Justin & Meredith Winokur's Kitchen Cooking Notebook

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Seared Salmon and Roasted Kabocha Squash -- back to top

We planned a fast and easy meal. It was basically an exact copy of a few meals, but I think the first one was 2014-01-05.

Anyway, I roasted kabocha squash for ~30 @ 400°F, flipped half way. I also had the cast-iron pan in the oven to heat up for the salmon, which I did my normal way. I did it with salt and dill which I think was a first for this method. It worked well. I would do that again.

It was all very good. I was worried about overcooking the salmon since it was thin and think I undercooked it instead. Still, it was fine.

I like the squash since I can eat a lot without too many points/calories.

Light Lasagna Soup and Roasted Squash -- back to top

We wanted something relatively easy so we made the Lighter Lasagna Soup. We made a few changes to the recipe to match what we had and out mood. They were

• Use a vodka sauce (see below) instead of regular
• Chicken sausage and 2/3 lbs (but still the raw kind)
• Added mushrooms
• Red pepper instead of green (we prefer it and had it)
• Moose-shaped pasta
• Used a few mozzarella balls instead of shredded
• Skipped the garlic and added garlic powder
• Cooked the sausage separately and a bit later

Overall, we were really happy with it. It is relatively healthy and pretty easy. The only thing is we kind of bulked this up a bunch but didn’t adjust the liquids so it was very thick (but I liked it that way still).

As using the vodka sauce was pretty good. We would use that again

I also roasted half a kabocha squash (30 min at 400°F, flipped half way) as a side for me. Meredith didn't want any but it is one of my favorites and I was more hungry.

2016-05-18 Update: Recipe moved to its own page

Vodka Sauce

Vodka sauce is Meredith's favorite kind but tends to be rather unhealthy. However, we found the one pictured below at only 50 cal a serving (10 fewer than the lightest of the regular ones)

Sous Vide Pork Chop and Kabocha Squash -- back to top

Meredith was out of town so I tried to make something she usually doesn't like: pork chops. I bought a bone-in (rib I think?) pork chop. I followed Serious Eats (Local Copy ¹). I used salt and pepper on the pork chops and then I added some diced garlic, rosemary, and a Tbsp of butter to the bag. I did it at 142.5F (In between the table's temps) for about an hour and a half.

I decided to sear it in the grill pan so I needed more oil than usual since it would be below the "grates". I got it super hot with a bit of butter. It was searing pretty nicely, though splattering everywhere. Then I smelled the leftover liquid from the sous vide bag and it smelled amazing. I figured that in addition to following Serious Eats and adding more aromatics after the turn, I would also add the contents from this bag. Big mistake! I didn't think that some of the bag was water (from the pork and also butter is 20% water). Well, that caused the oil to super, super splatter and create a literal FIREBALL in the kitchen. Woah! Thankfully, it extinguished itself before I had to intervene. oops! I'll be more careful next time.

Either way, the pork was cooked really well as you can see from the picture. It was really moist and flavorful, though I did have to work around some fat.
However, will all that, there still were no grill lines!

I also made Kabocha squash (30 min at 400, flipped half way). I tried to cut it smaller but it was still a tight fit on the pan. Good though!