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KitchenKatalog: Blog 255
Saturday, August 23, 2014, 09:30 PM
I again wanted to try making a healthy cilantro-lime stir fry. This time, I decided to try to use a "cream" sauce idea. But, I also wanted it to be dairy free. I came across a vegan alfredo recipe and decided to use that. I am copying it to the blog, but I really just used it for the general idea. Below is what I did:
As per the recipe, I sautéd the garlic and then added everything up to and including the lime. After it had cooked enough, I immersion blended it. I then let it cool and added the cilantro and corn starch and again immersion blended it. ( I didn't want the cilantro to lose flavoring the heat)
Vegan Pasta Alfredo (from Minimal Eats)
Local Copy -- password is the name of my dog, all lower case
The rest of the veggies was mostly broccoli and a few red peppers. Instead of rice, I used soba noodles (2.5 pp/oz and about5.8 oz).
Overall it was strange. I think this Alfredo sauce was better than the last time I made a fake white sauce (with white beans). But it was still strange. And, a bit too sweet (I only had original almond milk). And, the cilantro flavor still didn't come through. I think my next avenue with this is some cilantro-lime salad dressings and try to use them with the stir-fry.
This page was converted from Wordpress with a custom script by Justin Winokur. Most links and images should still work. However, if any links are broken, see the HTML (or Markdown) source to try to deduce the intended destination.
Original WP Post ID: 8734
Original WP Pub Date: 2014-08-23_213002
Thursday, August 21, 2014, 08:50 PM
I made ruebens. There wasn't too much interesting. I used the same fat-free thousand island dressing as I have used in the past but with real ketchup. Honestly, it was too sweet and thin. Next time, I'd reduce the vinegar and honey and increase the relish.
I assembled the sandwiches and then tried to "grill" them as you can see in the pictures. My big mistake was using the cast-iron on the bottom. The sandwiches all burned at the part that was towards the center even though they were fine on the edges. My guess is that with the induction heat and the high specific heat of cast-iron, only the small ring got hot causing very low heat diffusion. Next time, I'll use a regular pan that_should_ diffuse heat better.
I made 3 sandwiches so 1.5 per meal. Between all three, there was 0.6 lbs of beef (based on _deli_ beef , 8 but say 10 to be sure), 4.5 slices of lite swiss (6 points) plus the dressing (2 pp) and sauerkraut. And 6 slices of bread for 12. Total is 10/sandwich.
I also made curry roasted cauliflower (probably 2 Tbsp oil =6 pp )
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 8724, 2014-08-21_205003
Wednesday, August 20, 2014, 12:55 PM
I made a salad for lunch and dinner. It wasn't anything too special but I figured I'd note it. I stir-fried the shrimp. While better than the calamari, it was also kind of flavorless. I am starting to wonder if the quick-defrost causes flavor loss. Anyway, What you see is as follows:
Pretty simple but good meal!
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 8705, 2014-08-20_125504
Tuesday, August 19, 2014, 09:35 PM
Meredith is out of town so this was my opportunity to make calamari. I settled on the balsamic stir fry. I made a balsamic-cilantro stir-fry sauce mostly inspired by the balsamic broccoli. The actual ingredients are below. Note that since I was using the immersion blender, there was no reason to do the cornstarch separately.
I stir-fried it as I had been doing. First the meat with a bit of oil, then the veggies with water and lots of tossing to steam them. I feel like I should be actually stir-frying them but I really want to keep the oil use down and I am not sure what to do otherwise.
I do not know if it was because I had to quick-defrost the calamari, if it was my cooking method, and/or the calamari itself but the squid was flavorless. I will not ruse to use it again. Chicken would have been better. Also, I am still not loving this stir-fry sauce. I think the hunt for a balsamic stir-fry sauce will continue.
Anyway, for the sauce, I used the following. The mayo was a strange choice but I thought it could give it a bit of a tang.
Combine all and immersion blend until fully emulsified and combined.
The vegetables were:
I also made 2/3 cup brown rice roughly following this(password is the name of my dog, all lower case)
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 8701, 2014-08-19_213515
Tuesday, August 19, 2014, 01:35 PM
I didn't have a lot of food in the house and I needed lunch so I three this together. I started by sautéing 4 garlic cloves in a bit if canola oil. Meanwhile, I microwaved a rinsed can of black beans. Once they were really warm, I added them to the garlic and used the immersion blender to mash most of it.
I layer it out onto two small whole wheat tortillas, pammed both sides, and cooked it until it was crispy.
It was actually a pretty simple meal and it tasted ok. It was a bit dry and really could have used some cheese. The points were essentially 9 for the beans, 4 for the tortilla and 1 or 2 for the oil.
Just to note, these are the small tortillas. They look big in the picture but they are the "Fajita" size
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 8698, 2014-08-19_133528
Tuesday, August 12, 2014, 08:35 PM
Meredith and I had bought whole wheat tortillas a while back but never got to use them so I decided to make tacos. I also had some Trader Joes tempeh so I cooked them on a pan and used that as the main filling. I also threw together a cabbage slaw. I really just winged it but I used about 1.5 cups of shredded cabbage. I had bought a really small head of a different type and it didn't shred well. It turned into cabbage dust. Anyway, with that, I added the juice of one lime, a small bit of white vinegar, a small bit of salt and sugar, a jalapeno pepper and cumin, chipotle powder and cayenne. I used non-fat greek yogurt as sour cream.
I also made cauliflower fritters. It was a very large head of cauliflower so I added more cheese (6oz) and an additional egg white (took out the second yolk). I did not modify the flour which was likely a mistake as they kind of came apart. Other than them coming apart, the fritters were good as usual. You really taste the feta and the rosemary! (I only ate half that night. I also forgot the baking powder. I wonder if that had anything to do with it falling apart.
I used 1/2 the package of tempeh (1 serving) which was 6 pp. Each tortilla was 2 pp and a safe estimate of the yogurt is 3. So 15 for the tacos.
And the following is the fritters: (so 7)
Item
x
Cal
Fat
Carbs
protein
fiber
per
Total
Lite Feta (1oz)
6
40
1.50
1.00
5.00
0.00
0.95
5.71
Flour (1/4cup)
2
110
0.00
22.00
4.00
0.50
2.71
5.43
Egg
1
2.00
2.00
Total
460.00
9.00
50.00
38.00
1.00
13.14
Per Serving
2
230.00
4.50
25.00
19.00
0.50
6.57
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 8690, 2014-08-12_203503
Monday, August 11, 2014, 08:50 PM
This was a bit different. I made chicken hash except instead of potatoes (or turnips/rutabagas) I used beets and carrots. I basically followed the directions with a few minor things here and there. The worst thing I did was to add 3 chopped Thai chili peppers. It didn't make the dish too hot but the smoke/steam in the kitchen burned like holy hell!
I have to say, I really didn't like it as much with beets and carrots. It was just way too earthy. I love beets but the amount in this, combined with everything else, was just too much. I wouldn't do that again!
I also made roasted kabocha squash. I followed the same technique as here but I may have left them go too long, or the oven was too hot. They came out overdone and dry. I was disappointed but I'll try again in the future and be more careful. I thoroughly washed the squash but it still had some strange stuff on the skin so I didn't eat the skin around there (the rest of the skin is very good).
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 8685, 2014-08-11_205046
Sunday, August 10, 2014, 09:10 PM
Ever since having a stir-fry with a cilantro-lime sauce at a Mongolian BBQ, I have been wanting to try my own. I read a lot of different sauce recipes and kind of-sort of-maybe settled on this one. I only roughly followed it. Here is what I ended up using
I initially didn't have the lime but then I decided to add it. I then used the immersion blender to make it into a sauce. Between the lime and the vinegar, it was super strong. So I added the tsp of sugar. Finally, right before cooking, I realized I hadn't added any type of salt so I added some plus the soy.
I pounded out a 2/3 lbs chicken breast and chopped that. Meanwhile I used this recipe/technique to make brown rice (but I 2/3 x the recipe)
My aim was to use the Kitchn's techniques to make the stir-fry but I ended up just winging it. I cooked the chicken and tossed it too much that it didn't really get a good sear. I was good about moving more or less cooked parts around and controlling what got cooked and how much.
I took it out of the pan and added more oil. I then added the veggies. I again tossed too much. It was becoming clear that they weren't cooking so I started adding water.The idea was to steam them and keep moving which veggies were in the small pool of water. After a few minutes, they started to be cooked but I had added too much water. I was able to carefully drain it.
Finally, I brought everything (but the rice) together and got it all hot and well coated. I distributed the stir-fry to the bowl with the rice. However, I underestimated how much it would make so I moved to a larger bowl. And I mixed the rice in very well.
Overall, it was ok. I think the sauce could have used more flavor. And I still didn't get the veggies to have a good sear. They were well cooked though. Overall, I would say that my technique is poor but acceptable. The sauce could use work!
The veggies were
Vegetable Stir-Fry with Spicy Cilantro Herb Sauce (from Honest Cooking)
Local Copy -- password is the name of my dog, all lower case
How to Stir Fry (from The Kitchn)
Local Copy -- password is the name of my dog, all lower case
