Sunday, January 11, 2015

What a week....

Hey All,

So what a week.  The first full week of 2015 brought all kinds of crazy.  There was a RIF at work that was bittersweet.  While some of the paranoia inducing folks are gone, lots of hardworking good people were also taken out in the process.  Also, there was an officer involved shooting that affected one of the communities to which I belong.  My commentary is minimal about both happenings for two reasons:  1)  I'm not entirely sure what to say and find that letting my confusion be my guide usually works well, and 2) some of the initial reactions are entirely unpopular and liable to hurt feelings.  The whole thing has me a bit confused, looking for direction, and not entirely sure I like what my inner voice is telling me.  The inner voice is telling me to remain calm and stay the course.  So all of that aside, the kitchen continues to run smoothly!

Recap

Let's recap since the last installment:

Rice and Egg Bake, while creepy in appearance has been quite enjoyable both fresh and as leftovers.  I have misplaced the cook book and can't find anything similar on the web, but here's a picture:

If you search for Egg and Rice bake, there are lots of variants....in this one, you mix the yolks with powdered mustard and basically make upside down deviled eggs in the rice.  A note here, if you are using fresh eggs, conventional wisdom will tell you that your eggs won't hardboil.  That is hogwash, the trick is to shock the eggs in cold water immediately after cooking, causing the membrane to shrink from the shell.  Also, peeling under cold water helps keep the eggs from sticking.

The rest of last week was good eating!  I'm happy to report the steam bun dough made for delicious peirogi.  The bit of sweet and the hearty bite of over-risen dough was a delight.

The Week Ahead

So shopping this week was actually slightly impressive.  Pork loin was on sale for $2.49/lb;  $26 later we have 4 just right sized roasts.  Not bad at all.  I didn't hit NPS this week, so I paid a bit more for some stuff, but all told I was only into Smith's for $45.  My target is $50 a week and >30% savings....so I'm on target!

Beef stew and pork chili will be nice considering we are supposed to get weather again.  Hearty soups and stews are wonderful when its cold and dreary.

Tater Tot Taco Bake flew by my facebook feed.  My only gripe is that this recipe ends up costing more than most meals I make due to the specialty canned goods and cheese that is not on sale.

Chicken with plum sauce will be an experiment.  Last summer, PL brought me some early season plums from up north.  It wasn't enough for jam, and neither myself nor Husbear care for fresh plums, so I made a jar of plum sauce to store.  It came out last weekend as part of a Dim Sum tea party for his daughter who was returning to her Mother.  I think I'll just crock pot the mess and serve with rice and veggies.  The other option would be to fry up pre-bredded patties and pour it over that, but the sauce may be just a bit too heavy for that.

Since the sourdough starter refuses to die....and trust me, in the past two weeks its a wonder it hasn't, I'm going to give Kraut Bierok a shot.  This is one of those recipes that goes way back in my mining, German, blue collar heritage.  This will make a substantial quantity, so the leftovers will go into the freezer.  I'm also going to make a curry ketchup to go with these.  While ketchup in itself would be delightful, I think curried ketchup will be amazing.  To make curried ketchup, just mix curry powder into ketchup to taste....and remember the flavors will intensify greatly the longer it sits.

I'm also patiently waiting to see if my parents managed to get the German Strudle recipe down for sharing.  Its another high carb, high fat, poor people food, but has been a special recipe in my family for generations.  If they get it figured out, I'll be sure to share it.

Not quite as lengthy this week.  I hope 2015 is finding you healthy and well-adjusted.  So far, its off to a crazy start, so I'll keep cooking!

3Day

Sunday, January 4, 2015

New year, same stuff....

Happy New Year Everyone!

I hope 2015 has greeted you well.  As for me, the holidays were bittersweet....I worked hard, said the final goodbye to a co-worker who is moving on to new things, worked a crazy schedule, and got a ton of much needed rest.  I'm sad that the resting part is over and the year ahead will bring even bigger challenges than 2014.

The Holiday

The holidays themselves were wonderful.  I pretty much just pattered around the house, cooked, baked, enjoyed the occasional get together, and enjoyed a lot of booze.  I also received the 2 items on my Christmas list, lots of great edible goodies, gift certificates, and cash.  I'm still humbled at the gifts this time of year.  I've taken a rather utilitarian tact in that I don't gift unless expressly asked.  That's not to say during the year folks don't receive random things like a meal, a much coveted office supply, home canned goods, etc, its just that I often find the holiday stress of trying to find the perfect gift over the top....and well, folks who know me and are important in my life understand this.  We'll make the most of the time we do get to spend together and if a super special gift is needed/wanted, we work to make it happen.

That said, here's the things I wanted:

The Thug Kitchen cookbook is one of those trendy/kitschy things I simply couldn't live without.  It reads like a sailor's journal of swear words, and I love it.  The working kitchen is no place for polite words....  It is pretty no-nonsense, although there are a few things in there that make me turn my nose up as hipster.  Overall, though, it is a great read with great ideas, generally sensible, and vegetarian.  Now I'm not a devout veg, but I do like to try and work a veg meal or 2 into my weekly meals.  As they point out, we all eat too damned much meat as it is....and meat is expensive, so you see my thought process here.

The Alaska Airlines retrojet model holds a special place in my heart.  I love special liveries on aircraft.  I find the Alaska retrojet to be especially beautiful, the interior is no exception.  The gentle tip of the hat of an old school paint job on a new multimillion dollar machine makes me very happy.  This one in particular;  we flew this jet to our wedding in 2013.  Enjoying my first first-class flight on Alaska for our anniversary also reminded me that I should commemorate the good fortune that we got to fly on such a beautiful bird on such a special weekend.  This model plane now sits alongside my Southwest Airlines 737, commemorating my many long trips to Vancouver, WA in 2014, in my cubicle as a reminder of some of my favorite flights.

Entrees

So let's talk about some entrees that I've made recently that have been delicious:

First up is this Chicken and Mushrooms with Balsamic Cream Sauce from Centercut cook.  This was another that flew by my facebook feed that I bookmarked.  To make it simple, I deep fried prebredded chicken fillets, making the gravy ahead of time.  I served it with butter-herbed rotini and green beans.  Butter-herbed pasta is super easy, make the pasta, drain it, while it is still warm, add a tablespoon or 2 of butter, plenty of salt, and chopped fresh herbs.  If you are feeling especially adventurous, a shred of good Italian cheese adds a bit of depth.  Just toss that together and serve.  I had just a bit of leftover gravy, that will be served on pierogi this week.  Here's how it looked:

Orange Chicken was a quick throw together.  As mentioned, we scored a helluva deal on fritter chicken.  Fritter chicken isn't useful for much beyond a base for sauce.  So I made ahead this Orange Sauce from Rasamalaysia.  I steamed up a bowl of Normandy blend vegetables, deep fried some of the fritter chicken, and poured the sauce over the top and served it over crispy chow mien noodles.  I've found this is the best way to make good Chinese fare.  I mentioned it before, if you try to put it all together in a crock pot, it turns out like crud.

We also did a batter fried fish with Asian fruit compote.  A huge tip here, if you want your batter to be crispy when cooked, add 1 tablespoon of cornstarch for each cup of flour.  Batter frying often escapes me and makes one heck of a mess. 

First let me start with the compote....this was literally what was in the pantry and fruit bowl, a can of mangosteen (chop those tender seeds, they hold all the flavor), a can of loquat, and a fleshy, but oddly shaped kiwi.  I drained the canned fruits, scooped the kiwi out of its skin, and rough chopped.  It needed a dash of salt and a squirt of Sriracha to make a wonderful spicy compote for the fish.  Despite the mess and trouble getting the batter to set right until the oil was hot, I did find something useful to do with the leftover batter:  make hushpuppies....  I mixed in cornmeal until the batter would stick together and dropped that by spoonfuls into the hot oil.  I'd give the presentation on this a zero, but it sure tasted good....fruit compote on the fish and cocktails sauce on the hushpuppies.

Now let's talk dumplings!  I started a sourdough starter about 2 months ago, and its still going strong.  It has made some fantastic breads, such as rosemary fantans, plain white bread, lots of sweet rolls, Dutch Apple Bagels, Banana Nut Bagels, and Orange Sesame bagels.  One of them that I photographed are the Orange Sesame bagels just before baking:


Its also that time of year where I am having a love affair with hearty finger foods such as those typically served at Dim Sum.  We've only had one outing to our favorite dim sum place, but I did pick up some frozen dim sum and got inspired to see what it took to make these delights.  Interestingly, most dim sum is very labor intense, but beyond that quite easy.  Steam buns, in particular fascinate me....they are glossy on the outside, but light and flaky and absorb the flavor of whatever you put into them.  A bit of research and I found this recipe for steam bun dough:

1 pkg yeast
1/2 cup warm water
    mix together and let get frothy

  mix together:
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups cake flour (substitute 3/4 cup flour with 2 tablespoons cornstarch sifted together, so in this case you'd need 1 1/2 cups flour and 4 tablespoons cornstarch, measure to make the difference)
3 Tblsp. Sugar
1/2 tsp. baking powder

Add 1/2 cup warm milk to the yeast and mix the mess together.  The trick here is the 10 minutes of kneading.  If you don't knead it long enough, it doesn't turn out so well.  Coat in oil and let rise until doubled (this takes a while if you use sourdough starter like I do).....then roll into a great big rope and cut off bun sized pieces and steam for 20 minutes (parchment is essential here!), keep in mind they will about double in the steamer.  I did a batch where I rolled fresh cut scallions into the rope (delicious! I may try a roti paratha using this dough as well)....if you want to do something fancier like a pork boa, just roll it out quite thin until it starts to break, cut to size, and put the filling in before steaming.  Remember to pinch the dough well or it will come undone!

As an example, here's a Barbacoa Bao....I had leftover beef barbacoa and green crud (cilantro and onion), so figured why not.  Here it is going into the steam:
Here's one with a bite out of it:
These were downright amazing!  I'm so glad I've found this recipe.

If you want to use the dough for wontons and the like, just let it rise overnight, it won't puff as much when you steam it and still be delicious!  I also found that frying over medium heat prevents it from puffing a whole bunch.

The Week Ahead


So with the chickens laying again, we need egg ideas.  If you have any, please send them over.  I inherited most of my Mom's cookbooks.  I was beside myself when she told me she was going to get rid of them.  The collection in question is totally retro chic and chock full of great recipes. 

Among this fortress of cooking was, "The Egg Cookbook".  Its a simple paperbound little book chock full of egg information (ask me about egg grading, and yes, half of our fresh ones are only A) and recipes.  One recipe that caught my eye was Rice and Egg Bake.  Its more or less deviled eggs baked in a tomato and pepper rice....I'll have to report back.

Pierogi with leftover balsamic cream sauce.....I'm using the steam bun dough well risen so it doesn't puff a bunch.  For the filling, I mashed 3 small potatoes with buttermilk, cream, salt, and shredded parmesan, and ran some onion, chicken, apple cider vinegar, thyme, and garlic through the chopper.  I'll put those together later tonight.  So far, it smells amazing and I'm having flashbacks to the delicious sour cream sauce on the pelmini at Anoush Deli in Vancouver, WA.  One of these days I should write about Anoush....what a weird hole in the wall but once folks recognized my face I was part of the family.  I'm pretty sure I met the Russian mafia there.....

Shepherd's Pie - Husbear will make this one, he has a distinct picture and flavor in his mind.  Interestingly, he was worried about needing corn, but I have a can in the pantry....  It was intended for salads, but thus far, I haven't been able to touch the canned goods I got for tiffin salads.

Fajitas - easy, duh!

General Tsao's Chicken - Similar to the orange chicken.  I need to find a good recipe for General sauce.



Bonus!  It Caused a Stir

Egg Fu Yung

6 eggs
1/2 onion, finely diced (a bunch of green onions, white and green parts works too)
1/2 cup finely sliced celery (cutting at a 45-degree angle is visually appealing)
1/2 cup fresh bean sprouts (substitute finely shredded cabbage, bok choy, napa cabbage, or similar)

Mix altogether until the egg starts to froth.  Fry on medium heat by 1/4 cupfuls....make sure to mix well before each frying or you will get veggie patties and egg patties, not that either isn't delicious!

You can also add up to 1/2 lb of cooked, cooled, and finely chopped meat if you'd like.  When its on sale, I love Chinese sausage in this.

There are a handful of tricks to make it cripsier, if you'd like.  The easiest is to add 1 tsp. cornstarch per egg to the mix.  The other is to fry the fu yung, then aggressively steam it by adding a couple tablespoons of water to the skillet and covering.

I was shocked when I finally figured out my favorite brown sauce for Eggs Fu Yung.  My favorite Eggs Fu Yung, made by China Garden in Missoula, MT, always came slathered in a delicious starchy brown sauce, a recipe which I could never find.  The closest thing I've found is McCormick brown gravy mix.  Here's the picture that caused a stir:


So 2014 was a very strange and crazy year.  I'm hoping that the new adventures and thinking I'm trying to adopt in 2015 work to my advantage.  I hope you all will also have a fantastic new year and the years of the past are remembered fondly.

3Day