Weeknight Cooking

This is very exciting, I've added a new tag for your sorting pleasure... this time... week-night dinners, which are things that don't take hours to cook and are well-suited to throwing together on a week night. They still involve cooking, but nothing extensively long. Enjoy!

http://yellowfishblog.blogspot.com/search/label/week-night%20dinners

Some examples of things in this category are...

Balsamic Lentils
Peanut Noodles
Squash Soup
Pineapple Chicken Tacos
Apricot Walnut Chicken
Chana Masala
Butternut Squash Pasta
Chickpea Tomato Quinoa
Chicken Chili
French Lentil Salad
Shredded Asian Beef
Rosemary Chicken with Lemon-Almond Bulgur

Some of the things that differentiate these from other recipes are that, for instance, you can marinate meat all day in the fridge (for instance, the Pineapple Chicken Tacos, or the Rosemary Chicken), or, some are slow-cooker recipes (like the Shredded Asian Beef, Apricot Walnut Chicken, and Chicken Chili), others use ingredients like lentils and bulgur that are very quick cooking, or pre-cooked beans (like the Chana Masala). Good luck!

Completely Gratuitous Cat Photo

She just looks so stinkin' cute with the quilt.

Chicken Adobo, NYT Style

Sometimes I get a bee in my bonnet (yes, thats what I said), and just can't keep going until I make the thing I'm obsessing about. Recently, I read an article on Chicken Adobo with accompanying recipe, and there was the bee.

You can go see the recipe yourself, for once I did exactly what they said to do... but, I was very pleased to see that it actually looked strikingly like the photo in the paper!

 

 We had it with salad, and some roasted sweet potatoes. I think it would be more traditional on rice, but, what can I say, this is what we did- actually, the tangy sauce was delicious on the potato! I highly recommend the recipe...

Pineapple Chicken Tacos

I have developed a bizarre obsession with pineapple lately. I have NO idea where this came from, but its been a few weeks and shows no signs of fading, so I've decided to embrace it. Today's results? Pineapple chicken tacos!

The chicken:
I used my tried and true marinating technique of throwing frozen chicken breasts into a ziplock baggie, putting the marinade in there, and letting it sit there while the chicken defrosts (in the fridge, to avoid food poisoning). I threw mine on the grill, because it I live in L.A. and you can do things like grill in January. You could also broil it.

The marinade:
1/2-3/4c pineapple juice (this could be from the can of pineapple you'll be using for the salsa in a few minutes, mine was)
2 tbsp soy sauce
1tsp fresh garlic
1 tsp fresh ginger
(my garlic and ginger are from a jar. I think it is a good solution- much better than dried, but much less work than cutting things up)
Sriracha/rooster sauce/chili sauce (or in a pinch, red pepper flakes)- this depends on taste- more for spicier, less for not.

The salsa:
half a diced cucumber
half a can of pineapple, diced (or, I suppose, well drained crushed pineapple)
1 tsp sesame oil
1/2 tsp sriracha/pepper flakes/etc
optional- diced red onion

I served mine on warmed corn tortillas, with the salsa on top, topped with avocado. Sour cream would have been good, too! This was relatively quick, healthy, and delicious!

My Rapid Decline into Old-Ladyhood... part III, the final hurrah.

Once I finished the top of the quilt, I was pretty excited... then I realized, that was only half the battle. I made a back of the quilt, which probably could have been simpler except I had a lot of fabric that I could cut up, and didn't want to waste it. So, I made the whole thing out of 12x12 squares, with 2 stripes of color to add a little interest.

First step was to spread the entire thing out flat, taping down the sides so there were as few wrinkles as possible. Given that this took the entire available space in my living room (with the coffee table and rug moved and the couches pushed around), this was no easy feat. It is possible the hardest part was keeping Charlotte off of it, because she was pretty intrigued.

Then the next step is to make the "quilt sandwich". So, on top of the backing of the quilt put the batting. I used an 80/20 cotton/poly blend with low loft. Then I put on the top, trying to center it (not so easy!). Then, I used a little tool my friend Kristen (who also advised on the whole process) loaned me, which is basically like a price gun that shoots a little plastic thing through all the layers to hold them together- alternatively, you can pin it. The gun was pretty fun, though.

 Then, I rolled it up, because the whole thing has to be fed through the sewing machine (no small feat either)! There are a lot of fancy techniques for the actual quilting, but I wanted to go way simple because frankly, I had no idea what I was doing, and by the time everything was sandwiched together, just maneuvering the whole thing through the machine was tricky.

 I decided to just sew along each seam- my stripes were either 4 inches wide (colors) or 2 inches wide (grey) so it worked out (the batting say to quilt every 4 inches to avoid bunching). I didn't manage to sew the same distance from the edge of each stripe, but, it worked out anyways

Then I had to do the edge, which I was kind of worried about. First I trimmed everything so it was the same size. Then, I cut a bunch of strips of fabric about 3 inches wide and connected them (the way this blog showed me). A lot of the descriptions of binding involved hand sewing, until I found this miraculous post saying that you could do it without doing it by hand, so for my first try, I just went with that. I would describe it in detail, but there are about a million posts about doing this, all by people who know more than I do.

 

And here it is... in all its glory....

*drumroll please*

 

And here is the edge, which despite being a design borne of necessity, is actually a part of it I really like.

And, here is the back, made that way purely for cuteness...

The first night sleeping under that quilt, was the best night ever :).

Also, I know you're concerned, but, Charlotte approves...

If you want to see the rest of the series, here is part 1:

http://yellowfishblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/my-rapid-decline-into-old-ladyhood-part.html

and part 2:

http://yellowfishblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/my-rapid-decline-into-old-ladyhood-part_14.html

 

My Rapid Decline into Old-Ladyhood... part II.

(Ok, so I guess it isn't a rapid decline if the project took months, and now its going to take 3 posts to blog it all, so sue me)

After spending a LOT of time cutting out fabric squares, I was finally ready to sew! this was almost the first time I'd used my sewing machine for anything substantial, so there was a big learning curve and no small amount of swearing and foot stomping (and 2 broken needles, and probably 10x more thread used than was actually needed for the project).

 At this point I started to get extremely excited any time the quilt got noticeably bigger and started obsessively documenting it, which you now get to see...

 Then I started trying to motivate myself by laying it on the bed, so I could imagine what it would ultimately look like...

Unfortunately what you see here is the top end of the quilt... which is very nicely lined up. The other side was not quite so nice, so I ended up trimming it and putting on a wide grey border...

To see how it turned out, stay tuned!

My Rapid Decline into Old-Ladyhood... part I.

A few months back, I got a new bed. I can't for the life of me find a picture of it the way it looked when I got it, but trust me, it is adorable. (btw, in addition, I got a memory foam mattress... holy smokes, is that thing ever comfortable! I looove it!). With the new bed, I decided I needed a new bedspread, but I just couldn't find anything I wanted, especially because I wanted a quilt, and frankly, a lot of quilts are a little to cutesy for me to tolerate. This began a long saga of quilt shopping, including looking at what I imagine was almost every quilt available for sale on the internet. I am picky, and I didn't like any of them. Then I stumbled across a series of blogs with really cute, cool, modern quilts.

And a project was born.

Do I know anything about making a quilt? No, I do not. Fortunately, thanks to the internet, anyone can pretty much do anything, and I learned a lot about what to do... then, I made a plan! I'm not just an old lady, apparently I'm going to be a nerdy old lady, because I decided the best possible plan was to make the design in excel... I don't know how other people do this, but as far as I'm concerned, it was the perfect solution!

I decided on a light grey background with multicolored stripes, in the hopes that stripes would be more forgiving (which they were).

I got my fabric from fabric.com, which I liked because they let you drag the little thumbnails of the patterns next to each other to see if they match... next thing I knew, there was a big pile of fabric in the mail...

I got a rotary fabric cutter, a self-healing cutting mat, and some plastic to make templates out of (most of which came in some getting started quilting kit from Jo-ann's). And, started to cut rectangles- you have to add a .25 inch margin on each piece to allow for a seam.

To see the next phase, stay tuned!

Frozen Herbs... woah!

I recently discovered a product that I had absolutely no idea existed, but that seems like one of those really really awesome ideas, and you can't figure out why you haven't been using it for years... what could this be, you ask?

 Yes, you read that right... it says frozen cilantro! (and basil) This company Dorot (http://www.mydorot.com/default.aspx) has had the foresight to freeze teaspoon sized ice cubes of fresh herbs that you can pop out and add to recipes!

My herb garden is looking a little pathetic these days (although the weeks of torrential downpour in LA did help a bit), which makes this all the more appealing. Also, it just seems handy- for instance, the other day, I made my chana masala recipe, and one of the things I love about that is that its easy just to whip up out of things in the cupboard (basically all it has is onion, canned tomato, garbanzo beans, and spices). But, fresh cilantro makes a huge difference- thing is, I had no desire to go to the store just for a bunch of cilantro that I'd only use half of anyways, so I went without. No more! It was only $1.99 for the entire pack, so this can easily fit into your budget cooking store of herbs because they'll last quite a while, it seems. I'm excited!
(I found this at Trader Joes).

Apricot Walnut Crockpot Chicken

I feel like in some ways I should call this "never give up" chicken, because I hate to admit it, but I almost did.

I am trying to learn to use my crock-pot, and there is a lot of variation in how well this goes (I nearly had a Thai-beef-curry induced meltdown a few weeks ago). I saw this recipe, which seemed easy and good, made some tweaks, and gave it a shot.

--11 oz jar of apricot preserves- it took me a while to find one without high fructose corn syrup, and surprisingly the grocery store brand is the one that won out

--1 T dijon mustard

--2 T soy sauce

--2 tsp ginger

--1/4 to 1/2 t red chili flakes, OR 2 tsp chili sauce (like Sriracha)

--6 chicken breast pieces or (thighs would work)

--1/4-1/2 cup walnut pieces

 Throw it all in there, and turn it on. I put it on low, and theoretically it should have taken 5-6 hours, but it took more like 4.5, probably because my chicken pieces were pretty puny.

Now, this is the point where I almost gave up.

My chicken did not look delicious like the chicken in the picture on the blog I read, it looked like flat chicken pieces in thin brown soup. Chicken floating in thin brown soup (chunky soup, because of the walnuts!) actually looks pretty gross. BUT, Charlotte reminded me that I am not one to back down from a challenge, and that cooking on a budget does not allow for throwing away large quantities of chicken, and I continued on. I took all the sauce, put it in a saucepan, and simmered it for a while until it was reduced into something thicker and more appetizing (see below).

It actually turned out! One note is, this was really sweet (I should have known something involving an entire jar of jam would be sweet), I think kids would like it as it is, but if I make it again, I'll double the chili sauce and soy sauce to jazz it up a little. Enjoy!

ps. I'd like to make a shout out to my sister-in-law Carmen, the Christmas-Elf who supplied me with some new and exciting plates to make my blogging photos more exciting... yay!

Not Your Grandma's Brittle (Belated Holiday Post)

Ok, ok, I have to admit, I don't actually know your Grandma, but I'm GUESSING, this is not your Grandma's Brittle.  I recently went to Artisanal LA, which is a local artisanal food event linked with the also very cool Unique LA craft show, source of many of my Christmas presents.

ANYWAYS, based on some of my samples there, I realized that nut brittle can go way beyond your standard peanut, and started to want to play with different combinations (resulting in me making 4 batches of brittle the week before Christmas with varying success rates).

First step, find a solid basic brittle recipe to start from... I used this "Best Ever Nut Brittle" from Food and Wine. I figured "best ever" has to be a good place to start, right?

http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/best-ever-nut-brittle

Basically, what I learned is that you can put almost anything into a brittle, if you throw it in at the very end, during the time when you put in the nuts and baking soda. If you put it in before that, you run the risk of compromising the crystalization of the sugar. My two top favorites were....

Rosemary Almond with Sea Salt:

And Walnut-Orange-Cinnamon (on the left)

 

This is what you need:

a candy thermometer 

-2 cups sugar

-1/2 cup water

-1 stick unsalted butter

-1/3 cup light corn syrup

-1/2 teaspoon baking soda

-12 ounces roasted nuts 

-1tsp salt

This is what you do with it:

In a large saucepan, combine the sugar, water, butter and corn syrup and slowly bring to a boil. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally. The mixture will become light brown, and you must must must wait until it registers 300° on a candy thermometer, which is the 'hard crack' stage. There is a non-thermometer way of measuring this that involves dropping pieces of candy into glasses of cold water and then assessing what happens, but that takes a while which means you might miss the magic moment and end up with a burned up pan, so just shell out the five bucks for the thermometer- they have them at the grocery store. Make sure the candy thermometer is not touching the bottom of the pan and is measuring from somewhere in the middle of the liquid. In addition, you can really get burned here- unlike water which will cool off pretty quickly, the sugar mixture will stick to you and stays hot longer so it'll keep burning you while it is on your skin- be careful!

When it hits 300 IMMEDIATELY remove from the heat and carefully stir in the baking soda, salt, and any flavoring. Speed is of the essence because it'll start to cool right away. The mixture will bubble, don't freak out. Stir in the nuts, then immediately scrape the brittle onto a large rimmed, nonstick rimmed baking sheet lined with tinfoil. Using the back of a large spoon (oil it lightly if it sticks), spread the brittle into a thin, even layer.  Let cool completely, then break it up- it should crack into large shards.

Now... to flavor it!

Rosemary-Almond: with the baking soda mixture dump in 2 tsp dried rosemary, and use sliced almonds for the nuts. When medium cool, sprinkle the top with sea salt.

Walnut-Orange-Cinnamon: dump in zest from 1 orange, 1 tsp cinnamon, and use walnuts

Thai curry: put in 2 tsp red curry paste and use peanuts (I did this, but didn't really use enough curry so it didn't make the top 2 favorites list)

Now that you have the basics, go nuts! (scratch that, excuse the pun, I can't believe I said that, sheesh).