Dateline: June 7, 2021 Clean out the fridge soup

I had quite a bit of produce that needed using and 2 cups of thawed homemade chicken stock....soup!  We had eaten a big lunch with our friend Jeri, and I thought a lighter dinner was in order.

Ingredients

1/2 head cauliflower, cut into smallish florets

1 pint cherry tomatoes

1 small onion, diced

2 cloves of garlic, smashed and chopped

1 large bunch tuscan kale, chopped into smallish                       pieces

1/4 small head of red cabbage, sliced thinly

3 mini bell peppers, cut into rings 

1/2 serrano pepper, halved and cut into slices

olive oil

2 cups chicken stock

2 cups water

2 ounces dry white wine

salt and pepper

2 T sherry vinegar

Method

1.  Heat Instant pot on saute, and when hot add olive oil and add, onions, bell peppers, and serrano pepper.  Add salt and pepper and saute until softened.

2.  Add in cherry tomatoes and cook until they start to pop.  Add cauliflower and stock with an equal amount of water.  Stir and add wine, taste, and add more salt if necessary.  Add greens and cabbage and stir, then hit cancel.

3.  Adjust Instant pot to pressure cook on low for 6 minutes.  Close the lid.  Allow to release pressure naturally for 2 minutes, then quick release the balance.  Open pot, stir, taste, add vinegar, stir again and taste.  

4.  To make this more hearty, add a can of beans in before the vinegar and saute for a few minutes until hot.  Add vinegar and adjust seasonings.

June 1, 2021 Risotto

We just returned from a relaxing weekend with friends in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.  Even though it rained 3 days straight, we managed to have a wonderful time.  We laughed, ate, drank, and slept. Dianne and Phil have 2 new puppies, Nora and Lou, and they are just wonderful bundles of fluff.  St Bernard puppies are adorable, but really HUGE!  We got acquainted with Elle, Claire and Jon's St Bernard and it was a weekend of fluffiness.

The drive back wasn't bad, it was pretty quick, with stops, just under 4 hours, biggest delays were once we hit Staten Island and Brooklyn. Smooth sailing before that!

After communing with our kitties, who were delighted to see us, we returned to the daily grind of life in Brooklyn!  Checking on the garden, watering the plants on the other terrace, removing weeds, planting new things, cleaning up after the cats and discovering more new toys.  Up until now, they have been very content with cardboard toilet rolls, balls of tin foil, and pieces of string.  I bought some catnip infused sticks that they are going ape for.  We have dubbed them, Senor Stick.  To distinguish it from Ropey.

Back to food, I lost myself for a second.  I used a recipe from NYTCooking for Shrimp and Pea Risotto

The recipe called for shrimp stock, and the shrimp I had were shelled, so I couldn't make the stock, but I used a mixture of homemade and boxed chicken stocks that turned out great.

The saffron gave the rice a lovely yellow sun-shine-y hue.

I also used frozen shrimp, so sue me, and it turned out quite nice.  The shrimp went into the pot just as the rice was almost finished cooking and I covered the pan and killed the heat.  Peas went in at the same time on top of the still frozen shrimp.  After 3 minutes, I uncovered the pan and flipped the shrimp over and recovered for another 3 minutes.  It was perfectly done.  The rice was firm, but not crunchy, the shrimp just cooked through and the green peas gave the yellow something to play against.

Dateline: May 23, 2021 Grilled Chicken and Broccolini with Rice

 FD delivered a lovely chicken that unfortunately had burst its bag and spilt chicken juice all over the inside of the bag!  Everything but the blueberries was salvaged.    

I spatchcocked the chicken, which is splitting it open and removing the backbone and pushing down on the breast keel bone and flattening the chicken as much as possible so that it cooks evenly.  

I made a marinade of fresh lemon, calabrian pepper paste, garlic, salt and olive oil.  I ground up these in a spice grinder and it made a lovely orange paste.  This was slathered all over the chicken in a plastic bag, sealed and put into the fridge until ready.

Fire got started and roaring hot, out came the chicken and the broccolini and the chicken went on first.  I deeply browned the bone side first, then flipped over and let the skin get burnished and crispy and then threw on the broccolini and got that just a little blackened and dinner was served with left over rice! 

Dateline: May 22, 2021 Rack of Lamb on the Grill

What to grill?  What to grill?  In rooting through the freezer I found a rack of lamb, problem solved!

I made a quick marinade of preserved lemon, some calabrian chilis, a fat clove of garlic, and olive oil.  This got blitzed up to make a lovely orange paste which was smeared all over the lamb.  Popped in a plastic bag and in the fridge.

I am into peeling asparagus these days.  It is easy to do, provides a lovely color when grilled and makes them tender.  I also decided to rice up a head of cauliflower that I had in the veggie bin and make steamed cauliflower rice with dinner.

Of course, I only thought to take a photo halfway through the meal,  D'oh.  So the photo is of the individual chops after grilling.  The one of the far left shows some of the crustiness that the grill provided on the fat cap and the one on the far right shows that I did a good job of keeping them rosy pink on the inside.!  Yeah, me!

Below are the remains of the asparagus and the riced cauliflower.  I used a box grater to shred it up rather than a food processor because I was lazy, but then did really like the texture of the finished product!

Asparagus were oiled and sprinkled with salt and pepper then lightly grilled.

 

 

Dateline: May 18, 2021 A Produce Drawer Goes to Korea

I had a lot of produce that needed to be used up.  Several bunches of collards and Tuscan Kale, as well as a couple of small beets and an unidentified root veggie that came with a Misfits box.

This was an experiment.  And it turned out great!  We both couldn't stop eating it.  There was a bit of heat, but not too much, just enough to satisfy and the crunchiness of the beets and scallions went a long way toward that end as well.

A definite keeper in the rotation!

Ingredients

2-3 bunches of collards and kale or any other leafy veggies, cut into ribbons

1 large red onion, cut into thin wedges through the root end

1 bell pepper, cut into bite-sized pieces

2 small yellow beets, peeled and sliced into thin half moons

1 bunch scallions, sliced into 3" pieces

3 cloves of garlic, sliced

2 inch piece of ginger, peeled and sliced thinly

1 jalapeno, halved, seeded, and sliced

2 T gochujang

2 T Korean soybean paste

1 heaping T Korean Chili flakes

1 T rice wine vinegar

1 T Mirin

2 T white wine

1/2 lb Korean rice cakes

Vegetable Stock, as needed

Method

1.  In a small bowl, put the gochujang, soybean paste, rice wine vinegar, mirin, and white wine.  Mix well.  Should have the consistency of oatmeal.  Add water or vegetable stock if necessary.  This is the sauce that will be added into the stir fry later.

2.  In a sauce pan, bring salted water to a boil.  Boil rice cakes for about 3-4 minutes, then drain and rinse.

3.  Heat a wok up, add some oil and fry the rice cakes until they have a few dark spots on them.  This will take longer than you think!  You need to evaporate the water off them before they will start to brown.  When browned to your liking, remove from wok and hold in a bowl.

4.  Add more oil to the wok, and add the garlic and ginger.  Then add beets and bell pepper and fry them until they soften up a bit and the beets lose their hard crunchiness. Add the onion and collards and coat with oil and cook until the collards wilt a bit.  Add the sauce and mix well.  If needed, add some of the vegetable stock to facilitate the coating of all the veggies in the sauce.  Add in the rice cakes and scallions.  Mix well.  When veggies are cooked to your liking and rice cakes are nicely coated in the sauce, serve.

 

Timeline: May 14 , 2021 Long Time No Post!

Hello again!  My paws has been because we have a couple of kittens staying with us.  As of this writing, I do not know for how long!  

They are adorable and frisky, which makes for a lot of herding of them.  I have been so entertained by their antics that I have completely gone off the blogging!

 This is an effort to turn some preserved lemon marinaded grilled chicken breasts from the previous night into a Chinese inspired stir fry.

The chicken was cut into strips, an onion, garlic, bell pepper, ginger, and last night's veggies were then stir fryed with some Pixian bean paste and a splash of shaosing wine, dark and light soy sauces and some rice vinegar.  

It turned out quite nicely.  I was unsure if the lemon would overpower and make it, well, gross.  But success.

Dateline: May 5, 2021 Cinco de Mayo, Chili Bandera

I pulled some ground turkey out of the freezer and was trying to figure out what to do with it, when I realized it was May 5!  So chili immediately sprang to mind.  So I browsed in the fridge and found 1 green pepper, 1 red pepper, 2 small onions, garlic, collard greens and there it was, just add turkey and a can of black beans and dinner was ready.

Ingredients

1 lb ground turkey, I used 93% lean

1 green bell pepper, cut into bite sized chunks

1 red bell pepper, cut into bite sized chunks

1 hot pepper cut into slices

2 small onions, diced into bite sized chunks

1/2 a bunch of collards, stripped and cut into ribbons

4 cloves of garlic, minced

2 T chili powder

2 t ground cumin

1 t ground coriander

1/2 t epazote

1/2 t mexican oregano

salt and pepper

1 box diced tomatoes, I used Colavita, 12 oz box

couple of glugs of wine, red or white

1 can of beans, rinsed and drained

Oil

1 small bunch of cilantro, chopped

Method

1.  Heat a pan and add some oil to coat.  Brown the turkey.  Add more oil if necessary, and saute the onions and peppers until a bit softened.  Add the garlic and collards.  

2.  Add the tomatoes, chili powder, cumin, coriander, epazote and oregano along with some wine and the salt and pepper.  Stir and cover pan.  Cook over med low heat for 10-15 minutes.

3.  Taste, adjust seasonings and recover.  Cook until peppers are soft, then add a rinsed can of the beans of your choice.  I used black beans.  Top with chopped cilantro and serve over rice.

 

Dateline: April 29, 2021 Clams, Shrimp, Linguini what could be better?

Fresh Direct came through again with their delivery, cockles!  What to do with them.  I had frozen shrimp in the freezer and the clams, why not some pasta.

 

 

I made a base of pancetta, garlic (lots of it), a shallot, and some grape tomatoes.  After they burst and the sauce was kind of soupy, I added the scrubbed clams until they opened.  I removed them and took the meat out of the shells.  Any clam juice went back into the pan.  I added some white wine and tasted for seasoning.  

The pasta water was set to boil and I added the frozen shrimp into the broth to cook through.  They were still half frozen.  When the pasta was cooked, I dumped it into the sauce along with some of the pasta water and stirred things around to coat each linguini strand with the sauce.

Dinner was served along with a salad!

Dateline: April 26, 2021 Sheet Pan Chicken Thighs

I had some chicken thighs that needed to be cooked or frozen, I opted for the former.  I sprinkled Galena Street from Penzey's on the thighs and then put them in the 400° F oven for 30 minutes.

After I removed them from the oven, I added the vegetation, broccoli, onions, potatoes, tomatoes and a green pepper.  Coated them in the fat in the pan, and nestled them around the thighs.  Back into the oven for another 30 minutes. or until the internal temp of the thighs reached 180°F.  Then we ate!

Dateline: April 24, 2021 Experimental Dinner: Air Fried Chicken Thighs

I know, I know, I visited the website Modernist Pantry and saw a demo of air fried chicken, ordered the components and decided to give it a go.

I should have been more attentive to the recipe, there was an error, that I unfortunately didn't notice until after I made the breading..... live and learn.

The error was in printing the weight of the AP flour as 600 g, but it was supposed to be 60 grams.  So I have a big bag of stuff that didn't work out so well.

I brined the chicken first in a buttermilk brine with Worcestershire sauce, powdered hot sauce, salt, pepper, marjoram, thyme, and vinegar powder.  That part went well.  

Next came the breading procedure.  The products that I ordered were Evercrisp and Batter Binder S.  These are designed to 1) hold the batter on the product and 2) provide a long lasting crisp on the food.  Neither worked, which I attribute to the stupid error in the recipe and I will have to try again.

The taste was pretty good, hit of spice came through and the crispy parts were crispy, but the batter did not adhere very well.  The vegetables were good, they were steamed!

I have to admit, the photo makes them look really good!