Kosher-Style Pork Cracklinstag:www.weathershenker.com,2008:/kosher//22008-04-25T01:58:01ZAdventures in Cooking, kosher-style or not!Movable Type 3.31Sauteed Chicken with Sherry & Olive Pan Sauce & Toasted Almondstag:www.weathershenker.com,2008:/kosher//2.402008-04-24T23:36:41Z2008-04-25T01:58:01ZThis recipe looked good, had familiar ingredients and it was in the quick & delicious section, so II planned on making this for dinner. While everyone at the table said it was good, I didn't think it really lived up...Julia
chopping onions. Mine should have been more like the minced instead of looking more like chopped. I also think I used too much onion. "small onion" is just not a precise enough measurement for me. How small is small?
Also what is a chicken breast cutlet? I just bought chicken breasts by weight and then sliced them in half to get 8 thin pieces. It seemed to work for cooking, although the four chicken breasts sure varied in thickness to begin with.
Buying bulk pre-slivered almonds is surely the way to go!!! This worked out great.
I think this recipe has potential to be good, but I think in the future, I'd rather just make the Grilled chicken breasts with Green-Olive Relish. It has far more olives in it, and when you use the right ones, oh it's soooo tasty!! (Plus a chicken breast is a good meal size. Half a chicken breast means going back for seconds which somewhat interrupts dinner.)
Sauteed Chicken with Sherry & Olive Pan Sauce & Toasted Almonds (Fine Cooking 92, p. 90a)
Garden salad
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Spaghetti alla Carbonaratag:www.weathershenker.com,2008:/kosher//2.392008-04-24T07:39:33Z2008-04-24T08:16:30ZMy sister, husband and niece are part of the way through a move across the country where they will now be my neighbors!! It's very exciting and a little surreal. However with five hungry mouths, I am definitely more motivated...Julia
see what was going on in the pot. In general I had her help with the salads. It was much easier having her place vegetables in bowls than navigate her arms and hands and fingers over and around hot items.
This recipe was well received by all, and I even ate a meal of it as leftovers the next day. Still excellent!
As I have gotten more and more serious about good photography, I am more picky about my photos. The photos of the spaghetti were pretty much what you'd expect it to look like... spaghetti that looks a little shiny and greasy with bits of what might be bacon-something. Not very exciting. The magazine photo really minimized the amount of shine off the pasta, so I will have to ask my more professional photographer friends how that is done. In the meantime, I thought it would be more fun to post a photo of my niece enjoying the spaghetti!
Lessons learned:
Because I'm using the same pot for everything, the pasta was sitting in the strainer for awhile. When I went to put it back in the pot, it was a gigantic flying spaghetti monster, all stuck together. My sister suggested I run hot water over it in the strainer to loosen it up. Worked like a charm!
This tasted a slight bit too peppery. Maybe it was because the pepper came out of the grinder in larger than usual pieces, or maybe it was just too much pepper overall.
Two days later, I was at Whole Foods again and decided to pick up some spaghetti just to have available for a quick dinner. I noticed the spaghetti I had picked up was actually quite expensive! Oops. There were a lot of whole wheat, organic options, and I probably picked the most expensive choice without realizing it. I picked the less expensive option the second time around.
I just looked it up now. I thought pancetta might be like bruschetta. I was right! It is pronounced "pan-chet-uh". Now I know!
Spaghetti alla Carbonara (Fine Cooking 92, p. 56)
Garden salad
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Double Chocolate Cracklestag:www.weathershenker.com,2008:/kosher//2.382008-02-11T01:23:06Z2008-02-11T02:04:32ZMy last crackle cookies were so delicious, I was eager to make more. I was invited to two Superbowl parties, so I made a batch of cookies to split between the parties. I'm not a big chocolate fan myself, but...Julia
double ginger crackles the best. (The longest lasting cookies in the batch tasted fantastic!! But remember, I'm not a huge chocolate fan....) The neat part of these cookies is that there are melted chocolate chunks in them along with the chocolate and cocoa in the cookie itself. The orange zest in the cookies really added to the flavor of the cookies.
This was the first time I finally used my bigger Kitchen Aid, so it was fun to figure it out. (I got chocolate batter all over it!) I bought two silicone tray liners and those made it very easy to slip the silicone off the tray and onto the cooling racks. The cookie dough seemed a little greasy when trying to roll it into balls. Rolling just the top of the ball in sugar made it go faster than the last time I made crackle cookies, where I just rolled the whole ball in sugar.
(Although these cookies were really good, personally I'd rather have a brownie!)
Double Chocolate Crackles (Fine Cooking 89, p. 71)
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Balsamic Blueberries and Peachestag:www.weathershenker.com,2008:/kosher//2.372008-01-29T04:21:05Z2008-01-29T04:30:46ZI was looking for a vegan dessert recipe, and Google wasn't so helpful. I'm pretty sure I went to fine cooking, but didn't find anything exciting or workable. So I went to epicurious and held my breath as I typed...Julia
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Double Ginger Cracklestag:www.weathershenker.com,2007:/kosher//2.362007-12-28T18:57:05Z2007-12-28T19:28:11ZAmy recommended these to me. We almost made them on our trip to Twinland, but we couldn't find crystallized ginger locally and we ran out of time. I decided to make them while visiting friends in Memphis over Christmas. During...Julia
We cooked a lot over the visit. While staying there nearly a week, we only went out to eat once, and that was to Tejas de Brazil. Yum yum yum! I made multigrain pancakes and the apple topping, and the braised chicken with anchovies. I also purchased a finecooking.com account (and already had a cooksillustrated.com one) so now I don't have to have any of my magazines with me when wanting to cook something special.
One of the great things about visiting my friend in Memphis was learning some tips from her on food. She buys a lot of her food at Wild Oats from the bulk section and stores it in big containers in her pantry. Instead of pure cane sugar, she usually uses raw sugar, but she has containers for both. She made lots of cookies and fudge and separated them into colorful tissue papered tins to hand out to neighbors and friends. She also asked me for rosemary from my garden so she could grow her own. I'm glad I brought a lot of rosemary because we used it quite a bit in our cooking! Looking online, I learned that there are better ways to get a cutting to grow roots, and I also learned some tips for keeping rosemary healthy.
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Grilled Rosemary Chicken Thighs with Sweet & Sour Orange Dipping Saucetag:www.weathershenker.com,2007:/kosher//2.352007-12-06T02:12:12Z2007-12-06T02:23:01ZThis is the best use for orange marmalade I've ever seen. Wow is recipe good. Even the chicken without the sauce was good on its own. This is definitely eligible for the quick and delicious section as it didn't take...Julia
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Recycling your dinnertag:www.weathershenker.com,2007:/kosher//2.342007-10-15T23:13:47Z2007-10-16T00:24:26ZYou surely don't eat 100% of the food that enters your home. What happens to the last few strawberries no one is willing to eat, the spinach that went bad waiting for you to eat it, or those chicken bones...Julia
roasted chicken last night?
For most people, the foods' destiny is the garbage can. It will sit in the garbage until the can is put out to the curb and magically taken away by your local sanitation engineer. This is where my excess food always went until April of this year.
My husband discovered a composter called the green cone, passed the idea along to me, and then ordered one. You can buy a green cone for $160. (Save $40 if you can find a friend to get one with you.) I picked out a spot that would get enough sun during the day and yet still be far enough from the house to not attract bugs. Because you have to dig a hole 24-28 inches deep, the laws in Texas required a call before you dig (whenever you dig 16 inches or more). Then you have to wait two days before starting to dig.
Finally, I was all cleared to dig, so I did. It took a couple of days for the hole to be big enough, but could surely be done in a day by someone ambitious. I did probably 80% of the digging and then let Jay finish up the rest, because I lacked the motivation to continue digging. We installed the green cone and put the dirt back around it. We got right to putting our food scraps into the cone. So exciting!
(More photos of our green cone.)
From the green cone manual, the green cone "takes your cooked and uncooked kitchen food waste, including: meat, fish, bones, dairy products, vegetables, fruit, peelings, etc. The only exceptions are bulk amounts of food related materials that require a very long time to breakdown, namely: cooking oil/fat and the hard shells of nuts and seafood, such as oysters and crabs."
We've been using our green cone for half a year now, and I just love it!! As I'm chopping unwanted parts off veggies or eating down to the core of a piece of fruit, the food goes right into a little green bucket that is kept in our kitchen. Then, every couple of days, we dump the bucket into the cone. Just as a person who likes to live in a nice home environment, I've seen two huge improvements. First, the kitchen trash can rarely smells anymore. It only smells if someone has forgotten about the bucket and dumped some food waste into the trash can. Previously, I knew I'd have to take the trash out right away if I was cooking chicken or other meat with trimmings that get tossed. Now, it's just a quick trip to the cone, no hassle with a new trash bag or a smelling trash can out front. The second huge improvement is that the outside trash can rarely stinks anymore! In the hot Texas sun, it can get pretty nasty. With the green cone, it's no longer an issue at all. (Not only does the trash not stink, but I've never noticed the cone itself being stinky.)
The biggest plus with this composter is that after installation, it's pretty much maintenance-free. You don't need to empty it out, as the broken down nutrients go directly back into the earth. It's recommended that you place the green cone in your garden, so it can reap the greatest benefit from the nutrient-filled soil. After 6 months, I can attest that the soil has improved. We have a few "weeds" growing right next to the cone. They are little trees and growing so fast! Someday I hope to plant a small garden nearby.
There are only a couple of negative aspects. Once in awhile, especially if we've kept some food in the kitchen bucket too long, we'll see a fruit fly or two. When the cone is really active, especially after adding meat, there seem to be some uh... "icky" bugs wiggling around in the cone. It can be a little disturbing opening up the cone during these times. Those small things are just a reminder of how useful our thrown away food pieces are. They are doing a lot more good for the environment inside that cone than surrounded by plastic and chemicals and compacted many feet below the ground in a big garbage dump.
It's important to know that you can do composting in many other ways which don't require nearly as much of an upfront investment. Lots of information is available online. My inspiration for this post was to contribute to Blog Action Day.]]>
Grilled Asian Pork Tenderloin with Peanut Saucetag:www.weathershenker.com,2007:/kosher//2.332007-09-27T11:27:38Z2007-09-27T11:41:19ZAmy said this would be good, and she was right. I don't have much to say about this, except that it was terribly easy to make. I like that the only fresh ingredients you need to buy is the meat...Julia
Amy said this would be good, and she was right. I don't have much to say about this, except that it was terribly easy to make. I like that the only fresh ingredients you need to buy is the meat and limes. Also, you can prepare it a few hours ahead of time, perfect for preparing before a workout and then cooking and eating it right after. The only thing to watch in this recipe is the drippy sauce. If you're not careful you will drip it all over the grill, countertops, cutting boards, floor, etc.
While it does have coconut milk in it, the recipe calls for light coconut milk, so it doesn't have nearly the same amount of saturated fats.
The sauce was super yummy. But then, so was the pork, with or without the extra sauce added after grilling. This also made excellent leftovers.
Grilled Asian Pork Tenderloin with Peanut Sauce (Fine Cooking, July 2007, p.78a)
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What's in your kitchen?tag:www.weathershenker.com,2007:/kosher//2.322007-09-20T09:51:30Z2007-09-20T10:11:04ZWhen it came time to create my wedding registry, I made sure to seek the advice of my expert Pork Cracklins cooking friends. They helped me quite a bit. Sometimes I'd have the right idea for an item, but maybe...Julia
What's in my kitchen?
PS - I do not actually have any pink appliances.... or any All-Clad!]]>
Salsa Cruda and Grilled Eggplanttag:www.weathershenker.com,2007:/kosher//2.312007-09-02T07:47:03Z2007-09-02T08:16:39ZOne of the best things about getting Fine Cooking is that the recipes are seasonal, so they include fruits and vegetables that are in season. I made a quick visit to Boggy Creek Farms one morning and picked up some...Julia
The meals were good. I think the salsa cruda would have been better if my tomatoes were all properly ripened. They didn't have a whole lot of flavor, but the dish was good. I invited my neighbor Gen over since I figured I'd have plenty more food than just for two. She said the salsa cruda reminded her of bruschetta. The grilled eggplant on its own was excellent, and the topping was good, too. Although it was good, I think there might be a better one of the four recipes listed. I'll definitely be trying one of the other recipes soon because grilled eggplant was easy and yummy. The rosemary bread tasted as delicious as always, but it really, REALLY liked the pan and wouldn't let go. There was a lot of pasta leftover. Like usual, I used whole wheat pasta. Jay did an excellent job of grilling the eggplant!
No-Cook Tomato Sauce (Fine Cooking, August/September 2007, p. 39)
Grilled Eggplant (Fine Cooking, August/September 2007, p. 49)
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Pan-Fried Gnocchi with Bacon, Onions & Peastag:www.weathershenker.com,2007:/kosher//2.302007-08-01T12:29:49Z2007-08-01T12:42:55ZJay invited me to ride with him and I said "sure". This was early in the day, by the time he got home, I was dragging and really did not want to ride. "How about I cook dinner?" So while...Julia
Pan-Fried Gnocchi with Bacon, Onions and Peas (Fine Cooking, May 2007, p.84a)
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Focaccia Breadtag:www.weathershenker.com,2007:/kosher//2.292007-08-01T11:53:09Z2007-08-01T12:09:54ZI got to spend an early July afternoon over at Amy's house and we made bread! It's the first time I've ever baked bread (unless banana nut bread counts and I'd say it doesn't). I've pigged out on this bread...Julia
Amy has made it, and it's sooo delicious. This recipe is ridiculously simple, easy and quick. It's a winner. Amy says it makes good sandwich bread (but Jay and I ate it all before I could find something to put in between two pieces).
Focaccia
2 cups lukewarm water (85-95 degrees F)
2 tsp. active dry yeast
4 cups unbleached bread flour
2-3 tsp. salt
2-3 tsp. olive oil
2 Tbsp chopped fresh rosemary
1 tsp. kosher or sea salt
In a large bowl, sprinkle yeast over the water. Stir until dissolved. Stir in 2 cups flour and the salt, until smooth. With a strong wooden spoon, stir in the rest of the flour until incorporated. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let rise until doubled in volume, 30-40 minutes or overnight in refrigerator.
Preheat oven to 500 degrees. Oil one or two nonstick baking sheets and pour the dough onto the sheet, carefully scraping it from the sides of the bowl, being careful not to deflate it. Brush the dough with 2 tsp olive oil. Dip fingers into cold water or olive oil and insert them straight down into the dough. Make holes in the dough with your fingers as you gradually stretch it into a 1" thick oval. Brush with 1 tsp more olive oil and sprinkle with rosemary and salt.
Place the pan into the oven and reduce the temperature to 450. Bake 15-20 minutes, until golden brown all over with a few darker brown spots. Cool on a rack.]]>
Rosemary Chicken Saladtag:www.weathershenker.com,2007:/kosher//2.282007-05-22T20:54:18Z2007-05-22T21:11:38ZAmy's always saying that roasted chicken makes great leftovers. She's right! She posted a Rosemary Chicken Salad recipe earlier, so it seemed like a perfect lunch. The recipe is originally from Cooking Light, but I like her measurements so much...Julia
Rosemary Chicken Salad recipe earlier, so it seemed like a perfect lunch. The recipe is originally from Cooking Light, but I like her measurements so much better. The dijon and nuts in this recipe really make it a winner.
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Spaghetti with Portabellas, Sage & Walnutstag:www.weathershenker.com,2007:/kosher//2.272007-04-18T06:29:57Z2007-04-18T19:54:10ZThis turned out really well and is fairly quick to make. I was suprised to be eating whole leaves of sage and liking it! This was my first time working with portabella mushrooms, and I struggled with it. They were...Julia
I used only a half pound of spaghetti (recipe calls for 3/4 lb) and also cut the other ingredients accordingly. I'd say the original recipe is 6 servings, not 4. I used whole wheat spaghetti, which goes very nicely with this recipe. One of the steps has you adding 6 Tbs of butter(!!!!) I halved it, and I still feel I could have had less. Probably 3 Tbs is all you need if making the full recipe. I like that the majority of the ingredients I probably already have at home.
Lessons learned:
Start the water for the pasta before prepping everything.
Remember the cheese! (I added it on after the photo.)
Placing a measuring cup in the colander is a great reminder to reserve the pasta water.
Cooking sage leaves in butter makes them crunchy. Weird!
Spaghetti with Portabellas, Sage & Walnuts (Fine Cooking, March 2007, p.26A)
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Chicken Scarpariellotag:www.weathershenker.com,2007:/kosher//2.262007-04-18T05:55:03Z2007-04-18T06:28:09ZCook's Illustrated now has a feature on their website where paid members can watch videos. I love them! I watched a 60 second video on how to cook this meal. It's easier to understand what to do when it's shown...Julia
hot cherry peppers. I found pickled sweet cherry peppers, but not hot. I also couldn't find bone-in chicken breast from the SuperHEB which has sold it before. The recipe did say I could use bone-in chicken thighs instead of breasts, so I took that option. It also said banana peppers instead of cherry peppers, but I had left the article at home with the name of the alternative. Sheri suggested using the sweet peppers, but instead of sweet Italian sausage, using hot. Since I had already bought the sweet sausage, I figured I'd go with that for now.
This was a very yummy dish! I was mildly disappointed in the chicken, but only because the pieces were thighs. I think chicken breasts would have been much better. If you want a non-spicy dish, this was the way to make it! However next time, I would use hot Italian sausage if I couldn't find hot cherry peppers. We doubled the cornstarch as the sauce was extremely thin. In my opinion, "4-6 servings" is a bit of a stretch. I'd say it's 4. I bought some orzo pasta as one of the suggested sides, but then forgot to make it.
This dish did take awhile to make, but it was very nice having a 25 minute break while the chicken cooked in the oven. I took the opportunity to call my grandmother. She asked what I was cooking, so I told her. She quickly replied, "I'll be right over!" Too bad she lives so far away.
Ah! I just remembered the most important lesson learned. At one point, Jay was reading the instructions aloud to me while I was at the stove. "Add sugar, vinegar and broth." "Broth??? What broth???" It turns out I had missed four ingredients listed at the top of a second column. YIKES! It turned out to be just fine. I hadn't planned on using parsley anyway. I had the cornstarch, chicken broth and fresh thyme on hand. Phew!
Italian-Style Chicken with Sausage, Peppers and Onions (Cook's Illustrated, May & June 2007, p. 10)
I think this recipe has potential to be good, but I think in the future, I'd rather just make the Grilled chicken breasts with Green-Olive Relish. It has far more olives in it, and when you use the right ones, oh it's soooo tasty!! (Plus a chicken breast is a good meal size. Half a chicken breast means going back for seconds which somewhat interrupts dinner.)
Lessons learned:
This was the first time I finally used my bigger Kitchen Aid, so it was fun to figure it out. (I got chocolate batter all over it!) I bought two silicone tray liners and those made it very easy to slip the silicone off the tray and onto the cooling racks. The cookie dough seemed a little greasy when trying to roll it into balls. Rolling just the top of the ball in sugar made it go faster than the last time I made crackle cookies, where I just rolled the whole ball in sugar.
(Although these cookies were really good, personally I'd rather have a brownie!)
(More photos of our green cone.)
From the green cone manual, the green cone "takes your cooked and uncooked kitchen food waste, including: meat, fish, bones, dairy products, vegetables, fruit, peelings, etc. The only exceptions are bulk amounts of food related materials that require a very long time to breakdown, namely: cooking oil/fat and the hard shells of nuts and seafood, such as oysters and crabs."
We've been using our green cone for half a year now, and I just love it!! As I'm chopping unwanted parts off veggies or eating down to the core of a piece of fruit, the food goes right into a little green bucket that is kept in our kitchen. Then, every couple of days, we dump the bucket into the cone. Just as a person who likes to live in a nice home environment, I've seen two huge improvements. First, the kitchen trash can rarely smells anymore. It only smells if someone has forgotten about the bucket and dumped some food waste into the trash can. Previously, I knew I'd have to take the trash out right away if I was cooking chicken or other meat with trimmings that get tossed. Now, it's just a quick trip to the cone, no hassle with a new trash bag or a smelling trash can out front. The second huge improvement is that the outside trash can rarely stinks anymore! In the hot Texas sun, it can get pretty nasty. With the green cone, it's no longer an issue at all. (Not only does the trash not stink, but I've never noticed the cone itself being stinky.)
The biggest plus with this composter is that after installation, it's pretty much maintenance-free. You don't need to empty it out, as the broken down nutrients go directly back into the earth. It's recommended that you place the green cone in your garden, so it can reap the greatest benefit from the nutrient-filled soil. After 6 months, I can attest that the soil has improved. We have a few "weeds" growing right next to the cone. They are little trees and growing so fast! Someday I hope to plant a small garden nearby.
There are only a couple of negative aspects. Once in awhile, especially if we've kept some food in the kitchen bucket too long, we'll see a fruit fly or two. When the cone is really active, especially after adding meat, there seem to be some uh... "icky" bugs wiggling around in the cone. It can be a little disturbing opening up the cone during these times. Those small things are just a reminder of how useful our thrown away food pieces are. They are doing a lot more good for the environment inside that cone than surrounded by plastic and chemicals and compacted many feet below the ground in a big garbage dump.
It's important to know that you can do composting in many other ways which don't require nearly as much of an upfront investment. Lots of information is available online. My inspiration for this post was to contribute to Blog Action Day.]]>
Focaccia
2 cups lukewarm water (85-95 degrees F)
2 tsp. active dry yeast
4 cups unbleached bread flour
2-3 tsp. salt
2-3 tsp. olive oil
2 Tbsp chopped fresh rosemary
1 tsp. kosher or sea salt
In a large bowl, sprinkle yeast over the water. Stir until dissolved. Stir in 2 cups flour and the salt, until smooth. With a strong wooden spoon, stir in the rest of the flour until incorporated. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let rise until doubled in volume, 30-40 minutes or overnight in refrigerator.
Preheat oven to 500 degrees. Oil one or two nonstick baking sheets and pour the dough onto the sheet, carefully scraping it from the sides of the bowl, being careful not to deflate it. Brush the dough with 2 tsp olive oil. Dip fingers into cold water or olive oil and insert them straight down into the dough. Make holes in the dough with your fingers as you gradually stretch it into a 1" thick oval. Brush with 1 tsp more olive oil and sprinkle with rosemary and salt.
Place the pan into the oven and reduce the temperature to 450. Bake 15-20 minutes, until golden brown all over with a few darker brown spots. Cool on a rack.]]>
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Ah! I just remembered the most important lesson learned. At one point, Jay was reading the instructions aloud to me while I was at the stove. "Add sugar, vinegar and broth." "Broth??? What broth???" It turns out I had missed four ingredients listed at the top of a second column. YIKES! It turned out to be just fine. I hadn't planned on using parsley anyway. I had the cornstarch, chicken broth and fresh thyme on hand. Phew!