Justin & Meredith Winokur's Kitchen Cooking Notebook
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Home > 124
KitchenKatalog: Blog 124
Sunday, January 19, 2020, 08:38 PM
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!
Sunday, January 12, 2020, 09:02 PM
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
Friday, January 10, 2020, 09:33 PM
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!
Thursday, January 09, 2020, 07:51 PM
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]
Monday, January 06, 2020, 08:26 PM
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.
Saturday, January 04, 2020, 09:38 PM
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!
Thursday, January 02, 2020, 08:40 PM
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!
Sunday, December 29, 2019, 08:49 PM
I made (and demonstrated) making biscotti for Meredith's mom. We couldn't find cherries anywhere so we again had to make the cherries ourselves using the King Arthur Flour Recipe.
In making the dough, we didn't have a scale so I used the volume measurements but I used 4.5 cups of flour. The weights and volumes on the recipe do not agree so I went heavy. I actually probably could have used more still.
The big issues we had were related to baking. I didn't realize the problem this would cause at the time and some of it is conjecture, but we overcooked the initial bake and then super-burned only the lower tray of the toast step. See, the oven is slightly smaller than a typical oven but standard 1/4 sheet trays fit in if you slide them into where the oven racks hold on the edges.
I think what this did was eliminate air-flow in the oven and, even worse, completely separated it into two (for the initial bake) and three (for the toast with two trays) sections. Making it worse is most ovens have the temperature probe at the top and the heat at the bottom. So the heating element stayed on for a long time to get some the top of the oven warm.
For the initial bake, I think it was okay though the bottoms were a bit browner and it expanded more. But for the toast step, it super burned the bottom tray!
The top ones tasted fine (though could have cooked a bit more) and the bottom ones were a mess!
