Dreary Winter Weather Calls For Comfort

I can't believe how far back I'm playing catchup with some of these recipes. I know there are some good recipes I'm missing out on posting about because I just can't remember making them, and I didn't get a picture to help me. I'll have to riffle through my mountain of printed recipes to see if I can find any gems. It definitely says nothing about the food if I can't remember it...just that I'm dumb and scatter-brained. Heh.

But one good thing comes from my delay, and that's the weather! When I first made this chicken and dumpling stew, courtesy of I made that!, it was cold and rainy and I was in dire need of some comfort food, and oh my did it ever fit the bill. I've actually made it twice already. But since then the weather warmed up and it looked as if our typical mild Southern California winter would pay us a visit. Nope. The East Coast is buried under snow, So Cal keeps getting hit with much needed rain, and six more weeks of winter are upon us. So it looks like the comfort food is still appropriate, no matter what the bright summer produce from Chile tries to convince me of otherwise.

I used chicken breasts (bone in) instead of thighs because I have an irrational aversion to chicken fat. I think it stems from my grandmother force feeding me KFC when I was a kid. Oh, and the chicken thighs they sell at the store are really fatty, if you didn't get the correlation there. I also punched up the vegetables a bit by adding carrots, celery, and frozen green beans, in addition to the peas called for. I also used 1% instead of whole milk. But otherwise I followed to recipe to a T, and it was delicious! It's creamy without being heavy, and the thyme, tarragon, and bay provide some great flavors. And the dumplings...oh the dumplings!

First off, I had never made chicken and dumplings before. So when I read the recipe I was a bit confused. I was supposed to drop the batter into the stew? No way! I closed my eyes, dropped the batter in, covered the pot and let it cook for the alloted time, and when I took the cover off, I was greeting by these huge, fluffy bits of heaven. Moist on the outside, dry and biscuity on the inside, and a great companion to the chicken pot pie flavors of the stew. Oh man, this recipe is definitely a keeper.

Must Remember Vegetarian Goodness!

I was so unbelievably crazy busy last week that I didn't get a chance to tell you all about the most wonderfully delicious food I made. A travesty! Well this week you'll get two posts. Unless I get busy again...But the food must be documented so I won't forget it! It's all so delicious, it must be made again!

So if you recall 2 weeks ago, I made a bunch of meat. Not surprisingly, since I'm not a big meat eater, I was in the mood to go vegetarian last week. I stuck with lots of veggies, whole grains, and legumes mostly. But don't worry. I did some easy chicken in teriyaki sauce for Husband. Nothing special to blog about there. Heh. Anyway, here is the deliciousness that was my food for last week:

• Spring green risotto, courtesy of Ina Garten. Oh my word, this is good. Even Husband, Mr. if it doesn't have meat or chocolate it's just ok, went on and on about how good it was. This was my first time making risotto, and I have to say it wasn't bad. Lots of stirring. It takes a little more thought to time management. But definitely do-able! First off, I was very pleased at how many veggies were in this dish. Usually grain dishes call for about 80% rice or pasta with only a sprinkling of veggies. Have you noticed that? It totally bugs me. This one was different. It was at least 50/50, if not more weighted to vegetables. After I added all the peas and asparagus, it almost all didn't fit in the pan! Make sure you use a big pan if you make this. And the flavor! I don't know where it came from! I added the ingredients. I thought it would taste pretty good. And then I took a bite and my head just about exploded from flavor. This Ina Garten is amazing! I think it was the combination of the wine with the fennel. Oh, this was also my first time using fennel. It's good! I skipped the mascarpone cheese because I've never had mascarpone cheese (I find it easier to leave out a flavor if I don't know what I'm missing, heh) and I didn't think the extra fat would be needed. And I think I was right. Also, I used green onions instead of chives because I already had some on hand. My only regret is that they don't make brown arborrio rice. I'm all about the whole grains!
• White beans with tuna, courtesy of The Kitchn. I'm all about cannellini beans lately (aka white kidney beans). They're fantastic! Creamy and light and slightly sweet. Yum. I did this light cold, well it was basically a salad, because I wanted some easy protein and I wanted something cold. I used champagne vinegar instead of red wine because I wanted to keep it light and not too strong. And my red wine vinegar may also be the cheapest stuff you can buy at the store, which after watching the vinegar episode of Good Eats, I now realize is not the way to go. Also, I left out the onion because, well, I forgot all about it. I don't think it was needed, though I'm sure it would have been tasty. It's very tuna-y, so if canned tuna doesn't do it for you, I would skip this one. Otherwise it hit the spot!
• Miso carrot and ginger dressing, courtesy of Smitten Kitchen. Phew! It took me some google searching to remember where I had gotten this recipe. It was a last minute find, so it wasn't in my usual email list where I keep my recipes. I should have known it was Smitten Kitchen...since that's where I seem to get most things, right? I wanted more vegetables, and this recipe also allowed me to try more of the white miso I bought for the miso soup I made a few weeks ago. I shredded half a head of red cabbage and mixed it with a shredded broccoli and carrot mixture I bought from Trader Joe's. I made 1 1/2 times the recipe, and it turned out to be just enough for my giant tupperware's worth of veggies. This was another winner, for sure. The dressing is wonderful. It was sweet from the carrots, salty from the miso, and the ginger went really nicely. It went perfectly over the veggies to make a nice, cold slaw. Geez, I'm into those a lot lately. Could it have anything to do with the fact that it's boiling hot?
• Bulgur wheat with lentils, caramelized onions, and mushrooms, courtesy of Culinate. I have to say...this was right up there with the risotto for me. Husband wasn't as big a fan, but he also has something against food that looks like a can of dog food (and thus lentils, mostly). This was a really earthy dish. The lentils and mushrooms had such a nutty flavor together that I ended up sprinkling some sliced almonds on top. That really did it for me. The extra crunch was nice. I also served it over a bed of arugala for some added vegetable. The sweet onions went so well with the earthy flavors. This is one to repeat, for sure. Note: it looks like the Culinate website is down today, so you won't be able to check this recipe out until tomorrow. Contain yourself!
• For dessert/breakfast, I tried these peanut butter banana oatmeal bars, courtesy of Visions of Sugar Plum. They really appealed to me because first, I had some over-ripe bananas to use up. Second, I've been totally in the mood to bake with banana ever since I saw the banana episode of Good Eats a few weeks ago. Third, I like that it used whole grains to make it a little healthier. And fourth, who doesn't love peanut butter, banana, and oats together? I do! Overall they turned out...pretty good. Husband wasn't too impressed, mostly because he was looking for a totally different consistency he never would have gotten with the ingredients that were in there. He wanted fluffy. These were chewier. The puffed rice gave them a softer, kind of soggy texture. Husband suggested I try added baking powder next time to help with the fluffing. I think he's crazy and he doesn't know anything about baking. I don't know if I'll make these again. I enjoyed eating them, but I think similar ingredients in another recipe might work out better. Like maybe an oatmeal banana bread? I did find a better, more delicious, much less healthy way to use up my over-ripe bananas. But that's a recipe for this week's second post.
• Soft pretzels, courtesy of Smitten Kitchen. I made these for a picnic/outdoor concert we went to with some friends on Thursday night. Thursday was not a good cooking day. I also made pork bao, which I've mentioned before. Both recipes I've made successfully before, but not that day. I think that when I know I'm cooking for other people, I get tense and things just don't turn out as good. Also, I totally ran out of time. I didn't properly calculate how much time I would need to bake the pretzels and steam the buns. Or really, I just didn't take batches into account. I was frantically throwing buns in mesh strainers that were rigged over pots of water. But let's talk pretzels. First off, you'll need to roll these out really thin. Don't worry, you'll be amazed how much they puff up. If you leave them thick, then they're smoosh together as they rise and won't have that awesome pretzel shape. Also, don't use parchment paper! Or if you do, spray it with Pam first. I used it plain and my dough stuck like crazy to the point where my pretzels just looked like blobs. I didn't have time to bake the 2 sheets in batches, so I threw one pan at the bottom of the oven, where it by no means cooked evenly. I was so disappointed that I almost threw them straight in the trash after they came out of the oven. Husband convinced me not to. And go figure, everyone loved them. They each had at least 2 (so more than just a no thank you helping), some had 3. He had fun saying "I told you so". I didn't add anything on top, like pretzel salt. I don't have pretzel salt, and I think the dough is plenty salty by iteself. Also, the flavor of the pretzels is greatly enhanced by topping them with some Gulden's mustard. I'm telling you, it goes the best. By far.

This food was all so good! I would make it all again, which is why I wanted to make sure to blog about it. It's a good way to find the recipes later. Hopefully I'll have time to blog again later this week to tell you all about what I'm eating this week. Let me just tell you now, so far, so frakking good!

Dumpling Delight!

One thing I always order when at a Japanese restaurant is miso soup. I love miso, I love soup, so it's a match made in heaven. I had seen some discussions on miso soup on some blogs, but was confused by all the unfamiliar ingredients. What is dashi?! It's apparently the most important part of the soup: the broth. How do I get it? That unanswered question had kept me from trying to make my own miso soup for...well ok, only 6 months. But last week I found the answer! Dashi is made by heating up water with sea kelp (konbu) and these nasty fish flakes I don't want to know too much about (aka: bonito). Well those seemed like ingredients I might be able to actually find in a store. To be safe, I planned a trip to my local Asian food market. I'll admit I don't particularly like going to the Asian food market. It's 20 miles away, the parking lot is always full and the spaces are tiny. It's always crazy crowded inside, and the aisles are so narrow that two carts can barely pass by each other. And it smells like fish, which I find to be a very unappetizing smell (I avoid the fish counter at the grocery store too). So I figured if I was going to make the trip, I might as well find some other Asian dishes to make.

Somewhere along the way in my food blog perusing last week I came upon a recipe for pork bao. For those of you not hip to the lingo, pork bao, or Cha Siu Bao, are those steamed bbq pork dumplings you have at dim sum. Never had dim sum? Then you haven't lived! Go and eat some right now! I also found a recipe for some shrimp dumplings that are also something similar to what I've had at dim sum. And this week's Asian food theme was born.

• Miso soup, courtesy of Serious Eats. This isn't really a recipe, more like an explanation of ingredients and general guidelines. At the very least, it's very informative! I ended up reading this through several times, and then writing my own recipe from it. I'll post that over the weekend, hopefully. The soup used a lot of scary ingredients, but it ended up being pretty simple, and very easy (minus the ringing of hot fishy broth through a cheese cloth, that was rather gross). I'll have to play around with the proportions. I think the miso soups I've had in most restaurants are still better than what I made, but I still thought it was yummy. I ended up buying two kinds of miso at the store, barley (because that's what the guy in the article used), and white because I needed white for another recipe. I tried both kinds in the soup and they tasted so similar I don't think it really mattered. The white miso looked closest to what I get in restaurants, so I assume that's what they use.
• Pork Bao, courtesy of Cdkitchen. This recipe required quite a few items from the Asian market of the condiment/sauce persuasion. Namely, sweet soy sauce, hoisin sauce, and oyster sauce. Other than the sweet soy sauce, which I had never heard of before (it's thicker and sweeter (obviously) than normal soy sauce), you can buy hoisin and oyster sauce at a regular grocery store. I figured, first, if I'm going all the way to the Asian market, I might as well get everything I can, and second, I've bought hoisin sauce at the grocery store before and it was disgusting. I don't know what the difference was between what I bought the first time, and what I bought this time, but what I bought this time tastes much better. Anyway, OMFG, these turned out fantastically delicious! The sauce was sweet, the buns were light and fluffy, and the pork was tender . My mouth is watering just remembering them. They are, sadly, already gone. One thing to understand about my husband, he eats pork bao like potato chips. He just pops them in his mouth whole and reaches for the next one while he's chewing. Seriously. It's hilarious. When we're at dim sum, he usually cleans out the lady's entire cart. He doesn't like having to wait for a second round. So needless to say, I had to do some major convincing (read: guilt tripping) to get these 24 buns to last 2 whole days. I was very proud of him. I actually got to eat one or two of them. Some tips on the buns: I used a steamer basket in a pot of water to steam the buns (4 buns at a time fit in mine, but I have a large one). This worked great, except the first round of buns stuck to the basket. The next round I sprayed some Pam first with the same result. Then I remembered pork bao at dim sum always have a bit of paper stuck to the bottom, so I tried cutting up squares of parchment paper to stick to the bottom of the bun while it steams. That worked like a charm, and they were perfect after that. Also, the recipe didn't specify, so I used pork rib meat. I was looking for something without a lot of fat.
• Chinese Chive Dumplings, courtesy of Use Real Butter. Tapioca starch and wheat starch were my Asian market items on this recipe. If you've ever made mochi or used Mochiko flour it has a similar texture to these starches. It's kind of like cornstarch. Kind of unpleasant to handle and it gets everywhere. Have I mentioned I need an apron? So I'm kind of a dummy and misread the recipe. I thought it said 1/4 cup wheat starch, not 1 1/4 cups, so I was surprised when my "dough" I was supposed to "knead" was still a liquid. I ended up just mixing in more starch (trading off between tapioca and wheat since it didn't specify) in 1/4 cup increments, until it stopped sticking to my fingers. It turned out fine, I think. I also couldn't find garlic chives, so I just used green onion. They turned out delicious! The dough had that wonderful gummy consistency I love so much. I usually make food to last the week, but these really didn't keep well. The next day the dough was tough and the flavor was gone (though popping them in the microwave helped a lot), so I would recommend a single meal with these. Also, I ran out of the shrimp filling after about 12 dumplings (the recipe is supposed to make 18), so I would recommend buying more shrimp, or doing what I did and find an alternate filling. I had ended up with extra red onion (more on that later) and savoy cabbage, so I minced the onion and sliced the cabbage very thing and sauteed them in vegetable oil until soft. I actually liked this filling better than the shrimp, though I think that's only because my shrimp were a little fishy tasting (I'm very picky about my fish being fresh which is why I mostly just eat sushi).
• Stuffed savoy cabbage, courtesy of Serious Eats. First off, I've never bought dried mushrooms before. I've always seen them in the store, but have only ever used fresh. Well this recipe called for dried porcini mushrooms. I figured, no biggie. I see that called for all the time in recipes, should be no problem. Wrong. None of the grocery stores I went to had any dried mushrooms at all. Why don't I just go live in a barn while I'm at it? One guy tried to give me fresh button mushrooms when I asked him where the dried mushrooms were located. The nerve! Thankfully Trader Joe's came to my rescue yet again with a mixed dried mushroom medley. It had porcini, oyster, and shitake mushrooms (and maybe some others I'm forgetting). I just picked out the oyster and figured it'd be good enough (and it was). I modified this recipe a bit to make it a little healthier. I used ground turkey instead of beef. I used brown rice instead of white. And I used whole wheat breadcrumbs instead of white (I just pulsed some slices of bread in my cuisinart). I couldn't tell the difference, or if anything, it gave the dish more flavor. My mom said she didn't think stuffed cabbage was very Asian, and I guess it's not, but the flavors will went pretty well, I think, with the other food. I'm not really a fan of ground turkey, and thankfully that flavor was completely masked by all the other great flavors going on. The tomatoes, the mushrooms, and the cabbage itself provided for some very flavorful mush. My favorite! One thing to note about this recipe, it doesn't use all of its onion! It calls for 1 heaping cup of minced onion, but the recipe itself only ever calls for 1/2 cup. I had no idea what I was supposed to do with the other half. I just left it out, and don't think it was even missed.
• Sweet summer corn and edamame salad with walnut-miso dressing, courtesy of Serious Eats. Oh man, this was good. This is one of those great recipes that takes minutes. If you used frozen corn, it would literally take as long as defrosting the veggies. I'd seen recipes that used mirin in the past, so I looked for it several times at several grocery stores and never found it. No problem, the Asian market had 10 different kinds. Of course, the next day, I found some at my local grocery store. Go figure. I must say, edamame is darn filling! The dressing was light and sweet and have I mentioned how much I love miso?

All successes this week, I think. Everything turned out so delicious, that it barely lasted! Good thing this is a short week at work because Husband polished off the last of the food for lunch today. I would make everything again. In fact, I found a recipe this week for sui mai. I'm thinking having some friends over sometime for some dim sum-type food would be a good way to go the next time. Of course, I'll have to triple of the pork bao recipe at least.