recipes - Food Shenanigans

Hot & Sour Soup … for the SOUL.

September 14, 2009 By Michelle 30 Comments

Why is it that only chicken soup is for your soul? I mean, this hot and sour soup is ten times better than any chicken soup I’ve had in recent memory. It’s got a great heat and tang to it, and it’s so warm and comforting. Plus, I made it when I was sick [I hate you, New England weather] two weeks ago and it cleared my sinuses like whoa.

Only a picture of the finished product, because I swear, there’s only so many diced/sliced/chopped vegetable pictures I can show you before I start feeling silly. Plus, as it turns out, bamboo shoots don’t photograph that well.

I only discovered my love of hot and sour about five or six years ago, when the husband took me to The Island Hopper when we were first dating and I was in the city visiting him. It was so good – velvety in a way that chicken noodle soup only wishes it was, ten thousand times more flavorful, and again with the sinus clearing. [Sorry, but it's true!]

The soup is also ridiculously easy to make and can easily be made on the stove top or in a slow cooker. The first time I made it was in the slow cooker, but last time was just a quick 45 minutes on the stove top.

Also, this is in no way a traditional hot and sour soup; it, like everything else I make, is a bastardized version of the original. The recipe has most of the traditional components, but isn’t quite the same.

Hot & Sour Soup:

4 cups chicken broth
1/2 pound of chicken, poached, then shredded
1/2 package of button mushrooms, sliced
1 small can bamboo shoots, soaked in cold water for 10 minutes to reduce bitterness, then cut into thin strips
2 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons grated fresh ginger
2 teaspoons sesame oil
1 – 2 teaspoons chili paste
2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
2 teaspoons fish sauce

Everything goes into the pot at once and let it simmer for about 30 minutes. I wish I had complicated instructions, but I got nothin’. Now, the first time I made this soup, I used 1 teaspoon chili paste, and I thought it could have used more heat. With 2 teaspoons, the heat was nearly all you got when you first tasted the soup, so maybe start with 1.5 and go from there; for me, the 2 teaspoons was perfect, but the husband thought it was too hot and had to add more vinegar to his to balance it out. The fish sauce really adds a nice depth of flavor, plus it got it closer to the color I’m used to seeing in restaurant hot and sour soup.

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Filed Under: vegetables Tagged With: chicken, chili paste, hot and sour soup, recipes, soup

Potato salad … with bacon.

August 25, 2009 By Michelle Leave a Comment

I feel like I should declare it “Bacon Month” here at Food Shenanigans, since this is my second dish with bacon thus far, and I have something planned with pancetta at the end of the week [and pancetta is basically just Italian for "expensive bacon"]. But we aren’t gimmicky like that, and it’s kind of weird to declare it anything month when the month in question is almost over. Regardless, be on the lookout for the gnocchi pan fried in pancetta fat with garlic that I have envisioned in my head for later this week. Maybe with asparagus? Mmmm….

Ahem. Anyway. Sorry; it’s poker night and I’m distracted by the guys bitching about me watching Legally Blonde on ABC Family. I have to watch this movie every time it’s on. I’m not really sure why, but it’s just one of those movies for me. And before anyone mocks me too much, my husband has watched at least a portion of Pearl Harbor every time it’s been on lately.

On to the food! There aren’t that many pictures, because it’s a pretty basic dish. Even Smitten Kitchen doesn’t have that many potato salad pictures! It’s a simple food, with few ingredients, and those ingredients are just tasty, not particularly attractive. Also, I realize everything I write is rife with commas, but I just can’t help it. It’s a disease.

In keeping with my theme of non-Mexican food, I decided to make kielbasa and potato salad for poker night this week. The kielbasa was easy – pan fried, with half of it doused in Sweet Baby Ray’s BBQ sauce, the other half plain. For the potato salad, I wanted something creamy, but not overpoweringly so, because that’s not how I roll. I can appreciate mayonnaise in small doses, but not big globs of it. It’s kind of gross looking.

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The recipe I used is below:

3 pounds baby red skinned potatoes
1 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons dijon mustard
2 teaspoons garlic powder
6 celery stalks, diced
1/2 red onion, diced
8 oz bacon, diced
salt and pepper to taste

Boil the potatoes whole, with the skin on. Cook until fork tender, then drain and set aside to cool. Dice celery and onion. While potatoes are cooling, mix together the mayonnaise, mustard and garlic powder. Add salt and pepper to taste. Cut raw bacon into small pieces and fry until crisp. Set aside. Once potatoes are cool, add mayonnaise mixture and mix thoroughly. Add celery, onions and bacon. Taste and adjust seasonings as necessary. Chill at least two hours; if serving next day, you may want to add the bacon the following day, so it doesn’t get soggy.

I thought it was really good. The husband, who is not a fan of potato salad, said it was “all right” before having his second helping. My indicator that it was good? There’s about half a pound left, out of the three pounds made, and there are only five people that ate here tonight.

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Filed Under: poker food Tagged With: bacon, mayonnaise, poker food, potato salad, potatoes, recipes

Bacon makes everything better.

August 20, 2009 By Michelle 2 Comments

I’ve been looking for something different to make, and I stumbled across this recipe on the Food Network website. I figured I could slide it by the husband since it had bacon in it, and the dressing intrigued me. I was a bit concerned because there weren’t that many reviews, but the few that are on there are favorable.

So I came home from work tonight [TONIGHT! You are getting same day posting here, people!] with a mission to make this dish, along with some chicken breast that would of course be cooked in the leftover bacon drippings. As if you had to ask! I’m actually somewhat insulted that would even come into question.

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The first step is to cook the bacon, and I used six thick slices; the recipe only calls for four, but I knew that the husband would eat at least one slice while waiting for everything to be ready and I may have been tempted to as well [I resisted, though!]. Then once the bacon was nice and crisp, I reserved 2 tablespoons of the fat for the dressing, and let the rest stay in the pan for the chicken breast. The breasts were pounded [hee] somewhat thin, seasoned with salt, pepper and garlic, and then just cooked in the pan until they had a nice sear on them and were fully cooked.

For the salad, I sliced a McIntosh apple and then put it in a big bowl along with a 10 oz bag of pre-washed baby spinach leaves from the grocery store. Then I diced the bacon and added that in there as well. The prep on this was really easy, and honestly, even without the dressing the salad looked pretty tasty.

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With the reserved bacon fat, I added 2 tablespoons of cider vinegar, 2 teaspoons of dijon mustard, and 1 teaspoon of sugar, along with a sprinkle of salt and pepper. That came to a boil, and then everything was pretty much ready. Add the dressing to the salad and toss to coat everything evenly.

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See? It looks great. The taste, however, was not quite as good. It was decent – I think the husband enjoyed it more than I did. I felt like there was too much mustard; next time I think I’d do half the amount of mustard and maybe some white wine, or something else? It needed more flavor, which I know sounds weird considering the ingredients. Part of me thinks maybe some garlic [because what isn't better with garlic?] or something to brighten the flavor. I don’t know! I’ll have to mess around with it next time.

Filed Under: meat, vegetables Tagged With: apples, bacon, chicken breasts, food network, recipes, salad, spinach

I can't think of anything funny to say about blueberries.

July 30, 2009 By Michelle Leave a Comment

031 I’d like everyone to know how dedicated I am to this blog. HOW dedicated, you ask? Dedicated enough to turn my oven on to 400 degrees, when my kitchen is already 90 degrees, just to make muffins to show to you. That, my friends, is dedication. See? And this is before I turned the oven on!

But, I have to admit, it was kind of worth it. These muffins are pretty tasty; they are surprisingly light and have a good texture to them – not too cakey or dense. Plus I loaded them up with enough blueberries to choke a horse. Assuming horses eat blueberries? I mean, I suppose they do, or would, if someone gave them some. In which case, they’d choke on these muffins.

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I’ve been looking for something else to make with blueberries besides ghetto-cobbler [for real, last time I made cobbler, I didn't have flour, so I doctored some pancake mix and used that!] and realized that duh – muffins. Especially since I’ve had two over-priced muffins from the eateries in my office building as of late [I'm looking at you, Au Bon Pain]. So I searched the trusty allrecipes.com for a recipe that looked like what I wanted. Of course, me being me, I ended up with something entirely different.

blog_muffins The recipe I ended up making used sour cream, which intrigued me since I’ve liked using cream cheese and buttermilk in baked goods previously. So, off to the kitchen I went, with the recipe in hand. I did make a few alterations to the recipe, and still think there could be something else added for extra flavor – cardamom, maybe? – but regardless, they were worth the effort and gone very quickly.

Blueberry Cream Muffins
(my changes in bold)
2 eggs
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup sour cream
2 cups blueberries
Zest and juice of one lemon

Preheat oven to 400. Zest and juice the lemon. Add to the blueberries. Beat eggs, gradually add both types of sugar. Then add the vanilla and oil. Once that’s all mixed, add in the sour cream. Then add the dry ingredients. Last, gently fold in the blueberries.

Yes, I know that the instructions I wrote are much simpler than the ones in the original recipe. I’m okay with that; while I’m sure there are a number of reasons for all the complicated mixing, I like my way just fine. Plus, 90 degrees in my kitchen.

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Look at those! Bursting with blueberries. I probably did go a bit overboard, and next time would use 1.5 cups, but still. Blueberries baked into anything make me happy, and these muffins had plenty of that.

Filed Under: desserts Tagged With: baking, blueberries, blueberry muffins, muffins, recipes, sour cream

Carnitas means little meats.

July 25, 2009 By Michelle 1 Comment

It also loosely translates into delicious, fyi.

For some reason, I usually end up making either some quasi-Mexican food or pasta for poker night. It’s always easy to make and it’s not too expensive to make for a large group (on poker night, we can go through 3 – 5 pounds of meat, along with whatever else I make). This time around, I decided to bust out the slow cooker my mother-in-law got me for Christmas and use it to to slow cook some pork for tacos.

I figured the rub probably couldn’t be screwed up, so I didn’t bother looking for a recipe. For the 4.5 pound pork shoulder that I bought, I used the following mix:

2 teaspoons garlic powder
2 teaspoons cumin
2 teaspoons Mexican chili power
1 teaspoon coriander
1 teaspoon salt

That went onto the pork shoulder, and then I wrapped it tightly in plastic wrap and let it sit in the fridge overnight. Then in the morning before I went to work, I tossed it [almost literally, I came pretty close to dropping it] into the slow cooker along with 2 cups of chicken stock. Now, before you say it, I know that traditional carnitas should be cooked in lard, but .. c’mon. I just can’t do it. I know it would have added more flavor, but it’s LARD. I am slowly broadening my cooking horizons, but I’m not there yet, dudes.

The pork shoulder cooked for just about 10 hours, and when I got home from work it was perfect. Tender enough to shred apart, still enough bite that it wasn’t just mush. Also? The rub was great. Next time I’ll probably cut the pork shoulder up into smaller pieces and sear those, so that the flavor really comes through.

After it was shredded, I threw it in the pan to crisp up a bit with some oil, to give it something closer to the traditional carnitas, with the crispy, almost caramelized edges and tender meat.

Once all of that was done, I served the carnitas with diced chicken breast [seasoned with salt, pepper and Mexican chili powder, with a splash of lime juice], refried beans, salsa, and corn on the cob.

This is a nice way to still keep the poker food budget down, but still also make something that’s a bit more creative than the typical stuff I’ve been making lately. I also liked the fact that it’s a pretty healthy meal and has great flavor from the pork and the fresh salsa.

Filed Under: meat, poker food Tagged With: carnitas, pork, pork shoulder, recipes, slow cooker, spice rub, tacos

Cake is actually the best part of a cupcake.

July 17, 2009 By Michelle 5 Comments

With all due respect to my dear co-blogger, frosting is most certainly not the best part of a cupcake. They don’t call it a frostingcake, do they? Or a cupfrosting? No! Cup. Cake. Clearly, cake wins.

And let me tell you, this cake wins everything. It’s all those cliche things people always say about cake: it’s moist! It’s rich! It’s delicious! It has a delicate crumb! [What does that even mean? I always hear it being used in conjunction with cakes. Maybe I'm too much of a plebeian to get it?]

But I digress. This cake is really good. The recipe is courtesy of the same lady that gave me the pound cake recipe. I’m pretty sure she’s a baking genius.

I have to admit, I didn’t follow the recipe exactly, but it was pretty damn close:

2 & Â½ Cups of sifted flour
1 & Â½ Cups of sugar
Â½ teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1 teaspoon of coco
1 cup of buttermilk
1 & 1/2cups of Oil or (Soft Butter)
1 teaspoon of vinegar
2 eggs
1 ounce of Red food coloring
1 teaspoon of vanilla flavor

Preheat oven to 350. Cream together sugar and oil or (butter). Add eggs, beat well. Sift together flour, salt, and soda (set aside). Mix together food coloring, vinegar, and coco. Add to sugar and oil mixture. Add vanilla. Add flour mixture alternately with the buttermilk. Blend well. Pour batter into two, well greased and floured pans, or spray with non-stick oil. Bake for 35 minutes. Cool.

I, of course, had to make cupcakes instead of cake. I always feel pressured when I make cake; that it has to rise perfectly, and there always seems to be so much of it. Cupcakes are way less pressure. Plus, they’re easier to carry to work, which is why I made them in the first place — it was my turn to bake for the department birthdays.

The only other change I made was to scale back a bit on the fat in the recipe. I used butter, but I only used two sticks [only! my husband was horrified and intrigued at having to take out two sticks of butter for me before I got home from work]. I also used slightly less sugar than listed, but didn’t cut back too much, since I wasn’t sure how that’d affect the taste. I feel like I could cut it by maybe a third of a cup and not have the taste affected too much.

See? I even spelled out “happy birthday” in little candy pieces. How precious am I? I also made one for the husband, because he looked all sad face at the thought of me bringing all the cupcakes to work. Yes, that is store bought frosting. Cream cheese frosting, which I’ve heard some people like on this cake and other people think is blasphemy. It works for me though, because I feel like it cuts some of the sweetness of the cake.

But seriously people, do yourself a favor and make this cake, in whatever form you want. Look at how beautiful it is!

Filed Under: desserts Tagged With: baking, cake, cake recipe, desserts, recipes, red velvet, red velvet cake

Frosting is the best part of a cupcake

June 30, 2009 By jbarskey 2 Comments

For realz. No lies. Cake is good. Frosting makes it great.

I love sprinkles, and frosting, and cakes! The ones in the upper-right are Erin's.

I had a pretty cupcake-heavy couple of weeks a little while ago and I’ve been meaning to post a bit about them here, so it’s about time to finally catch up! And really, who doesn’t love cupcakes? People without souls, that’s who.

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Filed Under: desserts Tagged With: cake, decorating, desserts, how-to, recipes, sugar

Rambling Regarding Rhubarb

June 22, 2009 By jbarskey 4 Comments

And cake. But who doesn’t like some late-night alliteration?

I got both strawberries and rhubarb in my farm share last week, so the logical thing to do with them seemed to be dessert. I’ve eaten strawberry rhubarb pie before, but had never seen raw rhubarb in person until this week. It’s so colorful!

As it turns out, I’m way too lazy to make a pie crust from scratch nine times out of ten (or more). And I’d already eaten strawberry rhubarb pie anyways. Time for something new: cake! Cake that doesn’t tempt me to use the octopus pan. Cake that works like a clafoutis or an apple charlotte; cake where you just pour batter over fruit and hope for the best… easy, tasty cake.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: desserts, vegetables Tagged With: cake, csa, desserts, recipes, rhubarb, strawberries

What is a scape, anyways?

June 19, 2009 By jbarskey 2 Comments

So I came across the Boston Localvore site when I was looking for a farm share to join. They have a blog, too! They are a bit surly, but I love surly.

Yesterday, I read that they received a bunch of garlic scapes in their share and made pesto. Having never seen a garlic scape in person (and not really knowing what it was) I didn’t care too much and focused on the part where they made fun of Pete Wells for being a pansy and complaining about money (he’s an editor at the NYT).

On my way home today I passed a farmers’ market and, lo and behold, there were garlic scapes! And they were cheap. Take that, Pete Wells (even though I still like your writing).

A tangle of scapes

They come all tangled like that. A garlic scape is the stem of a garlic plant before it flowers. Apparently they straighten up some and bloom, but we (people) usually eat them before that can happen.

Here’s a single, tangly scape.

I have to admit, I wasn’t too imaginative with these, as I was way too excited about the idea making a pesto from scratch. So I did what the localvore ladies did. It’s extremely easy.

1. Chop up scapes into bits an inch or so long.

2. Fight with the safety on your food processor.

3. Calm down and then process the bits into a chunky mixture.

4. Add grated Parmesan cheese and process some more.

5. Add olive oil and process after each addition until you like it.

6. Consume!

Optional: I stole this from the localvores as well. Fill an ice cube tray with the pesto and then freeze it. Garlic scapes are pretty much only available in late June or early July, so now I can have this pesto whenever I want, in neat individual-sized portions. Ta-da!

Filed Under: localvore, vegetables Tagged With: csa, garlic scape, recipes, scape, vegetables

I sound pretentious when I say frittata.

June 14, 2009 By Michelle 1 Comment

For my birthday (30, shh!) the husband (he’s the one that calls himself Roach — don’t ask me, he had that name before I married him) got me a cast iron pan, since I’ve wanted one forever. Upon receiving it, my first thought was “wow, this is gonna hurt when I drop it on my foot.” In a poetic twist of fate, the first cast iron pan injury was somehow smashing my fingers into it. Also? Ow.

Anyway, the first thing I made in it was bacon (of course). But this bacon! This bacon had a purpose. It’s mission? To make the base for an awesome frittata.

I’ll admit, it doesn’t look exciting. But we all know that under that dull exterior, there is bacon fat rendering and waiting for me to do this:

Those onions never knew what hit them. As a side note, it’s at this point in the cooking process that I realize: it’s time to add the spinach, and immediately following was the thought that it’s time to add the spinach and I haven’t even rinsed it yet. There will be a day, I swear, when I ready all of the ingredients in their appropriate amounts before I start cooking. I mean, it’s the reasonable thing to do, and I am nothing if not reasonable.

Er… wait. Hm. Anyway, it is my goal that I will one day be more organized while cooking (and living). Regardless, I did get the spinach in the pan and wilted with the onions still in there.

With that on low heat, I did a rough chop of the bacon to add back into the pan along with the eggs. Once all of that was in the pan, I gave it a quick stir and let it sit for about three or four minutes.

Once it had started to set slightly, I added some mild cheddar and mozzarella on top, and threw it in the oven at 425 degrees. It cooked for about 7 minutes, and came out looking like this:

Weirdly enough, our rats didn’t seem to like this very much, but I feel like that’s not really indicative of whether or not I should make it again. I mean, I’ve seen them eat Peeps with poop on it, so what do they know? We both liked it a lot, and I’m thrilled that I got to trick the husband into eating spinach (albeit by flavoring it with bacon, which may or may not negate the good intentions of the spinach). This will be made again, especially now that I have a pan that I am actually supposed to put into the oven. Yay, cast iron!

Bacon, Spinach and Cheddar Frittata:

6 eggs, beaten with 1/3 cup of milk
1/2 an onion, diced
2 cups of washed and torn spinach
6 slices of bacon
1/2 cup of cheddar cheese (I used half cheddar and half mozzarella, ’cause that’s what I had)
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 425. Cook the bacon in a heated pan that can be transferred to the oven. Once the bacon is done, remove from the pan and add the onions. While the onions are cooking, do a rough chop of the bacon. Cook the onions until translucent and beginning to brown, then add the spinach. Let that wilt for a minute and then add the beaten eggs. Mix everything together in the pan, and then leave it alone. Please resist the urge to move anything around, and just let it cook. Give it three to four minutes, then add cheese on top of it and put it in the oven. Mine took about 7 minutes, but basically you’re looking for your desired doneness for the eggs. Take out of the oven and let it rest a few minutes, before slicing. Makes four servings.

Filed Under: breakfast, vegetables Tagged With: bacon, cast iron pan, cheese, eggs, frittata, onions, recipes, spinach