Justin & Meredith Winokur's Kitchen Cooking Notebook
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KitchenKatalog: Blog 226
Monday, September 21, 2015, 09:02 PM
Meredith did nearly all of the work for this meal. She made the beans from this Bon Appetit recipe (local). The only real change was that she brined them and used rosemary instead of sage. The conventional wisdom used to be that you shouldn't salt/brine them but as this Kitchn (and referenced Cook's Illustrated book The Science of Good Cooking) note, brining can be a good way to go.
The rosemary gave them an interesting and strong flavor but it was pleasant and I liked it a lot. We did have to cook them longer but that is likely the altitude (water boils at 203°F).
As the title says, we also had them with roasted sweet potatoes and caramelized onions. Not too much to that. We pierced the potatoes with a fork and roasted them at 375°F for 45-60 minutes. We did the onions (mostly french-cut red) on a very low heat. We served it with a little bit of butter melted in.
I thought it was really good. Especially when I basically stuffed the potatoes with the beans. It was also an easy meal, but very slow. Something we could prep in the future next time. And I think Meredith was happy with brining the beans.
Cannellini Beans With Garlic And Sage (from Bon Appetit)
Local Copy -- (U: "guest" P: name of my dog, all lower case)
Sunday, September 20, 2015, 06:00 PM
Meredith and I made tuna tataki from our regular recipe. Whenever I make it, I have trouble getting the ginger to stick but Meredith doesn't seem to have the problem. My guess is that I usually slap-chop the ginger and she chops it. I think chopping keeps it drier. We also didn't make the sauce and instead just did 1:1 fresh lime juice to low-sodium soy sauce. Anyway, the tuna came out really, really good. Lots of flavor and well cooked.
I made pan-seared gem lettuce. It was based on this Kitchn post (local). We followed it pretty closely and it worked well enough. I think I need to take the heat down a little bit more. Especially since I added the lemon juice and it basically evaporated right away. Still, it worked well enough and was really good (except I used too much salt).
Overall, a pretty easy and healthy meal.
Little Gem Lettuce (from The Kitchn)
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Sunday, September 20, 2015, 11:34 AM
I could have sworn I've posted this before but I can't find it.
Meredith has been making these pumpkin spice lattes from The Kitchn Recipe (local) for some time. She basically follows the recipe (including the all-important black pepper) and then uses a small milk frother. She adds the milk directly to the pumpkin mix, lets it dissolve, and then froths it.
She has tried doing it all in the Vitamix including heating the milk but it wasn't as good. We think the caramelization of the sugar makes a difference.
Oh, and she usually uses almond milk.
Pumpkin Spice Lattes (from The Kitchn)
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Friday, September 18, 2015, 10:14 PM
Meredith and I made Orange Chicken from this Kitchn recipe (local). We actually followed the recipe pretty closely except used only 1 lbs of chicken (but kept the rest the same). It worked pretty well except needed, desperately, to have less corn-starch. Easily use 1/3-1/2 of what the recipe calls for.
Other than that, it was pretty easy. We actually juiced 3 oranges but next time, we may buy orange juice.
We served it over cauliflower rice. Roasted the cauliflower for 35 minutes but skipped adding any parmesan cheese. (I also updated that recipe to add the cooking times)
We like the meal a lot. It wasn't too hard and it was also pretty low in calories. Especially since we used the cauliflower rice. I would put this into some type of rotation.
Additional Photo:
Chicken in Orange Sauce (From The Kitchn)
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Thursday, September 17, 2015, 12:00 AM
We made shrimp saganaki from this Serious Eats recipe (local). We basically halved the recipe except for the onion and garlic (and maybe crushed red pepper) where we did the whole thing. We also used lite feta and much less than it calls for (and skipped using it for garnish). I think we probably used less than half of what the recipe calls for (even after halving it). I topped mine with parmesan cheese (probably too much) since we didn't have more feta
Basically, the meal is shrimp poached in tomato sauce with feta. It was actually pretty good. The feta gave the sauce a nice creaminess. And I cut the onion french-cut so they had a nice texture you could easily eat.
It was also pretty quick and easy. We will do this again!
Shrimp Saganaki (from Serious Eats)
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Wednesday, September 16, 2015, 12:00 AM
This was a boring but fast and simple meal (ie, perfect for a weeknight when you don't feel like cooking or making what was originally planned). We simply sautéed the frozen salmon burgers and served it on toast with green chili sauce.
Tuesday, September 15, 2015, 09:45 PM
We wanted a quick and easy dinner since we had plans and knew we would be eating late. Also, Meredith had been wanting to use some of her ripe tomatoes from her garden. This seemed like a nice and easy meal.
We made BLTs by baking the bacon (though some pieces were still a bit fatty so we microwaved as needed). I had mine (1.5 sandwiches) with Trader Joes lite mayo.
Anyway, you can see the tomatoes better in the photos below. They came out super juicy and very, very flavorful. They also had a really cool structure to them.
Before cutting:
Slicing into them. Notice the structure and shape:
Assembling:
Monday, September 14, 2015, 12:00 AM
I made my regular broccoli beef, though I had some issues. I only had two heads of broccoli but they were huge and I wanted to use up the rest of some cabbage. And, I intended to use seitan but I had apparently finished it earlier. I used un-marinated tofu. Had I realized it sooner, I would have marinated it.
The issue with all of the veggies were at (a) I had to do it in two batches since there was so much. And (b) there was not enough sauce to go around. I tried to add some more of the constituent ingredients (ie, soy sauce, oyster sauce, and rice vinegar) but I think it was too-little-too-late.
Also, cabbage, while a good bulking vegetable, wilts too much and releases lots of water. So the end result was more watery and less flavorful.
Still acceptably good. I ate way too much of it though...