Justin & Meredith Winokur's Kitchen Cooking Notebook
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KitchenKatalog: Blog 355
Saturday, August 28, 2010, 10:16 AM
Breakfast burritos. We grilled gimme lean on the griddler (which was very good) and made a mixture of onions, garlic, a bit of pepper and other stuff I do not remember right now. Finally we had pieces of egg. We made the egg in pyrex then cut it. Plus a bit of FF shredded cheddar
After folding/rolling them, we put them back on the griddler to heat and get some lines.
We also had microwave potato chips...of course.
Below are pictures after and before prep. Below that is points (roughly)
Rough points for 4 (ate 1.5/person and had one left):
1/2 gimme lean...4
Egg...1 or 2
Cheese...2
La Tortilla Factory wraps...4 (1 each)
So, each one was 3! Not bad!
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 288, 2010-08-28_101633
Friday, August 27, 2010, 08:15 PM
Very good meal that I cooked with my dad. The samosa's were again with this recipe, but changed a bit. More salt and I added garam masala and I really did not measure the spices. I just kind of threw them in. Some notes though. I had a lot more trouble making them on this batch. You can see the one botched one we turned into somewhat of a dumpling. I think the key is to not over fill and to be careful with the dough. Shaping it better would help. Also, maybe kneading it more to make the gluten strands more pliable. Just thoughts for the future.
The mushrooms were the normal caps with laughing cow cheese. The stuffing was a really good grain mixture with butternut squash. I will ask him and add it here later.
Finally, just steamed broccoli. I think it was a bit undercooked but certainly not raw. My dad liked it the way it was.
Oh, and salad we barely ate.
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 284, 2010-08-27_201555
Tuesday, August 24, 2010, 10:45 PM
We made pizza again from this recipe (or my site's link). This time I tried with all whole wheat flour. It was okay but not incredible. Especially considering you go beyond 4 grams of fiber per serving, I will go back to their suggestion of roughly half and half. I started it in the food processor and then moved it to the dough hook. After a while on the hook, I finished it by hand. Also, it helps to flour or corn meal the pan. Some stuck
There were three of us with Meredith's sister. The dough made 4 large pizzas and 4 small (or the equivalent of 6 large). Meredith and I each made 1 large and two small for lunch. Meredith's sister made two larges.
The sauce was a mix of homemade and when we ran out, we used a mix of Clasico and Barilla tomato basil.
Also of note is I found fat free shredded mozzarella. I weighed out two servings for my large pizza and it was just enough. A bit dry because FF but acceptable. See very bottom for points.
The photo on top is Meredith's large pizza. The rest of the photos are labeled above them.
Meredith's were:
Mine:
Brooke's
My large:
**picture missing**
Brooke's Large:
Meredith's Samosa pizza and my potato slices one:
Meredith's and my BBQ:
Brooke's second large one:
For the whole recipe. It makes about 6-8 servings.With all whole wheat flour. It gets a bit tricky with how you count the fiber from the flour.
3.5 cups whole wheat flour...1540/7/56
Oil...4 points
sugar...negligible
The points come from the flour plus a half from the olive oil. So, for 8 servings, we have 181/1/14. Plus you add more flour to it as you go plus some for the sugar and yeast. Therefore, I will say if you split it into 8 servings, 4 each. If you split it into 6, then 5
60 grams of FF mozz (covers a pizza lightly) is 2.
FF cheese is really low but flavorless. LF cheese is 1 or 2 a slice depending on cheese (Lite Jarlsberg and LF Sargento Prov are 1/slice).
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 268, 2010-08-24_224509
Monday, August 23, 2010, 09:05 PM
I knew I wanted mahi mahi but I couldn't figure out what I wanted to do with it. I thought of making fish tacos but I didn't really have the stuff. So, I read a bunch of recipes and then basically disregarded them.
I wasn't sure what to for the marinade so I just started with some sriracha sauce and went from there. I ended up adding some soy sauce, some olive oil, a bit of sesame oil, some garlic (powder and minced), some onion powder, a tad of worcestershire, a tad of tabasco and finally some white wine. Strange, I know.
After marinating it for a while, I grilled it with the griddler and served it on top of [plain] brown rice with steamed broccoli on the side. It was very good!
Points:
Fish...3+1 for the oil and stuff
Rice...3 (1/2 cup dry per person)
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 260, 2010-08-23_210540
Sunday, August 22, 2010, 11:31 PM
I first read about this method on a Lifehacker article about cooking easy. As anyone reading in archives know, I have been trying to make healthy chips with varying degrees of success. I have not totally figured it out with the oven. So, I read more and eventually found enough people say it was possible that I tried it. (main site - But I used pam).
Interestingly, maybe I used to much potato, but despite the fact that my microwave is more powerful than any mere mortal ever needs, I was surprised that I still needed to do it for 8-10 minutes and not the 5.
But, it was a great success! I made three batches today. The first was for breakfast, then I made a snack and then I made some for lunch tomorrow. I usually refrigerate my entire lunch but I am going to leave this one out with the bag open to make sure I do not trap steam.
So, I tried to extend it. I had a parsnip that was going to be bad any minute now. I peeled it, cut it, pammed, seasoned and microwaved it. I have not been chomping at the bit while cooking so much since making mussels with my mom earlier in the summer. Anyway, it took about 8 minutes. I think it is a mixed success. They are good but they are not crisp. Also, the sweetness of the parsnips mixed with the flavors. It is definitely interesting but it needs more refinement. One thought is that I may be crowding them and that is producing too much steam. I do not know but worth exploring.
Next I tried carrots. My leftover carrots were small and that may have contributed to the lack of definitive results, but the jury is definitely still out. They did not really crisp and some may have burned. Also contributing to the results was I may have used too much pam (evident in the photo).
The next photo is the parsnips followed by carrots.
Equipment Note: My plates say they are dishwasher, microwave and conventional oven safe. As you would expect, they came out of 8 minutes in the microwave quite hot. I let them FULLY COOL before trying to clean them because I do not want them to crack. Also, while the plates may be microwave safe, apparently, the writing telling you that is not. They no longer say anything on the bottom. Oh well.
Future Ideas: I think moisture is a killer in this but I do want to try with bananas, and plantains (Jamaican themed meal maybe?). Other ideas?
Addendum: I was thinking about it and I was wondering if the microwave is essentially doing anything differently other than cooking the potatoes for "longer" (even though it is less)? It may have to do with how a microwave works or it may simply be the cooking. I have not given up on the oven method.
One thing I really think I need to get to help nail this method is a mandoline with a spacing adjustment so I can consistently cut thin slices, and probably thinner than what I can do by hand at that. I may go buy one next week because I really want to test this out
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 252, 2010-08-22_233143
Sunday, August 22, 2010, 11:29 PM
There was my first attempt at microwave frying. I will talk about it much more here. Not really all the special other than the chips. See that post.
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 247, 2010-08-22_232924
Saturday, August 21, 2010, 09:19 PM
Meredith's sister was in town and she wanted to try it so I tried to french onion soup again. I still have not gotten sodium-free beef bouillon which may have made a difference but I used less wine and less bouillon. Meredith and I agreed it was not as good. After I get sodium-free beef, I will try again.
The chicken was just coated with Trader Joe's 21 Seasoning Salute. It is sodium free and, I think, similar to Mrs Dash. Because it was sodium free, I added a bit of salt. And a tab of black pepper. The pepper added a surprising spice.
And, steamed broccoli. It was a bit overdone because my timing got messed up at the end.
Chicken was 4 points for about 3.5 oz (three tenders approx) and the soup was the same as last time...more or less.
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 242, 2010-08-21_211928
Thursday, August 19, 2010, 09:06 PM
Today's meal was (unintentionally) comfort food. First the soup: The french onion soup was fairly simple. First I sautéed a lot of onions (french cut) with just pam. Then I added about 3 cups of water and a cup of white wine (thanks Alton Brown for that tip). Then added 4 beef bouillon cubes and a packet of no sodium chicken. I eventually added some more water. After the first taste, I thought the wine was too pronounced so I added another cube. A few notes for the future. First, a bit less wine. It was too strong. Second, I need to get some sodium free bouillon to cut some of the salt.
For the croutons, we toasted a (pam) buttered english muffin and cut that. The cheese was low fat provolone. Since my bowls are (probably) not safe for the oven, let alone the broiler, I used the creme brulee torch to brown and burn the cheese.
The shepherd's pie, pictured cut below, was just onions, ground beef (lean) and some frozen corn and peas. After sautéing the onions and vegetables and browning the beef, we lined the bottom of the pan with it (very bottom photo). The potatoes were a pound of yukon gold potatoes which we boiled for about 20 minutes. I do not know the details because Meredith did it, but the smashed potatoes (we kept the skin on) were made with some greek yogurt (less than 1/2 cup), Molly McButter, butter spray, garlic and onion powder, salt, pepper and a tad of 1/2 and 1/2 to make it creamy. After mixing the two, we baked on 400 for about 20 minutes then broiled for 2 to brown the top. We ended up with too much potato for the beef but it was still good. (The original plan was to use a smaller dish but it grew). The recipe was loosely based on this recipe
Shepherd's Pie (2 dinner/2 lunch)
meat:
8 oz 92/8 ground beef...8
1/2 cup corn + 1/2 cup peas...1.5
Potato
1 lb Yukon Potato...6.5
4 oz ff greek yogurt...2
! Tbsp 1/2+1/2..0.5
Assorted Pam, onions, etc...0.5
Whole pie had 19. Made two dinners and two lunch portions (around 6 and 3 or 4 respectively)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
French Onion Soup (made 2 servings)
1 cup white wine...2
2 slices LF cheese...2
1 Fiber One English muffin...1
Assorted Pam, etc...1
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 238, 2010-08-19_210600