Justin & Meredith Winokur's Kitchen Cooking Notebook
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KitchenKatalog: Blog 320
Wednesday, November 30, 2011, 03:18 PM
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We made turkey tenderloin. It is not really fast in that it takes about an hour to cook but the prep is super fast. We just put a meat thermometer in, set it for 165 and let it cook until it beeps! Easy. We also had frozen vegetables
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1592, 2011-11-30_151827
Tuesday, November 29, 2011, 03:18 PM
I am writing this somewhat far after the fact, but I think we wanted something quick so we just made grilled sandwiches. I think Meredith had some type of grilled cheese and I just had roast beef (I think) with cheese and mustard. Meredith also made mushrooms in a sherry reduction.
Correction: My memory must be gone! Meredith reminded me that these were both made with a salmon salad. We used canned salmon and non-fat greek yogurt. We also added a whole bunch of spices.
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1590, 2011-11-29_151811
Thursday, November 24, 2011, 09:01 AM
I made these for my Dad's Thanksgiving dinner but since it had to be parve, I replaced the butter with margarine. Other than that, I followed the recipe (below) pretty exactly. As some of the commenters on the recipe pointed out, the consistency of the split batters were not the same making this very hard to marble. Also, I don't think I did a very good job splitting them. However, we were just a tad short on cocoa powder so I did try to make the chocolate just a bit smaller.
We also didn't do the nuts (allergy considerations) or the chocolate chips (not parve)
The texture to me was more like cake than a brownie. I don't know too much about brownie making/science to know where that change came from. Still, it was quite good. Surprisingly, I thought it tasted like honey cake more than anything else despite there not being any honey.
Pumpkin Brownies (from All Recipes)
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Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1581, 2011-11-24_090131
Thursday, November 24, 2011, 08:58 AM
This was for Thanksgiving so there was no attempt at making it any healthier. Anyway, Meredith had been looking at this recipe for a while and when making a cake for thanksgiving came up, she suggested we make this.
It is based on the recipe below. If you read the website, they talk about how classic red velvet cake was called that because of using brown sugar which used to be known as red sugar. Also, there is apparently some acidic reaction that goes on turning it red. This recipe uses that but also adds some red wine (we used red velvet cupcake wine to add to the name).
The cake was incredibly good! It was extremely rich but had a nice chocolatey flavor. The cake was rather dense but a nice texture. The icing, (which is based on a german buttercream) was also flavorful. It was surprisingly not too sweet and also had a really nice flavor.
The reviews were rather positive so I imagine we will keep this recipe in mind if we are asked to make a cake.
The recipe is below:
Red Velvet Cake (from Gilt Taste[Since Removed])
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Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1579, 2011-11-24_085807
Monday, November 21, 2011, 08:18 AM
We had seared scallops and roasted brussel sprouts. I had been doing reading about brussel sprouts and they all said that the best method is the fastest and highest heat method. So, we roasted them at 500°F. Also, we let the pans warm up in the oven first. We had to work fast but they were good.
We did some reading on how to make scallops and the answer was to also use really fast, high heat. So we seared them with the cast iron pan. Even though they were high quality scallops, they weren't all that flavorful.
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1576, 2011-11-21_081841
Saturday, November 19, 2011, 10:00 AM
We made mussels with white wine, garlic and onions. It was a lot of mussels so we steamed them in them in a really big pot. We used a whole wheat baguette for dipping, It was about 5 lbs of mussels!
We also had roasted beets as a side.
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1570, 2011-11-19_100041
Thursday, November 17, 2011, 12:40 PM
We made Chile Verde from the recipe below from Serious Eats. We made a few changes including using 1.5 Poblanos (and cutting them before roasting), more garlic while roasting, ~3/4 lbs of lean beef instead of pork and added garlic and onion powder. We also browned the onions and then directly added the meat which is what we usually do (since we use such lean beef, this works better). Also, instead of using a blender, I mixed the ingredients to be blended with the chicken stock and used the immersion blender. It was much faster and easier. We had to broil everything for almost twice as long as it called for. I do not know why. Maybe our broiler is less intense. Oh, and we forgot oregano. We also let it simmer for almost an hour.
The chile was very good but also a bit strange. Meredith and I quickly noticed a sweetness but we are not really sure where it came from. Maybe the tomatillos or the poblanos. Not really sure. I did like it though. And it was certainly different.
We also had roasted sweet potatoes. I peeled then par-boiled them and then roasted them at 425 for about 40 minutes. I should flip them next time half. The bottoms got crispy but the rest didn't. Still, they were extremely good! Must have been really good potatoes.
Chile Verde [Quick] (from Serious Eats)
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Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1563, 2011-11-17_124025
Tuesday, November 15, 2011, 01:05 PM
This idea was inspired by something Meredith and I had at a restaurant. We pre-baked tortillas, after spraying them with Pam, for about 10 minutes at 425 (which was too long, shorter next time). Then we topped them. The tortillas were whole wheat from Costco. They are pretty low in points.
Meredith made guacamole (see her comment here) which we used as the base (very thin layer). We then added cheese and other toppings. We used a can of 99% fat free Wolf brand turkey chili though it wasn't great. I also added some goat cheese and soppressata. I am not sure what else Meredith added. We served it with Pace picanté salsa and greek yogurt.
As I said above, I pre cooked the tortilla for too long so next time, I will do less. This is certainly not as good as real pizza but it was fast and easy.
Oh, we also had leftoverMoussaka
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1550, 2011-11-15_130514