May 31, 2008

Two good meals

Last weekend we did very well, dinner-wise. Friday we had felafel (from a bulk mix, a sure-fire hit with the kids), ground lamb kebabs (mixed with onions and spices), tabbouleh, pita bread, feta cheese. Very nice meal.

What the heck did we have on Saturday? I know it was good, but I can't remember what it was. Oh yes! Was that when we had grilled fish? I think so. Grilled halibut, made simply with salt and pepper. Green beans with almonds and butter. And.... Pearl Bakery bread and some Old Amsterdam? Yes. There must have been something else, but I can't remember what. Anyway, 'twas good.

Posted by ktingey at 12:29 AM | Comments (5)

February 05, 2008

Spaghetti and stuff

Before I forget this one... an invention that Jeff liked. Vegetarian too!

Let's see... I sliced two yellow onions, thinly, and sauteed them in butter and olive oil for about 20 minutes, until they were sweet and yummy. Added a few cloves of minced garlic towards the end of that time. And a teaspoon or so of sugar, just to be sure of the sweetness. Then, while the spaghetti was cooking, I tossed in all the spinach we had - maybe 10 ounces - and let it cook down. Added salt and pepper. I had chopped some Kalamata olives, which I mixed in around then. And at the last minute I decided to put in some Brie, since we still had too much hanging around - I cut off the rinds and chopped it up, then added it. It melted, but not to the point of disappearing. Not TOO much Brie. And then some deliciously toasted pine nuts.

And I think that was it. 'Twas good!

Posted by ktingey at 07:14 AM | Comments (6)

January 14, 2008

I want to be a soup master...

Sadly, it would be difficult around here, as Jeff is something of a soup snob (to put it mildly), and also he does not look kindly on soups without MEAT, or at least meaty broth. And yet, last night I managed to make a crab chowder that pleased everyone. I was proud. I was highly determined to make a good one (my last two attempts have been so-so), and so I pulled out all the stops - it had prosciutto, and heavy cream, and better crab than usual, lots of it. Plus a lot of corn.

Anyway, here's more or less what it was, for posterity:

I sauteed 1/2 a chopped onion and 3 cloves minced garlic in 2 tbs butter. Then after a bit I added about 1 oz chopped prosciutto and 1 small gold potato, chopped into about 1/2-in cubes. Not peeled. Then I added a bay leaf, maybe 1 cup of veggie broth, and enough water to cover everything nicely. I let that cook whilst I roasted 1/2 a package of frozen white corn in a 400-degree oven. When everything was more or less cooked (15 minutes, maybe?), I added the corn in and then used the handy immersion blender to partially puree the lot. Then I added some heavy cream... I think it was about 1/2 cup, perhaps a bit more. And turned the heat down. I used canned crab, but refrigerated canned crab from Trader Joe's - it was a big can of premium claw meat, not sure how much there was. I sauteed that in butter just to warm it up, and then had to slap Jeff's hands away from it because he wanted to eat it. Finally, I added the crab, plus a little salt and pepper (I tend to under-salt things. We all added pepper at the table).

And EVERYONE loved it.

Posted by ktingey at 07:16 PM | Comments (6)

November 07, 2007

Shrimp

When Jeff's dad was here, I made a popular shrimp dish for lunch one day - very simple. I stir-fried some garlic and ginger, then added the shrimp. When they were almost pink, I splashed in some mirin and shoyu, then added a tiny bit of sesame oil at the end. I think that was it. Anyway, they were good.

We've also had fun with our "sunflower potatoes" - that's what I tell Ethan the sunchoke is. I really like them, though Jeff is less of a fan. He likes the sunchoke gratin, which is basically just sunchoke slices baked with butter and parmesan. He wasn't crazy about the cream of sunchoke soup, though I imagine he would have liked it better if it hadn't been vegetarian. And he made pepperoni and sunchoke pizza a few weeks ago, which was suprisingly good.

Posted by ktingey at 06:48 PM | Comments (7)

August 01, 2007

Lentil soup

The last few times I've tried to make lentil soup it has not been wildly successful. Once it was just what Jeff calls "empty in the middle" - it really was. But today it worked out well, so I thought I'd write down roughly what I did.

First, 1/2 of a really big onion, chopped, sauteed in butter and olive oil. Then I added about a tablespoon of whole cumin, and fried that for a while, then a pinch of saffron, squished. Then I added about a cup of red lentils and stirred it around. Then, a cup of veggie broth, and about 4 cups of water. Some salt, 2 cloves of crushed garlic. I let it simmer for about half an hour. (Then it had to sit for a while because it was just too early for lunch.) Finally, I added about 1/4 cup of rice - OK, OK, so I just put some in. I really don't know how much it was, but not that much. I cooked that for a while, then added some more salt and some pepper at the end. And that's it! I served it with yogurt that just had lemon and salt in. Got rave reviews all around, though I cannily pureed Ethan's portion first so he wouldn't know about the onions.

Posted by ktingey at 12:40 AM | Comments (5)

June 21, 2007

Pad Thai

I promised my Pad Thai recipe to a couple of people, so here it is:

12 oz wide rice noodles (pad thai noodles)
2 tblsp vegetable oil
1 cup bean sprouts
2-3 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
4 green onions, trimmed and sliced

2 eggs, lightly beaten
16 oz firm tofu, or 16 oz prawns, peeled and deveined, or a combination

1/4 cup fish sauce (nam pla)
1/4 cup rice vinegar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tblsp ketchup

2 dried red chilies (I used Thai bird peppers)
1/2 cup roasted unsalted peanuts (or you can roast raw ones in a skillet)
Lime wedges
Fresh cilantro

Soak rice noodles in hot water for 10-15 minutes, or until a little soft but not squishy. Drain.
Mix fish sauce, vinegar, sugar, and ketchup together and set aside.

Dry-roast chilies in a small pan until browned. Cut off stems, but leave seeds (unless you don't want it too spicy). Grind in a food processor or clean coffee grinder. Grind peanuts until chopped but not until they turn into peanut butter. Set both chilies and peanuts aside.

Drain tofu, and press lightly with a paper towel to remove excess water. Slice tofu into cubes or strips.

Heat oil in a wok until hot but not smoking. Add garlic and green onions and stir-fry for 30 seconds. Add tofu, if using, and stir-fry until golden brown. Add prawns and stir-fry until just pink. Add noodles and stir gently to mix with oil. Pour fish sauce mixture on and stir to mix. Cook until sauce is mostly absorbed and noodles are soft, stirring occasionally.

Push noodles aside and pour in a little more oil. Pour in eggs and cover with noodles. Let cook until almost set, then stir to mix with noodles. Add bean sprouts and mix again, then remove from heat.

Put in a bowl and sprinkle with cilantro, ground chilies, and ground peanuts. Serve with lime wedges.

Posted by ktingey at 12:03 AM | Comments (8)

June 10, 2007

Fishy goodness

Dinner tonight was definitely Jeff's favorite in a while. I'd gotten halibut (or flounder, as Ethan prefers to call it), but had no real plan. Then Jeff suggested Carribean-style beans and rice - that was simple enough, and I added bacon knowing that would make it delicious in Jeff's estimation. Plus since we eat vege-fishian 90% of the time, it was a nice change. Oh yeah, and Linna liked it so much Jeff could barely keep up with her. She totally chowed down on beans and rice.

I made the fish sort of like a recipe in "A Taste of Africa," which also has Caribbean-style stuff. It called for whole fish, which I didn't have, and tamarind paste, which I also didn't have. And I didn't want (or have) red, green, or yellow peppers. And OK, I also skipped the mushrooms and lemon thyme. So it was only loosely related, really.

Anyway - I rubbed a bunch of ginger, salt and pepper, and some olive oil on the fish, then baked it for 15 minutes or so. I sauteed red onion, garlic, and more ginger in olive oil, then added sugar and sauteed it a bit more... then I added turmeric, mushroom stock, and white wine. Cooked it for a while. Just before we ate I put the fish in the sauce and bubbled it for a bit, then sprinkled cilantro on top. Yummy!

Posted by ktingey at 03:04 AM | Comments (9)

October 10, 2006

Note to self

Today for lunch we grilled orange roughy, and behold it was very good. I made a sauce of purple tomatillos (Ethan and I picked them all over the weekend), two teeny slices of jalapeno (no seeds), garlic, and lime juice. Beautifully greeny-purple, but spicier than I intended. Still, the fish was really good.

On Saturday night we grilled lamb chops, and I made a sauce of... what? Mint, green onion, sugar, lemon juice, orange juice. A little vinegar? I cooked it a little to thicken it. Oh yes, that one had a pepper too -- one of the wee ones Ethan likes so much. Just one. It was very spicy too.

Last weekend I did something slightly bizarre with chicken. Inspired by one of the recipes in Sunset this month, I made a sauce of spinach, onion, pears, garlic... can't remember what else. A splash of pear cider, and some sugar. I intended to stuff the chicken breasts with that and some blue cheese, but they proved uncooperative, so we just had it as a sauce. I browned the chicken, and then splashed some pear cider in there as well. Why not?

Posted by ktingey at 12:01 AM | Comments (8)

August 01, 2006

Nasturtium pesto

Inspired by a lunch special I had a few weeks ago at Bread and Ink, I made a pretty good dish that used lots of nasturtium blossoms. I basically made a pesto with about 1/2 cup of nasturtiums (I threw in a few leaves too), 1/4 cup of basil (more or less), a few mint leaves (more might have been nice), a clove of garlic, the zest of one lemon, some salt, some olive oil and butter. I chopped it all up in the mini food processor, then added some grated parmigiano reggiano. We had it with cheese ravioli. Unfortunately, Ethan wouldn't try it, because he prefers "regular pesto." But the rest of us liked it. It was very colorful because our plethora of volunteer nasturtiums come in red, orange, yellow, pale yellow, and peach, and the basil is both green and purple.

I write these things down here so I can remember them if I ever want to make them again... Jeff was very skeptical about the lemon, and the lack of MEAT, but he quite liked it and said I should remember how to make it. Molly came over for dinner on the spur of the moment, which was nice. Ethan had a new friend to play Leaping Lizards with, and we got to have some company.

Posted by ktingey at 07:38 PM | Comments (17)

July 13, 2006

Soup success!

I've been scoring pretty well lately with my cooking experiments. Let's see... last weekend I made a half-assed version of chicken makhani. I sort of followed a recipe for chicken skewers, in that I marinated them overnight, but I made up the marinade a little bit, and cheated by using a spice mix we have as one ingredient. Yogurt, ginger, garlic too. I cooked it in the oven on our maximum temperature - 550 degrees - and then did in fact follow the recipe for the sauce for chicken makhani. I didn't make it spicy, though, for Ethan's sake. Lately he hasn't been much into chicken, but he REALLY liked this, which was great. Snuck some tomatoes into him that way - well, tomato paste - and then spinach in the raita, which he can always be counted on to eat. He didn't like the dhosas, sadly. They didn't turn out as well as the last time I made them - last time I was just trying to remember how Shivy made them, and that was better. This time I was halfway following a recipe, and they weren't quite as good.

Then one weeknight this week I made quick black bean soup, and Jeff actually said he loved it and wouldn't change a thing. You have to understand that he's a total soup snob, and there's ALWAYS something he wants to change. He often complains that soups taste "thin" or "have no middle." He should be a food critic, don't you think? But maybe not in my kitchen. :) Anyway, this one he liked. Probably because I put a little bacon and ham in, cooked with onions and carrots, plus a wee bit of chipotle in adobo sauce. I added cumin and some fresh tomatoes, then canned beans with all their liquid. Am I forgetting something? A little salt... I pureed it because otherwise I know Ethan wouldn't have touched it with the tomatoes and the onions. For condiments we had hard-boiled eggs, cheddar cheese, cilantro, salsa... can't remember if there was anything else. Ethan liked it as "bean dip" on his chips.

Finally, last night we had some of the neighborhood folks over for dinner. Karla offered to bring tabbouleh, so I kinda built the menu around that since I didn't have any other ideas. I made chicken and lamb skewers for Jeff to grill. Based partly on my chicken makhani marinade, I did the chicken in lemon juice, onion, garlic, a little yogurt, and fresh cilantro. The lamb had lemon juice, onion, garlic, yogurt, cumin, turmeric, and bay leaf. Both turned out very nice. Then I made a rice dish: just a little onion (the leftovers from the marinades) sauted in butter, then I sauted the rice for a bit. Added a combination of chicken broth, white wine, and water, plus a cinnamon stick, some cloves, and a pinch of saffron. I also toasted pine nuts and almonds to mix in at the end, and threw in some raisins when the rice was almost cooked.

Posted by ktingey at 06:59 PM | Comments (9)

June 23, 2006

Not bad

Last night we had to get some of the leftovers out of the fridge. So I used the rest of the gyoza I made a few days ago (they were OK, but Ethan prefers "regular" potstickers to homemade ones, because mine had green things in them). Then I made a Vietnamese-ish fried rice with the leftover ground turkey, red pepper, a serrano pepper, shiitake, onions, and a few shrimp. And egg. Ginger, garlic, and then fish sauce, soy sauce, and sugar. Jeff liked it, so I guess it was good.

Generally speaking we've both been uninspired in terms of cooking and eating. I think we're not getting enough exercise. But on Monday I made a very lengthy Indian lamb recipe. It wasn't difficult, just long, but it turned out really good. From Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cooking, one of the Indian cookbooks we got for New Year's several years ago. I made a slightly odd brown rice and pea dish, flavored with saffron and black cumin seeds. I think it was only odd because it was brown rice, but we didn't have any basmati. And then a yogurt-garlic-mint sauce (Ethan can be counted on to eat lots of that), and the closest thing we had on hand to naan: Trader Joe's handmade tortillas. And decaf chai. The same cookbook has a very nice chai recipe, very simple, but I think the key thing is to boil the spices, heat the milk and sugar, and then just steep the tea a few minutes. Yummy yum.

I really miss having Ann and Zack around to cook and eat with. Even more so now that they've got a baby! I can't wait to go there in July and meet Mika.

Posted by ktingey at 10:01 PM | Comments (6)

June 06, 2006

Breakfast for lunch

I got a little ambitious at lunch today and did two experimental recipes. I had it in my head to make breakfast sausage, because we had some ground turkey I didn't know what to do with, and biscuits. But as usual, I was not content to make a real recipe, not even for the biscuits, but they turned out very good.

I sort of used Mom's scone recipe, but with less sugar, more flour, and some baking powder in addition to the baking soda. Then I added some black pepper and a very little grated cheese. Good.

For the sausage, I put a bunch of sage from the garden, some Italian parsley, grated half an Asian pear we had sitting around, some garlic, and an egg. I had looked up a recipe on epicurious that gave me the basic idea.

All in all, not a bad breakfast for lunch. Jeff made eggs and we had a fruit salad with this deliscrumptious Tuscan cantaloupe I got over the weekend.

Posted by ktingey at 09:02 PM | Comments (8)

June 01, 2006

Salad Queen

It's true, I am Queen of Salads. We eat salad a lot, and I pride myself on both my homemade dressings and my semi-reliable ability to make a good salad out of whatever we've got. Used to be I always just made my grandmother's vinaigrette, and indeed it is very good, with its not-so-secret ingredient: sugar. But a few years ago Jeff confessed that he was extremely tired of it, so I branched out. Now I can make a decent ranch (not healthy, but Jeff's favorite), very good Caesar (yes, with raw egg, though sometimes I microwave the egg yolk lightly), what I call "Caesar-ish" which is made with mayonnaise instead, blue cheese, and a wide variety of oil-and-vinegar dressings.

The other night we had a particularly good salad, with oranges, avocados, and red onions sliced very thin. The dressing had balsamic vinegar and just a little raw garlic (thank you, Trader Joe's frozen crushed garlic). Lately I've been adding some raw kale to our salads, since we discovered at Rasul and Sepideh's house that although Jeff hates cooked kale, raw is actually fine. It's good in salads.

In other cooking news, I made fish tacos last night. I've discovered a very easy way to do it, also thanks to Trader Joe's. They sell breaded frozen cod fillets that you just cook in the oven, and sliced, they make very good fish tacos. I made a coleslaw with a chipotle-lime dressing, and also cooked some red onions in vinegar. Avocados, tomatoes, feta (a reasonable substitute for cotija), and then sour cream and salsa for Ethan, of course.

Posted by ktingey at 09:51 PM | Comments (8)

May 08, 2006

Healthy, healthy food

So we've been on a healthy food kick the last few days, which we intended to keep up for a few weeks: no coffee (difficult), no alcohol (not so bad), no dairy, no red meat, no baked goods. Last night we had a very tasty salad: spring greens with chicken, scallions, water chestnuts, and tangerines. The dressing was a little vegetable oil, sesame oil, shoyu, cider vinegar, salt, pepper, sugar, and lime juice. Pretty good.

But today I did a little reading and realized that it's a bad idea to give up dairy and reduce meat consumption while I'm nursing. So I'm going back to all that. Not sure how it will work for Jeff, if I'm eating all the stuff he wants to be eating. But today Ethan told me maybe Linna was crying because there wasn't enough nana - I guess he noticed a drop in supply. Not surprising, after 3 days of so many fruits and vegetables, with not enough protein and dairy.

Posted by ktingey at 10:43 PM | Comments (13)

March 06, 2006

Cooking news

Last night I made a recipe for "crisp curried shrimp" from one of the Best of Gourmet cookbooks I inherited from Mom (and finally unpacked about a month ago). It was quite good, and extremely easy. We'll be making it again. Basically, you just coat the shrimp in a mixture of flour, curry powder, cayenne, and salt, then saute with scallions in olive oil over medium-high heat. Yummy. Ethan loved it, of course, which is also good.

The day before I made a recipe I've long had my eye on from the low-fat Moosewood cookbook. It's a walnut sauce for pasta. It was supposed to have cottage cheese (yuck), but I used ricotta instead. Didn't have basil, which would have been good. Did have spinach. I ended up doubling the amount of walnuts because I wanted a very nutty flavor, and I liked that. And I added a touch of olive oil. However, it turned out a little thick, perhaps because it was ricotta instead of cottage cheese. Ethan tried a nibble but didn't like it. Then I had some for lunch the next day, thinned out a little with water. And he ate half of it. So we had it again today, this time with a little more olive oil and some milk to loosen it up. Yay, finally a way to get spinach into an unsuspecting Ethan! He already loves pesto, and I guess it's similar to that.

Posted by ktingey at 09:32 PM | Comments (4)

June 08, 2005

Roast chicken

Last dinner with Ann and Zack we roasted a chicken in the barbecue using indirect heat. It was really yummy, based somewhat on an oven-roasted chicken recipe from one of Mom's old cookbooks, and partly improvised. The stuffing was wild rice, onions, mushrooms, a little apple cider, and sage. Oh, and pecans. Then we basted it with a mixture of butter and blackberry jam - very Northwest of us.

Anyway, it was delicious. We had an unusually coordinated meal -- lots of NW-ish things, with roasted butternut squash from Ann's garden last year, and a salad with goat cheese, more pecans, and dried blueberries. It occurred to me that the dried blueberries would have also been a nice addition to the stuffing.

So, good for us once again. :)

Posted by ktingey at 07:06 PM | Comments (7)