rivka

It's been a while since I've had anything from the experimental food corner that was worth writing home about. But this time? Wow. I made a really simple winter dessert that was ZOMG YUMMY.

I peeled and halved three large Bosc pears, and Michael scooped the cores out with a spoon. I arranged them cut side down in a square glass dish. Alex used a rolling pin to beat the heck out of a couple of handfuls of gingersnap cookies sealed in a ziploc bag. We sprinkled the gingersnap crumbs generously over the pears, poured some maple syrup (about 3oz) over the top, and added a dot of butter (about a teaspoon) to the top of each pear. I baked it for about half an hour at 375, covered with foil for the first 20 minutes and then uncovered. We ate them hot, and they were delicious. Soft, juicy pears, dripping with gingery syrupy goodness. The larger pieces of gingersnap didn't quite melt, so they added a bit of solid crunch.

The other special dish we made tonight was ( bee-bim bop )

It's been a while since I've posted from the experimental food corner. I keep meaning to post my recipe for smoked gouda-stuffed hamburgers, for example, but their time has not yet come. I'm too excited by tonight's experiment.

A few weeks ago, I tried a side dish recipe from the New Joy of Cooking: carmelized sweet potatoes and apples. It was very, very good - intensely apple-y and not too sweet. I kept thinking that it would make a nice base for a one-pot supper. Tonight I gave it a try.

First, I fried up four slices of extremely thick-cut bacon in my biggest skillet. I put the bacon to drain on some paper towels and poured off all but a tablespoon or so of the grease. Then I browned about a pound of diced chicken in the remaining bacon grease.

When the chicken was just browned, I added three large sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/4" half-moons, and three gala apples, cored and cut into eighths but not peeled. I added a lump of butter (a little less than two tablespoons, I guess), about 1/3 cup of packed brown sugar, and 1/2 cup of water. Stirred everything around, covered it up, and let it cook down vigorously for about twenty minutes. The sweet potatoes and apples steamed, grew soft, and developed a rich golden-brown sheen. The chicken soaked up an intense apple flavor. The liquid boiled away into a light syrupy coating. Just before serving, I crumbled in the bacon. It added just the right touch of saltiness.

I wish I'd thought to take a picture of my plate before it was almost scoured clean. curiousangel and wcg also say: two thumbs up.

If I had it to do again, I would change... um, nothing. It was really tasty.

(cross-posted from off_recipe)

I didn't want to go to the store last night. I had some pasta, I had some miscellaneous vegetables, and I had just over a pound of shrimp in the freezer. So:

I thawed and peeled the shrimp. 31-40s, a nice medium size.

I chopped up four cloves of garlic and three sun-dried tomatoes packed in oil.

I had a bunch of thick autumn asparagus. I cut off the top three or four inches and discarded the rest. I had a handful of snow peas, from which I removed the strings. I had half a large red bell pepper, which I minced.

I started water boiling for pasta and put a generous amount of olive oil in the bottom of my wok. (I'm not great with amounts, but probably half a cup.) I added the garlic and sun-dried tomatoes and cooked them over medium-high heat until the garlic was a nice golden color. I seasoned the now-flavored oil with some crushed red pepper, black pepper, and salt. Then I added the asparagus and watched it turn deep green and velvety-looking. When the asparagus was just beginning to give when pierced by a fork, I put some thin linguine in the pasta pot and added the red pepper and the shrimp to the wok, followed by the peas a moment later. I added some more oil, because I was worried that it might be too dry to coat the pasta, and continued to saute over medium-high heat just until all the shrimp was pink and the asparagus was tender to the fork. At the last minute, I stirred in about half a cup of the pasta cooking water to add liquid to the sauce.

How it turned out: Yum. The asparagus (which, as I said, was pretty chunky) was just tender, still vivid in color and full of body. I actually think it might've worked better for this recipe than pencil-thin asparagus; it held its texture well and made the dish a little more substantial. The snow peas were crisp, adding a nice bit of crunch. The shrimp had picked up the flavored oil beautifully.

What I'd do differently next time: It probably could've used more garlic. But overall, I was very pleased - and so were wcg and curiousangel, if the speed with which they cleaned their plates was any indication.

It's been a looong time since I made an Experimental Food Corner post.

Tonight was definitely an EFC kind of night - it's been a long time since I've been to the grocery store, and I had no intention of going to the store before making dinner. So I knew that I'd be throwing dinner together out of whatever happened to be in the fridge.

I did have some meat: about a pound of "turkey cutlets," or slices of turkey breast meat about 1/4 inch thick. I formed a vague idea about the kinds of things that go into turkey piccata, started some rice, and began:

I mixed some flour, salt and pepper, and a handful of grated parmesan cheese in a shallow dish, and dredged the turkey cutlets in it as thoroughly as possible. Then I dropped them, two at a time, into a generous skosh of olive oil that was sitting in a skillet over medium-high heat. In contrast to my usual habit of anxiously turning food again and again, I let them sit in the oil until they were crisp and brown on one side, and then turned them. When they were crispy golden brown on both sides, and cooked through, I removed them to my toaster oven to keep warm.

Most of the oil cooked away by the time I finished the second pair of cutlets, so I dropped a chunk of butter into the pan - about a tablespoon and a half, I guess. I turned down the heat a little, but the butter melted and browned very quickly. I whisked in a handful of the leftover flour-and-parmesan-cheese mixture I had dredged the turkey pieces in. It didn't make a smooth paste, of course, because of the cheese pieces, but when I judged that the flour had dissolved I added a half-cup of chicken broth and two tablespoons of lemon juice. I let it boil for a few minutes, whisking, until the sauce was smooth and thick and the cheese was mostly melted. (There were still little concentrated nubbets of parmesan, though.)

Then I served up dinner: rice spread over the bottom of the plate, turkey cutlets on top, and some sugar snap peas blanched in the rest of the can of chicken broth, on the side. Just before eating we ladled some sauce over the top of the turkey.

It was really good. The sauce was a rich brown from the pan drippings, and had an intense lemon punch. The parmesan cheese in the sauce gave it a lovely rich mouthfeel, and the crunchy parmesan in the turkey cutlet coating was delicious. It was very satisfying for a quick weeknight dinner. (The total cooking time was just under half an hour.)

I've been interested in developing sauces and marinades for the last year or so, and I'm always really happy when I get a sauce right.

So we had some milk in the fridge that needed to be used up. I decided that I was in the mood for something lemony-creamy, but I couldn't find any recipes online that fit the picture in my head. So here's what I did:

I browned some chicken breast tenders in a mixture of butter and olive oil. When the chicken was cooked through, I removed it to a bowl and covered it with foil to keep warm.

I drained off about half the fat and whisked a couple of spoonfuls of flour into the other half, over medium-low heat. When the roux had formed into a smooth paste I added the juice and zest of a large lemon, a splash of white wine, and lots of black pepper, and then whisked it smooth again. Then I started adding milk, a tiny bit at a time, pouring with my right hand and whisking with my left. I brought it up very hot (it would start to bubble if I stopped whisking, but with constant stirring it stayed just below the boil) and kept stirring until the sauce had reduced and thickened somewhat. Then I added a generous handful of grated parmesan and stirred until the cheese was more or less melted.

In the meantime, I'd made some linguini fini. I piled it into pasta bowls, arranged the browned chicken on top, and then poured on the sauce. It was delicious - delicately flavored, very light and fresh-tasting, with a lovely aroma of lemon zest. Definitely something to go into the permanent rotation.

I usually cook pork chops with broth and quartered red potatoes and roasted red peppers, but today I didn't have any of those ingredients. Nor did I have the usual things I would use to make a pan sauce for sauteed pork chops. Clearly, this called for a trip to the Experimental Food Corner.

After browning the chops and then cooking them in a covered pan over low heat, I removed them to a plate, leaving the drippings. I turned up the heat, deglazed the pan with fresh cranberry-apple cider, and added plenty of dijon mustard as well as some basil, oregano, and black pepper. I whisked it all smooth and let it boil for a minute or two, and then - with some trepidation - served it.

It was really good: sweet and tangy, with a notable cranberry undertone. It worked well with the pork chops, and I think it would also make a good poultry sauce. If only we got cranberry-apple cider in the stores year-round.

I wasn't very hungry this evening, but I figured it would be a bad idea to forego dinner. I was in the mood for something light, and something that would help me fill my remaining Lean Plate Club goals for the day. (I was down one serving of fruits or vegetables and one serving of whole grains, and was due for a fish-dairy-or-vegetable-protein meal.)

I found a red bell pepper in the fridge, cut the top off, scooped the seeds out, and put it in the toaster oven at 400 degrees. While it was roasting, I thawed a small handful of frozen bay scallops under hot water, cooked up some whole-wheat couscous, and minced tiny amounts of some vegetables: maybe a tablespoon of fresh tomato, a smidgen of onion, one clove of garlic. I sauteed the onion and garlic in a little olive oil, added the scallops and tomatoes, and seasoned generously with salt, black pepper, and red pepper flakes. Then I mixed it all in to the couscous. It tasted a little one-note (pepper), so I added a splash of lemon juice. That turned out to be The Very Thing.

By that time, the pepper was hot and softened but still held its shape. I spooned in the filling (there was too much) and settled down with my dinner. It was So. Good. The couscous was melt-in-my-mouth light, filling without being heavy, with buried morsels of sea-flavored goodness. The seasoning was piquant but not overbearing.

I don't know why I don't cook for myself every night.

It's been a while since I've posted a recipe to my LiveJournal, so...

Tonight I made turkey mole, Now, mole sauce is something I've never made before, and in fact I'd only ever eaten it once, but we had a package of turkey breast cutlets and some baker's chocolate and a cookbook, and they all came together quite nicely. Here's the recipe as I made it, which is not quite as the cookbook suggested.

In a blender, mix one can of tomatoes, a handful of chopped onion, two large cloves of garlic, an ounce of chopped baker's chocolate, an ounce of raisins, a tablespoon of sesame seeds, and some seasonings: cumin, chili powder, coriander, cinnamon, and allspice. (I would've used cloves if I had them, to keep the C spice theme going, but allspice was as close as I could get.) Blend them briefly.

Cut about a pound of turkey breast cutlets into bite-sized pieces and brown them lightly in oil. Add the mole sauce. If it looks too thick or tastes too intense, thin it with some chicken or turkey broth. Bring to a boil and then simmer, covered, for about an hour.

I served it over rice, with sweet corn on the side. Ideally, I would serve it with dirty rice and black beans, but I hadn't planned to make this tonight so I was limited to what happened to be in the cupboard. All in all, it turned out pretty well - a little bitter, so maybe next time I'll add about a half-spoonful of sugar. Also, for some reason the raisins escaped pulverization in the blender, and were still whole in the final dish. Next time I'd chop them first, or blend the sauce longer, or something.

Anyway: not bad for an experiment. curiousangel and I both cleaned our plates with enthusiasm.

Lots accomplished today, despite persistent sleepiness. I suppose that makes it a good day.

- We woke up on time and went to church, despite having gone to bed at 2am for no particular reason. Church was a good thing - the sermon was on whether it makes any sense to pray if you don't believe in a supernatural being who intervenes in the world on the behalf of believers, and there were readings about being a health care provider who works with dying people, and I found a lot of use there.

- I picked up my prescriptions, and bought sunscreen so we won't get charred to a crisp in Florida.

- wcg came over, and we planned out my dress - picked the design example from the Bradfield book, talked over which details I wanted to be different, considered and decided against the prints at Reproduction Fabrics, visited two fabric stores, selected a print and a solid fabric after auditioning a cast of thousands, laced me into my corset for measuring purposes, made more plans. Bill sketched out a pattern for the bodice on a napkin, complete with measurements and piece shapes. He amazes me.

- Bill and I also did some non-dress-related things, of which the only part I will mention here is the singing.

- I decided I wanted to experiment with some of the flavors we had last night, so I made grilled salmon with mango salsa for dinner this evening. I marinated salmon fillets in olive oil, lime juice, cumin, salt, and pepper, and then cooked them on the George Foreman grill. I diced a ripe mango and a can of pineapple chunks and about half a red bell pepper chopped fine, and tossed them with a splash of lime juice and a splash of white vinegar, and sprinkled it all very lightly with sugar, and let the flavors muddle together for a couple of hours, and served it over the salmon fillets, with rice. It was really good.

- I paid all our bills, including the one that isn't due until after we get back from vacation.

- I made our flight reservations for Minicon. Now we have a con membership, a hotel reservation, and a flight reservation. That means we're really going. I will not have a social anxiety attack.

- I wrote a thing for the church newsletter about the Young Adult group I'm supposedly helping run. It was full enough of "If you're interested in [activity] contact [person who isn't Rivka]" to make me laugh out loud. Delegation is one thing I apparently have down.

Busy. Sleepy. Good night.