Monday Menu: detailed

Man, this last monday was probably the most exciting meal I've cooked in a while. It was a little more extravagant than I'm used to, but every bite was def worth it!The final menu consisted of: zucchini crudo, lightly fried squash blossoms stuffed with herbed feta cheese on a bed of basmati rice, miso marinated rockcod and watermelon granita.

I absolutely love tastespotting.com because it gives me so many ideas for things I want to cook. The zucchini crudo is no exception. A couple of weeks ago, I had no idea what a crudo was. Nowadays, I still don't really know what it is, but I do know it sure does taste good!

The recipe for the crudo is mostly outlined on kissmyspatula.com aside from a few changes I made. This is what I used to make my crudo:

1 zucchini from farmer's market

1/2 lemon from my neighbor's tree

1 tsp extra virgin olive oil

1/2 small red onion

1/2 tomato from my boss's garden

1/4 bunch cilantro

sea salt

freshly ground rainbow peppercorns

feta cheese, crumbled

I sliced the zucchini as thin as I could and laid them out in a circle on a plate, overlapping slightly. A mandolin would work great in this situation and you would probably spend half the time I did to slice a whole zucchini. Drizzle some quality olive oil, lemon juice and a little salt and pepper and refrigerate for about 30 min. While those flavors are soaking in, you can dice the red onion and tomato into small pieces and pick the leaves of cilantro and chop that up too. I really dislike picking cilantro leaves because it's so tedious! You pick one or two leaves at a time and the engineer in me wants to make the whole process quicker and more efficient. Once you take out the zucchini from the fridge, top it with the veggies you just prepped, sprinkle some feta cheese and there you have it! One light and refreshing side dish is read to go.

The stuffed squash blossoms were an interesting feat and discovery from Tastespotting. I saw them at farmer's market and the adventurous foodie in me said I had to make something of them. I bought them on Thursday and I cooked them on Monday, but most recipes said the blossoms would only last a a couple days. They definitely didn't have as much life in them as when I first bought it, but I think they turned out okay after frying.

This recipe was more a conglomeration of a couple different recipes I found online. This is what I ended up using:

8 Squash blossoms

1 Cup feta cheese

1.5 tsp Italian herb mix

salt and pepper

To make the herbed feta cheese, I just mixed the cheese with the herb mix and a little bit of salt and pepper to taste. It took a lot of mixing to get the creamy consistency I wanted. Upon tasting it though, it came out really strong and next time I would probably use less herbs and maybe add some cream cheese to tone it down too.

We prepped the blossoms by cutting out the stamens and stuffing about 2 Tbsp worth of the feta and twisting the tips of the petals to hold it in. Heated up about 2 Tbsp of olive oil on a frying pan and cooked the blossoms till it was lightly fried all around.

The basmati rice was a mix from Trader Joe's and saved the dish from being overpowered by the feta cheese.

Late last week I went fishing with a friend of mine and now I'm left with more cod than I know what to do with. I started with a cod and cheddar cheese melt sandwich, to cod fish tacos and on Monday I made miso marinated cod. This was another recipe I adapted with what I had on hand and it consisted of:

4 fillets of cod

1/2 cup white miso

1/3 cup rice vinegar

Once I had the fillets defrosted, I stuck it in a gallon size ziplock bag with the miso and vinegar and let it marinade for 30 min in the fridge. The vinegar will smell really strong but don't worry, it'll burn off in the oven and it wont overpower the miso flavor. Turn the oven on to broil and depending on how good your broiler is, it'll be ready in 15-30 min (I was using my friend's oven from the 70's and it took the better part of 30 min). I love eating fish and this miso marinade was absolutely fantastic! I'll be doing this again in an attempt to finish all the fish in my freezer.

The watermelon granita was a much welcome dessert for the first heat wave to hit us this summer. We've definitely been spoiled here on the Central Coast, with most days hitting a high of 80 somethings, but Monday had to have been high 90's. An absolute scorcher. So I went out, bought a watermelon and made a granita. I love it because it's so simple! This is what I used:

2 lbs watermelon

2 cups water

2 cups sugar

Ideally, you would use a blender or a food processor to puree the watermelon, but I didn't have that (I know, what self respecting chef goes without a food processor, right? My friend is supposed to move in mid-September with one so I'm holding out till then), so I cut it up as best I could into small pieces. Man, that was a messy project. I just got watermelon juice all over the counter. Making simple syrup is, well, simple. You put 1 part sugar and 1 part water in a pot and let it melt, turn off the heat before the sugar starts caramelizing but after it's all melted and clear. It should be an opaque yellow color. Pour the syrup on the watermelon in a pyrex or something big enough to hold it and stick it in the freezer forever. Okay, not forever. You want to eat it sometime soon. I heard it only takes 3 hours to freeze, but I was lied to. It took a solid overnight to freeze for me so we actually ate diced watermelon in a soup of cold sugar water. sad. Once it is frozen though, you can flake it up rather easily with a fork. You might want to let it sit out a few minutes if it's too frozen solid.

As a teaser for the next post (whenever I get around to it), don't try gluten free cooking for the first time when you're cooking for 15 - 20 people. It's just a bad idea.

Monday Menu

Lately, a friend and I have been getting together for dinner on Monday nights. It started off as a chance to try a ratatouille recipe I got from my boss (I don't feel it's right posting it since it's a work recipe, but you can google a million ratatouille recipes that are just as good!), but the following Mondays have been a chance for me to make more challenging meals.

This week should be the most interesting. I'll be making herbed feta cheese wrapped in eggplant, stuffed and lightly fried squash blossoms and fresh caught rockcod (what constitutes fresh caught? I went ocean fishing for the first time on Friday and I've stuck them in the freezer since). I have a decent grasp on what I'll be doing for the eggplant, but the rockcod and squash blossoms still have some figuring out. How should I cook the rockcod? What will I stuff the blossoms with?

sushi!

saba sushi:

saba (mackerel) sushi is a a common type of hand roll found in Japanese sushi restaurants. We got it at Super H mart (read my last blog!). Man, oh man, it makes me wish that we have fish monger readily accessible in SLO. They're cheap too! Supermarket fish is far too overpriced and I can't really trust to make sushi out of it.

I love sushi because it's so simple. You cut up fish and put it on rice. Japanese cuisine often tries to reflect natural flavors of the ingredients and sushi is the epitome of that ideal. That being said, saba is a little more complicated. The monger cleaned, gutted and deheaded the saba for us, but there was a lot of prep that still had to be done.

Ingredients:

2 Saba cuts

Salt

Sushi rice

Nori

Water

Instructions:

First, you gotta do the "Mittsu giri" or the "cut in three". You cut the saba along the spine (left or right side, it doesn't matter) and split it in two. Then you take the half with the spine and filet the fish to debone most of the flesh. I find the easiest way to do this is to lay your non cutting hand flat on the boney flesh and apply light pressure. Take your cutting hand, holding the knife flat and diagonally cut across the flesh.

Do a salt rub on the mackerel and leave it in the fridge over night. About 12 hours later, wash off the salt and leave it submerged in water for about 3 hours. After this, the saba is ready to be deboned. The water should have loosened up any of the remaining bones in the flesh. Take your favorite pair of tweezers and pull out the bones.

Once all this is done, cut the saba diagonally so you get parallelograms instead of rectangles. This will show off the contrast of the white and dark meat of the saba really well. Make hand rolls of sushi rice and place the saba on top. For an extra touch, add wasabi paste or julienned ginger between the saba and rice.

no cookin' like home cookin'

I'm home! Well, kind of. I'm visiting my family's new place in Dallas. We went to Super H Mart (the local korean-but-with-an-affinity-towards-all-asian-foods market). Spent a lot of time with my mother in the produce section and the fisheria, fish man, FISH MONGER (oh that's what they call it). We purchased a variety of different vegetables I haven't seen before. Hopefully I'll get some pictures of cooking with those soon.

hearty healthy pancakes

I have a picture! This is my rendition of healthy pancakes. Plating would be nicer if I had some fruit to garnish with.

Usually my grocery trips revolve around what's on sale, rather than what I need. This tactic saves me a lot of money, but sometimes I end up not having food to eat a certain meals. Usually breakfast is forgone, leading me to struggle for a solution to my morning meal. I met up with a friend for coffee this morning and I bought myself some coffee and banana bread. To my dismay, the coffee tasted burnt and the bread, dry. Weariness prevailed but hunger did not. I finished the coffee for the caffeine, but opted not to do the same for the banana bread. By the time I got home, I was famished. After a quick rummage through my pantry, I decided upon pancakes for my second breakfast.

I based my recipe off of the highest, most reviewed one on allrecipes.com. I halved the recipe and made a few edits to fit the ingredients I had on hand and to make it healthier. It ended up looking something like this:

hearty healthy pancakes

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

dash of salt

1/2 egg

1/4 cup vanilla yogurt

1/4 cup water

2/3 cup soy milk

1/2 cup milled oats

1 tbsp coconut oil

Combine everything, mix well till incorporated. Lightly grease a pan and turn burner onto medium high heat. Pour mix with 1/3 cup scoops (larger or smaller as preferred). Flip once the pancake starts bubbling consistently. Serve with agave nectar syrup and powdered sugar.

Notes: Coconut oil is a solid at room temperature. It's very solid when mixed with fridge temperature soy milk. I'd recommend microwaving it for a few seconds to melt it so it incorporates better with everything. I'm not sure if I would substitute coconut oil for vegetable oil next time though. It might be a little healthier, but I didn't notice a difference in taste. It did, however, carry a faint aroma of coconuts.

I added much more soy milk than I needed. I didn't originally include it in my recipe, hoping that a mix of yogurt and water would suffice for the lack of milk. The mix turned out very thick and dry so I started pouring in soy milk little by little. The last pour was too much, resulting in very thin pancakes, rather than a nice puffy feel. The original recipe also included a 1/2 tbsp of sugar, but I forsook that with the addition of the yogurt.

Whole wheat flour definitely has a unique taste unto itself and if you're not used to it, or expecting it to taste like regular flour, it might be an unpleasant surprise. The oats cooked well and didn't make the pancakes as crunchy as I feared they might. I might even dare to double the amount of oats next time.

As far as trends go

I have a habit of obsessing over a certain food for a period of time. It involves iterations, experimentation and once satisfied, never looking back. I've had a few of these recently. I recently wrote about naan; the results of which I am satisfied. I've also been pining at different forms of ice cream and omelets. A staple among my friends have been Ricky Mo burritos.

I've made two batches of ice cream in the last two weeks. The first was avocado ice cream. My neighbor has an avocado tree that grows into our yard and we've been given free reign of the fruit that bears over our fence. As a result, we've grown quite accustomed to making a variety of avocado dishes. Some have been thrown into my omelets and other cooking endeavors. Most of the time, my roommates make it into guacamole. I wanted to try something different and conjectured as to the quality of an avocado ice cream in a discussion with a foodie friend. I found a recipe by Alton Brown that seemed simple enough. Borrowed an ice cream maker and set to making it.

Ingredients
12 ounces avocado meat, approximately 3 small to medium
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 1/2 cups whole milk
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup heavy cream

Directions
Peel and pit the avocados. Add the avocados, lemon juice, milk, and sugar to a blender and puree. Transfer the mixture to a medium mixing bowl, add the heavy cream and whisk to combine. Place the mixture into the refrigerator and chill until it reaches 40 degrees F or below, approximately 4 to 6 hours.

Process the mixture in an ice cream maker according to manufacturer's directions. However, this mixture sets up very fast, so count on it taking only 5 to 10 minutes to process. For soft ice cream, serve immediately. If desired, place in freezer for 3 to 4 hours for firmer texture.


The result was ice cream that tasted a lot like avocado. I guess that's to be expected, given the ingredients. It was a little bland. I would add more sugar or some other sweetener next time to curb the straight creaminess of the avocado. The avocados were also medium to big. This might have contributed to the avocado overpowering the milkiness. Regardless, it was a hit at the party and in the end, that's what really matters.

A more recent expedition into home made ice cream was banana ice cream. I needed to make more ice cream, lest I be forced to find another recipe that included heavy cream and milk (being lactose intolerant, I don't usually pursue dairy products. Ice cream is just too delicious to ignore!). I had mashed bananas in the freezer (another thing that took a few tries to make really convenient. I used to freeze whole bananas when they ripened. They were really hard to peel so next time I had peeled bananas in my freezer. Then they were really hard to mash. That's when I discovered peeled and mashed bananas were the best in the freezer, all you need is defrosting) that I had planned on for banana bread, but I made like a dozen loaves of banana bread in May and was kind of sick of it at this point. Ice cream was a great idea to finish up my milk, heavy cream AND bananas.

I subbed bananas for avocados in Alton Brown's recipe and this is what I came up with

Ingredients
5 bananas, mashed
1 tablespoon squeezed lemon juice
1 1/2 cups whole milk
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 cup heavy cream

mix together all the ingredients well and refrigerate. Make ice cream following the machine directions.

This came out fantastic. The bananas are a lot sweeter than avocados to start with, combined with the mix of brown and granulated sugar gave it an excellent flavor. I would have done all brown sugar, but that would have changed the color of the ice cream to a less pleasant brown color. It might actually be a little too sweet, and would cut out the 1/4 cup of granulated sugar next time. The bananas were also really watery once defrosted out of the freezer. I'm not sure if that's a byproduct of defrosting somehow collecting water, or if the moisture simply separated from the bananas. This was good for the ice cream though, because it made it softer. I froze this batch after making it instead of eating it as soft serve. With the extra moisture, it retains its softness, rather than getting really hard in the freezer.

a bl(a)g beginning

I've started my foodie blog! What with finals upon me, I couldn't think of a better time to do so. The goal of this blog is for me to challenge myself with more interesting foods and record them for you guys to see!

Yesterday I made Naan, an Indian style flat bread. I've made it before, using this recipe . Well, I pulled it up again and it turned out fairly well. Last time, I broiled them a little too long and it didn't have the chewyness that I was looking for. This time, I tried it on the new propane grill my roommate just got. This time I had it on too high of heat and the inside wasn't cooked. I'll have to find a happy medium between the two. I have plenty of dough in the fridge, we'll see what works best.

I paired the Naan with premade curry I bought from my local grocery store (Spencer's). It was a little pricey for $5 a serving, but I wanted to get a taste for (presumably) real curry in hopes of being able to recreate it. Unfortunately, their ingredients list was somewhat sparse (listing "spices" instead of actual spices), but I'll do some research and hope to make some later this week.

Ingredients:

1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
1 cup warm water
1/4 cup white sugar
3 tablespoons milk
1 egg, beaten
2 teaspoons salt
4 1/2 cups bread flour
2 teaspoons minced garlic (optional)
1/4 cup butter, melted

Directions:

In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Let stand about 10 minutes, until frothy. Stir in sugar, milk, egg, salt, and enough flour to make a soft dough. Knead for 6 to 8 minutes on a lightly floured surface, or until smooth. Place dough in a well oiled bowl, cover with a damp cloth, and set aside to rise. Let it rise 1 hour, until the dough has doubled in volume.
Punch down dough, and knead in garlic. Pinch off small handfuls of dough about the size of a golf ball. Roll into balls, and place on a tray. Cover with a towel, and allow to rise until doubled in size, about 30 minutes.
During the second rising, preheat grill to high heat.
At grill side, roll one ball of dough out into a thin circle. Lightly oil grill. Place dough on grill, and cook for 2 to 3 minutes, or until puffy and lightly browned. Brush uncooked side with butter, and turn over. Brush cooked side with butter, and cook until browned, another 2 to 4 minutes. Remove from grill, and continue the process until all the naan has been prepared.

Notes:

I went with three cloves of minced garlic and that worked well. It didn't taste overwhelmingly garlicy, but you can definitely taste and enjoy it. I brushed the butter on with my finger (for lack of a brush) while grilling it. That made it a little dry, I'll try brushing it on after it's done cooking, or both. I used 1/2 cup of sugar instead of 1/4 cup by accident. I mixed up the measuring spoons and didn't realize till it was too late. Still, it came out fine and I didn't notice a sweetness in the bread. Using the KitchenAid was easier, but I still had to hand knead the dough quite a bit. I was a little confused as to when to add all of the flour. The directions say to put some of it in, but I just threw it all in at that point.

EDIT:

3 cloves is the perfect amount of garlic! After trying a few more batches on the stove top, they taste great. I've been using Pam to grease the pan, but I think it's unnecessary. The Pam burns easily and leaves undesirable burnt oil stains on the naan. I think doing a light pour of oil will do. I have the stove on high heat to get the lightly toasted marks, then lower the heat. I'll try doing med heat so I wont burn the oil next time. Also have to substitute coconut oil and see how the flavor is. PICTURES COMING SOON.