Justin & Meredith Winokur's Kitchen Cooking Notebook
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posts/2017/11
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I made the pretty standard Lasagna Soup. The only real note here is that I decided to add some anchovy paste. I also added half a zucchini to use it up. And we used tortellini in it (Meredith's favorite addition)
Nothing special, but pretty easy and good!
Lentils with Mushrooms and Kale -- back to top
Meredith made Creamy French Lentils with Mushrooms & Kale from The First Mess (LOCAL).
She mostly followed the recipe with the following notes:
We also let it simmer for a long time since we were chatting with friends at the time.
We liked it. It was really good on top of an english muffin.
Notes for next time:
Dog Treats and Cake Balls -- back to top
We had a doggie date so I made some dog treats (and human treats but more on that later).
I made the doggie treats somewhat based on All Recipes (LOCAL). Except I didn't really follow it well. I replaced 1 cup of the flour with oatmeal and I forgot the peanut butter. It was also hard to shape it but some time in the freezer worked fine. And the dogs seemed to like it so that's good. (the humans thought it was fine...)
I also made cake balls. I followed The Kitchn (LOCAL) for making cake balls. I used the extra half of the cake from last week. I was unsure about whether I should adjust the amount of frosting since it was only half a cake. Well, the Kitchn's recipe uses 1-3/4 cups flour and the cake we made used 3 cups. I thought it would be fine, but I missed the large amount of everything else. Basically, there was way too much frosting.
It was kind of a mess, but I was able to eventually get it into balls. Because they were so soft, I froze them for a while before doing the chocolate. (real white chocolate chips and then some old-but-fine dark chocolate, both mixed with a bit of coconut oil). They again were disintegrating in the chocolate, but I eventually got them most to work. I put them back in the freezer and...
...I forgot to serve them!!!!
We ate some later. They were ok, though I thought the frosting was a bit overpowering as was the chocolate. Still, pretty good!
Romesco and Roasted Vegetables -- back to top
We had a Meredith Meal of sorts. She made Romesco Sauce and I roasted some vegetables. It was about a pound of brussel sprouts and a large head of cauliflower. I tossed the cauliflower with some oil, salt, smoked paprika, and garlic powder. The brussel sprouts were just tossed with oil and salt. They were small which I think tend to be better.
It was a really good! Lots of food but just veggies and romesco. We also had some ciabatta rolls (par-baked kind from Trader Joes).
Smokey Egg Salad -- back to top
Meredith made a Smokey Egg Salad for lunch based on her favorite Deviled Eggs Recipe. She used that recipe except also added the egg whites chopped up.
The biggest change was that instead of making the frizzled shallots, we bought canned onions. Make it a lot easier!
I made the pretty standard taco stew. I did it with French lentils following the same instructions for brown lentils. Other than that, I stayed really true to the recipe.
The only thing of note is that I put a ton of zucchini in, but it all came from one crazy-sized home-grown zucchini (below)
I made Japanese Curry. As I have done before, it was just:
I also used a different type of curry this time as pictured below. We actually found this in OKC, though I've heard of it before (not sure if they sell it in ABQ). I also took thai chili peppers that Meredith grew (though they had dried out nicely). I ground them up and put that in which gave them a strong heat.
I also let it simmer for good while to help cook all of the potatoes.
On mine, I served it with brown rice leftover from a year ago. I liked it with that!
By the way, I used 3/4 of a package (6 of 8 blocks or 6.75 if 9 servings). It was looking like a lot of veggies so I used extra.
Pâte à Choux and Pastry Cream -- back to top
Tonight I completed the second and third day of The Kitchn's Baking School, which entailed making Pâte à Choux and pastry cream. I decided to split the dough and make half cheese gougères and half cream puffs. I followed the directions very closely for the dough, and ended up using all 4 eggs. It still seemed really thick, but I went with it. Then I divided it, put half into the piping gun and piped the shells for the cream puffs. It was a bit tricky getting the dough into the gun. After that, I folded about 3oz of grated gruyere and a scant tablespoon of chopped fresh rosemary to the remaining half and piped that. From there, I just followed the timing in the recipe, keeping to the lower range of the baking times. They came out really well! The gougères are really light and airy, reminding me of cheese straws, but we haven't tried the cream puffs just yet. I would definitely make the gougères again, maybe with Parmesan and a different herb.
For the pastry cream, I followed the recipe pretty much to the letter. I felt like I probably could have skipped straining it, as there didn't seem to be any lumps. After about 2-3 minutes, it started to thicken, and it was pretty quick from that point on. It’s a very quick and easy recipe. Next I piped the cream in into the puff shells by poking a small hole into the shells and filling. They were also really good, though I probably overfilled them based on how much pastry cream I went through.
Sous Vide Steak -- back to top
I made sous vide steak using the Serious Eats method/times and more roasted brussel sprouts. I remembered to put roasted chestnuts in as well!
Also had extra gougères
Christmas Enchilada Lasagna/Casserole -- back to top
Pretty standard one (I need to make a page for it!) but on Meredith's suggestion, I used ground turkey. She doesn't always like the texture of the shredded and this was much easier. I also had a huge amount of home-grown zucchini. And I further bulked it with mushrooms.
It was pretty good. Maybe a bit less flavorful but not bad.
I also made a tiny one since I had so much leftover stuff.
Roasted Cauliflower and Soy Chorizo -- back to top
Our standard roasted cauliflower and soy chorizo. Nothing special but easy and good!
I made the usual patatas bravas with a few changes (that I since added to the page). I added some whole milk (maybe around 1/4 cup, probably less) and a big squirt of anchovy paste for extra umami.
I liked it a lot with these changes. It was extra rich!
I also did a mix of yukon gold potatoes and a rutabaga. It overcooked them a little bit.
Butternut Squash Salad -- back to top
I made a Thanksgiving Lentil Salad (local)...except without the lentils. I used the recipe but made a ton of changes:
For the dressing:
Overall, we also:
We liked it a lot. It was pretty light and not too much work. We would do this again! The only real problem was that I needed it fit it all on one tray so it got a bit steamed instead of roasted.
Baking School Day 4: Meringue -- back to top
Meredith made Meringues for Day 4 of the The Kitchn Baking School using their linked recipe. See the LOCAL COPY for the recipe and also a PDF printout of both the baking school and the full original recipe.
The photos below really tell the story, but she used crushed freeze-dried ras berries to get the flavor and used some gel food coloring lined inside the pastry gun to get the additional colors. She also made mini pavlovas with (store bought) lemon curd and pomegranate.
Final note: She used cold egg whites to start which took forever to whip up but eventually worked.
Potatoes and Caprese -- back to top
Emily had texted me about how she made potatoes with the ribbon blade of her spiralizer and I decided to try it too. I spiralized a medium and a small Yukon gold potato. I then just tossed it with some oil spray, salt, and pepper. I roasted at 400 for 30 min. Should have done about 20-25.
Meredith made caprese of sorts with the last of her tomatoes. The basics
Ok had already bitten the dust so it was just tomatoes and mozzarella.
We also had leftover butternut squash with an egg.
Romesco, Mushroom Pâté, and Red Lentil Spread -- back to top
Meredith went on a dip cooking frenzy and made Romesco, Mushroom Pâté, and Red Lentil Spread. She generally followed the recipes but with cilantro instead of parsley in the spread.
Also, she used sourdough rolls for the romesco.
Cheese Soufflé and Cauliflower -- back to top
Meredith tackled Day 5 Kitchn's baking school by making Cheese Souflé. The LOCAL page has the two recipes for that day copied in and a PDF copy of the Day 5 and those recipes.
Meredith went by the book on the cheese soufflé using a mix of gruyère and cheddar-gruyère cheeses. They were stressful but mostly worked. The started to collapse pretty quickly.
Meredith also made roasted cauliflower. It was "in the style of Tamar Adler" (who wrote "An Everlasting Meal"). It was made of:
I made the typical Lasagna Soup. I didn't really make any major changes, but I used sausage from Trader Joes instead of the usual Sprouts. I also topped it with some part-skim mozzarella.
I also added some zucchini. One was from Meredith's garden and was very tough.
-- back to top