What I Made for Dinner :: Pork Kakuni (豚の角煮) and Bok Choy over Rice Noodles in Soup

What I Made for Dinner :: Ara-jiru (あら汁)

I was browsing the fish section at the Korean market and noticed that the salmon heads were reasonably priced. I was in the mood for a new kind of soup and quickly googled ara-jiru (あら汁), basically a miso-based fish scrap soup.

It's really quite hearty with carrots, potatoes, daikon radish, nappa cabbage, and scallions. As an added bonus for my daughter, I added abura-age (fried tofu 油揚げ). You can use any kind of fish scraps to flavor the broth.

[leftovers with rice makes a delicious & filling meal]

Sadly, no one else seemed to like it, and I was stuck eating a 6-quart pot full of soup! The problem with ara-jiru for people who aren't used to eating fish is that it can be bony, which means extra caution -- and work! -- when you eat it. Also, although salmon is a fairly universally loved fish, it can be quite fatty and fishy when cooked this way. Maybe it was all just too much for my kiddos?

What I Made for Dinner ... and Lunch ... and Breakfast :: Nabe (鍋)

Now that it's getting colder here in the Mid-Atlantic, Japanese hot pot (nabé: 鍋) will be making its periodic appearance on our dining table. It definitely warms you up, you can use a wide variety of ingredients, and you can really stretch it out over several meals.

For dinner I made our standard version: sliced pork, meatballs (pork, but I've also made it with ground chicken), lots of nappa cabbage, tofu (regular and fried), mushrooms (enoki and shimeji), and shirataki noodles.

For lunch the next day, the husband and I enjoyed the leftovers with udon noodles cooked directly in the broth.


And, for its last iteration, I used the leftover broth to make ojiya (おじや), a rice gruel. Add cooked rice directly into the gently boiling broth and let it simmer until most of the broth is absorbed by the rice. (You can use leftover rice or freshly cooked rice.) Add an egg (just break the egg directly on to the rice and mix it up with a spoon) and thinly sliced green onions.

I'm obsessed with yuzu kosho paste (柚子胡椒) right now so I used it as a condiment for all three dishes. It adds such a nice citrusy saltiness with a slight kick to it.

What I Baked for Dessert :: Apple Pie & Apple Tart

My husband and son are huge fans of apple pie. Our autumn season used to includ pie-baking, but I've fallen out of the habit in the last five years or so. Pie is one of my favorite foods as well, but I'm intimidated by making my own crust and ashamed that I use store-bought (although that doesn't stop me from using it or scarfing it all down!).

I had an abundance of apples this month because I kept buying them (plus, we went apple picking) and not eating them. A sure fire way to use the apples and guarantee they'll be consumed is to bake them in a pie, so I made two tonight: Martha Stewart's Classic Greenmarket Apple Pie (this is a pretty close Martha Stewart recipe, and this is the exact recipe on someone's blog) and a Rustic Apple Tart.

I must be a little rusty with my pie-baking skills because I didn't fill it with enough apples, in my opinion. I used a combination of Fuji, Gala, Stayman, and Honeycrisp (I think ... I kinda lost track of the different varieties I bought) for the pie, and Gala and Honeycrisp for the tart.

They weren't my best pies but they were certainly tasty! I still have some apples left so I'm sure I'll be doing more baking in the very near future, much to my husband's delight.

What I Made for Dinner :: Pappardelle with Creamy Chicken Sauce

I love it when dinner comes together with what I already have at home. I was feeling a little lazy and didn't have a lot of energy to make an elaborate Sunday Night Dinner, so I scrounged around in the fridge/freezer and the pantry and found this recipe online :: Pappardelle with Creamy Chicken Sauce.

I thought it would be a bit bland, but if you season the chicken liberally and salt the pasta water, it doesn't really require a whole lot more. I added coarsely chopped cauliflower because we had some left over from the night before, and it added a different texture and an additional creaminess to the dish.

What I Made for Dinner :: Shepherd's (Cottage) Potato Pie

My son told me he was craving Shepherd's Pie the other day and, right on cue, I came across this Shepherd's Potato Pie that looked so pretty. As a reward for attending an all-day babysitting course without complaint, I made it for him tonight.

Did you know that if you make a Shepherd's Pie with any ground meat but lamb, it's called a Cottage Pie? So, technically, this is a Cottage Pie because I used ground beef. I upped the amount of corn in it because no one in our family likes peas.

It looks kinda fancy with the layered slices of potato, but I prefer the version with mashed potato on top. The sliced potato didn't cook up as softly as I like and still had a slight bite to it that I wasn't fond of. But the filling is really tasty so I'll definitely be keeping the recipe for future attempts at Shepherd's Pie.

What I Ate for Dinner :: Green Pig Bistro

[steak tartare with fried quail egg & chips]

[bone marrow with toast and caramelized onions]

Green Pig Bistro

1025 N Fillmore St, Arlington (Clarendon), VA 22201
(703) 888-1920

What I Made for Dinner :: Kabocha (Japanese Squash) Soup

http://www.justonecookbook.com/recipes/kabocha-squash-soup/

What I Made for Dinner :: Sunday Night Beef Stew

I used the Pioneer Woman's recipe for the beef stew, and served it with farro and sauteed kale. For the stew, I threw in some fresh thyme while it stewed, and because I didn't have turnips, I subbed in potatoes.

What I Made for Dinner :: French Onion Soup

The weather is cooling down here, which means I'm gearing up for a lot of soup making. I bought a ten-pound bag of onions at Costco the other day and had a stale baguette so I decided to try my hand at French Onion Soup.

I used this recipe from Good Dinner Mom and although mine didn't turn out exactly like hers, it was still pretty tasty. My husband liked it more than the (frozen) version we get at Trader Joe's. It is quite a bit of work and it's a lengthy process, but a good portion of the cooking time takes place in the oven, which is almost entirely hands-off cooking.

The kids aren't huge fans of onions, but I think they enjoyed the cheesy bread part so, all in all, not a failure!

Butterflies like books too

Challenge completed three months early!

What I Baked for Dessert :: One Bowl Apple Cake

My friend shared this recipe she found from a random person (Jean Dodd) on Facebook. I had some old-ish apples and a breakfast I needed to bring something to so I gave the recipe a go. It got the thumbs-up from my husband and I was asked for the recipe at the breakfast, so I'm guessing this was a successful recipe!

Ingredients:

• 2 eggs
• 1-1/4 cups sugar
• 2 heaping teaspoons cinnamon
• 1/2 cup applesauce
• 6 medium Gala, Fuji, or Honey Crisp apples
• 2 cups flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350°. In a large bowl, mix the eggs, sugar, cinnamon and applesauce. Peel and slice the apples and add to mixture in bowl (coating as you go to keep apples from turning brown.) Mix together the baking powder and flour and add to the ingredients in the bowl. Mix well (best with a fork) until all of the flour is absorbed by the wet ingredients. Pour mixture into a greased 9x13 pan, two 9″ round pans, or one 9” round pan and a 12 cup muffin pan. Bake for approximately 55 minutes (muffins will finish baking in about 45 minutes).

What I Ate for Dessert :: sweets from Baked & Wired

My husband was kind enough to bring home desserts from Baked & Wired for our 15th anniversary. He had the Honey Pecan Bar and I got the very rich Jolt Brownie.

What I Made for Dinner :: Moussaka

What I Made for Snack :: Roasted Tomatillo Salsa

What I Read for Fun :: Wild Things: Acts of Mischief in Children'sLiterature

What I Made for Dinner :: Chicken with Onion & Mushroom Dijon Sauce

When I graduated from high school, I had no idea that in 20 years' time I would be trading recipes and Instagram photos of food with my high school friends. But here I am, asking for links to recipes, drooling over restaurant pics, and sharing my own cooking tips with the same friends I used to gossip about boys with!

This recipe for Chicken Breasts with Mushroom and Onion Dijon Sauce came from my friend G, a highly-accomplished career woman, dedicated mother and wife, and gourmet home cook. There's a really good chance I haven't seen her in 15 years; it's been so long I don't recall at all the last time we saw each other in person. But social media -- despite its many ills -- has reconnected us and made us aware of our mutual interest in food. There's something special about being connected through food, and sharing a meal, even if it is across the country!

I adapted the recipe to suit what I had in the fridge at the time. Despite all of the changes, it still tasted the way I imagined it should taste, and it was quite good:

• I only had about a cup/cup and a half of mushrooms, and I used a brown onion instead of a red onion.
• I used chicken thighs; I'm not a fan of chicken breast.
• I didn't have any rosemary so I substituted fresh thyme.
• Instead of cream I used half and half.
• I only had whole grain Dijon mustard so I used two tablespoons of that, thinking it's a bit stronger than regular Dijon.

G's dish looked much better than mine ... served with leftover sticky rice "risotto," my dish looks like one big beige blob! But the sauce was delicious and easy to make. For the most part, I usually have the ingredients necessary to make this dish so it'll be good to keep this recipe in mind when I need some variation in my chicken rotation. 

But I do have a question about using dairy to make a cream sauce ... what can I do to prevent the dairy from curdling and separating? I guess I could temper it a bit, but this recipe calls for a quarter cup of cream, which really isn't much. How do I temper that much liquid? Should I bring the cream (or half and half, in my case) to room temperature before adding it to the pan? Mix it with the stock first? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

What I Made for Dinner :: Roast Chicken on Wild Mushroom Sticky Rice “Risotto”

I make a lot of chicken ... maybe too much chicken for my family's liking. But it's an easy protein to work with and it's usually not too expensive. And it must be my personal childhood preference working its subliminal magic because I'm often drawn to chicken recipes when I'm browsing Pinterest.

The recipe for Roast Chicken on Wild Mushroom Sticky Rice "Risotto" jumped out at me the second I saw it: 1) it uses skin-on dark meat chicken, 2) wild mushrooms!, and 3) I love sticky rice but I've never made it. 

The recipe calls for six cups of cooked sticky rice. I wasn't sure how much uncooked rice to prepare to get six cups of cooked rice, so I just followed the directions I found in the instruction manual of my fancy-schmancy rice cooker. I used three cups of uncooked rice and I ended up with waaaaaay too much cooked rice. I didn't measure the cooked amount, but, as you can see, the rice alone filled up a 9x13 (3 quart) baking dish and half of a 7x11 (2 quart) baking dish. Next time, I only need to make half the amount of rice ... maybe even less than that!

The chicken quarters were a bit unwieldy in the dish and I only used three instead of the four the recipe calls for. I baked some leftover boneless, skinless thighs for the kids (they're not very good at taking meat off of the bone) and that worked out just fine. I'm personally a fan of skin- and bone-on chicken, but next time I'm going to break down the leg quarters so it fits in the baking dish better.

As for the mushrooms, I used Baby Bellas, enoki, and brown shimeji. As is expected, the mushrooms cook down considerably, so if you like mushrooms, cook a lot of them! My kids aren't fans of mushrooms so my husband and I got to enjoy what they didn't eat.

All in all, this is an easy recipe to follow. You just have to give yourself extra time to precook the sticky rice. I made mine in the morning and let it cool at room temperature until the evening. I would also suggest not dumping in all of the chicken stock at once. Depending on how creamy/soft you like your "risotto," you may want to adjust the amount of liquid you add, especially if you're not following the recipe exactly when it comes to how much cooked rice you'll be using. I feel like I used too much chicken stock and my rice ended up a bit too mushy.

What I Made for Dinner :: (Non-Vegetarian) Tofu Burgers

What I Baked for Dessert :: Berry Slab Pie

You'll notice that my slab pie looks nothing like the one from the Better Homes and Garden recipe! But it was pretty good, nonetheless. 

What I Ate in LA :: Summer 2014

Some of the food I consumed while we were in LA ... just the stuff I photo-documented!

[Double-Double @ In-N-Out (near LAX)]

[Kotteri Ramen @ Asa Ramen (Torrance)]

[my sister's strawberry pie]

[tons of Korean food @ Mountain (Gardena)]

[Japanese grilled mackerel (鯖の塩焼き)]

[Mottainai Ramen with thin noodles and an egg @ Mottainai (Gardena)]

[Buttermilk Honey Fried Chicken and Biscuits @ The Kettle (Manhattan Beach)]

[Camarones Borrachos and Shrimp & Octopus Ceviche Tostaditos @ Coni'Seafood (Inglewood)]

[Kai-Shio (seafood salt) ramen @ Jidaiya (Torrance)]

[Prime Rib @ Lawry's (Beverly Hills)]

[Huevos Divorciados @ North End Caffe (Manhattan Beach)]

[Tsukemen @ Tsujita LA (West LA)]

[Omakase (and sushi for Maya) @ Maruhide Uni Club (Gardena)]

Bucato (Culver City) where they don't let you take pictures ...

Fried Cauliflower Sicilian Style ($10)

Stringozzi cacio e pepe ($13)

Maccheroni di Busa (duck ragu, pecorino sardo) ($15)

Panzanella ($14)

Octopus with chickpeas, escarole, roasted tomato, and nduja ($18)

[Bourbon Pecan Pie Ice Cream Sandwich @ Coolhaus (Culver City)]

[Carnitas Tostada and (complimentary) flan @ Zacatecas (Hawthorne)]

[Uni Club Donburi @ Maruhide Uni Club (Gardena)]

[Tokyo Aosa (seaweed) Ramen @ Jidaiya (Torrance)]

[Jidori Chicken and Waffles @ Workshop Kitchen + Bar (Palm Springs)]

[pork shank from the summer menu @ Cork Tree California Cuisine (Palm Desert)]

[Omakase @ Okumura (Encino)]