Shanghai Styled Soup Dumplings

My dad, who is originally from the Shanghai region, tells me that dumplings, noodles, and all sorts of bread-oriented foods tend to be more Northern in cuisine since wheat and meat are more readily available. You'll likewise find a plethora of vegetarian dishes the farther south you go within China. While these dumplings are very labor intensive and you'll have the satisfaction that you didn't pay a small ransom to eat at Bellevue's Din Tai Fung restaurant, even though they have a visitor's window that lets you see their prep cooks rolling, filling, and making the very same dumplings.

Think of the last bread recipe you've done then multiply the time you spent waiting for that lazy dough to rise up by two and you get the approximate time it takes for all these ingredients to come together. Good thing gelatin that comes in small neat packages or else we'd be scraping down a length of pig skin for its gelatinous properties.

This recipe ratio comes from Brian Yarvin's A World of Dumplings book. The secret to having soup in a dumpling is to add a small amount of jelled soup to the dumpling before it gets steamed. The heat melts the soup that gently bathes the dumpling in a rich meaty broth, enhancing the elements of the dumpling; or at least that's the idea.

Dumpling making is a group affair, and doing this recipe with others is pleasantly more enjoyable. I should also mention that for this batch, I only made the dough and had the patience to pleat one dumpling. Oh, and I wrote the post and took the pics. :)

Oven Roasted Hamburgers

This method is for those of us who don't own a backyard grill. It's not the best solution and these burgers come out less greasy than if they were to be pan fried. If only I had some brioche buns to go with these. I picked up some lean ground sirloin when it was on sale. Although, with today's meat prices, I'm not sure if "sale" really describes it. These were about $3.50/lb. Try to not knead the meat too much as you mix in the spices. Working the meat too much can make it tough when it cooks.

Ingredients

1 lb lean ground beef
1 tsp sea salt or kosher salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 tbsp Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce

Directions

Preheat oven to 475 degrees F.

In a bowl, mix all the ingredients together. Form into 3" diameter patties that are no more than 1" thick. Place patties on a broiler pan. Roast for 14 minutes, or less, depending on how done you want these to be.

An internal temp of 130 to 135 degrees will yield a medium rare burger patty. Once removed from the oven and as the burger cools, it will continue to cook. So, keep that in mind for anyone who enjoys a "medium" or well done burger.

Cornmeal Pound Cake

Last autumn I picked up some stone ground cornmeal from the Grist Mill and thought I'd see if it was still usable. This cake came out pretty heavy and dense. I think it would go well with a fruit or berry compote with a slice of this as its base.

Ingredients

1 1/2 c. unbleached all-purpose flour
1/3 c. finely ground yellow cornmeal
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp sea salt
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
3/4 c. organic granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1/4 c. whole milk
1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F

1. In a large bowl, sift together flour, cornmeal, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

2. In a separate bowl, cream butter and sugar together. Whisk in milk, vanilla extract, and eggs. Gradually stir in flour mixture.

3. Prepare a loaf pan by buttering the insides. Pour in batter.

4. Bake for 1 hour, until the top is golden brown on top. Cool in pan on a rack. Remove cake from pan and let cool completely before serving or storing.

Braised Collard Greens

Collard greens have a lot of nutrients, which would make it an excellent addition to one's weekly vegetable fare if it weren't for this recipe that destroys nearly all the nutrients that this vegetable has to offer by its long cooking time. While collards could be eaten raw, most of what is good about it is unlocked with a bit of heat from say... steaming or stir frying. Braising, on the other hand, is a cooking method takes meats and sometimes vegetables and cooks them over very low heat for a long period of time. An hour of stovetop cooking is an eternity for a vegetable. But, collard greens are pretty tough and full of fiber, even after removing the stems from the leaves. This vegetable dish does taste good, however. I have eaten this once as a side dish at a Podnah's Pit in Portland. I've been trying to replicate their flavors ever since.

A lot of braising recipes call for a cup of vegetable broth, which is silly, considering that these greens will be cooking for an hour in a bacon and garlic flavored broth. Anyhow. I just used water, wine, and vinegar for the liquid part.

Ingredients

1 bunch of collard greens, stems removed and thoroughly washed
2 slices Applewood-smoked bacon
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 c. water + more if needed (do not let the pot dry out when cooking)
1 tbsp rice wine vinegar
1/4 c. white wine

Directions

1. In a heavy-bottomed pot, fry two (or more, if desired) slices of bacon. Once cooked, remove bacon to a plate and dice; pour out bacon grease to a separate container (for use in other recipes). Add garlic, water, vinegar, wine, and collard greens.

2. Cover pot and simmer over very low heat for 45 minutes to an hour.

3. Transfer vegetables to a serving plate and toss with diced bacon.

Sweet Butter Bread

I suppose if you wanted a very square looking loaf, you could make this in a bread machine. It is a standard bread recipe that is easy to do in a few hours, start to finish. I ended up baking this in the oven in a real loaf pan because I wanted my loaf to look like a loaf. Besides, it is summer and warm enough that the yeast doesn't need a protected container to retain its heat while proofing. Regardless of how this dough comes together (by stand mixer, food prep, bread machine, or by hand), it still needs to double in size for proofing, then baked for an amount of time.

Ingredients

2 c. unbleached all-purpose flour
2 tbsp organic granulated sugar
1 tsp sea salt
2 tbsp unsalted butter, softened
1 tbsp dry milk powder
1 large egg
1 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
1/2 c. water

Directions

Mixing the dough. The easiest way to mix these is to take all the wet ingredients and add them to a bread machine, followed by the dry ingredients with the yeast being the last to be added. Setup the bread machine for the 'dough' cycle and press 'start. Pretty lazy huh? After 1.5 hours of mixing/proofing, take the dough out of the bread machine, squish it a few times and let it rise in a prepared (buttered) bread pan. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F and bake for 30 minutes. Let cool, slice while it is cooling, or rip it apart while it is still hot (I did the latter). This loaf will not last long in any household with avid bread eaters.

(alternate) Mixing the dough without a bread machine:

1. In a small bowl, add yeast and a pinch of sugar, to warm water (110 degrees F). Set aside for 10 minutes, until yeast foams up a bit.

2. In a food prep, combine flour, sugar, dry milk powder, and salt. Add egg and yeast water. Mix until the ingredients come together. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth. Gather up the dough into a ball and place in a lightly oiled mixing bowl. Cover with a kitchen towel (or another bowl) and let rise for an hour.

3. Prepare a bread pan by lightly oiling its insides with butter. Once the dough has doubled in size, punch it down, if necessary, and place it in the prepared bread pan.

4. Bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes. Once the top and sides are lightly browned, the bread should be done.

This bread tastes good slathered with even more butter. Yum!

Krispy Kale Khips

I can't believe packages of these sell for $5 for a 1.2 oz bag at the grocery store. Kale is in season almost all year in the PNW. Best pricing at a grocery store will be about a dollar a bunch for fresh green kale during mid-summer. Red and multicolored kale is slightly pricier, but it doesn't matter which variety is used for these "chips". Definitely remove all the tough 'ribs' from the leaves before shredding them by hand. The end product is ideally light, crispy and slightly salty.

[edit: later that day] I weighed the remainder of what I didn't nibble on, and it would appear that a bunch of fresh kale (roughly 1 lb) yields about 2 oz crispy kale chips.

I did three batches with a head of kale; largely because only a third of the leaves would fit on the baking sheet at one time. I found that using a 9x13 glass baking dish did not work so well in evenly drying the leaves. As for flavorings, here's what I used:

• batch #1: coarsely ground Himalayan pink salt with Mrs. Dash tomato/garlic/basil seasoning
• batch #2: lightly sprinkled with black truffle oil salt
• batch #3: lightly sprinkled sea salt

Batch #1 came out way too salty for my taste but light and crunchy. The process is pretty simple and the messiest part is preparing the leaves for baking. Taking time to massage oil into the individual leaves helps the "chips" attract salt and/or spices, or at least stick on better.

As for plating, I suggest a parchment cone in a large glass tumbler or a decorative rectangular dish.

Ingredients

a bunch of kale, washed and stems removed

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

sea salt, to taste

Directions

Preheat oven to 275 degrees F.

1. After you have washed and dried the kale leaves, remove the thick rib from the middle of the leaf. Tear the leafy parts into bite-sized pieces. These will retain most of their size after baking. Toss in a large bowl with olive oil.

2. Arrange leaves in a single layer on a baking sheet and lightly sprinkle with salt.

3. Bake for 20 minutes. You could rotate the leaves after 10 minutes of baking, but that depends on how much residual oil is on the leaves. I did not flip the leaves on two of the three batches and they came out okay.

4. Serve immediately.

Basic Marinara Sauce

I break even on the raw material cost with this recipe and can reduce my reliance on having to make a special trip to the grocery store to make a sauce for spaghetti or lasagna. June was an abysmal start to summer with all the rain and chilly temps. In the Pacific Northwest, the warm days and clear sunny skies have only just begun. Locally grown tomatoes are just starting to appear on plants and at local vegetable farms. Typically, the ugliest tomatoes leftover from the end of the season are turned into canned tomato goods: tomato sauce, diced tomato, marinara sauce, etc. A local farms these typically go for u-pick pricing of $0.50/lb or cheaper. The average store bought marinara sauce consists of about one or two cans of crushed tomatoes and tomato sauce with various herbs, cooked mushrooms, salt, sugar, and onions tossed in for flavor. It makes you wonder about the quality of the tomatoes that are used in mass produced tomato-based sauces.

Use with: Italian pastas, cheese fries, baked summer vegetables

To reconstitute tomato paste into tomato sauce, add an equal amount of water to the tomato paste. An 8 oz can of tomato paste + 8 oz water = roughly a cup of tomato sauce.

Using fresh tomatoes: To make this sauce with fresh tomatoes, peel the tomatoes by blanching them in hot water (this makes it easier to remove the skins). The Smitten Kitchen blog has a very good write-up and photos of this process (details). 4 pounds of roma tomatoes will make 4 cups of tomato sauce.

Ingredients

One 14.5 oz can of diced or crushed tomatoes
3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
4 garlic cloves, minced or roughly chopped
6-12 basil leaves, stems removed and sliced
8 oz fresh white or crimini mushrooms, sliced (optional)
8 oz tomato paste + 8 oz water (or tomato sauce)
up to 1/2 tsp kosher salt, to taste
up to 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 bay leaf
a pinch of sugar or a pinch of baking soda (optional, to reduce acidity)

Directions

1. In a 2-quart (or larger) heavy bottomed pot, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add onions and garlic. Sauté until the onions are translucent. Add mushrooms, tomatoes, tomato sauce, bay leaf, salt and pepper. Simmer for 15 minutes.

2. Remove bay leaf and purée using an immersion blender.

Leek Pie

This recipe comes from The Ploughman's Lunch and the Miser's Feast by Brian Yarvin. Made it for dinner tonight. Came out really good. It's a stick-to-your-ribs sort of meal. I used the leftover crust dough to make odd shapes on top. Uses 1 hot-water crust recipe (see below).

Filling Ingredients

6 leeks, chopped into 1/2" pieces
1 tbsp olive oil
1/4 c. heavy cream
1 c. cheddar cheese, shredded
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg, beaten (optional)

Filling Directions

1. In a large skillet, heat oil and fry leeks until they are translucent; about 30 minutes.

2. Remove skillet from heat and combine leeks, cream, cheese, and spices in a large bowl. Mix well.

3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

4. Using one of the rolled out pie crust rounds, line a pie dish and add the filling. Cover with the second rolled out pie and trim off the edges. Decorate top of pie with excess crust dough cut into shapes. Crimp edge with fork tines. Brush top of pie with an egg wash (1 beaten egg).

5. Bake on the center rack for 40 minutes.

British Hot-Water Pie Crust

This part of the recipe makes two 9" pie crusts. As far as I can ascertain, the "British" part of this pie crust is using beef suet/lard/shortening. American pie crusts, Brian says, typically use ice water and chilled butter.

Crust Ingredients

4 c. all-purpose flour
2 tsp salt
1/2 c. whole milk
1 c. shortening
1/2 c. water

Crust Directions

1. Sift flour into a large bowl.

2. In a small saucepan, combine milk, water, shortening, and salt. Bring to a boil then immediately add to the flour and mix together.

3. Once the dough comes together easily, divide into two equal portions. Roll out to fit the pie dish. Take care to not overwork the dough. This is a much thicker crust than what you'd use on a fruit pie.

4. Roll out dough to 11 inches wide and 1/8" thick.

Note: If the crust is too dry to roll out, add 1 tbsp of hot water. If the crust is too wet, add 1 tbsp of flour.

Pork Fried Noodles

The best part about tasty leftovers is being able to create a tasty dish that can be enjoyed. We had leftover pork roast and leftover whole wheat spaghetti noodles from two separate meals. You can easily substitute the pork for chicken breast, beef, or shrimp.

Ingredients

cooked spaghetti noodles
1 c. pork roast, sliced or diced
1 1/2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp sesame oil
1/2 c. garlic chives, cut into 1" slices
1 garlic clove, minced

Directions

1. In a large cast iron pan, heat 2 tbsp olive oil and add noodles. Fry over low heat until the noodles have browned. Flip the heap of noodles over so that the other side can brown too.

2. Add garlic, chives, soy sauce, sesame oil, and slices of pork roast. Stir into the noodles until everything is evenly distributed. Don't let the chives brown. When the chives turn a vibrant green color, they are cooked.

3. Serve in bowls or on plates. Enjoy.

Chipotle Quinoa Salad

I seem to have put a little too much of the chipotle powder into this recipe. I intended to give the salad a little kick. Made this for a weekend BBQ. It takes the freshness of late spring produce and kicks it up a notch.

Ingredients

2 1/4 c. organic quinoa
4 1/2 c. water
1/2 tsp salt
1 organic red bell pepper, seeded, pith removed, and diced
1 organic green (or yellow) bell pepper, seeded, pith removed and diced
2 small tomatoes, seeded and diced
2 tbsp lemon juice (or lime juice, if preferred)
1 green onion, minced
1/2 tsp chipotle powder
1/4 tsp paprika
salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste (optional)

In a pot, bring salted water to a boil. Add quinoa and it back to a boil. Simmer covered for 15 minutes, or until the quinoa has absorbed all the water. Fluff with a spoon.

At this point, the quinoa is pretty plain and needs a little dressing up.

In a large bowl, mix green and red bell peppers, tomatoes, lemon juice, green onion, chipotle powder, and paprika until the ingredients are evenly distributed. Gradually mix in the cooked quinoa.

Serve immediately or chill.

Homemade Soft Prezels (batch #1)

This recipe seemed easy enough to do. How could it possibly fail after having such rave reviews by FN commenters. There are a few things wrong with it. For starters, the dough is way too soft. Yeah, I know the title of the recipe is soft pretzels but there is soft, and then there is soft and chewy; the latter of which is what we pay a premium for at amusement parks. These taste okay. I made some alterations to the mustard sauce recipe. And, because our weather went from awesome to sux0rz, I used a bread machine to mix and proof the dough. I don't recommend using coarse salt. With the baking soda bath, it tastes salty enough.

Homemade Soft Pretzels, lightly buttered

Ingredients

1 c. whole milk
1 pkg active dry yeast (2 1/4 tsp)
2 tbsp brown sugar, packed
2 1/4 c. unbleached all-purpose flour
2 tbsp unsalted butter, diced
1 tsp fine salt
1/3 c. baking soda + 3 cups warm water
a stick of cold butter (optional)

Directions

1. In a bread machine, add these ingredients in this order: milk, sugar, salt, flour, and yeast. Set the machine on the "dough" cycle. Come back in 1.5 hours.

2. Take the dough out of the bread machine. It'll be sticky, but manageable. Knead it a few times until it is smooth. Using a sharp knife, divide the dough into equal portions. This batch made six pretzels and from the photo, apparently I didn't roll the dough to a long enough rope length.

3. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.

4. In a shallow baking dish, dissolve baking soda in warm water. Dip each pretzel into the soda water. Take out and set onto a parchment paper-lined baking sheet.

5. Bake pretzels for 10-12 minutes, or until the tops are golden brown.

6. Remove pretzels to a rack to cool. Optional step: use a cold stick of butter on the hot pretzels to lightly butter them. Don't add any more coarse salt. They should be good to eat.

Pretzel Dipping Sauce

2 tbsp organic mayonnaise
2 tbsp Plouchman's mustard
1 tbsp brown sugar
1/2 tsp rice vinegar
splash of smoked chipotle Tabasco sauce

Mix ingredients together in a small bowl. This, btw, makes too much sauce for a mere half dozen pretzels. I'd probably cut the ratio in half again.

Coconut Brown Rice

Saw this at the demo booth at Trader Joe's the other day, except steamed long grain jasmine rice was used. The rice, when made this way, would complement a curry dish pretty well.

Ingredients

1 c. short grain brown rice, rinsed and drained
1 can (14 oz) coconut milk

Directions

In a heatproof bowl, combine coconut milk and brown rice. Stir to distribute liquid and grains of rice. Cover with a lid or aluminum foil. Bake for an hour at 375 degrees F. When the rice is done, fluff with a fork. If the rice looks a little runny, like there is still too much liquid, simply let the rice sit in the oven to cool. The rice will eventually absorb the excess liquid.

Fried Rice

This weekend I am in Chicago visiting relatives and it seemed like a good time to watch some food prep in action. While fried rice is a dish that anyone who knows how challenging leftover rice can be monotonous after a few reheats, fried rice takes some fresh ingredients (eggs, green onions, pork) and accommodates a LOT of leftover rice to make a very satisfying meal that feeds a lot of people. This particular batch made roughly 10 quarts of fried rice, feeding more than 10 adults and children, with plenty leftover. Sure, turning leftovers into more leftovers seems redundant, but fried rice stands on its own really well and can be reheated for lunch or an occasional snack.

Stir the rice to combine evenly while cooking.

Ingredients

2 tbsp vegetable oil

6 large eggs, beaten

1 tbsp soy sauce + up to 1/4 c water

2 bunches green onions, diced

1.5 pounds pork, small dice

Directions

In a large, heavy-bottomed pot, heat oil over medium heat and add the beaten eggs, green onions, and pork. Fry until the pork has lost its pinkness and the eggs are almost entirely cooked. 

Add all the leftover rice. Freshly made steamed rice does not work well in a recipe like this. You really need cooked rice made at least a day ahead. Add soy sauce while stirring the rice as it cooks. Really what you are doing in this step is bringing the rice up to the same temperature as the other ingredients. You can add some water to this mix to loosen up the rice, but don't add more than can be evaporated off.

Turn off heat and serve in small rice or soup bowls.

Oven-baked naan

The reason why packages of naan sell for $2.69 at Trader Joe's is because no one has the time to wait around for dough to rise for three hours before a meal. It's a bread that has a very short shelf life and this is because it tastes the best when piping hot and fresh from the oven. But, these reheat pretty well in the toaster the day after too. For today's experiment, I used ingredients that I had on hand. So, the yogurt inclusion isn't plain yogurt, it's vanilla whole milk yogurt. I like whole milk yogurts. The thickness and texture is very similar to Greek-styled yogurt. My pizza stone broke a few months ago (apparently it couldn't survive the self-cleaning setting of the oven), so I used the reverse side of a heavy baking sheet. Most of my bakeware, if it's not glass, is made of steel from the Baker's Advantage product line.

Freshly baked naan

Makes 4.

Ingredients

1 tsp yeast + 3/4 c. warm water (110 degrees F)
2 c. unbleached all purpose flour
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
pinch of baking powder
2 1/2 tbsp yogurt
2 tbsp olive oil
bowl of water

Directions

1. In a small bowl, combine yeast and warm water. Let the yeast proof for about 10 minutes.

2. In a larger bowl, whisk together: flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder. Stir in yogurt and olive oil. Next, add the yeast-water liquid. Mix until the dough comes together.

3. With floured hands, knead the dough until it is smooth. Put dough into a clean bowl and cover with a clean kitchen towel. Let rise in a warm room for 3 hours, or until it has doubled in size.

4. Preheat oven to 500 degrees F. Punch down dough and divide into 4 equal portions. Roll each portion into a ball and set aside.

5. Dip dough ball into flour and roll out into a 1/4" thick oval shape on a clean kitchen towel. If you're using a baking sheet instead of a pizza stone, it's not necessary to preheat the sheet in the oven. Simply place the rolled out dough onto the sheet. As many as will fit on its surface with roughly 1" spacing.

6. Before putting the dough into the oven. Use your fingers to moisten the top of the naan with water. The added moisture help the dough from forming a hard pita-like crust. Bake for 4 minutes, flip the naan over and bake for an additional 1 minute. Remove from oven.

Fresh Mushroom Soup

A couple weeks ago I had the worst-ever bowl of cream of mushroom soup at Palomino's in Bellevue. There was no excuse for it. Certainly not on my part since I finished reading Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential that weekend, in which Bourdain clearly says what foods to avoid on certain days. For example, never order seafood on a Monday (because the fresh stuff comes in on Friday morning for F/Sa/Su). And, sure enough, the dungeness crab sliders that came with my soup were cold, soggy, tasteless, and ugh, the crab tasted like it was frozen and reheated a couple times. Never order cream of anything at a restaurant, he warns. That is because you can hide all sorts of things in a cream-based soup. Heck, if I can make a decent crab bisque with a meatless carcass, imagine what an experienced chef can do in the kitchen. Anyhow. Here's a much better rendition of mushroom soup.

Ingredients

8 oz fresh white mushrooms, sliced
1 qt organic beef stock
1 tbsp unsalted butter
2 tbsp unbleached AP flour + 1 tbsp unsalted butter
3 tbsp organic white wine
1/4 c buttermilk, or cream
sea salt, freshly ground black pepper to taste
fresh parsley, chopped (optional, for garnish)

Directions

1. In a medium-sized pot, melt butter over medium heat and saute mushrooms until tender; about 5 minutes. Remove mushrooms from heat and set aside.

2. Add remaining butter and stir in flour. This will make a roux. The flour will clump together into a ball, but not to worry, it will smooth out once the broth is added. Speaking of which, gradually add the broth, whisking until the flour dissolves in the broth. Pour in the rest of the broth and add the wine. Return 2/3 of the mushrooms to the pot. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes.

3. Turn off heat and let the soup cool before using an immersion blender. The idea is to not purée the mushrooms, but to chop them up into little bits. Return remaining mushrooms to the pot along with the buttermilk, salt, and black pepper. Bring up to a boil for five minutes.

4. Remove from heat and ladle into bowls.

Corned Beef with Cabbage

This is the first year I haven't taken the lazy uninspired route of making this dish...which typically meant going to the grocery store and buying the corned beef already brined in a neat little package. What is a little distressing is that the spices I had to acquire for this dish costed almost as much as the brisket; and the meat was on sale for St Patrick's Day. This dish is an expensive cooking experiment (roughly $15 in ingredients, excluding spices already on hand). I hope I don't screw it up too badly. 

Brisket is a pretty unforgiving piece of meat that needs to be slow roasted for its connective muscle tissue to break down into delightful pleasures of eating. If you cook it too fast on high heat, the meat gets tough. If you cook it too slow on high heat, the meat is still tough. But, if you don't want to bother with basting the meat every 40-50 minutes while it roasts in the oven there is another modern convenience called the slow cooker; or as it says on my unit...a Crockpot. I am using Steamy Kitchen's recipe process for this because it looks really easy to do. One of my beer friends advised against using a Guinness dark beer so I am using Pike's Naughty Nelly artisan ale instead. No, I still don't drink beer. I don't care for bitter in my beverages, and while I love the smell of fermenting hops (smells like bread, go figure) it's just not for me. Beer is great in recipes though, like beer can chicken, steamed with clams or mussels, or in chocolate stout cupcakes.

Irish Soda Bread

Made Irish soda bread today. As I managed to get buttermilk-sticky flour and raisins all over my counter, the process reminded me of a forgetful baker who first conceived the recipe. At first, it is like making a biscuit dough, but then caraway seeds are added and then it seems like you're making rye bread but without the rye flour nor the yeast. You think a savory bread is going to be made until raisins are added. I divided the mass of dough into four portions and shaped them all into mini rounded soda bread loaves. A floured kitchen towel works really well for kneading sticky dough.

This ingredient ratio comes from the Seattle Times. Nearly all of the ingredients are represented, except for the heavy cream for the egg wash. I substituted buttermilk. In retrospect, two cups of raisins is too much for this recipe. There were so many unused raisins,  I had to stick the stragglers back into the dough. And, while baking, the dough pushed some of the raisins out to the surface. 

Ingredients

4 c. unbleached AP flour, sifted
1/4 c . organic granulated sugar
1/4 c. unsalted butter, cold
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp caraway seeds
2 c. organic seedless raisins
1 1/3 c. buttermilk
1 whole egg
1 tsp baking soda
1 egg yolk + 1 tbsp buttermilk (for egg wash, optional)

Directions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

1. In a food prep: sift together flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder. Cut in unsalted butter until coarse crumbs form.

2. Empty food prep into a large mixing bowl. Stir in caraway seeds until evenly distributed.

3. In a 2-cup measuring cup, mix together buttermilk, an egg, and baking soda. Pour into flour and stir to combine. Fold in raisins. Dough will be sticky.

4. Turn out dough onto a clean, floured kitchen towel. Knead a few times so that the dough comes together and shape it into a large ball; or divide into four equal portions. With a sharp knife or the edge of a pastry scraper, make a cross 1/4" deep in the center.

5. (optional) Brush bread with beaten egg yolk and buttermilk before baking.

6. If baking one large round, bake in a preheated oven for 1 hour and 10 minutes. If baking smaller rounds, bake for 50 minutes. 

Bell Pepper with Shitake Mushrooms

This is also pretty straightforward. I am writing it up as a post because I think the flavors taste good together. To rehydrate dried mushrooms, simply place them in a large bowl and add boiling water. Let them soak before using. The leftover liquid is mushroom dashi and can be used to flavor soups.

Serves: 2-3

Ingredients

3 large bell peppers, sliced into 1/2" pieces
3 garlic cloves, chopped
1 c. dried shitake mushrooms, rehydrated
1 tbsp low-sodium natural soy sauce
sea salt, to taste
olive oil, for frying

Directions

1. In a large frying pan, heat olive oil over medium-high heat. When the oil easily spreads across the bottom of the pan, add garlic and stir until lightly browned.

2. Add bell peppers and mushrooms and stir fry until the peppers have changed color. If using green bell peppers, the green with be a much richer lawn-green color. This should take no more than five minutes.

3. Season with soy sauce and sea salt while frying. Remove from heat and serve.

Foil baked trout

This is a pretty simple recipe and can be done in less than a half hour, provided that the trout is already gutted and cleaned. And, as long as the oil doesn't leak out of the foil packet, clean-up is easy. Assume serving size is one trout per person. I would recommend using olive oil on both sides of the fish to keep the skin from sticking to the foil.

Ingredients

1 trout, cleaned
fresh or dried herbs: thyme, parsley, garlic, poultry seasoning, whatever is available
lemon slices (optional)
unsalted butter, up to 1 tbsp
olive oil
sea salt, to taste
freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

1. Tear out enough aluminum foil to wrap the fish in a rectangular package and lay fish, scored diagonally on both sides, in the center. Drizzle olive oil on both sides of the fish before adding herbs, salt and pepper.

2. Place two lemon slices, fresh/dried herbs, and butter inside the fish. You can also sprinkle a salt-free seasoning blend on both sides of the fish, or season with some sea salt and black pepper.

3. Wrap fish with aluminum foil and place on a baking tray. Bake for 15 minutes. Serve hot.

Oatmeal Cranberry Cookies

Well, definitely this batch of cookie dough needs to be chilled before forming and baking. I did a test batch of six tablespoonfuls of batter onto a parchment-lined baking sheet and the cookies did what I thought they'd do. Melt and spread out into very thin discs. While they are tasty, the cookies did require more baking time than I thought, about 15 minutes, which gave the cookies a rich, dark brown color. Looks like rounded teaspoonfuls will have to be the measure for this ingredient ratio.

This is what happens when unchilled cookie dough is used.

Ingredients

1 c. (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
3/4 c. organic granulated sugar
3/4 c. brown sugar, lightly packed
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 c. unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cardamom
3 c. old fashioned rolled oats
1 c. dried cranberries

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

1. In a food prep, cream butter and sugars together. Add eggs and vanilla extract. Blend together until well combined.

2. Add to the food prep, flour, salt and spices. Pulse until combined.

3. In a separate bowl, mix rolled oats and dried cranberries. Fold together with butter mixture.

4. Let the cookie dough chill in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes before forming into rounded teaspoonfuls onto a parchment-lined baking sheet.

5. Bake for 10-15 minutes (depending on your oven), until the cookies are lightly browned.

6. Cool cookies on a wire rack before storing or eating.

Beef and Eggplant Ragu

The taste reminded me a lot like a ratatouille. The sauce was burdened by eggplant flavor, however. Perhaps one large aubergine was too much for this simple beef recipe. Also, I couldn't taste the fennel at all. So maybe next time I should use fresh fennel instead of fennel seeds and dice the eggplant into smaller bits. This ragu is traditionally served over pasta, but fried brown rice is an acceptable substitute.

Ingredients

1 lb lean ground beef
1 large aubergine, diced
4 garlic cloves, chopped
2 tbsp EVOO
One 15 oz can organic diced tomatoes
1/3 c. tomato paste
1/2 c. dry marsala wine
1/2 tsp organic granulated sugar
1 tsp each fennel seeds, garlic powder, dried oregano, dried basil, dried thyme
freshly ground black pepper

Directions

1. In a heavy-bottomed pot, brown garlic, ground beef, and olive oil together over medium heat. When all the pink is nearly gone in the beef, add the eggplant, tomatoes, and tomato paste. Let this mixture simmer for 10 minutes before adding the wine, sugar, and spices. Cover and let cook for 20 minutes, or until the eggplant is cooked.

Kitchen Notes: Ingredient Cycling

My pantry is stocked with a lot of herbs and spices that I hardly use. Some herbs like tarragon, tomato powder, and lemongrass powder were bought for experimentation purposes. The lemongrass powder turned out to be a really good substitute for fresh lemongrass flavor in Asian meat dishes. I've come across a few chefs in the Pacific Northwest who regularly throw out jars of dried herbs for "freshness" reasons, but depending on the spice or herb. I recommend against that practice. What gives a dish it's unique flavor comes from the oils of an herb, which are more prevalent and potent in fresh or recently dried herbs. There are some ingredients that will last indefinitely if stored properly (clean, airtight glass jars) such as saffron, cardamom pods, dried hot peppers, cinnamon bark, etc.

Over the years, the food-related resolutions have evolved over a necessity to a) reduce food waste, b) cycle through pantry items in a reasonable manner before the expiration date, and c) keep cooking interesting.

The freezer has the resolution that no new meat may be bought until less than a week's worth of meals remains; although, I'll certainly buy seafood and/or meat if it's in season or on sale.

The refrigerator has a one-week eating period, meaning that any cooked foods not eaten within one week are tossed (to be composted in the yard, if non-meat). This is just to keep up with safer food practices. Also, since cheese is very perishable, unused cheese is frozen except for cheese used for sandwiches.

The pantry is on a one-year cycle, meaning that everything has to be cycled through within a year like canned goods, cereal, dried nuts, etc. Excluded from this cycle are dried beans, rice, dried noodles, dried mushrooms, etc. Canned and boxed goods within their expiration date but not used in a year are donated to food drives.

The food drives and food banks do not accept homemade jams, breads, or other food products unless they were made in a commercial kitchen. So that really begs the question of, what do I do with the jams and fruit butters that I make that I don't consume, other than shipping it out as gifts as currently do now. *ponder*

Roasted Game Hen

This is probably one of my favorite types of poultry to cook. It is really easy to carve up and quick to roast with the addition of basic pantry ingredients and herbs. The meat is usually enough to feed one to two people. In this recipe, I used marsala wine. You could also use a dry white wine or chicken broth. For the poultry seasoning, I used Mrs Dash's Salt-Free Tomato Basil Garlic seasoning blend.

Ingredients

One raw Cornish game hen, carved

1/2 c. marsala wine

1 1/2 tbsp fresh rosemary leaves, chopped

1 1/2 tbsp olive oil

3 garlic cloves, minced

1/2 lemon, juiced and zested

sea salt, to taste

poultry seasoning, to taste

Directions

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

1. In an 8" x 8" baking dish, toss chicken with olive oil, garlic, salt, lemon juice and zest.  Place chicken pieces skin-side down. Sprinkle rosemary and poultry seasoning on top. Pour wine on top of chicken. Bake uncovered for 30 to 40 minutes.

2. Serve while hot over rice, pasta, or with crusty bread.

Kitchen Note: Pricing a Cup of Soup

Pre-made soups can be pretty convenient when it comes to cooking for one. But, why would you want to? Most contain a large quantity of sodium, MSG, and a host of other questionable ingredients. And the "organic" labelled soups can get really costly after a while. Here's a simple cost breakdown of the most recent soup post, split pea soup with ham and bacon:

3 small red potatoes (~ 12 oz), $0.60
3 medium organic carrots, $0.50
spices, $0.02
2 strips of natural preservative-free bacon, $1.12
2 qts chicken broth, homemade, $0.00
2 garlic cloves, $0.06 (assuming $0.25/bulb and 8 cloves/bulb)
1/2 box Hormel natural lunch meat, $1.00
1 lb dried split peas, $1.00

Total ingredient cost: $4.30

I have the broth at $0 since I made it myself. You could always substitute it for water in any soup recipe. This particular batch made 2.5 quarts. Assume each serving is about a cup (8 oz) because that's what it is at restaurants, grocery stores, and food carts. This is roughly 10 cups of soup, or $0.43/serving.

Think about that the next time you order a half sandwich and cup of soup at a restaurant.

Split Pea Soup with (Ham) and Bacon

When I was a kid, my family would drive up the California coast to the now-touristy city of Solvang, a Danish settlement. Along that route was Pea Soup Andersen's. One of their billboard advertisements you could see along Highway 101 featured Happea and Pea Wee, two cartoon characters splitting peas.

With this recipe concoction a few things happened. First, I didn't fry up enough bacon. The two slices of bacon only yielded one tablespoon of liquid lard. Second, when it came to the immersion blender, I forgot to take out the bay leaf. And, even with the chopped bacon as a garnish, the base of the soup needs more salt. This is probably due to the fact that I only added a half teaspoon in the beginning. What is different about this recipe than the one used by Cook's Illustrated is that there are no onions nor celery in it; also, the 2.5 pound smoked ham bone.. well, that isn't in here either. I did, however, chop up some lunch meat (Hormel's natural honey baked ham) and tossed that in. *laugh* And fourth, when I rinsed the peas with cold water and set them aside in a colander, when the peas dried, they stuck like glue to the colander. I had to use a knife on the reverse side of the colander to get the peas out. Grrr.

Split Pea Soup with Ham and Bacon

Note to future self: Don't rinse dried peas until ready to use.

Ingredients

2 qt homemade chicken broth
1 lb dried split peas, picked over and rinsed (just before adding to pot)
3 small white, red, or Yukon gold potatoes
3 medium organic carrots, diced
1 c. cooked ham, diced
up to 2 tbsp olive oil (optional)
1 bay leaf, whole
1/2 tsp dried oregano, crushed
1/2 tsp powdered thyme
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp ground paprika
sea salt, to taste (at least 1/2 tsp)
freshly ground black pepper, to taste (optional)

Directions

1. In a large heavy-bottomed pot, fry bacon on low-medium heat until crispy. Take bacon out, chop, and set aside. Don't worry about the burnt bits of bacon stuck to the bottom, that will deglaze when the broth is added.

2. Add enough olive oil to bring the oil level in the pot up to 2 tbsp. Add carrots, garlic, salt, and spices. Saute vegetables until almost tender, 10-15 minutes. Add broth, peas, potatoes, ham, and bay leaf. Bring pot to a boil, then simmer on low and uncovered for 40 minutes. Stir soup occasionally.

3. Check the peas in the soup. If the peas look like they're about to disintegrate, turn the heat off. Remove bay leaf from pot. Use an immersion blender to puree the soup. It'll be a little chunky and that's okay. It's not like you're serving this at a restaurant.

4. Serve in bowls and garnish with chopped bacon.

Sour Cream and Green Onion Dip, No Mayonnaise

I'm pretty sure Alton Brown adds mayonnaise to his version of this dip to put in an extra zing to it, but that style is just not for me. This recipe is from the New York Times and I added garlic powder to it because I like garlic. I'm sure you could just as well stir in some roasted garlic too, but that may overpower the onion element to the dip. For this batch, I used Darigold natural sour cream.

Ingredients

3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
3-4 stalks green onions, minced
1 c. sour cream
1/2 tsp sea salt, or more to taste
1/2 tsp garlic powder

Directions

1. In a small pot, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add onions, salt, and garlic powder and stir until green part of onion turns bright green. Continue stirring for 2-3 minutes so the onions don't burn. If you're using ordinary white onions, you could cook the onions until they turn translucent. You could even caramelize the onions too if you wanted. It makes no difference in the recipe. Remove from heat, and strain oil out to another container for later use (later as in, not used in this recipe).

2. To a cup of sour cream, mix in green onion mixture until the onions are evenly distributed. Taste. If it isn't salty enough, add a little more salt. Cover the container the dip is in and store in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes so that the onion/garlic flavor permeates the sour cream.

3. Serve with fresh vegetables (carrots, cucumbers, broccoli, etc) or chips.

Creamy Tomato Soup

Last week my local Fred Meyer grocery store had a lot of soup on sale and there were even coupons in the weekly newspaper circular. Of course, aside from buying organic beef stock on sale, I tend to shy away from buying commercially made soups. But, I was curious about the can of basic FM tomato soup whose ingredients listed tomato paste, water, and some other trivial things like salt and spices. While I can't break even on the cost when FM soup is on sale (only $0.59), I can use higher quality ingredients to make an inexpensive tomato soup. A 6 oz can of organic tomato paste is only $0.99, and when purchased in bulk at Costco drops to roughly $0.65/can. With the availability of fresh sun-grown tomatoes months away (only imported and greenhouse grown are "in season"), using canned tomatoes might be the way to go during the winter.

To reconstitute a 6 oz can of tomato paste, the general ratio is about 2 cups of liquid. For a cream-based tomato soup, this generally means you are adding milk or cream at some step in the cooking process. For a regular tomato soup, you could just use broth or water for the liquid. In this recipe, sugar and baking soda help adjust the acidity of the tomatoes. 

Ingredients

One 6 oz can of organic tomato paste
1 1/2 c. organic whole milk
3/4 c. filtered water or vegetable broth
1/2 tsp organic granulated cane sugar
up to 1/4 tsp baking soda (optional, only add to balance acidity)
Spices (see below)
sea salt, to taste
freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Optional spices: garlic powder, powdered/dried oregano (omit if using dried basil), dried basil (omit if using dried oregano), paprika (a little heat, but mostly for color), fresh parsley (for garnish) or dried parsley

Directions

1. Heat the milk separately from the rest of the ingredients. 

2. In a separate pot, combine tomato paste, water, sugar, baking soda, and spices. Bring to a boil and let simmer for 10-15 minutes.

3. Gradually whisk the milk into the tomato soup.

Serves 2.

Pea Pesto

Ingredients

1 (10 oz) package of frozen green peas, thawed
1 garlic clove
1/2 c. Parmesan cheese
1 tsp sea salt, to taste
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1/3 c. olive oil
8 cherry tomatoes, halved
1 whole grain baguette, sliced
unsalted butter, softened

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. 

1. In a food processor, pulse together peas, garlic, cheese, salt and pepper. With the machine running, slowly add olive oil until well combined.

2. Slice baguette diagonally into equal portions. Spread butter onto the top of each slice and toast for 5 minutes or until lightly browned. Remove from oven.

3. Spread about a tablespoon of pea pesto on top of a baguette slice and top with a cherry tomato half.

Source: Giadia at Home

Lemon Pound Cake

I grew up eating the Sara Lee stuff and can probably still eat an entire loaf by myself. This ingredient ratio comes from Cooks Illustrated and becomes a pretty tasty dessert bread for guests who enjoy a more lemony than sweet flavor to this classic cake. The magazine would have you poke holes with a toothpick or skewer into the top side of the cake before drizzling on their lemon glaze, which really isn't quite a glaze at all but more like a lemon syrup. For a real glaze, you'd probably have to swap out the real granulated sugar with powdered sugar so that it sets up like a crust when it hardens.

If you don't stock cake flour, simply combine 1 cup all-purpose flour (minus 2 tbsp) with 2 tbsp cornstarch.

Ingredients: Cake

1 1/2 c. cake flour
1 c. (2 sticks; 16 tbsp) cold unsalted butter, diced
1 c. organic cane sugar
4 large eggs
2 tbsp lemon zest
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp sea salt

Optional additions to step 4:
For lemon poppy seed pound cake, stir in 1/2 c. poppy seeds, or
For lavender pound cake, stir in 1 1/2 tbsp dried lavender flowers

Ingredients: Lemon Glaze

1/2 c. powdered sugar
juice of a lemon
lemon zest (optional)

Bring sugar and lemon juice to a boil in a small pot, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Let cool and set aside until ready to use.

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

1. Prepare a 9" x 5" loaf pan by using unsalted butter or olive oil to grease the pan, dust it with some flour, and tap out the excess.

2. In a food processor, pulse together sugar and lemon zest. Add lemon juice, eggs, and vanilla extract. Transfer mixture to a large bowl.

3. In the same food processor, pulse together flour, baking powder, salt, and butter. 

4. Gently whisk flour mixture into wet ingredients. Pour batter into prepared pan. 

5. Bake for 15 minutes. Reduce oven heat to 325 degrees F and bake for an additional 30-35 minutes until the surface is golden brown and a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean.

6. Cool on a rack before storing or serving.