Chicken in Mustard with Sour Cream Noodles

This one is to try, we need a good chicken recipe and HJK swears by it.

Pork Satay with Asian Slaw

Going to try pork satay on the grill using this recipe from the times, with this asian slaw that I've made many times (add fish sauce)- it's peanut heaven!

Yes to Zucchini

This wonderful recipe  has led me to realize I don't need a fancy recipe to make a simple Tex-Mex dinner. And it uses up all that stuff in your pantry and freezer that you need to get rid of when you move.

All it takes is some frozen corn, and black beans (which you can drain/defrost in the same colander), some rice (leftover or not, just a half cup uncooked), some leftover jarred salsa (1 cupish), some sauteed onions, and pretty much whatever other veg you want. I should have put some mushrooms in there is what I'm saying. Sautee most of the stuff with 1 tsp cumin and 1/2 tsp chili powder, put it in some hollowed out zucchini, top it with whatever cheese you want, and a 400 degree oven for 25 minutes, and that is some superpower dinner.

It's fast, it's cheap, and everyone loves Tex-Mex. You can sautee some shrimp at the end if you need to. I had a lot of leftover filling, and put it in a casserole. Top it with cheese. It's worth it just for the cheese, really.

Waterzooi

It's a Belgian Chicken soup, and it's creamy delicious.

http://food52.com/recipes/19840-belgian-chicken-waterzooi

Minestrone- Cannellini, Beef and Tomato Soup

This is a fabulous and quick soup.  G's favorite. Super easy and relatively quick. Good anytime.

Salads

From Bittman, these are the ones I want to try:

15. Cut cherry or grape tomatoes in half; toss with soy sauce, a bit of dark sesame oil and basil or cilantro. I love this — the tomato juice-soy thing is incredible.

19. Mix cooked cannellini or other white beans, chopped cherry or grape tomatoes and arugula or baby spinach. Lightly toast sliced garlic in olive oil with rosemary and red pepper flakes; cool slightly, add lemon zest or juice or both, then pour over beans.

38. Cube watermelon; combine with roughly chopped mint, crumbled feta, sliced red onion and chopped Kalamata olives. Dress lightly with olive oil and lemon juice. Despite saltiness of feta and olives, this may need salt.

49. Toss greens with walnuts, blue cheese and raspberries; drizzle with a simple vinaigrette. Sell for $14 a serving.

50. It’s puttanesca-ish: Egg salad with pitted black olives, chopped tomatoes, capers, anchovies (optional), a tiny bit of garlic and some red onion; mayonnaise as needed.

55. Mix watercress with chopped smoked salmon, avocado, red onion and capers. Make a vinaigrette with olive oil, sherry vinegar and mustard powder.

Best Banana Nut Muffins

I love banana bread but also muffins. America's Test Kitchen only has a recipe for banana BREAD (two actually), so I modified it with a Tyler Florence recipe which is actually quite similar to the ATK recipe.... just sayin.

In a bowl combine 2 c flour, 3/4 cup granulated sugar, 3/4 tsp of baking SODA, 1/2 tsp TABLE salt, and a cup of walnuts that have been chopped up and toasted (smitten has tips) on how to do that.

In another bowl, three very ripe bananas mashed up with a potato masher, 1/4 cup of plain wholefat yogurt, 6 tablespoons of melted and cooled butter, two lightly beaten eggs, and a tsp of vanilla extract.

Add the combined banana mix to the dry ingredients and fold in.

Spray a muffin tin (I usually need two, this makes 18 total).

375 on the lower middle rack, for 18-20 minutes. It's muffin time!

Sheet Pan Dinner, NYTIMES

If you are sometimes cooking for one, say, if the rest of your family has abandoned you and one member of your family only eats mush, then it behooves you to have a simple, one (dishwasher safe) pan recipe that cooks in ten minutes with a two minute prep. And that recipe is anything that you can roast on a sheet pan.  If you are indeed parenting solo, then it would also behoove you to treat yourself to something delicious and sumptuous, a little treat to say, good job, woman!

And for me, that is halibut. Because that shit is expensive.

 But a little goes a long way. I got less than half a pound and it was good for dinner and lunch!

The recipe is not even a recipe, it's a state of mind. Set oven to 400 degrees. Get out sheet pan. Put fish on sheet pan, drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper it (be generous).

Cut up a head of broccoli. Put the florets on the sheet pan. Olive oil, salt, pepper. You could do other stuff, but I don't.

Here is the key. SPREAD OUT the broccoli so that the florets don't really touch.  This lets them get crispy and truly breathtaking, even if it's only broccoli. As I was eating it, I thought, I prefer this to candy. TO CANDY?!

10 minutes, check it, 10 more minutes (the halibut is pretty thick, the rule is ten minutes per inch.) 20 minutes was perfect for the broccoli. I ate it standing up, over the oven, in the pan. Gourmet, indeed.

Panda Express Style Mushroom Chicken

I have a dear dear relationship with this chicken, which I remember sharing with my mom when I was at Montgomery Mall in middle school and from hence all it has always been my go to mall dish. I always crave it but it's not so easy to get. I'd have to go all the way to the mall.

This is a version

And this is the version that inspired that version

And this is my version:
1 pound boneless skinless chicken thighs, cut into thin bite sized slices - pretty small is better
3 tablespoons cornstarch 
1 tablespoon canola oil 
1 tablespoon sesame oil 
1 8 oz package of mushrooms (sliced)
2 medium zucchini, cut in half lengthwise, then in ½ inch slices 
2 tbl soy sauce + 1tbl balsamic vinegar (I didn't even use all of the sauce!) 
Lots of minced garlic (at least two cloves)
2 teaspoons minced ginger

This recipe is pretty fast if you prep everything first.
Season the chicken in salt and pepper, then coat the chicken with the cornstarch. I put the chicken in the bag, then add 1 tbl of cornstarch at a time, because it wants to clump up.
Heat the oil to pretty hot (on high) and put the chicken in using tongs, so that it doesn't clump up. Flip during cooking to get a little crispness (this seems to go away when you add the sauce, but oh well).

Take the chicken out of the pan once it's cooked through. Keeping the pan at high, add the zucchini and mushrooms. In a few minutes they will wilt down, add liquid and get ready to soak up yummy juices. Add in LOTS of garlic and ginger, and cook it down for half a minute. Then add the chicken back in and pour the sauce in a tblspn or so at a time. Watch it thicken like magic. Thanks, cornstarch!

I don't add all the sauce just in case it gets too wet. I like that nice gloopy food court consistency.

It's not the same but it is a fast (and healthy) dinner! Too lazy to make the panda fried rice. Will just have to make do with white rice.

BACK from the dead

Update: Living in Richmond, VA
Married: To one uprooted mid-westerner
Raising- One full fledged eater- now seven and a half.
Expecting: One little scooter. Who counts as a half. Due in September.

While this news is very exciting, less so is the fact that my cooking has dropped by a LOT. There have been cooking adventures: a bo ssam, experiments with a fryer, and even some baking.

This spring break has been relaxing enough to make me say, I will cook again! I will!

I will commit to chicken, and pasta and something else that's easy to cook this week.

Since it was Easter we got a ham, even though it was only three of us. So we've been eating a lot of ham. Also, delicious creamy mashed potatoes from America's Test Kitchen. The secret? Use a food mill. Use Yukon Golds. And melt the butter into heavy cream.  We add a lot of salt, no pepper!!

A pre-cooked ham is not really a feat of cooking in and of itself. It's the effort, people.

June 20

Soup. Chicken, rice, carrot, celery , salt: bittman.




Stripes



Fancy

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Pancakes- the best?

One of the problems of having too many cookbooks is you have multiple variations of recipes. How do you know what will work?  It's Sunday morning, I've got the flour, the sugar, and the butter all out and I've got multiple tabs open.  Usually I trust Bittman. But I've been burned by Bittman's pancakes before (only figuratively). He recommends two cups of flour to one tablespoon of sugar. And even that's optional!  So I turned to Martha. And she has a more reasonable one cup of flour to two tablespoons of sugar recipe. Also, that's a good amount of pancakes for one and a half peoples.  But what if I want to add fruit? Bittman says it's ok. It's a variation.  So I pour the batter, top with fruit, wait for bubbles and flip. I also like that Martha says to douse some oil on a paper towel and use that to rub the pan down with. It is effective.
Here's Martha's recipe
And Bitman's *the picture is so not fair. of course his pancakes are better if you put bananas and pecans on top of them.
Is there something I don't know?

It looks like any ordinary pancake:





And then....

Menu for this week

This is just random things I like to eat page now.

I am moving to a new place in my cooking, where I throw caution to the wind and NOT USE recipes.

Yesterday I just threw some butter and garlic into a pan, sauteed some shrimp, guaging their doneness BY EYE, and sprinkling lemon juice on it because that seemed to make sense! For those of you creative types, this is probably no big thing. But for me it was revelatory.

I feel like eating:

Paula Deen's Curry Chicken salad. This is the best chicken salad ever. This is better than cosi's chicken salad, and better than Au Bon Pain's. It is the best chicken salad ever.

Now, Martha Stewart gets me. She and I share a birthday. That's how I know we're kindred spirits.

She read my mind and made this web page for me: 50 No Recipe Meals

I'm going to make #4: Dip tilapia fillets in mayo and lemon juice, then in a combo of breadcrumbs and Parmesan; bake. Serve with a green salad.

and #5: Simmer homemade or jarred spicy tomato sauce; add eggs, cover, and poach. Serve with tortilla chips and diced avocado

and I'm pretty intrigued by #8: Top pizza dough with sliced eggplant, and brush with oil. Top with goat cheese and olives; bake.

New apartment, new kitchen, new challenges

I just moved into my new apartment a few weeks ago. It was built in the 1930's and it's adorable.




Living room




Bedroom




Bathroom

And ominous music..




Kitchen.

It's tough. I have a third of the cabinet and counter space I used to have and even though it's not bad for a dc kitchen, it's tricky. Note: no dishwasher.

Look at my circa 1970 refrigerator- if you dare:




The fridge is bad, too, but the embarrassing amount of junk food must be hidden from view.

All in all, a challenge. Plus it's a billion degrees outside and there's no AC in there.

What will I make this week?

Mark Bittman's Grown up Macaroni and Cheese: I'll probably add tuna to it. Because that's how I roll.

I have been craving some Korean Chicken or Rib Stew. I got my hands on some kimchee. It's a lot. It doesn't come in a size less than a lot, unless you buy the weird not real kind at the Safeway, that's always tucked next to the Tofu. I have to figure out what to eat it with. It goes well with eggs, but not as well with toast. Go figure.

An unfortunate side effect to living in this walkable neighborhood with a kitchen that will broil you alive in the daytime if the oven is on, is eating out a lot. I have been to the pizza place not less than three times this month. And I may be going there again tomorrow. Darn you, pizza place!!


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What is this?

This is my dinner. Don't worry, I'm not going to make Gideon eat this. It's a silkie. Yes, underneath those silky feathers is a disgustingly black dragon chicken.


This is not my venture. This is going to take, I'm guessing this is going to take so much longer than 30 minutes it's not even funny.

I'll update how this guy tastes. Preparation style: beer can, of course. That's the traditional Chinese method, right?




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Dinner Wins!

FTW...FTW... I had been seeing this strange acronym around the interweb for a few weeks and wondering.. what is that? Full time wanker? Fits the window? What is that?

Luckily more knowledgeable folks informed me that people used the statement to declare that they were about to present something so awesome that it would effectively end, and claim ownership of, the conversation: FOR THE WIN: origin: hollywood squares...

I have yet to incorporate this lovable axiom in my everyday vernacular, but I'm going to try!!

Anyway, here's the deal for this week:

Pasta with chicken, feta and tomatoes. I have feta and I have pasta and tomatoes, I even have a dying basil plant in my windowsill, so this pasta needs to happen. Now all I need is a roasted chicken...

Korean Rib stew. I'm going to modify a favorite recipe for a delicious korean soy sauce based stew, exchanging chicken thighs for riblets. The pork ribs are infused with this delicious soy stew. Potatoes are also an integral part of this recipe, they become infused with this soy juice and it is glorious! Serve with rice. (Ironically i first labeled this recipe Koran Rib stew. That would have been wrong..)

And FTW! (I think i may be using that wrong...)

Steak with Peanut Sauce and Broccoli. This recipe involves some marinating, but luckily I get part of Wednesday off as I am being appreciated at my job! Then on Thursday we get to have an awesome dinner with my coworkers. So not as much cooking this week.

Then on Friday dinner with my friend and her twin boys. They will be moving to Nashville soon. so sad! But maybe some barbeque recipes inspired by them will be upcoming :)

Party ideas

How about a party featuring this Sweet Tea drink?


I had a version of this at H Street country Club on H street--good times with the girls :)

I'm getting a divorce. It's no longer my husband and I and our son who live outside of Washington, it's just my son and I. Recovery from something like this always takes its own course. I need to make a list of things I will do, or still do, things that I enjoy, things that my son enjoys:

1) go to museums
2) have parties at my house
3) go out to eat
4) go to the arboretum
5) have friends over more often

Classic extrovert. I like to be surrounded by people. I think the classic things people feel in these cases are true to form for me. In some ways I don't think all humans are special. I think, like most animals, we are restricted by a certain amount of sameness. That's why people like doctors can do their jobs because our bodies react to things in formulaic fashion. Our brains are much the same. People respond to being abandoned with certain pre-programmed ideas or responses.

I'll still be cooking, but cooking for 1 and a half.

Finally! A dinner that is utterly edible and even yummy: Coconut Fish Chowder

This is another recipe that I can say hallelujah for a sixteen dollar Hamilton Beach immersion blender that has made soup purées so easy.

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Canadian bacon gratin

Before




After (eggs baked and smothered with some fonky Fontina)

Omigod this was awful. Epic fail! Okay it wasn't terrible but the eggs, they were just so runny. Flavor wise it was pretty tasty, but there's something about raw egg that just tastes yucky.

And plus the fontina in this just tasted fonky. (That's funky with emphasis. It's going into Websters this year...)

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