Justin & Meredith Winokur's Kitchen Cooking Notebook
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Home > 227
KitchenKatalog: Blog 227
Saturday, September 12, 2015, 06:00 PM
Meredith and I were invited to a "Mad Scientist Party". The idea is that you bring (preferably make) something that you've never made/had before. And, you can go a bit out there. Well, Meredith has a whole pinterest board of ideas and we went with the broiled feta.
We based it on this recipe (local link). We followed it pretty closely except we planned to double or tripple it. However, we misread the thing and only bought 3 x 8-ounce feta blocks. We had actually also bought a lite feta for us so we decided to use that so we could double it. It is actually really interesting how much you can tell the difference in the pictures, especially the ones below.
Other than that, we stayed pretty true to the recipe. And it was both really good and really easy. It was better hot but fine room temperature too. I think it would be interesting to do with more honey in place of brown sugar and apples instead of pears to do some thing for Rosh Hashanah. Maybe in the future.
Few other notes: We used red pears since they are prettier (though you couldn't tell in the end) and we served it with Trader Joes mini pita crackers. They were fine but maybe a bit dry. Also, we didn't cut the blocks of feta.
Broiled Feta with Caramelized Cinnamon Pears (from How Sweet It Is)
Local Copy (U: guest P: name of my dog, all lower case)
Saturday, September 12, 2015, 11:40 AM
I made chicken salad using some rotisserie dark meat (hence the "ish" of "Lite(ish)"). I made the salad with non-fat Greek Yogurt instead of mayo (hence the "lite").
I put a whole bunch of things in there, all to taste. They are:
Again, it was all to taste but pretty good. I think using greek yogurt was fine and the rest of the flavors were a nice addition. We served it on some bread and also in lettuce cups.
Friday, September 11, 2015, 08:00 PM
As usual, when I say "green", I mean we used the green cilantro dip. There really wasn't too much to this meal since, after all of the shopping (and sampling/snacking) we were not that hungry. We had fried eggs (light amount of butter), Bresaola (from Whole Foods, but I want to try making it still) and various cheeses. I think it was some Hatch Green Chili Cheddar and Gouda.
Not a fancy meal by any standard but still, really good and simple
Thursday, September 10, 2015, 08:58 PM
I had made this a few times now. This was again inspired by the first time that I made it. This time, I used green chili sauce, rotisserie chicken, beans, and topped it with shredded gouda.
It didn't come off the plate very well this time. I think the sauce was a bit wet. I also tried to cut the tortillas differently to cover the pan. I liked the idea but between that and the fact that these ones seem to curl, it made it hard (plus, sometimes I just have better luck than others)
(I will eventually make a recipe book post about it and then come back and add the link)
Made into a Recipe Book Post
Wednesday, September 09, 2015, 09:00 PM
Meredith and I made korean beef tacos. We used this beef bulgogi recipe as the marinade. We actually made the marinade Sunday night but didn't add the beef until yesterday. We followed the recipe pretty closely except used less beef (0.675lbs -- see photos below) but the same amount of marinade. Anyway, we marinated it overnight and then cooked it on the grill pan (warmed up at 7-8/10). The grill pan was good since the marinade dripped down but it was still hard since I couldn't see the meat well. Actually, next time, I think I would cook a whole piece of meat, let it rest, then cut it.
Anyway, on my plate, I also quickly heated 3 corn tortillas (50 cal each) and had some lettuce. Meredith just had it on lettuce.
The rest of the toppings were:
Overall, it was pretty good. And rather low in points -- especially the ones served only on the lettuce, though the corn tortillas weren't too many points.
We will make this again!
Some of this I said above but in the future I would:
Tuesday, September 08, 2015, 06:00 PM
Meredith did most of this so I will have to update it if I missed anything. Anyway, we had a shrimp salad. The main thing was Meredith made her favorite cilantro dip/sauce. She actually doubled it but only 1.5x the oil. Anyway, she marinated some shrimp in the sauce and then cooked it on the cast-iron grill-pan (see the photo below).
For the salad, she made a dressing with the green chili stuff, a bit more olive oil, some salt, and lemon juice. The salad also had cherry tomatoes and avocado. I put red-onion in mine but Meredith didn't have any.
It was a pretty good meal. Not too much work (especially for me :-) ) but also healthy and flavorful.
Monday, September 07, 2015, 12:00 AM
Meredith and I made quick ramen like last time. Again, we basically just winged it with some chicken broth, miso (mixed into a small thing of warm broth then added), soy sauce, plus some tahini. We also topped it with green onions and some toasted sesame oil.
The real change this time was that we used zucchini noodles (raw). They were fine. Certainly nowhere near as good as real ramen noodles but much healthier!
Sadly, the broth this time was really just not as good. I do not know what was different this time. It wasn't bad per se, but certainly lacked the flavor and mouthfeel. Also, I we do not know if it was the green onion or the sesame oil (or all the veggies) but it reminded us more of wontons soup than ramen.
While the soup wasn't as good, the eggs were more of a mixed bag. Texture wise, they were almost dead on. I am still figuring out the times for Albuquerque (~6000 ft in elevation) but 9 minutes steaming then into cold(ish) water did the trick. They were a nice texture and held together.
Rather than go with the Serious Eats ramen egg suggestions, I just did 2 Tbsp mirin, 2 Tbsp (low sodium) soy, and 1 Tbsp sugar.
You can see the marinating below. They were fine with this but could have used much more time marinating.
Saturday, September 05, 2015, 08:00 AM
We had a breakfast of leftover pimento cheese plus some Chipotle Cherry bacon from Whole Foods. We also had some fried eggs, and toast from the leftovers.
Pretty simple and easy breakfast.