Food is Good

I’ve been remiss in my book reviews lately.  I’ve enjoyed the Owl Haven blog for quite some time and was thrilled when I heard Mary Ostyn had a cookbook coming out. I didn’t even try to get a review copy but went out and bought a copy as soon as I saw it at our local bookstore.

If you’re new to trying to save money in the kitchen and need to learn how to shop wisely, take advantage of sales, plan menus and the like, you’ll love the front section of this book. I skimmed through that part because that’s pretty much what I’ve been writing about on CheapCooking.com for over 5 years.  Not that there aren’t some fabulous ideas–there are!  It’s just that I bought the book for the recipes.

The recipe collection is a great one, that will expand your culinary horizons in delightful ways. The migas recipe is one of my favorites so far.  And I know I’m going to be exploring a lot of recipes in this book!  Definitely a worthwhile purchase and a book that will more than earn its keep in my kitchen for many years, I’m sure.

There are a spate of new cookbooks from bloggers these days, but this one belongs near the top for any curious cook. Whether you’re after money-saving ideas, and who isn’t these days, or just want to expand your repertoire in the kitchen, this book fits the bill.

This is from my family, I think either my Grandma or her sister, my great aunt.  I just know as soon as we had a sore throat, this was served up and it always felt good and tasted good.

juice of one lemon
1-2 Tbs of honey
hot water to fill the mug

Stir it all together and drink slowly.  It makes your throat feel good and fills you with a good dose of vitamin C.  We have 2 lemon trees and almost always have ripe lemons through the winter so this is our first defense.

This was originally a totally ad hoc soup but it has become a family favorite. I make a soup of broth, tiny pasta and carrots (we call it Frog Eye soup, after the pasta) but then one day I had started making that and decided to turn it into a meal and added some spinach and meatballs, then read about stracciatelle soup somewhere so added the eggs.

When my daughter came home from school today feeling a bit sick she asked for it for dinner.  I normally use chicken broth but had turkey broth in the freezer now so that’s what I used. I luckily had a large supply of baby spinach leaves in the frig that I’d bought a few days ago.  Last time I made meatballs, I made some regular size and some tiny ones thinking of this soup, so used the last of the tiny ones up tonight.  I love having building blocks in the freezer like this. (I used the rest of the tiny meatballs in some baked ziti earlier.)

6 cups chicken or turkey broth
1/2 cup tiny pasta (pastina or anci de pepe, our favorite)
1 tsp fresh parsley, chopped
1/2 tsp dried marjoram
1 carrot, peeled and sliced into thin rounds
1/2 pound spinach, sliced thinly (julienne or chiffonade I think is the “proper” term)
1/2 pound of small tiny meatballs (or large if that’s all you have!)
2 eggs
grated Parmesan cheese at the table

Bring the broth to a simmer and add the pasta, parsley, marjoram, carrot, spinach and meatballs. Simmer, covered partially, until the pasta is done (about 9 minutes for my frog eye balls) and the meat is heated through (if you started with frozen, as I did, it seemed to be done just fine in 9-10 minutes).

In a small bowl, whisk together the two eggs, then pour into the broth while stirring. If you stick a wooden spoon or a fork up against the bowl and pour across it, it breaks the eggs into smaller streams which is what you want. Stracciatelle means “rags” and that’s what the eggs look like as they cook in the broth, similar to Egg Drop Soup if you like Chinese food.  I suspect most cuisines have a similar soup with eggs in it.

Try to get the eggs in a thin stream and stir the soup as you pour. Stirring with a whisk would probably help but I just now thought of that!  Anyway, you want strings of egg. Put the lid on, turn the heat off, and let the soup sit a few minutes while you set the table, then dish up!

Serve with some grated Parmesan cheese for those that like it.

Pure comfort food yet full of protein and vegetables.

I promised my daughter I’d only do one new Asian dish this week and since I have more time to explore new things on weekends, tonight was it! I made this gingery spiced chicken from Washoku: Recipes from the Japanese Home Kitchen. Of course, she LOVED it! I made this then served it over rice for a Three-Colored Dish, but tried to expand it a little. The recipe I saw called for peas and corn but my youngest doesn’t like corn, so I made up some simple carrots for her. (I just steamed them, then put a dash of mirin, sake, and soy sauce plus sprinkled some seasame seeds. Idea from Easy Japanese Cooking: Bento Love, a fun book with lightly detailed recipes aimed at Bento lunches.)

Leftovers would definitely be great in a Bento lunch!

So start the rice in the rice cooker. I put the carrot slices in to steam once it hit the Warm stage and that seemed to work out well and let me get away with one less dirty dish.

The original recipe called for 12 ounces of ground chicken but my store only sells it in 1 pound packages so I just increased the seasonings by 1/3 roughly.   This should make about 4 servings.

1 pound ground chicken
2 Tbs sake
1 Tbs sugar
3 Tbs soy sauce
1 + tsp ginger juice

(For ginger juice, grate the fresh ginger and then squeeze the pulp to make the juice.)

Put the ground chicken in the frying pan and then add the sake and sugar. Stir and break up the clumps and then cook over medium heat, stirring and breaking up the meat, for a few minutes, until the meat turns white.  Add the soy sauce and simmer a few more minutes, stirring, another 2-3 minutes, then add the ginger jiuce and cook, stirring, another minute or so.

This freezes well, apparently, although I’ve not tried it yet. And you can use it to top rice or to stuff in a rice ball / omusubi, although I’ve not done that either.  I just served it over fresh steamed rice, with about half the rice covered with the ginger spiced chicken and 1/4 with peas and 1/4 with corn or carrots.   I added a few halved grape tomatoes and some nori (seasoned seaweed).

This was really good and a very mild way to introduce some Japanese flavors I think, if your kids are resistant.

New discovery tonight: Apparently the dogs love nori!

This is from Noodles Every Day: Delicious Asian Recipes from Ramen to Rice Sticks. It’s the first recipe I’ve tried from it and if the rest of the recipes are half as good as this one, it’s a real winner!

I, of course, made a few changes. First, I didn’t follow the base recipe for “Basic Asian Chicken Stock.” Instead, I took some turkey broth from Thanksgiving, added some water and chicken bases, then simmered with some sliced daikon, ginger, scallions, peppercorns, and fish sauce. I simmered it about half an hour since i was starting with stock. Her basic recipe started with chicken parts and simmered an hour. I figured i was just trying to infuse some Asian flavor into my turkey/chicken broth. I also about halved the recipe.

4 cups chicken/turkey broth
2 2″ slices of daikon, peeled
about an inch of fresh ginger, peeled and sliced and lightly crushed
3 scallions, trimmed and crushed lightly
1 tsp peppercorns
fish sauce (about 1 tsp)

Simmer this all together for half an hour or so, then strain and reserve the broth. (If you’re starting with 3-4 pounds of raw chicken, beef or pork bones, simmer for at least an hour.)

I also roughly halved her recipe for the soup since the original recipe says serves 6 and I was cooking for two AND as part of  a meal, but I was using up half a can of coconut milk so just kept the 50/50 ration of coconut milk to chicken broth.

1 Tbs oil
1 garlic clove, peeled and minced
1 shallot, peeled and minced
1 squirt of lemongrass from a tube (or 2 stalks lemongrass, trimmed and grated)
2 tsp curry powder
1 Tbs Thai red/green curry paste (Original recipe called for red, I used green)
2 Tbs sugar
1 Tbs fish sauce
2-3 cups coconut milk
2-3 cups Asian chicken stock
1/4 cup lime juice
salt and pepper to taste

Heat the oil in a soup pota nd saute the garlic, shallot and lemongrass about 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Add the curry paste and curry powder and stir, cooking another minute or so. Add the sugar and fish sauce and cook another 2-3 minutes, stirring.  Add the coconut milk, broth and lime juice, salt and pepper. Stir and simmer, covered, about an hour. (I shortcutted this to half an hour.)

4 ounces rice noodles

Cook the rice noodles according to package directions. The book said to soak the rice noodles in water until pliable then cook in boiling water 10 seconds. My package said to pour boiling water over the noodles in a bowl and let steep for 10 minutes. That’s what I opted for since it seemed less time sensitive.

Bring the broth back to a simmer and add:

the equivalent of 3 boneless skinless chicken thighs, sliced thinly (I used 2 chicken legs, skinned and boned and sliced)

Cook for 5 minutes until chicken is cooked.

Into each bowl (3-4 by my serving size), place some noodles.  Add some

parboiled snow peas (boiled for 1 or 2 minutes)
bean sprouts

Pour the broth and chicken pieces over the bowls of noodles, snow peas and sprouts. Add some

chopped fresh cilantro

5 Spice Baked Chicken
This chicken was from HapaBento’s 5 Spice Baked Chicken. I don’t pack proper Bentos but love the idea and enjoy the generally quick and easy recipes  and the philosophy of eating multiple colors at each meal. (As an example of my not proper Bentos, today’s lunch was leftover cheese pizza, grape tomatoes, and sliced apple. I said “We need something green” and youngest said “How about green M&Ms?”  I acquiesced! We have a ton of leftover red and green M&Ms from our gingerbread house day.)

This was perfect to make for dinner tonight, cooking a few extra pieces of chicken for lunch tomorrow or the next day.  I used chicken legs, because that’s what I had in the freezer. I marinated less than her hour so poked the chicken legs with a fork a few times to help the marinade penetrate.

3 Tbs soy sauce
1 -2 Tbs olive oil
2 tsp Chinese 5 spice powder
1 tsp minced ginger
1 tsp minced garlic

I was marinating 6 chicken legs rather than the 2 chicken breasts or thighs HapaBento used, so I added a bit more oil. Ideally, marinate this for an hour, turning the chicken now and then. Or you can cheat like I did and poke some holes in your chicken with a fork and marinate however long you’ve got (half an hour for me!).  Turn the pieces every now and then.

Preheat the broiler.

Spray a pan with some cooking spray or grease with Crisco or something, then lay the chicken out on it. Broil about 15 minutes, turning every 5 minutes or so.  Then turn the heat down to 350 (and I moved the chicken down an oven rack to the middle of the oven) and bake another 15 minutes or so, until done. 15 minutes was perfect for my chicken legs!

Went great with some steamed rice and steamed snow peas plus this totally delicious Spicy Coconut Rice Noodles and Chicken Soup. (I would have just made that for dinner other than youngest complaining about “just soup” and my needing some lunch packing material!)

A friend passed along some older issues of Cooking Light magazine last weekend. I got fixed on using up some frozen shrimp I had  so browsed through a few issues for some ideas.  There were several that sounded quite good and I settled on this one.  I made some steamed rice and snow peas to go with it.  I just added the trimmed snow peas to the steamer basket of my rice cooker and served them plain.

The original recipe calls for 1 1/2 pounds of shrimp. I used what was left in the bag,  maybe 1/2 a pound.  The sauce was great though and the extra went well with the rice.  Since I was only feeding 2 it worked out great.

1/2 cup coconut milk
1 Tbs lime juice
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp honey
1/2 tsp cornstarch
1/2 tsp chili garlic paste
1/2 tsp minced garlic
1/4 tsp salt

Combine the above ingredients and set aside.

1 Tbs oil
1 1/2 pounds shrimp, peeled and deveined
2 Tbs diced green onion
1/2 tsp crushed red pepper

Heat the oil in a skillet, then add the shrimp and cook 2 minutes, stirring. Add the green onions and red pepper and cook another minute, then add the coconut milk mixture and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook, stirring, until the shrimp turn pink, about 1 more minute.

Serve over steamed rice.

I almost forgot about these fantastic pickled radishes I made the other night. They didn’t take more than 1/2 an hour to pickle, since I sliced the radishes in 1/4″ slices. I love pickled things and these were a nice addition to my Japanese dinner the other night. By this afternoon’s lunch, they were all totally pink and still delicious, albeit a bit more pickled!

1 bunch of radishes, trimmed
1 tsp kosher or other coarse salt

Wash the radishes and trim the ends. Slice into quarters and put in a ceramic or glass (non reactive) bowl. Sprinkle with the salt, rub it in a bit, and let sit for 5 minutes or so. You will see some moisture, “sweat”.  Toss, press and squeeze the radishes to get rid of excess moisture, then rinse under running water to remove the excess salt. Squeeze dry again and put back in the bowl.

1/2 cup rice vinegar
3 Tbs sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 slice of kombu, 1″ square (I had none so left this out)

Mix the sweet and sour sauce together and pour over the vegetables. In just half an hour, you’ll have a nice lightly pickled radish. If you let it sit overnight, in the frig, the whole sauce becomes bright pink, as do all the radish pieces. The flavor is more intense and the texture changed. They are delicious if you like pickled things!

I made another Japanese themed dinner last night. I’d swung by the local Ranch 99 for some produce. As we were cruising the aisles a bit, my daughter spotted some chicken in the freezer section. It was thinly sliced, seasoned, and threaded on wooden skewers already. So we picked up that, some fried tofu (arsu age), some spinach, some daikon, and a few juice drinks for her lunches. She especially likes the chrysanthemum tea.

We started with a miso soup, very close to this soup with daikon, tofu and shitake mushrooms, but I added a bit of miso to it at the end and used the fried tofu rather than the firm tofu.

I served some rice, the grilled chicken skewers, and this spinach steeped in broth.

No pictures, sorry. It’s always harder to stop and take them when we have guests!

I checked Washoku: Recipes from the Japanese Home Kitchen out of our local library. I’m pretty sure I’m going to buy it now, but it’s sure nice to try it out for a few weeks first!

I’ve made several dishes from it, in my new Japanese cooking focus. I’ve also learned a lot. I do wish there were more pictures of the finished dishes, but the photos of the basic ingredients are very well done and useful. The recipes are clear and if I could just find everything locally, I’d be trying even more of them!

There used to be spinach here
I meant to take a picture of the dish, as it was very pretty. I like these new plain white serving dishes I picked up at Cost Plus Markets a few weeks ago. Much better for food photography!  But I forgot to take a picture as we were sitting down, since we had company, and suddenly the dish was empty.

The recipe is pretty simple. I didn’t have any of the exact toppings she recommended so I used some furikake with bonito and think it worked well!

1/2 cup dashi (I used a packet you simmer for 10 minutes)
2 Tbs soy sauce (She called for a seasoned soy concentrate I didn’t have the ingredients for)
1 bunch spinach or other leafy greens (about 12 ounces)

Blanch the spinach for a few minutes in boiling water, leaving it tied together, then plunge into ice water to stop it cooking. Drain.

In a shallow dish, combine the dashi and soy sauce.

Squeeze the extra water from the spinach, then remove the strings holding them together and place them in the dashi marinade. Let them sit at room temperature for at least 30 minutes. (She says you can also refrigerate for 2 days, covered.)

Cut into small bundles of 1″ length and top with something… I used the furikake. She suggests roasted white sesame seeds or a few other things.

I see this post on Just Bento with more ideas as well.