Justin & Meredith Winokur's Kitchen Cooking Notebook
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posts/2011/02
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Vegetable Caponata -- back to top
We didn't really follow a recipe exactly. We kind of sautéed onions and garlic. Then we added zucchini and previously broiled eggplant. We added some crushed tomatoes and tomato paste. Finally, for some protein we added barley and chick peas.
We stuffed it in red peppers and the extra in a side bowl. They were good but even better the next day. There was not really much to it but it was good. Maybe some real meat next time
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 937, 2011-02-02_220859
Borscht (and Gimme Lean) -- back to top
We made Borscht based on the recipe below (halved). It was pretty good. I think we followed the recipe pretty closely except we used real mushrooms and used beef broth. Also, we used the beet greens the other night so we added some dry parsley. Although it was not overly flavorful, it was a nice flavor. Sweet but with a savory touch. Oh, we also used more beets
We also had gimme lean even though it didn't really go but it still sounded good.
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Original Wordpress ID and Date: 944, 2011-02-02_221642
Vegetable Lasagna with Butternut Béchamel -- back to top
This casserole was very, very good. It is based on the recipe below but we made a few changes. First of all, we did not have chard so we used kale. We were a bit nervous about this change since kale can get chewy, but it was okay. The other major change was that we used barilla no-bake noodles. Next time, I want to make the pasta ourselves too.
We used skim milk and fat free cheese. They both worked well except the cheese stuck to the cover a bit and messed up the top pasta layer while baking.
We will definitely do this again. Not only was it really low in points, but it was so good. The lemon added a nice flavor to the butternut squash and it had a good creaminess. It wasn't too difficult but it was time consuming.
Served 6 to 8 is a big understatement but then again, it is really healthy. We used much less lasagna noodles than they did. I wonder if it is the difference in the shape of the dish.
Vegetable Lasagna with Butternut Béchamel (from Thekitchn)
(2014-02-23 Note: This is now part ofmy recipe book)
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 949, 2011-02-07_160632
Grilled Shrimp and Steamed Broccoli -- back to top
We had found fairly large shrimp at Costco for a good price so we decided to do that. We seasoned half of them with Old Bay and the other half with garlic powder and butter spray. They were both good. Next time though, I think we will save the money and buy smaller shrimp. We can then eat the same amount for less. As long as they are not too small, they taste about the same.
The broccoli was just steamed.
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 953, 2011-02-08_072521
Chicken Carbonara -- back to top
We made the Chicken Carbonara from the Hungry Girl recipe below. We doubled it since their's is only one serving. We also made a few changes but not many. First of all, we only had enough egg beaters for half so the other half was skim milk. The other major change was we used turkey bacon. Since the turkey bacon is raw, we added it with the chicken. Finally, I let the mushrooms cook a bit first to get the crispiness.
Overall, I thought it was just okay. There was not an over-powering flavor but it wasn't too bad. I think that may be because turkey bacon is less flavorful. I do not know how much the egg substitution mattered though. Also, I have mixed feelings about shirataki noodles. They have a strange texture but they are so low in calories, it is hard to argue. I wouldn't rush to do this again but if we did, I think we should use real bacon.
Chicken Carbonara (From HungryGirl)
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Original Wordpress ID and Date: 956, 2011-02-09_134907
This was pretty good. We were inspired by the recipe below but made a few changes. While we had the same amount of liquid, we used much less seafood. We used a bag of the Trader Joe's mix and then some pieces of tilapia. As such, we added the mix abut 15 minutes into cooking and the tilapia at about 20 or so.
The tilapia was a bit fishy but it may just not have been good tilapia. Otherwise, it was good. I do not know if it was the wine or the anise, or what, but it smelled really good. Also we used canned whole tomatoes and cut them up.
We also used 1/2 beef and 1/2 chicken instead of fish. And, we only had 1 cup of white wine so we went low on that.
Cioppino (From Giada De Laurentiis via The Food Network)
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Original Wordpress ID and Date: 959, 2011-02-10_070503
This was a lot of fun though a bit of a big undertaking for a Thursday night. We had bought a big (BIG) can of diced tomatoes and we decided to have a a chili night where we made 4 different types. It was a bit stressful before adding the tomatoes because there were 4 burners going with slightly different things.
Anyway, we started off taking detailed notes on each but it turns out that if you want to experiment with FOUR at a time, you cannot be too specific. So, the notes were less detailed but give the gist of what we were doing. A lot of the inspiration comes from this Kitchn Post. The cocoa one was inspired from The Stainless Steel Thumb.
The four types were regular (front left), chocolate (front right), Moussaka (back right), and Espresso (back left).
They were all good. The classic was the best but the chocolate and moussaka were interesting. The coffee one was not too good. Too much coffee and too much smokiness.
Here are our notes:
All
Mix of black and red beans
Classic / Regular
Beef (~ 7 oz)
corn
Chocolate
Cumin
**
oregano
Coffee
Decaf Coffee (too much)
I think the problem with the coffee was that we were supposed to used instant coffee powder. The coffee was very well ground but it was still a bit gritty. Plus there was too much.
The chocolate was interesting, You could really taste the cocoa powder and it had a nice flavor. The moussaka was also good and definitely tasted like moussaka with a bit of a chili kick.
Just for fun, below is also a picture of the stove as we were cooking all four
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 965, 2011-02-10_191855
Breakfast: Hot Brown -- back to top
This was our version of something Meredith used to order at a place in Pittsburgh. It is a nice breakfast. We basically made a baked latke on the bottom and then topped it with ham and turkey.
The baked latke was not incredible. I think I was a bit impatient with it but it was still good.
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 973, 2011-02-13_200800
Valentine's Day Dinner: Beet Sandwiches, Beef Bourguignon, Patatas Bravas, Zabaglione -- back to top
We were faced with a dilemma for Valentine s Day. We didn't want to go out but we cook all the time so what makes it special. So, we decided to go a bit all out. We made a three course meal and cares less about calories, etc (though, the main course was not too bad).
The idea for these was based on this Epicurious post but we based a filling from the recipe below. We quartered the cheese and halved the spices, except for garlic.We just minced it all together. Also, we skipped the walnut oil
Most notably with that is we made out own mascarpone cheese. I do not remember the recipe for the cheese but it is heavy cream that is cooked then you add an acid. We used lemon juice. After sitting overnight draining, it thickened. Also we made a balsamic vinegar reduction. Again, I do not remember the recipe but you basically just reduce vinegar. Also, we did not use pine nuts
I should note that the cheese is not at all good for you, but we didn't need to use too much. We used 1/4 cup and had a lot of leftover.
The sandwiches were good. The beets did not have a huge amount of flavor but they looked really cool. The cupids arrow plate designs were Meredith. They looked good.
The beef was based on Ina Garten's recipe below. We followed it pretty closely except we halved it. Also, we used reduced fat, thick sliced, bacon instead of what they called for. And we used the more expensive, but more tender and less fatty sirloin steak. The only other change is we did not have the pearl onions. Also, we cooked it longer.
This was very, very good. It had a lot of flavor and we really enjoyed it. It took some time but was not overly difficult. We will definitely do this again. We bought really cheap red wine for it but it worked fine. One problem with putting the whole pan in the oven is when I took it back on the stove, I forgot it was in the oven, OUCH!
If we want to make it healthier, we may try turkey bacon. The thing is, surprisingly, turkey bacon and the reduced fat stuff have comparable nutrition information. But, based on the amount of fat left in the pan, I do not buy it. Oh well, it was worth it and not too bad.
The patatas bravas were just like last time. I again just threw it together. One interesting thing is I tasted the sauce and it didn't seem right. Meredith tried it and instantly identified that it needed the red wine vinegar. So, in the future, I need to make sure I remember that one.
We made the zabaglione based off the recipe below but used kaluha instead of Grand Marnier. It was pretty good itself. We didn't want to make too much because it was all egg yolk but it was enough. We also served it cold so as to not melt the bowl.
The real star was the chocolate bowl. Meredith had originally wanted to make these as a surprise (and kicked me out of the apartment to do so) I ended up helping when she wasn't sure if it would work. I do not know where the recipe is from but it basically entails chocolate covering an air-filled water balloon. The thing to be careful about it not using the chocolate when it is too hot because it will pop the balloon. From our own experience, when that happens, it shoots chocolate everywhere. For better or for worse, we found that they chocolate stayed melted to pretty low temperatures.
Actually, we think that our problem may have been that we used too high quality of chocolate. It was too soft. It melted easily and was very sticky. Still it worked well enough well. The center of the bowl had a hole but on top of the plate, it was okay. I do not know if the hole was from removing the deflated balloon, which was not easy, or just there. Also, with the high quality chocolate, it was so rich that eating the bowl was a bit much. Next time, we will use junkier chocolate.
We served it with blackberries and a dark chocolate heart (also fashioned by us).
Mascarpone Filling (From The Gilded Fork)
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Beef Bourguignon (From Ina Garten via The Food Network)
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Zabaglione (from Bon Appetit)
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Original Wordpress ID and Date: 983, 2011-02-13_201944
Buffalo Chicken Meatballs -- back to top
The idea for this came from something Trader Joe's had but was very high in points. So, we decided to make our own. I read a bunch of recipes but most only called for buffalo sauce on top and not in the meatballs. Martha Stewart's recipe did have it in there so it is largely based on that.
We did not actually use butter but did just use Frank's Red Hot to get the same flavor. Also, we had to grind our own chicken. I read a few things on it and just used the food processor (and let the dishwasher clean the bowls afterwards.
I am not copying the recipe because I really didn't follow it very much. I cooked them at 400 for about 10-15 minutes.
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 993, 2011-02-17_092919
Pasta e Lenticchie -- back to top
We basically followed the recipe below on this one with only a few changes. I do not know the exact type of lentils we used but we used the ones with the lowest nutritional information. A few other changes were: Chopped the celery very fine and kept it, used some canned tomatoes (about half a can), used less pasta (about 4 oz) and it was whole wheat, skipped the parsley (forgot it), added chicken Better Than Bouillon to the water.
It was pretty good. I think it needs more tomatoes next time to help enhance the flavor. Other than that, I do not know what else we could add. It was not as good as our lentil soup last time.
Pasta e Lenticchie (From Mario Batali via The Food Network)
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Original Wordpress ID and Date: 996, 2011-02-17_093416
Torta Salata ai Funghi and Baked Artichoke Hearts -- back to top
This was roughly based on the recipe below but we made some major changes to make it healthy. First of all, we used almond milk instead of cream/milk. We also cut the butter and used Smart Balance (less of it too). Finally, we did it without a pie bottom and used Pillsbury reduced Fat crescents as a toping. We used lite Jarlsberg on top.
Honestly, it wasn't incredible. It just lacked some flavor. I do not think the missing flavor was butter but I do not know what it was. It just didn't taste like a "pot-pie". Oh well.
The artichokes were the canned ones we rinsed really well and topped with garlic, seasonings and a tad of bread crumbs. They were still rather salty
Point wise was okay. The mushroom stuff had very little points itself. The pillsbury was almost exactly 2.5 per sheet and there were 4 on the topping so it wasn't awful.
Torta Salata ai Funghi [Savory Mushroom Pie] (from Fresh mushrooms)
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Original Wordpress ID and Date: 999, 2011-02-17_221147
Frittata Breakfast Sandwiches -- back to top
These were pretty easy for breakfast. We basically sautéed onions, peppers, some low(er) fat bacon and anything else that sounded good. We then added it to a pammed pyrex dish and poured egg in it. We did it in the microwave until it was done. It made somewhat of a mess in the microwave but nothing too bad. We cut them in half when we took them out and made one regular and one open-face sandwich.
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1002, 2011-02-19_112017
Sautéed Cod over Homemade Beet Pasta with roasted Beets and Potatoes -- back to top
This was a good meal largely inspired by this blog post but with some serious changes. The thing is that their pasta recipe calls for 7 egg yolks though we would have halved it anyway. And it just doesn't sound healthy at all. We made the concession of just using white flour but that was too much egg. So we used egg beaters. Also, even though we had beets (which we roasted later), we did not have time to roast them first so we used canned and then puréed them. Well, still, it all came together strangely. I had to play with the dough a lot to get it the right moistness but it was a very, very streachy dough. After letting it rest for about 35 minutes we started rolling and cutting.
This dough was okay to roll but it did not want to be cut. We had to manually tear the cuts apart. And it was still very, very streachy. I also thought it would all stick but thankfully, in the boiling water, it came apart. I used a lot of salt in the water which did add a nice flavor to the pasta. It ended up fine and tasted good.
We basically followed their lead on the cod but it came out a bit salty. Also, despite our best efforts, it stuck to the pan a little bit. It was thankfully not over cooked but it was salty. Meredith liked it more than I did. Also, we used chives as a garnish/side.
Meredith found a few recipes and made a white wine sauce sans cream/milk, etc. It was okay but very thin. I like the shallot and leak scraps in it. I though they were good even if the sauce was thin.
Finally, we combined the beets we were going to use with some purple majesty potatoes and roasted them with olive oil, garlic and seasonings. It was funny because they were very hard to tell apart until you were in a different light. They were also good.
I had an interesting observation when making this. I have noticed that every time I have made pasta (not including ravioli), the seemingly straight strands twist a lot after coming out of the water. If you look back, this is fairly evident from the pictures. Today, while eating, I remember reading a thing about different dough kneading techniques and one of the things they said about using the stand mixer (my preferred method), was that it creates twisted gluten strands. I wonder if that is what was happening in the pasta and the twists cause them to curl in the heat of the water. Of course, I could imagine the twists counter acting each other but maybe a trend prevails. Just a thought. Maybe next time I will just use the food processor and compare. In that case, it is fully kneaded in like 3 minutes which seems too fast but we will see.
Local copy of recipe copied from comments
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1006, 2011-02-19_222259
Moroccan Spinach and Chickpeas -- back to top
We saw this recipe a while ago and it sounded easy and fast. The only major changes was we used really light whole wheat bread instead of what they suggest. We found bread with great nutritional information that was still okay. The bread flavor was strong so that may have affected it. We also used a bit more so I added a tad more vinegar.
I liked that this recipe was really low in points and healthy. Plus totally vegetarian. We will probably make it again. Also, despite being "Moroccan", it was rather light on the spices which was interesting. Sadly, we had to use pre-made tomato sauce but next time, we will try to make our own.
Moroccan Spinach and Chickpeas (from SeriousEats)
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Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1015, 2011-02-21_081007
Mexican Braised Beef -- back to top
This is based on the recipe below.I actually do not know much about it because Meredith did all of it because I was stuck on campus until around 10:00pm that night.
It was a bit dry and flavorless but we both really liked the idea of it so we may try again with more seasonings.
Mexican Braised Beef (from Thekitchn)
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Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1018, 2011-02-21_233107
Red Pepper Chicken -- back to top
We wanted a simple and fast meal and this is what we got. It was really easy. It was the Trader Joes red-pepper spread put on chicken and baked for about 20-30 minutes. And, we had steamed broccoli.
This was easy and good-enough. I want to make my own red pepper sauce next time. Also, maybe we will make a red pepper sauce and serve it on pasta. That could be good!
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1020, 2011-02-22_193202
Mulligatawny, Curried Cauliflower and Samosa -- back to top
This was a pretty successful meal on the whole. I will go through the item.
The samosa were our normal dough, again done with almond milk. The filling was also pretty standard except that we were running low on curry powder and wanted to save it for the soup so we used garam masala,turmeric,coriander, mustard seed, cumin,paprika, etc (I do not remember them all) and made something close enough. As usual, we served them with mint-chutney and tamarind sauce mix.
The cauliflower was really good and roughly based on the recipe below. Like the samosa, we were trying to save on the curry powder so we did a similar spice mix. I basically followed the first part of the directions but did some of the roasting at a lower temperature for when it was sharing the oven with the samosa. I really liked it and we will do this again. I wonder how it would be with broccoli.Cauliflower is a bit expensive (actually, it was the single most expensive part of the meal), so other things may be better.
Finally, the soup was based on the recipe below but we made a major change. We used So Delicious coconut milk instead of half and half. We used the lowest calorie one with 50 calories and 5 grams of fat per cup. Also, we used splenda (and less equivalent). Finally, we added garam asala and used (much) less fat/butter. It was pretty good though not the best mulligatawny ever. It was also a pretty easy recipe. We didn't really taste the coconut but it was creamy. Half and half would have just been too many calories. Also, the apple was a bit strange but not really bad.
Now, the biggest question is how do I get rid of the tumeric stains I have everyone on my hands.
Overall, this ended up being a pretty healthy meal because of our changes. We will do it again!
Curried Cauliflower (from Summer Tomato)
(This recipe is now in my Recipe Book)
Easy Mulligatawny (from The Pioneer Woman)
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Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1022, 2011-02-25_113210
Butternut Squash Soup and Tomato Chicken (Thing) -- back to top
The butternut squash soup was pretty standard. It was not the best one but it may have to do with it not really being squash season and it is pretty old.
I do not know what to call the other thing we made but it was tomatoes, onion, garlic, brocoli, chickpeas and chicken. I added some balsamic and other seasoning. I love broccoli in a tomato sauce and this was really good. There was very little chicken (leftovers) so we threw in chickpeas to give it more protein. It was very good.
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1038, 2011-02-28_175447