Justin & Meredith Winokur's Kitchen Cooking Notebook
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Home > 194
KitchenKatalog: Blog 194
Sunday, December 18, 2016, 05:53 PM
Meredith and I decided at the last minute to make Divinity. Ok, so last year I said I didn't want to use this recipe again, but since it was so last minute and a lot of the other recipes seemed similar or were "cheater" recipes (e.g. uses marshmallow fluff), so we went with it.
But, I did listen to my last-year self and used silpats. That made all the difference! They were sticky and annoying but they also easy enough for us to take them off the tray.
Other changes were:
While, we haven't tried them after sitting (I'll come back and update if I have to) but we liked them a lot. The vanilla flavor was missed but I still thought these were (a) the easiest and (b) still pretty good.
Note that we let it go a full five minutes from the time we finished adding the sugar. The mixer seemed to really struggle but it made it through.
By the way, we had tried some store-bought Divinity and it had the texture of some of our other batches that we thought was bad. Maybe that is the correct texture?
Again, we will see how they hold up over time.
Friday, December 16, 2016, 07:45 PM
Meredith and I had to make a salad for a work party. We were actually told ot make for 40 people! So we doubled our usual Pomegranate and Wild Rice Salad with Walnuts and Feta. But we had planned to be at two other parties before this one (one was canceled). So we prepped everything ahead of time and split it up to assemble at the party.
We used 2 cups of dry rice -- a mix of brown and wild. We also ended up cooking it for too long since we lost track of the timer, but they were fine.
The rest was pretty standard. There was a good amount of dressing and it came out pretty good, as usual.
Thursday, December 15, 2016, 08:45 PM
We had been doing a lot of cooking and we were kind of tired so we went with something fast. We had defrosted a thing of chicken sausage already. I cut up about 1-1/2 lbs of Broccolini and then stir-fried it with some salt, pepper and then, once more cooked, some Penzeys Fox Point plus garlic powder. I then threw in 4 chopped up chicken sausages.
I liked it a lot and it was a good amount of food that was pretty healthy.
Thursday, December 15, 2016, 07:03 PM
Meredith and I made Armadillo Eggs, one of her favorite christmas foods from home. We made them for a potluck later in the week.
It is basically stuffed pickled jalapeños surrounded by maple sausage.
Meredith's Mom wrote up some instructions HERE (but we're not sure about the times and temp).
We followed that pretty closely. It was kind of hard to do and took a two pounds of sausage to cover the jalapeños from the one can. I think we did it pretty well and close to the recipe though we had to cook it for much longer.
We did the 250°F for the hour and then turned it up to 300°F and had to do another 40 minutes for it to look done (all on convection).
Some of them seemed to explode a bit. We may have not done a good job with cutting them and/or sealing them. Or, it may have to do with trying neufchatel instead of cream cheese.
Thursday, December 15, 2016, 06:52 PM
I made Ramen Rice Krispies again. There really wasn't too much to it including us doubling the butter as we now say in the recipe (though I am going to change it to 6-8 Tbsp). The other thing was I figured I could mix the furikake into dry ingredients and that worked well and made life easier.
I ate a few while putting them away and I liked them as usual. I do think we should change the butter to 6 Tbsp since I am afraid they will all stick by the time we serve them.
I really like this recipe since it is kind of odd but also tasty.
Wednesday, December 14, 2016, 07:51 PM
I made what has become something of a common meal for us. It's just so simple. I did the same basic thing as 2016-11-02. I roasted 2 lbs of halved brussel sprouts on preheated pan at 450°F (face down) for 22-1/2 minutes. This was reduced from last time and I think it was close to right. Maybe about just 20 minutes next time.
I then tossed them with some Trader Joes Korean BBQ sauce (pictured below) along with 1/2 a pack of super firm tofu and then tossed them back in the oven for another 5 minutes. I tried to use a minimal amount of the sauce since it isn't ver healthy.
Still, it was pretty good. Quick, easy, and pretty healthy
Wednesday, December 14, 2016, 06:03 PM
I didn't really make this but I wanted to record this. I found the above at Costco and decided to give it a try for lunch prep.
I followed what they said and did it in the slower cooker for about 12 hours on low with water to just cover it. (Fat side up).
After it was cooked, I trimmed the fat off as much as possible and cut it up/shredded it. It made only about 1 to 1-1/4 lbs of meat. (I ate a bunch while bagging it). I then froze two potions of it. I am kind of surprised how much cooked off and/or was cut off with the fat.
What I ate of it (which was probably way too much) was really good. I don't really get credit since it was mostly store made. But it kind of makes me want to try to make it myself (and maybe with sous vide)
Tuesday, December 13, 2016, 08:36 PM
Not much to this. Our standard roasted cauliflower with soy chorizo. I tossed cauliflower with some oil and smoked paprika. Once it was roasted for about 30 min at 400°F (with convection). Meredith then heated up about half of a pack of soy chorizo with a bit of oil and capers (plus juice).
It was quick and easy!