Yipes!

Why are you looking at a picture of a distressed tomato? Well, that's simple. I forgot to take a picture of the meal I made yesterday. And as such, the tomato, who has been waiting quietly in the corner fully content at the use of pictures in each entry, was quite fretful that there would be no picture today. So he volunteered his services. Hopefully we won't see too much more of the Worried Tomato in the future, but at least he's around in case we need him.

Anyway, yesterday I made the Pepper Chicken, previously featured on this blog, and roasted cauliflower for Megan's parents yesterday and it was a smashing success. It was also the first time I used the public grill and I have to say, it's quite a bit better than fighting that grill pan. It's not too far from the apartment, and since no one else ever uses it, why the heck not, right? So me and public-grill will be getting far more familiar with one another in the coming days as my cooking skill sharpens.

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The original entry on Pepper Chicken. I skipped the lime sauce this time, but did nothing different in terms of ingredients. Cooked it on the grill for about 20-25 minutes total on medium-high heat, although I changed the heat settings many times since I was getting used to it. I'll have to try a more controlled test next time.

Roasted Cauliflower

1 really big head of cauliflower
Olive Oil
Salt and Pepper

Have you ever wanted to eat something that looks like a white brain but the idea of boiling/steaming it just to chomp on a mushy vegetable puts you off? Well, have I got the thing for you. Roasted Cauliflower is an Ing Family staple (although a relatively recent one) and has been acclaimed as a favorite by all who have chomped into it.

The process is simple. Preheat your oven to 450. Take the head, chop it into chunks. No real shape or size is needed, I'd say no larger than 2 inches long at the most. Megan did it much smaller and it came out fine, so meh. Spread out the pieces on a baking sheet (lipped, as you'll be using oil and you don't want to start a fire in your oven...I have personal experience with that one.) and coat lightly with olive oil. Add salt and pepper and mix it up with your hands. The cauliflower will shrink considerably from the heat, so don't worry about it being too much. Throw in oven.

The only real downer of this recipe is that it takes 45-min to an hour to roast thoroughly. Check it every 20 minutes and stir it up with a spoon, keeping the cauliflower even. Once the cauliflower has shrunk and is golden brown on the edges, take it out and eat. It's really simple, really good, and a fun new way to deal with vegetables you may not otherwise eat.

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Not much else for this week: My dad's retirement party is Wednesday so no cooking on that day. Megan leaves this weekend for a women's retreat leaving me alone. I may try a few solo runs with some steak ideas I have, but we'll see how motivated I end up being.

Apologies for those of you waiting for my report on last Monday's family cooking lesson: it was really good and I learned a LOT of dishes and techniques. But I foolishly left my camera at home so my mom and brother took pictures with theirs. I haven't yet gotten the pictures from them, so when I do I'll do a thorough write-up.

For now, though, let's talk Tacos. Megan loves tacos and taco night has been a standard option for us since we've gotten married. Partially because it's nearly automatic and it's always satisfying. Last night, however, we were feeling adventurous and decided to do a "gourmet taco" with some more home-made ingredients. The results were spectacular, and so, here's a post about it.



Taco Components

1lb of Ground Beef (you can substitute Turkey...but you know how I feel about that)
Homemade Guacamole
Black Beans
Grated Cheddar Cheese
Tortillas (duh)
Olives (I didn't put any in mine: Megan loves olives)
Homemade Taco Seasoning
White Onion
Sour Cream (another Megan-only thing)

Taco Seasoning
This is the original recipe

This is what I ended up using. It's nearly identical, it's just missing cayenne. Not that I don't like it, I just didn't have any.

1 teaspoon chili powder

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

1/4 teaspoon dried minced onion

1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes (or more to taste)

1/4 teaspoon oregano

1/2 teaspoon paprika

1 1/2 teaspoons cumin

1 scant teaspoon sea salt

1 teaspoon black pepper (about 40 grinds)


Mix and throw on your taco meat, then add about a 1/4 cup of water. Pretty simple. It looks like a lot of seasoning, but throw it all in, it needs it. The flavoring is amazing, much better than the Lawry's packs we used to use (cheaper too, since we already had all of the spices in the rack). We personally missed the cayenne; it could stand to be spicier in general, especially when you use cheese and sour cream, etc. Still, it's a very savory seasoning that doesn't quite have the strange acidy bite that the Lawry's packets have and it's quite satisfying to have done it yourself.


Taco Meat

We bought the beef from Trader Joe's. I was surprised in the immediate difference in quality: so much better! And cheaper. Anyway, I only put this here to mention that we put white onions in with our meat as we cooked it. I think next time I'd put the onions on first, then add the beef to the pan so that the onions have a chance to get extra-cooked. Maybe a bit of olive oil next time too: the beef was so lean that it was hard to get the onions to sizzle the way I wanted them to.


Guacamole
1 Avocado
Juice from 1/2 lime
Salt and pepper

All right, since I know this place is frequented by Prices I'm sure to get a lecture on proper Guacamole making (I hope I do, anyway) but since this was my first foray into making it, I kept it simple. Mash the avocado (I used a potato masher: worked well, took about 5 seconds to get to the correct consistency) then squeeze half a
lime over it. Add salt and pepper to taste. Simple but effective. A neat trick for your next party? Perhaps!

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The in-laws are coming over on Monday so I have to think of an interesting chicken dish. We'll be doing roasted cauliflower for sure that day, which I think some of you might enjoy. I just have to pick appropriately.

I don't liked mixed food.

By that I mean, without qualms, most "white" food. Casseroles, potato salads, coleslaw, meatloaf. I won't eat any of it (well, occasional casseroles get a pass for me). This is simply because I didn't grow up eating it. To me, why mix all those ingredients in a dish and melt it together when you could prepare those ingredients separately and come up with a much more pleasant experience?

Of course my marriage to Megan has changed that experience some. By force, mind you, but I have become slightly more open to the idea of these mixi-cated dishes as meals. Plus my adventures in cooking have made me a little more apt to try things I normally would not have. So when AJ suggested we make a cottage pie, my initial reaction was "Ew!" followed by "Hm..." followed by "Why the heck not!"

I'm glad we did it.


All day I had "God, That's Good!" from Sweeney Todd stuck in my head.

Ingredients

Cubed stew beef
Packet beef stock
5 lbs of potatoes? I think it was 5.
Carrots
1 bag frozen peas
2 yellow onions
Soy Milk
Salt/Pepper
Worcestershire Sauce
Herbes de Provence
2 heads of garlic

I'm doing this from memory, and since it was on Friday and it is now Wednesday I may make a mistake. AJ feel free to jump in and correct me and I'll edit the post as needed.

We didn't use a real recipe, but we did have this one on hand as sort of a reference.

Ok, this dish was a lot of work, so it's not a quick and easy weeknight thing by any means.

The best part about this, I think, is its infinite customization. You could add whatever vegetables into the center or remove whatever you don't like. Of course you probably wouldn't want to toss say, a bell pepper in there, but you never know.

First step: Start boiling your potatoes. AJ did not peel them, it's up to you. He also chucked in the potatoes before the water came to a boil, so that's kind of a cool idea. I once again used the Pasta pot with the built in strainer. Also preheat your oven to 350.

Then it's chopping/mincing/julienne time. Mince the garlic, place into a small dish or into a pile somewhere. We julienned the carrots, but you can cut your carrots however you want. Then chop your onions, also place into a pile. AJ also sliced down the size of the beef pieces; the cubes for the stew were just slightly too large to be eaten comfortably within a pie setting.

Brown the beef a bit, then add beef stock and simmer. We overcooked our beef a little bit, but with so many things moving in the kitchen at the same time it was hard to keep track. Add W. Sauce to taste, then add peas and carrots evenly throughout.

For the potatoes, AJ used my...hand mixer? Super slicer? I can't remember what it's called at the moment, actually. In any case, it's a hand thing with a spinning blade. I'll look at the box when I get home to give you a proper name. He used it to blast the potatoes into their final creamy form, forgoing the need for the hand-masher. Then add the onion, garlic, milk (we used soy milk for Rachelle's sake) and then salt and pepper to taste.


OBJECTION!

AJ posted a better potato instruction in the comments. Apparently I really wasn't paying attention while he was doing it. So, I have placed it in the main entry for clarification.

Corrected Potato Procedure

Put water on heat to boil. Chop up
potatoes into about .75 inch chunks. Throw chunks into water. If you
wait for the water to boil you will just be wasting time and
electricity/gas. The small chunk size will cook them evenly. When you
can stick a fork through them with moderate ease take them of and drain
them.

Put the pot back on the stove and pour in a good amount of
olive oil. This will be the only fat used, so don't be too frugal with
it. Once heated, throw in a respectable amount of chopped onions and
garlic. These should be measured in heads and bulbs, not cloves and...
um... whatever a small unit of onion is. Saute!

Then add milk.
Go ahead, add too much! We don't want dry potatoes. Then dump on
potatoes and blend, with an IMMERSION BLENDER, until creamy. Too dry?
Well, you didn't add too much milk. Too wet? Thats fine. Just let it
sit on heat until the desired consistency is reached. The excess now
evaporated milk will just help with the creaminess. Salt and pepper to
taste.

Eat out of pot while making the rest of your food.

Serve with entree.

Go back for seconds... and thirds.

Place extra in container in fridge for another time.

Eat any stuck to the spoon and pot while cleaning.

Go back to fridge in an hour and eat leftovers.

Repeat same cleaning method with leftover container.

Repeat.

Meanwhile in beef land, strain out the meat and vegetables from the rest of the juice, place into a casserole dish or whatever preferred baking dish you like. Then take the strained juice and place over low heat and thicken it. Ideally one should use corn starch, but I didn't have any and we used about three tablespoons of flour, pre-mixed with water to prevent clumping. It...didn't quite work. At this point you can also season the liquid to taste: I added additional pepper and just a bit of Herbes de Provence. I'm not sure the HdP did anything, but hey, I knew it was there.

In any case: pour thickened liquid over vegetables then layer with potatoes on top. Bake in oven at about 350 for 30 minutes. Remove, cool, eat.

As I said before, our beef was a little chewy; slightly overdone because our attention was divided among a few other things we were working on. But it was still quite good. As you can see, however, our liquid pierced through the top of our potato layer, preventing our potatoes from every really browning and crisping over like in our example recipe. Between the lack of thickening that my failure to provide corn starch created and I think sheer amount of liquid, AJ thinks that it boiled while in the oven and bubbled through the surface. I think a combination of proper thickening and using just a little bit less of the liquid would prevent that.

Still, over all, it was quite a good meal. Filling and satisfying. And it was a fun learning experience for me as AJ was head chef on this venture, showing me his processes and steps. As you can see it involves rather little measuring and quite a bit of guesswork and eyeing out, but I sort of have a fondness for that kind of cooking.

I hope to have AJ and Rachelle over again for more adventures in cooking. Next time I'll take the lead though and show AJ something...like...I dunno, the Ing Steak-Thumb method? That's a secret move that's pretty cool.

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Ah, the great experiment! No, I'm not talking about our system of government, I'm talking about the most delicious mis-hearing of a word ever: Pizzadilla.

As stated previously, the concept came from a conversation my brother Matt and I had on the phone, by which I told him I was making Quesadillas (with said quesadilla in mouth) and he thought I said Pizzadilla. The great experiment began!


The pizzadilla, as modeled by Matt.



Ingredients



Flour tortillas (We used taco-sized Mission tortillas)

Pizza sauce (We used Boboli pizza sauce packets)
Cheese (We used mixed Pizza cheese)
Pepperoni (We used turkey pepperoni: it crisps up really crunchy)
Italian Sausage (I browned some up)
Parmesan (optional)
Crushed Red Peppers (optional)
Olive Oil

Ok, pretty simple idea and really, you probably don't even need to read the ingredients or the procedure: but we did try it with two different oven settings and two different ingredient combinations. So let's see the results!

Pizzadilla 1

Ingredient Order: Tortilla, Sauce, Cheese, Pepperoni and Sausage, a bit of Cheese, Tortilla, Brushed Olive Oil, Parmesan, Red Pepper.

Oven Setting: Broil

This takes about two minutes. Broil is very hot and applies heat from above, which gives it that crunchy, crispy aspect (the pictured Pizzadilla is Pizzadilla 1). This was a smashing success, though as you can see the crushed pepper got scorched and effectively destroyed its flavor. I think we both ended up brushing ours off, actually. In any case, I really liked the crispiness of it because it felt more pizza-like. Quite delicious!


Pizzadilla 2

Ingredient Order: Tortilla, Cheese, Sauce, Crushed Red Pepper, Pepperoni and Sausage, Cheese, Tortilla, Brushed Olive Oil, Parmesan.

Oven Setting: 450

Ok, I prefer this ingredient order. With cheese on both sides of the tortilla it holds together better (Pizzadilla 1 was a bit slide-y) and putting the red pepper inside the sauce prevented it from being scorched, giving it that extra kick. I do not, however, like that oven setting. It took much longer to bake this way, about 5-10 minutes. This slower cooking made the Pizzadilla much softer and in someways, much more Quesadilla-like. I prefer the crunchy kind myself, but if you like it soft, 450 is the way to go.

I think the ultimate Pizzadilla would probably be Ingredient Order 2 on Broil.


Unofficial Pizzadilla 3

Using the leftover ingredients, I made one on Monday, but this time used the Toaster Oven on Broil. It is equally effective to broil in a toaster oven, but it takes longer. Still, it does save you from having to pre-heat and subsequently heat up your apartment, something you don't want this close to summer here in Los Angeles.


Experiment result: A smashing success! A great lunch-time food or maybe even for a party? I think maybe using the larger burrito tortillas could lend to making an appetizer as well, if you slice it up with a pizza cutter and throw on a plate.

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I love mozzarella sticks. So when I saw this recipe, I had to try it. We had these on Pizzadilla day.


Don't be fooled: Italian Goodness waits inside!

Here is the recipe.


Ok, this is pretty simple.

String Cheese
Egg Roll Wrappers
Oil.

Ta-da!

I do want to mention one thing about Egg Roll Wrappers, however. We spent forever trying to find them: looked in Vons, looked in Gelson's, and ultimately went to a Korean market where my brother and I were assaulted with the smell of Kim Chi and fish and were given sidelong looks as to say "What're those guys doing here?" to find them. But the sad truth is you can find them in a regular grocery store! The key thing that I did not know is that Won Ton and Eggroll wrappers are refrigerated. You'd think I'd know that, but I didn't. So if you want to try this, remember that tip.

Ok, heat your oil to 350, wrap the cheese, fry it, dry it, and eat. REALLY REALLY REALLY GOOD. Like, it shouldn't be that good type of good, but it is. The cheese melts perfectly, the eggroll wrapper is easier to eat than the normal breading found on Cheese Sticks and it's simple and good. Another good appetizer method for not a lot of work!

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Not sure when I'll be posting again: Took Monday off as I was cooked-out from Friday and Saturday. I may make something simple tonight and if it's a recipe I haven't posted I will, but no big projects for this week.

Family Secrets!: Next week, however, my grandparents are coming into town for my brother's college graduation. On Monday my dad and grandpa will be teaching me their secret Korean BBQ Wing/Beef Recipe, a recipe that has to be conducted entirely by taste. I will definitely be writing a post about that once it's concluded: though don't expect me to tell you what's inside :P .

It's funny how adventurous I'm willing to eat if I make it with my own two hands. Tell me about the Spanakorizo in a restaurant and I'll be like "Uh, fries please." but show me on a cooking blog and I go "Hm..."





Greek Lemon Chicken

1 lb. boneless skinless chicken breasts
½ cup fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1 teaspoon dried oregano crushed
2 minced garlic cloves
2 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and pepper

Recipe from mom. Pretty straight forward chicken. Throw the ingredients together, put in ziploc bag with chicken for 30mins - 2 hours (my mom said she has done it overnight and it hasn't tasted too overwhelming, so that too is an option.) Then grill on skillet or grill pan. I actually never ended up using the salt and pepper in my recipe and I didn't miss it, so if you're going low-sodium don't be afraid to ditch it. My lemon juice came from two fresh squeezed lemons, and then the zest from one of them. The two lemons made about half a cup, so if you prefer the fresh-squeezed or are just trying to gauge how much that is, there's a tip for you. They were normal sized lemons.

Spanakorizo (Greek Rice with Spinach)

Original Recipe


Found this on the dear ol' Food Blog search (I put a search bar on the left if you want to try it out.) I followed this recipe pretty much exactly except I couldn't find Dill at Vons, and so I used basil instead. I used Calrose rice in the Rice Cooker to prepare, but you can use your favorite method.


The results were mixed. The chicken came out very good, though I only marinaded it for 30 minutes and think that it should go longer. I started late and was pressed for time, but all in all it was quite delicious and moist chicken.

The Spanakorizo...well, I really liked it. Feta cheese and spinach and onion and rice all mixed together, really good. Megan didn't like it at all though. So that one goes off the list of repeat foods. Oh well, it was fun to try and I suppose not everything can be as a sensational a hit as Veggie-Penne (or Penne Delicious, as Amy calls it).

This was pretty quick to make though, so if you like Greek food and you've got an hour you can whip this into shape and have a satisfying meal.

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I noticed: That since I've started cooking regularly, I haven't repeated a dish once. Which I think is pretty cool, considering that often times people who cook complain about falling into a rut. I'm really liking this super-variety of food that has come up in life.

Later this week: AJ is pushing for us to make Cottage Pie, and I think I'm going to go with it, despite my counter-suggestion for Fattayer Sabnegh modified with a meat filling instead of spinach. I'm sort of curious since I don't usually like meat pies but this one sounds good (besides, she doesn't know it yet but we're eating the Fattayer for dinner on Monday)

Also on Saturday: Pizzadillas, Weird Mozzarella sticks, and Snackoos! The unhealtiest but possibly most awesome experiment day ever.

Making fun of vegetarians and vegans is sort of a hobby of mine. Not out of spite, necessarily, but more a target of opportunity sort of thing. I mean, there are just so many good jokes for vegetarians ("There's room for all of God's creatures...right next to the mashed potatoes" "Don't get me wrong, I love animals, I just love to eat them more.") and I just seem to keep meeting them. In fact, Jeni is a former (recovering? current?) vegetarian and was probably on the receiving end of many of these fine quips.

But to be honest, the other day I just felt like I was getting tired of eating meat. I mean, look at all the things I've made on the blog: meat galore. And normally this is not a problem for me: Man like meat. But when I came across this recipe for baked vegetarian pasta, I was oddly intrigued and felt suddenly compelled to make and eat it.




The Original Recipe Link

The original is a recipe by Giada DiLaurentis from the Food Network (you know, the pretty one with the abnormally large head?). The problem with using the Food Network website and subsequently following all the recipes for these famous chefs is the ability to obtain their fanciful ingredients and the cost of buying those fanciful ingredients. Also, there's personal preference and taste, etc, so I slightly modified this recipe as such:

2 red bell peppers
3 small green Italian squash
3 small yellow squash
1 Portobello mushroom
1 yellow onion
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon salt, divided
1 teaspoon black ground pepper, divided
1 tablespoon herbes de Provence
1 pound penne pasta
1 jar Newman's Own marinara
2 cups of grated mozzarella
lots of parmesan (whatever was left in our bag)

This is a good recipe, but it does take some time: if you want to use this for a "quick night" meal you could slice up your ingredients ahead of time, I suppose, but the two-phase cooking does take some time.

Anyway, start chopping the vegetables and throw onto pan. The recipe says 1 in strips, I made 1 inch square-ish chunks. I suppose that's what they meant and not long inch wide strips, but interpret as you will. Put on your olive oil, half of your salt and pepper and the Herbes de Provence and mix it up. Megan wanted to help with this recipe so she did some chopping and then mixed the veggies and pepper with her hands. Throw this into the oven at 450 for about 15 minutes.

You also need to cook your penne for about 6 minutes. It takes about 12 minutes I realize now for our pot to come to a boil, so you may want to start that off while you're chopping, depending on your stove (Oh what I would do for that super-stove that brings water to a boil in 90 seconds...). Throw penne in, cook. It should be pretty hard still when you take it out; it gets cooked the rest of the way through in the oven.

If the veggies are tender (not too soft) after 15 min, take it out. Put veggies, penne, cheese and sauce into your largest mixing bowl and mix together very slowly with a wooden spoon (Megan did this part too!) then put into a greased 9x13 pan. Save part of your Parmesan to spread on top of the thing after you've poured it into the pan so you can have a nice cheesy top (pictured above).

Bake for 25 minutes. I've finally learned that our oven is way super hot, so we only baked it for 15 and it came out perfectly.

The dish is amazing. The vegetables are soft but have a slight crunch, the pasta gets soft, the cheese is melty (and crunchy on the top layer) and it's very filling. So far it's Megan's favorite meal I've made.

It should be noted that this recipe is for 6 servings so I suppose you could cut down everything and do it in a 8x6 for smaller meals, or you can have leftovers (Megan will be eating it for lunch and dinner for a while). It would also make a good entertaining dish, I think.

So vegetarians, you get a reprieve; you can eat delicious satisfying meals without having to kill a furry thing.

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Later this week: I'll be doing a Lemon Greek Chicken for Wednesday, so that's cool. But I'm excited for Friday: AJ and Rachelle are coming over and AJ and I are going to do...something! We haven't decided yet but with the powers of Price and Ing combined the results can only be amazing.

What do you think?: I'm thinking about starting blog out the cost of the ingredients I use. The news keeps talking about the rising cost of food in America and I'm curious to see how accurate they are. Fair readers, would you find this interesting?

Well, once again we had a cooking-less week. Pleh. I really have gotten attached to cooking and to have to go through the week without doing so actually gets me a little down

But onward we press. I decided that since I didn't have a ton of recipes to shove down your throat I'd as you, the readers, a question:

What's your cooking style?

Me, I'm definitely a mise en place enthusiast: get everything out, set it on the counter, methodically use all of your ingredients and wash your stuff as you move along. Makes for less clean up (sometimes) and orderly cooking; it also prevents me from missing a ingredient or a step.

As for the actual recipe, I have a magnet with a clip on it (an Aloha shirt; we got it in Hawaii) that I hang onto the smoke vent above the stove and let the recipe hang in front of me so I can read it as I work along.

I love having the right tool for the right situation, but I never let that get me down; I'll improvise if needed. I won't let it stop me from doing a recipe or a style of cooking if I really want to do it.

Anyway, please share your methods and techniques: I'm curious!