Pizza

Pizza with artichoke, roasted pepper, pesto (thanks mom!) And half anchovies.

I know lots of people will get annoyed with my use of store bought dough, but its from Eataly. So is the mozzarella.

I'm beginning to learn that the products made in house at Eataly are a really good value for the quality. Mozzarella, bread, some pastas, basic staples that aren't imported and excessively expensive.

Rosemary rubbed pork chops

Pillaged the herb garden at my parent's townhouse balcony for a quick and easy rub for searing pork chops.

The rub contained chopped rosemary, brown sugar, salt, black pepper, and a tiny bit of cumin. Brined chops seared for 5 minutes per side, quick pan sauce with some wine for deglazing and flour for thickening. Yum!



Paired along with some roasted broccoli and brussel sprouts.

Polenta and Sausage

Polenta is one of those rare dishes that I'm glad Mark Bittman decided to dumb down. His version of polenta is pretty classic, just with less stirring of the pot.

I've been making lazy man's polenta for a while. A good way to be incredibly lazy about it is to use the oven. Simmer the polenta first on the stove for about 10 minutes until a thin porridge emerges. Then cover and throw it into 350 degrees. It's very hard to overcook polenta, but very easy to undercook it. Give it at least 20 minutes.

One key note is to add the fats LAST. You kind of want the cheese and butter to coat the kernels. Use room temperature butter to bring the whole mixture to a perfect texture and temperature.

The Koreans got it right

Add a billion things to a plate of rice and it tastes GOOD. Hot, cold, sweet, salty, spicy, multiple sauces. It might not be actually Korean, but it works for me.

Reinventing pasta sauce

What bachelor doesn't rely on a hot bowl of pasta as a quick weeknight meal?

Boil pasta, drain the pot, add the sauce to the pot, now you have a dinner that covers at least one food group.

But it gets boring sometimes. So you add protein, like ground beef, or meatballs. But then that gets boring.

This doesn't taste boring:


Combine:
Jarred pasta sauce
Crushed red pepper
Roughly chopped olives
White beans

Add it to:

Arugula
Plain pasta

Texture, color, and now we're upwards of TWO food groups!

Veggie Shepherd's Pie

This was kind of a spur of the moment dish, made for a vegetarian friend.

3 things that make this different from your normal Shepherd's Pie:

1. No meat (instead I crushed up some vegetarian meatballs from Trader Joe's)
2. Actual crust
   
3. It is gigantic

The basic assembly first required cooking both the meat/veggie filling and the mashed potato topping separately. The filling is sauteed onions, carrots, meat (or meat substitute), broth, tomato paste, flour/corn starch, and some frozen peas and corn.

The filling was the first to go into the pie shell. Unfortunately, it almost came up to the brim without any mashed potatoes. The potato topping ended up being pretty swollen looking.



Looks amazing when cut into:



And even better just prior to entering my mouth!

Oyakodon

Donburi is a Japanese rice bowl dish, similar to what you might find at Yoshinoya, and Oyakodon literally means "parent and child" donburi since it contains chicken and egg. I have had trouble with getting this dish right in the past, but I think I found a good basic recipe that allows for some vibration. It's from a youtube channel called Cooking with DOG!. (note: this is not a video about eating dogs)

Basically you make the sauce in the pan and simmer everything cumulatively in the same pan. The hardest part is boning the chicken thighs...which really isn't all that hard if you've done it before.



I added chopped scallions as well as roughly chopped parsley.

Pork chops revisited

This time with roasted garlic polenta! Now it's a complete meal.

Butterfly chicken

The only recipes I like to follow precisely are by Alton Brown. He's someone who actually tweaks his recipes scientifically. This is Alton's butterflied chicken.



Kosher chickens are pre-brined so they are flavorful and juicy. Plus, if you live in a Jew-less place like I do, kosher meat goes on sale often because they can't sell this stuff! $0.99/lb for kosher meat is a steal.



I guess the only different thing about roasting a chicken in this fashion is the butterflying. You basically yank out the keel bone by dividing the breast meat and dislocating the clavicles. Alton calls for broiling, but I wanted my veggies to soften up properly and I didn't want to babysit it. This took about an hour at 400 degrees.



Those dark spots under the skin are peppercorns. Alton wanted me to make a garlic lemon pepper paste, but I didn't have a mortar and pestle, so it's super rough. Next time I would just use ground pepper.

Pork chops and caramelized onions

I love pork chops, but they are REALLY easy to overcook, and then only applesauce can save them. This is an easy dinner, though you need the right tools to pull this off.

Caramelized onions:
Really easy if you know what you're doing. Use more onions than you think, because they cook down to nothing. Cut onion into rounds, place into non-stick pan with olive oil over low heat. The key to this is low and slow. 20-30 minutes, just keep it moist with wine when it looks dry. Salt and pepper at the end. Don't add sugar, it just gets gummy.

Pork chop (bone in, thick cut, organic preferred):
1) Brine the chop (I like a sweet/vinegary brine for pork. Try a fist full of salt, a gallon of cold water, a tablespoon of brown sugar, a splash of rice vinegar, and bunch of pepper corns - 2 hours tops)
2) Heat pan (ovenproof, cast iron if possible) over medium flame. Preheat oven to 350
3) Drain the chop. Pat dry with paper towels.
4) Oil the chop, NOT the pan (something with a high smoke point, like canola or peanut). Salt and pepper lightly
5) Sear about 3 minutes on each side, until you get a good crust. I like to add butter or oil to the pan right when the pork starts to keep it from sticking and smoking.
6) When you get a good sear, put the whole pan in the oven for about 5 minutes or until you get internal temp of around 155 near the bone.
7) Remove from oven and pan, let rest on cutting board with foil tent.

Pair with a bright red wine and some pasta or fennel salad. You have now made a dish that costs $25 at a nice restaurant for about $5!

Last meal in philly apartment

I left my apartment in philly for 6 weeks to study for the boards at my parents house. I had the following items in my fridge:

Hot dogs
Hamburger buns
Red bliss and mini yukon golds (with so many shoots that it looked like they were trying to escape the crisper)
1 green onion
2 normal onions
Garlic
Plain yogurt

Without further adeiu, DINNER:

Salad night

Some avocado, peppadew peppers, tomatoes, field greens, and a hunk of rustic wheat.

Wok fired eggplant

This is a spicy dish that I unfortunately made inferno-hot. The recipe comes from Grace Young's book, The Breath of a Wok, which is beautiful if you ever are interested in stir-frying.

Basically it's steamed eggplant that is then stir fried with some chili and a basic stir fry sauce. I cut it in half as a main dish for one person, but forgot to cut the amount of chili in half. Fuego!

Braised cabbage

Sorry! Long hiatus due to the lack of motivation to cook much anymore. Here is some braised cabbage that kept me going for a good 3 meals. Basically cabbage + apple cider vinegar + garlic + onions + water + sugar. I'd use real apples next time to add some more flavor.

Sausage and pepper pasta

Grab bag of peppers from Reading Terminal Market: $1
1lb sausage (from a bigger 5lb package): $0.89
Whole wheat pasta: $1.50
Onion: $0.25
Garlic: $0.05
Meals for the next 3 days: Priceless

Yakisoba

Fried noodles! These packages of Yakisoba are sold with 3 bundles of noodles and sauce packets for about $4. Get the fresh refrigerated ones, not the ramen-style instant ones.

Saute meat - remove.

Saute veg.

Add noodles.

Stir in the sauce packet. Yum!

Catch up: Risotto, Salmon, Peanut noodles, Eggy salad

Alright, life has gotten in the way of this blog. I will give you a quick highlight reel of my last month of eats:

Mushroom risotto:With a little help from chef Kim I whipped up a hearty favorite, shiitake and cremini veggie risotto. Steps include sauteeing mushrooms, simmering sliced leeks in half and half, heating veggie broth, sweating onions, and toasting short grain rice. The key to risotto is to add liquid to the rice slowly, only after the previous batch of liquid is absorbed. The pan should be hot enough so the broth you add sizzles and bubbles, and quickly gets absorbed into the rice. Then add in all of the prepped ingredients, including good parm and sliced scallions.

Slow cooked salmon:
This is a really easy way to do salmon, in a 250 degree oven with olive oil, salt, pepper. 20 minutes in the oven (target temp 115 degrees). Top it as you like. I like lemon, cilantro, capers, and more olive oil.

Peanut sesame noodles:
A summer favorite, stolen from thekitchn.com . I use less noodles than they say, but the same amount of sauce (their version is too dry and bland). Forego the chicken if you'd like, as these noodles are great for lunch. Use crunchy peanut butter or add crushed peanuts.


Eggy salad:

Basic rocket salad with olive oil and lemon dressing. Added some nice tomatoes, red peppers and sweet red onion, plus an over-medium egg on top.

Sausage pasta

This is my first post from my new apartment in Philadelphia. New kitchen, same toys, and this is one of my go-to recipes.

So this is your basic tomato sauce. Brown meat, sweat onions, add garlic, deglaze, add tomatoes, mushrooms and simmer. Bam. Dinner and lunch for a few days with no hassle.

DIY Recipe: Chili

If you look for a Chili recipe online, you're going to come up with about 1 million variations on what people claim to be the "Best Chili EVER". Nobody provides you with a structure that you can modify to your own liking. Here is a new segment known as DIY Recipe, kind of like choose your own adventure:

1. Meat. In batches in a large pot, season and brown 2-4 lbs of:
1. Ground beef
2. Veal
3. Stew beef (Top round, bottom round, chuck)
4. Pork
5. Sausage (try not to use too much. no need to season)
2. Remove meat when just browned.
3. Aromatic Veggies. Add some oil and add some garlic along with 2 cups of:
1. Onions/Shallots
2. Celery
3. Carrots
4. Bell pepper
4. Deglaze with:
1. 1 bottle of beer
2. 1/2 cup of wine
3. 1/4 cup of vodka
5. Extra veggies. Add in 2-4 cups of:
1. Red beans
2. Corn
3. Bacon (seriously, it's a veggie to some people)
4. Chopped tomatoes (or canned, or tomato sauce)
   
6. Thicken. 2 tablespoons of:
1. Corn meal
2. Corn flour
3. All purpose flour
4. 2 cups crushed tortilla chips
7. Add back the meat
8. Season with any combination of:
1. Chili powder
2. Garlic powder
3. Onion powder
4. Cumin
5. Oregano
6. Black pepper
   
7. Canned chilies
   
8. Chocolate or cacao (unsweetened)
   
9. Thin to your desired consistency:
   
1. Water
2. Chicken broth
3. Veggie broth
10. Simmer for:
1. 1 hour
2. 4 hours
3. 12 hours
4. 4 hours the day before, store in fridge, then resimmer for 1 hour prior to serving
11. Serve with:
1. Tortilla Chips
2. Shredded cheddar
3. Sour cream
4. Sliced scallions
5. Cilantro
6. Cornbread

I used top round, onions, celery, wine, red beans, tomato sauce, corn meal, oregano, garlic powder, onion powder, chili powder, cumin, black pepper, a touch of water, simmered for 4 hours and served with shredded cheddar and jack with some multigrain tortilla chips.

Fish with black beans

Black bean sauce is a pretty easy way to dress up Chinese food. Fish is tough to stir fry. Add these together and you have a dish that is of moderate difficulty.

1. Coat the fish in cornstarch, rice wine, and oil (I left this out and it stuck horribly)
2. Stir fry some garlic and broccoli. Remove.
   
3. Get a good crust on the fish (use a bit more oil and just drain it to make it less greasy)
   
4. Add back veggies. Throw in the black beans and a good amount of thickening fluid (i.e. corn starch and broth)
5. Garnish with scallions or cilantro