2 dozen eggs and several pounds of meat

This week I made:

• Seared Salmon with Jalapeño Ponzu, Cooking Light May 2010
• Taiwanese Sesame Cucumbers, Food & Wine Magazine November 2010
• Spicy Tomato-Poached Eggs, Every Day with Rachael Ray April 2014
• Fried Chickpea & Fresh Vegetable Salad, Every Day with Rachael Ray April 2014
• Beef & Broccoli Ramen, Every Day with Rachael Ray April 2014
• Salted Caramel Brownies, Cooking Light September 2011
• Pan-Roasted Chicken with Cauliflower, Every Day with Rachael Ray December 2013
• Kuku Sabzi (Leek and Herb Frittata), Saveur March 2012
• Rachael's BBQ Pulled Pork Tacos, Every Day with Rachael Ray April 2014
• Sautéed Corn, Greens, Bacon, and Scallions, New York Times July 18 2012
• And a breakfast that gets its own post

We had this Asiany salmon with cucumbers and udon. Everything was pretty easy and quick. The cucumbers are pickled, but they're not called pickles so G liked it ;) The salmon came out really nice and crispy (cooked on our grill pan).

Rachael Ray had a little feature on the "new" Mediterranean diet. Not sure what's new about it-- I thought that being old and traditional was part of the point-- but okay. We made two recipes from it. 

We've made shakshuka before (this is what this is, despite Rachael Ray's name). It's hard to remember which is better. But I think I remember something being a bit off about the previous recipe, whereas this one was just fine. It has a lot of jalapeños in it, and also this gremolata made of jalapeños (with cilantro, parsley, garlic, and lemon), but since they were all seeded, it wasn't too spicy after all. Just enough to kind of make me blush. The gremolata would probably be an interesting by itself on crostini or something.

We had this chickpea salad alongside the shakshuka. It was good, although kind of just tastes as you would expect, like a Greek salad or something. The chickpeas are just canned chickpeas rolled in some spices (allspice, cardamom, cumin) and then heated briefly in a pan. We made this too thinking that either dish might be too light on its own, but actually the shakshuka was filling enough on its own and we didn't really need this :-P

 Rachael Ray always has something you can make with your kids. This was it this month. Um, it's exactly what it looks like -- Top Ramen noodles with some vegetables and steak on top. For some reason, you throw away the spice packets and make your own broth, that ends up tasting pretty much the same. What was the point? We had kind of wanted to get real ramen noodles, but were too lazy to go to the Korean store, so oh well. I haven't had Top Ramen in a long time, but this wasn't as comfort-foody as something like the-first-Top-Ramen-in-a-long-time should have been. I guess I'm not really into steak, and the bell pepper seemed out of place. I do remember my dad making ramen with broccoli in it when I was a kid, and so I've always been pretty partial to soups with broccoli. But this recipe seemed kind of stupidly complicated for what still is just instant ramen.

We also wanted to make some brownies. Here's what the picture in the magazine looked like:

And here's what my brownies looked like:

Nailed it!

Again, being impatient while making layered brownies is not a good move. The brownies were supposed to cool completely, the caramel topping was supposed to cool completely, and then the chocolate was supposed to be drizzled on. But the brownies required a lot more baking time than recommended, so my timing got off, and the topping was ready before the brownies. I kind of worried it might solidify in the pan, so I poured it over the hot brownies. It started boiling when it hit the pyrex pan! Then, the chocolate was drizzled while the caramel was still wet (apparently, it doesn't set up that fast after all), so it all just mooshed together. if you look carefully you can see weird oil spill slick looking patterns in it. Erm, oh well. It tastes pretty good anyway, but G says "not worth it." Mostly I am the one eating them each night, heated up (this makes the toppings melt into the cake part and makes it super fudgey) with some ice cream.

This roasted chicken recipe is nice. For the first time in ever, our grocery store actually stocked 3.5 lb chickens! So I was able to make this as suggested. It's very simple to make. You just brown a quartered chicken, then add some lemon, rosemary, and garlic, and roast 25 minutes. Meanwhile, you sauté/steam some cauliflower, and serve the chicken on top. It's nice and comforting. We served it along side baked potatoes from the recipe we loved before, but it didn't turn out quite the same for some reason... too much moisture from incomplete draining? Less time? Different variety? For whatever reason, the potatoes weren't quite so crunchy and nice. They were just like normal baked potatoes or something. This is a really good recipe for fall/winter.

We meant to make this Iranian frittata with some Iranian pilaf, but when it was time to start cooking, we only had like 1/2 cup of rice left :-/ So just the frittata. It had a whole dozen eggs in it along with a huge quantity of dill, parlsey, and cilantro; a grated potato; and a leek. I don't really like dill, but it's kind of cool to have a frittata with so many different flavors to it. It was pretty straightforward to make, except that I got distracted during the 16 minutes of cooking and left the kitchen, so it started smoking a lot and kind of charred on one side :( We just peeled that off, but while eating the leftovers I noticed a distinct smokey flavor. Oh well.

 These BBQ pork tacos are supposed to be served with pickled onions, pickled jalapeños, and queso fresco, but we didn't have any of that, so ... plain meat on corn tortillas it is! We should have just gotten some nice buns and had a normal pulled pork sandwich instead. I really drastically changed this recipe because we kept running out of things or having problems. Like, I thought we had lime juice and were out of lemon, so I bought lemon-- but that was the opposite. We also had run out of paprika just a bit earlier, our chiles all went bad in a really gross way (so the Chile BBQ sauce became BBQ sauce), and I didn't want to use beer. Anyway, the pork is just slow-braised in a broth with some onion, carrot and celery-- deosn't seem too TexMexy. But then it's shredded and mixed with a homemade BBQ sauce. The sauce smelled suuuuper vinegary while cooking, but ended up tasting just fine. I think I prefer Bull's Eye sauce though? Is that bad? And I was kind of just confused about why we used carrot and celery in the cooking broth. 

On the side was this quickly sautéed mix of summer vegetables. I thought we had enough meat for the day so left out the bacon, but otherwise followed it. There weren't too many spices, so it wasn't that special. Maybe that's the bacon difference!

Eggplant-Parm sandwiches, Curry, Salad, Cajun chicken, and Blintz Hotcakes

This week I made:

• Eggplant-Parm Grilled Cheese, Every Day with Rachael Ray January/February 2014
• Thai Pork Chops, Every Day with Rachael Ray January/February 2014
• Butternut Squash & Arugula Salad, Every Day with Rachael Ray January/February 2014
• served with steak
• Blackened Chicken with Broccoli Slaw, Every Day with Rachael Ray January/February 2014
• served with black beans and rice from a package that was G's favorite when we made it a few months ago, but he didn't remember it :(
• Cheese Blintz Hotcakes, Every Day with Rachael Ray January/February 2014

We got to the end of Sunday and were suddenly really hungry! I had planned to make the butternut squash salad, but we didn't want to wait for the squash to bake, so we looked for a fast recipe instead. This one sounded like it would be good, and G always likes to put his George Foreman grill to use with hot sandwiches. In this recipe, the eggplant is broiled in the oven. You cook up some garlic until golden-crispy too. But other than that, it's just cutting up some cheese, tomatoes, and basil, so it's pretty simple. 

The only annoying thing is that it calls for pressing the buttered bread into 1.5 c grated Parmigiano-Reggiano before grilling. First, that's a waste of $, since that amount is uncalled for. Second, it basically all falls off anyway. Or maybe that's because I used no-name parmesan cheese and it knew it didn't fit in?? Anyway, I guess she had to put it so that it would really be eggplant-parm, but it didn't seem to work that well. The recipe was also funny because it calls for a whole eggplant, sliced very thin. And yet each sandwich (makes 4-6) only has a single slice?? It could use some more (and we did, for leftovers).

On Monday we have ceramics, so we always need to cook a quick recipe. (And even then, we are usually late! :-/) This curry was pretty fast, starting with jarred red curry paste. The recipe called for bell peppers, but we had some sweet peas so I put that in too. I guess there's not too much to say about this, because it really depends on the red curry that you choose-- ours was a little more spicy than I would have preferred!

 On Wednesday we had a bit more time, so we made the butternut squash salad. Actually, since I used frozen butternut squash (cut pretty small, too), it didn't take as long as it called for. I left it in for a while anyway though (and forgot about it until some of the smaller pieces burnt and the rest were nice and crispy #overlyhonestmethods). Meanwhile, we made some steak. When I asked G what he wanted to eat with the salad, he chose steak and talked as if he knew exactly how to make it, but then when it came time to cook it he said he didn't want to do it because he didn't know how! We sauteed it in the cast iron skillet and then stuck the pan in the oven for a while after, since we (I?) like steak to be cooked all the way through. It was pretty good-- I sometimes don't like beef that much, but every once in a while I'm hungry or iron-deficient or something and it tastes amazing. I think there was a lot of fat. Oh, and we put a pat of butter on top when we put it in the oven too.
The salad was good too. We didn't have any dijon, so the dressing was just vinegar, brown sugar, and EVOO. It was really thick!

This blackened chicken is super fast and easy, because it's just rubbed with Cajun seasoning and pan-fried. The slaw is just a bagged slaw tossed with lemon juice and mayo. We don't really like mayo that much, so I guess we should've done something else for the side. But the chicken was good! I think this was our first time using the Cajun seasoning that came with the set of spices G has had for an embarrassingly long amount of time. I know that spices aren't supposed to be as good after a while, but they all seem pretty fragrant still!

These pancakes were so good! They're really easy, because it's just mixed in a blender, and can then be poured straight into the pan (another #overlyhonestmethod-- I made big pancakes instead of small ones because the lid of the blender fell off while I was pouring and smushed my nice small batter puddles into a big pond). It's a mix of eggs, flour, milk, sugar, baking powder, and cottage cheese. It's moist and the cottage cheese gives it a good texture. We didn't have any jams except ones so old the caps are stuck on, so we topped them with fresh mango instead. Yum! This is such a simple and great breakfast recipe-- definitely keeping :)

Quick burritos, pasta, and chicken parm sliders

This week I made:
Chicken and Black Bean-Stuffed Burritos, Cooking Light December 2010
Citrus and Radish Salad, Cooking Light December 2010
Sausage Ragu with Pappardelle, Rachael Ray December 2013
Chicken Parmesan Burgers, Cooking Light April 2011
served with steamed broccoli and a dash of lemon

We didn't have much time on Wednesday and were hungry, so I made this ready-in-30-minutes meal. It's speeded along by using rotisserie chicken  in the filling along with black beans that have been mixed with salsa. The chicken is boiled briefly with lime juice, chili powder, cumin, and black and red pepper to give it a little extra oompf. After wrapping up the burrito, it's toasted on each side (as you can see from the picture, a little too much), which makes it nice and crispy.
On the side is a salad with a citrusy dressing. Maybe our dressing to salad ratio was off though, because it wasn't very pronounced, even though it had potential.

On Thursday I made this sausage ragu. G picked out the next couple of recipes from the recipe binder, and I think it reminded him of some of the past meat sauces that we've had and he liked.

 The recipe calls for pappardelle, but the kind our supermarket carries isn't quite as wide as the magazine pictures. The sauce was good, but it was overpowered by a strange taste that the pasta had. We think we might keep the recipe, but will use a different brand of pasta next time!

On Friday I made these chicken parm burgers. It looks pretty monotone in this picture,  but in the magazine's cut-through view it's red, white and green. It's put on ciabatta rolls that are toasted and then rubbed with garlic. The patty is a mix of ground chicken, marinara, and some spices. They're cooked in the skillet and then put into the oven with a little mozzarella to melt. It's layered in the ciabatta roll with some basil leaves and more marinara sauce. 

The addition of the marinara to the ground chicken seeemed to mabe make it a little too moist, and I'm not sure that the flavor was very apparent. G makes some great Italian-spiced hamburgers (stuffed with cheese), so I would rather eat those :) I don't think we'll save this recipe, but it's an interesting idea I guess.

Apps from the freezer

Tonight was Open Doors Night, a biannual event at our dorm. The past two times we've gone easy and just put together a cheese platter and some truffles or other chocolate. This time, emboldened by his success with the meatball sliders he made for Superbowl, G wanted us to make some of the other recipes in the group. The theme was appetizers that can be made very quickly from a small number of ingredients, mostly from the frozen food section or pantry. The meatball sliders for example used frozen meatballs.

Today we made:
Chicken 'N' Mini Waffles, Every Day with Rachael Ray November 2013
Lemony-Dill Salmon Cakes, Every Day with Rachael Ray November 2013
Bacon-Tater Bites, Every Day with Rachael Ray November 2013
Ginger-Miso Sweet Pea Spread, Food & Wine December 2010 (not pictured)

The chicken and waffles sounded really cool, except for the fact that it literally is just a chicken nugget on top of an Eggo mini waffle. There's not too much to it! But luckily there is a sauce, which made it seem like it was something. The sauce is just honey and Sriracha (6:1), but is pretty tasty.
The lemony salmon cakes were a bit more complex. It's smoked salmon on top of a blend of feta, cream cheese, and lemon zest, on top of a mini pancake. The feta/cream cheese mix was kind of odd, but good, and the Aunt Jemima Frozen Lil' Griddles Mini-Pancakes were nice and sweet :)
The bacon-tater bites were just bacon wrapped around tater tots. We didn't make the sour cream + chive dip.
Individually, these were each super easy. But, since they were all frozen things, there wasn't a whole lot of space in the oven! So it was hard to get everything together and be warm at the same time. We baked the waffles and chicken nuggets separately, although I guess you could have baked them as assembled units to save on space if you wanted. The pancakes could be microwaved, but the tater tots and bacon needed to be cooked briefly separately before being wrapped and then baked for longer. That was a sight to be seen. Basically, the bacon and probably the tater tots too were just sweating grease. We poured off a lot after the first bake, but when we checked on them later during the second bake to see if they were crispy, they were just bathed in grease! I guess that's what makes them taste so good....
Almost everything was eaten, except a couple of the salmon pancakes and two waffles which were left behind by someone who just took off the chicken nuggets (!)
Noticing that these three apps all had meat, I wanted to make a veggie option too. I made this ginger-miso sweet pea spread, which is incidentally also from a frozen food. It's thawed frozen peas blended with green onions, ginger, jalapeño, and some miso. It makes for a kind of strange flavor combination. Everyone, upon hearing the ingredients, was really excited to try it. But, I don't think that many people went back for seconds or thirds. It's a little too odd, or maybe everyone was just full from bacon. I wonder if it would be better with edamame or something instead of the green peas.

Month 11 day 13: Curry breakfast and spaghetti dinner

Today I made:
Eggs Poached in Curried Tomato Sauce, Cooking Light December 2010
Spaghetti with Sunday Sauce, Food and Wine December 2010

I made this flavorful dish for brunch today. It's got garlic, ginger, jalapeño, curry powder, coconut milk, and cilantro and tastes really good. It reminded us of an Asian version of shakshuka, which I made a while back. I liked this one more, and so did G.

For dinner I made this slow-cooked meat sauce and pasta. I've heard a lot about Italian-American traditional Sunday sauces, but had never taken the time to make one before. It was different than I expected-- it's less a sauce than it is a bunch of shredded meat with a little bit of tomato puree. Not surprisingly, G really liked it, saying it reminded him of this hearty rigatoni from a couple months ago. This didn't have that much flavor, though. It was just seasoned with some rosemary and thyme. It seems overly long and time-intensive for what it is, but G liked it a lot so I guess we'll be keeping the recipe!

Month 11 day 6: Two-tone enchiladas

Today I made:
Christmas-Style Stacked Enchiladas, Food Network Magazine December 2009

These enchiladas look really great in the magazine, but the recipe is pretty weird actually. For example, the red sauce has 1 cup of chili powder and 5 cups of water, and ends up being as liquidy as you might expect (it simmers for just 15 minutes, so it's not like it reduces too much). But the whole thing is baked on a baking sheet, so it's kind of a problem to have a lot of liquid! I wish I had just made like 2/5 c chili powder in 2 cup of water. I guess I will freeze the left over "sauce" for the next time I made chili. Another thing about the recipe I thought was scary is that the green sauce has 3 4-oz cans of green chile peppers AND 1.5 teaspoons of red pepper flakes. Normally recipes call for like 1/4 tsp and are plenty hot! Since I've been burned (literally) in the past by canned green chiles, I decided to use just 2 cans and put in a full can of tomatoes instead of one cup. I just did a sprinkling of red pepper flakes. With these modifications, the sauce was still punchy but not overwhelming.
The enchiladas are supposed to be topped with a fried egg, but I don't like runny yolks, so I did more of a bit of a scramble. G thought the egg was a good touch. We have just a small amount of enchiladas left, but we do have a decent amount of each sauce, so I think we'll have that on scrambled eggs tomorrow for breakfast.

By the way, "Christmas-style" just refers to the fact that there's both a green sauce and a red sauce. It doesn't really have anything to do with the season!

Month 11 day 5: Salmon and Spuds

Today I made:
Arctic Char Salmon with Mushrooms, Food Network Magazine December 2009
Golden Butter-Crisped Spuds, Every Day with Rachael Ray December 2011

We haven't been at home much this month, since we took a long weekend trip to New York for an interview for G. And we'll both be going home for Christmas for a bit, so I think this month will be pretty sparse.

Anyway, today I finally got the chance to cook, but I had to go to the grocery store first so I opted for some quick recipes. The potatoes take about 35 minutes (boiling 15 minutes, baking 20), but for prep it's just a matter of quartering them, so it's pretty fast. The fish recipe is listed as 25 minutes, but really it's just cooking the fish  and the mushrooms for about 8 minutes each, which can be done in parallel. So pretty fast.

We both loveedddd these potatoes! It's really just potatoes with a good amount of butter, and some salt and pepper-- so how could you go wrong? They're boiled to the point of softness, and do start crumbling during the toss-with-butter step, but after being baked, they get so nice and crispy with a butter frond. It's really great, even though it's so simple.

The salmon is also cooked on the stovetop and then finished off in the oven. The mushrooms and shallots are sautéed separately, and then seasoned with mustard, red wine vinegar, chives (I just used green onion, close enough?) and parsley. In the magazine picture it looks like more of a sauce, but I didn't measure out 3 tablespoons of oil, so I think that is why mine was more of a solid relish.

Month 10 day 13: Panini and apple salad

Today we made:
Fall Apple Salad, Cooking Light 2010
Non-recipe panini with sautéed kale, Swiss cheese, and some deli turkey with red peppers or something in it.

We had a late lunch, after a morning in Harvard square drinking L.A. Burdicks hot chocolate and such.
G is a panini master with his George Foreman, so he put these together. (I was doing it wrong, not respecting that the cheese should be a moisture buffer between the bread and the kale, and that the multiple slices of meat and cheese should be alternated instead of clumped together.)
Meanwhile, I made this simple salad. Shockingly, the recipe is not online! But the dressing is as follows: 1 Tbs red wine vinegar, 1.5 tsp honey, 1 tsp Dijon, 1/4 tsp black pepper, 1/8 tsp salt, 1 minced garlic clove, and 2 Tbs. EVOO. It's meant to have butter lettuce, endive, and radicchio, but I just used a spring mix. And of course, an apple. Mom and Dad liked the dressing, and I thought it was pretty good too.

Month 10 day 6: Turkey, stuffing, gravy, and cranberry sauce

Today I made:
Roasted Turkey with Rosemary-Garlic Butter Rub and Pan Gravy, Cooking Light November 2011
Fennel, Sausage, and Caramelized Apple Stuffing, Cooking Light November 2011
Old-Fashioned Cranberry Sauce, Cooking Light November 2011

We expected that today, finally, the turkey would be defrosted. Unfortunately we didn't get home until ~7, so the turkey didn't go into the oven until ~8. And, it wasn't completely defrosted, despite being in the fridge for a week! But, I guess it's not too surprising since our fridge tends to freeze things, so of course it would stop things from unfreezing. I figured that once I bathed it in hot water and it relaxed from its tight, balled-up shape it wouldn't be that bad-- it was mostly defrosted after all.

I rubbed it underneath the skin with herbed/spiced butter and then it went in at 425 for 30 minutes, cooling down to 325 for the rest of the time. After about 2 hours or so the popup timer was up and our meat thermometer agreed that the leg and the breast were done. We cut off some leg to snack on, cut off the breasts to eat, and made the gravy and put the stuffing in the oven while the turkey relaxed and adjusted its juices (is this really a thing, or is it a wive's tale?)

After we ate though, we realized that the other parts of the turkey were most certainly not cooked through. The back, for example, was still squishy-soft. Other parts were a cooked texture, but were pretty pink. Back in the oven it went for another couple of hours until just before we went to sleep! The next day when I was picking off the meat for leftovers, some parts seemed pink still, although now that I take a second glance I think that turkey is just pinkish. Nevertheless, we decided to panfry the leftovers a bit or use them in things like soups just to make sure :-P

The gravy was tasty, and particularly important given that our turkey ended up baking for probably longer than intended when all was said and done, and some parts were quite dry by the end. It never got too thick, though-- I guess the ratios might be off because the recipe doesn't specify a total volume for drippings + broth, just the amount of broth to use. Anyway, it was thin in viscosity but not flavor.

The stuffing... I'll just go ahead and say that I grew up on boxed stuffing and I stand by it! Despite the time and effort, it tasted no better than boxed stuffing, and in my opinion was worse. Normally I'm a big believer in as-much-from-scratch-as-possible, but Stovetop stuffing is just my favorite, especially when you add in some sausage, apple, celery, etc. So we will not keep the stuffing recipe. Good to know though! The first time I ever tried to make stuffing was when I lived in Japan, before I had the internet at my apartment, so I just tried to derive it from first principles. I knew there were some spices, some stale bread, and some broth... but I really didn't know how much broth to add or anything. It turned out a mushy disaster! This was better (especially as leftovers when we let it bake a while longer)

I did get converted to home-made cranberry sauce though. It is so fast to make-- just about 10-15 minutes, and tastes so good. This recipe had orange zest in it. When I was a kid I could just eat cranberry sauce straight from the can I loved it so much! I could imagine just eating this too, or using it like jam or anything.

We made a ton of food, so we'll be needing to use turkey in the next few days' worth of recipes!

Month 10 day 5: Japanese-flavored scallops and carrots

Today I made:
Scallops with Green Tea Cream, Cooking Light November 2010
Red-Miso-Glazed Carrots, Food & Wine November 2010

I wanted to roast a turkey today, but it was still partially frozen! So I turned to the only other quick recipe we had the ingredients for. These scallops and carrots both are paired with a traditional Japanese ingredient to make two dishes that don't seem Japanese at all.

The scallops are really supposed to be the large ones, but we didn't think it was worth $6 extra per pound for a larger size. They're sprinkled with ginger and matcha before getting seared in the pan. The sauce was supposed to be creme fraiche, but Shaws didn't have any. I looked online and people said to substitute sour cream, so that's what I did, and I didn't beat it as prescribed. It is mixed with more matcha, lemon juice, salt, and paprika.

The carrots are blanched, coated in a mixture of miso and butter, then roasted. It seemed like there should have been more liquid, because things just got very charred-- not that that's a bad thing for vegetables. But it was hard for G to wash :-/

These were both interesting, but not spectacular. If I'm going to use miso, I'd rather make miso soup or mackerel or something more traditional.

Month 9 day 5: Chimichangas!

Today I made:
Almost-Famous Chimichangas, Food Network Magazine October 2010

Um! These are good but so filling!

I don't think I ever had a chimichanga until Beantown Taqueria opened up near us-- everytime we go, G and I split a chimichanga and a chile relleno. This recipe was a copy/recreation of the chimichangas from a restaurant called Chi-Chi's which is apparently out of business now and took its beloved dish with it. G and I had never been there, so we have no idea how authentic this recipe is, but it is tasty.

The recipe doesn't take all that long (despite what other reviewers said, it did take me just an hour as claimed), because it starts with rotisserie chicken and canned refried beans, so there's just some aromatic vegetables that get cooked with spices before adding the chicken and sour cream and rolling up the burritos. The weird thing about this recipe is that it has cinnamon though, which (when included in a savory dish alongside cumin) made this whole thing taste Moroccan to me, and I kept expecting some cous-cous or a raisin or something :-P Cinnamon and cumin is like the lazy magazine way of turning an otherwise normal dish into an exotic African one.

Normally chimichangas are fried, but this one is baked! But before you think it might be healthier-- it gets its crisp from being brushed with butter melted into oil... so it is all but fried. It was very tasty though, and pleasantly crispy.

I was wary of the sauce, because of the time that I made posole with canned green chiles and it was inedibley spicy. Now that I read the reviews of that recipe, they all say that it wasn't spicy at all. I think there is only "canned green chiles," but maybe I somehow grabbed the wrong thing that time. Anyway, the Chi-Chi's Mexi-sauce is basically pureed canned chiles (with some spices, aromatics, and broth), so I was expecting it to be super-spicy too. But... it wasn't. So, I guess canned chiles are not so bad after all. (now that I think about it, I probably grabbed a seranno chile instead of a jalapeno for that posole-- they're all poorly marked at the store).

Anyway, this was great, and we're just sad that tomorrow it won't be crispy. And now we feel a bit ... overwhelmed. I was famished when I started cooking so I kept nibbling on the chicken, and I was basically full halfway through dinner but kept eating because it was so good :-/

Month 9 day 1: Enchiladas

I'm finally starting October recipes!
This month I have 5 issues:

• Cook's Illustrated, September & October 2009
• Food Network Magazine, October 2010
• Cooking Light, October 2010
• Cooking Light, October 2011
• Every Day with Rachael Ray, October 2011

Today I made:
Black Bean and Cheese Enchiladas with Ranchero Sauce, Cooking Light October 2011
with steamed corn

These enchiladas came out of Cooking Light's (always small) "The Enlightened Cook | Everyday Vegetarian" section. They're meant to be flavorful and hearty despite having no meat. I don't think they were really that filling though... after eating 1.5 servings and a donut I am satiated but feel like I might get hungry later on. Maybe this is because the filling is just one small can of beans and a cup of cheese! If I were to make this again I would pack them more fully, maybe with corn or something inside too.

But the interesting part of this dish is the ranchero sauce. Is this ranchero sauce, even if it's not really tomato based? The dominant flavor comes from two dried chiles, which are boiled and blended along with their cooking liquid with garlic, onions, etc. It was a little soupy, but tasted deep and smokey. Unfortunately, I think the overly-wet sauce wasn't good for the corn tortillas, which basically disintegrated. When we cut into the enchiladas we were surprised that we couldn't distinguish one enchilada from the next, and on the plate it just spread out a little like a cow pie...

I thought this was good, but G said it was nothing special, especially since we were just thinking about all the good September recipes last night. I guess those will be hard to top for him :-P I think I'll keep the recipe for the sauce at least, though. I imagine it would be good on many other dishes.

Although tonight was vegetarian, the next recipes this week are heavy on the meat! Our grocery bill was a bit crazy this week, double what my family of four spent each week growing up :-P Too much meat, plus stocking up on a few things, and a few impulse buys, including some pumpkin donuts and Susan's Ice Cream Essentials after Susan herself was at the store giving out samples. You have to go with the seasons and the local flavor!

This is apparently how much it takes to fuel two graduate students for a week:

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 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 7 day 8: Fish and Orange Shortcake

Today I made:
Mahimahi with Bacon-Tomato Butter, Cooking Light August 2010
served with salad
Citrus Shortcake, Cooking Light August 2010
served with vanilla ice cream

These recipes were both rated 5 stars online, so I knew this would be a nice dinner! And it was.

Bacon-Tomato Butter is much like it sounds. You cook up a cut up slice of bacon, then add a bit of garlic and paprika to the grease before adding chopped tomatoes. Then, after it's simmered a few minutes, you add in some butter. The butter flavor is definitely present, in a good way. It's a very easy and fast sauce, and it tastes good. But, I thought that it might be better to have that sauce on some bruschetta on the side and eat the fish plain or with a lighter sauce, because it was so heavy in flavor that it overpowered the fish. Mahimahi is pricey, so if I'm having it I would like to just savor its own flavor. I actually bought one filet each of mahimahi and tuna. I always mistakenly thought that mahimahi was a kind of tuna (I think I was confusing it with ahi), so I was kind of curious to have them side by side and compare the flavors (also mahimahi is more expensive than tuna). The mahimahi had a really distinct lemon flavor, even though I didn't use any lemon tonight. The tuna did have a sort of tangy flavor but wasn't distinct. At one point I thought I tasted something like olives, but it was only in one bite, so... not sure O_o Anyway, the mahimahi is much better than tuna, so maybe it is worth paying extra for a treat. I wasn't sure about the quality of this tuna (can all tuna be served rare?) so I cooked it all the way though, and it was a little bit tough. The mahimahi had a better texture and was also quicker to cook.

While the fish was marinating in sugar-salt water (why??), I whipped up this shortcake. Its main flavor comes from the orange juice/zest, and its main texture comes from 2 Tbs. of corn meal. It kind of ends up looking like corn bread, but the orange flavor is great. Again, I used the powdered buttermilk, which seemed to work out fine, although it did feel really weird to just pour 2/3 c plain water into the batter (you add the powder directly to the dry ingredients instead of reconstituting it). The batter is really liquidy, and even just a few minutes before it was supposed to be finished baking it was really unset. A few minutes later though it was transformed and a toothpick came out clean. Once i cut it open, it looked like it could have used a bit of extra time baking though. Everything was solid, but the inside was a little gummy rather than crumbly (can you see that layer in the picture?). It also had this really interesting pattern of columns of air, so if you cut horizontally across you can see tons of holes, but if you cut vertically you can see all these tubes. I am not sure why it's like that, but it's kind of cool.

This cake is from a feature in Cooking Light about packing for a weekend cabin getaway. It's a cute idea-- there are a couple make-ahead things like this cake and a spice rub, one cooler and one bag's worth of groceries, and then you have everything you need to make a full two days of delicious and easy meals, even without a fully-stocked kitchen. I'm planning to make the BBQ chicken sliders on Friday.