Small Plates

Everything Tastes Better with Sriracha

Well, maybe not cake. But read on. The original purpose of this blog was to motivate me to eat healthier and talk about it, and not become a shrine to cake. (Not that that's a bad thing.)

Speaking of, here's my latest effort. A German chocolate cake for my friend Kelly. It was exciting. Recipe courtesy of the amazing David Lebovitz. Everything I make by him gets me hugged.

But now, less cake and more green things. And hopefully more regular postings with me proudly showing off plates full of antioxidants and flavonoids. (Don't worry; there'll always be cake, too. I haven't lost my mind or anything.)

When Love Hands You Lemons

The alternative title to this post could easily be, "It's Hard to Photograph Glass Because of All The Stupid Smudges."

Also maybe, "Don't Take Pictures By Pointing Your Lens Directly Into The Sun."  Anyhow, my sarcasm about photography aside, I have an awful lot of glorious lemons. And I can't bear that even a single one go wasted or unused because my dad sent them to me from his tree and they are delicious.

Watching Olympic athletes sweat always makes me thirsty, so I thought some lemonade was in order. I would never have been industrious enough to juice these by hand, but I did buy a simple citrus juicer awhile ago and was sure Ina Garten or Alton Brown could tell me how to make a really good batch of lemonade.

Ina did, in fact, though I modified her recipe of blending superfine sugar and water with the juice by taking the additional step of making simple syrup.

I can't believe how much excitement the blender added to this recipe. Instead of clear, the lemonade was almost frosty in appearance and absurdly delicious. I thought it would end up like a slushee, but it wasn't at all. Just very nicely cold. Suddenly, I don't seem to have an excess of lemons after all...

Fresh Lemonade

~5 lemons (should yield 1 cup of juice)
3/4 cup to 1 cup sugar (to your own taste)
1 cup crushed ice
4 cups water

Boil 1 cup of sugar and 1 cup of water until sugar dissolves. Cool.
Blend sugar-water mixture with juice from lemons, ice, and 3 cups of water.
Serve over ice. Resist drinking entire pitcher by yourself. Bon Appétit!

Small Triumphs

You know how you just don't do some things very well? Well, for me that has always been carving up roast birds. I generally watch, seethingly, as cooking pundits glide through the process, making it sound as easy as slicing bread.

But, lately, I've started roasting whole, free range organic chickens more and more. I love them, they taste great, and they last me for many days. I bought yet another free-range, organic, air-chilled bird on sale, and roasted it with my favorite recipe from my favorite, sauce-splattered French cookbook. 

This time I was determined to find those damn joints--and I did! I carved off the whole breast to slice into pieces. I found all the joints and only cut through a small portion of bone on one leg.

Apparently They are right. It does just take practice. Lots and lots of practice.

The lemons I used are from my father's tree in Los Angeles. Nothing makes me happier than when he sends me some. They taste amazing.

Roasted Chicken with Lemon and Thyme

1 bird, 3lbs-ish (any gizzards in cavity removed and discarded)
2 lemons
bundle of fresh thyme
salt and pepper
4-5 T softened butter

Preheat the oven to 450. Bring bird to room temperature. Thoroughly dry the bird and then salt and pepper liberally--inside and out. Place on a rack in a roasting pan. Slice 1 lemon into two haves, squeeze the juice and pour into the cavity, and then stuff cavity with lemon halves and thyme bundle. Rub the butter over the chicken breasts. Finally, squeeze the juice of the remaining lemon over the chicken and put the chicken into the oven.

After 20 minutes, reduce heat to 400. Check after about another 40 minutes, and make sure the juices run clear when a knife is inserted into the thickest part of the thigh, or use whatever temperature measurements you go by. (Standard safety measurement for chicken thigh is 170.)

Sometimes I find that even though the temperature is fine, when carving the bird, there may be some pinkish to red parts around the dark meat. I carve the chicken, and just stick the pink pieces back into the oven for another 10-15 minutes. This way, you avoid overcooking the chicken breast.

Next up: When USPS brings you lemons, you make lemonade!

Poor Man's Biryani

So, last night I had this defrosted bit of ground beef, and I'd overloaded on bolognese recently. (Which, I didn't even think was possible.)

I really couldn't let the beef go another day, and I remembered that I had some frozen peas, too. I decided to make Keema Muttar (perhaps unsurprisingly: ground beef and peas).

I didn't have serrano peppers, but figured that would be okay to exclude. I didn't have any yogurt, though. And that was tragic. I hate eating Pakistani food (with very, very few exceptions like nihari or haleem) without yogurt. But, I was also lazy and it was late, so no yogurt for me.

This was my mom's recipe. And generally this is eaten with bread, not rice. But I wanted rice, and I didn't have any paratha or naan in the house. (A situation I need to correct soon.)  My mom was brilliant with leftovers. She knew that I was picky picky about eating anything more than two days in a row, so by the third day she would brilliantly combine things into makeshift biryani or tahiri. And that's what I did last night, to make up for the horror of not having yogurt in the house (my logic is not our earth logic). My mom would be shocked that I did this, because you wouldn't believe the fuss I'd kick up if there was no yogurt in the house. I was quite the little diva with her, wasn't I?

It's not the prettiest dish of food, I know. But it was really comforting and tasty. And today, I'm going to be sure to pick up some yogurt at the market.

Keema Muttar

Note: I think ground beef looks better, because the beef browns up so nicely. But I also love this with ground chicken.

vegetable oil, about a quarter cup
1 large onion, sliced pole-to-pole into thin strips
salt to taste
1 t ground cumin
1 t ground coriander
1/2 t caynne pepper
1/4 t turmeric
1 t minced ginger
1 t minced garlic
2 serrano peppers, seeded and minced
1lb ground chicken or beef or turkey
1 14 oz can of tomatoes with juice (or 2-3 chopped fresh tomatoes)
frozen peas, about a cup or more
1/2 cup chopped cilantro (can be omitted for cilantro-haters!)

Heat oil in pot. Add onions and spices and salt and cook until brown. Add garlic, ginger, and serrano peppers. Cook for a few more minutes. Add ground meat. Stir and brown until cooked. Add tomatoes and continue cooking over medium heat for about 15-20 minutes until tomatoes have cooked down. Add frozen peas, combine. Cook until peas are heated through and finish with cilantro. This is a little juicy, but there isn't a sauce with this.

Me Eat Pretty One Day

I think I've mentioned my new found zealotry towards the slow cooker. I had some chicken thighs in the freezer and wanted to make something stew-ish with them. Enter A Year of Slow Cooking's Salsa Chicken and Black Bean Soup.

It looks reasonably attractive in her photo, mainly because she didn't lose her mind with the immersion blender as I did. I am totally unwilling to show you my bowl of what looks like bat barf.

Instead, here is a photo of my Annouk, hiding her face in shame for me.

I was leery of eating it, honestly. But I have a vat full of the stuff and couldn't, in good consciousness, just chuck it all out without tasting it.

And it's not bad! It's dying for a swoosh of lime, but I haven't even bothered tossing the recommended cheese on top. I just added some cilantro and called it good. It'll be a good and easy lunch to take to work this week.

For what it is, and the very little time prep time it required, I think it's a decent recipe. One I'd be willing to make again if I found myself with an excess of chicken thighs and salsa. It may get a wild upgrade if I can hunt down some citrus...

Good Morning, Sunday

I woke up, I wanted pancakes. It was as simple as that. This may have also been fueled by the fact that I intended to do chores and needed a pre-chore reward.

I Google'd for a basic recipe. I didn't have any interesting flours, I didn't have buttermilk. I just wanted something comforting and fluffy to put maple syrup and butter on.

I realized, then, that I never make pancakes. Did I ever use to? Was it always from a mix?

In any case, this nice lady at All Recipes had shared her grandmother's recipe. That was good enough for me.  

It took a few tries to get the swing of it. (Pan too hot, pan too cold.) If I ever decide I want to make this for a group, I am so buying a griddle. Doing these one by one in a tiny pan was not efficient, and thank god for my oven's warm setting. I like the recipe. They were super fluffy.

Paired with a little leftover fruit salad, some juice---it made for a rather nice start to today. 

Of course now I have to go do those chores...

butter, onion, tomato, salt

It seems impossible that these are the only four ingredients currently simmering away on my stovetop, perfuming my kitchen---and yet, it's the truth. (Actually, it's a big lie; I haven't added the salt yet.)

I've seen this recipe at many respected food blogs, and when I ran out of leftovers tonight, this seemed like a great idea.

It's definitely different from the traditional tomato sauce I make and different from the quick Cook's Illustrated sauce I like. But it's delicate and light and fantastically simple.

I used my immersion blender, because I wanted a smoother sauce. Good stuff. 

Ingredients: 1 medium onion, peeled and halved. 5 tablespoons of butter, 1 28oz can of good quality whole tomatoes. Salt, to taste.

Directions: Put everything except salt in a saucepan. Bring to simmer. Keep at simmer for 45 minutes, crushing the tomatoes periodically. Add salt to taste. Ladle over cooked noodles. Sprinkle with Parmesan if you like. (I didn't have anyone, and didn't feel I needed any.)

This may be sacriligeous for such a light sauce, but I had mine with a side of meatballs.

Cravings

I realize this is not a particularly unique or interesting combination, but I have been craving fruit salad lately, like nobody's business. There isn't any herb or spice to jazz things up, but I just didn't want interesting. I wanted what I wanted.

Finally, driven mad by yearning, I drove to the market and bought just about every type of fruit I love. I chopped, mixed, and am now blissfully eating. I know I haven't rigorously adhered to in-season fruit, but I had to have all of these!

Banana, red globe grapes, mango, yellow peaches, pineapple, mandarin oranges, ruby red grapefruit, cara cara oranges, asian pear, bosc pear, strawberries.

Craving satisfied!

Renewed Love

It's been awhile, huh? It's been a busy several months and this is just one of the many projects I let slip. But here's to more time for posts about food!

I am seriously in love with my crock pot today. As I'm hoping to ease back into working more from our Seattle office, I really want to use that sucker more. If for nothing else, to eliminate urges for fast food and takeout, since I don't often want to cook when I get home from work.

There's this site I've been hearing about, A Year of Slow Cooking, that I hope to draw inspiration from. Also, my sister in law loaned me her copy of Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook.

And even though I'm working from home today, I threw in a corned beef, with the spice packet. My mom used to make this when I was young, and I freaking loved it. She used to do it on the stove top, but I figured this is just as good. I can't imagine coming home to this at the end of a long, rainy day. Will definitely repeat.

Also in food news, somewhat unrelated to the slow cooker, is this recipe that has been flying about various food blogs. The three-ingredient tomato sauce. (Four, if you include salt.) You take most of a stick of butter, a 28-oz can of good quality, whole tomatoes, and a medium onion that's been peeled and cut in half. Simmer all of these ingredients in a sauce pan for 45 minutes, periodically smushing the tomatoes and discarding the onion at the end. People cannot shut up about it. I have all of these ingredients, plus a lot of pasta. Apparently, this is so good, even Parmesan is superfluous. Crazy. Can't wait to try it.

My big dramatic current problem is that I have a fridge full of exciting leftovers, and I need to work through those before moving on to more cooking. Woe. Is. Me.

Lessons Learned

I made my second fondant cake this weekend for the Seattle Works dessert auction. I think it came out pretty okay. See:

Because I'm lazy, I'm always trying to find ways to make things easier. And arm wrestling a pound of powdered sugar into melted marshmallows tires me out. I wondered if I could use my stand mixer. And, it turns out, I can.

One of the sites said to put 2lbs of sugar into the mixer and then pour in melted marshmallows---using the dough hook. I tried that and it turned out to be a hot mess. Sugar everywhere, fondant lumpy. Boo. Also, waaaaaaay too much sugar. I should have followed my own instincts, which I did for the second batch.

First, I sifted the powdered sugar. I think this is a really key step. Before, when I've made fondant, I didn't. After adding gel coloring, I noticed these hard little nurdles of powered sugar dispersed throughout the colored fondant. They had to be picked out by hand. Sifting the sugar completely eliminated that problem. (Fondant makers everywhere have probably always known this, but it was new and exciting for me.)

Next, I Pam'd the mixing bowl and paddle, and poured in the melted marshmallows. Slowly, I added about a half a cup of sifted powdered sugar at a time and waited for it to incorporate before adding more. When all the sugar was added (~1lb), I switched briefly to the dough hook (pausing to grease that up, too).

It worked marvelously. And because I was doing a single color, I was able to add my gel coloring to the melted marshmallows and easily mix to the shade I wanted, instead of hand kneading the color in for hours and turning my hands all colors of the rainbow (yes, yes I have gloves but I didn't wear them, okay?).

The fondant came out perfectly satin-y smooth, and the hardest part was sifting the sugar. (Not difficult obviously, just teeeedious.)

Really looking forward to the next big cake, which is for leetle Zoe's birthday. It's going to be a festival of pink. I sketched some designs out today and I really can't wait to get started on it! New techniques to try out and everything!