Justin & Meredith Winokur's Kitchen Cooking Notebook
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KitchenKatalog: Blog 223
Friday, November 06, 2015, 12:00 AM
We were tasked (last minute) with bringing a dessert to a party and Meredith came up with this idea. We made Rosemary short-bread based on the Joy The Baker Lavender Shortbread (Local). Essentially, we followed the recipe pretty closely except we used about the same amount of fresh rosemary instead of lavender. We used a bit of turbinado sugar but switched to regular granulated when we used it up (ended up being mostly granulated)
I think we kept pretty true to the recipe. We debated if we needed to make any changes due to the altitude but decided to not worry about it. The only other thing is we only let it sit for 25 minutes instead of 30 since we were cutting it close on time. And we probably rushed cooling them a bit but not much. Also, our butter was too cold to start so I did the trick where you pound it thin. That seemed to work well.
Final note is that I messed up and spilled some flour while adding it. We got most of it in there but probably some was lost.
Oh, and as you can see we cut it into squares. We actually used rolling pin sizers which made life much easier! I highly recommend them!
They did come out very good. A subtle rosemary flavor but not overpowering. We would do this again!
Lavender Shortbread Cookies (from Joy The Baker)
Local Copy (U: "guest", P: name of my dog, lower case)
Thursday, November 05, 2015, 12:00 AM
This was a quick meal. I simply made my regular Seared Salmon using smoked salt and smoked paprika.
For sides, on mine I had about half of a roasted Kabocha squash (30 min @400°F, flipped hald way). On Meredith's, I heated leftover butternut squash
For both, I sautéed leftover stuffed squash filling with Sriracha and light amount of cheese from the other day
Tuesday, November 03, 2015, 12:00 AM
We made stuffed acorn squash. Meredith did most of it so I may have some details wrong. The basis for the stuffing was wheat berries. I cannot find the resource we used on cooking it but I recall a a 1:3 wheat-
The filling was a combination of the following:
We roasted a halved acorn-squash for half an hour, added some butter, salt, and pepper, then stuffed it and roasted it for another 30-40 minutes
We had a ton of leftover filling which we used for other meals. I didn't make a post of it, but I took a bunch of that, sautéed it with some seitan, added Sriracha, then some grated cheddar. That was my dinner the next night. And after that, I again sautéed it and we had it as a side with the salmon.
Monday, November 02, 2015, 08:00 PM
We actually made this on Sunday, 2015-11-01, but ate it last night.
We followed Kenji (from Serious Eats) recipe (local) as the main inspiration. We made a few changes based on preference (ground beef), what we had (vegemite) and general taste. A full list of changes and adjustments are below.
Overall, this was probably the best chili we've made. Probably not the best we've ever had but still. The only thing is is that it was just too sweet. I would probably skip the sugar all together and maybe lighten the bourbon. But, it still had tons of flavor. And I would add some hotter peppers (either fresh chopped, fresh in the paste, or dried in the paste) next time. There was little to no heat.
Below are a list of changes and some comments
Kenji: The Best Chili Ever (from Serious Eats)
Local Copy (U: "guest", P: name of my dog, all lower case)
Sunday, November 01, 2015, 09:00 PM
We made a pretty quick meal. Meredith seared the scallops and they were good but there isn't too much to say about them.
I tried making butternut squash pasta with the spiralizer. Most recipes I saw online just said to cut it smaller and do it with some force. I am not generally opposed to that but a friend told me she did it with microwaving it for 5 minutes first. I cut the main part in hald and tried that.
It only partially worked. On both of them, it was too soft and the spinner part would tear it up. See the photos below. I wonder if I wasn't supposed to do 5 minutes. I'll have to ask.
Anyway, I sautéed it with butter (~1 Tbsp), garlic, and crushed red pepper. Came out garlicky and good.
Saturday, October 31, 2015, 08:00 PM
We were invited somewhat last-minute to a halloween thing so Meredith came up with this idea for a really quick but themed dessert.
It was essentially "dirt" but with pumpkins. We made instant pudding (full-sugar) with fat-free milk. After that set, we folded in cool whip and some crumbled "Cookies and Cream" flavored oreos1. We then topped it with more crumbled oreos and candy pumpkins.
As you could imagine, it was pretty darn good!
Isn’t that just oreo flavored oreos? Oh well, they were good! ↩
Friday, October 30, 2015, 12:00 AM
This was quite a meal! In the past, we have called it Antipasti Selection and Smorgasbord (...) but really, we just call it a Meredith meal.
There were lots of parts to this meal. I will try to hit on most of them.
We were at Whole Foods and they had oysters for $1 each. We like the idea of oysters so we bought a dozen with 3 different kinds as you can see in the photo. I shucked them and we served it with lemon and tabasco (forgot to buy cocktail sauce). Well, I return to us like the idea more than actually having them.
The Malpeque were easiest to shuck (Wianno were the hardest) but I was able to get to all of them. However, we each has one good and one awful W ones. Pretty bad.
I think we will hold off on oysters for a while. They just aren't as worth it as we usually think they will be. Again, the idea was a nice start to the meal.
Meredith had made (but overcooked) white beans for this meal but we weren't really eating them. She had the brilliant idea to make white bean dip. We used this recipe (local) for inspiration but she really just did it all to taste with the following:
Before blending:
Overall, it was a great way to use the beans. The end result was a bit smokey but very garlicky. Not really bad but definitely a bit too much.
Meredith had see this Kitchn recipe (local) and used that to make them. We used a combination of black seedless and "Holiday" grapes (that's what the bag said). We tossed them with olive oil, salt, pepper and rosemary.
You can see from the photos below, they were really pretty. They tasted pretty good too. A bit like wet raisins (as one would expect) but it was still a funky thing to do with grapes
The rest of the meal was the cheese and crackers. We had a variety of cheeses and also salami. And sliced baguette (not pictured)
See the photo at the top. The cheeses were:
We liked them all. The Rosso Di Lange was brie-like and I liked it with the salami. The others were good plain, though Meredith didn't love the Lenberg
A picture of the cheese labels and wrappers are below for more information
White Bean Pumpkin Hummus (from Heather Christo)
Local Copy (U: "guest" P: name of my dog, all lower case)
Roasted Grapes (from The Kitchn)
Local Copy (U: "guest" P: name of my dog, all lower case)
Wednesday, October 28, 2015, 08:00 PM
We made a pretty quick meal. We had salmon burgers served on toast with a home-grown tomato (see photo below. Probably one of if not the last for the season). We also made roasted cabbage (3/4 head) with parmesan using the usual recipe
