Justin & Meredith Winokur's Kitchen Cooking Notebook
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posts/2011/11
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Vegetarian Stir-Fry -- back to top
We needed a fast and easy meal and this is what we ended up with. We made a stir fry with frozen vegetables, instant rice (didn't have time to let real rice simmer, next time...) and two fakes proteins: seitan and tofu.
Let me just say this: Tofu: meh, kind of overrated. Seitan: so good! Should be used more!Underrated! We bought both pre made (again, no time to make our own seitan). I think the seitan was Westsoy brand
The stir fry sauce was a crazy and ad hoc mix of:
And probably other stuff I forget. It was good. Surprisingly, not too (too) salty. The tofu was okay. The mixed in seitan...amazing! Also, a very low point meal.
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1508, 2011-11-01_111850
We used the recipe on my page from 2011-10-28 with the changes noted on the page (and in parentheses/italics on the recipe itself). We used petite diced tomatoes instead of regular. I do not know if it was due to that or anything else but the beef mixture was very watery. We let it cook down a lot but knowing it still had 1 hour left, hunger got the best of us. So, it was very, very watery today. Also, I think we need to increase the amount of béchamel but just a little to better cover the top. Again, we used graffiti eggplant and we broiled it for longer to really brown them.
As always, we thoroughly enjoyed this! And, again, it is ~38 Points plus for the entire thing which makes 5-8 (or more) servings. Not an easy or quick meal, but definitel ya favorite. I am still curious how it would work with veggie crumbles.
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1512, 2011-11-03_124020
Grain Salad Stuffed Acorn Squash -- back to top
We've been talking about doing a grain salad/mixture for awhile now, and tonight we finally did. We based it loosely on a recipe from a blog post Justin had sent me awhile ago, however it was different enough that I'm not going to bother linking that recipe. Its actually pretty simple to make.
Ingredients:
Dressing
Directions:
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Place squash on a large baking sheet sprayed with nonstick cooking spray. Roast for 35 to 40 minutes, or until tender. Meanwhile, cook quinoa in the broth according to package directions. Whisk together the dressing ingredients in a large bowl, and add remaining ingredients. Add the cooked quinoa, the chard and onions to the bowl, tossing to coat with the dressing. Once the squash is done, scoop the stuffing into the center of the squash and serve.
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1519, 2011-11-07_104529
Black-eyed Peas and Tomatoes with Steamed Edamame -- back to top
We wanted a quick, low point meal so we made the black eyed peas recipe from 2011-04-01, again using Olivio instead of butter (and less of it) for the bananas. Nothing else too special other than extra cayenne. We also had steamed edamame
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1535, 2011-11-08_095712
Basil Stuffed Chicken -- back to top
We basically did the same thing as we do for chicken saltimobocca except we used basil and we used black forrest ham. I like the crust you get when you dip in the flour and then sautê.
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1537, 2011-11-09_095740
Chicken-Vegetable Soup and Chile Relleno -- back to top
I made a soup with carrots, celery, parsnips and one other that I can't remember. I don't know why, but it tasted a bit funky.
I also made the Chile Relleno. Maybe it was just an off day for me because it was also lacking in a lot of flavor. Oh well...
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1539, 2011-11-14_095756
Mexican (Tex-Mex?) Style Tortilla Pizza -- back to top
This idea was inspired by something Meredith and I had at a restaurant. We pre-baked tortillas, after spraying them with Pam, for about 10 minutes at 425 (which was too long, shorter next time). Then we topped them. The tortillas were whole wheat from Costco. They are pretty low in points.
Meredith made guacamole (see her comment here) which we used as the base (very thin layer). We then added cheese and other toppings. We used a can of 99% fat free Wolf brand turkey chili though it wasn't great. I also added some goat cheese and soppressata. I am not sure what else Meredith added. We served it with Pace picanté salsa and greek yogurt.
As I said above, I pre cooked the tortilla for too long so next time, I will do less. This is certainly not as good as real pizza but it was fast and easy.
Oh, we also had leftoverMoussaka
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1550, 2011-11-15_130514
Chile Verde and Sweet Potatoes -- back to top
We made Chile Verde from the recipe below from Serious Eats. We made a few changes including using 1.5 Poblanos (and cutting them before roasting), more garlic while roasting, ~3/4 lbs of lean beef instead of pork and added garlic and onion powder. We also browned the onions and then directly added the meat which is what we usually do (since we use such lean beef, this works better). Also, instead of using a blender, I mixed the ingredients to be blended with the chicken stock and used the immersion blender. It was much faster and easier. We had to broil everything for almost twice as long as it called for. I do not know why. Maybe our broiler is less intense. Oh, and we forgot oregano. We also let it simmer for almost an hour.
The chile was very good but also a bit strange. Meredith and I quickly noticed a sweetness but we are not really sure where it came from. Maybe the tomatillos or the poblanos. Not really sure. I did like it though. And it was certainly different.
We also had roasted sweet potatoes. I peeled then par-boiled them and then roasted them at 425 for about 40 minutes. I should flip them next time half. The bottoms got crispy but the rest didn't. Still, they were extremely good! Must have been really good potatoes.
Chile Verde [Quick] (from Serious Eats)
Local Copy -- password is the name of my dog, all lower case
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1563, 2011-11-17_124025
Mussels and Roasted Beets -- back to top
We made mussels with white wine, garlic and onions. It was a lot of mussels so we steamed them in them in a really big pot. We used a whole wheat baguette for dipping, It was about 5 lbs of mussels!
We also had roasted beets as a side.
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1570, 2011-11-19_100041
Seared Scallops and Roasted Brussel Sprouts -- back to top
We had seared scallops and roasted brussel sprouts. I had been doing reading about brussel sprouts and they all said that the best method is the fastest and highest heat method. So, we roasted them at 500°F. Also, we let the pans warm up in the oven first. We had to work fast but they were good.
We did some reading on how to make scallops and the answer was to also use really fast, high heat. So we seared them with the cast iron pan. Even though they were high quality scallops, they weren't all that flavorful.
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1576, 2011-11-21_081841
Red Velvet Cake -- back to top
This was for Thanksgiving so there was no attempt at making it any healthier. Anyway, Meredith had been looking at this recipe for a while and when making a cake for thanksgiving came up, she suggested we make this.
It is based on the recipe below. If you read the website, they talk about how classic red velvet cake was called that because of using brown sugar which used to be known as red sugar. Also, there is apparently some acidic reaction that goes on turning it red. This recipe uses that but also adds some red wine (we used red velvet cupcake wine to add to the name).
The cake was incredibly good! It was extremely rich but had a nice chocolatey flavor. The cake was rather dense but a nice texture. The icing, (which is based on a german buttercream) was also flavorful. It was surprisingly not too sweet and also had a really nice flavor.
The reviews were rather positive so I imagine we will keep this recipe in mind if we are asked to make a cake.
The recipe is below:
Red Velvet Cake (from Gilt Taste[Since Removed])
Local Copy -- password is the name of my dog, all lower case
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1579, 2011-11-24_085807
Pumpkin Brownies -- back to top
I made these for my Dad's Thanksgiving dinner but since it had to be parve, I replaced the butter with margarine. Other than that, I followed the recipe (below) pretty exactly. As some of the commenters on the recipe pointed out, the consistency of the split batters were not the same making this very hard to marble. Also, I don't think I did a very good job splitting them. However, we were just a tad short on cocoa powder so I did try to make the chocolate just a bit smaller.
We also didn't do the nuts (allergy considerations) or the chocolate chips (not parve)
The texture to me was more like cake than a brownie. I don't know too much about brownie making/science to know where that change came from. Still, it was quite good. Surprisingly, I thought it tasted like honey cake more than anything else despite there not being any honey.
Pumpkin Brownies (from All Recipes)
Local Copy -- password is the name of my dog, all lower case
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1581, 2011-11-24_090131
Grilled Sandwiches and Mushrooms -- back to top
I am writing this somewhat far after the fact, but I think we wanted something quick so we just made grilled sandwiches. I think Meredith had some type of grilled cheese and I just had roast beef (I think) with cheese and mustard. Meredith also made mushrooms in a sherry reduction.
Correction: My memory must be gone! Meredith reminded me that these were both made with a salmon salad. We used canned salmon and non-fat greek yogurt. We also added a whole bunch of spices.
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1590, 2011-11-29_151811
Turkey Tenderloin -- back to top
I
We made turkey tenderloin. It is not really fast in that it takes about an hour to cook but the prep is super fast. We just put a meat thermometer in, set it for 165 and let it cook until it beeps! Easy. We also had frozen vegetables
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1592, 2011-11-30_151827