Justin & Meredith Winokur's Kitchen Cooking Notebook
Sitemap ·
Our Recipe Book ·
Steven's Recipe Book ·
Ann's Recipe Book ·
Meal Ideas ·
Copied Recipes
Random ·
Random Links
Home > 319
KitchenKatalog: Blog 319
Tuesday, January 10, 2012, 08:34 AM
A Tofurky was really cheap so we figured it made a good, easy meal. We roasted it with sweet potatoes, carrots, a small regular potato and a parsnip. Meredith made the same marinade of soy sauce, olive oil, and dried thyme (the recipe on the box, basically) as last time.
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1691, 2012-01-10_083458
Saturday, January 07, 2012, 10:26 PM
We made the soup from the recipe below. Generally, we have trouble with Crock Pot stuff since it takes too long to just do when we get home but not so long as to be doable before we leave for work. However, this worked well because we set it up and then ran (a lot) of errands. We followed the recipe surprisingly closely with the only change being half the chicken, extra adobo sauce, and I chopped a chipotle and put that in too.
The soup was very good. I was especially impressed with how easy it was to shred the chicken. This is definitely something I would do again. We also had a nice amount of leftovers
Meredith made the salsa verde from the recipe in Homesick Texan book (I'll add the page in the comments when I check). She basically followed the recipe except one of the avocados tasted funky so we didn't put it in. While we though it was our best attempt, it wasn't incredible. Too much lime (lemon?) and maybe something else, but I don't know. We toasted some whole wheat tortillas to dip.
We also had bread since I need to carb-load for the next day.
**Crock Pot Chicken Enchilada Soup ** (from Gina's Skinny Taste)
Local Copy -- password is the name of my dog, all lower case
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1685, 2012-01-07_222602
Friday, January 06, 2012, 10:25 PM
We made chicken vindaloo with the recipe here. I more or less followed it with the following changes
It came out pretty good. I went too heavy on the tumeric which is why it is yellow and not red (and why the food processor is stained). Other than that, it was just spicy.
We didn't have time to make samosas, plus, this had a lot of potato in it already so we didn't need it.
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1682, 2012-01-06_222547
Wednesday, January 04, 2012, 02:54 PM
Nothing too special here. We made Koftas as before basically using the same recipe. I do not think we made any _new_changes. Still used lean beef, and less of it. Meredith made her usual tzatziki.
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1673, 2012-01-04_145440
Tuesday, January 03, 2012, 02:54 PM
We made pizza puffs using the recipe below. We basically followed the same idea but used some diced soppressata and a lot (too much?) zucchini.
THey were pretty easy and tasted okay. Not incredible. I think the definitely needed salt and I don't really know what else. Maybe next time we will mix half whole wheat and white flour.
When we make pizza, we tend to roll it really thin so the yeast doesn't do too much, but it still adds flavor which I think this was missing. Also, we didn't have mini-muffin tins so they were bigger.
Pizza Puffs (From Cooking With My Kid)
Local Copy -- password is the name of my dog, all lower case
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1670, 2012-01-03_145422
Sunday, December 25, 2011, 11:24 PM
I decided to invite some friends for not-christmas dinner. I made salmon, hasselback potatoes and roasted broccoli.
(2014-01-06 Note: I added this technique to My Recipe Book)
I did the salmon on the stove and in the oven. I had read a lot of different recipes for salmon on the stove and there were a few different approaches. I settled on using the cast iron pan and the oven. I seasoned the salmon with salt and pepper, then seared them flesh (not skin) side first for a minute. I flipped them, and then threw them in the oven (preheated at 425) for like 6 minutes. They cooked really nicely and the flesh came off the skin with ease. My only problem was the pan was too hot at first and smoked when I added pam. I wiped it and then I just cooked them without the pam. It didn't stick which was nice. The other thing I did was make sure I started with the fish at room temp. Thankfully and somewhat surprisingly, I didn't overcook the fish!
I also made hasselback potatoes. That is when you slice it 3/4 of the way through and fan it out. I used two wooden spoons as knife blocks. I initially alternated putting garlic and shallots between each slice. Then, I read some more recipes and it sounded like you didn't have to put stuff in each and every slice and they will just open if you wet them first. I basically just kept it as it was except I took out a few shallots and garlic. I sautéd them in olive oil then poured the strained oil on the potatoes for flavor. Next time, I will read the recipe _first_and then try to cook it. I want to do them again, but I will read more recipes first. Oh, I also cut off a bit of the bottom first to give me a flat surface.
I also roasted broccoli as I describe on 2011-12-06. They could have used a bit more time but they were still good. I also served some rosemary and olive oil bread.
Finally, for dessert, I made stuffed dates. They were pretty easy since once I cut out the pit, I used leftover German Butter Cream from the Thanksgiving Red Velvet Cake. I topped them with some powdered sugar. They were good!
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1666, 2011-12-25_232456
Saturday, December 24, 2011, 10:19 PM
With Meredith away, I wanted to make something I couldn't make when I was cooking for both of us and this is what I came up with. It was pretty standard taquitos (originally 2011-04-27) except I made a few changes. Instead of all hot sauce, I put two ground, dried Bhut Jolokia (wikipedia, the hottest pepper in the world)) peppers in. I first de-seeded them then chopped them and finally ground them. The other change I made was to replace one Laughing Cow wedge with goat cheese.
It turns out Meredith could have eaten it even with the goat cheese since it was SO SPICY from the two small peppers, that you really didn't taste the cheese. It was still flavorful, but also really spicy! I have to be careful using them.
I also made baked zucchini. I was lazy and used real bread crumbs. They were much better than the fiber one version. Though, I still want to try with corn flakes.
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1661, 2011-12-24_221908
Thursday, December 22, 2011, 10:18 PM
This was pretty standard moussaka. We made it the night before so when we cooked it from cold, it had strange cracks in the top. Not a big deal by any means. The biggest difference is that we were cooking it, I realized we forgot to buy potatoes. We were getting ready to make it potato-less, Meredith remembered that we had canned potatoes so we used them. Given the option of no potatoes and the canned, I would use the canned, but they had a strange taste and I prefer the real ones.
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1658, 2011-12-22_221831