Justin & Meredith Winokur's Kitchen Cooking Notebook
Sitemap ·
Our Recipe Book ·
Steven's Recipe Book ·
Ann's Recipe Book ·
Meal Ideas ·
Copied Recipes
Random ·
Random Links
Home > 219
KitchenKatalog: Blog 219
Sunday, January 10, 2016, 05:10 PM
Meredith and I made Thai Spicy Beef Salad. We again used this recipe (Originally: 2014-11-07). We made similar changes including heating the sauce and using an extra tsp of fish-sauce. We did not put chilies in the marinade but we still put them in the sauce.
We used about 10 oz of Top Round which is really lean. I never know with cooking it, but from the pictures, you can see that it was more rare to medium-rare than medium. I still liked it though! The whole dish was really good and rather low in points since it used lean-proteins.
Sunday, January 10, 2016, 01:00 PM
I made more jerky so we would have a good bit for the week.
I made them the night before. I heated the marinade to dissolve the sugar and marry the flavors. I let them sit for about 30-60 minutes, then I added the beef/bison (around 7:45pm on 2016-01-09). Then, around 2:30pm today (2016-01-10), I had it going at 145
I actually left the house and was out for longer than anticipated. Therefore, I did not blot it or anything. I came back around 7:00pm and stopped it. Therefore, it was about 18.75 hours marinating and 4.5 drying.
As I noted the first time, I wanted to try making the same basic recipe again but with less beef and keeping the rest the same.
That is essentially what I did. Below is the recipe. It again came out really good with lots of flavor. But, too much juniper. I would cut it to a scant 3/4 tsp next time but the rest can stay the same. The salt level was perfect
Heated all but the beef just until the sugar was dissolved then let sit for about 30 min to an hour.
(2016-02-19: Final version of this recipe is now here)
I debated exactly how I wanted to do this, but eventually decided on the following. I considered a Thai Chili pepper but decided against it since I was afraid the heat would be inconsistent. I wish I had done it as it was not very hot. I just thought of it now, but next time, I would use the blender to break it up.
The final result was good though. Maybe a tad salty but not bad. Not sure yet if the rice powder added anything
Again, heated all for a bit to combine. See above for comments and times.
Saturday, January 09, 2016, 12:00 AM
Meredith and I made Sabih since we wanted to use up the tahini sauce from Thursday. However, we made a major change to the general idea. Instead of parsley, we used cilantro.
The Sabih calls for Zhoug (both recipes here, but instead, we used Meredith's (favorite) Cilantro Chili Dip. And then we used cilantro in the salad it self.
We roasted the eggplant but forgot to pam/oil them so they look a bit strange and were hard to get off the pan. But other than that, this was a pretty good meal. And low points. Around 2-3 (Smart points) for the tahini sauce and 2 for each egg and maybe 1-2 for the cilantro stuff.
Friday, January 08, 2016, 12:00 AM
Meredith made us these for brunch. We used the recipe from Inspiralized Cookbook (Local Copy). She followed the recipe pretty closely except she used extra cinnamon and an extra egg.
It was pretty easy and the end result was fine. I do not think you would have convinced anyone they were waffles, but they were enjoyable unto themselves. And, they were pretty low points with just the potatoes and egg (and maybe some incidental oil on the waffle iron).
Meredith also made broiled grapefruit. She put some brown sugar (not much) on them and broiled on high for about 10 minutes.
Finally, we had leftover kale salad
Sweet Potato Waffles (From Inspiralized)
Local Copy (U: guest, P: name of my dog, lower case)
Friday, January 08, 2016, 12:00 AM
I decided to get back into jerky making. And, I also decided I wanted to go back to ground beef since, with the help of my new jerk gun (think caulk applicator but for beef), it is so easy to use.
I am calling it "No Idea" Jerky since the flavors are hard to describe. It was inspired a bit by Bilton and also some (but not all) recipes for bresaola.
Below is the recipe I used. I debated the salt content. I read through many recipes both from my own and a few books. They tended to have about 1/2 cup of soy sauce per pound. I had done that too with low sodium making it about 2300mg of sodium. That is about 1 tsp/pound of table salt. I think this worked well. It probably could have been a bit saltier but I kind of liked it not being over whelming. Therefore, I think the general guidance (for me) is about 2300-2800 mg of sodium per pound of ground beef
Anyway, the ingredients and process I followed is below but see below that for comments
I microwaved it all but the beef for about 30 seconds to dissolve the sugar. I then let it sit for about 40 minutes. After mixing the beef in, I let it sit over night (probably about 15 hours or so.
I used the Jerky Gun to form strips and then dehydrated at 145 for about 5:45 (HH:MM). At about the 2-3 hour mark, I took each piece off, blotted it well with paper towel, put it back (flipped) and rotated the trays. I did it again at about the 4-5 hour mark
I chose 145 to try to avoid cooking it too much. The instructions say 160 but many people do it even lower. I figured this was an ok mix
There will be a next time. This came out really good. Not too salty and lots of flavors. I can't really describe it, but they were a nice mix.
Next time though, I think I will use just 1 pound of beef but tweak the spices a bit and scale the salt. This should make it more intense but still keep it from being too strong. I will adjust from there for the future
I will scale the salt to 1tsp but I think I will switch to Morton's Tender Quick to provide some curing agent. Just to keep it safer.
I will actually make another batch soon for the sake of experimentation and having the time.
(2016-02-19: Final version of this recipe is now here)
Thursday, January 07, 2016, 12:00 AM
(Meredith made this entire meal. I am roughly transcribing her comments)
We were reading a few Ottolenghi books and used his Tahini Sauce 1 but scaled way back. (around 3 tbsp tahini and 2 tbsp water).
For the squash, Meredith cut them into rounds and sprinkled with
Roasted at 375 for 40 minutes (rotated half way). Topped with the sauce
Pretty standard and simple seared scallops. We used fresh ones from Whole Foods (the "dry" type). They came out pretty good, though maybe a tad overcooked
Heat cast iron pan on medium-high.
Drain, pat dry, and remove the extra muscle on the scallops. Then add salt and pepper to taste.
Melt butter and sear scallops for about 2 minutes, flip, then 1 more minute. Do not overcook. Serve with a wedge of lemon
Done previously on Sabih + Tahini Sauce + Zhoug (2016-06-01) ↩
Wednesday, January 06, 2016, 06:00 PM
We made a pretty simple meal of turkey and cauliflower. The cauliflower was based on my Curry Roasted Cauliflower Recipe except I used Tandoor Chicken Masala (same as used on 2015-11-11). I was weary of using too much since I recalled it being spicy, but it was fine. Actually, the cauliflower was really, really good. Lots of flavor and really tasty!
We did the turkey breast on the cast-iron pan with McCormick Montreal Chicken Seasoning. I think we overcooked them a little bit but not much. They came out really good. And low points!
)[^1]](/media/2015/11/2015-11-08_185555.jpg)
We just used the tandoori seasoning ↩
Wednesday, January 06, 2016, 08:00 AM
Meredith made a kale salad for lunches. She used this Bon Appetit recipe (no local, See below) for the dressing only and then just did the rest herself. She massaged the dressing with the [Lacinato /"dino"] kale and topped with rotisserie chicken, sunflower seeds, and lite feta.
The sunflower seeds really added a lot of flavor and texture.
Rather than a local copy of the dressing recipe, she essentially just did as follows.
Combine in a mortar and pestle:
She then whisked in:
Massaged this into the kale and tossed in
Topped with other ingredients as noted above