posts/2019/02

We've had "Cava-Style" bowls a for a few dinners. Meredith prepped ingredients (as before).

We used leftover falafel one night. On the others we use Halloumi (which was technically expired but was fine)

I made taco stew. There were a few slight modifications. I used tomatoes that also had green chile in them. And addicting to the pepper-addition theme, I added a poblano and a red bell pepper.

I made Japanese Curry which we haven't done in some time. I was in The Bay Area for work and ventured into an Asian (Chinese?) supermarket. There I found some curry brands I've heard of but haven't tried (honestly, I am not sure if we have them locally in ABQ. I should look)

Using diced potatoes saved a lot of time simmering to make sure they were soft. As did microwaving the chopped carrots.

I added the tofu and potatoes right before adding the curry blocks. I also added some togarashi to the veggies

We had some frozen rice from Donburi but not very much so I mixed it with some dried pasta (what we had open in the pantry). I also used 2 cups of the pasta water (along with 1 cup of fresh water) as the water for the curry blocks. I thought that was a good way to get the extra starch for it all (plus flavor)

I liked it. It's been a while since we've had curry so it is hard for me to compare to other curry blocks. I do with they were all spicier! But we should keep this meal in mind. It wasn't too hard to make. And I liked using canned potatoes! That was a nice time saver.

Seared Salmon made with quick-defrosted salmon and reheated soup from Thanksgiving 2018. I used the sous vide on the salmon with water at 80° to quickly defrost while keeping it moving.

Meredith had leftover cake and icing from Mini Cakes so I made cake ball truffles. I didn't actually use that recipe at all since Meredith had everything I needed. I really kind of winged it. I broke up the cake and started mixing it with the icing (just going by feel for how much icing). I then had the epiphany of using the mixer for this and it was much easier (though it also melted the very butter heavy icing a bit). We also added some dollops of blackberry jam to the mix!

I used our cookie scoop (~~not sure of the exact size~~ 2oz) which made it much easier, though a little large for my taste.

The next day I melted (real) white chocolate with a tiny bit of vegetable oil to thin (we don't have any more coconut oil). Some got coated better than others but I think it was, on the whole, pretty good. I drizzled some melted dark chocolate over them.

With the leftover chocolate, I went on a pantry raid to see what to coat and decided to find all of Meredith's Oreo stash. So I coated them (though they are a bit broken up)

For our four year (10 including dating) anniversary, we had an easy-but-nice meal. We didn't have a ton of time because of the baby but we were able to still make something nice.

I made lemon garlic shrimp and sautéed mini bok choy. For the bok choy, I used the pan from the shrimp and use about 1/2 Tbsp of butter. I added a bit of crushed red pepper and salt along with chopped up mini bok choys (from Trader Joes). That all worked pretty well. We also served it with some leftover sourdough from Thanksgiving 2018.

Meredith made dessert as noted in its own post. They were very cute and also very good!

While the cake recipe Meredith used from My Name is Yeh was a normal cake, she got the idea for the mini cakes from her blog as well. She cooked it in a sheet pan (see the notes for timing).

The tall one is actually six (!!!) layers because each of the three tiers is two layers.

You could really taste the rosemary! And the cakes themselves were really tasty (though a tad dry). Also, the leftover cake and icing went to making cake truffles

I made Millionaire's Shortbread (also simply known as caramel shortbread). I had seen this somewhere and decided it was a combination of two of my favorite sweets! It's basically shortbread topped with caramel and chocolate.

I decided on the NY Times (LOCAL) recipe since it actually gave temperatures¹ for the caramel. I followed the recipe with only two changes:

Otherwise I followed the recipe. The only note is that I had to bake it for much longer. I think it is because of the glass pan (it was the closest in area to an 8'x8' pan). I eventually did about 50 minutes with the last 15 or so at a higher temperature.

I also think the caramel making got ahead of me. As seen in one of the pictures below, there are some burned bits. I should have mixed all ingredients and then heated while stirring. I do not think it made too much of a difference though.

I also had to kind of rush it. I cooled it with a fan until I could put the whole thing in the fridge. Even then, I had to just take the edges to serve/bring (meeting friends at a brewery). The middle chocolate was still melted.

Candy making at altitude is actually a very easy adjustment. Since candy making is all about the amount of sugar and water, and since that ratio is exactly defined by the boiling point of water, you can just shift all candy temperatures by the shift in boiling point of water. ↩

I made chicken and dumpling soup. The veggies for the base were 1.5 onions, and some carrots and celery. I sautéed them pretty well and then, following an article from The Kitchn, pushed them aside and seared the chicken (in batches).

I used 10 cups of water along with (lots of) Better than Bouillon. I also added some vegemite. After it simmered for a while and I tasted it, I added some soy sauce and some anchovy paste.

I shredded the chicken in the mixer but I went a bit overboard and made "chicken dust" out of it. Meredith liked it since there were no chicken chunks but I thought it would have been better with larger pieces.

I made dumplings from the My Name is Yeh recipe as we've used before. When I first made these I said to keep the pot uncovered but I think I mis-remembered how I used to do Matzah Balls. I put the dumplings into the rolls of the boil and then let it simmer covered! They came out really good!

I think it was pretty good overall. Not the most amazing soup but not bad either.

I made koefta style meat balls with turkey. The real difference today was that I used the mixer with the metal beater blade to mix it all! That made it so much easier. But I think it also led to a springier meatball that was also kind of dry. Though that could also be because I actually made these last night, refrigerated them, and then reheated.

I want to consider some recipe tweaks to make the mixer-made ones as good as regular since I loved how much easier and cleaner that was.

We had it with salad greens, cilantro vinaigrette (which was still super thick), and leftover harissa

Turkey Taco Bowls. This came out extra wet since I let it simmer for a long time with all of the veggies.

We made Salmon Cakes/Croquettes based on the Bon Appétit recipe (LOCAL). We followed the general gist except we used canned salmon to make life easier and didn't make the mayo (we used store bought with some mustard for the ingredients). We also baked it basically following my Dad's latke recipe.

The only other real change/note is that we set asid some mixture before adding salt so that we had low-sodium ones for Caroline (her first real-food dinner!)

Zucchini Fritters. I did the normal recipe minus the making powder since I forgot. I made it without salt, formed a few, then added salt and other seasonings. We wanted some for the baby but decided not to give them to her since they came out a bit burnt.

I made Stuffed Mushroom Casserole. I didn't salt as I went since I wanted to set some aside for Caroline. After that, I added salt. I think between that and just not cooking the mushrooms long enough, it was not as good. The mushrooms didn’t stick together as well and it was too much to easily mix well.

She followed the Patisserie Book (LOCAL) but was really unhappy with it. It has you work the butter in cold and it didn't form a cohesive ball. She added two tbsp of cold water to help make it form. She will use a different recipe next time (Probably the Kitchn).

She did use The Kitchn's suggestion to roll it out between wax paper so you didn't need more flour.

The filling was The Kitcn's Pastry Cream with the addition of 1 Tbsp of Matcha to the dry ingredients (before mixing in the egg). She also added some green food coloring since the matcha we have is an odd color. She pipped it in and topped it with berries.

I made Butter Chicken based on this YouTube video which I also transcribed (and copied) into LOCAL. I followed the recipe pretty closely including getting the Kashmiri chili powder and finding fenugreek. I do have a few minor notes:

I was pretty happy with it. I felt like it had some of the Indian flavors though maybe not the same as you'd get at a restaurant. I also felt like it was a bit sweet. I would use less next time.

Thoughts for next time

I've been doing some reading and this recipe I followed is significantly healthier. For example, NYtimes calls for 12x the cream and 2x the butter. But I like some of those flavors too.

Standard Taco Stew. It was nice since it was pretty fast and easy. Delicious as usual

For a holiday present, our friends got us a subscription to different spice kits. This was the first one we tried for Korean Tacos. The photos below really give the idea of the kit and the instructions. I followed it basically to the letter except I used Angus, Flat-Iron Beef Chuck for the meat and regular cabbage instead of Chinese. Oh, and I used pre-made guacamole instead of mashing an avocado.

Basically, you made a (quick) kimchi, a Sriracha ketchup side, and a stir-fry sauce. I actually liked the kimchi though it didn't taste like any kimchi I've ever had. I felt like the stir-fry sauce needed a lot more flavor and spice but wasn't bad. The ketchup was super smokey. I wasn't a huge fan of that.

Meredith, on the other hand, was not a huge fan of any of it but that may also be because the meat was kind of tough (even though I cut against the grain).

KitchenKatalog

Thoughts for next time