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!

Superbowl Spread

Today I made:
Meatball Sub Sliders, Every Day with Rachael Ray November 2013
Veggie Taco Bowls (made as a layered dip, not put into bowls), Family Circle September 2013
Tricolor Trio-- Kale, White Bean, what Chile Crostini, Every Day with Rachael Ray December 2013
Sweet Chile Hot Wings Drumsticks , Every Day with Rachael Ray January/February 2013
Guacamole

So I've never really watched football. I don't think G really does either, but anyway on Saturday he was bemoaning the fact that all of our friends were going to be watching the Super Bowl and we hadn't been invited to anyone's parties. (...maybe because we are homebodies who don't often go to parties even when we are invited...) I suggested that we throw our own party, because it would be fun to do the cooking thing, and we sent an email out to the dorm to see who else was "homeless" for the event. It turned out to be a party's worth! 

I've never been to a Super Bowl party, but the Internet told me that you've got to have some sort of wings, some sliders, chips and dips, and some veggie sticks (gotta pretend to be healthy, right?). We selected several recipes that seemed like they'd be pretty quick.

Although each dish was less than 15 minutes of hands on time, I started a few hours before the party to do whatever seemed like it could be done in advance. And at this leisurely pace, it took up basically the whole time until people arrived.

The sweet chile hot drumsticks were definitely the star food, and they got eaten up quickly. They're just slow cooked with soy sauce, honey, and sriracha (4:4:1 ratio, plus broth or water to cover) for a few hours, then broiled to get nicer looking. After slow cooking they looked pretty gross, but after baking they looked much nicer. We ended up baking them for longer than recommended, because the slow cooker took a while to get up to speed and we wanted to make sure it was cooked through.

The close second hit were the meatball subs. That was G's pick to make. They all got eaten too, and we made a second batch partway through the evening which also got devoured even though everyone was pretty full by that point. They're simply assemblies of purchased items, so they're very easy. It's jarred marinara, frozen meatballs, and slider buns. The buns are broiled with cheese (we used provolone), the meatballs are heated up in the marinara, and other than that it's just a bit of torn up basil.

The odd-one-out was the kale and white bean crostini. Too healthy? Not flavorful enough amongst all the other intensely spiced items? At the end of the evening we had several of these left, along with some dips. We repurposed the veggie taco bowl filling (beans, corn, spices) as quesadilla filling the next day for dinner.

Month 12 day 10: Chicken and cabbage with parm

Today I made:
Chicken Parmesan with Pepperoni, Food & Wine January 2011
Parmesan Cabbage, Every Day with Rachael Ray January/February 2012

Although it might seem like overkill to have two parmesan recipes at once, I decided to just go for it.
The main course was this chicken parm recipe from Food & Wine that includes pepperoni. Why has this never been done before? It's a great addition. This recipe came out of Food & Wine's special on "Food Trends of 2011" in the section about general stores. Huh?? Apparently there's a bodega-like general store (has this term even been used since the 1800s) in Seattle that also serves up hot dinner food (and carrot cake cupcakes, which I will make later this month).

Anyway, this follows the standard way of making chicken parm, but just has pepperoni on top. It comes out of the oven looking gorgeous like this:

And yes, I proceeded to eat all of that over the next few days.

There isn't a whole lot of seasoning, pointed out someone in the comments, but to me it was fine. The cheeses are plenty salty and the pepperoni has a bit of a kick to it. I guess if you wanted to use your favorite marinara instead of just plain tomato sauce it would be even better though.

The cabbage was simple but good. It's basically just braised cabbage and onion, with some parmesan grated over the top at the end. Since I was using Parmigiano-Reggiano I didn't want to use the full cup of cheese, but it was fine with less too.

Month 11 day 17: Chard

Today I made:
Pine-Nutty Swiss Chard [and kale], Every Day with Rachael Ray
served with leftover Korean BBQ and a baked sweet potato

We've been having leftover Korean BBQ for lunch and dinner today. I had meant to make this chard side to go with the Sunday Sauce earlier this week, but forgotten. So this was the last of the December recipes. On to January, the 12th and final month!!

There's not too much to say about this recipe, as it's just chard sautéed in a mix of butter and olive oil with some garlic and onion. But it tastes good! I added in a little kale too since we had some extra.

That's it for December recipes! Just one more month!

My favorite:
Curried eggs on toast for brunch, then Thai fish chowder for dinner with these potatoes on the side

Month 11 day 16: Korean BBQ (for the third time?)

Today I made:
Korean Short Ribs, Food & Wine Magazine December 2010
Gingered Green Beans, Food & Wine Magazine December 2010

G likes short ribs, so we've done a few recipes over the year. Here was one more, by Food & Wine. It was sort of a peculiar recipe, with daikon and an Asian pear (although G went grocery shopping, and could only find western pears) in the marinade. It seemed like a waste! These were good, but not spectacularly better than the ones we've had so far, so we're not keeping this recipe.

I served it with rice and these gingered green beans. Although they refer to ginger in their name, the real dominant flavor is spice! They have a good helping of red pepper in them. You could barely taste the ginger at all. They were good, but I don't think we'll keep that recipe either. I like green beans that are sautéed with a lot of garlic though, yum!

Month 11 day 14: This dinner brought to you by the color yellow

Today I made:
Buttery Pigeon [yellow split] Pea Dal (Mitti Handi Dal), Food & Wine December 2010
Spiced Potatoes (Aloo Bhaji), Food & Wine December 2010
Served with Trader Joe's garlic naan and chai tea (decaf Tetley's British Blend simmered with cloves, cardamom, a cinnamon stick, and milk)

Today I made an Indian dinner. The grocery store didn't have quite exactly all the spices called for, or pigeon peas for that matter, so we had to make a few substitutions, but it ended up being pretty good. There was a lot of tumeric in everything, which is why everything is so yellow. Also a lot of cumin seeds. These are both pretty quick recipes, taking about 30 minutes of hands on time each (the peas take an additional ~30 minutes of soaking first), so that was nice. They were pretty flavorful too. I didn't have quite 2 lbs of yukon gold potatoes, so I threw in a sweet potato (a white-fleshed kind) in just for fun. It looked identical to the normal potatoes, but every once in a while you'd get a very sugary piece! Kind of fun.

Month 11 day 12: Swedish meatballs minus the meatballs

Today I made:
Köttbullar med Potatismos ([Ikea] Swedish Meatballs with Mashed Potatoes), Saveur December 2011
served with steamed green beans

This recipe was for making Swedish meatballs along with mashed potatoes and gravy. But, I had Ikea meatballs in the freezer, so I just planned to make the mashed potatoes and gravy from the recipe. I feel like maybe those weren't the best parts of the recipe-- the gravy didn't get very thick, and the ratio of liquid to potatoes was just way too much. So everything ended up being a little bit liquidy :-P The spices in the meatball recipe sound good though, so maybe it's worth trying that someday.

Month 11 day 9: Chicken, chard, and pumpkin

Today I made:

Chicken Baked on a Bed of Bread and Swiss Chard, Food & Wine December 2010
Ginger-Roasted Winter Squash, Food & Wine December 2010

I'm at home, where I have access to my parents' California backyard garden, teeming with all kinds of greens-- lettuces, komatsuna, mizuna, chard, kale, broccoli, and also rhubarb, beets, and eggplants (with snow peas on the way). I picked this recipe to make to spotlight their chard, along with Dad's freshly baked bread (and chicken from the freezer, meaning that we had everything on hand for this recipe!). (We had to buy a pumpkin for the side, though.)

The chicken was a hands-off one-pot meal. The chard and bread get tossed and seasoned (we left out capers and used black raisins, not golden, and onions, not shallots), and then the chicken just gets set on top and put in the oven. But after the recommended roasting time, the chicken was still quite red, so I think maybe it hadn't been entirely defrosted. We had to let it go an additional 20 minutes or so maybe, but by then the skin was crispy and the bread had soaked up the delicious chicken juices. It seemed like a nice Thanksgivingy dish that could be done for a small crowd.

The winter squash is supposed to bake for a really long time, but I just cut a pumpkin in half, deseeded it, and steamed it in the microwave until soft before slicing it and roasting as directed. I used dried cranberries instead of currants, and people liked that. The vinegar flavor seemed weird with sugarpie pumpkin, and the ginger flavor didn't come through too well (maybe we didn't quite use a full 1-inch piece, or maybe the microwave treatment didn't let it do its thing).

Month 11, day 7: Chickpea Crostini

Today I made:
Chickpeas and Spinach with Smoky Paprika, Cooking Light December 2010

Tonight was a lab holiday party, which is a potluck. Our professor makes turkey and ham, so we're supposed to bring sides or desserts-- but the desserts are always in a different room and almost never get touched, so it's really better to bring a side. It's hard to think of side dishes though! I chose to make this crostini topper, which I figured would be tasty even at room temperature. In fact, we cooked this in the Dutch oven and carried it in a cardboard box so it didn't burn my lap in the car, and so it was still pretty warm when we got to the party. Unfortunately, we got there too late to make a label that indicated that it went with the bread, so I think people were just eating it like a stew. Oh well, I guess it's still good that way. I thought it was pretty tasty, and it's not to difficult either.

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 11 day 3: Polenta and mushrooms

Today I made:
Fontal Polenta with Mushroom Sauté, Cooking Light December 2010
Braised Kale, Cooking Light December 2010

Here's a dinner that is vegetarian but it very hearty.* And fast, too! The braised kale takes the longest (30 minutes). The polenta with mushrooms is pretty fast. The mushrooms are just cooked with some herbs, and polenta is just a matter of boiling liquid (in this case, a mix of broth and milk) and stirring in the polenta and some cheese. It could be done at this point, but the recipe has you put the polenta into dishes and broil it for 5 minutes before topping with the mushrooms.
We do like polenta, and of course kale. I feel like most kale recipes are the same, or very slight variations of the same thing. I guess as long as you like it, it's ok for it to be the same? G likes kale a lot. He liked the polenta and mushrooms too. These days it's not that common for him to remark on the food (he's spoiled!) but today he said it was good.

* And high volume! The kale overflowed the Dutch oven before it cooked down, the polenta was about to the brim of the saucepan I used, and the mushrooms were definitely crowded-- Julia Child would have disapproved!

Month 11 day 1: Squash, Soup, Pork, and Biscuits

Month 11!
I have six issues:

• Food Network Magazine, December 2009
• Food & Wine, December 2010
• Cooking Light, December 2010
• Cooking Light, December 2011
• Every Day with Rachael Ray, December 2011
• Saveur, December 2011

Since I'll be going home for a bit, I doubt I'll be able to make a dent in these recipes, especially since there are just sooo many cookie (and other baking) recipes. But maybe I will just have to clip some recipes to bring home with me to make there!

Today I made:
Sweet & Savory Spaghetti Squash, Every Day with Rachael Ray November 2011
Apple-Cheddar-Squash Soup, Food Network Magazine December 2009
Pork Tenderloin with Herbed Biscuits, Cooking Light December 2011

For lunch I made the squash that I forgot to make yesterday. It's a spaghetti squash cut in half, and then one is filled with savory spices and the other is filled with sweet spices. Both contain liberal amounts of butter, which melts and looks like this:

 It's a bath of butter.

But once it gets stirred into the rest of the squash it evens out and takes on the characteristic "spaghetti" look:

 I thought this was fun to have two different flavors in one. They're both very simple to put together, it's just that it takes a long time to bake. I'm sure this could be done in the microwave, though, to make this a faster side dish. Anyway though, it takes about 5 minutes of hands-on time and then goes in the oven for 55 minutes while you could be making the rest of the dinner. As I predicted, G liked the sweet one the best. I think I liked the savory one the best. It's good to have both!

For dinner I made this soup with pork tenderloin and biscuits. The pork and biscuits recipe is designed to be a main course for a casual (or more formal-- you choose) dinner party. The tenderloin is just browned and then roasted (whole) for about 20 minutes before being sliced. It doesn't have any seasoning besides salt and pepper, and the sauce is just a 4:1 mix of Dijon : maple syrup. (I wondered which would win-- G hates mustard but loves maple syrup. The mustard won out, probably because it's the more obvious ingredient visually. And tastewise too, I guess.) The biscuits have more flavor, with fresh sage and thyme and buttermilk. I was using powdered buttermilk, so I put in a half packet (halving the recipe), but then for some reason filled the measuring cup with 1-5/8 cup water instead of just 5/8 cup. I poured in most, (cleverly thinking, a little too late, that I should add it gradually in case it didn't need it all) and it was way too soupy. I considered adding more flour, but thought that might make them too dense unless I also supplemented the baking powder and soda, so ended up just deciding to see what happens. What happens is that the biscuits flow into each other a bit before the oven heat seals the edges, and then they don't rise basically at all. But they are surprisingly fluffy despite this, and taste great. It's too bad that they got messed up, because I was really looking forward to seeing how the texture was since I bought myself a pastry cutter finally on Black Friday. Well, next time! The biscuits are supposed to be cut in half to make a sandwich, but we couldn't do that.

The soup was pretty straightforward but flavorful, with tart apple and sweet butternut squash. It's topped with cooked prosciutto, which is quite salty. I wondered why not bacon, if you're going to cook it anyway, and it seems that many other reviewers just went for bacon instead. G liked it, but didn't like cleaning up the blender afterwards, since it had melted cheese that stuck everywhere! We need an immersion blender! Other than the blending step, this soup is pretty hands-off and is a great taste for fall.

Month 10 day 18: Mushrooms on everything

Today I made:
Beef Pork Filets with Mushroom Sauce and Parmesan Popovers, Cooking Light November 2010
Green Bean Casserole with Madeira Mushrooms, Cooking Light November 2011

This was a bit of a labor-intensive meal! But amazingly, everything ended up getting finished right around the same time. First to start were the popovers, which are just milk, egg, and flour that starts by sitting for 30 minutes, and then the dried porcini, which rehydrate for 15 minutes. During that time I got started on the green bean casserole. The green beans are just parboiled, and then the onion, thyme, and mushrooms are sauteed in turn before adding Madeira wine, then some flour to thicken, then some chicken broth to turn it into a sauce. This joins the popovers (who were put in the oven at some point during the sauteeing) in the oven.

Then while that was all baking, I... did the exact same thing for the main dish's mushroom sauce. The shallots, thyme, garlic, and mushrooms are sauteed before adding red wine, then some flour to thicken, then the dried-mushroom-soaking broth to turn it into a sauce.

The magazine pictures the popovers and beef on a plate with some plain steamed green beans, and so I had those in my mind, but also had the recipe for the green bean casserole I wanted to try. Somehow I thought having mushrooms in both would be unifying or something, without reading the recipe details to see that really, it's the same sauce, just one is mixed with green beans and the other tops meat. But this let us compare and contrast. We did think that the main dish's sauce was a clear winner, probably because of the additional flavor of fresh sage that gets added in right at the end. And maybe it was just nicer in part because it was served with meat instead of green beans. For the meat, I used pork tenderloin instead of beef tenderloin when I realized that beef tenderloin = file mignon = $18/lb. We like pork tenderloin more than steak, and it's about $3/lb this month! We used a meat thermometer to check when it was cooked and it was so juicy and good. We didn't miss the beef.

The popovers were the biggest surprise. I was sure that the lack of a leavening agent was some oversight-- how are they supposed to pop if there isn't any yeast or baking powder? But sure enough, when I went to check on them, they were twice as tall! Turns out, it rises from the steam. I'm not sure how that relates (if it does) to the long sitting time. But I was quite impressed! They were quite eggy, like a crepe or the outside of an eclair. Other than needing to be started a while in advance, they were absurdly easy but tasted/looked like they required skill to make. That's my kind of recipe! The funny thing is that two of them turned out bifurcated, like with cat ears. I think those might have been the two right under the electric heating element in the stove! Very funny looking:

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 12: Maple chicken and herbed biscuits

Today w made:
Maple-Glazed Chicken with Apple Brussels Sprout Slaw, Cooking Light November 2010
Herb-Scented Drop Biscuits, Cooking Light November 2010

Another 20-minute entree, paired with biscuits that don't take much longer. Mom made the biscuits while I made the chicken and slaw.

After cooking the chicken, it's glazed in a mix of red wine vinegar and maple syrup. It seems weird to add vinegar to the syrup, but its flavor didn't end up coming through much, so this was just nice and sweet. Everyone liked the chicken a lot.

I thought it would be weird to eat raw Brussels sprouts, so I decided to just cook the slaw through a bit. That ended up being pretty good, so I was glad that I did that. I think Brussels sprouts are best sautéed in olive oil with some cracked pepper.

These biscuits were great too. We didn't have any fresh thyme on hand, but we did have fresh rosemary, so Mom used that instead. It was really nice-- rosemary is so good! These had a nice texture--crunchy-toasty on the outside, but very soft and almost spongy on the inside (maybe from the yogurt in the dough?) I'd definitely want to make these biscuits again, and the chicken.

Month 10 day 10: Chicken Piccata

Today I made:
Chicken Piccata with Orzo, Cooking Light November 2010
Collard Greens with Tomatoes and Garlic, Food & Wine November 2010

Today my parents came to visit! They were coming around dinner time, so I made this to be ready when they arrived. I don't really like capers that much, but this chicken dish was nice and lemony. It was very fast ("SuperFast 20-Minute Cooking") and easy too, and I love orzo. I will definitely save this recipe. It's not a lot of chicken, though! I guess a quarter pound is chicken's serving size, but at 345 calories for a dinner this is certainly a Cooking Light recipe. That's a snack!

The collards were fine, but I think I'm just not really that into collards. I diced the jalapeño instead of putting it in halved and taking it out later, so I was a little worried that it might be too spicy, but it wasn't spicy at all (no seeds).

Month 10 day 7: Turkey arepas and cauliflower

Today I made:
Turkey Arepas, Cooking Light November 2010
Cauliflower filet, Food & Wine November 2010

This arepas recipe specifically says not to use masa harnia or cornmeal for the arepa flour, but we couldn't find either of those. We made arepas once before with just normal corn meal, so we figured it might be ok. But when I mixed the specified amount of water with the specified amount of flour, it was totally soupy. I ended up adding extra corn meal until it was finally a texture that could ever hope to be shaped into a ball. But then, they're supposed to puff up and get a pocket in the middle, but these were pretty solid, so maybe this wasn't the correct thing to do. Instead of making sandwiches, we just piled the turkey-onion-pepper-cheese mix on top. They were pretty good!

The side recipe is an unusual way of eating cauliflower-- instead of florets, you cut it through the center to make "steaks" which are browned and then baked along with a zesty mix of red chile, corn, scallions, and capers. I'm not sure if the intact fillet shape added anything, but this was certainly a more interesting side than some plain steamed cauliflower.

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 10 day 4: In which I realize that "puff pastry" doesn't mean "phyllo dough" but it turns out it doesn't matter

Today I made:
Mushroom pies with pear salad, Food Network Magazine November 2009
Served with sautéed mung bean sprouts, Satomi Hara-style

These mushroom pies are each a large portobello mushroom cap filled with a copious amount of cheese and breadcrumbs, wrapped in puff pastry-- that's it. (Ok, they're supposed to have a bit of mustard too, but I left it out because G doesn't like mustard.) It's kind of a weird idea. They each have 1/2 cup shredded cheese. Doesn't that seem excessive?? But, it ends up melting down so I guess it doesn't seem like so much in the end. But these do end up being more filling than you might expect (despite the pastry just flaking away everywhere and being impossible to eat)

When I first looked over the recipe, I saw the frozen puff pastry in the ingredient list and passed over it thinking of the phyllo dough we've had leftover from a [delicious] brunch pie a while back. But tonight when I looked again, I realized you're supposed to use one sheet, which is rolled out to get to the right size... whoops. So instead, I just subbed the amount of phyllo dough by weight and cut out the approximately right sized stack of sheets. I didn't layer them with butter or anything because I didn't want to spend that much time, so I just figured it would be an experiment to see what would happen. It ended up being fine. Although the sheets weren't quite large enough to wrap all the way around and seal up, they got crispy and golden-brown as the puff pastry was meant to. I didn't think G would enjoy it, meatless as it is, but actually he really liked it. I thought it was a bit meh, because there was just too much dough. I think if I made it again I would use sliced mushrooms as many of the reviewers suggest, because large portobello caps are just so unreasonably expensive and it doesn't really matter for this dish anyway.

The salad is just a normal vinaigrette over salad with some pear slices. Straightforward, but tasty.

When I studied abroad in Japan, one of the favorite things my host mom made was sautéed bean sprouts. She thought it was funny that I liked them so much, because they were just sautéed with some black pepper and soy sauce. But it's always what I think of when I have leftover sprouts. They were a bit too salty-- I'm used to low-sodium soy sauce but we have the normal kind right now. But it was fun while I was cooking to think of my 4th grade host brother as being a high schooler now! I wonder if he has a JET teacher in his English class.