still hungry (as usual)

Hello,

Anyone out there? It's been such a long time. I've looked through my pictures and realized I never stopped cooking, so why should I stop documenting my food adventures? At one point, I started to think what's the point. More than once I've been asked how many followers I have or who even reads the blog, to which I answer (at first, somewhat embarrassed) "oh it's just for me and my friends who want recipes for the noms I've made." The usual response was a deflated "oh" and after hearing it a few times, I questioned maintaining the blog. FORGET YOU (not you, because obvi you're reading this- I mean those who thought that keeping this blog was a waste of my time). I created this blog so I can remember and share my "recipes." I do a lot of guestimating when I cook and it's hard to recreate the dishes I've made, not only for myself/ my belly's enjoyment, but also when friends are all up in my grill about the recipe for "turkey bolognese" or "dilled potatoes" or anything else tasty.

So, once again, this blog lives on. I must create a living journal of what I've made so we can all enjoy it next time! What's next?
Pictures of my homebaked pizzas of course!

Mozzarella, vine ripened tomatoes, and baby bella mushrooms.

Whole wheat with pesto, fresh mozzarella, and mushrooms (I have a thing for mushroom pizza, don't judge me).

Garlic herbed crust with bruschetta and homemade Italian (turkey) sausage, served with spring salad in citrus vinaigrette.

Actual recipes will come soon, for real!

om nom nom,
HK

adventurous: beef picadillo

Picadillo in its first stages

Picadillo after cooking down for 2 hours!

Beef picadillo over quinoa with some pico di gallo on the side

I made a bad choice the other day of going to get groceries on an empty stomach. MISTAKE MISTAKE. anyway, I went to a store in Evanston (I won't name names since I'm not here to promote any grocery retailers) and saw that a certain pasture raised grass fed ground beef was on sale. I DO NOT BUY GROUND BEEF. I think the last time I even contemplated it was when I was 17 and curious about burgers....and as you know I have a thing for ground turkey. I guess the hunger overtook me and I bought 1 1/2 pounds of it. As I checked out, looking at all my impulse buys, I asked myself WHY.

Anyway, I got home, devoured some sushi and tuna salad and looked at my package of ground beef. I kinda regretted it but then thought about all the wonderful things that do indeed taste better once beef is involved. Obviously, I thought about beef picadillo! So, I've had it as a ground beef taco filling type meat before and I remember enjoying it, so I decided to explore recipe options. I modified a Williams-Sonoma recipe and here is the result. It was sweeter and more acidic than I expected, but still yummy. I have given you the modifications to avoid this sweetness and acidity!

Beef Picadillo

1 Tbs. olive oil

2 yellow onion, chopped

1 ½ lb. lean ground beef chuck

4 garlic cloves, finely chopped

2 bay leaves

½ tspn cumin

1 ½ tspn. chili powder

¾ teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon ground allspice

1 can (28 oz.) diced tomatoes with juices

1 ¾ cups stock

¼ cup raisins or currants

2 tablespoons tomato paste

3 tablespoons red wine vinegar

Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste

Suggested side: Quinoa or yellow saffron rice

1. heat olive oil over medium high heat in a deep pan (deep enough to hold all the meat and tomatoes- you'll be doing this all in one pan/pot) and add onions. Cook for 3-4 minutes and then add meat, garlic, and bay leaves. Cook until meat has browned. Pour off excess fat, if any.
2. Add in cumin, chili powder, cinnamon, and allspice next. Cook for one minute.
3. Stir in tomatoes, stock, raisins, tomato paste, and vinegar.
4. Allow to cook down for about 1.5 hours, or until most of the liquid has evaporated and you are left with a thick "sauce." Now, add salt and pepper to taste.
5. Serve over quinoa with a little pico di gallo. This is how I did it and it's lovely!


Exotic beef eating adventures are fun, try it if you eat meat.

yay
HK

the one upper: amaretto rice pudding

Amaretto rice pudding with raspberry coulis

I have never made rice pudding before. In fact, I had never had it before the fundraiser dinner. I'm a huge fan of tapioca pudding, and figured I could try to make rice pudding since I have a huge 25 pound bag of rice in my possession. I browsed around and wanted a special recipe, and spied a lemon and almond rice pudding recipe from food network a la Giada de Laurentiis.  I have made ample changes and here is my version! I served my rice pudding with vanilla yogurt (instead of whipped cream, to be a tad bit healthier) and homemade raspberry coulis (recipe also below!).

Amaretto Rice Pudding

6 cups whole milk

2 cups water

1 cup cal-rose/ sushi rice: washed and drained

3/4 cup sugar

1/8 teaspoon fine sea salt

1/2 cup amaretto liqueur

1 teaspoon vanilla extract (pure!)

1/2 cup milk of your choice

1. Mix together the milk and water in large pot, non-stick is preferred. I'm sure this is like 2% or something, but this is how I did it (probably because it's what I had on hand). I'm sure it'll work with any kind of milk as long as you use 8 cups of liquid for the 1 cup of rice. Turn on the flame to medium. Add rice, sugar, and salt right away (do not wait till milk simmers). STIR this mixture, like you mean it. Give it a chance to heat up.

2. As soon as it starts to look like it will boil, turn down the heat to medium low or low: whichever it takes to get a simmer. This will take a while, expect to periodically check in on the mixture and stir it for the next 35 minutes.

3. Check that mixture is thick and rice is almost done. The goal is rice pudding that isn't hard but not mush either. The best thing to do is taste it and see how you like it, remember it'll cook for another 10 minutes so it should be slightly more done than what you'd want.

 4. Stir in amaretto and vanilla extract. Allow mixture to cook with amaretto for 10 more minutes. Check when time is up to see if you like the consistency. If not, give it a few more minutes.  Once its the way you like it, turn off the flame and remove the vessel from the burner. Stir in the milk. 

5. Refrigerate the rice pudding for at least 4 hours. Look below for suggestions and some notes.

serve with:

1/4 cup sliced almonds, toasted according to directions on package

vanilla yogurt if desired

raspberry coulis! recipe below! so simple!

Raspberry Coulis

1 14 ounce bag of frozen raspberries (This is what I used to make it, I'll update when I try with fresh)

3 tablespoons sugar (up to 1/4 cup if you really want it to be sweet: but give the raspberry tartness a chance!)

juice of one lemon

1/2 teaspoon of flour

2 tablespoons orange juice

1. Put raspberries, sugar, and lemon juice into a small pot and let it come to a boil. Let it boil away until raspberries break down.

2. Mix the flour with the OJ, this will be a slurry used to thicken the coulis. If you want a runny sauce, omit these ingredients and this step. Pour the slurry into the raspberries and mix around; let it come back to a boil.

3. Remove sauce from heat. Blend if desired, but it's nice when it's chunky too!

notes: if you want a fresh acidity to the rice pudding, you can also stir in the juice of 2 lemons when you add the amaretto. I'd suggest you try to make the recipes once without it first since the lemon can be kinda strong.

This was the ultimate one upper. All the attendees said they enjoyed it, so try it for yourself!

There you go, you have 5 out of 5 courses! Don't worry I've been cooking up a storm so more recipes to come soon.

EAT EAT EAT

<3 HK

Helen's attempt at Thai Green Curry

Hello!

There are just times when I crave Thai green curry. This craving struck me last week when I happened to have thai green curry paste and some Asian ingredients in the fridge. I proceeded to go for it and make a lovely curry. So, the curry paste I found was pretty legit. Like spicier than I thought and a little went a very long way. So, when you carry on with green curry adventures of your own, please start with a little of the green stuff and work your way up...since you probs don't want to burn a hole in your face!

Helen's Attempt at Thai Green Curry
1/2-1 tablespoon of Thai green curry paste. I got it from an Asian market, it has a Thai label so sorry I can't help with letting you know a brand...but isn't it a good sign that there's no English on it?
smidge of oil, maybe a teaspoon
1 can of coconut milk (I used low fat because I don't like my green curry to taste like slightly spicy coconut fat, but if this is your thing go for the regular full fat version)
1/4 - 1/2 cup chicken stock (could be optional, read below)

my curry add in's
2 Japanese eggplants (partially peeled, sliced on a bias and then into finger sized strips, and lightly sauteed in vegetable oil till slightly browned)
Firm, crispy skinned tofu (you can find this in Asian markets. Make thin slices. If you want it extra crispy, go ahead and saute this in some veg oil too, until brown and even more crispy!)
1 can of baby corn (rinsed, drained, and I go ahead and blanch them to get rid of the "tin" taste)
1/2 a pepper, 1/2 an onion, 2 cups of mushrooms (cook this together in some sort of fat. butter, oil, your choice, till its nice and brown and the mushrooms have lost a good amount of liquid)
1/3 cup of peas/carrots (this is straight up American of me, I won't even pretend. I had it on hand. don't use it if you hate peas or carrots or both
handful or two of thai basil leaves, depending on how obscene you want the basil flavor to be
depending on if this is the vegetarian meal or not...and depending on if I have leftovers to use, I add in some precooked chicken bits. yum.

make it work:
1. Fry the curry paste in the oil for literally 30 seconds or so, and then add the coconut milk. Stir to incorporate the curry into the coconut milk. This will be your yumtastic curry sauce. Let this simmer in the corner if you need to prepare the other stuff, like cook the eggplant or crisp the tofu. Make sure you taste your mixture. Too much curry? too intense? too much coconut? add the stock! not spicy enough? add more paste GRADUALLY. And keep in mind, this is going to cook down so flavors do concentrate....
2.  Dump in the add-ins. Is there an order? Well, think about what you want to soak up the most curry flavor and what you don't want to be a soggy, gross mush. For real, this can happen. I usually put the tofu in first, let it simmer for 3 minutes, then dump all the rest of the stuff.
3. Let this mish mash of curry stuff simmer for another 5-10 minutes on low, until the little bits have soaked up just the right amount of curry (which is obvi based on preference)
4.  I can imagine eating this by itself, but I like rice, so I serve it over rice. yumsville.

吃
HK

meat craving- taco turkey burger with fiesta salad!

Hey all,

Since I'm doing this whole vegetarian two meals a day thing, I noticed I get really intense but semi random meat cravings. So, for that one meal when I indulge in meat, I want to make it count.
Last week I had such a craving for burgers. I really love burgers and I happened to have ground turkey and some select seasonings, and thought it was time to experiment with a taco turkey burger!

Taco Turkey Burger
(this is for two servings, so good for a date or for a relaxed dinner and easy packable lunch the next day)
8 ounces ground turkey- I prefer breast, 93/7
fairly small onion chopped up
3 cloves garlic minced
1 tablespoon oil of your choice
1-2 tablespoons chicken stock
1/2 packet of sason
1/2 -1 tablespoon of taco seasoning (depending on how salty and taco-ish you like it)
black pepper to taste

suggestions: serve on toasted sesame seed roll, like I did.
use a bit of black bean and corn salsa AND sliced avocado for that extra awesomeness, like I did.

this is what you do:
1. Mix the above ingredients together. Don't over work the meat. Be extra cool and let this mixture marinate overnight. it'll be a damn good burger if you have patience, but its damn good either way.
2. When you are ready to cook, split meat in half to form two patties. Shape them accordingly (thin if you want it to cook faster, thicker if your buns are...smaller? hehe )
3. Get a pan ready. Get out the big guns cast iron if you have one. If you are poor collegiate kid like me, get out the non stick. Coat with the thinnest, wispiest layer of cooking spray. When pan is moderately hot put that bad boy in.
4. Let the burger sear and cook on the first side for 4 minutes. Flip over and let it cook for 3 minutes on this side. It should be done by now....but if you are paranoid cut it open and check it. Really- you CANNOT eat a turkey burger any less than WELL DONE
5. Toast the buns/roll/starch you will put the burger on. Garnish with the black bean/corn salsa. Cut up an avocado if you are feeling fancy!!!
6. Eat and enjoy...if you feel a bit guilty eat this with a fiesta salad...

Fiesta Salad
your favorite salad mix
black beans (canned is fine, as long as you drain, rinse, and pat dry)
sweet corn
salsa
^mix it together and eat this with something that involves tacos; heck use this as a base and REPLACE the bun you carbophobe!!!!

Tabete,
HK