What I Made for Dinner :: Moroccan Chicken with Carrot Puree

http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Moroccan-Chicken-With-Carrot-Puree

What I Made for Dinner :: Chicken Baked in White Wine, Olive Oil, and Parmigiano-Reggiano

http://www.alexandracooks.com/2010/09/22/chicken-legs-baked-with-white-wine-olive-oil-making-the-most-of-a-whole-chicken-part-two/

What I Made for Dinner :: Shrimp and Andouille Gumbo

I'm in one of the cooking groups for my women's club, and a couple of months back we learned some dishes from New Orleans. The gumbo recipe we used was based on this recipe from Emeril Lagasse, with a few tweaks.

Since then, I've been craving gumbo and I decided to make it this weekend before the weather warms up too much. I tweaked it further because the dish would've been pretty expensive to make otherwise. I omitted a whole bunch of the seafood, lessened the amount of shrimp, and swapped the chorizo for andouille. And my understanding is that it's sacrilegious to use both okra and filé powder, but I did anyway because the amount of okra I used wasn't enough to thicken the gumbo to the consistency I like, and the filé imparts a nice earthy aroma.

But one of the things I want to mention here is that it is hard to use whole wheat (WW) flour to make a roux! Usually, when you make a roux with bleached all-purpose (AP) flour, you can use color to gauge its "doneness." But with WW, it's brown almost immediately and you have to go by time and smell, which can be difficult. I felt like I was screwing up the roux because I had no clue when it was done. Besides the fact that I think I added too much oil and it looked too liquidy to me. In the end, I added more flour, soaked up most of the oil with multiple paper towels, and used less than half of the remaining chocolate-colored roux. I tasted it a bit (and it is not tasty!) to make sure it wasn't too burnt, and then proceeded with the recipe. Next time, I'm sticking to AP.

In the end, though, the dish tasted great and I'm so glad we have leftovers!

What I Ate for Lunch :: various dishes with herbs

[lavender cupcakes]

I'm in one of the cooking groups for my women's club and this month's theme was cooking with herbs. Besides these adorable mini lavender cupcakes, we also made rosemary & spice-roasted cashews, herb and ricotta crostini, salad with herb vinaigrette, and herb-infused salmon en papillote (you can even cook it in the microwave!).

What I Made for Dinner :: Sausage, Potato, and Spinach Soup

We're a few days from April and yet there are very few signs of spring. The weather gods teased us with a 73 degree day on Thursday, but by this morning, we were in the low-20s with the wind chill.

I could eat soup year-round, but a hearty soup is perfect for an evening like today's. I found a few new soup recipes from Damn Delicious, and I tried the Sausage, Potato, and Spinach Soup. My prep time is always longer than what the recipe says, so I clocked in at about 50 minutes, start to finish. But here's why: I peeled all of my potatoes, and because I used half a pound extra, I let the soup simmer for a few extra minutes. I love lots of onion in my soups, so I cut two instead of just one. And because of the extra vegetables, I used 8 cups of chicken stock.

Considering its ease and the relatively short time it requires to cook, it's flavorful and filling. I'm definitely adding it to my soup rotation.

What I Made for Dinner :: Japanese Fried Chicken Wings (手羽の唐揚げ)

http://www.saveur.com/article/recipes/japanese-fried-chicken-wings-teba-no-karaage-recipe

What Ian Made for Dinner :: Mashed Potatoes

Ian volunteered to help make the mashed potatoes tonight. It's one of his favorite foods so it's good for him to know how to make it.

What I Baked for Dessert, Pi Day Edition :: Blueberry Custard Pie

http://www.the-girl-who-ate-everything.com/2014/08/blueberry-custard-pie.html

What We Made for Dessert :: Blackberry Fool

Maya and I made Blackberry Fool, following the recipe in the picture book A Fine Dessert: Four Centuries, Four Families, One Delicious Treat (written by Emily Jenkins and illustrated by Sophie Blackall).

It's basically whipped cream with fruit purée folded in. It's rich and creamy with a slight tang from the blackberries.

What I Made for Dinner :: Meatloaf

My mother makes a mean meatloaf. I grew up eating her fantastic version so it was never an "Ugh! Meatloaf!" kind of dish for me. It was moist and juicy, but not soft and squishy like there was too much wet bread in it. And she always put a surprise in her loaf: either a whole hard boiled egg or an entire sausage!

And because I was a spoiled, ungrateful child, I never learned to make any of my mom's amazing dishes. So, when it came time for me to make meatloaf on my own, I had no idea how to make it. In fact, I was so clueless, my first attempt entailed me slapping a package of ground meat into a pan and throwing it in the oven. Yes, just ground meat.

Thankfully, I've learned a bit about cooking since then and my few attempts at making meatloaf have been edible. Tonight's version is from Nina Planck's The Real Food Cookbook: Traditional Dishes for Modern Cooks and it's a keeper for its ease and tastiness. My one tweak would be to not use two whole slices of bread; I wish she had given an exact measurement of how much breadcrumbs to use.

Ingredients:

• 1 onion
• 1 carrot
• 1 celery stalk (optional)
• 1 small bunch parsley or sage
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• salt & pepper
• 2 slices bread
• 1 pound ground beef
• 1 pound ground pork --> my version had Italian sausage instead (see Step 5 below)
• 2 eggs
• ketchup or tomato jam

Directions:

1. Heat the oven to 350°F
2. Dice the onion, carrot, celery, and herbs.
3. Sauteé the vegetables in olive oil until soft. (I only used a tablespoon or so of olive oil because of the high fat content of the ground meat I used.) Season with salt & pepper. 
4. Toast the bread, let it cool and dry out, and make into bread crumbs using a food processor.
5. In a separate bowl, mix the ground meat, eggs, and bread crumbs. Instead of the ground pork, I used Italian sausage, so I took it out of the casing and mixed it really well with the other three ingredients. Combine the sauteéd vegetables with the meat mixture.
6. Spray a loaf pan with non-stick spray (mine is olive oil spray), and coat the bottom of the pan with ketchup or tomato jam. Pack the meat mixture firmly into the pan and spread more tomato jam or ketchup on top. 
7. Bake for an hour, or until the meatloaf is bubbling. Let it cool a bit before serving.

[The ketchup looks like a ghastly shade of red, but it keeps the meatloaf moist in the oven.]

The Real Food Cookbook: Traditional Dishes for Modern Cooks
by Nina Planck
photographs by Katherine Wolkoff 
published by Bloomsbury © 2014
246 pages; $32.00

What I Made for Dinner :: Chicken Tagine with Preserved Lemon, Green Olives, and Thyme

Chicken Tagine with Preserved Lemon, Green Olives, and Thyme (serves 4; marinating time, 2 hours; on the stove time, about an hour)

Ingredients for the tagine:

• 8-10 chicken thighs or 4 whole legs
• 1 tablespoon olive oil with a pat of butter
• 2 preserved lemons, cut into strips (I used half a jar of the new TJ's preserved lemons, rinsed and patted dry. You could probably use the whole jar if you like it lemon-y.)
• 6oz cracked green olives
• 1-2 teaspoons dried thyme or oregano (I used fresh thyme because I had some to use up)

Ingredients for the marinade:

• 1 onion, grated
• 3 garlic cloves, crushed
• a 1-inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled and grated
• a small bunch of cilantro, finely chopped
• a pinch of saffron threads
• freshly squeezed juice of 1 lemon
• 1 teaspoon coard sea salt
• 3-4 tablespoons olive oil
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

[steamy pan = blurry photo]

Directions:

1. In a bowl, mix together all the ingredients for the marinade. (I used my mini-food processor to chop up the onion and ginger.) Put the chicken in a shallow dish and coat in the marinade, rubbing it into the skin. Cover and chill in the refrigerator for 1-2 hours.
   
2. Heat the olive oil with butter in a tagine or heavy-based casserole dish/pan. I would suggest removing as much of the chunky parts of the marinade (bits of onion, garlic, etc.) from the chicken before browning in the oil to prevent burning. I wasn't very good about that and I had to cut the browning process short so everything else wouldn't turn black! After browning, pour the rest of the marinade into the tagine/pan and add enough water to come halfway up the sides of the chicken. Bring the water to a boil, reduce the heat, cover and simmer for about 45 minutes, turning the chicken from time to time.
   
3. Add the preserved lemon, olives, and half the thyme. Cover again and simmer for another 15-20 minutes. Check the seasoning and spring the rest of the thyme over the top. Serve immediately. (I served it with couscous, obviously!)

From Tagine: Spicy Stews from Morocco by Ghillie Başan

What I Made for Dinner :: Super Bowl Edition

Top: Asian-Style Pork Nachos with Red Cabbage and Scallions

Left: Korea-style Chicken Wings with Soy Dipping Sauce

Bottom-right: Salty Lemon Chicken Wing (lighter-colored) and Miso Garlic Chicken Wing (more caramelized)

[Asian-style Pork Nachos, not shown with the red cabbage and scallion "salad," but it's a must-have when you eat it. So good!]

[Garlic Miso wings (back) and Salty Lemon wing]

Air-drying the chicken wings overnight after mixing well with a coating of egg white, baking soda, and salt. (For about two pounds of wings, I used 1 extra large egg white, 1 teaspoon baking soda, and 0.875 teaspoon of fine sea salt.) Korean-style Chicken Wings by Ideas in Food (scroll down for link to full recipe).

What I Made for Dinner :: Slow Cooker Pork Loin Roast

This is Trisha Yearwood's Slow Cooker Pork Loin Roast that I found via someone else's cooking blog. I served it with sauteed kale and Creamy Parmesan-Garlic Quinoa.

FYI, the website where I got the quinoa recipe seems to give my browser issues, so here are the directions in case you don't want to click through:

Ingredients

• 1 cup quinoa
• 1-3/4 cups chicken or vegetable broth
• 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

Directions

1. Rinse quinoa really well under cold running water in a fine mesh sieve. Drain well and set aside.
2. Heat extra virgin olive oil in a small saucepan over medium heat. Add garlic and saute until barely golden brown, stirring constantly. Add quinoa, then toast for 1 minute, stirring frequently. Add broth, turn heat up to high and bring to a boil. Cover and turn down heat to medium-low. Cook until nearly all the liquid has been absorbed and quinoa is tender, about 15 minutes. Stir in parmesan cheese before serving.

I don't know why I was surprised but the pork was really quite tasty ... and easy! It did, however, make me realize yet again that I need to get a fat/grease separator. I know it's a unitasker, but it would make life so much easier when I'm making sauces.

What I Made for Dinner :: Caramel Chicken

This Caramel Chicken recipe is from Bon Appetit magazine. I only used chicken legs, no thighs, so it cooked just a bit faster than the recipe says. It's really quite easy and delicious. Don't forget the green onions; it cuts the rich flavor of the sauce. I served the chicken with rice and roasted kabocha.

What I Made for Dinner :: Bibimbap

What I Made for Dinner :: Chicken Florentine Style

We eat a lot of chicken around here so I'm always looking for new chicken recipes to try. This one's a keeper :: Giada De Laurentiis's Chicken Florentine Style. It's not as labor- or time-intensive as the Chicken Florentine recipe I've made since college, and the sauce is good.

Although we eat a lot of chicken, I'm not usually a fan of chicken breast. It often cooks up too bland and dry for my tastes. But this recipe kept the chicken fairly moist and the sauce was flavorful. It might help to pound the breast a bit to even out the thickness, or cut the breasts in half horizontally if they're thick.

Bonus that you cook veggies with it, and the sauce helps the spinach be more palatable for those who aren't fans. The recipe calls for frozen spinach but I had fresh on hand, which worked just fine (I used two bags of the TJ's baby spinach).

What Ian Made for Dinner :: Bucatini with Butter-Roasted Tomato Sauce

Now that my son is in high school, it's really hitting me hard that I need to prepare him better for real life and surviving on his own. Chief among these tasks is cooking, cleaning, and laundry. Slowly, but surely, he needs to practice these skills so he doesn't end up as a ramen-eating, still-in-the-same-clothes-as-a-week-ago, I-live-in-my-own-filth college student. I'll settle for I-only-eat-ramen-sometimes-and-I-changed-my-clothes-yesterday college student!

Anyway, I came across this recipe for pasta (we didn't have Bucatini) with butter-roasted tomato sauce and it looked easy (and good ... mmm, butter!). The kids were still on winter break so I told Ian he was making dinner and helped him get through the steps. It was pretty easy to assemble and required very little knife work. (I did help him with draining the pasta; poor kid has no arm strength and I was afraid he was going to spill boiling water on himself.)

[smashing garlic cloves = no need to use the knife for cutting]

Final verdict? I'll definitely have him make it again. The sauce was a bit more tangy than I imagined it would be, but I think more time in the oven (with a smidge of sugar) will tone it down. 

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.