Cooking for the week: Quick Jamabalaya

Since M is strapped for cash right now, we decided M should bring lunch everyday instead of buying lunch which is bad for his health and his wallet.  The problem is that M does not have ANY cookware at his apt!  I proposed to cook a giant pot of food for him to bring to eat over 2-3 days for lunch.  I was so excited by the idea I ran out to get ingredients to make the first one pot (3 meals) for M right away!  It was messy but I completed the task in 2 hours and make one large pot of jambalaya.  No picture of the final product tho, because it was not very photogenic. It looked something like this.

(picture but NOT recipe borrowed from simplyrecipes.com)

Quick Jambalaya
2 stalks celery, diced
2 medium onion, diced
1 green pepper, diced
1 can of chopped tomato with juice
6oz sausage of your choice (I used turkey Italian sausage), sliced
1 chicken breast, diced
5 shrimp, whole
canola oil
2 cup chicken stock
1 cup beef stock
2 cups rice
1 tsp Cajun seasoning
1 tsp cayenne pepper (or to taste)
1 tsp worcestershire sauce
salt and pepper to taste

Saute shrimp until opaque, set aside.  Saute chicken and sausage until browned, set aside.  Saute onion, celery, pepper with a bit of oil for 10 minutes until tender. Add can of tomato and all seasoning, stir while cooking another 10 minutes.  Add chicken, sausage, shrimp and stir.  Add rice, chicken and beef stock and cook on high until boil, then reduce heat and simmer until the liquid is reduced - about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Cost analysis:
 $2.14 a meal vs $6 if eating out
Saved $15.44 over 4 days!


(That's enough for a 10 pc bucket of KFC!)

Tis pumpkin season!

Autumn is here!  Time for the enjoyment of appley things and pumpkiney things.  I saw a post of pumpkin cheese bread on this website and my taste buds begged for the real thing.  We altered the recipe quite a bit based on our preferences, and also the notes from the blog author.  The original recipe is from Joy of Cooking.

Pumpkin Bread with cream cheese filling!

Recipe reproduced from website sited above with our changes in black.

Cream Cheese Filling:
8 ounce package (227 grams) cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup (100 grams) granulated white sugar - 1/4 cup of turbinado sugar used
2 large eggs - 1 egg used
1 1/2 tablespoons all purpose flour

Pumpkin Bread:1 cup (110 grams) pecans or walnuts - omitted nuts
3 1/2 cups (490 grams) all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt - forgot to put sale
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon - use all inclusive pumpkin pie spice from McCormick instead
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg - use all inclusive pumpkin pie spice from McCormick instead
4 large eggs
2 cups (400 grams) granulated white sugar - 1 cup of turbinado sugar
1 cup (226 grams) unsalted butter, melted and cooled - 1/2 cup of butter
1 - 15 ounce (425 grams) can pure pumpkin
1/2 cup (120 ml) water or milk - milk used
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract - imitation vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (177 degrees C) and place rack in the center of the oven. Butter and lightly flour two - 9 by 5 x 3 inch (23 x 13 x 8 cm) loaf pans. Set aside.

To toast nuts: Place the nuts on a baking sheet and bake for about 8 - 10 minutes or until brown and fragrant. Cool completely and then chop coarsely. Set aside.

Cream Cheese Filling: In your food processor, process the cream cheese until smooth. Add the sugar and process just until smooth and creamy. Add the eggs, one at a time, processing just until incorporated. Do not over process. Stir in the flour. Set aside.

Pumpkin Bread: In a large bowl, sift or whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Set aside.

In another large bowl, whisk the eggs until lightly beaten. Add the sugar and melted butter and whisk until blended. Whisk or stir in the pumpkin, water, vanilla extract, and nuts.

Add the flour mixture to the pumpkin mixture and stir just until the ingredients are combined. (A few streaks of flour is fine.) Do not over mix as it will make the bread tough.

Divide the batter in half. Take one half and divide it evenly between the two prepared pans. Divide the cream cheese filling in half and place each half of filling on top the two pans of batter, smoothing the tops. Top with the remaining half of batter. Bake the breads for about 50 - 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean.

Place pans on a wire rack and let cool for about 10 minutes before removing breads from pans. Can serve warm, cold, or at room temperature. Store leftovers in the refrigerator or else freeze for later use.

Makes 2 loaves.




The result is a very dense cake.  If I make it again, I'd put more butter and maybe try it with more sugar.  The sweetness after cutting half the sugar is more of a muffin than cupcake.  It's great for breakfast! 

Loins

A couple of weeks ago, M and I picked up some pork loin chops from TJ's for around $5.00 and whip up some pork chops for dinner.  I let M handle it because I tend to overcook meat out of fear that it's not cook through. M goes with his feeelings with the doneness and he's usually right.  For the marinade, M used whatever he found in my cabinet: soy sauce, corn starch, agave nectar, mirin. I'm sure I'm forgetting some things because there were many many bottles on the counter.  He pan fried it after half an hour of the chops sitting in sauce and threw in some beer for extra flavor and it was tres yummy!  The following week, I picked up some pork loin chops (thin cuts) from the neighborhood market and the result was not even close!  The second try produced dry, chewy, bland pieces of pork.  So disappointed.  We think it's because of the higher fat content and thickness of the TJ's pork that held on the the flavor.  The prices were about the same so Trader Joe's will be where we get our pork from from now on.

Yummy, juicy pork chops from TJ.

M's BIG B-day weekend

It's M's BIG B-day!  For this important milestone, we had a full three day celebration. The first stop is to ACE hotel to eat at the Breslin.  Despite it's hipster appeal, we went in anyway for its Michelin recommended foods.  The restaurant was hidden behind a bunch of potted plants and there was no clear sign that said BRESLIN (see dark scary picture below).  Their sign is of a martini glass, a hanging pig, and forks.

(less scary pic from flikr)

(scary picture of sign and potted plants covering the restaurant)

Beef stilton pie - nicely seasoned but oh so tiny

Scotch egg - egg wrapped in sausage then deep fried

Pig's feet for two (more like for 8).  This thing is pork foot meat minced along with ground beef and stuffed back into the fatty skin of foot.

Seasonal veggies served with the foot.

On Friday, M took the day off (he had two tough days of meetings and presentations!) and we set off to go to governor's island for their free bike rentals!!  It was a beautiful day of 80 degrees and all was in order until we got to the ferry terminal at 3:18pm and they told us the last ferry was at 3pm!  So we hopped on the train to Brooklyn hoping to catch the ferry from there (last one out is 5:30).  When we finally arrived at G's Island at 4:30, we were denied bikes because they close at 3:30!  We got there just in time to take the last boat back to Manhattan, but not before we went to the "beach" to watch some strangers hit a volleyball around.

the "beach"

We stopped by Battery Park to see the globe that once stood at the foot of the WTC because we were there 11 years ago the same day in front of the globe.  It's certainly a different experience looking at it now.


On Saturday, M went to shoot things.  I was afraid of big guns so I didn't go.  My fear was not unfounded, M came back with bruises on his face and shoulder.

Then (2000) and now(2011).  Which is which?

Miso Cod

(yes that is duck on our breakfast platter)

We followed a Nobu inspired miso black cod recipe the other night. The instructions seemed simple enough - marinate a pound of cod in:

1/4 cup sake

1/4 cup mirin
4 tablespoons white miso paste (our miso paste may or may not be white)
3 tablespoons sugar (we only added 1 tsp of turbinado sugar)


Lightly grill then bake for another 10-15 minutes.

I'd say we were only about 60% successful though. One could eat it, and the mirin and and miso flavors were definitely there but it came out way too salty, and this was only after 2 hours of marinate time instead of the instructed 24! Also, I think pouring the marinate directly on the fillets before baking was a bad idea. (my bad)

But I definitely see the potential in the dish and we'll try it again soon. We'll just have to adjust some things here and there.

That night we also put together a zucchini cake that was a 100% success. J had the foresight to drastically cut the amount of sugar and chocolate that the original recipe asked for (ironically, from a diabetes prevention cookbook) and the final product came out moist, chocolaty and delicious.


Chocolate-Zucchini Snack Cakes (with our changes)

1.75 cups Whole wheat pastry flour
1.5 tsp Baking powder
 1/2 tsp Baking Soda
 1/4 tsp Salt
 2 Eggs
 1/2 cup Sugar - changed to 1/8 turbinado sugar (75% reduction in sugar)
 1/2 cup Low-fat vanilla yogurt
 1/3 cup Canola Oil
 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
 1.5 cups Shredded Zucchini
 3 cups Semisweet chocolate chips  - changed to 10 oz dark chocolate chips (~70% reduction in sugar) 

Before picture - looks like pudding or barf!

After

A Sunday for doing healthy, active things like eating.

Last Sunday...

We finally made up our minds to try bikram yoga.  Yes, even in this 100 weather.  I was browsing the internet for food deals last week, as usual, and came cross a yoga deal.  They were offering a free intro class at Bikram Yoga LES.  To my dismay, the class starts at 1pm so we had to scrap our much anticipated dim sum plans in Flushing.  We headed to Chinatown early that day and went to Vanessa's Dumpling House for some Beijing street food.  The chives and pork dumplings were pretty good but the skin was too thick for my liking  (8 for $2.5).  The wontons soup ($1.25) had the smoothest wontons I've ever had and was quite delicious!  The noodles with sauce is just what it is: noodles with sauce ($3).  It was steaming when it came out and was too hot to eat on a hot hot day.  I imagine it would be yummy in the Winter months.

After filling our bellies with carbs, we went to Bikram Yoga.  I'll keep this short.  I'm never going to bikram anything ever again!  The yoga studio is nice tho.  I would recommend it to anyone who likes to exercise in stifling heat.

From LES, we walked to Chinatown central and ate at the recently renovated Nom Wah Tea Parlor.  The nephew of the owner refreshed the decor while keeping old school.  Here're are some drool-worthy pictures.

RECAP of last Sunday:

Vanessa's Dumpling House

Bikram Yoga LES

Konditori

Nom Wah Tea Parlor

Malaysian Beef Jerky

Yuca bread is delicious....

... but, alas, is really hard to make!

Two weekends ago, my mom and I tried to make yucca bread. We followed a recipe from food network and made a slight alteration of adding egg yolk instead of just egg whites.  As you can see below, the results were yucca pancakes instead!  They were still tasty.  A happy mistake, I say!

Food Network's Version

our version: before

our version: after

I had a hankering for yucca bread after having them at Calle Ocho, a cuban restaurante at UWS.  I think I single-handedly (single-mouthedly?) had a dozen yucca buns.  It's the spongiest bread with the crispiest shell I have ever had.  We'll try again soon, and hopefully it'll stay in its cute, roundish shape then!

In other Jenbo news, my pepper plant is almost all red!  Picture from two weeks ago.  By now, all but 1 pepper are red and there are still new ones coming in! Yay!

Week 1 July 3rd - July 4th (part 1 of 4)

Despite eating a lot we don't cook very often. That is to say, never. Eating out was a pretty fun activity for a while but you can only have so many burgers or bowls of ramen before it all starts tasting the same - not to mention it was getting a little too costly for a couple of people who are, essentially, jobless.

So to feed ourselves without going broke and disenchanted we've decided to start cooking; and as long as we're at it, why not keep a running journal to track our progress? So.... let's get started.

July 3rd and 4th

As first steps into any projects usually go, this first weekend was pretty ambitious for two people with almost no cooking experience.

- Scallion pancakes

- Roast chicken and potatoes

- Sauteed snow pea greens

- cheese cake

Let me make this post about the scallion pancakes:

The general idea behind scallion pancakes can't get any simpler: Flour, water, scallions and a hot pan. In practice, things got a little ..... stickier (pun intended!)

We found a recipe on the Serious Eats blog but it called for adding boiling water to the flour. (1 cup of water to 2 cups of flour if I recall.) If you're not careful about adding the water slowly, as I wasn't, you'll end up with a sticky paste that'll stick to nothing else but your hands rather than a pliable dough ball.

We fixed this by adding more flour - teaspoon by teaspoon - to the goopy mess then massaging it until it started to look like dough again.

The rest went sorta as instructed except that they didn't come out as light and flaky as we would have liked. Some parts of some cakes were, but it was not consistent through out the cakes. My guess? 1) Not enough oil when folding the dough over on itself (not unlike the layers of butter folded into dough to form a croissant) and 2) I need to work on my hand stretching technique.

- M

After M made the yummy scallion pancakes, we whipped up a cheesecake.  Because of our concern for the health issues white sugar can cause, we decided to substitute the cup of sugar the recipe asked for with agave nectar.  Agave nectar is not lower in sugar content, but it is healthier because the body absorbs it slowly. White sugar and honey, on the other hand, will spike our blood glucose level.  We only added half a cup of agave nectar (recipe called for 1 cup of sugar) and it came out perfectly!  I was concerned the higher liquid content and lower sugar level of the agave nectar will cause the final product to flop.  Turns out cheesecake is incredibly easy to make and allows lots of room for error.  Some recipes call for 2 eggs and some call for 5.  Some call for 2 packs of cream cheese and some call for 4.  It depends on how you like your cheesecake. It's a perfect beginner's dessert to make. (I added some blueberries for effect.)

-J

We eat...

too much. :(