The Culinary Diaries

Week Four: Veggies and a too sweet muffin recipe.

Sometimes I wonder if eating "healthy" means sacrificing health for sweet. A little too sweet. My hubby had no hesitation in telling me so when I used a brand new recipe for his muffin tops for the week. I'll continue with this story later. 

First though, at the beginning of Week 4, I was scouring the web for orzo recipes...I couldn't really find a lot of orzo recipes in some of the cookbooks that I have...but, I have not finished searching through those yet. I am bound to run into one of them sooner or later.

Tastespotting has officially become one of my all time favorite websites to peruse for really good food. And that is where I found my orzo recipe which can be found here at this blog called Winterwheat.  

But I made a few modifications to this recipe since I did not really have all of the ingredients listed. Here you will find the original recipe as written from the blog, but also find my substitutions and additions in parentheses. 

Orzo With Sauteed Vegetables and Roasted Almonds

1 sweet onion diced
2 cloves garlic minced
1/4 diced red bell pepper (I used frozen sliced red & yellow peppers from Trader Joes)
1 stalk celery diced (I added fresh spinach at this point as well. It needed more green in it)
1 Tbl spoon Butter
3/4 cup Orzo
1 tsp dried Basil

1 can chicken broth
2 thinly sliced green onions
1/4 sliced or slivered almonds (I could not find almonds but I did have pistachios)
3 Tlb Parmesan cheese (Our parmesan cheese have somehow gotten mold on it so I used shredded Colby Jack and mozzarella cheese)

Melt butter in medium sauce pan and add onions, garlic and red pepper.  Cook until onions are soft then add celery cook additional 5 minutes.  Add Orzo, Basil and chicken broth and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to low and cover.  Cook about 15 minutes or until liquid is absorbed.  While mixture is cooking down, heat small pan over medium heat and roast almonds.
Add roasted almonds, sliced green onions and Parmesan cheese.  Stir to mix and serve.

It was really delicious! Ate this with breaded chicken and steamed brussels sprouts.

Now onto the story of the very sweet muffins.

My hubby wanted me to make home made muffin tops so he does not have to spend money at Panera Bread. After all, it does add up when you are going to work 6 days a week.

I have used the same recipe since then, and I was looking at my baking books to see if I can find a new recipe to try out, in keeping with my goal this year.

I have found it, or so I thought, in this book that I got my hubby for Christmas back in 2008 called King Arthur Flour's Whole Grain Baking. He needs a lot more fiber in his diet because of a minor health issue and when I saw that book I thought it was a natural.

This recipe is also used for Banana-Walnut Bread, only you replace the walnuts with Chocolate chips. 

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
1/2 cup packed light or dark brown sugar
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups mashed ripe banana (about 3 medium-to-large bananas)
1/4 cup honey
2 large eggs
2 cups whole wheat flour, traditional or white whole wheat
1/2 cup chocolate chips (I used the mini chocolate chips)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Divide the batter among muffin cups or muffin top pan if using, they'll be nearly full. Bake the muffins until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean, 23-28 minutes. Remove them from the oven, and after a couple of minutes transfer the muffins to a rack to cool. 

Looking good eh?

The only problem with these were: they were way too sweet. My hubby could barely finish one without drinking a lot of water.

I think the problem lay in the ingredients. Bananas are already sweet, but when you also couple that with both honey and brown sugar, the sweetness will be overkill.

I will try this recipe again sometime but this time leave out the honey and add a little less of the brown sugar and see how it tastes.

Stay tuned for what I call, my Bread Fail week 5.

2010 Week 3: Buche de Noel but for a birthday.

I am never one to strictly make a certain something that belongs to a certain holiday. Why not enjoy a certain food item any time of the year? I'd love to have Paczki's on a day other than Fat Tuesday. Or Challah on a Sunday rather than Passover week. And who actually waits to eat turkey until Thanksgiving these days?

When I saw this recipe for a Buche de Noel, I was surprised at the short list of ingredients, however, the preparation steps are a bit involved. Very involved. And if you're not careful rolling it when the cake is at a certain temperature, it will crack on you.

I got this recipe from this blog called Dinner with Julie while I was in a dilemma on deciding what kind of cake I should make for hubby for his 39th birthday, which was yesterday. My original idea actually was to make this 12-Layer Mocha cake from a Gourmet magazine issue back in 2008. But that process, when I read it over for practically the 50th time, was even more involved than this Buche de Noel. So, needless to say, I decided to make my life simpler...Buche de Noel it is.

I saw it demonstrated on the Food Network Channel when Guy Fieri hosted a show in California's Disneyland over the Christmas Holidays. It's a traditional French recipe for Christmas, and the way they did it for Disney is several feet long. That is a lot of cake, filling, rolling, (VERY CAREFULLY), and frosting. In the end, it was super delicious.

So why wait until this December to make it?

Chocolate Bûche de Noël

Cake:
3 large eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
1 tsp. vanilla
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup cocoa
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt

Filling:
1 cup whipping cream
1 Tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. instant coffee or espresso powder

Frosting:
1/4 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup cocoa
2 cups icing sugar
1 Tbsp. water
2 tsp. vanilla

1/2 cup chopped green pistachios (optional)

Preheat oven to 375°F and line a 15″x10″ (or similar – I used a half-sheet) rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper or a silpat mat.

Beat the eggs and sugar with an electric mixer until thick and pale yellow; beat in the water and vanilla. Add the flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt and beat just until blended. Spread into the prepared pan, spreading the batter evenly into all corners. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes or until springy to the touch. Let cool for a few minutes in the pan.

Invert the pan onto a tea towel that has been generously sprinkled with icing sugar; peel away the parchment and roll the cake up gently (you want to do this while it’s still quite warm) starting from a short end. Leave the cake to cool completely, rolled up in the towel.

Meanwhile, beat the whipping cream with sugar and instant coffee until stiff; unroll the cooled cake, spread it with the cream and roll it back up. Place it on a piece of plastic wrap and wrap it up; freeze for a couple hours or up to a few months.

Beat the butter, cocoa, icing sugar, water and vanilla until smooth, adding a little extra icing sugar or water as needed to produce a spreadable frosting. When the log is frozen, slice about 1/5 off the end at a diagonal, then set it alongside the log, as if it were a branch coming off. Spread the whole thing with frosting, not covering the cut ends; run the tines of a fork through the surface to make it look like bark. If you like, sprinkle with pistachios. Serves 10.

At the end, I didn't get a chance to chop up pistachios and add it after spreading the frosting. It was already past two in the afternoon, and I had to take this cake to my husband's job. I thought it would be nice to make two of these things and take one for his coworkers to enjoy. Besides, at least two or three of them already knew it was his birthday all thanks to Facebook.

It was a success, and nearly all of the lab came over to John's desk to have a slice of cake. Cheered them up and probably picked them back up because it was now late afternoon, and by this time, all were pretty much itching to leave for the day and get the weekend started.

The only problem I had with this cake? I didn't make enough whipped cream filling for it. It needed a pretty generous amount of it.

First week of 2010: two new recipes already.

I should not be chicken in cooking dishes from my own country.

But my past troubles with cooking noodle dishes, and constant berating my mother to show me how to cook this dish, had lead me to no avail...until last Friday.

I also realize that if you don't get certain brands of ingredients, they will not taste as you remember as a kid...either that, or if you do not have a cast-iron pot sets like my parents used to have. Something that my husband thinks is nonsense.

I had the pancit noodles in the cabinet for months (good thing that they are non-perishable!) and the Wing, Wing Chinese sausage in the freezer for months, but I had not the courage to make the Philippines renowned dish. I have had trouble with Pad Thai, and the Spicy Szechwan noodles. I can't imagine trying to make fried cantonese noodles. I don't know if I used too much noodles or too little noodles, but for some odd reason, there is always something wrong with the finished dish...or I should say, unfinished dish. I was ready to give up.

But then enter this site called Rasa Malaysia, as I am browsing through my go-to internet site for food, called Tastespotting, which lead me to that site. Tastespotting features thousands of recipes from hundreds of different, and wonderful, food blogs. I am constantly inspired by this site, not only for the recipes, but for the photographs that accompany them. I am a visual learner, and if I cannot see what the finished product looks like, I am inclined not to use the recipe.

Rasa Malaysia is a site that features hundreds of Asian recipes, many of which I am very familiar with. Pancit Bihon is the pancit dish that I grew up with. And armed with the chinese sausage, in which, in my opinion, makes my family pancit bihon recipe, and the Excellent brand of bihon noodles, or rice noodles as they are known, along with some cantonese yellow noodles, this is the recipe that is featured in the blog, and surely, this is probably where my mother got her recipe. Here it is, per a Filipina guest blogger named Charlotte, on Rasa Malaysia, and with the photos I took of the process.

Pancit Bihon Recipe
Serves 4-6

Ingredients:

8 ounces “Excellent” brand rice sticks
2-3 pieces chicken thighs or drumsticks
1 small green cabbage (shredded in 1/2 inch pieces)
2-3 medium carrots (either shredded or chopped thinly crosswise)
1 small onion (finely chopped)
2 cloves garlic (minced)
1/2 pound shrimp (shelled and deveined)
1 tablespoon canola oil
2 tablespoons dark soy sauce
1 tablespoon fish sauce (optional, add 1 tablespoon soy sauce  if not adding fish sauce)
Freshly ground black pepper

Optional Garnishes:

Lemon wedge
Chopped scallions
Chili garlic oil

Method:

Boil chicken in 4 cups of water to make the stock. Once cooked, shred the chicken meat into thin strips. Discard the bones and set the stock aside.

Heat a large wok to medium-high heat. Add canola oil. Stir fry the garlic and onions until the onions turn clear. Be careful not to burn the garlic. Add the shredded chicken pieces and shrimp (if using). Once the shrimp turns pink, add cabbage and carrots. Lightly stir fry 2-3 minutes. Pour the mixture onto a bowl and set aside.

 

Pour the chicken stock into the heated wok. Once it starts boiling, turn the heat down to medium. Add rice sticks, soy sauce, and fish sauce. Boil for another 5 minutes or so until there is approximately 1/4 cup stock left. Add the meat mixture back into the wok. Lightly stir fry until all the liquid has evaporated. Add freshly ground pepper to taste.

 
Garnish with a lemon wedge, chopped scallions, and chili garlic oil.

Cook’s Notes:

1. For an authentic taste, I recommend using Filipino brands such as Excellent rice sticks (rice noodles with a little cornstarch mixed in) and Lauriat dark soy sauce. Both are available in most Asian grocery stores.
2. I use a well-seasoned wok but most saute pans should work. Just be careful when the stock is drying up as the noodles would stick to the pan. Keep tossing the noodles to keep them from sticking. Although I have not tried it myself, a non-stick pan would probably work well since this recipe does not use a lot of oil.
3. Even though most Asian recipes would tell you to soak the noodles in warm water, boiling the noodles in the stock infuses a more intense flavor and keeps the noodles moist.
4. As with any recipe, adjust according to your taste. I like mine salty-sweet with a healthy portion of vegetables that have a slight crunch to them. For softer vegetables, cook a little bit longer once everything is mixed in the wok.

**My Notes: 

I did not have any cabbage on hand, so instead, I used zucchini. I also used shredded carrots just because it was faster (and it was on sale!) but thinly sliced carrots will do as well. I added celery because that was what my mom used in her recipe.

You noticed that I also added the yellow cantonese noodles along with the bihon noodles. I'm thinking of experimenting on adding even more sliced veggies to make it healthier at least. The zucchini was a great veggie to start.

When I took a forkful out of the wok when it was done, I think this was the first time, ever, since making old family recipes, this actually tastes just as I remember it as a kid.

I'm not scared of making this national dish, anymore.

That same day, I was looking at another recipe from a brand new book that I got a couple of days before from a bookstore that is closing down. I love it when there is a bargain to be had. The book is called All Cakes Considered and the author is one of the hosts of the NPR show All Things Considered. 

There was one cake on the front cover that caught my eye and I decided that it would be the first cake that I would try...alll I need is cake flour.

The name is kind of funny though: It's called The Naughty Senator, and according to the story that she wrote as the inspiration of the cake, it was inspired, of all things, by the Senator Craig sex scandal. Curious to say the least.

Regardless of how this cake was inspired, I was eager to try it. It has mint added in, and it involves a marbling technique, one is chocolate, and the other is dyed a pastel green to hint at the mint flavor, although it also says, that you can substitute vanilla, or almond extract instead of the mint.

The Naughty Senator (Peppermint and Chocolate Rum Marble Cake)

2 cups sugar
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, at room temperature
4 large eggs
3 1/2 cups sifted cake flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
2 teaspoons peppermint flavoring or extract
1/2 teaspoon green food coloring
2 teaspoons rum or rum extract

1. Center a rack and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare the pan.

2. In a small bowl, combine 1/2 cup of the sugar and all the cocoa. Set aside.

3. With the mixer, cream the butter at medium speed, gradually adding the remaining 1 1/2 cups of sugar. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. 

4. In a separate bowl, dry whisk the flour, baking powder, and salt together.

5. With the mixer on low speed add 1 cup of the flour mixture, beat then add 1/3 cup of the milk and beat again. Repeat until all of the flour mixture and milk are blended into batter. Beat on medium-high speed for 2-3 minutes.

6. Pour half of the batter into a clean medium bowl. 

7. Add the peppermint flavoring and a couple of drops of green food coloring to one bowl of the batter. Mix just enough food coloring to make it into the shade of a pastel pink.

8. Pour 2/3 of the now green batter into the bottom of the cake pan. Set aside the remaining green batter.

9. Clean off your mixer beaters, dry and return them to the mixer.

10. Add the cocoa and sugar mixture to the yellow batter and add the rum or rum extract. Beat until smooth.

11. Using your spatula, pour the chocolate flavored batter over the green batter in the cake pan. 

12. Layer the remaining third of the green batter over the chocolate batter. Then marble. 

**Take a small spatula or plastic knife and cut through the middle of the batter ring to the bottom of the pan. Bring the spatula or plastic knife toward you and then up toward the side of the pan. Rotate the cake pan with your other hand and repeat. You will do 2 rotations total. No more.

13. Bake for one hour. When the cake tests done, cool for 15-30 minutes in the pan, the unmold onto a cake rack. 

I love pound cake. Although, I have to say, I'm not sold on the mint idea on a cake. Naturally, it goes better with ice cream for me.

I will try this recipe again using a totally different flavoring instead of mint and, of course, use a different food coloring. I do love the cocoa, and using the cake flour makes a huge difference in the texture of the cake. I'll do either vanilla or almond extract. Other than that, this cake recipe is fantastic! If not fantastic looking with the marbling technique.

This concludes my first week of new recipes. By the end of this week, I should be able to make at least two more. Maybe I'll make the goal this year. I'm crossing my fingers.

Pt. 8: What can $56 dollars get you?

Hopefully, a lot, with a delicious result.

I suppose that we should have just gone and bought take-out. It would have been a whole lot cheaper, but with my husband's presentation scheduled for tomorrow morning, and us not having a car (we were sharing the car with his coworker, and they had the car for the evening) that was out of the question.

So the only solution would be room service.

We perused the menu several times, and I must say, there were not a lot of options. And most of the entrees were over $15 a plate...yikes. The sides were a whopping $9 bucks each. Dessert? $12 buckaroos.

So add two entrees, two sides, and one dessert and what do you get? A grand total of $56 bucks, and that's without a drink and a tip. (Drink meaning alcohol, not the water we asked for)

See if you think this meal is worth $56 dollars:

Caesar Salmon Salad.

Turkey Club sandwich with seasoned fries (separate cost).

Chocolate molten cake. Plus the two sides of veggies. 

I wish I had the bill to show you...it's absolutely ridiculous. The upside of it was that my sandwich was outstanding. The salad was nothing special though...just a cooked salmon thrown on top of a Caesar salad.

Lessons to us...NEVER order room service at a hotel. Period.

Pt: 5...One grand reception.

Sunday night, and it is the night of the opening reception of the ACNP meeting, kicking off 5 days of meetings about the happenings in our Central Nervous system and what discoveries that the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology have made.

 
On the pic is:

Roasted veggies, two different kinds of pasta: one a salad and one a marinara, mackerel steak, rice pilaf, salad of cucumbers and tomatoes, and roast beef.

A very rare, roast beef that is found to be very hard to chew and get down the throat. Yikes.

The best part is always dessert. And perhaps, given our health epidemic, this may be the best portion of dessert that we should be eating and we can at least eat two. There were several people at our table that we gladly shared our dessert plate with, and of course, it was most enjoyable.

On our dessert plate:

Strawberry shortcake, Key Lime pie, chocolate mousse with chocolate sauce in the middle, flan, and a simple sponge cake with whipped cream on top that is a take on a creme brulee.

I never had Key Lime pie, and I can see why: it is way too tart, of course, coming from the lime, something I can do without, but it is a popular dessert down here in Florida, and of course, I'm sure it is prominent in Key West, which we headed to later that week. I will have to learn the history about the Key Lime Pie.

The people at our table included some of John's lab mates, his boss Brian Roth, and his wife, plus our landlord who happens to be a famous scientist in John's field of work in G-proteins. Lets just say it was a very interesting conversation going around and not all of it was science. 

It was a very relaxing evening, and when we returned to our hotel room, we knocked out...a very long day indeed.
   

 

A Taste for French pastries...well, one of them...

I never thought I would one day find myself making eclairs. Hollowed-out pastry dough filled with sweet custard, then topped with chocolate ganache? Plus, the way I make it, the size is small so that we do not feel guilty about eating it.

This recipe is from The Good Housekeeping Baking book.

You start with making the Choux Pastry dough:

• 1 cup water
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 4 large eggs

1. In 3-quart saucepan, heat water, butter, and salt to boiling over medium heat until butter has melted. Remove saucepan from heat. With wooded spoon, vigorously stir in flour all at once until mixture forms ball and leaves the side of the pan.

2. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition, until batter is smooth and satiny. Shape warm batter as directed for eclairs (whatever size you want).

Then, prepare Chocolate or Vanilla Pastry Cream:

• 2 1/4 cups milk
• 4 large egg yolks
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup cornstarch
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1. In 3-quart saucepan, heat 2 cups of milk to boiling over high heat. Meanwhile, in large bowl, with wire whisk, beat egg yolks, remaining 1/4 cup milk, and sugar until smooth; whisk in cornstarch and flour until combined. Gradually whisk hot milk into egg yolk mixture.

2. Return mixture to saucepan; cook over medium-high heat, whisking constantly, until mixture thickens and boils. Reduce heat to low and cook, whisking 2 minutes.

3. Remove saucepan from heat; stir in vanilla (and if using chocolate: melt 3 squares [3 oz] semisweet chocolate and 1 square [1 oz] unsweetened chocolate...add chocolate along with the vanilla). Pour pastry cream into shallow dish. Press plastic wrap onto surface of pastry cream to keep skin from forming as it cools. Cool to room temperature. Refrigerate at least 2 hours or overnight.

I usually wait until the next day to prepare the eclairs when the pastry cream has had a chance to rest in the refrigerator overnight.

Now...

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease and flour large cookie sheet. Prepare choux pastry and spoon batter into large pastry bag fitted with 1/2-inch round tip. Pipe batter into strips about 3 1/2 by 3/4, 1 inch apart, onto prepared cookie sheet to make 30 eclairs. With fingertip dipped in water, smooth any peaks.

2. Bake 40 minutes, or until deep golden. Transfer pastries to wire racks to cool.

3. With a serrated knife, cut each cooled eclair horizontally almost in half, leaving one side attached. With a small knife make hole in each end. Whisk pastry cream until smooth; spoon into large pastry bag fitted with 1/4-inch round tip. Pipe into bottom halves of split eclairs or pipe into both ends of whole eclairs.

Prepare ganache.

• 1 cup heavy or whipping cream
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 2 tablespoons butter or margarine
• 10 squares (1o oz) semisweet chocolate, coarsely shopped
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1-2 tablespoons brandy or almond-flavored liqueur (optional)

1. In 2-quart saucepan, combine cream, sugar, and batter and heat to boiling over medium-high heat; remove saucepan from heat.

2. Add chocolate to cream mixture and whisk until melted and smooth. Sitri in vanilla and brandy or liqueur, if you like. Pour into tupperware and cool in the refrigerator.

After filling each eclair with pastry cream, dip the top of the eclair into the chocolate ganache (cool, but not hard, consistency).

I love the chocolate pastry cream one...that seems to disappear faster than the regular vanilla ones. Now, I try to make these once every year during the holidays.