back to Recipes

Sides

Japanese Cucumber Salad

Japanese Cucumber Salad
Japanese Cucumber Salad

Japanese Cucumber Salad

Last week, Jonah and I made a delicious dinner of this Japanese cucumber salad and Korean marinated beef (to be seen in an upcoming post). This salad was so incredibly simple and delicious. It would be perfect for a summer dinner. It’s very refreshing. But we had it in the winter and it was still so crazy good that I couldn’t stop eating it.

Japanese Cucumber Salad

Ingredients

2 medium cucumbers (or 1 large English cucumber)
1/4 cup rice vinegar
1 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 Tbl toasted sesame seeds

Instructions

We bought the sesame seeds in the bulk section at our grocery store (we needed a bunch for the beef too, so it made sense) and you can just toast them in a dry pan over medium heat. Keep an eye on them though, because they can burn quickly.

Peel the cucumbers leaving alternating green stripes of the peel. Slice them in half lengthwise and scoop out the seeds. Now, using a food processor, sharp knife, or one of those mandolin things if you’re one of those people, slice your cucumbers into very thing slices. Think paper thin. Lay your cucumber slices out on a double layered paper towel or a dishtowel to absorb some moisture while you whip up the dressing.

Combine the rice vinegar, sugar, and salt in a bowl, making sure to stir it up to dissolve the sugar. When you’re ready to serve, add the sesame seeds and cucumbers, and toss to coat. Serve!

Indian Dinner: Chicken Makhani and Spiced Cauliflower

Indian Dinner: Chicken Makhani and Indian Spiced Cauliflower and Potatoes

Indian Dinner: Chicken Makhani and Indian Spiced Cauliflower and Potatoes
Indian Dinner: Chicken Makhani and Indian Spiced Cauliflower and Potatoes

Indian Dinner: Chicken Makhani and Indian Spiced Cauliflower and Potatoes

Indian Dinner: Chicken Makhani and Indian Spiced Cauliflower and Potatoes

For a while now, I’ve been wanting to cook an Indian dinner. But I don’t have a cookbook with the kind of curry I wanted to make, so I took to the internet. After much hunting, I found many websites with the same Chicken Makhani recipe, so I decided to try it. If you’ve never had Chicken Makhani, you should. It’s a very creamy, mild curry that is this beautiful orange color. And I’ve been wanting to make it forever. Let me say before you jump in here that this recipe did not taste like the dish I get at our favorite Indian restaurant. Not at all. It was still good, just not what I was expecting. So if you have had Chicken Makhani before, just know that this won’t taste like the dish you’re thinking of. (My grandmother would kill me for ending that sentence with a preposition, but whatever.) Also, I will say that I forgot the step with the cornstarch and water at the end… So maybe it would have turned out different, but I don’t think the taste would have been affected at all. So there you go.

Now, when I was at the grocery store, shopping for this lovely meal, I thought to myself, “Gee, I really should cook a vegetable too.” So I quickly looked up a recipe on Smitten Kitchen (have I made it clear that I love this site yet?) for Indian spiced cauliflower and potatoes. I adapted this so that I wouldn’t have to buy too many more ingredients. I also didn’t do the full recipe; I probably ended up making 3/4 of the original, which yielded plenty for both of us plus leftovers.

Chicken Makhani and Spiced Cauliflower

Ingredients

Chicken Makhani

2 Tbl peanut oil
1 shallot, finely chopped
1/4 white onion, chopped
2 Tbl butter
2 tsp lemon juice
1 Tbl garlic-ginger paste (I wasn’t sure what this was, so I just minced one Tbl worth of ginger and garlic and called it good)
2 tsp garam masala
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp ground cumin
1 bay leaf
1/4 cup plain yogurt
1 cup half and half
1 cup tomato puree
1/4 tsp plus a pinch cayenne pepper
1 pinch each of salt and pepper
1 lb boneless skinless chicken thighs, cut into bite size pieces
1 Tbl cornstarch
1/4 cup water

Spiced Cauliflower

1 (1 3/4-lb) head cauliflower, cut into 3/4-inch-wide florets
1 1/4 lb potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes (the recipe called for Yukon Golds, but I just used Russets)
5 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 1/2 teaspoon cumin
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 teaspoons minced peeled fresh ginger
1/4 teaspoon turmeric
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
1/2 cup water

Instructions

Chicken Makhani

In a large saucepan, heat 1 Tbl peanut oil over medium-high heat. Add the shallot and the onion and cook them until they’re soft and translucent. Add the butter, lemon juice, ginger-garlic paste, 1 teaspoon of the garam masala, chili powder, cumin, and bay leaf. Phew. Cook for a minute, stirring to combine everything thoroughly. Add the tomato sauce and cook for a couple minutes, stirring frequently. Now stir in the the half and half and the yogurt. Bring the heat down to low, and allow the curry to simmer for about 10 minutes, stirring frequently. Season with salt and pepper to taste, remove the curry from heat, and set it aside (preferably covered).

In a skillet, heat the rest of the oil over medium heat. Add the chicken, and cook until lightly browned. Reduce the heat, and add the rest of the garam masala and the cayenne, mixing around until the chicken is evenly coated with the spices. Add a few spoonfuls of the curry to the chicken, and simmer until the liquid has reduced and the chicken is cooked through. Then stir the chicken into the sauce. (Now is when you’re supposed to do the cornstarch: mix together the cornstarch and water in a bowl, then add to the sauce. Stir in thoroughly and cook for 5-10 minutes, or until the sauce is thickened.)

Spiced Cauliflower

Preheat your oven to 475 degrees. In a bowl, toss the cauliflower and potatoes with 3 Tbl of oil, 1/2 tsp of the cumin, and 1/4 tsp of salt. Spread the veggies onto a rimmed baking sheet and bake for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. You want the cauliflower tender and browned in spots.

While the veggies are roasting, cook the onion, garlic, and ginger in the rest of the oil in a heavy skillet over medium heat. Stir frequently, and cook until the onions and garlic are soft and starting to brown. Add the rest of the cumin (1 tsp), the turmeric, cayenne, and remaining 1/2 tsp salt, and cook for a couple of minutes, stirring to evenly coat the onions in the spices. Add the water, being sure to scrape up any brown bits from the bottom of the pan, and stir in the veggies. Cover and cook for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, or until the potatoes are tender.

Serve curry and cauliflower with rice (I like to add a capful of rice cooking vinegar with the water to give it a little extra flavor), and enjoy!

Green Pancakes with Lime Butter

Green Pancakes with Lime Butter

Green Pancakes with Lime Butter
Green Pancakes with Lime Butter

Green Pancakes with Lime Butter

Green Pancakes with Lime Butter

In trying to spend less money cooking, Jonah and I have been doing more vegetarian meals. This is why it’s wonderful that Jonah got this cookbook “Plenty” by Yotam Ottolenghi for his birthday. All vegetarian food, very unique ingredients and recipes. These green pancakes are the second thing we’ve made from it (the first was eggplant with buttermilk sauce, which hopefully Jonah will put up on the blog someday…), and they were delicious. Different from anything I’ve tasted and filled with green goodness. We didn’t have everything required for the recipe, so I’ll let you know what we included and what we skipped.

Green Pancakes with Lime Butter

Note: Ottolenghi’s recipe for self rising flour is: 1 cup flour, 1 1/4 tsp baking powder, and a pinch of salt. it’s a little aggravating because you make over a cup of it and then only use 3/4 a cup in the recipe… but I was too lazy to do the math.

Ingredients

Lime Butter

1 stick of butter at room temperature
zest of 1 lime
1 1/2 Tbl lime juice
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 Tbl cilantro (we left this out)
1/2 garlic clove, finely chopped
1/4 tsp chile flakes

Green Pancakes

1/2 lb spinach, washed
3/4 cup self-rising flour (see note above)
1 Tbl baking powder
1 egg
4 Tbl butter, melted
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cumin
2/3 cup milk
6 green onions, finely sliced
2 fresh green chiles, thinly sliced
1 egg white
olive oil for frying

Instructions

Lime Butter

Beat the butter in a bowl until it’s creamy. Add the rest of the ingredients. Wasn’t that hard? The recipe says to put it in plastic wrap, roll it into a sausage shape, and chill until firm. But we just covered it and threw it in the fridge until the pancakes were ready.

Green Pancakes

While your sous-chef (Jonah) makes the butter, you can get started on the veggie prep. Wilt the spinach in a pan, then drain it in a sieve or colander, and when it’s cool, squeeze out as much excess liquid as possible. Chop roughly, and set aside. At this point, you can also chop your green onions and peppers so they’re ready to go when you need them.

Now, in a mixing bowl (if you have an electric mixer, you can use it, but you’ll want it later to whip your egg white, so be aware that you’ll be swapping bowls and washing it to use it for something else), combine flour, baking powder, the whole egg, melted butter, salt, cumin, and milk. Mix until thoroughly combined and smooth. Now add all those green things you chopped up earlier. In your electric mixer, whisk the egg white “to soft peaks,” meaning you want it to hold a peak, but not be too stiff. Make sense? Now you can gently fold the whipped egg white into the pancake batter.

Heat some oil (think 1/2 Tbl) in a frying pan over medium-high heat. Ladle the batter into the pan, using about 2 Tbl of batter per pancake. You want them to be fairly thin, so press the batter down gently. Cook them for 2 minutes a side, or until they’re nicely golden-brown (or golden-green, as the case may be).

Transfer the pancakes to a paper towel and keep warm. When you’re done with all the batter, enjoy with a slab of lime butter on top! We ate these for dinner, but I can see them being a wonderful breakfast, and also a great way to get kids to eat some spinach! Enjoy!

French Onion Soup

French Onion Soup

French Onion Soup
French Onion Soup

French Onion Soup

Yesterday, I was craving French Onion Soup. I found a recipe on Smitten Kitchen (duh) and luckily, we had most of the ingredients except wine, broth, and swiss cheese. After work, I swung by the grocery store, picked up what I needed, and I was ready to go. I halved the recipe, but I’ll give you the original in case you’re cooking for more than just two people (but half was the perfect amount for me and Jonah).

French Onion Soup

Ingredients

1 1/2 pounds (5 cups) thinly sliced yellow onions
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon table salt (or less)
1/4 teaspoon granulated sugar
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 quarts beef stock (mushroom stock is a good vegetarian substitute)
1/2 cup dry white wine
Freshly ground black pepper
1 to 2 cups (to taste) grated Swiss or Gruyere cheese
Butter
Crusty bread, sliced into 1 inch thick pieces toasted until hard

Instructions

Melt the butter and oil together in a large saucepan over medium-low heat. Add the onions, tossing to coat them in the butter/oil, and spread them so they cover the bottom of the pot. Reduce the heat and let the onions cook, covered, for 15 minutes. You don’t need to stir them during this step.

After 15 minutes, turn up the heat a little bit and stir in the salt and sugar. Cook them for 30-40 minutes until they have become a lovely golden brown, stirring frequently so they don’t burn. Yes, 30 minutes seems like a long time to stir onions, but allowing them to caramelize well will make for really nice flavor later on and will make the soup taste much more complex and, well, just better.

Once the onions are browned, add the flour, stirring it in well, and cook for another 3 minutes. Now add the wine (all at once) and the stock, a bit at a time, stirring between additions. Add a little salt and pepper. Be sure not to over-salt! The stock is plenty salty and the cheese on the gratinée is plenty salty, so don’t overdo it now. Once the stock is all in, bring the pot to a simmer and let is cook, partially covered, for another 30-40 minutes. And stir in the cognac if you’re using it.

Now for the gratinée. Jonah and I didn’t follow instructions, but rather chose to just try out our own process and see if it worked. It did. Turn on your broiler (we put ours on high). Pour the soup into oven safe bowls, and stir in about 1 Tbl of the cheese. Toast whatever bread your using (we used the bread I made in the previous post) until it’s hard. Butter the toast, and set it afloat on the soup. Now put on as much cheese as your little heart desires. We probably did 1/3 of a cup per bowl of soup. Put the bowls on a foil-lined baking sheet, and pop it in the oven. I watched the soups in the oven, and when the cheese was bubbling and starting to turn golden brown, I pulled them out of the oven. Be careful as the bowls will be HOT. Put them on plates and warn whoever is eating them not to touch the bowl, only the plate. Serve and enjoy!

Country Bread

Country Bread

Country Bread
Country Bread

Country Bread

The reason I started making bread is because I’ve always wanted to make one of those crusty light loaves that you find at Grand Central Bakery or Macrina Bakery or Lovejoy Bakers. I’m getting closer, starting with simple white loaves and now moving on to this Country Bread. One day I know I’ll get to one of those crispy on the outside, light and soft on the inside, perfectly sour sourdoughs.

Anyway, my aunt Judy sent me a cookbook (as well as a book about how to write recipes) when I started this blog. It’s called “Flour” by Joanne Chang, who is the chef at a bakery in Boston (where my aunt lives). I’ll admit, many of the recipes in this cookbook look a little daunting, but when I saw the recipe for this bread I knew I had to try it.

WARNING: This is not a quick bread recipe. You have to make the sponge, let it sit overnight, then make the bread, which also has to sit and rest for many hours. It is relatively easy, but there’s lots of waiting around.

Country Bread

Makes two loaves

Ingredients

Sponge

3/4 cup water
1 1/4 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon active dry yeast

Bread

1 1/2 cups water, body temperature
2 cups unbleached all purpose flour, plus some for working and sprinkling
2 cups bread flour
12 oz bread sponge
pinch of active dry yeast
2 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp sugar
a handful of medium-coarse yellow cornmeal for the baking sheet

Instructions

Sponge

Alright, let’s start with the sponge, hm? In a bowl, stir together the water, 1 cup of the flour, and the yeast until well combine. Place in a covered container (I just covered the bowl with a dishtowel) and leave at room temperature for at least 4 hours and up to 8 hours. After 4 hours (or however many), you can stir in the remaining 1/4 cup of flour. The sponge will stiffen up with the addition of the flour into a very loose dough. Re-cover it (this is when I transfered it to a tupperware) and leave it in the fridge overnight.

Bread

*The next morning*

Get out your electric mixer (or a bowl and a wooden spoon) and stir together the water, 2 cups of all purpose flour, and the 2 cups of bread flour for about a minute, or until you have a “shaggy, stiff dough.” I love her writing. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let sit for 10 minutes.

After 10 minutes, remove the plastic wrap and add the sponge, yeast, salt, and sugar. Mix for 3-4 minutes or until they are incorporated. Now, according to Chef Chang, the dough should be a little bit sticky but still smooth  and feel “like an earlobe when you grasp a bit between your fingers.” Oh… ok.

If the dough is stiffer than earlobe status, add some water 1 Tbl at a time. If it’s not stiff enough, add all-purpose flour 1 Tbl at a time. I ended up needing to add about 3 Tbl of flour to my dough. Also, I had to stop the mixer a number of times to scrape the dough off the dough hook.

Now, lightly oil a large bowl, and transfer the dough to it. Lightly cover the bowl with an oiled piece of plastic wrap and let it sit in a warm place for 2-3 hours. The dough will rise a little bit and will be loose and relaxed and a little sticky.

After that wait, turn the dough out onto a floured work surface. Divide the dough in half with a knife and shape each half into a ball. The easiest way to do this is to tuck the edges of the dough underneath itself, continuing to tuck until it naturally gathers into a ball with a nice taut surface. Sprinkle the cornmeal on a baking sheet and place the loaves on it, at least 3 inches apart. Cover them lightly and completely in more plastic wrap and let them sit for another 2-3 hours.

Phew. We’re almost done. While the dough is resting (towards the end of the rest), preheat your oven to 500 degrees, with a rack in the center and a rack below that one. When the loaves are done resting, sprinkle the tops with about a teaspoon of flour each, and slash the loaves with a knife. The best way to do this is to use a sharp paring knife that has been dipped in water (to keep it from dragging). You’ll want to use the tip of the knife and use quick, sure movements. You can do whatever design you’d like (I did a square and a line down the middle with lines coming off of it). If you don’t slash the bread, it’ll burst on it’s own, which might also look cool.

Anyway, after you’ve slashed it, put the pan in the oven. On the rack below the bread, put a rimmed baking sheet filled with 2 cups of water (the steam creates a “nice moist atmosphere for your bread to grow”). Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until the loaves are a dark golden brown on top (and make a hollow sound when you thump them on the bottom, but who wants to pick up a 500 degree loaf of bread and knock on it?).

Transfer the loaves to a wire rack and let them cool for at least 1 hour. These store really well just in a plastic or paper bag on the counter. They don’t go stale as quickly as some crusty loaves, which was nice because it’s hard to burn through 2 loaves of bread with just 2 of us in the apartment. The bread was really good. A little sweet and a little tangy, and quite dense. At first, I was actually bummed about how dense it was (I wanted something light with lots of holes but I realized that with all the extra flour I added, that probably wasn’t gonna happen), but after eating a slice with butter, I was really digging it. We also used this bread to make the gratinées for the French Onion Soup we had for dinner last night (which I’ll be posting very soon).

Pao Bread! (Brazilian Cheese Bread)

Pao Bread! (Brazilian Cheese Bread)

Pao Bread! (Brazilian Cheese Bread)
Pao Bread! (Brazilian Cheese Bread)

Pao Bread! (Brazilian Cheese Bread)

Last summer, a friend of ours (Courtney, seen in the Bread Pudding post) worked selling pao bread at various farmer’s markets around Portland. I had never heard of pao bread before, but oh my goodness it’s delicious. Little puffy buns of cheesy (gluten free) goodness. I’m always a little wary of gluten free food, but trust me, these are great. Anyway, I was hunting around on pinterest this other day and happened on a recipe for homemade pao bread. I had a free couple hours, so I went to the store and bought some tapioca flour and got cooking!

Pao Bread

Ingredients

1/2 cup olive oil
1/3 cup water
1/3 cup milk
1 tsp salt
2 cups tapioca flour
2 tsp minced garlic
2/3 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
2 eggs (beaten)

Ingredients

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. In a large saucepan, combine olive oil, water, milk, and salt (no need to whisk).

Put the saucepan over high heat; when the mixture comes to a boil, remove from the heat immediately and stir in the tapioca flour and and garlic. It’s a bit of a pain to mix (I assume due to the way the tapioca flour absorbs the moisture), but it comes together eventually. Let this mixture sit for 10-15 minutes.

After resting, stir the cheese and eggs into the tapioca mixture until well combined. The recipe said the texture will be chunky like cottage cheese. It also said to now drop rounded, 1/4 cup sized balls of the mixture onto an ungreased baking sheet. I had a few issues with these steps. First of all, cottage cheese…ew. Second of all, how are you supposed to “round” something that is the texture of cottage cheese? That sounds hard to do. Third, 1/4 cup was too big. So here are my instructions, drop 1/8 cup dollops onto an ungreased baking sheet.

Now pop them in your preheated oven for 15-20 minutes. The tops of mine didn’t brown (like the recipe said they would), but I gauged doneness by the brownness of the bottoms. You don’t want them too brown, then they’ll be overcooked. But the edges should be perfectly golden. When they’re done, let them cool on a cooling rack before enjoying.

This meal is brought to you by Alice Waters

This meal is brought to you by Alice Waters

This meal is brought to you by Alice Waters
This meal is brought to you by Alice Waters

This meal is brought to you by Alice Waters

This past weekend my dad and his girlfriend came down to Portland to visit me and Jonah. They had given Jonah a cookbook, “The Art of Simple Food” by Alice Waters, for his birthday, and so we decided to make them a full meal straight out of the book as a little thank you. If you don’t know who Alice Waters is, she’s a chef at a restaurant called Chez Panisse in Berkeley, CA. The restaurant is known for organic, local ingredients and simple cooking. She has written about a million cookbooks. Anyway, for dinner we made: salad, Baked Wild Salmon with Herb Butter, Chard with Butter and Parmesan, and Roasted Butternut Squash for dinner. It was quite a meal. I’ll do one recipe at a time here so they aren’t all intertwined. Make things a little easier.

The meal was really delicious, fresh tasting, and best of all, SIMPLE. I guess the title of the cookbook doesn’t lie. These vegetable dishes were really filling and would make a great vegetarian meal. Enjoy!

Herb-Butter Salmon, Roasted Butternut Squash, and Chard with Parmesan

Ingredients

Herb-Butter Salmon

1 stick of butter at room temperature
1/2 cup chopped herbs (we used parsley, chives, and tarragon)
1 finely chopped garlic clove
a squeeze of lemon juice
salt
pepper
cayenne
1-1 1/2 pounds wild salmon fillet

Roasted Butternut Squash

2 small butternut squash
1 medium shallot, coursely chopped
4 cippolini onions, peeled and quartered
about 1 Tbl of roughly chopped (or torn) sage leaves
olive oil
salt

Chard with Parmesan

one bunch of Chard
2-3 Tbl butter (depending on how buttery you want your chard)
1/2 – 1 cup of grated parmesan cheese

Instructions

Herb-Butter Salmon

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Stir the ingredients for the herb butter in a small bowl. Add lemon, cayenne, salt, and pepper to taste.

Season the salmon with salt and pepper. Oil a baking dish/sheet and put the salmon on skin side down. Drizzle the fish with oil. Bake 7-10 minutes, until the flesh is “just set and still pink in the center.” After taking the salmon out of the oven, spoon some of the soft herb butter over each piece of fish, and put the rest in a small bowl on the table.

Roasted Butternut Squash

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Peel the squash, cut in half, and remove the seeds. Cut the squash into 1/2 inch pieces. Throw them into a baking dish with the chopped shallot, cippolini onions, and sage. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt. Pop the dish into the oven for about an hour and a half, stirring about halfway through. Test the doneness of the squash before taking it out of the oven to make sure it’s cooked through.

Chard with Parmesan

Remove the leaves from the ribs of the chard, wash the leaves, and cook them in salted boiling water. When the leaves are tender, about four minutes, drain them in a colander and allow to cool, then squeeze out the excess water.

In the same pot you used to cook the chard, melt the butter over medium heat. While the butter is melting, roughly chop the chard. Add the chard to the butter and heat through. Stir in the parmesan, remove from heat, and serve! Sometimes I’m a little skeptical of cooked leafy greens (the texture can be a little slimy for me) but I really enjoyed this. I was careful not to overcook the chard, and the butter and cheese certainly added to the flavor. Because really, what doesn’t taste good with butter and cheese on top?

Roasted Carrots

Roasted Carrots
Roasted Carrots

I love roasting vegetables. It makes them a wonderful texture, a little crispy on the edges, condenses the flavors, often makes them a little sweeter. Oh man, it’s just so good. One of my favorite veggies to roast is carrots. I love to toss them with a little olive oil, honey, and salt. It brings out the sweetness and makes them caramelize a little more.

Roasted Carrots

Ingredients

Carrots
Honey
Oil (preferably olive, but vegetable oil is fine)
Salt

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees (or 400, depending on how quickly you want them to cook). Peel and cut your carrots into bite size pieces (see picture below to see about how big I cut mine). Toss them in oil, honey, and sprinkle with salt. Measurements of each kind of depend on how you want them to taste. You want them to be evenly covered in oil. If you think you might want them sweeter, do quite a bit of honey, or not if you don’t. I know it’s kind of vague, but I promise you’ll just be able to tell depending on how many carrots you’re cooking and what you want them to taste like.

How long you cook them for is another guessing game. Firstly, it depends on how crispy/burnt you want them. I like mine to be fairly dark at the edges, so I roast them for about an hour at 375. But sometimes more and sometimes less. Second, it depends on how many carrots you’re roasting. You don’t want them too crowded on the pan otherwise they’ll do more of a steaming kind of thing. Also, you want to toss them about halfway through your cook time.

So this posting was really more of a “carrots tossed in this stuff and roasted are good” than an exact recipe, but it’s worth it just for anyone to discover the joys of this dish. Experiment a little and find the right amounts, temperature, and cook time for you! I promise, it’s worth it.

A Loaf of Bread

bread
bread

bread

Remember a little while back (in the cheddar and sage biscuits post) when I said I had bought some yeast and wanted to use it to make some bread? So I finally did that. I was more than a little bit frightened, and while all did not go perfectly smoothly, it worked! Very cool!

I hunted online for a while for some beginner bread recipes. While I was tempted to jump in and start with crusty french loaves and sourdoughs and breads with all kinds of stuff in it (think garlic cloves, spices, onions, anything else you can dream of), I thought it best to start simply and try to figure this thing out. I found this recipe for just a basic white loaf which didn’t require me to go to the store and buy anything, so already I was a big fan.

I used my kitchenaid mixer because it makes life easier. But a lot of the recipes I read are like “it’s so easy you don’t even need a mixer!” Whatever.

Sandwich Bread

Makes 1 loaf

Ingredients

1 package of active dry yeast
1 1/2 tablespoons butter, melted
1/4 cup milk
5 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 – 3 1/2 cups flour
cooking spray or other oil

Instructions

First, warm the bowl by filling it with hot water, then dumping it out. Then dissolve your yeast according to the directions on the packet. Stir until yeast is completely dissolved, with no lumps. I think this is where things started to get wonky for me. I think the recipe assumes your yeast packet will call for 1 cup of warm water, but mine only called for 1/4 cup.

Now add the butter, milk, sugar, and salt to the yeast and stir until it well blended (it will look like a slightly yellow-ish tan liquid). Now add 2 CUPS of flour. No more! Not yet! Mix this very well. If the mixture is still wet, add more flour 1/4 cup at a time, mixing well before adding anymore. Now the recipe I used called for at least 2 1/2 cups of flour, so I mixed in the 2 cups of flour, then pretty quickly added another 1/4 cup thinking it wouldn’t be a big deal. But a big deal it was, my friends. My dough immediately became too dry, crumbling into a million little pieces and it WOULD NOT come together. I was so frustrated! A couple other recipes I had read in my research had said “If your dough is too wet, add more flour. If it is too dry, add more milk/water.” So that’s what I did. I ended up adding probably almost another cup of milk/water. I think the important lesson here is that if you follow the instructions and it’s not perfect, it’s not the end of the world (which I thought it was). Just add a little of this, a little of that, it will all be ok.

Once the dough has come together, you can either let your machine knead it for ten minutes or, if you’re feeling adventurous dump the dough out onto a floured surface and knead it yourself. I did the latter because sometimes it feels better to know you’ve actually put in some physical effort. You know what I mean? There are many different kneading techniques. Some say you should punch the dough down, fold it up, then punch again. Some say you can squish it in your fingers and pull and twist it. I use the good old fashioned push away from you with the base of your palm and fold. Push and fold, push and fold.

I then rinsed out my mixing bowl, coated it in a little oil, put my ball of dough in it, covered it with a dishtowel, and let it rise for an hour in a warm place. Don’t clean up your floured surface, because you’ll need it again. The recipe says that after rising for an hour, your dough should double in size, but not to stress if it’s bigger or smaller than double. This was good news, because mine had not doubled. But it did rise, so we were still on the right track here. Now punch the dough down, and spread it out into a rectangular shape: one side the length of your bread pan, the other side 1 1/2 times the length of your bread pan.  Now roll that bad boy up, tucking the ends of the roll underneath (the bottom being where the seam is). Now drop it into the oiled bread pan.

Now you let it rise again, covered with a dishtowel. The recipe says an hour, but mine hadn’t really done much in that amount of time. Here’s where I thought things were going south again. After an hour of rising in the bread pan and not being where it needed to be, Jonah and I had to leave the house to go record his old a cappella group. I know, right? And then we went out to eat. So the dough sat in the pan rising away for a total of 5 1/2 or 6 hours. So I got home and I expected the bread to have exploded and that there’d be yeasty dough all over the apartment (why I suspected that, I have no idea). But no! It had risen the perfect amount!

At this point I’m starting to think that maybe I haven’t completely ruined this loaf of bread. I heated the oven to 400 degrees and baked that sucker for 30 minutes. Once you take it out of the oven, immediately remove the bread from the pan so it doesn’t continue cooking. The recipe says to let it cool all the way before eating. And check it out!

After it cooled and Jonah and I each ate a slice, I was so dang proud of myself. After thinking I had ruined it twice, it worked! And not only that, but our apartment smelled so incredibly delicious. Oh my goodness. This bread makes amazing toast, and tastes wonderful with just a little butter spread on it. And now that I’ve done it once, I feel ready to tackle the world of bread. Keep an eye out for more bread recipes coming soon!

Soy Glazed Salmon and Asparagus with Miso

Soy Glazed Salmon and Asparagus with Miso

Soy Glazed Salmon and Asparagus with Miso
Soy Glazed Salmon and Asparagus with Miso

Soy Glazed Salmon and Asparagus with Miso

The other day Jonah and I were feeling up to cooking a big fancy meal. I picked the menu: Soy Glazed Salmon, Eggplant with Miso, served with rice. We got to the store and they didn’t have eggplant though, so I picked up some asparagus instead. Not sure why. But it was the right decision. This salmon is so unbelievably easy. Boil some delicious stuff in a put, put it on a hunk of fish, cook it, put on more stuff, and then eat it. Oh my goodness.

While Jonah was making the salmon, I had to find a new recipe. Lucky for me, I types in “asparagus with miso” and I quickly found a delicious recipe on…Oprah.com. I adjusted ingredients based on what we had as well as some of the eggplant recipes I’d read.

This meal was honestly one of the easiest, most delicious meals I’ve had. I have a tendency when I cook fish to put too much sauce or whatever on it so that it doesn’t really tasted like fish anymore. This salmon still tasted like salmon, but with a little kick of salty and sweet, it was perfect. And the asparagus had little charred bits (which I love) and was a little sweet, a little spicy, and a little tart. They tasted delicious together too. I highly recommend cooking this meal when you want to impress but don’t want to do too much work.

Soy Glazed Salmon with Miso Asparagus

Ingredients

Soy Glazed Salmon

1 lb salmon
1/8 cup soy sauce
1/8 cup maple syrup

Miso Asparagus

1/8 cup miso paste
1-2 clove garlic , minced
1 teaspoon minced fresh ginger (I didn’t have fresh ginger, so I used about half a teaspoon of powdered ginger, I’m sure more than that would be good too)
2 teaspoons fresh lime juice
1 pinch red pepper flakes
1/2 tablespoon sugar (to make it caramelize a little bit)
1 tablespoon mirin
3/4 pounds asparagus , bottoms trimmed
1/2 tablespoon olive oil
Pinch of salt

Instructions

Soy Glazed Salmon

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. The recipe (from the Gourmet Today cookbook which we got on sale at Powell’s for $15) says to line a broiler pan with foil and then oil the broiler rack. We don’t have those things, so we just used an oiled pyrex baking dish, which worked just fine.

Bring the soy sauce and maple syrup to a boil in a small saucepan over medium heat, uncovered, and boil until it reduces to a little more than half (of what you originally had). Put salmon skin-side-down in the dish or on the pan or whatever and pat dry. Set some of the glaze aside for later, and brush the salmon generously with the remaining glaze. Let stand for 5 minutes, then brush again with glaze. Roast the salmon for 10 minutes in the oven. Turn on broiler, brush salmon with glaze again and broil close to the heat (think 6 inches or so, no need to be terribly exact) until cooked through, 3-5 minutes. Once you take the salmon out of the oven, you can brush on the remaining glaze.

Miso Asparagus

Preheat broiler. In a small bowl, combine all ingredients EXCEPT asparagus, olive oil, and salt. Stir well and set aside. On a baking sheet, toss asparagus with olive oil and salt. Cook close to heat (about 6 inches) for about 3 minutes (if you like softer asparagus, like me, cook for 4 minutes), then remove from oven. Spread miso mixture over the asparagus and place back under broiler for 3-5 minutes.

Fall Salad (Ad Hoc style)

Fall Salad

I figure that for every couple of posts about baked goods and cookies, I should probably post something a little healthier. This recipe is also from the Ad Hoc cookbook I posted about earlier. This fall salad is simple and delicious. So so delicious. Jonah and I have started eating salad again, thanks to this. Yum. It’s full of parmesan cheese, pine nuts, and even persimmons, which I hadn’t ever had before this salad. Not sure I can say I liked them, but it was certainly an adventure.

Feel free to pick and choose which of these ingredients you want in your salad. For example, we didn’t blanch leeks, but replaced leeks with green onion (not really the same, but whatever floats your boat). Plus, it’s always worth trying something new. Who knows, you may love it.

Fall Salad

Ingredients

Mixed greens
Blanched leeks (I didn’t really feel like blanching leeks, so we used green onions… more on that later)
Persimmons, sliced
Prosciutto
Pine nuts
Parmesan cheese, grated

Instructions

The recipe also called for a sherry vinegar vinaigrette, but I didn’t feel like buying a bottle of sherry vinegar just for this, so we just did a balsamic vinaigrette with balsamic vinegar, olive oil, some minced garlic, and then also put the green onions in here rather than sprinkled on the salad… not sure why.

Now, the persimmons. They kind of tasted a little bit like pears, but with a thicker skin. I dunno if they were worth the money. I can see replacing the persimmons with something like a satsuma or another variety of small orange-type-thing that are available these days.

With or without the persimmons, this salad is both light and filling, and perfect for a fall dinner. It also would be a nice salad course to a fancier meal. Enjoy this healthy and delicious salad!

Cheddar and Sage Biscuits

Cheddar and Sage Biscuits
Cheddar and Sage Biscuits

Cheddar and Sage Biscuits

A couple of weeks ago, Jonah and I got that nasty cold that’s been floating around. We were both out of commission for a few days, which really sucked. When I started finally feeling a little bit better, I really wanted to make some bread. See, a couple weeks before we got sick I bought some active dry yeast because I really want to start making bread. I’m terrified of it, for some reason, and also I don’t want to go through the learning process. I just want to start making beautiful crusty sourdoughs to begin with. But I think I should learn about the process and the ingredients and all that too, rather than perhaps biting off more than I can chew.

Anyway, back to the story. So I wanted to make bread but I really wasn’t feeling up to it: I was still a little light-headed, not to mention drugged up. But I wanted something bread-like. I recalled a recipe I had seen on marthastewart.com. If you have never been to her website, you really ought to. More recipes, craft, and homemaking ideas than you will ever have time to look at. So I went to my pinterest where I had saved the recipe (more on pinterest later), and got started: Cheddar and Sage Biscuits.

Sounds good, no?

Cheddar & Sage Biscuits

I don’t think it would hurt to add a little more cheese and a little more sage to the recipe. These ingredients were really subtle, and I think I was hoping they’d be a little more obvious in taste. The recipe also says to use a food processor, but mine was not nearly big enough for all this stuff. It nearly overflowed by the time I got to the butter. What I would recommend is putting either half or 3/4 of the flour in to begin with, then everything except the buttermilk, then transferring either to an electric mixer (kitchenaid) or hand mixing and adding in the remaining flour and buttermilk. But I dont’ know, try whatever you want. Just don’t blame me when you can’t fit it all in your food processor.

Ingredients

4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for working
2 tablespoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons coarse salt
2 cups grated sharp white cheddar, or whatever cheddar you have around (also, a little parmesan would probably taste delicious too…)
2 tablespoons chopped fresh sage
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1 1/2 cups low-fat buttermilk

Instructions

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. In a food processor, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add cheese and sage, pulse to combine. Add butter and pulse until mixture is the texture of coarse meal. Add buttermilk and pulse until combined. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and knead it comes together. Don’t overknead it! With a floured rolling pin, roll dough to a 3/4-inch thickness. With a floured 2 3/4-inch round biscuit cutter (or, you know, a cup), cut out biscuits (reroll and cut scraps).

Place biscuits on a baking sheet, 1 1/2 inches apart (I did only 6 per batch to ensure they had enough room), and bake until puffed and golden, 12 to 15 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.

They’re also really good if you cut them in half and put them in the toaster for breakfast the next morning. I took little tupperwares of these biscuits to some friends who are still in school at Lewis & Clark. They work their butts off, and so sometimes I really like to bring them a little surprise treat. I think they appreciate it.