Tag: cooking

I’m finding cooking to be less of an exact science and more of an art. How you combine ingredients and their proportions can help define the dish.

Mash potatoes is a relatively easy dish to make: boil potatoes until tender, dump in a bowl with butter/cream, mash until done. That’s the steps most every recipe I’ve seen has outlined. It’s in between the lines where you can come up with something different. The type of potato, how much butter/cream, skin on or off, extras added. Your mileage may vary but as long as it ends up tasting good then it don’t matter how you got there.

So I bought a bag of potatoes last week which I intended to make mashed potatoes with. I have no idea if these are right for the job. I bought them because they were in a sack which was convenient to carry. This sack had assorted colored potatoes, purple, reds, golds. I took these potatoes washed and removed the dirt on them, threw them into a pot, covered them with water, took it to a boil and then let them cook over medium heat for 20 minutes.

I had also bought bacon. I love bacon on my baked potatoes so I figured I’d throw them in mash potatoes. I crisped up the bacon on a cookie sheet in the oven at 385 for 15 minutes. Usually, I would throw them on top of aluminum foil to make cleaning up easy, but this time I wanted crips so I put them on the bare metal pan. Now, I’ve got to figure out how to clean up a bacon fat congealed pan, but at least they came out crispy. I set the bacon aside to degrease, then chopped it up.

Finally, the garlic. I used the microwave trick. I minced three cloves and placed them in a ramekin with some of the bacon fat. I microwaved them on half power for a minute and a half, stirred them once, and set them in the microwave to finish in another 15 seconds. I forgot to set the power to half. They were almost burnt. Just more dark than I wanted.

When the potatoes were done, I drained them, then started mashing them in a bowl. I don’t have a potato masher, so I used a wooden spoon. I added some salt at this time. Also, some heavy cream and butter which I had heated up in the microwave. I reserved some of the water from the pot to also aid in creaming the potatoes. Sprinkling some salt along with the bacon and the fried garlic, I continued mashing the potatoes until done. I think I went to far as they are a little bit too smooth.

One thing to note is that the purple potatoes were also purple flesh so it looked like ube in there. But they still taste like potatoes.

I guess I’ll be having this for a few lunches before getting sick of them.

On Sunday I went to the grocery store for this week’s meals. Now, I know I bought too much, and I didn’t have any idea of the menu. I just haphazardly shoved stuff into the cart. I knew I wanted to make a salad. I left the groceries with romaine, red cabbage, onions, plum tomatoes, and carrots.

I made a salad earlier in the week which featured these ingredients. It was delish! But now I have too many vegetables in my fridge. I need something different.

So with the cabbage and carrots, I made a coleslaw. I’ll have some for breakfast, some for lunch, and maybe some for dinner. Now I have too much coleslaw in the fridge! (And still too many vegetables!)

I followed the roasted carrot soup on Food52 to make lunch tomorrow. I didn’t follow it faithfully. I used it as the guide to making the soup. Why?

I thought I had enough carrots in my fridge. I was wrong. The recipe calls for 6 to 8 large carrots. I had 5 small carrots! I tried to cut down the amount of broth to fit, but I still kept to the steps.

I broiled the carrots in olive oil for about 20 minutes. I boiled the stock (chicken stock in the fridge!) with piece of ginger and a pinch of dried thyme leaves. I sautéed the onions and garlic until transparent. When the carrots were done, I threw it into the sauté then dumped stock into the pot. I brought it to a boil then backed off and let it simmer for 10 minutes. Finally, I puréed it in my blender.

Now I’m letting it sit to cool before putting it in the fridge to keep over night until lunch tomorrow.

The recipe says it’s a serving for four. Tonight it came out to be about 3 cups. Is that a serving for three? Tomorrow it will be a serving for one!

I did taste it during the puréeing process. It tasted good. Let’s see tomorrow.

Over the weekend, I made some chicken stock for soups. Basically, I used my new pressure cooker’s slow cooker function to craft some chicken stock. It’s a standard stock of whatever I had in my fridge: leeks, celery, carrots, onions, garlic. I just threw them into the slow cooker with 1 1/2 lbs. of chicken wings, set it to 10 hours on low, and let it cook overnight to its heart’s content. Afterwards, I pulled out the chicken and shredded it, cooled the stock and removed the fat. That’s it.

For the soup, I’m just going to sauté onions and carrots, because I still have some on hand. Then throw in the chicken. Now the chicken was shredded so the chunks aren’t really chunks of chicken but small particles of chicken. Unfortunately, this doesn’t look to appetizing, but it is the chicken I got from my stock. I added 2 quarts of the chicken stock and another quart of water.

For seasoning, besides a pinch of salt, I added 1 tsp of thyme and dried basil, 1/4 tsp of white pepper, and a 1/4 tsp of fish sauce (patis).

For noodles, I’m using whole wheat fusilli. I know I put too many in so that it turns into a mushy stew. Hopefully not. (Cross my fingers.)

I took this to a boil then dropped it to low to simmer for an hour. I’ll let you know if it is any good. (Cross my fingers.)

Tried my hand at making onigiri, rice balls. It’s a simple thing to make — cooked rice, a savory filling, a piece of seaweed — formed into a ball.

First the rice. It’s a Japanese rice usually sold at the supermarket as sushi rice. You should use this style because it balls up really well. Somewhere I read that using another type of rice like jasmine or Chinese rice won’t do, because those types don’t ball up well.

Second the filling. Usually there is a filling, if you must know. You could make it without one, but then it won’t be as satisfying. I used tuna. Just a scoop.

Finally the seaweed wrapper. It’s nori! They come in a package of 10. I won’t get anywhere close to using the entire package. It may take me years. I snipped a sheet into 2 small pieces then wrapped the rice balls.

How to shape them? I followed a trick that I read on the net. I used a tea cup and some plastic wrap. I put some plastic wrap on a tea cup then placed some rice on it. I put some filling in and enclosed the rice in my fist. Then shaped it. I shaped it into the traditional triangle. Or at least I thought I did.

One final thing, I used some furakake to add some flavor.

That’s my onigiri. I hope you try it too one day.

I like making soups. I want to make them all the time for dinner. It’s just like how my mom does for almost any and every dinner.

Tonight was miso, mushroom, barley soup – a very comforting combination of flavors.

I got the idea from Mark Bittman’s book, The Kitchen Matrix. There’s a section in the front for quick and easy broths. I followed the one for the mushroom broth. Then threw in the one for miso as well. Two for the price of one.

It’s one pound of mushrooms in six cups of water. Bring it to a boil then simmer. He recommends that these easy broths be done in about 5 to 10 minutes. I let it simmer for about 15 minutes.

The mushrooms I used were white buttosn, brown criminis, and shiitakes. I could’ve done without the shiitakes as they don’t boil very well. But I chopped about 1 1/4 lbs of mushrooms and threw them in the pot.

I seasoned with 2 pinches of salt. Maybe I shouldn’t have as the miso would take care of the sodium content later, but I figured that would make the mushrooms at least a bit tasty.

In a separate and smaller pot, I threw in 1/4 cup of barley. Then when the broth was done, I added 2-3 cups of the mushroom broth. I didn’t add mushrooms at that time, although if some had gotten into the broth when I scooped it, I let them go into the soup.

I boiled and simmered this mixture again for 10 minutes. I assume that, like rice, barley takes about that long to cook. Of course, YMMV but I was also going for a slightly al dente feel to the barley.

Finally, I added 2 tablespoons of white miso and chopped scallions into the simmer, stirred it around, then let it sit for another couple of minutes.

When I put it into a bowl, I added mushrooms and some black pepper. Mmm.

It made about 3 servings.

I was full on the 2nd.

Don’t have coke with this combo. Have tea instead.

The miso was purchased from South River Miso, a Vermont farm making organic miso. I bought the sampler. Their white miso is sublime.