Justin & Meredith Winokur's Kitchen Cooking Notebook
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posts/2012/02
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Lighter Lasagna Soup -- back to top
I came across this recipe for lasagna soup from Paula Deen's son and simply had to make it. Lasagna is the ultimate comfort food in my book, and this sounded like a pretty healthy rendition. It was in fact delicious (though a bit anise-y for my preferences), and I imagine it will go into our regular rotation. I followed the recipe pretty closely, except I like to sneak in extra veggies when I can. So when I remembered we had a block of frozen spinach, I decided to defrost it and throw it in. Also, we topped it with grated Toscano instead of Kraft fake parm, and we substituted whole wheat penne for lasagna noodles.
Lighter Lasagna Soup (from The Deen Brothers)
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2016-05-18 Update: Recipe moved to its own page
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1779, 2012-02-01_211630
Taquitos and Patatas Bravas -- back to top
We made pretty standard taquitos using shredded chicken and anything else that sounded good. We also made patatas bravas using the recipe from 2011-07-19. It was a while ago so I do not remember all of the details but I think what we did was use 1+ Tbsp of hot (not smoked) paprika, plus two pinches of the smoked-hot. Then skipped the cayenne. We also used diced tomatoes which I immersion blended before adding to remove most (but not all) the chunks. Meredith cut up the onion into really, really small pieces. We used Yukon Gold potatoes and one leftover purple majesty. For them, I just roasted them for 45-50 minutes at 400. Reading the notes from last time, we remembered the bouillon this time.
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1784, 2012-02-02_211807
We made a quick stir-fry. We used some sliced, cooked egg beaters, a lot of mini-bell peppers, and green onions. I do not remember what else for veggies. We also used instant brown rice but in the future we will use real brown rice and use the pressure cooker. The "meat" was a marinated Seitan I got at Whole Foods. I love seitan!
For sauces, I did a mix of oyster sauce, low-sodium soy and sesame oil. I really like the oyster sauce, but it is extremely, extremely salty so I didn't want to use too much.
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1793, 2012-02-05_122640
Chili -- back to top
We made a beef and vegetable chili (and a lot of it). We used about 2/3 lbs of beef, two 28oz cans of tomatoes, a can of black beans, an onion, and a can of hominy. The hominy was strange but good. To make a chili powder, we first ground up two large dried ancho chilies and one small but jolokia (hottest pepper in the world), We deseeded both to ensure that we didn't make it too hot. We also added cayenne, oregano and some other seasonings. I am honestly not sure if we did cumin or not (I'll ask Meredith). We also used this to kind of clean out the fridge. So, we put some mini bell peppers and some artichokes (strange) into it as well. I do not remember what else.
It was already very thick so we simmered it covered so it wouldn't reduce too much more. We let it simmer for about 30 minutes. The chili was very good. It had a nice kick but it wasn't too bad. And, we had ample leftover for lunch! As you can see, we served it with some sliced avocado, 2% cheese and greek-yogurt. We also had some sliced green onion
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1798, 2012-02-08_123419
Stuffed Poblanos -- back to top
Meredith made these so I do not really know anything, but I think she followed the same recipe as posted 2011-08-02. Unlike that time when it was extremely good, it wasn't as flavorful this time. It was just a bit dry. We do not know why. Maybe too little sauce, unlike the first time when there was too much sauce.
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1803, 2012-02-09_182709
Baked egg in Avocado and a Hamburger -- back to top
The main part of this was the avocado. We had read about it on Lifehacker but we changed it a bunch. Meredith made a stuffing out of egg beaters, cheese and Pace salsa. We hollowed out a bit of the avocado to make a bigger space and poured the egg in. We baked it for about 20 minutes. I think at 400 but I do not remember for sure and the site doesn't seem to have it. It was really good and cool. The warm avocado added a nice touch and the egg stuff was also good.
I also made a lean hamburger with a lot of different seasonings including curry powder and cayenne. It was dry but fine.
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1806, 2012-02-11_182727
Valentine's Day Dinner: Bruschetta, Beet Pasta with Beet Greens and Seared Scallops. With Chocolate Mousse (Chantilly) -- back to top
Oh boy, this was an interesting meal. Not so much the food, but more because of the cooking it. Basically nothing went right. Not to ruin it, but, surprisingly, everything turned out okay.
We followed the recipe we used on 2011-07-28. We basically followed the recipe there including using real ricotta salata this time. We made both kinds again. They were both really good. Of course, we burned the toast so we had to scrape it off.
We made the pasta like we did on 2011-02-19 (halved) except this time, we used fresh roasted beets. Again, we used egg beaters instead of egg whites. Since we were using the food processor to grind the beets, we tried using it to knead and make the pasta. I do not know if it was just too wet or what, but it didn't work too well. It was so sticky. I had to quickly clean off a counter a knead it a bunch by hand and add a lot of flour. It had a nice red hue though.
Then, after it rested, I tried to roll it out with the pasta roller. Well, still being sticky, it barely made it through the rollers and it wasn't nice pieces. Then, when I tried to put it in the slicer ones, it wouldn't cut through it. It just mushed it.
So, again, I had to clear off a counter and I rolled it out really flat by hand. Then I coated it with a lot of flour (since it will wash off in the water anyway), rolled it up, then sliced it. I then had to manually unroll each strand. And it made a lot. Oh well. It had a really cool homemade look.
The recipe is on the linked page, but I did the one change I find makes a huge difference with fresh pasta. I added extra (maybe 1.5x) salt in the dough and I added a bunch of salt to the water. It makes a nice difference. I was worried that we would overcook it due to what happened while doing the scallops but they were fine.
We also sautéd the beet greens then reduced white wine. We mixed that with the pasta.
**
**Here is where it got interesting. First we weren't sure if we fully defrosted them but thankfully, they defrosted enough and all of the water came off of them (we think). The real fun came when we tried to cook them. Everything said to seer them and Meredith had read to use olive oil. We preheated the pan, added the oil and it started smoking right away. That was somewhat expected, but what came next was it auto-ignited and almost burned Meredith. It went out then we thought it was fine then it started again. I tried to move the pan onto a trivet off the stove. Well, that put some unburned oil back in the center and it ignited again. This happened one more time when I was finally able to move it to a cool burner. Of course, this happened while I had to take the pasta and of course, the smoke filled apartment set off the fire alarm (which has very hard to remove battery and is then plugged in. Oy.
We ended up using a different pan to cook them. They were still good.
**
**This was really interesting and worked fine. It basically required breaking the two rules of dealing with chocolate: Never heat on direct heat and NEVER let it get wet. Well, with this, you heat 1 cup (240 ml) of water with about 265 grams of 70% or higher dark chocolate over direct heat (we halved this though). Once it is all melted and consistent, you pour it into a metal bowl which itself is in an ice bath. Then you whisk it vigorously until it is a mousse consistency. It actually worked. And it was very, very good. The consistency was perfect and had a strong chocolate flavor (which makes sense since there is nothing else in it but water). The recipe says you can add some sugar but we didn't. Maybe we will next time. Oh, this is sometimes called Chocolate Chantilly
The picture and recipe are below.
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Instant Chocolate Mousse (Chocolate Chantilly) from (Cafefernando)
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Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1809, 2012-02-11_182752
Venison Steaks and Mashed Potatoes -- back to top
We bought vealvenison steaks at Whole Foods to try something new. As per the instructions, we seared them and cooked them to medium rare. Well, the two larger steaks were still...whatever noise deer make...and the smaller steak was medium. Anyway, they had a gamey taste to them and neither Meredith nor I thought they were amazing. A fun experiment none-the-less.
Meredith also made mashed potatoes using fake butter, non-fat greek yogurt and a bunch of spices. It was okay but a tad chalky. We also had steamed asparagus that tasted really funky for some reason.
I guess just a strange meal all around
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1812, 2012-02-13_182806
Sloppy Joes and Sloppy Taquitos -- back to top
We followed the standard sloppy joe recipe except I also added some sriracha to kick up the spice. We let it simmer for a while which really is the trick with these. Our first ones were pretty standard on Arnolds but for the rest, we make into sloppy joe taquitos. They were pretty good and a different way to eat them.
I like this meal since it is pretty easy. Easy to prep and clean and you can do other stuff while it is cooking.
Of course, since we use 2/3 lbs of beef for both of us to make 4 sloppy joes, they tend to be rather clean.
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1823, 2012-02-15_070732
Pozole and Bean Vinaigrette on Eggplant -- back to top
We made Pasole using the same recipe from The Homesick Texan again roasted the tomatillos. We also used double the poblanos and probably at least double the tomatillos. I also put a single dried Bhut Jolokia pepper in to spice it up. Despite the fact that I forgot the lime (lemon?) juice, these tasted rather lemony. Weird. It was good but not our best effort. I do not really know what is different though.
We also repeated our bean eggplant(basically white bean bruschetta but with broiled eggplant instead of bread). However, despite being my Dad's son, we didn't have white northern beans in our inventory. We debated between chick-peas or black-eyed peas and ended on the black-eyed peas. They had a chalkier taste that wasn't as good. We also cut up a tomato which was a nice addition. I still really like this side. It is easy, low in points, and has lots of veggies. Oh, we used Israeli olive oil my parents brought back for us. It was good though the flavor was lost a bit with the mix. We used it also when we made our valentine's day dinner
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1826, 2012-02-19_070803
Falafel and Hasselback Potatoes -- back to top
I am writing this pretty far past having made it so my memory won't be great. We used the same Falafel recipe as in the past but with a lot of parsley and cilantro (hence the green). After flipping them, I gave a small press to make sure the side was in contact with the pan. This gave a bit more crispiness.
I also made Hasselback potatoes but unlike last time, I didn't put something in each slit. While they look really cool, they aren't all that special. Maybe they need all the butter and cheese that all of the recipes call for. On Meredith's suggestion, we put salsa on them and they were fine.
We also had tzatziki (home made) and pita (store bought) for the falafel.
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1837, 2012-02-21_115601
Salmon, Artichokes and Pasta -- back to top
The salmon was basically the same technique described here with the time adjusted since these were thin pieces. However, I put some Emril Essence on to make it cajun salmon. The seasonings did blacken on the salmon but it was all very good. I may have slightly overcooked the salmon but only slightly. The nice thing about using good salmon (wild) is that it is more resilient to overcooking.
We also had roasted artichokes. Meredith did them so I am not sure of the details but I know they had some bread crumbs and then we roasted them for a while. And we had a Pasta Sides thing to balance out the meal.
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1840, 2012-02-22_115619
Flatbread Pizza -- back to top
Meredith prepared everything so she may have more details, but I got home extremely late and this was fast and easy. We made pizzas on sandwich flatbreads. Meredith had made sauce and she roasted mushrooms, peppers and yellow squash. We topped the pizzas with low fat cheese, some leftover ricotta salata and low fat regular ricotta.
We cooked them at 400 until the bread was crisp. I do not recall how long though. Probably around 10-15 min.
We liked this as a good, quick meal.
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1844, 2012-02-27_115930
Taco Cupcakes and Zucchini Fritters -- back to top
This was a very successful meal. First, the zucchini fritters. I followed the original recipe with my notes from that day (basil,cayenne, spices). I also used a bit extra baking power. I was nervous about these since last time they stuck. I extra pammed the pan and all. I also tried to make them thin so they would cook more. When I went to flip the first one, it stuck but then I switched to the sharpest, flattest metal spatula I had and I really scraped before flipping. That worked well! I also let them cook a bit longer. The fritters were as good as, if not better, than the first time.
The taco cupcakes were inspired by the recipe at EmilyBiltes but I am not going to copy the recipe since we didn't really follow it for anything but the idea. We had eggroll wrappers but not wonton so we quartered the wrappers. We pammed muffin tins and pressed a layer into the wrapper. Then we added our taco meat stuff, put some grated cheese on it, then pressed another layer into it. The double layering helps hold it all together and kind of join the wrappers. We then topped it again with the taco and then cheese.
The recipe calls for cooking them for 18-20 min at 375. However, since we had the oven at 425 for the fritters, we used that for about 8 minutes. Just until the edges of the wrappers were crisping. While that worked, next time we will do the lower temp for longer. The part of the wrapper not hanging over the edge didn't get as well cooked but we couldn't go longer without burning the outer part.
Meredith made the taco filling so she may be able to clarify, but it was largely inspired by the taco stew without the water. We used sautéd onions, browned extra-lean beef, black beans, taco seasonings and diced yellow squash (since more zucchini would have been redundant).
These were extremely good, even if the wrappers didn't fully crisp. We will definitely make them again. And use the idea with the wrappers to make other meal cupcakes as well.
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1850, 2012-02-29_205714