posts/2019/04

Simple and quick Thai curry made with jarred paste and canned coconut milk. It needed more flavor (especially the tofu) but we still enjoyed it. And it was very simple

We were going to have something else (see meatloaf) but ran out of time so we threw this together. Smoke Brisket Hotdogs and some kind of Jalapeno sausage. Meredith made spring peas and we also had a bagged salad. Pretty simple and actually really tasty

Meredith made meatloaf from Ottolenghi Simple except replaced the lamb with lean ground beef. She also minced the tomatoes on top instead of grating it (we tried but it didn't work). And she did do the veggies by weight!

It was actually pretty good. It didn't hold together as much as you would expect, probably from the liquid in the veggies, but tasted great. And smelled really good while cooking too. Also worked very well to be prepared ahead of time!

We had friends over and made some small bites. We were going to buy "Fiesta Dip" at the grocery store when Meredith realized it was really nothing special and made her own with canned refried beans. For the sour cream, she mixed a bit of taco seasoning into it.

We also made Southern Banana Pudding with that recipe. It did git a little bit burned at the top (cooked it in the toaster oven could be why). Also, we used generic vanilla wafers. I do not know if that was the cause or something else but they all disintegrated into it. Still tasty but not ideal

Meredith made white-bean eggplant bruschetta (presumably) inspired by this^{(Need to double check)}

We made Amba (Fermented Mango Sauce) chicken with broccolini. Meredith had seen the sauce at Trader Joes and decided to buy it. I cubed up chicken (~1.5 lbs) into small cubes and tossed it with some salt, pepper, then flour (I did the salt and pepper first to try to coat better). I then pan-fried it with some canola oil (probably a bit more than needed...). At the very end, I added a lot of the sauce (again, probably more than needed) and let it cook for a minute or two. It was really good. I liked the richness and savoriness (umami?) of the sauce!

I also roasted broccolini at 375°F for about 15 minutes. I had tossed it with salt, pepper, and crushed red pepper. Meredith made tahini sauce

Variation of the one from Sprinkle Bakes (LOCAL) cake. Using Cadbury mini eggs in place of the Sconza almonds, and plain almonds or almond meal/flour in the filling.

Meredith also did an inlay using the inlay paste from this recipe (LOCAL). However, on her first attempt to make it, the butter turned super lumpy. The recipe doesn't call for using room-temperature eggs, but according to this reddit post

In tracing the design with the inlay paste, we decided to first grease the parchment since the main recipe does. However, it made the paste not stick at all. We wiped it with paper towel and it worked well. Meredith did most of the tracing. First you outline it and then fill it in. I took over for a few of the purple ones. You can tell since I went around more in circles than Meredith did. We froze it for a while since we had to stop to put the baby to bed.

We had to do some quick thinking since if we just flipped as they said, the design would be on the inside. (Could you imagine how pissed we’d be if we didn’t think that through?!?!). So we turned over a baking sheet and lined it with parchment. We then flipped the cake onto that, the put the towel on top, and carefully flipped it back. We rolled it out, let it cool, then wrapped it up and left it out overnight.

In the mean time, a tiny bit was stuck to the second parchment. We scraped it off and it tasted wonderful!

Frosting

Meredith used the included icing recipe with some changes to make it a limoncello icing. She used this recipe to gage limoncello. She added 2 Tbsp limoncello and zest of one (large) lemon. She used regular almonds in the icing (instead of the limoncello ones). But we didn't have enough so she used a little less than 2/3 cups and added 2 Tbsp of almond flour.

The icing was really good. The chunks from the almonds gave it a great texture and it was super flavorful. You could really taste the lemon but it wasn't overpowering.

Chocolate Eggs

This was not easy. First, cracking the eggs and getting the shells were hard. Then sterilizing them was a mess since they can (and did!¹) roll on the cooling rack. Not sure what that accomplished. Next time I would either just put them right on tray (unless it gets too hot?) or build an aluminum foil barrier.

Anyway, we also did a few coatings of the eggs since they were super thin. Meredith followed the instructions on how much oil but it seemed like too much. Less coconut oil next time².

They were hard to remove from the shells but we were eventually able to do it. However, they didn't really add much to the look of the cake and were certainly not work the effort.

Rolling and End Result

Rolling the cake out worked well. It didn't want to fully unfurl but Meredith was able to carefully move frosting into the fold. And the rolling it back was pretty smooth except Meredith initially started to roll too tight. Once she realized that, it was smooth sailing. There was some clean up but overall, very simple and looked great.

We were really happy with how the cake turned out. It looked great! Exactly as Meredith had wanted. It was a bit dry which we thing was from sitting overnight (even though it was well wrapped). We will try to avoid that next time. The overall cake was absolutely a success though!

I am not even sure how this happened but an egg rolled off the tray, through a gap (why is that even there?) in the rack and got stuck! I had to let it cool before pulling it out. You can see it here^{[full size]} ↩
I would be pretty surprised if there is a next time... ↩

We had our friends over for Easter Brunch. Meredith really ran the show and I helped as I could (and took notes)

Appetizer and Brunch

Since Meredith planned there was an abundance of food but not an extreme amount of food! The main items are below

Deviled Eggs

First, Meredith made her favorite smokey deviled eggs again using French's Fried Onions.

Then with the other half of the eggs, Meredith made her twist on Traditional Southern Deviled Eggs (LOCAL). She changed it by doing mostly Greek yogurt and just a generous spoonful of mayo.

Biscuits

Meredith made cheddar-gruyere chive (cream) biscuits using her normal cream biscuit recipe. She refrigerated them overnight which made them rise less. I think the future, we will bake and then reheat them if needed

Other Items

Dessert

Cake

Macaroons

I made macaroons with The Kitchn recipe. I followed it with the tip for crispier macaroons by using 5 cups (as claimed by the bag) of coconut. I also aimed to do something in between regular and meringue-like ones. I beat the eggs, though not to soft peaks while adding some sugar as I went. I then added the salt and vanilla and beat. You can get an idea for the texture in one of the photos I was happy with the end result though I am not sure where it fell on that spectrum. These were also supposed to be an homage to Passover¹.

Macarons

These were just frozen from Trader Joes. Two desserts was feeling a bit sparse so we took these out of the freezer

Additional Photos

We meant to serve matzoh too but forgot. ↩

Meredith made Pistachio-Arugula Chicken Patties using the lamb recipe from Ottolenghi Simple with substituting ground chicken for lamb and going heavy on the onion.

She also decided mushroom carpaccio would go well since both involved pistachios, lemon and arugula.

They came out really good. A bit dark but not too bad and the flavor and texture were still great!.And quote "Simple may be my favorite cookbook"

This was inspired by 2 of Meredith’s favorite dishes in New Mexico. Freight House has shrimp and grits to rival any southern restaurant’s, and they involve a “spiced tomato gravy.” Coyote Cantina has an interesting shrimp dish served on a “griddled corn cakes.” So this was supposed to be the flavors of Freight House’s shrimp and grits, with the Johnny cakes idea from coyote cantina.

Meredith used a tomato gravy recipe from Serious Eats (LOCAL), but it kind of tasted like thick tomato soup. Freight House’s is not nearly this creamy. I don’t think I would describe it as creamy at all, actually. We’ll definitely look for a different recipe for that in the future.

The johnny cakes recipe came from Southern Kitchen (LOCAL) and she followed it very closely, but added a generous handful of shredded cheddar to the batter. She meant to add corn kernels to it as well, but was a bit rushed by a crying baby. Chopped green onions could be a nice addition as well, but these were good. They puffed up a lot.

We served it with arugula because we have a ton of it, and she made shrimp in a similar method to our go to lemon garlic shrimp, only skipping the lemon and using Old Bay in place of the salt.

Meredith prepped chicken fajitas from Homesick Texan. She had the chicken marinating and the veggies chopped. I cooked the chicken on the cast-iron skillet. Once they were done, I cooked the veggies on the same pan. Following the same as last time, I used some adobo seasonings.

Meredith made Matcha Pound Cake like she did last year (apparently, Meredith gets matcha cravings the same time each year). The only note is that she used some green food coloring since the matcha from Costco is a bit brown.

KitchenKatalog