Popcorn Tofu - take 1

One of Hans' all time favorite foods is the popcorn tofu at Wheatsville: http://www.facebook.com/popcorntofu?sid=47835b242b93d424a193ef28b23765f5&ref=search.

He is obviously not the only one who feels this way.

So I decided to try and make it myself. I don't have a deep fryer, but I figured I could get pretty close.

Short version (let me know if you want the more detailed recipe):

Freeze tofu (to get a chewier texture)

Thaw and squeeze moisture out

Soak in vegetable broth and a couple teaspoons of soy sauce

Dip in an egg wash

Coat in a mixture of flour, breadcrumbs, and spices

Fry in very hot vegetable oil

Put on newspaper (preferable a section you don't treasure) to cool and soak up excess oil

Result (served with BBQ sauce, alongside a salad):

Verdict: Good, but more like fried chicken than the famous Popcorn Tofu. Stay tuned for tomorrow's second attempt

Ruth's pizza dough

There has been a request for the recipe. I believe Christian posted it in his Smorgasbord Pizza post, with tips. But here it is again:

2 cups of flour (if you do wheat, it works best with half white)

1 packet of yeast

3/4 cup warm water

1 teaspoon salt

Dissolve packet of yeast in the warm water. Add to the flour and salt. Knead everything together for a few minutes. Add a bit more flour if the dough is too sticky. Form into a ball. Drizzle a little olive oil in the bowl, coat the dough, and cover. Let the dough rise at least an hour (Check Christian's post for variations on ideal dough conditions).

Smorgasbord B.L.T.

In my fridge I had red tomatoes, lettuce bacon and fresh bread. So I decided to make what else a B.L.T. done. But then I saw that I had a green tomato I needed to use, pistachios, sun flower seeds and fresh herbs. So I made the Fried green tomato B.L.T. with a pistachio and sun flower pesto. Easy and a great twist on the classic. (bread was toasted in the bacon grease for a bit of extra flavor)

Harvest Pizza

Inspired by Christian's smorgasbord pizza, I've made my harvest pizza. Basically, I put all the vegetables in my fridge (besides lettuce) on a pizza. Att's piece just had spinach and carrots.

Ruth's pizza dough

Canned whole tomatoes, crushed by hand (much superior to sauce)

Caramelized onions and garlic

Mozzarella

Grated purple carrot

Spinach

Sliced radishes

Parmesan

Final drizzle of olive oil

Cook at 550.

The Smorgasbord Challenge

Come up with something creative using only ingredients already in your pantry. In the spirit of this blog, feel free to ask for suggestions.

GO!

Another theme?

So, I suggested pasta last time, mostly out of self-interest. We were carbing up for the Austin Marathon. Oh...did I mention we ran a marathon? The entire thing. Without walking. No big deal.

Anyways, marathon is over, and so are the carb binges. Suggestions for next theme? A few ideas:

Sandwiches (Banh Mi, anyone?)

Fruit desserts

Entree salads (help us use all this lettuce!)

Or any other idea!

Cauliflower (no shrimp) Cocktail

So, despite (or because of) my post-marathon cold, I became fixated on fixing a recipe from Bon Appetit for Cauliflower Cocktail (like shrimp cocktail, sans shrimp). Here's the recipe:

http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/2012/02/poor-man-shrimp-cocktail

Here's my picture:

This would be a great appetizer if you had vegetarian guests over. Note, the florets are spicy, and if you follow the recipe, quite salty. I would cut out the extra salt, since most spice mixes come with salt.

P.F. Chang's Chicken Lettuce Wraps

RD and I love PF Chang's chicken lettuce wraps, so we wanted to try it at home.

I grabbed the recipe from here. Didn't make any modifications so you can just click over to that blog to see the recipe. The sauce is sooooo tasty. And no vegetable oil!

They turned out DELICIOUS. Seriously, one of my favorite things I've ever made, if I may say so myself.

Highly Recommend.

Chicken Picatta Part 2

The side I chose to use was Jessica's famous green bean salad. Recipe for that to follow soon.

Instructions/recipe for the Chicken Picatta can be found Here.

 Here is the recipe for Jessica's Green Bean Salad:
 1 tbsp Mayo
1 tbsp Dijon Mustard
2 tbsp White vinegar
 4 tbsp Olive Oil
1/4 White Onion diced
6 strips of bacon cooked and finely chopped
1 tbsp water
1 pound cooked green beans
salt and pepper to taste

 Mix mayo,mustard, vinegar, oil, water, and onions together (the dressing), then add cooked green beans and bacon and toss, add salt and pepper to taste, chill in the fridge before serving.

Pad Kee Mao (modified)

Standby for formatting errors. This is not your classic Pad Kee Mao. It has elements of Pad Kee Mao, but is modified pretty heavily. If you are sensitive to the needs of ritual and not deviating, then read no further. Here is the final product:

For most of my Thai recipes, I buy ingredients for 3-4 servings, and make each plate separately. Ingredients: Carrots (sliced and steamed) Water chestnuts (diced) Baby Corn Bell Pepper White Onion 1 1/2 - 2 tablespoons Sweet Soy Sauce per plate 1/2 - 1 tablespoon Chili Paste per plate Pinch of sugar Flat rice noodles Optional Ingredients: Broccoli (steamed) Basil leaves Bean sprouts (to top off the plate at the end) Strips of pork, chicken, or beef. To prepare the noodles: place noodles in covered pot of hot water for 20-30 minutes, or until noodles are cooked through but not too soggy. Once cooked, place in bowl of ice. To prepare the sweet soy sauce: Mix 1 part soy sauce with 1 part molasses. You want a fairly thick consistency. Prepare your vegetables to be stir-fried. Turn your stove on high (use extra high heat if you have it) and heat your wok to a very high temperature. You should be able to put a teaspoon of water in your wok and it should evaporate in 1-2 seconds. Once it is this hot, put in ~2 tablespoons of oil. Canola oil can actually be better for stir-fries than olive oil because your dish will not get as soggy. Rotate your wok and spread the oil around, then add your meat and onions. Let the meat sear and brown, but not cook all the way through. Add your vegetables and use a wooden spoon to make sure nothing is sticking to the bottom of the wok. Add the sweet soy sauce, chili paste, and a pinch of sugar. Using either a wooden spoon or flipping with the wok, mix your sauces in until everything is evenly sauteed. Grab a handful of noodles and toss them in with the rest of the ingredients. Again stir until noodles have consistent color. Turn off flame and plate your food. Cut wedges of lime and squeeze over your food, top with bean sprouts.

Chicken Piccata

I know what you are thinking... "BORING." But wait! Did you know a contestant got kicked off of Top Chef for not knowing how to make Chicken Piccata?!?? Don't let that happen to you!

Jana typed up a recipe book for me as a wedding gift and this Chicken Piccata is a McClenagan favorite. A repeat offender, if you will. Minus the offense. It's good. Quick. Easy to make. And healthy (minus a wee bit o' butter).

Ingredients

Boneless, skinless chicken breasts

1/2 cup flour

2/3 cup bread crumbs

1/2 cup dry white wine (or chicken stock)

1/3 cup lemon juice

Butter

1 egg

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400

2. Put chicken between parchment paper or in a ziplock bag and use meat pounder to get the chicken to 1/4 inch.

3. Beat egg with 1/2 tsp of water in a shallow bowl. On a plate, mix flour, 1/2 tsp salt, and 1/4 tsp pepper. On another plate, place bread crumbs.

4. Place the chicken in the flour, shake off excess. Dip the chicken in the egg mixture, and then place the chicken in the bread crumbs, covering the chicken.

5. Heat 1 tbsp of olive oil in a medium pan and cook the breaded chicken on each side for 2 minutes.

6. Place the chicken on a baking sheet and cook for 5-10 minutes.

7. While the chicken is baking, melt 1 tbsp of butter. Then add lemon juice, wine, 1/4 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp of pepper and cook on HIGH until sauce has reduced in half, about 2 minutes. Remove from heat, you can melt a little more butter into the sauce if you'd like.

8. Plate chicken and pour sauce over and VOILA! YOU ARE AMERICA'S NEXT TOP CHEF!!!!

Pairs particularly well with mashed potatoes. Or any sort of starch will help compliment the zesty tangy goodness of this chicken.

Steak spring rolls

In an effort to do something different with steak (I did baked crispy steak last night) I decided to go the Asian Texan route and make steak spring rolls. The sauce came a recipe book but then adapted to fit what I actually had on hand. Enjoy!

Steak spring rolls
Steak, rice, and avocado spring rolls
INGREDIENTS
Steak
Avocado
1 cup Rice
2 cup water
Spring roll wrappers
Favorite steak seasoning
Oil
for sauce
Can black beans (drained and rinsed)
2 tsp corn flour
1/2 cup veg stock or chicken stock (whichever you have)
1 tbsp soy sauce
2 tsp sugar
2 crushed cloves garlic
INSTRUCTIONS
For sauce
1. Mix 2 tsp corn flour and 1/2 cup stock
2. Mix corn mixture with lightly mashed black beans
3. Add rest of ingredients
4. Heat later to thicken
rice
1. Toast rice with a little sesame oil and 2 garlic cloves
2. Add to 2 cups boiling water for 15 to 20 minutes (don't let it get dry)
for steak
1. Season with your favorite seasoning
2. Cook in sesame oil or veggie oil
spring rolls
1. Slice avocado
2. Wet spring roll wrapper
3. Spoon in rice add avocado and steak
4. Fold the sides over and roll
5. Serve with black bean sauce

Costa Rican Cabbage Salad

We had this everyday in Costa Rica. They would use cabbage over lettuce because of the climate cabbage would last much longer than other types of lettuce. I loved the dressing! A lot of the ingredients are optional. I usually just had cabbage + carrots for the salad and the dressing was vinegar, olive oil, lime juice, salt & peppa to taste. It was quite delicious.

((Recipe credit here))

INGREDIENTS:
• ½ head of green cabbage, sliced in very thin strips (much like coleslaw – try using a wide blade grater)
• 2 Tablespoons fresh cilantro, coarsely chopped
• snow peas, stems removed, chopped in 1” pieces
• 2 tomatoes, thinly sliced into rings
• 1 carrot, peeled and sliced into oval rings
• 1 or 2 green onions, sliced into thin rings (use white and green part)

DRESSING:
• ¼ cup white vinegar
• ½ cup olive oil
• juice of lime
• 2 Tablespoons Honey
• 2 Tablespoons cilantro
• ½ jalapeño (seeded)• garlic salt, salt and pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS:
In a large salad bowl, simply toss all the salad ingredients and in a separate bowl, whisk together the salad dressing ingredients. Pour dressing over salad and let sit up to an hour before serving to let the flavors blend and the cabbage soften.

BONUS SECTION! Claire and I kickin' it at the Yoga Horizon Infinity Pool.

Cabbage?

I currently have two heads of cabbage in the fridge, and one more on the way. Suggestions? Besides braising it in bacon. Done that. Delicious. But man cannot live on bacon alone.

Speaking of, I took Hans and Atticus to Casa de Luz, a vegan macrobiotic restaurant near our house. They loved it. And here's a sauce recipe from there, it's delicious on EVERYTHING:

Timo's Pepita Sauce

Serve this richly flavorful sauce over grains or dark, leafy greens.

1 cup unroasted pepitas (pumpkin seeds)
1 clove garlic
1 tsp. oregano
1 Tbs. flax oil
2 tsp. shoyu
1 Tbs. ume vinegar
1 cup filtered water

Pan-roast pumkin sees in a stainless steel skillet, stirring constantly. Remove from heat when seeds are lightly browned, puffed, fragrant, and sound slightly hollow when stirred. Place roasted seeds and remaining ingredients in blender, mix well, and serve.

Smörgåsbord Pizza: Confirmed good.

Don't have any mozzarella cheese? Is your significant other craving some food and you want to oblige their needs? Going on a vacation and need to clean out the fridge? Sounds like you need to make yourself a Smörgåsbord-style pizza.

Ingredients used (but certainly not limited to):
For the dough(inspired by Ruth's pizza dough):

2 cups regular flour
1 tsp. Sea salt
1 tsp. Oregano
1 tsp. Thyme
1 tsp. Garlic salt
1 - 2 tsp. Active yeast (1 used for this recipe.)
1 1/2 c. Warm water
Small splash of olive oil

Combine all ingredients except water and olive oil. Pour water in last. I like to add around 1/2 cup of water at a time so I get the perfect dough consistency. Too much water and you have too add more flour. Too little and your dough will be anti-dough. Knead with your hands or a strong metal spoon until you have a smooth dough. Add olive oil, Knead and get the olive oil into every pore of the dough. Finally, I like to drizzle olive oil over the top of the dough and get the entire outside covered in a nice shine.

For best results, let dough sit overnight in fridge. For better than good results, let sit out for 3-4 hours in a covered bowl. For very quick and still decent results, microwave dough for 30 seconds (not too long or parts of the dough will actually cook through and get hard, not fun to work with, and generally just bad bad bad) and let sit out for 30 minutes. For instant results, microwave for 30 seconds and on an oiled stone/pan roll out dough while it is still warm. I found that if you use this last method, it works best to just roll it out once, it can get tough if you put it back into a ball.

Pre-heat oven to 500 degrees farenheit. Once you have dough rolled out onto stone or pan, put the stone and dough (no ingredients) into an oven of at least 300 degrees. Pre-cook this dough for 3-5 minutes. If air bubbles form, pop them with a long barbeque fork or other poker. Pre-cooking your dough gives you a crunchy bottom and ensures the dough cooks all the way through without burning your toppings.

Toppings(subjective, Smörgåsbord inspired):
Pesto (I used some straight ahead Pesto. Basil or fire roasted tomatoes Pesto is also tastey and unique.)
1/2 bag of shredded Swiss cheese
1/2 bag of Mexican cheese (aka mixed)
1/2 to 1 White Onion chopped into small squares (not restricted to squares, consider onion art?)
1 red bell pepper chopped
1 tomato sliced (or chopped if you don't like huge, awesome, borderline Sacred slices of tomato)
Ricotta cheese

Optional ingredients not used here:
Toss some baby spinach leaves on top of the pizza with 2-3 minutes left to cook, or as soon as you take it out. Don't let these cook too long or else they can get bitter.
Small pieces of Bacon, pre-cooked a little. Think crunchy Bacon crumbs.
Especially good with Bacon is to serve your pizza with slices of avocado and just put it on top cold. I think it accents any pizza ingredient well and brings out a lot of flavors you might've missed or overlooked.

Prepping the pizza(lolwut? put ingredients on duh):

With a spoon, spoon out chunks of Pesto and spread it evenly on your pre-cooked pizza crust. If you are running low on Pesto, I like to add olive oil in the jar and mix it around, this makes the Pesto go further.

Add Swiss and mixed cheeses.

Take small (like 1/2 to 1 tablespoon size) blobs of ricotta and place accordingly.

Then throw the rest of your ingredients on top. You win if a) 10% or more of the ingredients end up on the floor or b) someone laughs at the pattern you made on the pizza.

Cook at 500 degrees farenheit for 15-18 minutes.

Confirmed this recipe actually tastes good.

Simple Spaghetti

Well it's the elephant in the room. It's no secret that RD and I aren't "top chef material". We aren't "serious contenders" in any Burrows cooking competition. We "struggle" to make a "dish" that is "impressive".

None the less, we are contributing to the "blog". Here is our "simple" spaghetti recipe. Maybe Atticus can make it for the family at the reunion.

Ingredients

Pasta

Tomato Sauce

Onions

Spices

Ground Turkey

Directions

Make pasta.

Sauté onions, brown ground turkey, add tomato sauce, add spices, simmer.

Put together.

Enjoy.

Artichoke Ravioli - courtesy of French Laundry and Ruth

Pan-Roasted Striped Bass with Artichoke Ravioli and Barigoule Vinaigrette
Ruth came over last night, and put together this DELICIOUS recipe from the French Laundry cookbook. I made some fresh pasta from the Babbo cookbook (pretty simple, rolled out into sheets with the pasta maker).

Potlikker pasta with greens

So, I made the Bon Appetit recipe (from my previous post). Success! It was delicious and not greasy, despite using bacon. A couple substitutions: I used homemade vegetable stock (John, an awesome way to use vegetable leaves, scraps, etc), and one bunch of swiss chard and one bunch of kale. I also used less meat for the stock.

Farmers market pasta

I go to the farmers market every Saturday and my goal is every week is to cook as many meal based off what I get at the market. This recipe came from my need to use the cucumbers I got this week. Sorry about not having everything measured out.
Roasted sauce pasta
Bow tie pasta with tomato sauce topped with roasted cucumber slices.
INGREDIENTS
Bow tie pasta
for sauce
Cashews (10ish)
Olive oil
1 tbspButter
8 Garlic cloves
3 Tomatillo
Salt
Pepper
Thyme (dry)
Basil (dry)
Rosemary (fresh)
2 cucumbers
4 slices of bacon (optional)
INSTRUCTIONS
sauce and roast cucumbers
1. Heat oven to 350
2. Cut cucumbers in quarters and then if need be in half for two bite pieces
3. Peel garlic and rough chop
4. Peel tomatillos
5. Place all 3 on a roasting pan
6. Pour olive oil (enough to coat plus a tbsp or a little more because it makes up a part of the sauce)
7. Season with salt, pepper, thyme and basil
8. Roast until tomatillos are soft but haven't popped.
9. Meanwhile cook bacon
10. Remove from pan
11. Discard bacon Greece but don't whip the pan
12. Add butter salt, pepper, rosemary
13. As butter melts add chopped cashews
14. Cook until soft
15. Pour all into a blender (or food processor)
16. Boil water with salt
17. Add pasta once boiling
18. Once roasting pan is done remove cucumbers and tomatillos
19. Quarter 2 tomatillos and put in blender (with cashew mixture)
20. Also pour in garlic and extra olive oil
21. Blend until smooth
22. Taste
23. Pour into sauce pan and heat
24. Add cooked pasta to sauce
25. Plate pasta, top with cucumbers, bacon, chopped rosemary and the other tomatillo.

PASTA!

May the first round of El Jefe's Kitchen commence. This series has several rules.

1. This is not a competition.

2. There are no time limits.

3. There are no restrictions whatsoever.

4. Anyone may suggest a theme at any time. Just give everyone a chance to make a dish under the theme before changing.

5. There are no scoring rubrics, scorecards, or scoreboards...because this is not a competition.

And I am happy to announce the first theme: pasta. For my dish, I will attempt this new recipe from Bon Appetit: http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/2012/02/potlikker-noodles-with-mustard-greens

Baked wings

Baked chicken wings
INGREDIENTS
Chicken wings
Vegi oil
Salt
Pepper
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup honey
3 garlic cloves
BBQ sauce
Salt
Pepper
INSTRUCTIONS
1. Split drum from flat piece
2. Mix with vegi oil, salt and pepper
3. Place on rack on cookie sheet
4. Heat 400
5. Cook for 45 to 50 min
6. Boil water
7. Pour in honey
8. Cook down
9. Turn off stove
10. Mix in garlic, BBQ, salt and pepper to taste
11. Remove wings and place in sauce
12. Stir and serve