Month 8 day 21: Corn fritters and caramel-lacquered pork belly

I spent a lot of today cooking! Both of these recipes are from restaurants, so they were a little involved but very impressive.

Today I made:
Corn Fritters with Roasted Tomatoes and Lime Aioli, Cooking Light September 2010
Caramel-Lacquered Pork Belly with Quick-Pickled Honeydew, Food & Wine September 2010

Can you see the corn fritters and roasted tomatoes under all that arugula?? The picture in the magazine had just a few sprigs, but the recipe called for a half-cup each layer!
The main downside of this recipe is just that the tomatoes roast in the oven for 1.5 hours. Ours might have been in a little longer (1.5 hours is enough time to get distracted!), and in the end they tasted like sun-dried tomatoes but with some juice still. We liked the roasted tomatoes and think they added some good flavor, but I wonder if this recipe could be turned into a just-as-good quick recipe by using fresh tomatoes or cutting up some sun-dried ones for inside of the corn fritters or something like that.
The corn fritters are kind of like a pancake batter with scallions and fresh corn inside. They're quite small, but they cook quickly and are straightforward.
On top is a piece of prosciutto and a lime (and lemon in our case, since I ran out of lime juice) aioli.
I think if I were going to make (and photograph) this again, instead of making a tower, I would put a bed of arugula on the dish and then alternate the fritters and tomatoes overlapping (like a Caprese salad). It is sort of intimidating and difficult to eat something that is towering anyway!
This recipe is almost vegetarian, and I think it could easily work for breakfast, lunch, brunch, or as an appetizer.

Not too long after lunch it was already time to start on dinner, which takes 4 hours in addition to overnight curing :-P Although, it was a little faster for us because we could only buy pre-sliced pork belly instead of one two-pound slab and I didn't wait for it to cool down fully (I didn't understand the logic of this step, unless it was supposed to slow down cooking in the second roast, but given our thin slices I figured it was a lost cause anyway, so no point in waiting).

Although this recipe takes a long time, there aren't really that many steps-- they just each take a while. It's rubbed with some sugar and an excessive amount of salt, which is supposed to get washed off later but didn't! This was super fatty and super salty-- I am pretty thirsty now. But since I've been getting dizzy every time I stood up today, it's probably good to have eaten this! Raise the blood pressure up a bit.

Then the pork is roasted (braised? There's some water in the dish), and it leaked out sooo much extra liquid. I'm not sure if that was juices from the meat or fat that was getting liquified. Then it's supposed to just cool completely. Meanwhile, you heat some sugar until it caramelizes, then stop the cooking with some water and then add a bit of flavors-- fish sauce, tamarind paste, chile, and lime juice. Then the pork is added back in and roasted again until everything gets coated, concentrated, and crunchy.

During one of these long waits, the honeydew is just cut up and mixed with some flavors and "pickled" for about an hour.

This was our first use of the Dutch oven!! It did a great job. I wish I had taken a picture when it came out of the oven! It was completely covered in solidified caramel, but after heating up some water everything scrubbed off perfectly. So much nicer than our cast iron skillet :)

We liked this, but I hope in the future I can wash off more of the salt-- it definitely required a lot of white rice and honeydew to balance it out. The flavors were rich and good-- it did seem like a restaurant recipe! The honeydew scent reminded me of something I used to get at a restaurant as a kid maybe, but I think it used to be with cucumber instead of honeydew. I only used half the melon thinking that we might not like this, but it was pretty good after all.

Month 8 day 20: Herbed pork and lima bean salad

Today I made:
Argentinian Pork, Cooking Light September 2011
Butter Bean Salad with Lime and Mint, Food & Wine September 2010

This pork was quick (other than an hour of marinating), and its chimichurri sauce is really good with a lot of fresh herbs. I speeded things up even more by cooking the pork sliced instead of whole. G really liked it (we always love tenderloin), and ate a lot-- we ended up finishing off the entire 1 lb tenderloin! We have a little sauce left, so we will have to find something to put it on. I think it could be used with many other dishes.

I liked this salad, but I think G just thought it was okay. It was a little bit tangy from the buttermilk and lime, but also a little minty, and the texture of the beans was soft and melt-in-your-mouth. The recipe specified to use frozen lima beans if you couldn't find fresh butter beans, and that's what I did. Lima beans just seem like a boring, lame food, but they are good in this salad :) I think this would be a unique and tasty dish to bring to a potluck, picnic, or BBQ.

Month 8 day 19: Not-so-cheesy-mac-n-cheese

Today I made:
Creamy, Light Macaroni and Cheese, Cooking Light September 2011
Served with red-pepper and garlic kale and some desserts from Flour Bakery

The picture is from my new iPhone! How does it look?

We made this large recipe because we were joined by the rest of our cohorts from the executive council of our dorm from 2011. One of us has since graduated and moved away, but he visits every once in a while, so it is nice to get the group back together to catch up. We all enjoy no longer having to worry about how things are going in the dorm :)

This was a "recipe makeover" by Cooking Light-- normal mac-n-cheese normally has ~900 calories (really??), but this one has 390. Because, its orange flavor comes basically entirely from butternut squash. They used fat-free milk (I used whole milk), a little bit of yogurt, and then the cheeses are Gruyere, pecorino Romano (I used mostly Romano of the non-pecorino variety, since we don't like that), and Parmigiano-Reggiano. As many of the reviewers pointed out, it's not really that cheesy of a flavor, and these are all fairly expensive cheeses (compared to cheddar) (although most of them we had in our cheese drawer already). It's fine, but I don't know if I would make it again-- I don't care about the calories in mac-n-cheese at this point of my life :-P

Month 8 day 18: Thai Beef Salad

Today I made:
Thai Beef Salad, Cooking Light September 2010

Although this is a "superfast 20-minute recipe," I'm not sure they counted washing and cutting things. I didn't have much time to make this before ceramics, so I ended up making the salad and sauce before class and cooking the steak and eating after. The steak was pretty rare when I first took it off as you can see, so I put it back on the stove while I ate... and then it burnt. Oh well.
I'm not really that excited about steak, and the salad was just too copius. The sauce was really good though! I will keep the sauce recipe.

Month 8 day 17: Spiced chicken and okra

Today I made:
Spicy Honey-Brushed Chicken Thighs, Cooking Light September 2010
Skillet-Roasted Spiced Okra, Food & Wine September 2010

This chicken was really fast and good. It's just rubbed with a mix of spices and then broiled for a total of 12 minutes, with some honey and vinegar brushed on towards the end. Thighs are always so juicy, and without the bones they are so thin that they cook quickly. This recipe was a big hit with others too, with 66 reviewers! I think that 20-minute recipes probably get used a lot more than most. I will definitely file this one away for future busy weeknights.
Anyway, I love any recipe that doesn't have me messing around with raw meat too much-- when I was in high school, I basically flat out refused to touch raw meat. I remember my mom asking me to set up the BBQ for some turkey legs once, and I was really dreading it... I kept hoping she would be back early from her meeting. Eventually I did have to put out the turkey legs by myself, but I used utensils, and I was still really grossed out. In college when I had to start cooking as part of a cooking club during the dining-hall-less summers, touching raw meat was a pretty big hurdle for me. Now I obviously touch raw meat often, but I'm still paranoid about contamination, so if I can just rub in some spices and never touch it again, I'm happy.

The okra was also really fast, and while G was ambivalent, I thought it was good too. The okra are cut in half lengthwise and cooked on the skillet, cut side down first, then flipped and sprinkled with a ton of spices. Cooking it this way dries it out so it's not as slimy as okra normally is. It ends up tasting somewhat smokey as if it were grilled-- really nice, I thought. It's sprinkled with lemon at the end, so it's a little tangy too. It was a familiar flavor, but I couldn't figure out what it reminded me of exactly. One of the reviewers suggested to use the spice mix on popcorn! Seems like a good idea.

Today in the drying rack I noticed two baking sheets, bought at the same time, side by side. One of them got "ruined" once when we left it in the oven after using it (covered in olive oil), and then forgot about it and turned on the oven to preheat later. The oil got burnt on, and was really sticky for some reason. We set it aside hoping to figure out how to clean it up, but eventually I started using it with foil on top whenever I made a recipe that I suspected might leak out and mess up the baking sheet. Now, this is basically my go-to baking sheet. I love it because I can do anything to it, and not have to worry about it losing its nice clean finish. It's well on its way to becoming as seasoned as the ones at your mom or grandma's house. In contrast, I really did ruin two roasting pans when I roasted poultry in them without enough water on the bottom (so the drippings charred). They had a different type of non-stick finish that just peeled up after the incident. So good work, baking sheet-- way to hang in there!

Month 8 day 16: Biscuits and Gravy and Chicken Marsala

Today I made:
Whole Wheat Biscuits with Creamy Sausage Gravy, Food & Wine September 2010
Chicken and Mushrooms with Marsala Wine Sauce, Cooking Light September 2010
Served with steamed green beans and egg noodles

Brunch this morning was biscuits and gravy-- not so photogenic! :-/
I always thought that gravy was the unhealthy part of this dish, but actually it's the biscuits that have tons of buttermilk and butter. The gravy has some whole milk and meat, but is otherwise pretty unoffending. It doesn't really have sausage, just ground turkey and some spices-- I guess that once you remove sausage casing it's basically just that, though. Interestingly, it also contains chipotles in adobo, which doesn't seem to fit with the rest of the ingredients. Taste-wise it definitely sticks out too-- this was pretty spicy! I might just use one next time instead of the two it calls for. G liked the biscuits a lot. It made more than 6 biscuits, but still we had leftover gravy-- too much!

The chicken marsala was good too. It was really juicy-- especially since we used chicken thighs (and pork chops-- I'm trying to go through some of the meat in the freezer). G says, "I just like mushrooms in wine sauce!" We used dried shiitake, dried porcini, and fresh normal mushrooms. The sauce was really good, but I don't think the tomatoes fit that well. Again, I'm not really into cooked tomatoes. Next time I will probably leave them out. But yes, there probably will be a next time for this recipe :) It's not that hard or long, and it packs a lot of umami. It's depicted on a bed of mashed potatoes, and I think that would be delicious with the sauce.

Today a new Dutch oven joined the family!

 I saw an ad for $30 4-qt Dutch ovens at Christmas Tree Shops, so we had a little adventure going over there-- like many places in the Boston area, it's only a few miles away but takes about an hour on public transportation :-P It's a really weird store-- lots of cheap (and cheaply made) items, tons of holiday decorations (including, but not limited to, Christmas), and random other items. G was unhappy because it was generic and there were only two Dutch ovens left on the shelf, and they were both pretty banged up. I figured it was bound to happen eventually though and bought it, but in the next door store (TJ Maxx) we saw Lodge Dutch ovens for $40. We ended up getting it and returning the other. Actually, I'm not sure if it's 3 or 4 quarts though-- we need to measure it still. But anyway, I'm excited to try it out!!

Month 8 day 15: Steamed fish and braised kale

Today I made:
Steamed Wild Striped Bass Bluefish with Ginger and Scallions, Food & Wine September 2010
Braised Greens with Tomatoes, Food & Wine September 2010

I've been cooking from F&W a lot lately! In addition to the feature on Southern cooking, there is also a feature on "An Indie Chef's Greatest Hits," which was the source of yesterday's chicken recipe, today's fish recipe, and this weekend's pork belly recipe (if we can find pork belly and tamarind concentrate). This steamed fish is very easy and fast, yet is flavorful from all of the fragrant ingredients. I would definitely make this again. There was no bass at Shaw's, and I asked the lady at the fish counter which would be the most similar. She called over someone else, who called over someone else, who called over someone else, who "likes fish" and was actually incredibly knowledgable. He suggested to use bluefish. It looks dark and purplish when raw, but it ends up very light when cooked. It was moist yet flakey.

The braised kale was meh. I'm just not that into cooked tomatoes, I guess. I would prefer fresh ones, especially when they are sunburst tomatoes, nature's popcorn.

Month 8 day 14: Tea-smoked (?) Chicken

Today I made:
Tea-Smoked Roast Chicken, Food & Wine September 2010
Sautéed Greens with Ginger and Sesame, Food & Wine September 2010

Roast chicken isn't normally a good week-night meal, and we didn't end up eating dinner until about 10 tonight. We had planned to make this earlier but had a hard time finding some of the spices-- star anise and Sichuan peppercorns I ended up getting, dried red chiles I ended up omitting and using red pepper flakes instead-- so we kept being unable to make it until now.
This recipe is a bit involved. It brines for 24 hours (although as a reviewer pointed out, can it be considered a brine without salt?), then is smoked for ~10 minutes over a bed of tea leaves, dry rice, and spices (our second chicken of the week flavored with sugary tea!), then it is finally roasted for a couple hours. Brining went fine, but I don't think I really smoked it. After the allotted time, there was no smoke when I opened it, although the sugar had melted into a gooey, sticky mess.
Smoke came later, while roasting-- the high temperature specified browned the skin quite a bit, and since the pan wasn't completely flat, the drippings were thin in one corner and burned, setting off our room's fire alarm (luckily, the room fire alarm is independent of the dorm fire alarm, so as long as you fan the detector and open the windows it turns off promptly).

G said it was good, but said that a Costco rotisserie chicken is just as good and much easier (>_<) This wasn't particularly *hard*, but starting a roast chicken at 7 pm is just never a good idea-- G was already hungry right when we got home and he didn't like waiting. Plus we couldn't find any chickens smaller than 7 lbs (the recipe was for two 3-pounders), so we had to cook for longer. It did have a distinct flavor that is common at Chinese restaurants (but we couldn't quite put our fingers on it), and the skin was really flavorful. I think the flavor mostly came from the brining though, not the smoking. If I make this again I will try to smoke for longer. I think it just isn't that successful on an electric stove.

The greens smelled really good while cooking, but were just fine-- nothing too special. I used a combination of watercress and spinach. It was a little bitter.

Month 8 day 13: Oven-fried Chicken with Cornbread and Radish Pickles

Today I made:
Oven-Fried Chicken Breasts, Food & Wine September 2010
Peppered Corn Bread, Food & Wine September 2010
Gingery Pickled Radishes, Food & Wine September 2010

This was a solid set of recipes. The September issue of Food & Wine is about American classics updated and best recipes from the "New South" (whatever that means). These were from that section.

I made the radish pickles last night, and by today the red had completely leeched from the skin and colored the pickling liquid and permeated deep into the radishes. I learned from past mistakes and greatly reduced the amount of sugar. It calls for 1/2 cup, but I just poured in an unmeasured amount... but probably just a couple of tablespoons. I thought these were very good. G doesn't like pickles, nor does he like radishes. So he was a sport and ate one or two, but that was it. These remind me of the pickled radishes that used to come with the gyro wraps at a Mediterranean place near my college.

The oven-fried chicken breasts were marinated all day in a sweet tea mixture with some spices (I left out the tabasco). Then they're breaded in a flour with more spices before being pan fried just a bit, and then put in the oven. Meanwhile, you caramelize some onions and add in wine, chicken broth, and cornstarch to make a gravy. I accidentally reached for the baking powder instead of the cornstarch and only realized it after wondering why it wasn't thickening. Once I added the cornstarch for real, it just thickened up a small amount, but was still pretty thin.

 Luckily the corn bread and the chicken breasts bake at the same temperature. The corn bread is sort of normal except that it has both buttermilk and sour cream (I used yogurt). So the sourish flavor was really strong (and good)! It's baked in a hot cast-iron skillet, so the crust gets nice and crispy. I liked this corn bread more than the one we normally make, but G likes that one better because it's sweeter. I might just make this one with extra sugar and see if he notices (^_^) As is, it only has 1 Tbsp of sugar.

I will keep all three of these recipes, and I think they go well together too, both in flavor and in timing. You can put the cornbread in the oven, start the onions caramelizing for the gravy, bread and sauté the chicken, put the chicken in the oven, finish up with the gravy, and by the time the chicken is cooked through the gravy and bread will be done too.

Month 8 day 12: Arepas and Etouffee... with guest chef G!

Today I made:
Arepas with Poblanos, Bacon and Eggs, Every Day with Rachael Ray September 2011

Today *G* made:
Chicken-and-Andouille normal-sausage-from-the-freezer Etouffee, Food & Wine September 2010

For lunch I made these arepas. I was intrigued because I always see food stands at festivals in Boston (or just in touristy areas like the Commons) selling arepas, and they always look so good but I'm not usually hungry. So great if I could learn to make them! Unfortunately they didn't turn out great-- I ran out of corn meal, but didn't reduce the milk accordingly. Instead of being able to form patties I had to just pour it into the pan like pancake batter. The corn was violently sputtering everywhere and got a lot of oil spots on my shirt, and the arepas kept sticking to the pan instead of letting me turn easily. I think we would have to try it again sometime :-P The eggs were just normal eggs. The chiles were hotter than we were expecting, since we've used this kind before in many dishes (chile rellenos, for example) and not noticed their heat. We'll keep the recipe, and I'll try again sometime with the full amount of corn meal. We found out this morning that Thich Nhat Hanh was in Boston today leading a meditation! But I chose to make lunch instead of going. Where are my priorities...

Tonight G both cooked AND did the dishes! As I went to slice the second half of the onion (this being the first ingredient I started to prepare), I sliced my thumb instead. It was kind of deep (but will be fine), so we decided it was best for me to just sit down with my hand in the air. My hardest job was to decide which カピバラさん band-aid to use. I opted for this one:

And I am glad that my manicure isn't too chipped, so it can wait until the cut heals to be redone. Ceramics tomorrow might suck though :(

G comments that once everything was chopped, it was pretty fast and easy to make this dish. He was impressed by the roux, I think. We just used a random sausage from our freezer, as I am trying to clear out our overflowing meat drawer. It was not the right kind, but it was a little spicy, so I think it did fine. Haha, I just noticed-- I'm pretty sure he did not use whole wheat flour as suggested, nor did he ask me where it was. Normally he likes to follow recipes closely, but he doesn't care for whole wheat usually (at least in pasta). I guess he used his chef's discretion :) I think this was pretty tasty! We'll keep this recipe.

Month 8 day 11: Asian-seasoned drumsticks and mushroom salad

Today I made:
Thai Chicken Drumsticks (and cucumber with lime and cilantro), Every Day with Rachael Ray September 2011
Teriyaki Mushroom, Spinach, and Chicken Salad, Cooking Light September 2010

This was a slow dinner, since I forgot to set up the marinade this morning, so I wanted to let the chicken rest for a while before cooking. But then it needed to bake for almost an hour! Meanwhile, the mushroom and spinach salad was delayed because we were out of soy sauce and tried to find someone around the dorm to give us some. Eventually we just used diluted oyster sauce instead.

G really liked the drumsticks, so we'll be keeping the recipe. Other than the long wait times, it was an easy recipe. The mushroom salad seemed like it would be good with some soba or udon or something.

Month 8 day 10: Summery Pork Cutlets and Collards

Today I made:
End-Of-Summer Pork Milanese, Every Day with Rachael Ray, September 2011
Sweet & Savory Collards,  Every Day with Rachael Ray, September 2011

This was in a 30 minute meals section. I'm not sure how long it really took, but I think it took longer. It also took up a lot of space, so unless you're clearing off dirty dishes into the sink along the way, you will get stuck at the end. And maybe a tenderloin will fall into the sink when you're trying to plate them :(

This is supposed to be really flavorful, because there are all kinds of fresh herbs in the breadcrumbs. But it made the breadcrumbs soggy, and it never really crisped up (I may have crowded the pan and used too little oil). It calls for putting 1/2 c grated Parmigiano-Reggiano into the crumbs too, which I couldn't stand to do since I feel like you usually end up throwing half of the breadcrumbs away when you're done cooking. I decided instead to just grate some cheese over the cutlets as they cooked. In the end there were too few breadcrumbs (it needed the extra 1/2 c of volume??), and the cheese taste maybe wasn't as pronounced as it should have been. Oh well.

Since it's the end of summer, and we got the vegetables at the store instead of a farmer's market, the tomato and the corn weren't all that flavorful. Why not make this in the middle of the tomato/corn season instead? The vegetable topping isn't seasoned except with basil and salt and pepper, so it had better be pretty fresh and tasty on its own.

I'm not sure I'll keep this recipe, because it was kind of a hassle, and I feel like there are better dishes to be made with the same time/effort.

The collards didn't really taste particularly sweet or savory :-P I two-thirded the recipe, but put in the full 3 cups of water. In the end there was still water at the bottom of the pot, and I suspect a lot of the sugar, garlic, mustard, and lemon flavor got washed out. Maybe if I had only used 2 cups of water this would have been more flavorful.

Month 8 day 9: Chicken on Orzo

Today I made:
Spicy Chicken with Spinach Orzo, Every Day with Rachael Ray September 2011

This was a tasty recipe. We always like orzo, and this is simple with just some spinach wilted in the orzo water as it drains. The chicken is pretty simple too-- aromatic onion, garlic, and jalapeño cook to get a bit browned and softened. The chicken strips are left in place to brown too, and then the fond is deglazed with lemon juice (and zest), water, and tomatoes. In the end the lemon is still really fresh and strong and goes well with the other flavors.
The good taste combined with the super-fast prep/cooking time make it a definite keeper. The only drawback is that since many of the ingredients are fresh (fresh tomatoes, spinach, lemon, jalapeño), it has to be planned in advance and can't be cooked from out of the pantry.
It seemed like this would be nice with some artichoke hearts in it, but G doesn't like those :( Maybe when he's away.... The orzo or something could use some parm too!

Month 8 day 8: Desserts for Cookie Hour

Peanut Butter Cup Blondies, Cooking Light September 2011
Mississippi Mudd Pie, Cooking Light September 2010

I made these two desserts yesterday to bring to today's Cookie Hour in lab. Bad iPod pics....

G really liked these peanut butter blondies, and I think other people in the lab must have liked them too, because there was only one left at the end. I only had one, and I can't really remember much about it, and although G ate a ton he has nothing to comment. But he says definitely keep the recipe and make them again. The recipe is incorrect, I think, in that it says it takes a total of 2 hours to make these! It is just a normal recipe-- mix the dry ingredients, mix the wet ingredients, combine, pour into a dish (top with crushed PB cups), and bake 20 minutes. 

While that was in the oven I made the Mississippi Mud Pie. I made the crust before starting the blondies so it had time to sit in the fridge. I basically followed the recipe but used just butter and no shortening. I was imagining that this would be some kind of fudgy pie, but I should've known better since the filling includes flour. It's really just a brownie in a pie crust, basically. Maybe it was just overcooked, but it was kind of just dense and dry. I should have read the reviews before hand, because they all said as much too :-/ Wikipedia makes it out to be a soft, gooey dessert, but the Food Network recipe that comes up when you google it also says the top will set like a brownie. Who knows-- not making it again.

Month 8 day 7: Braised Beef and Coleslaw

Today I made:
Spice-Rubbed Braised Beef, Cooking Light September 2009
Chopped Coleslaw Salad, Cooking Light September 2009
I also made two more desserts-- Peanut Butter Cup Blondies and Mississippi Mud Pie-- which I will write about tomorrow when I actually taste them. They are for our weekly lab cookie hour!

These dinner recipes are from a party-planning guide. But I was still taken a bit by surprise when I looked at the serving number and this beef was 10 servings! But G ate about 3 servings himself, so I think we'll be ok :-P I guess it's 10 servings assuming that you've also made the polenta canapes as an appetizer and meringues as a dessert.
G really liked this dish (obviously). He thought it was similar to the Ropa Vieja from a while back, but more tender. The spices and ingredients are quite a bit different, but they are both steaks braised in a tomato sauce. This one was braised in the oven instead of the stovetop though, so I think the temperature was more controlled and probably more correct. After just about 1.5 hours (instead of the 2.5 suggested in the recipe) it was already cooked through and quite tender. I think this is because instead of a 3 lb roast we used two 1.5 pounders. We couldn't find a chuck roast so we used top round roast (I think). It's entirely the wrong part of the cow, but at least it's a muscle above a leg :-P And it seemed to work out! G especially liked the sauce, which was just sort of a standard tomato sauce but with brown sugar and red wine vinegar added. Most of the flavor comes in from the large quantity of spices rubbed into the beef a few hours before, though-- about a tablespoon each of paprika, sugar, garlic, etc. G suggested next time to serve this over rice to sop up all the sauce. I think this would be a great, hearty winter recipe, maybe with some homemade bread too :)
The coleslaw was really strongly flavored-- I used a precut slaw mix, so I think it was about 1/2 the veggies with the full amount of dressing. G didn't care for it, but I thought it was good, and it reminded me of the sauce for the pulled chicken that I loved this summer-- they're both dominated by vinegar, mustard, and sugar. I like coleslaws that aren't just a bunch of mayonnaise.

Month 8 day 6: Trout with raita and coconut rice

Today I made:
Arctic Char Trout with Cilantro-Yogurt Sauce, Cooking Light September 2010
Red Pepper-Coconut Rice, Cooking Light September 2010
Grilled Zucchini with Sea Salt, Cooking Light September 2011

These are all straightforward and fast recipes-- the rice takes the longest. The rice uses only coconut milk instead of water, which is a little strange. It didn't seem to be enough liquid and was basically all absorbed before the rice was soft. I ended up throwing in a few spoonfuls of water just to make sure things didn't burn to the pot. The trout just cooks in the grill pan a few minutes per side, same with the zucchini. The sauce is just a few things chopped up and mixed together.

Of these recipes, we'll just keep the rice recipe because G liked it. The others aren't really recipes I guess... check out the grilled zucchini recipe: 1 step, which is to season zucchini with EVOO, salt and pepper and cook it on a grill pan (although the recipe comes with variations that are more creative).

Month 8 day 5: Tacos

Today I made:
Tex-Mex Tacos, Every Day with Rachael Ray September 2011
Served with watermelon licuados made by G

This was just a standard taco recipe, although we used ground turkey instead of beef. I was surprised that there was no onion in the meat, just garlic, chili powder, oregano, and cumin. It tasted fine but was nothing special. If I remember correctly, growing up our tacos were made with beef, onion, and some chopped up potato! I would rather put some onion and potato in this dish. The benefit of this recipe is that it was done really really quickly! It basically just cooks for about 10 minutes, and otherwise it's just chopping whatever you're going to put in them. We put in green onion, lettuce, cilantro, tomato, pico de gallo, yogurt (it's kind of like sour cream), and cheese. Some avocado would have been nice too.
This was my first time buying hard taco shells maybe. Almost half of them were broken :-/
I should have eaten more than 2, because I am hungry again!

Month 8 day 4: Cincinnati Chili

Today we made:
Cincinnati Turkey Beef Chili, Cooking Light September 2009
with Jack-Corn bread, Cooking Light September 2009

G made the cornbread while I made the chili and spaghetti, but the cornbread ended up taking longer to bake so it didn't make it into the picture.
I don't think I've ever eaten cincinnati chili before, but I guess what sets it apart is serving it on spaghetti and including things like cinnamon, allspice, and chocolate in the chili. I was heavy-handed with the cinnamon and allspice, but it didn't overpower. The chocolate was very fragrant. G suggested to save the recipe. The corn bread was very sweet. The recipe called for a mix, but we just followed my normal recipe and added in jalapeño, cheese, and corn.

Month 8 day 3: Pesto kebabs and herbed potatoes

Today I made:
Chicken Kebabs with Creamy Pesto, Cooking Light September 2010
Herbed Potatoes, Cooking Light September 2010

These two recipes were both pretty quick. The potatoes get just to boiling, then are turned off and sit in the hot water for 5 minutes while I cut the rest of the veggies and meat for the kebabs. Then, once the kebabs went in the oven, I drained the potatoes and started them in the cast iron while I made the pesto yogurt sauce. ~10 minutes later, both things were finished cooking. These recipes are both pretty flavorful too. The potatoes in large part because of the fresh basil and parsley. The kebabs are really good-- the chicken is moist (I used thighs) and all the veggies are nice, and the sauce is simple but flavorful.  It's supposed to be yogurt, sour cream, and pesto, but I just used yogurt and pesto, so very easy. The kebabs are cooked in the broiler, so you just put it in and take it out 12 minutes later-- very hands off. I had this with a big wedge of watermelon for dessert.
Unfortunately this didn't end up being a lot of food. G had dinner plans, so I'm just hoping that by serving it in a pita pocket tomorrow with more watermelon it will stretch enough for lunch. You can see the calorie counts for these two recipes and it's not enough for a man's dinner :-P In the future I would probably double the kebabs or make sure to serve with a second filling side dish.
I will keep both of these recipes.

Month 8 day 2: Chicken, grape, pesto pizza

Today I made:
Chicken, Red Grape, and Pesto Pizza, Cooking Light September 2009

G came back today! I had leftover fresh mozzarella and grapes from the Open Door's Night party, so I decided to make this simple pizza. It uses store-bought pizza dough and pesto, and I had some leftover roast chicken from a while ago in the freezer too, so it was very simple to make.
It was good too, but G points out that we have made other pizzas before that are better, so I don't think we will keep this recipe. The baked grapes are interesting-- they are still juicy, but they are starting to get a raisin-y flavor.

Month 8 day 1: Quick chicken parmesan

Month 8! I can't believe it's already September. G will be coming back tomorrow, so I am really excited. I will have to start cooking more! And get to stop doing the dishes!

This month there are 5 issues-- and that will continue for the rest of the year. They are:

• Cooking Light, September 2009
• Cooking Light, September 2010
• Cooking Light, September 2011
• Food & Wine, September 2010
• Every Day with Rachael Ray, September 2011

I think I must have bought the September 2009 issue at the grocery store when I first came to MIT. It's the only magazine I have from 2009. When I was looking through it, everything looked so familiar. I think I had paged through a few times and marked some recipes to try-- but mostly didn't, until now! September 2009 was a long time ago. And September 2010 was around when I first started dating G. Good memories!

Today I made:
Oven-Fried Chicken Parmesan, Cooking Light September 2009
with green beans and vinaigrette, Cooking Light September 2009

I didn't really have any food around, and was mostly snacking on leftover cheese, crackers, and truffles from last night's party. There was an extra serving of pork tortas in lab, but it's getting kind of old, and I stayed home all day. To be honest, I really liked the subletter who was staying with me for the past two months (best subletter ever), but since she left I am relishing walking between our two rooms and rearranging things back to the way they were. I'm just so happy to be at home that I don't want to go outside or do anything else!
But eventually I was getting hungry and felt like eating more chips and hummus was not the answer. So I looked through to see which recipes could be made from the pantry/freezer.

I had a couple little chicken tenderloins in the freezer, panko on the shelf, a jar of pasta sauce (unusual for me to have, but people are moving out and giving away things), and just so happened to have extra fresh mozzarella in the fridge (and Parmigiano-Reggiano as usual). I heated up some frozen green beans (not so great) as a vehicle for the vinaigrette instead of romaine as suggested, and we are out of polenta (and pasta! Our pantry is a bit worthless right now), but I felt like I'd had enough crackers today anyway.

I recently bought panko for a recipe instead of the normal bread crumbs, and there is a pretty big difference. Panko is very cripsy, and makes things seem like they've been deep fried even if they haven't been. It was great here too. This was very quick, but I recall making chicken parm as normally taking a really long time. Is that just because normally I'm making the tomato sauce from scratch? Or pounding the chicken? Or maybe at the age when I first tried to make it I was just not very good at cooking and multitasking in the kitchen.

This was a fine recipe, although it ended up being quite salty. I might have over salted, but I think it might have been from the Parmigiano-Reggiano. In any case, I was using just little tenderloins, so there might not have been as much chicken to stand up to the cheese as there should have been. I think I'll save this recipe, just because it shows how easy chicken parmesan can be.