Justin & Meredith Winokur's Kitchen Cooking Notebook
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KitchenKatalog: Blog 327
Monday, August 08, 2011, 04:59 PM
We made a chicken and vegetable thing just like last time. We basically just sautéed bunch of onions, then added eggplant,zucchini and yellow squash. We learned this time to cook the chicken separately and add it at the end so as to not overcook it.
I love this meal because it is a lot of food for very, very little calories/points
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1337, 2011-08-08_165912
Thursday, August 04, 2011, 04:09 PM
We made pizza again. We used the same dough recipe (1/2, normal swap) though I had some issues. I made it the night before, let it rise once, then punched it down and refrigerated it overnight. I took it out the next morning and despite being out for a while, I didn't think it really "came alive" very much at all. Maybe it was the cold or maybe it was just bad yeast (though the first rise was normal). I do not know. Either way, it made for harder to spread pizza (I always use a rolling pin but Meredith is usually able to avoid it) and more a cracker crust. The crust was still good.
Today's sauce was really good. I did basically the normal of onions but I added one habanero pepper (chopped really, really finely). I sautéd them, then added blended tomatoes and tomato paste. I added some salt and pepper then let it cook away much of the water. It was very flavorful.
My two pizzas (one small, one big) were pretty similar. They were both sauce, part skim mozzarella, and soppressata. My first one (top photo right) also had zucchini and some goat cheese which gave it a really nice bite...or if you ask Meredith, made it inedible. My second one (very bottom photo) had cut cherry tomatoes and some dried rosemary on top.
Meredith's were much more interesting. Hopefully I get it right. Her first (top left) was a greek pizza. She made a fat free tzatziki instead of sauce and then used olives and cucumbers. I do not know if there was feta. Her second (below) was a mexican pizza. She mixed the tomato sauce and Pace hot salsa. Then she topped it with pieces of avocado with sprinkled cumin, as well as corn, some soppressata and I think something else but I do not remember. Hers was VERY GOOD! I liked it more than when she just uses salsa
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1334, 2011-08-04_160921
Tuesday, August 02, 2011, 02:12 PM
The main meal was the stuffed poblanos which we did about a year ago. Meredith did most of this so I do not know exactly, but I think we followed the same recipe except a lot less tomato sauce as we stated lasted time. They were very good except they needed more salt. I am copying the recipe below since I didn't last time.
The side dish was called Tomato-Zucchini Tian. We followed the recipe (copied below) except we didn't have eggplant so we skipped that part. We also didn't really have Herbs de Provence so we looked it up and just sprinkled the top (haphazardly) with
It was very, very good. I really liked it all cooked together. Maybe it was just us, but this also needed more salt. I also used yellow squash intermixed with tomatoes. While the dish was great, what was not great was dropping the soapy dish while cleaning it and shattering the ceramic (sad!!!)
Stuffed Poblanos (from Shutterbean)
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Tomato-Zucchini Tian (From Lanas Cooking)
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Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1326, 2011-08-02_141250
Monday, August 01, 2011, 12:09 PM
We made this similar to other times(w/o broccoli). We used the seafood mix from Trader Joes. One thing I did differently is I cooked the seafood in a separate pot and constantly drained the water so I didn't overcook everything else. I sautéd onions and garlic then added the tomatoes. I used fresh and dried basil, TJ's 21 seasoning salite, and normal seasonings. Once the pasta and seafood were mostly done, we combined them all and let it cook. I then shaved some fresh cheese (I forget which kind. Meredith, can you comment on the kind) over it all. I felt like it was not very flavorful. I need to season it more next time and perhaps a bit more salt.
Meredith made steamed asparagus with a soy sauce concoction over it. It was about 1 Tbsp of low sodium soy, some sesame oil and cayenne pepper. It was good!
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1323, 2011-08-01_120933
Sunday, July 31, 2011, 08:27 AM
The taco stew was the usual recipe only we used patty-pan squash instead of the main zucchini chunks. We did have some leftover thin-sliced zucchini from the bruschetta so I chopped that finer and put it in. It was great as usual. We love this recipe. And we had lunch for the next day
The Baked Basil fries were an idea we had for the B themed meal but didn't do. It is from the recipe below. I also added some fresh basil and I really just eyeballed the rest. They got really, really crispy but I think it was the sprinkled parm cheese that crisped. Maybe a bit too much cheese. I didn't really taste any basil but they were still good. Roasted potatoes and slightly burned cheese. You really can't go wrong.
Baked Basil Fries (From AllRecipes)
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Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1319, 2011-07-31_082711
Saturday, July 30, 2011, 08:26 AM
Nothing too special here. We used the griddler to grill hotdogs (too hot outside). As with last time, we used the use of crappy hot dog buns. But good bun alternatives were not easy to find so as to avoid too much bread. So, we used ciabatta where we just stuffed two hot dogs in each with a bunch sticking out. The hotdogs are really light in calories and fat so you can have a few.
I also broiled zucchini and hot banana peppers. The peppers were really hot but I enjoyed them. For the zucchini, I sliced it on the mandoline.Unfortunately, I broke the number one rule of mandoline use and didn't use the guard. OUCH!!!
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1317, 2011-07-30_082639
Thursday, July 28, 2011, 11:45 AM
We had friends over for dinner and Meredith and I decided on a B theme.
First, the bruschetta. Meredith made two types from the recipes below. They were Mediterranean and Zucchini Ricotta. For both, we used fat free ricotta and we used a garlic parmesan baguette toasted. Also light on the olive oil. They were both very, very good. We will definitely make them again! Oh, and we skipped the olives (Yuk!!!)
The main course was beef bourguignon with the same recipe. We started it the night before and stopped right before adding the wine. We refrigerated it overnight and then we simply warmed it up and kept going from where we left off. It was good though I think I liked it the first time more. It was less thick than previously. I do not imagine it had to do with breaking up the cooking but maybe. It was still flavorful and good.
The broccoli rabe was basically made with a recipe by Mario Batali. It simply involved sautéing garlic and crushed red pepper then adding the broccoli rabe and letting it cook for 20-25 minutes. First of all, I put too much pepper in. It was HOT. Also, maybe it was the cooking time or the method but it tasted a bit dead. It didn't have the nice bite and bitterness of just normally sautéed broccoli rabe (which may be a good thing to some people but I like the bitterness). Next time I will just do it like spinach.
Finally, the rice pudding. I do not have the recipe but Meredith said she followed a very basic fat free recipe. It called for honey but we replaces about 1/2 (Meredith- please confirm) with Splenda. Then she added her touches includes slivered almonds, raisins and cardamom. I liked it very much event though I am actually not a huge raisins-in-pudding fan. The cardamom was a nice touch giving it an indian flavor.
Mediterranean Bruschetta (From Food Network)
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Zucchini-Ricotta Salata Bruschetta (From Food Network)
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Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1313, 2011-07-28_114522
Tuesday, July 26, 2011, 12:10 PM
I was very excited to finally make seitan. I followed the recipe from my dad's book. The gist is, 1 cup vital wheat gluten with 3/4 cup water (it came together with a bit less). Knead for a while, let sit for 20-30 minutes, roll into logs, simmer covered in simmering liquid for 1-1.5 hours. I made the simmering liquid with 5 cups light broth (I blasphemed and used real chicken broth since I didn't care about the vegetarianism), 1 cup white wine, 1/3 cup soy sauce. I took it off a bit early because I like it firm. It was a bit too firm. Also, while it expanded in the liquid, it then shrunk again. Overall, I thought it wasn't as good as when my dad made it. I will need to play a bit more, cook it a bit longer, and use it in something rather than just as the main dish.
The borscht was AMAZING! We used the same recipe as last time. Again, we used real mushroom over the dried (and not many of them). We also went heavy on the beats, light on the potatoes (Yukon Gold with the skin on), and we didn't have carrots. Other than that, we basically followed the recipe. We used Texas Pete hot sauce (we had samples of it) but I didn't really taste it. We also used the beet greens but Meredith carefully double washed each one (we had gritty beet greens last time and these looked extra dirty). I do not know if it was the beets or something else but this was just very, very good. Really sweet despite not much sugar. We will definitely do it again since it was easy and very good. We only stained a few things with the beets so that was also a plus.
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1310, 2011-07-26_121058