Cooking Interrupted

I am a big fan of burgers and enjoy them in all different forms. I frequently make the basic beef burger as well as these little lamb burgers that I serve with pita bread instead of buns. I also like the Trader Joe’s Chicken Chile burgers from the frozen food section and just tried out a new recipe for yummy pork burgers. I found the recipe for Sausage Burgers with Sriracha-Honey-Mustard Sauce right in the front a recent issue of Food and Wine magazine and thought it looked very simple and tasty. I love Italian sausage on pasta or pizzas and am a sucker for honey mustard dressings so the recipe let me have both things but in a new way. The burgers came together way faster than the 40 minutes that is was supposed to take and were very juicy (thanks to the fat in the sausage). I even froze a few extra burgers for an easy future weeknight dinner.  A few notes about the recipe:

1.  I made these slider style which would be fun if you could get your kids to eat them or for a big party.
2. I reduced the sriracha to 2 tablespoons instead of 3 since I am somewhat wimpy about hot spicy things. I would recommend starting with less sriracha and then adding more to avoid buring your mouth. 

My life in the past few months has been busier than usual (as you could probably tell from the lack of posts). At work, my team had a BIG product launch and our big user conference all at once. I also had a few days off during spring break where I went to Hawaii and now I am in the end of the school year rush. All of this activity means that my cooking schedule gets thrown off. I’m finally getting back on track though and made an awesome recipe last week, Chicken-Apricot Skewers. The recipe consists of the perfect peanut sauce that is used to marinate the chicken breasts and serve with the cooked skewers. The sauce is simple to make since everything just gets dumped into the blender and it combines peanut butter with coconut milk, yogurt, lime, jalapeño and cilantro into a smooth, slightly spicy, creamy, tangy sauce. I literally liked the sauce so much I ate spoonfuls of it before pouring it over the chicken. 

The biggest challenge with this recipe is threading everything onto the skewers to grill them and making sure you make this recipe while apricots are still in season. Since apricots are in season now, make this right away!

My notes about the recipe:

1. The apricots need to be firm or they will just turn into mush on the grill.
2. If you are in a rush like I was last week, you can skip the skewers. I just marinated and grilled whole chicken thighs and cooked the apricots on a vegetable grill pan by themselves. The flavors were still the same but the dish just looked a little different.
3. I have never sprinkled the peanuts on top of the chicken like they show on the picture on the Bon Appetit web site.  I supposed they add texture but I think the recipe is fine without them.

A few weeks ago I was super organized. I had set up a play date for my son on Sunday afternoon AND wrote out a shopping list so after I dropped him off so I could go directly to the store to buy groceries. I was planning to make Beer-Braised Carnitas, which I had seen in Bon Appetit in January as part of an article on Super Bowl nachos. The recipe took said it would take 2 hours to cook but only 30 minutes of active preparation and cooking so it seemed perfect to me. My plan was to start cooking it while my daughter watch an episode of Sofia the First and then let it simmer while we went to pick my son back up. By the time we got back it would almost be ready with just the last half hour of cooking left ensuring that we would eat dinner at an early hour. 

Then I hit the parenting jackpot. When I dropped my son off, my daughter decided to stay for the play date too so I was able to grocery shop and cook alone. Ironically the Oscars were happening that Sunday night so while I was cooking I watched the coverage of all the women arriving in their fancy gowns while I cooked totally casual food. The carnitas turned out to be a great meal to cook in between the drop off and pick up from the play date. Even though the cooking time for the recipe was long, it was very simple to set up and then let simmer for over an hour. They turned out delicious and I served them as tacos with a variety of fixings like avocado, cheese, tomatoes and more. A few notes about the recipe:

1. I used dried ancho chiles since I happened to have them on hand and according to the Cook’s Thesaurus they are a similar substitute to New Mexico chiles. I didn’t think they really puffed up though as the recipe suggested they would.
2. I used Corona beer for the recipe since I did not see Modelo at the store and could not bring myself to buy Budwiser. I also like drinking Corona and knew I would drink the rest of the 6-pack of it with the carnitas.
3. The a lot of comments on the Bon Appetit web site mentioned that the 4 teaspoons of salt was too much for the recipe. Since I was already reducing all of the measurements in half since I was only really making this for 2 people, I also reduced the salt to about a little over 1 teaspoon.
4. If you have leftover carnitas and need a simple weeknight recipe, I recommend putting the carnitas into quesadillas. 

Last week I tried out a new stir-fry recipe, which was different from the “stir-frys” I usually make for a couple of reasons. First I made the stir fry “sauce” from scratch using simple ingredients I almost always have on hands (oyster sauce, soy sauce, and rice vinegar) instead of just adding a premade jarred sauce (like a Kikkoman teriyaki glaze). Second I used fresh vegetables that I chopped myself instead of using the frozen Trader Joe’s Asian vegetables mix. And third and finally, this stir-fry had Brussels sprouts in it which I had never done before and definitely confused my husband a little.

I had found the Brussels sprouts and Steak Stir-Fry recipe on the Bon Appetit web site as well as in the copy that arrived in my mailbox. It seemed like a good candidate for a weeknight dinner since the recipe actually called out prepping everything before you cook and most of the cooking steps talk about cooking things for 2,3, or 4 minutes which told me that the recipe would move along and cook quickly.

I prepped all the ingredients for the stir-fry ahead of time including the sauce and made the recipe on a Wednesday night. It was really easy and fast with the resulting meal being delicious. In some ways it was like expanding the David Chang Brussels sprouts that I had made previously into a whole meal. My only regret was that I had scaled back the recipe for two people and the remaining left overs were not enough to make a lunch for me the next day. 

A few notes about the recipe:

• Most of the time when you buy flank steak you wind up with a big piece. Since you only need a small amount of steak freeze the rest of it to marinade with herbs and then grill.
• I used a non-stick pan for this recipe so I did not need as much vegetable oil when cooking. 

A little over a week ago it was Valentine’s Day and if I didn’t have kids, I might have considered going out to dinner to celebrate. However since I have kids and the logistics of getting a babysitter to go out on weeknight/school night were wayyyy too overwhelming, I stayed home with my valentine and looked for something nice to make for dinner. Thankfully Bon Apetit had great feature on their web site called “BA-Approved Valentine’s Day Menus for All Kinds of Couples”. After scrolling through the list I found a recipe for Grilled Fillet Mignon with Brandy Mustard Sauce from the “Hot (Mess) Couple menu” that looked really good. The recipe seemed like it would be easy enough to make on a weeknight if a little prep was done the night before so I decided it would be the one to make for dinner. The recipe turned out delicious with the perfect combination tender beef and creamy sauce and chewiness of the sautéed mushrooms in the sauce. A few notes about the recipe: 

1. For prep I sliced the mushrooms and shallots the night before and measuring out some of the liquids (like the broth, mustard and thyme leaves) into a container so they were ready to go right into the recipe.
2. Since it was cold (at least by my California standards), I skipped the grilling of the fillet and pan roasted them instead. Basically I put the fillet in a frying pan and cooked them on each side for about 5 minutes.
3. Bon Apetit had suggestions for dessert but I skipped them and was just going to serve some ice cream. However my awesome husband surprised me with an awesome chocolate cake from Whole Foods which was a perfect finish to the meal. 

While I was going through all of the menus, I found another recipe I thought sounded really good for Chicken with Herb-Roasted Tomatoes and Pan Sauce. I made it on Saturday night and it was like we got to have Valentines day a second time. The chicken was also delicious and the herbes de Provence and tarragon added a lot of flavor to the dish. I did not wind up with as much liquid in my sauce as in the picture on Bon Appetit and I am not sure if it was because I reduced the number of tomatoes since I was just making the  recipe for 2 people or if it was because the tomatoes were not that ripe. Either way there way enough liquid to cover the chicken and keep it moist. 

Two weeks ago it was Super Bowl Sunday and I was supposed to go a party that meant I wouldn’t have to cook dinner since there would be a ton of food at the party. However on the Friday before the Super Bowl the party got cancelled so I started to look for something “Super Bowl-y” to make for dinner and I found this recipe in Food and Wine for Asian Sloppy Joe Sliders by Ming Tsai. I had seen Ming compete on Next Iron Chef so I was familiar with his style of cooking and these sliders looked pretty straightforward to make. I thought the sloppy joe mixture might be good to freeze like the pulled chicken I had made the week before. I also happened to have some extra hoisin sauce and Asian chile sauce that I wanted to use up, so I went ahead and made the recipe. As expected the chopping for the recipe took up the most time and then the cooking was really easy. It was just cooked away on the stove with a little stirring every couple of minutes, which was great as I was watching the football game at the same time. The sliders turned out delicious with a nice spiciness and still a little bit of crunch from the cooked onions and celery. The adults in my house ate the Asian sliders and the kids in the house just at the slider buns with hummus. These sliders would be great for a potluck if you had a crock pot or chafing dish to keep the meat mixture warm.

A few more notes about the recipe:

1. The recipe for the sliders is supposed to make 20 sliders so I scaled it back to about ½-2/3 of the original amounts. I got enough out of that amount for about 12-14 sliders.
2. I froze the remaining half of the sloppy joe mix using the “flat Ziploc” method. I defrosted it about a week later for dinner and it was just as good as when I cooked it which means I’ve got a new non-Italian recipe to rotate into my freezer recipe collection.
3. I used this Asian chile sauce that I already had and I thought it tasted great. The recommended sauce, sambal oelek, doesn’t have garlic in it but I did not really taste in the recipe. 

My life is hectic and the only think I like better than dinner that is all prepped and ready to cook when I get home, is a home cooked dinner that just needs to be defrosted and reheated. In the past when I have made precooked meals I always wound up making Italian style meals like lasagna, stuffed pasta shells, meatballs (as shown in my last post) and premade pasta sauces. While I love Italian food I have definitely wanted to find new things to make and freeze for dinner. Last month I took the Dinner a Love Story 7 meals in 7 days challenge and was super excited to see a whole section of make ahead meals including one suggestions of a recipe for pulled chicken that was supposed to freeze well. I love pulled pork/chicken and frequently buy the premade versions of them at Trader Joes and. I decided to try out the DALS recipe one Sunday afternoon and made a big batch so I would have something for dinner and leftovers to freeze.  

The resulting chicken was awesome and as promised froze great! The onions get super soft and their flavors mellow from cooking for so long and the chipotle adds a nice big of smoky spice to the sauce. I used a bottled barbecue sauce to speed up the cooking process but next time might try to make my own. A few notes on the recipe:

1. The recipe calls for 6-8 chicken breasts for a total of about 2 pounds. The chicken breasts I bought were really big and I only needed 4 breasts to get to 2 pounds. Make sure you check the weight on the package before adding extra chicken into the pot.
2. Don’t miss the step where you put in extra water with the barbecue sauce so the chicken breasts are covered when cooking. Water is not on the ingredients list so I almost missed this when I made the recipe.
3. If you are freezing the pulled chicken, I highly recommend the “flat ziplock” method from DALS. I try to use reusable plastic or glass containers instead of plastic bags for food storage but this is one place where I make an exception. If you spread out the pulled chicken (or anything else you are freezing in a plastic bag) into a thinner layer instead of letting it form into a big square or round chunk, it will defrost quickly when you stick it in the sink under some warm water which will save you some night when you realize you forgot to stuff the frozen chicken into the refrigerator in the morning before you went to work. 
4. The pulled chicken is awesome as a mini slider or just on its own!

I love, love, love meatballs, especially the ones that my dad used to cook in an old school electric frying pan and then simmer in a crockpot. I don’t own either of these items and whenever I have tried to make meatballs and fry them in a regular frying pan, they have come out a mess. I cook them too long on one or two of the sides and the ball starts to turn into more of a square. Plus the frying makes a mess and the meatballs never seem to come out as juicy as I think they should.

I think I have overcome all my meatball-cooking challenges with a recipe that I found during the Dinner a Love Story: seven days, seven meals challenge. The recipe was for “Meatballs for New Mothers” and while I may not have a newborn to take care of, I do have two demanding children and always needs a great one pot recipe to make ahead (and potentially freeze) so I decided to try out this recipe. The main premise of the recipe is that you cook the meatballs in the sauce thus avoiding all the annoying splattering of the oil and other problems from frying the meatballs. The result of cooking them this way is a tender moist meatball that juicily melts into your mouth. The recipe also calls for making a tomato sauce from scratch but I cheated and used a jarred sauce. My notes about making this recipe:

1. When you soak the bread in milk make sure you really squeeze it out before mixing it into the meat.
2. I used pre-ground nutmeg since that was what I had on hand and it worked fine. I put in a couple of shakes so it was probably about ¼ to ½ a teaspoon.
3. Make sure you chill the meatball mixture before you form the meatballs so they stick together. I also put them back into the refrigerator while I was getting the sauce heated up to make sure they were cold and would stay together.
4. When you put the meatballs into the sauce to cook, transfer them into the sauce using a large spoon. Don’t under any circumstance dump the whole plate in at once or you will wind up with some broken meatballs.
5. Finally consider doubling this recipe, as it is so good you will really want to have extras on hand to heat up for weeknight dinners. 

In my last post I talked about how I focus on not just eating but also cooking new foods like Brussels sprouts. I had started off by making simple side dish preparations with Brussels sprouts and then had started to really use them as the centerpiece to a meal. Parsnips are another winter vegetable that has taken a similar path on my plate. If you haven’t eaten parsnips before they are similar looking to carrots but have a sweeter slightly spicy flavor. I started just simply roasting the parsnips by themselves or with another vegetable like carrots or beets. Recently I decided to try them in a more complex dish and made Chardonnay-Braised Chicken Thighs with Parsnips. I found this recipe in an article about cooking with wine in Food and Wine a few months ago (which is also where I found a previous recipe for Scallops with Grapefruit and Bacon). I had previously overlooked this recipe because it required chicken thighs with skin which until recently were not something we really ate often. But the recipe sounded good and I had an extra bottle of Chardonnay left from Christmas so I decided to tackle it. The resulting dinner was amazing with super juicy and flavorful chicken meat and parsnips that were soft and meltingly good. The chicken skin comes out really crispy and the sauce is rich but not so rich that you don’t want to try to get the last drops off your plate. A few more notes about the recipe:

1. The recipe calls for the parsnips to be cut into batons that are basically French fry shaped sticks. A great primer on different knife cuts is here.
2. When you take the sauté pan out of the oven and put it back on the stovetop make sure you keep an oven mitt near by as the handle will be very hot. I have burned my hand more than once forgetting that the pan was just in the oven a few minutes before. 
3. If you want to try a simpler recipe for parsnips, I recommend Ginger Roasted Parsnips.

One of the things I focus on when I am cooking to try new foods, not only eating them but also learning how to cook them. In the past few years I’ve learned how to cook with tofu, mussels, and a variety of peppers. In the last few months I’ve added Brussels sprouts and parsnips to my repertoire. Somehow as a kid I never ate Brussels sprouts so  I didn’t have a preconceived notion that they were “yucky” vegetables. Instead one of the first times I had them they were part of a fancy tasting menu at the Plumed Horse and they were delicious. I made them once for Christmas in 2011 but then somehow completely forgot about them. However this year Brussel sprouts seem to be showing up in every food magazine and cookbook that I have picked up and I’m trying out a few different recipes including a great pasta recipe, Whole Grain Spaghetti With Brussels Sprouts and Mushrooms, from a book I got at the library “Weeknights with Giada: Quick and Simple Recipes to Revamp Dinner” by Giada De Laurentiis”. It turns out, despite being a Food Network star, Giada is just like me and is challenged to get dinner on the table in a timely matter so she put out an entire cook book of recipes that can be made quickly. The recipe is simple and can be made in a short amount of time especially if you have the Brussel sprouts and mushrooms pre-sliced which is how I was able to make it for dinner one night last week. The crème fraiche mixed with the lemon, broth, and rest of the ingredients makes a rich sauce that somewhat masks the whole-wheat pasta taste. You probably could use a little less crème fraiche (maybe 6oz instead of 8oz) if you wanted a slightly lighter sauce. A few other notes about the recipe:

1.  I used my food processor with a slicing blade to quickly slice the Brussels sprouts. I washed them and trimmed the ends before putting them all down the feeding tube to quickly slice them up.
2. I used shiitake and some oyster mushrooms for the recipe that worked very well.
3. I completely skipped the slivered almonds on top of the pasta as I didn’t have any on hand.

Here are a few great Brussels sprouts side dish recipes that I recommend as well:

• Brussels Sprouts with Fish Sauce Vinaigrette
• Brussels Sprouts with Lemon and Thyme

Next post, I’ll talk about cooking with parsnips!