onion (which i love)
i'm too cheap and lazy to make emeril's essence, and i couldn't find it at the store, so i just used cajun seasoning that came in a big shaker container thingy
too lazy to peel/seed/chop tomatoes, so i got diced tomatoes in a can (organic [on sale], no salt added)
i don't like long grain rice, so i used medium grain
i didn't make the fried mirliton strips

here's how it went:

i was unsure how to cook the rice (i don't normally eat rice) so i followed the directions on the rice package. i used 2 cups rice and filled to the 3 cup line in the pot, as directed. wolfgang puck says "rice perfect" and i was going to doubt him, but it did come out just fine!

i used frozen shrimp (on sale, $12 for 2 lbs, still $$$, imho), so i had to defrost them.

one of the onions i bought looked like it was starting to sprout(?) so i tossed it. good thing i had extras!

chopped up onions and green and red bell peppers

look ma, i'm making a roux!

vegetables cooking in said roux

a hint for peeling mechanically deveined shirmp (well, maybe not a hint, but something i discovered which may be obvious to everyone else) -- pull the shell down from the sides towards the legs to pull them off. usually the shell will tear towards the tail, that's fine. hold on to the body of the shrimp and pull on the tail and it'll disconnect along with the shell, leaving just nommy shramp meat! (too bad i didn't discover this until halfway through.)

oh, before i forget, i don't drink wine either, so when it said to use a dry sherry or white wine, i didn't know what to get. i ended up with a clos du bois sauvignon blanc. it called for 2 tablespoons, although i think i may have ended up adding significantly more by accident (maybe nearing 1/4 cup? LOL). (and now i have a bottle of wine in the fridge that may never get used again.)

here it is, all coming together:

and on top of (invisible) rice:

the final verdict:

WHOA, nomma! so delicious! i'm definitely making this again, whether for myself or for a party. it was a teeny TINY bit too salty but i think that's because i added the salt as specified in the recipe but used salted butter?

Pumpkin Bread with Cream-Cheese Frosting

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 20:37:00 +0000

clara s. was talking about this recipe and it sounded so delicious i had to make it. i'm not a big fan of nuts in bread, so i left those out.

of course, i didn't have any bread pans so i ordered some disposable ones with my safeway.com delivery. umm, they were soooo the wrong size. i'm not baking a loaf of wonder bread, here. so, i had to go out and get some real pans. luckily only $3.40 each or so.

the recipe says to "process the cream cheese until smooth" in the food processor. well, my cuisinart only came with to applicable blades, and i wasn't sure which to try.

the bigger one says "metal blade" (orly, you don't say), and the smaller one says "dough blade". i didn't think i needed anything chopped so i chose the dough blade since well, i'm baking. umm, maybe i should have read the instructions.

this kept happening, so i had to keep stopping to scrape the sides:

eventually, i think it turned out ok, albeit a little runny?

anyways. the dry ingredients:

melting the butter. (this ramekin only barely held the melted contents!)

my parents always believed in adding an extra egg to batter, so i did. *shrug*

i forgot we had a costco-sized bag of sugar. eep!

i'm glad i checked the can again -- it was double-sized (the recipe only called for 15 oz). now i have half a can of pumpkin and i don't know what to do with it :\

dough is done!

the middle layer cream cheese filling. i swear it looks runny :\

and now, the FAIL. i clearly do not know how to estimate "1/2". (it was use half the batter for the bottom, then the cream cheese, then the final 1/2.). GAH. lol. well, um, yeah. this will be interesting.

the loaves are currently baking in the oven now. i'm afraid to check on them. :\

UPDATE/VERDICT:

well, they turned out quite nice, and it tastes great, too! if it still is this good, the recipe must be pretty fool-proof. the cream cheese filling tastes a bit hmm....custard-y, but it's not bad. nommmmm.

i'm going to give the bigger loaf to our neighbors -- they've had me and chaddy over for taco nights several times and i haven't ever reciprocated.

Chocolate-Haupia Pie

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 00:18:00 +0000

thanks to vy n. for the recipe! (see the bottom of the entry if you'd like to try this yourself.)

the can-opening looked to be going ok.

but umm, fail. the fancy-schmancy can opener didn't go all the way through the metal, so i had to pry up a section of the lid :\

the filling is done cooking!

and because i like to live dangerously, i added a dollop of nutella(!) to the chocolate half.

letting the coconut and the chocolate halves cool before combining. (and yes, i'm using a graham cracker crust even though the recipe called for a regular crust. clearly danger is my middle name.)

it is also clear that i do not understand the concept of "divide evenly".

whipping up some cream:

all done!

first slice

verdict: i've only ever had chocolate-haupia pie once, straight from Ted's Bakery on the north shore. this pie is great, although the filling is a bit too firm -- not silky enough(?) (maybe less cornstarch next time) and too chocolately (maybe 3/4 the amount of chocolate). in any case, i might just have to get a second slice to round off this breakfast of champions.

recipe: hmm now that i'm looking at it again, i think i may have accidentally used double the cornstarch, which would explain my consistency problem! also, i will say the coconut extract is not optional, since mine didn't come out coconutty enough for me.

Ingredients:

1 9-in. unbaked pie crust
1 cup milk
1 can coconut milk (14 oz.)
1 tsp. coconut extract (if you don't have it's ok)
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
1/2 cup cornstarch
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1/4 cup sugar

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2. Prick crust bottom all over with a fork, weight it if desired. Bake crust for 15 minutes, or until golden brown. Set aside to cool.

3. In a medium saucepan, whisk together milk, coconut milk, coconut extract and 1 cup sugar.

4. In a separate bowl, dissolve the cornstarch in water.

5. After bringing coconut milk mixture to a boil, reduce to simmer and slowly whisk in the cornstarch mixture. Continue stirring over low heat until thickened—about three minutes. Divide evenly into two bowls.

6. In another bowl, microwave chocolate until melted.

7. Mix chocolate into one of the bowls of coconut pudding, then pour mixture into the pie crust, spread and let sit for about 30 min to cool.

8. Pour the remaining bowl of coconut pudding on top of the chocolate-coconut pudding mixture and spread smooth. Try not to mix the flavors together! Refrigerate the pie for an hour or more.

9. Whip the heavy cream with 1/4 cup of sugar until stiff peaks form. Spread whipped cream on the pie surface. To make it pretty, you can use a star tip and pipe the cream in rosettes. Sprinkle chocolate shavings on top.