Justin & Meredith Winokur's Kitchen Cooking Notebook
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Beet Greens and Salmon Burgers -- back to top
We bought beets with greens and all so we decided to use the greens today. (We will use the beets later in the week). We sautéed the stems for about 5 minutes and then added the rest of the leaves. There were about 4 cloves of garlic. Also, we topped it with low fat feta.
The burgers were from Trader Joes. We did not have the normal ones but these were okay. They tasted more salmon tasting than the normal ones from Costco but they were fine (I do not love the taste of salmon alone). When we get a chance, we will buy the Costco ones again. We topped them with Trader Joes 21 Seasoning Salute (like Mrs. Dash). A note for next time with these burgers: they drip a lot. Make sure to have a drip cup underneath the griddler.
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 858, 2011-01-05_085531
Sautéed Cod over Homemade Beet Pasta with roasted Beets and Potatoes -- back to top
This was a good meal largely inspired by this blog post but with some serious changes. The thing is that their pasta recipe calls for 7 egg yolks though we would have halved it anyway. And it just doesn't sound healthy at all. We made the concession of just using white flour but that was too much egg. So we used egg beaters. Also, even though we had beets (which we roasted later), we did not have time to roast them first so we used canned and then puréed them. Well, still, it all came together strangely. I had to play with the dough a lot to get it the right moistness but it was a very, very streachy dough. After letting it rest for about 35 minutes we started rolling and cutting.
This dough was okay to roll but it did not want to be cut. We had to manually tear the cuts apart. And it was still very, very streachy. I also thought it would all stick but thankfully, in the boiling water, it came apart. I used a lot of salt in the water which did add a nice flavor to the pasta. It ended up fine and tasted good.
We basically followed their lead on the cod but it came out a bit salty. Also, despite our best efforts, it stuck to the pan a little bit. It was thankfully not over cooked but it was salty. Meredith liked it more than I did. Also, we used chives as a garnish/side.
Meredith found a few recipes and made a white wine sauce sans cream/milk, etc. It was okay but very thin. I like the shallot and leak scraps in it. I though they were good even if the sauce was thin.
Finally, we combined the beets we were going to use with some purple majesty potatoes and roasted them with olive oil, garlic and seasonings. It was funny because they were very hard to tell apart until you were in a different light. They were also good.
I had an interesting observation when making this. I have noticed that every time I have made pasta (not including ravioli), the seemingly straight strands twist a lot after coming out of the water. If you look back, this is fairly evident from the pictures. Today, while eating, I remember reading a thing about different dough kneading techniques and one of the things they said about using the stand mixer (my preferred method), was that it creates twisted gluten strands. I wonder if that is what was happening in the pasta and the twists cause them to curl in the heat of the water. Of course, I could imagine the twists counter acting each other but maybe a trend prevails. Just a thought. Maybe next time I will just use the food processor and compare. In that case, it is fully kneaded in like 3 minutes which seems too fast but we will see.
Local copy of recipe copied from comments
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1006, 2011-02-19_222259
Seitan and Borscht -- back to top
I was very excited to finally make seitan. I followed the recipe from my dad's book. The gist is, 1 cup vital wheat gluten with 3/4 cup water (it came together with a bit less). Knead for a while, let sit for 20-30 minutes, roll into logs, simmer covered in simmering liquid for 1-1.5 hours. I made the simmering liquid with 5 cups light broth (I blasphemed and used real chicken broth since I didn't care about the vegetarianism), 1 cup white wine, 1/3 cup soy sauce. I took it off a bit early because I like it firm. It was a bit too firm. Also, while it expanded in the liquid, it then shrunk again. Overall, I thought it wasn't as good as when my dad made it. I will need to play a bit more, cook it a bit longer, and use it in something rather than just as the main dish.
The borscht was AMAZING! We used the same recipe as last time. Again, we used real mushroom over the dried (and not many of them). We also went heavy on the beats, light on the potatoes (Yukon Gold with the skin on), and we didn't have carrots. Other than that, we basically followed the recipe. We used Texas Pete hot sauce (we had samples of it) but I didn't really taste it. We also used the beet greens but Meredith carefully double washed each one (we had gritty beet greens last time and these looked extra dirty). I do not know if it was the beets or something else but this was just very, very good. Really sweet despite not much sugar. We will definitely do it again since it was easy and very good. We only stained a few things with the beets so that was also a plus.
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1310, 2011-07-26_121058
Steak and Roasted Beets (BURNED) -- back to top
This was not a very successful meal. My goal was to make a good (but small) steak and some roasted beets. I let the beets roast for a while, maybe 40 minutes at 450. That may have been too much, but was going well. Then I tried to cook the steak like I did before. I bought a small (8 oz) NY strip steak. I put it on a really, really, really hot cast iron pan. It started pumping the apartment with smoke, but I kept going. Then, I threw it into the oven after the flip. This pumped the oven full of smoke, but also added a lot of heat to the oven, and being that the pan was very hot, it probably added a lot of radiant heat.
Well, in the time it was in the oven, the steak got a bit overcooked, but the beets BURNED. They tasted awful. Even the ones that were less burned tasted like smoke, The steak was okay, but a bit overcooked and not all that good (even though I let it sit to reabsorb juices, etc). Also, the apartment had a 4 foot visibility from the smoke. Once it started smoking, I took off the fire alarm so that was one less thing to worry about.
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1982, 2012-05-20_071530
Lentils and Beet Chips -- back to top
I made lentils again similar to a few othertimes. I sautéed a half of an onion, well copped mushrooms, lots of carrots and lots of celery (including leaves). After they were cooked down a bit, I added chopped garlic. I then added 1 cup of lentils and about 2.25 cups of water/broth. That is higher than the normal 1:2 ratio, but I had a lot of veggies in it. I then added garlic powder, onion powder, 21 seasoning salute and some sriracha. I let it simmer in the dutch oven uncovered. Actually, as I saw that it was going to have absorbed/cooked off all of the water before my beet chips were done, I covered it for a bit.
The lentils were so good. I think the trick is the mushrooms but I do not know for sure. All I know is they every time I made this, it tastes great. And it is all of 12 points for the ENTIRE thing. Lots of flavor and protein, for low points!
I also made beet chips. I am not going to bother copying the recipe since all I did was slice the beets on the finest setting and then bake them for about 20 minutes at 350. I used parchment paper under them but I do not know if that made a difference. They were okay. Not incredible. Some burned and some were still soft which is strange since they were all fairly uniformly cut. The recipe called for using the thinnest setting, but I think I would use a slightly thicker one next time since they shrink so much while cooking.
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 2046, 2012-06-21_084748
Chicken and beets -- back to top
I used the cast iron grill pan on flattened chicken breast. I think I used McCormick's chicken seasoning but I don't remember. I also made roasted beets
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 2222, 2012-08-27_093951
Beets and Beet Greens Pasta -- back to top
I basically made use of the beet bunches. I chopped the beats and cooked them on the stove like I was making hash browns. Meanwhile, I sautéd the stems to soften them, then added the leaves. Mixed it all together and added 1.5 servings of the "plus" type pasta (extra protein and fiber). I grated some rosemary and olive oil toscano on top.
Overall, it was very good. The meal was well-balanced and had a good mix of carbs and protein Also pretty low in points. The one note is that I needed to wash the leaves better. I did wash them but it was a bit gritty.
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 2258, 2012-09-21_222815
Meredith had bought all of the stuff to make borscht but wasn't able to use it before galavanting across the world and gave it to me. I decided to let the ingredients fulfill their original purpose and make it.
I followed the recipe except I only used one potato (since Meredith only bought one). Instead of brown sugar, I used 2 splenda packets. I do not know what I did before, but the 1/2 cup of apple cider vinegar was very good. I also used fresh mushrooms (and an extra cup of water). I skipped the lemon juice. And used parsley as the green. Finally, I used FF greek yogurt for sour cream. Oh, and I added sriracha at the end (but not too much)
I do not remember what it usually taste like since it has been so long since I made it, but this was very, very good. Sweet and flavorful. I wasn't sure if it would be enough food but it made quite a bit and was very filling (plus the protein in the greek yogurt)
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 2847, 2012-11-28_201510
Tilapia and Beets -- back to top
Somehow I forgot to take a picture. I made tilapia in the oven with a sauce from Trader Joes (garlic and eggplant). I have always had issues cooking tilapia from frozen in the oven since it takes longer than I expect and I have to microwave it. So I defrosted it in the microwave first.
It was pretty good and pretty easy
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 2918, 2012-12-20_123152
Beet Pickled Eggs -- back to top
I made beet pickled eggs based on my Dad's recipe below. I did the eggs in the already-steaming steamer as noted here for 11-12 minutes. A few of the eggs exploded or cracked while cooking. My guess is that these eggs were too fresh (purchased that day) so there wasn't an air pocket to compress. This is, of course, just my rough guess. Anyway, I cracked them by banging them around in the pot after steaming and cold-shocking them which worked pretty well to get the shells off
I made too many. I had 16 eggs plus a whole red onion plus two cans of beets. The eggs fit but the rest of the stuff pushed me over. Next time, fewer eggs and less onion. I ended up setting aside some of the liquid and pickling the remaining beets separately.
I gave them two days and tried one (pictured below). As you can see, the pickling did not really fully penetrate (yet?). I am not sure if more time will help but I'll let it sit and see. You can tell that the yolk is just barely cooked which is perfect. 11-12 minutes is good to not have the eggs overcook.
Overall, the results were ok. Again, more time may help but I do think that the recipe is severely lacking in salt. I will have to compare it to some other recipes and see about adding back some salt. Also note that while this calls for a lot of sugar, you are not actually consuming too much with each beet. I should count the extra but it must be very little
from my dad:
Bring all liquid (including beet juice) to a gentle simmer to dissolve the sugar. Add the eggsto the bottom of the container. Put the rest on top to weigh it down and add the liquid. Once cooled enough, put in the fridge
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Original WP Post ID: 8034
Original WP Pub Date: 2014-07-27_190206
Beet Pickled Eggs -- back to top
I made beet pickled eggs using my Dad's recipe from last time. I followed the recipe pretty closely with the only real change being that I split the extra stuff as top and bottom and I used only 8 eggs. I used my regular method for "boiled" eggs. One egg actually broke but then I remembered that I made hard boiled eggs before and took an extra from there.
After about a week (made on 2016-01-31) they got a great color and some good flavor. I wonder if I can reuse the brine for another batch even if it won't have all of the onions. Or, maybe I will add another can and half an onion with the same brine. (to be continued)
After I finished all of the original eggs, I added more hard boiled eggs to the "brine". I had also already eaten probably half of the beets and some of the onions.
Still, after a week, the new batch looked pretty good. It was a bit less intensely colored and slightly less flavorful, but I would do this again. Maybe try to leave more of the beats until after the second batch. Or, maybe add another can (even though that would throw off the amounts1)
Picture of a second-batch egg:
I guess I could halve the recipe and just keep growing it. Maybe.... ↩