paella & whole chicken breakdown

My family isn't big on Easter celebrations (besides egg hunts... and they're saying I'm too old for that now), but it's always a nice opportunity to get together over food and appreciate the beginning of spring. Things start to thaw, jackets are shedding and pretty soon all kinds of fresh, new growth will start to appear. In my mind, right now is when the real new year starts. I do not know where we came up with that January 1st business.

So, like a lot of other people, I was back home with my parents earlier today. I had offered to make dinner since I knew I had to do my blog post by tonight, and by Friday I had a plan: paella. Not exactly traditional Easter food, but like I said, we aren't too traditionalist.

I was also informed that my mom had bought a whole chicken, intending to roast it, but which I was now free to use--so in the spirit of trying new things, I decided I was going to accomplish one of my goals for this semester and break down the uncooked bird.

Ta da

Luckily mama's copy of Joy of Cooking has pretty good instructions for doing this, so between the two of us we figured out how to best go about it.

It's a good experience. My cuts were a little sloppy because I didn't really know what I was doing, but I think I could get this process down if I did it a few more times.

Note the fantastic rainbow apron

A drumstick!

So--after dismantling the whole chicken into its parts, we got some of it boiling and started on the rest of the meal.

I stole a recipe for paella off the database at work, since that was my inspiration for the dish. We had a chicken-chorizo paella at a cooking class a few weeks ago that I've been dreaming about ever since. My goal was to do it as much justice as I could in my parents' kitchen--and it turned out to be completely doable. I'll definitely be doing this one again some time, probably for a crowd because you have no choice but to make a lot of it.

Paella is basically a one-pan dish of meat and/or seafood, rice, tomato, vegetables, and spices--the essentials of which are paprika and saffron. My recipe also called for turmeric and oregano.

Traditionally, paella is cooked over an open fire which does two things: creates a crusty, caramelized layer at the bottom which is absolutely delicious and something you want to achieve if you can, and imparts it with a smoky flavor. We used smoked paprika to make up for the lack of bonfire aroma.

My slight modification of the recipe involved adding mushrooms. I like them.

What's up chorizo verde

We cooked both the chicken and chorizo all the way through first, and got the rice started in the leftover chicken broth before putting everything together. Kitchen efficiency!

I used my parents' largest cast iron as a stand-in for a paella pan. After getting the onions and garlic cooked with some of the spices, I threw in the mushrooms, let it cook down, and then added the meat, rice, tomatoes, and stock.

This was my modified-for-the-indoors cooking technique (thanks internet): after mixing everything together in the pan (and making a pretty bell pepper star on top), I brought the heat on the stove up to high and got the whole thing bubbling furiously. I cooked it this way for about ten minutes, moving the pan around frequently to evenly distribute heat from the flame. Once most of the liquid was cooked off, it went into the oven for another ten minutes or so to finish.

Out comes a dense, sticky, spice-heavy pan of soul-satisfying food. Add wine and family, eat, be happy.

Roasted Root Vegetables

This week I decided to make roasted root vegetables, on page 615. I used carrots and potatoes. The only carrots that I had were frozen, so they already started out a little soft and watery, so I just turned the temperature lower and put them in the oven for longer. They turned out alright, but the potatoes got a little crisp (which was fine, because I like crisp potatoes!). -Deidra A

 

 

Easter Traditions.

What is in a tradition? Food, religion, art, stories. This week was a great week to discuss about tradition and family heritage in class. Easter has been one of the holidays I grew up with having a very strong family tradition. We would wake up at my grandmother's house and hunt for our basket full of goodies. Following that we would go to church and then come back to have a traditional ham dinner- with cheesy potatoes, green beans, bread, and numerous dishes to feed everyone. No matter what the weather was outside, the older cousins never failed to hide plastic, colorful eggs around the farm for an annual Easter egg hunt. It was always a day full of tons of food, candy, hard-boiled eggs, and playing card games.

The past four years I have had to work on Easter. I had served families a family style brunch at a family-owned restaurant. I will not complain, it was one of our busiest days of the year and I left with a great amount of cash, but that connection with my family tradition has been fading in my life and I have really missed it.

This year, since I had the option to take Easter off, I took that opportunity and I was grateful to spend it with a handful of wonderful people. Now that I have a strong relationship with someone, we celebrated with both of our families. I did not get the chance to go to my grandmother's like I did as a child, but I did get the opportunity to meet a family that has their own traditions. Overall it was a beautiful day with a church service- which the message was coming together was the most important thing for today and traditions are important and always have a story to the tradition. I am blessed to be able to spend quality time with my family on an Easter day cooking brunch and being a part of another family's traditions. Happy Easter everyone!

We cooked a vegan-meat hash, sausage, bacon, scrambled eggs; had a fruit and cheese platter and since I can have chocolate again, I needed my chocolate chip pancakes fix! Served with pink Moscato mimosas.:)

What is a family tradition of yours? Do you cook anything for it?

Cheesy Hash Brown Potatoes

For my recipe this week I decided to help my family make dinner for Easter. With a lager family I knew there would be about fifteen people at dinner, so on wednesday I called my mom and asked her what she would like me to prepare and bring for dinner. She mentioned one of our old time favorite potato recipes. So this week I made cheesy hash brown potatoes. The prep time was about 10 minutes and the bake time was an hour and a half.

Ingredients:

2 lbs shredded hash browns, thawed
1/2 cup butter, melted
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chopped onion
2 cups sour cream
1 (10 1/2 ounce) can cream of chicken soup
2 cups cheddar cheese, shredded
2 cups crushed corn flakes or 2 cups crushed potato chips
1/4 cup melted butter or 1 -1 1/2 tablespoon spray margarine

Read more at: http://www.food.com/recipe/cheesy-hash-brown-potatoes-405708?oc=linkback

Everyone in the family thought the potatoes were a big hit! the only thing they recommended was adding more cheese. 

  Unfortunately my family ate the entire recipe before I remembered to take a picture! haha

Lemon Sqaures

I felt like baking something that reminds me of spring/summer. I really like Lemon bars, and they seemed to fit with the sorta nice weather this week. This was the first time I baked lemon bars. I made Gabrielle's Lemon Squares (page 718 soft cover). I did not like the final product as much. I would call it 'eggy.' I could not taste as much lemon and sugar as I could with the eggs. I did the steps correctly, so I am unsure on what could have gone wrong. This is another recipe I plan on redoing sometime and looking into similar recipes and finding how I can change it up a bit.

"Brazilian-Style" Collard Greens and not really anything else

Having feasted with the family and enjoyed further culinary expositions prepared by my epicurean mother, I wasn't hungry enough to put together a big fancy meal for my weakly blog post.  Instead, I observed my sad and wilted Collard Greens in need of use and thought they would make for a fantastic snack to top off the evening.  I went with monsieur Bittman's Brazilian-Style Collards on pg. 563 of the soft cover and pretty much stuck to the recipe. 

About as pared down as it gets...Collards and Butta

When it comes to making some sauteed greens, Bittman doesn't ask much.  And I like that about him.  Really all it took was frying up my handful of chopped greens in a pan with some salted butter.  The whole thing took 5 minutes and satisfied my needs.

Add caption

OMG I feel like I'm in São Paulo!!11!!!

I ended up dressing these badboys in a splash of vinegar and some black pepper to get crazy (as recommended by the recipe) and really enjoyed them for what they were.

Chili con Carne

Having had a heavy Easter dinner with my family, I decided it would be best to prepare a large batch of something I could store and eat a few times throughout the week. I chose the chicken variation on the recipe for Chili non Carne (page 429 Bittman) and substituted Serrano peppers for chili peppers. Also, I added some diced tomatoes and tomato puree as a base.

Spices and canned ingredients

Diced chicken

Red onion, as an alternative to white onion

Served with a side of shredded cheese, sour cream, and tortilla chips

 I really enjoyed the flexibility of this recipe. As long as you have the base spices (cumin, chili powder, oregano, salt/pepper) you can add any type of bean, meat, or vegetable base to the mix. This simple, hearty meal is a perfect leftover for lunch between class.

Steamed Green Beans with Bacon Vinaigrette

I decided to make a side dish for my family's Easter dinner, and I had a little challenge recipe of my own: make a green bean dish out of whatever was in my parent's kitchen. After flipping through Bittman's book, I decided to make "Just-Tender Steamed Green Beans" (p. 239) with the "Bacon Vinaigrette" (p. 201). I had a few ingredient switches in the vinaigrette, since we didn't have shallots. Instead, I used scallions and added a little bit of whole dijon mustard. This was a super tasty side dish that was really easy. Adding a simple vinaigrette is a great way to jazz up an ordinary vegetable and make it extra special!

 The Bacon Vinaigrette

The Final Produ

Empanada Adventure

Since I am not really religious, I didn't want to do the traditional Easter food. Instead, I decided to embark on an empanada adventure with the fam. Bittman pg174.

I planned on making bean and cheese empanadas, but ended up adding tomato, and chicken for my dad and mom. I put half wheat and half white flour where it called for all-purpose flour.

I made small balls of dough and rolled them out. There would have been 12, but my mom was helping me and she loves dough....so we ended up with only 8.

 

 

I seasoned the beans with onions, garlic, salt, and cumin (idea from Bitmman 418 on refried beans). We put the beans, tomato, cheese and chicken in the middle and folded them over.

Once they were done baking, I served them with some of my dad's homemade salsa!

We had a some dough balls leftover, so we made apple empanadas for dessert. I used the apple pie recipe from Bittman 931 to make the filling.

 

 

 

 

 

 

They both turned out really well! The bean and cheese ones tasted better right out of the oven, but the apple ones got gooier as they cooled, making them oh so tasty :) I don't know if I would make them again, as they were kind of pastry-like, which I am not too fond of. 

 



Salted Caramel Sauce

Bittman pg. 922

I had some left over ice cream from the pie I made before spring break so I thought a nice caramel sauce topping would taste delicious with it. I used the variation for creamy caramel sauce and substituted milk for the cream and added a little extra salt.

 

 

I was following the instructions in Bittman but for some reason, my sauce just wasn't thickening up or darkening like it said it was supposed to, even after 30 minutes on the stove. I remembered that my dad would always put a little bit of corn syrup in with the sugar when he made candy for the holidays so I decided to try that. Sure enough, it worked! Father knows best, I guess.
 

 

The end result was super tasty and rich. You couldn't even tell that I used milk instead of cream. It didn’t quite have the saltiness that I was hoping for but there was a subtle hint of it which was nice. Overall, I think this sauce turned out really well. It took about twice as long to make as it was supposed to though, so I would advise you to plan accordingly.

challenge blog 3: ramen noodle stir-fry

Ok, I promise I did this assignment like three days ago... I just didn't get my act together to post it until now. Sorry!!

Anyway, here's what my adventure to 8th Street Market yielded:

Firstly, I try to let the Harvard School of Public Health's Healthy Eating Plate guide my idea of what a balanced meal looks like. It's a little more cumbersome than the USDA's MyPlate but I think they make some important points.

Here's an interesting comparison of the two, images included: 
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/healthy-eating-plate-vs-usda-myplate/

As for the meal planning--my immediate thought when I first walked through the store was chili and cornbread. Canned beans, onions, a limited range of fresh vegetables, and corn muffin mix would have definitely been a good start to a pretty inexpensive meal, but I wanted to see if there was anything else I could come up with based on what they sold.

I was inspired by the huge selection of ramen they had. I think they had a greater variety of ramen noodles than anything else in the store.

#1 lazy/broke college student food

A whole grain would have been preferable, but I got the ramen idea in my head and ran with it. I know there are people out there who buy it and use the noodles for different things, minus the salt seasoning packet, because they cost next to nothing and you can cook them in a microwave. I figured they would work well in a stir-fry with vegetables and some kind of protein.

This was their (underwhelming) produce section. For stir-fry purposes I would have used the cauliflower and baby carrots. I think there was a sign for bell peppers too, but none in the cooler, which I also would have bought.

I didn't actually make this, as you may have gathered (almost wish I had, just to see how it would turn out!) so you'll have to content yourselves with photos of the ingredients at the store. I got some funny looks from the staff that day even though I explained myself to them...

Onions, garlic--a necessary base for many, many things. I made some assumptions about having pantry items around to make a stir-fry sauce. Depending on what's in your cupboard, you can use some combination of soy sauce, garlic, ginger (root or powder), hot sauce, peanut butter, rice vinegar, honey or brown sugar, sesame oil... or you can get it from a bottle, which they did sell. But hey, if you've got a few of those things around, you have free stir-fry sauce at home already.

The choices for protein were basically limited to cheese, canned beans, tuna, and one or two kinds of deli meat. I settled on tuna because it was one of the healthiest options and I figured it would work well with a stir-fry. How you prepare it is up to you, I'd probably mix it with a little mayo and Sriracha, personally... coincidentally, their mayonnaise was half off that day. I'm not sure why and I didn't ask.

Heyyy mayo sale

At the end I decided to throw in some oranges for fruit, because I had a few dollars left.

So--the breakdown!

Ramen: 2x $0.33

Tuna: 1x $1.59

Onion: 1x $0.69

Garlic: 1x $0.33

Carrots: 1x $1.49 (1 lb bag)

Cauliflower: 1x $2.49

Mayo: 1x $1.25 (on sale!)

Oranges: 2x $0.69

Total: $9.88

Just under $10! Not bad. Really, though, I would not want to be living off of what's available at a corner store. In terms of making good eating choices, the lack of variety would make things really boring really quickly, since the healthy options are so limited. It's good to know I could put something like this together in a pinch, but it's not the best place to be buying most of your groceries.

Challenge Recipe 3

I took the insightful advice from a fellow student’s challenge recipe to check the USDA MYplate on the website http://www.choosemyplate.gov/. Also I found a great recipe on the website that easily fulfills a nutritional, simple meal for 2 people. I chose to make the Broccoli Omelet) with a few modifications with some ingredients to limit the cost, while maintain the same beneficial nutritional alternatives. For instance, the recipe recommended ricotta cheese along with parmesan, so to make it cheaper yet maintain dairy in the diet, I bought a 5 cheese variation bag of shredded cheeses. Because red bell peppers are more costly than a green pepper, I exchanged that as well.

1 Broccoli ($.78)
1 Green Bell Pepper ($.83)
12 eggs ($2.09)
1 white onion (an addition to the recipe)  ($.39)
5 shredded cheeses shredded ($1.99)
Hashbrowns  ( 4 servings) ($2.16)
**Salt and pepper

 
Total $ 8.24

Here is the link to the broccoli omelet recipe given by the USDA simple meal recipes link (http://www.choosemyplate.gov/healthy-eating-tips/sample-menus-recipes/BroccoliOmelet.pdf)

Although I did not have meat I made sure to have a variation of vegetables, dairy, and greens! My favorite kind of vegetarian meal is the omelet for its simplicity and tasty. And as an addition, the rest of the money leftover can buy a fruit option or a beverage! I encourage you to challenge yourself by making a USDA approved meal! 

Corner Store Meal for 2 that's under $10

The corner store that I chose for this assignment was Walgreen's. It was actually rather close to the grocery store so I don't know if this made a difference in the selection of foods available at the corner store, but there wasn't much to choose from. It was mostly packaged goods like cookies, although they did have a rather surprisingly large selection of nuts. I noticed a tiny pasta section, and they did have some bread, but there was no fresh produce. To get some fruit into the meal I used orange juice. They did have some very basic food, like eggs, cheese, and lunch meat, so I thought that would make an omelet, found on page 738.

Orange juice: $2.99
Eggs: $1.99
Ham: $1.99
Cheese: $2.99
English muffins: $2.59   *with jam, which I assumed they already had

Using the amount necessary for 2 people, the total came to around $5.90, which was way under budget. But, since there wasn't much selection at the store, I definitely would not recommend trying to find dinner at corner store on a regular basis.

To see how nutritional my meal was, I went to supertracker.usda.gov and entered in my dinner. I did pretty well making it balanced: I used (out of the daily allowance) 33% grain, 50% fruit, 21% dairy, and 36% protein. It contained a total of 525 calories. The only food group that I was really missing was vegetables, which could be added into the omelet but were unfortunately not available at the corner store. It also may have been better if the English muffins were whole grain. -Deidra A