Friday, March 30, 2012

Yakisoba

The first date I went on was also the first time I experienced yakisoba.  The nice young lady was excited for me to take her to a food fair to get noodles.  She was mostly excited for the noodles and less excited to hang out with me, but to be fair I mostly only remember the noodles from the date as well.

Yakisoba is easy to make if you can find the noodles.  In most grocery stores they are in the produce section near wonton wrappers and Asian vegetables.  You can use whatever vegetables you want (this batch included carrots, zucchini, onions, and yellow bell pepper).  Getting the noodle to vegetable ratio correct takes a little bit of practice and varies by each individuals preferences.  I also use sesame oil and red pepper flake for additional flavor.


The first step is to loosen the package of noodles.  You can either run water over the noodles or poke holes in the package and heat them in the microwave for a minute (my preferred method because the dryer noodles seem to come out better).  You can then loosen the noodles with your hand.


Once the noodles are loosened set them aside and stir fry the vegetables in a hot skillet or wok.  Once they are almost to your desired tenderness (usually just a few minutes of cooking) add the noodles on top.  The noodles also come with a seasoning packet.  The noodles instruct you to mix the seasoning packet with water and then pour over the noodles.  My experience has been that the instructions call for way too much water.  I usually use less than half the recommended amount of water because when I use the full amount it seems like the whole dish becomes boiled or stemmed instead of stir fried.


All that is needed after that is tossing everything together and then it is ready to serve.


In searching for yakisoba instructions I stumbled across an amazing resource on YouTube.  RunnyRunny999 takes orders for traditional Japanese dishes and then shows you how to make them.  They are entertaining, informative, and I'm planning on trying a few of them down the road.

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Lime salad dressing

I've been experimenting with new salad dressings as LJ and I try to eat a salad with most of our meals.  This was an attempt at a vinaigrette using lime as the acid, honey for sweetness, and the addition of some spices for added flavor.

The results were pretty solid and something I will continue to play around with.  The addition of fresh garlic and cilantro might be nice or a jalapeno for some heat.


Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Beer Bread

After making beer battered fish and drinking my fair share from the growler I still had a little beer leftover.  Luckily I knew what to do so no perfectly good (though starting to go flat) beer would go to waste: beer bread.

Beer bread is just about the easiest bread you can make.  The variety of beer you use doesn't matter but does add most of the flavor to the bread so make sure to use a beer you enjoy.  Also the amount of butter you use is directly proportional to how delicious the bread will be.  You can see from the photo below that my loaf was nearly completely submerged in melted butter before it went in to the oven.




The resulting bread is nice for using as a side dish or as a salty, buttery snack.






Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Chicken Enchiladas

Part of being a house husband requires me to pay attention when LJ mentions food items she thinks would be good to make for dinner.  She recently saw a picture of enchiladas on someone's Facebook page and said "oohhhh, we haven't had enchiladas in a long time."  What I thought to myself was "That is because I've never been happy with how my enchiladas turn out," but I kept that thought to myself and began searching the interwebs for a highly rated enchilada recipe.

This recipe had a ton of great reviews so I settled on it without thinking twice.  As I was preparing dinner I remember that just because something is homemade doesn't mean it is good for you.  A rule of thumb is that the more cans you have to open the worse the nutritional content of the meal will be (one of the many reasons I am not a fan of Sandra Lee).

The results weren't bad and also provided LJ with lunches for a few days but I'm still not satisfied.  I'm going to do a little more searching and attempt to make enchiladas again, hopefully a little bit more from scratch.








Monday, March 26, 2012

Fish tacos

The amount of fried food LJ and I tried to consume when I made beer battered fish and french fries left us feeling sick, but also with a few leftover pieces of fish in the fridge.  Knowing that we were in desperate need of some fiber and roughage I decided to put together some fish tacos for dinner the following night.

I started a small batch of black beans in the morning that were ready in time for dinner.  I chopped up the leftover fish and reheated it in the oven.  I topped the fish and beans with some cheese, lettuce, and tarter sauce.

The results were excellent and left us feeling a little bit better about all the fried food we had eaten.



 



Friday, March 23, 2012

Brown Rice

Since LJ shared her breakfast tradition I felt compelled to share my lunch routine.  Since the astute reader will know I haven't been working and that I enjoy cooking they might think that I whip up an elaborate lunch for myself each day, but they would be wrong.  Most days I have a bowl of brown rice topped with some soy sauce and sriracha.  Recently I've also added crumbled kale chips in to the mix and I am hoping to add some nori flakes after reading about the nutritional benefits of seaweed in your diet.


I use a rice cooker to make the brown rice because it is the only way I have found to consistently make brown rice turn out well.  Alton Brown would probably frown on the use of rice cooker since it is a uni-tasker, to which I would respond with asking if he uses a coffee maker?  We all have our vices, mine just happen to involve carbs.


Thursday, March 22, 2012

Gnocchi with sausage and white sauce

After discovering gnocchi made from winter squash earlier this year we've made several large batches so we have had a steady supply in our freezer.  My favorite way to eat it is simply to boil the gnocchi and then pan fry them in a little butter until one side is crisp.

This time I tried something a little bit more involved.  I fried up some sausage, made an alfredo sauce, and tossed everything together.  So really not that much more involved.  I also made a loaf of bread that I was so proud of I demanded that LJ take a picture of me cradling it in my arms.







Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Beer Battered Fish

A few months back I found a wonderful little shop in Olympia that sells only beer.  Not only do they have over 600 different varieties of bottles and cans in stock, they also have a few rotating taps where you can bring in a growler or quart jar for a fill up.


I've gotten my growler filled a few times when I'm going to a party or we are having friends over.  This time however I was all alone since LJ doesn't drink beer.  Since I am a literal lightweight (tipping the scales around a buck and a quarter) I had to find other uses for some of the beer so it wouldn't go to waste.  Luckily I am an experienced fryer and master batterer from my days working at Skippers.


After some Googling, I settled on this recipe to make a batch of beer battered cod.


We picked up a package of frozen cod chunks from Trader Joe's which worked perfectly.






I had the oil a little too hot for the first batch so the batter got darker than I would have preferred but all in all the fish turned out great.  The only real dilemma was that I served the fish with homemade french fries which made for a lot of fried food in one meal.  Next time I will serve the fish with some actual vegetables instead.

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Barley and Potato Soup

This hearty soup was thrown together using ingredients that I had on hand in the kitchen.  After making beef stock, I sauteed some onions and carrots.  I then added a cup of barley along with enough beef stock to cover everything. 



I still had a handful of tiny potatoes left from the farm (volunteers and employees were allowed to take whatever they wanted of the potatoes that were too small to be sold at market) so I chopped them in half or quarters and tossed them in the soup after the barley had begun to soften.


I simmered the soup until the barley was soft but still chewy.  In my experience working with barley you can eat it after it cooks for about half an hour or let it simmer all day.  The longer you cook it the softer it will be so depending on how you prefer it you may want to hold off on adding the carrots and potatoes so they don't turn to mush before your barley is ready.


The result was something between a soup and a stew that was delicious that night and also reheated well for lunches later in the week.




Monday, March 19, 2012

Potato Leek Hash

This was an attempt to use up lots of leeks and potatoes that had piled up from our CSA.  I had a bunch of really small yellow and red potatoes so I boiled them until they were just soft.  I then threw them in a pan with some olive oil to begin making the skin crispy.


I chopped some fresh garlic and leeks to add in with the potatoes.





After adding some delicious Johnny's Seasoning salt and cooking the garlic and leeks until they were fragrant I smashed everything together with my potato masher.


I let everything crisp up a bit more and then scraped it out of the pan.  It turned out surprisingly well for how unplanned it was.  We ate it as a main dish but it would go well with some eggs and toast as well.