Justin & Meredith Winokur's Kitchen Cooking Notebook
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Home > 186
KitchenKatalog: Blog 186
Tuesday, March 21, 2017, 03:10 AM
Pretty simple meal of pita pizzas (and also some salad with leftover dressing). I made
And Meredith made: (both with fresh-from-the-garden oregano)
On both of them, we used some roasted garlic powder which was really good.
We baked them for 350°F for 15-20 minutes
Sunday, March 19, 2017, 09:35 PM
We were originally going to make half keftas and half koftas but somewhere in the process of making them, I got mixed up and started to mix the ingredients so I just made a big batch of both. Also, we decided to go with turkey instead since it was a great price, a good fat content (7%) and we thought it was a good change. The only problem was that it was a big thing of it (3.35 lbs). So I also eyeballed upping the spices.
I struggled to place it on 6 double-skewers. It was a lot and it was also very droopy. But, I managed to do it! I thought I'd have to grill it for a long time, but it ended up getting sufficiently cooked in time. I ended up keeping the heat on low while I worked on the mushrooms.
Anyway, they came out really good. I was worried that they would be too cooked but I think they held up really well. And, the flavors were a bit strange but they did worked. I mean, the koftas and keftas have very similar recipe (and origin?) so I think it worked pretty well!
Besides combining the recipes, I made a few small changes:
Again, these came together really well. Kind of surprisingly well!
We made the same mushrooms as yesterday since they were (a) really good, and (b) we had leftover teriyaki (though it was a bit too thick). They came out really good too. I think I figured out why: it is because it basically makes candies bacon!
Meredith also made fattoush though she basically just eyeballed everything. And, unfortunately the flatbread we bought went moldy (way too quickly!) so we also didn’t
Sunday, March 19, 2017, 01:46 PM
I really liked the harissa (now in my recipe book) from yesterday so I made a full batch. The only real changes I made was to pre-grind the crushed red pepper and I used about 1/3 cup oil instead of half. Grinding the crushed red pepper worked well enough, but it did get very, very hard to breathe in the kitchen! And, of course, it came out pretty spicy. I think it was fine with the lesser oil amount.
I also made our (now staple) Cilantro Chili Dip but used way too many peppers and didn't deseed them enough. It was spicy. I need to be more careful about the spice levels!
Saturday, March 18, 2017, 10:28 PM
My friends Wes and Katie were visiting ABQ and come over for dinner. We made two types of chicken skewers and also teriyaki mushrooms.
The chicken skewers were from Zahav (scanned here). It was part of their "Pargiyot Three Ways" though we only did two. For the "onion marinade" (they both have the same amount of onion but whatever), we followed the recipe pretty directly. For the harissa one, we did follow the recipe but used a tomato-based harissa (see below).
I tried to do a more Japanese style of skewering. I butterflied the chicken and then also pounded it thin. I cut it into smallish pieces and basically folded every piece as I put it on and packed it tight. According to Serious Eats, this helps to keep them from drying out. I also just think it looked good and gave some more texture.
Anyway, the chicken was marinated for a few hours and was really flavorful. I put on more sauce at the end before the last turn. They came out really good. The onion one was a bit lemony but not bad. I liked the harissa one a lot too! And the onions in both smelled really good while it was cooking.
Finally, I also made yakitori mushrooms as we did last time. Except I used regular mushrooms with 4 per skewer and a total of 1 slice of [center cut] bacon per skewer (basically a third). Like the chicken, I tried to also fold them up as I put them on. It worked really well. I was a bit unsure about the teriyaki (which I also made myself with some ginger an garlic) because it came out too thick. But heating it a bit helped. And it did end up giving it enough flavor. The bacon again gave a lot of flavor to the mushrooms.
Meredith and I used to really like the Harissa at Cava in Northern Virginia. She was working on it at one at one time but it was complicated and a lot of work.
Well, she found this article and recipe (LOCAL recipe1 -- now My Recipe Book). It seemed too good to be true. Especially since the ingredients on the package are:
Stewed tomatoes / Non-GMO canola oil / Spices / Extra- virgin olive oil / Fresh parsley / Kosher salt / Fresh garlic
and this one just calls for tomato paste instead of stewed tomatoes. And it just seemed too easy. But it actually worked really well. It had some crunchiness from the not-fully-ground crushed red pepper but was pretty spot on...at least to our memory. I think we would make this and keep it around. Especially it was so easy! (and the recipe does seem to come right from them!). Maybe next time, I will grind up the crushed red pepper in a spice grinder first.
When Meredith was in Durham at Burger Bach, she had a very flavorful, herb-centric salad and decided to make something like it.
She was inspired by Good House Keeping's recipe (LOCAL1) but added a ton of thyme and oregano. We basically did most of it by eye adding more oil, and then some water, as needed.
Our friends made dessert of a strawberry short cake. It was home made whipped cream with macerated strawberries and some Angel's Food Cake
Friday, March 17, 2017, 11:07 PM
We made the typical huevos rancheros with green chile and rotisserie chicken. I used feta on one and some Mexican cheese blend on the others.
It has been a while since I've made them and I think I burned the tortillas a little. Also, I used too much chicken. But, still good! And easy!
Wednesday, March 15, 2017, 07:04 PM
Not a very pretty or complex meal, but I steamed shrimp from frozen and then made a quick sauce with some butter, green chile, and Cilantro Chili Dip.
It was actually pretty good, even if it wasn't particularly pretty...
Tuesday, March 14, 2017, 09:36 PM
We both wanted to make pies for Pi Day and we were both craving pie's from where we grew up so I went with Shoo Fly Pie and Meredith made Buttermilk Pie.
Meredith grew up with buttermilk pie and decided to try a twist on it with this Joy The Baker (local1). She followed the recipe pretty closely. Making the brown butter was a bit of an adventure and got butter everywhere. But otherwise worked pretty well. We did use store-bought crusts.
The recipe was good, but Meredith said it was not quite what she remembered. It was more about the apricot than the buttermilk so we would probably do a different recipe next time.
I followed the NY Times recipe (local1). I didn't have time for making the crust but we went with a store bought one.
The NY Times recipe was interesting. I've never heard of making a pie like this, but essentially you have a liquid in the pie and then add the crumb mixture on top. I was really unsure of what to expect from it, though I think it turned out ok. I do not remember what it is supposed to taste like, but this was kind of very heavy on the molasses. The texture was good though.
Tuesday, March 14, 2017, 09:17 PM
I prepped Asian Lettuce Wraps for dinner but we ended up saving it for lunch. We followed the recipe except used only half the noodles and did the rest with zucchini. I think it worked well with that and I would try it again. Maybe even replace all of the noodles.