Justin & Meredith Winokur's Kitchen Cooking Notebook
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Home > 167
KitchenKatalog: Blog 167
Saturday, December 16, 2017, 07:18 PM
We made chicken and dumpling soup. For the broth, we sautéed:
to soften them and give them more flavor. We then used Chicken Better Than Bouillon and a little bit of anchovy paste. We let that simmer until the veggies were soft enough.
We used the (halved) My Name is Yeh dumpling recipe (LOCAL). That worked surprisingly well. I was a bit weary since it has you make a dough and then try to beat in the egg but it worked. The only thing is that next time, I would mix all of the dry ingredients to add at once! Also, the recipe didn't state to do it, but we simmered with the lid off since I know that is how you do matzah balls. (see 2019-02-11 update below)
For chicken, we used about a quarter of a Costco package of rotisserie chicken. We had half a package frozen so, after working really hard to break it up, we put some in from frozen.
It was pretty good. We liked the dumplings and the soup had lots of flavor. I am sure I used way too much Better Than Bouillon but it added a lot of flavor.
I suspect I did in fact simmer these uncovered, but I must have mis-remembered the matzah balls since you are supposed to simmer them covered. I do not know why/how I mixed that up! See 2019-02-10
Saturday, December 16, 2017, 04:53 PM
I made two more batches of biscotti. I stayed pretty true to the recipe but adjusted the temps (though not the same as I suggested last time). For the first batch (2017-12-16) I again used fruit cake mix but for the second, I used cherries.
For the first I did:
They came out pretty good. Maybe a bit too cooked from the toasting. But I still struggled to get them off the pan after the first. I used non-stick aluminum foil and I had to get the spatula under them to separate. The problem was, maybe they still weren't cooked enough because it broke trying to move it to the drying rack. For the second loaf, I slid it. I do think they needed more time!
For the second I did cherries instead of the other fruit and soy 350° for about 33 min. The outside was more cooked but still super soft inside. I think it’s fine since it gets cooked again but it was still hard to work with.
Wednesday, December 13, 2017, 08:23 PM
I made a simple meal of Huevos Rancheros. Nothing too special except I used Great Northern Beans. I liked the extra creaminess.
I also made some leftover butternut squash.
Tuesday, December 12, 2017, 08:15 PM
I made Patatas Bravas thought it was actually half rutabaga. I again did it with some whole milk and anchovy paste. It started out way too wet, but I think I actually let it cook down a bit too much. Also, too much smoked paprika in the sauce. It was almost a bit gritty.
Tuesday, December 12, 2017, 06:08 PM
Meredith and I made a double batch of roasted broccoli soup. We followed the basic recipe and used the vitamix to blend it.
It was initially not flavorful enough until I realized that it does call for about 4 oz of cheese and I used about 2 for a double batch. When I upped it to 5 (all we had) there was much more flavor.
We got abour 7 servings out of it! (2.5 of which we froze)
Sunday, December 10, 2017, 08:20 PM
I made meatball Marsala with butternut squash noodles. I used the Smitten Kitchen "Every Day" (book) via Shutterbean (LOCAL) recipe with only minor changes as noted below.
I was a bit worried about making an alcohol-based meal, but the very first step is simmering down all of the Marsala which I read actually cooks out the alcohol. I looked up other "traditional" marsala and they have you degalze the pan after mushrooms and cook down so this wasn't to far off.
I followed the recipe pretty closely except I doubled it. Some minor changes were for the meatballs. It was:
For the sauce, I used whole milk instead of cream and I cooked down the Marsala in the same pan as I used for the onions so there were some flakes in there but other than that, I stayed pretty true to the recipe.
I also used a mix of butternut squash noodles and pasta. I took the top of the butternut squash and microwaved it for 1 min (as per 2017-10-23). I also used the rest of Zucchette from 2017-10-04.
Overall, we really liked it. I felt fine about how cooked down the marsala was but you could still really taste it. And, while there is a lot of butter, MyFitnessPal estimates it at about 450 cal/serving (with 3 servings in the recipe) without pasta. Not amazing, but not too bad either.
The meatballs were also pretty good. Surprisingly moist but we also know they are 100% cooked since I did it in the oven.
Saturday, December 09, 2017, 01:54 PM
I made a batch of my Dad's Biscotti for two work-related Christmas parties. Fundamentally, I made very few changes/notes. The biggest was that I used the zest of about 5/6ths of a lemon instead of measuring. Other than that, I followed the ingredients pretty closely. I did it with pistachios and Fruit Cake mix to give it more christmas color.
But, despite staying pretty true to the recipe (including not making altitude-related changes), I struggled a bit. It all came together pretty well (though it is sticky; I nearly broke two spatulas before getting the wooden spoon). I shaped it and put it in for the first bake at 325°F (w/ convection) for about 33 minutes. They came out white as a ghost!!! And, they stuck to the silpat and the first one tore.
I put them back in for another 10 min or so with the temp kicked up to 350°F and that seemed to work better.
I let them cool and then tried to cut them. My sharpened my knives while they cooled (They needed it) and still, my (junky) serrated knife was tearing them apart. I ended up using the freshly sharped chef's knife to get through it ok.
I did my dad's water trick for the large loaf but forgot to do it on the first piece of the broken one. MISTAKE. The tricks does a good job at keeping it together.
Anyway, I put them back in the oven at 350°F for 20 minutes but when I went to flip, they still seemed a bit like they weren't crisping. I flipped them and turned it up to 325°F. Of course, I forgot to change the change the time so then they got a bit overdone. Certainly not bad (mostly, there were a few) but not as I would have liked
I cooled them with a fan since we were already late for the first party.
Overall, they were fine. Not as good as when my dad does it but this was my first time! I liked it with the fruit mix, though Meredith wants to do candies cherries next time. And I want to make sure they do not get as crispy.
Next time:
Tuesday, December 05, 2017, 08:39 PM
Seared Salmon with some salt, pepper, and cumin. Meredith made roasted cauliflower with salt and Mural of Flavor.