Chicken and Tomatillo soup

Once, in the presence of LJ, I said, "On the day I got married I made a big mistake."  Needless to say I needed to clarify my statement pretty quickly, but what I was referring to is the subject of this post.  For some crazy reason I decided, that on one of the most important days of my life, I would make soup as part of the meal for the wedding reception.  I believe the thinking was that since the wedding was in the evening I would have plenty of time and it would be a good way to stay busy.  A few hours in to the soup making process I got in touch with one of my groomsman to see if he could make his way up to my parent's house to help with the shredding of twenty pounds of chicken.  He recently reminded me of this as we were discussing his upcoming nuptials and it was a main reason they decided not to prepare any food themselves.

A little background about our wedding.  I had three requests for the wedding, and besides those requests I was pretty flexible on everything else.

1. I wanted chips and salsa from a local Mexican restaurant to be served.
2. No one would wear a tuxedo.
3. I wanted to dance as little as possible.

Fortunately, LJ was one laid back bride-to-be and thought all of my requests were reasonable.  LJ's mom found a great local restaurant that would cater the event.  However, being someone that enjoys making food, I felt like I still needed to contribute to the event.  I settled on a recipe from one of my favorite soup books (I have since misplaced the book so I used this recipe with some of my own twists based on the original recipe).

If you've never cooked with tomatillos they are a real treat.  They have a sweet and sour balance that makes them wonderful in sauces and salsas.  I roasted the tomatillos in the oven with tequila for added flavor which was based on what I could remember from the original recipe.  I also roasted a poblano pepper under the broiler to blacken the skin, which I then removed, which was also something I remembered from the original recipe. 

I made this version of the soup as a surprise for LJ on Valentine's Day.

Latke

Making these potato pancakes are pretty easy and can be made for breakfast or dinner.  All you need is some potatoes, an onion, an egg, and some seasoning.

Using a box cheese grater I grated up the potatoes and onion on to a kitchen towel.  I then used the towel to squeeze as much of the liquid out of the potatoes as possible.  Imagine you are wringing out a wet towel.  This step is crucially important to the final product and if you skip it you will end up with soggy instead of crisp potatoes.

After removing as much liquid as you can then mix the potatoes and onion with an egg and any seasoning you desire.  You may also add a little flour to help the mixture stick together better.

Heat a shallow layer of oil in a pan to prepare for frying.  Form the potato mixture in to a patty and fry one or two at a time depending on the size of your pan.  Flip once the first side is crispy.

We like to serve these with hot sauce and sour cream.

Beef Stock

As Spring approaches I decided to sneak a few more batches of soup in before the weather warms up too much, which might not be until June in western Washington.  As mentioned previously I had picked up a few beef soup bones from Colvin Ranch so I decided to make a batch of beef stock that I could use in future soups.

As long as you have a handful of different vegetables on hand making stock is a pretty simple process.  When making beef stock the first step is to sear the meat and bones in a stock pot.

While the meat was browning I roughly chopped the vegetables which included carrots, onions, and celery.

I added the vegetables along with a couple of bay leaves and a few whole peppercorns, then I covered everything in the pot with water.

The stock is set to simmer on the stove for a couple of hours, until everything has broken down.

After the stock finished cooking I poured it through a colander with a bowl underneath to catch the liquid below.

You can use the finished stock right away or freeze it in containers for a later date.

BLAT!!

Growing up it was common for my family to eat BLTs once a week in the summer.  The BLT was the perfect delivery device for the home grown tomatoes that were always in abundance in the garden.  I joked recently that in our house growing up that the only appropriate side dish for a BLT was a second BLT.  We even had a standing rule while making BLTs that if you took bread out of the toaster to make yourself a sandwich that you needed to start two more pieces of bread toasting because someone else would be wanting another sandwich soon.

When I was living at home I didn't have a strong appreciation for the home grown tomato, probably because they were the only tomato I knew and didn't realize how boring and bland a store bought tomato could be until I bought one for myself many years later in an attempt to make BLTs.

In the winter when I'm craving a BLT I have to dress it up a little bit to make up for the disappointing tomato flavor.  Fortunately, every year around the Super Bowl produce sections are flooded with avocados with the expectation that every party will have some dip.  I rescued one of these unsuspecting avocados to suppliment my winter BLT making and was able to create a BLAT (most restaurants that have this on the menu will call it a BLTA).

No real recipe to share here since it is just making a sandwich (though don't forget the mayo since it isn't in the  handy acronym).  I also used some sandwich bread that I had recently made which makes every sandwich 15% better in my opinion.  Hopefully this holds me over until tomatoes are in season.

No there weren't four people dining, we were just following house rules on appropriate side dishes.

Garlic Parmesan Potatoes

In an attempt to recreate the deliciousness that you can buy at Safeco Field I made some roasted potatoes covered in garlic and parmesan cheese.

I chopped 6 cloves of garlic and finely shredded a handful of parmesan cheese.

I roasted some Yellow Finn potatoes in the oven until they were crispy.  One key is to make sure the cookie sheet is well greased to keep the potatoes from sticking.

I then tossed everything together in a bowl with some Johnny's Seasoning Salt.  Pretty delicious stuff, but always always LJ insists they could use more garlic.

Kung Pao Chicken (Panda Express version)

In my previous life as an employed member of society, I had to do quite a bit of traveling for my job.  In a given year I spent about six weeks away from home, which isn't a tremendous amount compared to a corporate CEO or a long haul trucker, but for a homebody like myself it could get pretty rough.

The only real advantage of being on the road so much was the ability to eat fast food and not feel quite as guilty about it.  LJ and I have a standing rule that we don't eat fast food unless we are traveling in attempt to eat more healthy and cheaply at home.  (This rule often leads us to stopping for Egg McMuffins on the way out of town on early morning trips.)  Since I was spending so much time traveling for work, and since I didn't want to gain ten pounds a week by only eating Quarter Pounders, I searched out slightly healthier options.

Now I'm not saying Panda Express is the healthiest option (the amount of sodium is off the charts), but it does seem like the lesser of most evils.  I developed a minor addition to the restaurant from traveling so much that now every time we drive by one I look at LJ and ask "Panda?" in a whimpering voice that could be compared to a five year old begging.

After doing a little internet sleuthing, I realized that I could make many of the dishes on the Panda menu at home.  Since I only order Orange Chicken and Kung Pao Chicken on my visits to Panda I figured these would be good places to start.  The recipe is quite simple, though I omitted the chili peppers because LJ isn't a fan of food that is too spicy.  Also the recipes online did not indicate the amount or type of vegetable to add with the chicken.  I knew zucchini was involved so I used one small zucchini for this first attempt.  In the future I would either use two zucchinis or one zucchini and one bell pepper to improve the chicken to vegetable ratio.

The results were a nearly spot on re-creation of the Panda Express dish.  LJ found the dish to be too salty (which I would agree with but is probably also why I find it so good) so in future attempts I will either use low sodium soy sauce, substitute some of the soy sauce with tamari or water, or just reduce the amount of soy sauce added.  Other than that I would say this recipe is a definite keeper for anyone with a mild Panda addiction.

Pesto

I had a strong fear of pesto for quite some time growing up.  I think part of the fear came from the first time I attempted to make it in high school.  I found a recipe that seemed simple enough and went to the store to find all the ingredients.  I remember being blown away by how expensive pine nuts were.  At the time it seemed like a necessary ingredient so I went along with the recipe and was underwhelmed by the results, probably because I was still steaming about how much I had to pay for a handful of nuts.

If it would have been up to me I probably wouldn't have given pesto a second thought, but since LJ loves all things pasta I was forced to make another attempt.  After our spectacular results with arugula pesto I felt confident in using walnuts in place of the traditional pine nuts.  In all honesty when I went to the store to round up the ingredients to make pesto I was looking for arugula instead of basil but was unable to locate any after making three laps through the produce section.

You might be thinking to yourself, "But wait Seth, buying basil is nearly as expensive as buying pine nuts," to which I would agree.  However I left confident I could find a use for any leftover basil (unlike pine nuts) and in the summer it is easy and inexpensive to grow your own basil.  You may also be able to find a farmers market or U-pick farm where you can score a good deal on a load of basil.

This post is getting a little long considering how simple the actual recipe is.  We enjoyed it with some gnocchi that we were able to pull out of the freezer.