Justin & Meredith Winokur's Kitchen Cooking Notebook
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posts/2020/02
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Turkey Arugula Patties -- back to top
Meredith and I made Lamb and pistachio patties with sumac yogurt sauce with our now-normal change of using poultry instead of lamb and baking them instead of frying.
I made them into small patties (used 2 oz cookie scoop) and then flattened them. I cooked them at 400°F for about 10 minutes then broiled them for a few more.
Meredith also made the sumac sauce. It was very tart (as expected) but Caroline really seemed to like it
Waffled French Toast Grilled Cheese -- back to top
Meredith made Waffled French Toast from "Weekday, Weekend" by A Beautiful Mess book (LOCAL). It worked pretty well though made a big mess on the waffle iron. Meredith may have some more comments.
I also played around with the waffle iron and used it to toast bread with butter. I tried putting margarine on the bread (the spreadable kind), brushing the bread with real butter, and brushing the waffle iron with real butter. All three worked well and was very good.
Curry Cauliflower Quiche -- back to top
Curried Chickpea Salad -- back to top
Meredith made Curried Chickpea Salad from Inspiralized (LOCAL). She was not very impressed. Her comments:
This is mediocre at best. It’s edible. Unless you ask Caroline. I was suspicious of lime with an Indian style curry powder, and I think it was not misplaced suspicion. I like the idea of a curry chickpea salad, but I think I would try with my curry chicken salad as a starting point.
Other notes:
Baklava Sticky Buns -- back to top
From Meredith:
I has this idea to make baklava inspired sticky buns. I decided to use Joy the Baker’s king cake recipe for the dough part. I meant to sub clove for the nutmeg, but forgot. I pretty much followed her instructions right up until you twist the two dough ropes together. At that point, I had 2 ropes spread with the filling, and I sliced them with a bench scraper into 1.5-2 in swirls.
Put each of those in a 9x13 in pan with very little space between them. Let them proof for about 45 min with plastic wrap over the pan.
Next into the oven. When there was about 15-20 min left on the timer, I started cooking the syrup. I put it on fairly low on the stove, and kept an eye on it because it seemed to want to boil over. Cooked until it thickened then took it off the heat and stirred in 1tsp of orange blossom water. We happened to have some in the fridge and I thought it would go nicely. Otherwise, I probably would have used vanilla in its place. Once the buns were done (check for temp: 190°F), I took them out of the oven and poured the syrup over. Then sprinkled some roughly chopped walnuts over the top. Done!
Transcribed Notes: from the image above
Followed JTB king cake recipe for the dough
Toasted ~4 cups of walnuts.
Adapted Joy's filling:
Made Sticky Honey Topping:
Heat until everything is dissolved and reduced. ~15 min.
Baked @ 370°F for 35 min
2020-07-21 update: Bake to 190°
Birthday Cake Oatmeal -- back to top
Meredith made overnight birthday cake oatmeal from Dashing Dish (LOCAL). Not sure if she did the protein powder or not.
Sous Vide Steak -- back to top
Sous Vide Bacon Wrapped Filet for our anniversary. Learning from last time, I opened the bags and salt and peppered them before sous vide. I also did it at 140° since Meredith wanted it cooked a bit more.
The biggest difference is I tried to finish them on the grill. I liked that it was (much) less smokey but it was also not as good. It didn't develop as nice of a crust and it was really hard to cook the bacon as much. Maybe I'll do it on the cast iron on the grill? It is worth a shot.
Turkey Walnut Patties -- back to top
We made the Lamb and pistachio patties with sumac yogurt sauce with our normal changes of poultry and baked but this time we also used walnuts (leftover from Baklava Sticky Buns) instead of pistachios. They certainly tasted differently but still pretty good. And Caroline still liked them (especially with the sauce) so that was a win!
Taco Stew. We simmered it for a long time while taking Caroline out. The extra long simmer seemed to add a lot of flavor
Roasted Gnocchi -- back to top
Lemon Poppy seed Cake -- back to top
Meredith followed the recipe from Cakes by Courtney (LOCAL) and did an hombre color scheme. She also used raspberry jam (preserves?) instead of fresh ones.
Besides being very pretty, it was also very good!
Soy Chorizo Ragu -- back to top
Meredith made Soy Chorizo Ragu. We again did not do the wine since it wasn't in the recipe, but I later added it as optional.
Meredith also skipped the crushed red pepper in case Caroline wanted some, but it turns out that the soy chorizo is spicy itself so we didn't give her any.
It was delicious as usual!
Grilled Chicken and Pizza -- back to top
This meal was a mess! It suffered numerous issues, though, in the end, it worked out okay.
The original plan was to grill chicken to go on the pizza but (a) we didn't really have the time and (b) Meredith didn't really want chicken on the pizza.
So I flattened the chicken, oiled it, and used Adobo Powder. But, it turns out, the grill was out of propane (I must have left it on at some point). This was our backup tank though I remembered there was another tank on the trailer. Turns out, that too was empty.
So I had to use a grill-pan and a cast-iron pan.
For the pizza, I really struggled to lay it out. And then we were out of parchment. I usually use an Air-Bake tray as a makeshift pizza peel so I figured I could just flour it and then slide it into the oven. Nope! It wouldn't budge and any attempt to make it messed up the pizza more. So we cooked the pizza on the air-bake tray rather than on the pizza steel. Basically the exact opposite of what you want.
Still, at the end of the day, it all came out okay. The pizza texture was fine, though not as good as the steel. And the chicken tasted okay, though was more work. I think I prefer Montreal Chicken Seasoning to Adobo on it.
Spinach, Banana, and Oat Muffins -- back to top
Meredith made Spinach Banana and Oat Muffins from Inspiralized (LOCAL). Her notes:
We don’t have flax, so I subbed whole chia seeds and ended up cooking these for about 30 min with the canneles pan.
Almond King Cake -- back to top
Meredith made an Almond Mardi Gras King Cake using the Joy The Baker recipe used a few times before. She really picked from a few different recipes. The frosting from King Arthur Flour (LOCAL) replacing the vanilla with almond extract. Inspiration for almond paste from Serious Eats1. The only part of that recipe was the filling using
beaten together in the mixer until smooth.
One batch of filling filled one rope of dough, so she ended up making a second batch but had to use marzipan since that’s what we had. Turns out the almond paste mixture spread better than the marzipan one.
It rose slowly but did eventually rise. And she followed her own advice from the sticky buns to use a thermometer. Still, the very, very inside was a bit undercooked but really not very much.
It was very popular. In fact, the entire thing went!
No local copy since it really was just the filling and there wasn't much to it. ↩
Spaghetti Squash Carbonara -- back to top
Meredith made Spaghetti Squash Carbonara. Like last time, she used The Kitchn for the main recipe and Love & Lemons for how to make the squash.
It was, again, very good! And also smelled really good too!
Walnut Chicken Patties -- back to top
I made what is now becoming our standard Lamb and pistachio patties with sumac yogurt sauce with the normal changes of poultry (chicken this time) and, for this one, also using walnuts like last time (leftover from the same thing).
The biggest note is that I read the recipe a bit differently and added the chicken right to the food processor. That was certainly easier though I think it gave it a bit of a "green mush" texture and appearance. Much less pretty.
I also baked them a bit longer under the broiler which gave them some more color. That was nice!
Served with green beans tossed in Fox Point and baked at 400° with the patties for about 10 min. Also served with ciabatta rolls.
Peanut Butter and Jelly Cake -- back to top
The theme for this week's "Gluttonfest" was "Soups, Salads, and Sandwiches" so Meredith made a PB&J Cake. She used the recipe from Cakes by Courtney (LOCAL -- including a PDF of the site and the video).
Her notes (so far):
So far my only note is that yesterday it creaming the PB and butter together seemed like it would have worked better if I did the butter first and then added the PB. So I did that today for the frosting. Worked well. Less critical for the cake than the frosting.
Also I think she went a little heavy in the jelly between layers because it’s a bit wobbly.
The end result was pretty dry and, despite using a lot of jelly, the jelly flavor was kind of lost in the cake. We will not likely use this cake recipe again though the peanut butter frosting was very well received.
Spaghetti Squash Soy Chorizo Ragu -- back to top
Meredith made a faster version of our Soy Chorizo Ragu also using spaghetti squash instead of zucchini. The basic idea was that she used simple jarred pizza sauce in place of making out own.
She said it worked really well and was very good. Seems like a nice, easy, quick meal.
-- back to top