Justin & Meredith Winokur's Kitchen Cooking Notebook
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KitchenKatalog: Blog 327
Sunday, September 25, 2011, 09:32 AM
Meredith was away so I decided to try making a steak. I bought the smallest NY Strip steak I could find and followed a combination of many oven/pan cooking methods. I needed to keep the oven at 400 for the brussel sprouts so that limited me. I let the cast iron pan heat up in the oven (took a long time), I sprayed olive oil pam on the room-temp steak and sprinkled salt and pepper on it. After the pan was hot, I put it on the burner on hot for a bit longer. Then I put the steak on and seared each side for 1 minute without moving it. I put it in the oven with the pan. Most recipes said to cook four minutes on each side in the oven so that is what I did. When I took it out, I am glad I decided to quickly check the temp since it was still raw inside (not rare, raw!). So, I cheated a bit, I switched from the instant read thermometer to the one that has an in-oven temperature probe. Using that, and filliping one more time, I brought it up to about 135-140 for medium. It was a very thick piece so it wasn't too surprising that it took longer. I did let it rest for 2 minutes but it may have needed more to absorb more liquid.
Overall, it was the best steak I have ever cooked but that doesn't say much. It still was not amazing. I do not know what I am missing. Maybe it really does need butter? Since Meredith doesn't like steak, I do not imagine I will trying again anytime too soon but when I do, I'll investigate rubs. One nice thing about cooking my own piece is that I knew where all the fat was starting out so I could easily cut it off.
I also had roasted brussel sprouts. Always a favorite of mine. However, I got a bit nervous and took them out a tad too soon for my taste even though it was probably the right time for most people (I like all of my cooked veggies overcooked apparently)
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1425, 2011-09-25_093220
Thursday, September 22, 2011, 08:55 AM
We had company over and did make your own pizza. I used the standard dough but I didn't halve it so I made 8 pizzas. There were a variety of different toppings and everyone did a different mix of toppings. They were the normal with soppressata, goat cheese, ricotta, spinach, etc. We also had pineapple which I think was used once. I think I captured most of them but not all. Also, my pizza came out looking like a heart (below). We used low-fat or fat free cheesed.
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1421, 2011-09-22_085557
Tuesday, September 20, 2011, 05:57 PM
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It got late and we needed to make something rather quickly. We basically made the empanada black bean filling except we used a different type of bean (I forget which one) and also added tomatoes. The tomatoes added an interesting sweetness to them. The other major change was to mix some Skinny Cow into the mix since we didn't have any other type of cheese. We rolled them into whole wheat tortillas and baked them until crispy. We also had broccoli.
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1412, 2011-09-20_175731
Monday, September 19, 2011, 11:46 AM
I was just cooking for myself with this. For the fries, I cut the potatoes and put them in a bowl. I put some olive oil in and then added hot (but not smoked) paprika, salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder and finally, adobo powder. I spread them out and cooked at 400 for about 45 minutes. They probably could have been cooked less.
For the quesadilla, I used the griddler to grill chicken. For the chicken, I just sprayed some pam and then put on quesadilla Emril Essence. I cooked them for a while, perhaps too long. Afterwards, I slided the chicken and made the quesadilla with a few slices of cheese, and crumbled goat cheese. As far as go, this was very light on the cheese. It was a bit strange mixing the flavors but altogether, not bad. I then grilled them on the same griddler pans as the chicken. That gave it a bit more flavor as well.
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1409, 2011-09-19_114605
Sunday, September 18, 2011, 11:42 AM
Not much to this meal. It was a soup night. We had Trader Joes Palak Paneer (very salty and rather small but tasty), leftover french onion soup, and we made butternut squash soup.
The butternut squash soup was pretty good though it was not as sweet as I think it gets later in the season. Also, we used half beef and half chicken base since we ran out of chicken. The squash was large and we had leftover from the lasagna the other day, so there was a lot of leftovers.
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1406, 2011-09-18_114237
Wednesday, September 14, 2011, 09:08 AM
We made pretty standard black bean empanadas with caramelized onions, peppers (bell and jalapeño), black beans and a variety of hot sauce. I also added a bit of sesame oil and peanut oil for some flavor (but not too much). We used the usual dough but it came together a bit softer. It may have been that I used bread flour. I was disappointed as I made it, but it actually worked and rolled out better than usual.
The french onion soup was the normal based on this post, again with yellow onions. I let them really cook down but not caramelize. I made a lot so I used about 7 cups of water and a cup of white wine (I think pinot grigio but I don't remember). I used Better Than Bouillon (Low sodium), chicken and beef, and ended up adding some more as I tasted it. I was pretty happy with how it tuned out. We did the usual Arnolds Roll croutons and cheese melted with the creme brulee torch.
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1402, 2011-09-14_090823
Tuesday, September 13, 2011, 09:06 AM
The chicken was the same, more or less, as what we have done before but I can't find it. So, the recipe is below (had to find it in an email from a long time ago). I think we followed the recipe pretty closely. Because we were doing the brussel sprouts, and the timing was off, we ended up taking the chicken out around 20 minutes. However, the temp was fine and we are still alive so I guess it was fully cooked.
The brussel spouts were pretty standard. We halved most and quartered some. The only real key difference was we turned them all over so the flat side was down and got crispy. Also, we let all the leaves that fell off stay ont he pan and they got really crispy. It was t 400 for about 30-40 minutes but that may have been a bit too much.
Smothered Green Chile Pepper Chicken (from My Recipes)
Local Copy-- password is the name of my dog, all lower case
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1400, 2011-09-13_090617
Sunday, September 11, 2011, 12:15 PM
As butternut squash comes into season, we made the lasagna again. The recipe is from here and the time after that is here. We actually had/bought swiss chard for this and it was really good. We were just a bit short on the chard but we spread it thin.
Because we didn't have time, we used Barilla no-bake lasagna noodles which worked just fine. I do not know if it was having too much squash or not using enough milk (almond), but the butternut stuff was thicker than usual. We decided we liked that more since it made it easier to cut and hold its shape. We used low fat mozz for the two inner layers but had to used sliced swiss for the top since we ran out of the mozz. It gave it a nice mellow flavor still and we definitely liked it. I do not think we would do the swiss again unless we have to, but it wasn't bad by any means. We again used the glass lid in place of the foil so no cheese stuck.
What is also nice about this meal is it gives us our vegetables and lunch the next day. Unfortunately, it is lacking in protein.
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1396, 2011-09-11_121533