Justin & Meredith Winokur's Kitchen Cooking Notebook
Sitemap ·
Our Recipe Book ·
Steven's Recipe Book ·
Ann's Recipe Book ·
Meal Ideas ·
Copied Recipes
Random ·
Random Links
posts/2020/01
All sub pages for /posts/2020/01
Sous Vide Chicken and Mustard Brussel Sprouts -- back to top
I quickly sous vide chicken at 150°F and then finished on a pan. I should have had the pan hotter and with more oil to better brown. I used garlic and onion powder along with salt.
I also threw together mustard brussel sprouts as we've done many times. I just sautéed them, deglazed with some wine, and added a lot of mustard. Quick and easy!
Meredith actually made this last December to have ready to go when we got back from Houston. She followed the same recipe except she didn't let the sauce thicken as much. And she did the beef first and then did the sauce since it thickens more as it cools.
She froze it without tater tots and did them before cooking today. She cooked it for about an extra 10 minutes (70 total) at 350° and then about 20-30 minutes extra at 400° (~ 1 hour) since it was still pretty frozen.
It was delicious! Nice and comforting! And even Caroline liked it!
The only real note is that Meredith said she would do it in two smaller pans next time since this made so much!
Grilled Indian Chicken Kebabs and Grilled Chicken -- back to top
I made two different types of grilled chicken (chicken was buy one get one free so we had a lot).
The main one was Indian Kebabs that I kind of threw together. I didn't look at any one recipe and kind of just combined a few different things. I also tried to avoid spice. I mixed:
I mixed it all together and marinated chicken cubes in it overnight.
For the other one, I flattened the chicken, rubbed it with oil, sprinkled it with Montery Chicken Seasoning, and also let it sit overnight.
Grilling it wasn't anything special except that the kebabs really stuck. I need to see what I can do to prevent that in the future. The regular chicken worked fine!
We ate the kebabs with curry roasted cauliflower and store-bought naan. The other chicken is either going to be frozen or just used for meals.
Meredith made what is becoming something of a staple: Turkey Bhurji. Basically, the eggs' spices but with turkey. Done a few times[1] before[2]
We were supposed to bring something Mexican so we decided TexMex was good enough and made Armadillo Eggs. The can of peppers needed up having lots of little ones so we needed to buy a third thing of Maple Sausage.
Otherwise we did the normal recipe again doing 300°F instead of 250°F.
They were well received!
Lentil Moussaka -- back to top
I made a big batch (roughly 1.5x-2x) of Lentil Moussaka. In the process, I also greatly updated and clarified that recipe.
Other than enlarging the recipe, I followed it pretty closely for the lentil variation. The only real change is that I decided I didn't feel like making the "healthy" béchemel and instead opted to make a regular one using the Bêchemel recipe from The Kitchn. This was very flavorful and an improvement. It did barely cover the whole thing though (at 1.5x). I am including a video below to give an idea of how thick (or not thick) it was.
One note: this made way too much. I am already kind of sick of it. If I make it again, I will make a much smaller batch.
Just to see the thickness of the béchemel
Meredith made Caprese Quiche as before based on The Kitchn's recipe. She used store-bought crust (with out lard) but otherwise used the recipe. It came out really good as usual!
Roasted Tofu and Brussel Sprouts -- back to top
We marinated tofu (I don't know in what) and roasted it along with brussel sprouts. Pretty easy and tasted good too!
Roasted Gnocchi -- back to top
We made roasted gnocchi (which we finally moved to our recipe book) using that recipe including the fennel. It was really good as usual. The gnocchi didn't get too crispy but was definitely not soft either. We used a non-spicy sausage so we could give it to Caroline
Meredith made salmon salad from Sprinkles and Sea Salt (LOCAL) recipe. She did not follow their salmon cooking instructions (but maybe should have) and instead baked it at 320°F for 20 min. We really thought that would be too little but we were wrong as you can see in the picture. Thankfully there it was for the salad so it is likely more forgiving.
Meredith's comments:
Definitely better than last weeks version [no post]. I followed this closely, but skipped the coriander, and did more dill. More capers and red onion. Could use more dill next time
Spaghetti Squash Carbonara -- back to top
Meredith made Baked Spaghetti Squash Carbonara with the recipe from The Kitchn (LOCAL). She followed that recipe pretty closely except used the spaghetti squash instruction from Love and Lemons ( LOCAL). She went heavy on the ricotta and light on the salt but otherwise stayed pretty true to the recipe. It came out really good and also smelled good too! We will do this again!
Date Night at Home -- back to top
We had a date-night dinner. The main thing was bacon-wrapped filet mignon we got from Kansas City Steaks as a gift. We also had bagged Asian Style salad and toasted ciabatta rolls.
The steak was supposed to be vacuum sealed but one was not so I re-bagged it. The other I used right in the package. I sous-vide cooked it at 135° for about 3 hours as per Serious Eats. I seared them on a super hot pan first with ghee and then adding some butter to the tops. I also made sure to get the sides to the bacon was crispy.
The biggest issue is I forgot salt! Both before the bag and then after searing! Oops. Next time, I will just open and rebag the steak and add salt there!
So it was a nice fancy(ish) meal and pretty easy!
I made our pretty standard lasagna soup without many changes. The only real thing I did was to use an extra can of tomatoes and I went heavy on the peppers. I also skipped anything spicy so we could give it to Caroline
Lemon Garlic Shrimp -- back to top
Standard Lemon Garlic Shrimp but without crushed red pepper since Caroline was going to eat it. I made a 2 lbs batch. I was nervous since last time I made a big batch, it wasn't as good. But this time I still made sure to carefully lay them all out and I think that helped.
Ham and Cheese Pinwheels -- back to top
Meredith made Ham and Cheese Pinwheels from Well Plated (LOCAL). She really just followed the recipe. It was pretty easy. The only thing is you do not get 48 from that. Meredith got about half
Mint Chocolate Chip Cake -- back to top
Meredith made a Mint Chocolate Chip cake from Cakes by Courtney (LOCAL). She followed the cake recipe and even the main butter cream one but subbed Crème de Menthe for the mint extract (which, by the way, the amount of mint extract in the original sounds crazy). That gave it a nice flavor and a nice color. She also added two drops of teal gel food coloring. She also added 2 tsp (ish) of espresso powder.
Her only note for next time is that the recipe has you set aside too much buttercream for in between layers and leaves you without enough to do a good job coating the cake. So next time, either set aside less and/or make extra butter cream.
It was very good! The cake was super moist and the mint flavor was subtle but tasty. It was also very pretty though took a lot of work to place all of the chocolate chips
-- back to top