Cooking with a Friend

My best friend Joe, is on a little bit of a cooking kick and I couldn't be happier to do a little bit of cooking with him. Over the past two weeks or so we made steamed dumplings and crab rangoon. We are always getting chinese takeout and our two favorite sides are definitely dumplings and rangoon, there isn't a time we get chinese and do not have them along side whatever other meal we make.

My experience with cooking chinese dishes is that it never seems to come very close to how it does from a takeout place. So we were both excited to find out how each of our side dishes would turn out. The dumplings were alright, too much ginger for sure and they definitely weren't seasoned properly. We did however make the dough for them as well and that turned out really good. The dumplings weren't bad but they were just kind of bland and overly gingery (I have come to the conclusion that I am not a big fan of ginger).

The crab rangoon on the other hand came out amazing. It was as good if not better than any rangoon that I've had from our go to takeout locations. The best part about it was that it was so easy to make and not much work either. We used store bought wonton wrappers, which for some reason are kept in the produce section of the grocery store (which doesn't make any sense to me), they also had egg roll wrappers which may need to be the next chinese staple we take on.

All in all it was a great time cooking with someone else especially my best friend. Typically I cook by myself for myself and my brother, but it definitely is a good time cooking with somebody else. I can't remember the dumpling recipe but it wasn't very good so it doesn't really even need posted. Here is the crab rangoon recipe, and it was really good, give it a try.

Crab Rangoon

30-40 pieces

1 package of wonton wrappers

8-12 oz cream cheese, softened

2 green onions sliced thin

4-5 cloves of garlic minced

1 package of the cheep crab meat in the shrink wrapped package, minced

2-3 teaspoons soy sauce

1 bottle of vegetable or any oil of your choosing for frying

Combine all the ingredients together in a bowl. Place about a teaspoon in the center of a wonton wrap and pinch the corners together. Set aside, assemble all the crab rangoons and fry until golden brown.

Eat well, Live well

Easter Lamb

I have been excited for about the past month about cooking for my family on easter, because I was going to get to make rack of lamb. Just looking at the rack of lamb made me want to cook it because it just looks so cool and sophisticated, if I want to think of myself as a "chef" I needed to be able to cook something like that. For dessert I was going to make something I had recently seen Tyler Florence make on an episode of Tyler's Ultimate, banana cream pudding. With home made whip cream how could a creamy banana pudding be bad, he made it look so go I had to give it a try. Of course both the lamb and the pudding almost turned into a disaster, but I think I kept my cool and both still ended up coming out pretty well.

The recipe for the lamb I got here, from Emeril, for my first time cooking lamb I figured Emeril would be a chef I could trust. Well I'm not sure if my oven wasn't hot enough or what but after browning the lamb on all sides and roasting it in the oven for 15 minutes, I cut into the rack and it was still basically raw.

Raw!

I didn't realize this until I was cutting the lamb in to individual chops at my aunt's house to serve. So I was a bit flustered as I'm cutting into this lamb and realizing it was raw. Luckily we through it into her oven on broil and cooked the individually cut chops for about another 5-8 minutes, a couple minutes on each side. So either Emeril like's his lamb raw or if you are going to try this recipe out cook the lamb for at least an additional 7-10 minutes. I would think there is nothing worse than overcooked rack of lamb, but I could definitely say the same for undercooked raw lamb. The flavor was great and after the extra broiling, we all thought the lamb was great, and it was still a medium rare, the way it should have been cooked. One other thing I added to this recipe was some chopped fresh rosemary to the crust. I looked at a bunch of lamb recipes and most included rosemary, so I did and it really helped to brighten the flavor of the lamb.

The dessert, I was also really excited for, maybe for the simple fact that for the two weeks leading up to easter, when I saw the recipe, my brother bitched at me every day about not making it or how I could make it better. If you know my brother than you would know how particular he is. If something isn't his way then he will let you know about and keep letting you know until it becomes his way. He is under the impression that the only dessert worth eating is a cake with buttercream frosting, and if that wasn't going to be what I was going to make, he wanted nothing to do with it. So basically for two weeks straight I had him bitching and moaning that we weren't going to have a dessert that he wanted, so even if this was going to be the worst dessert of all time I was going to make it just to burn him.

This is the recipe, courtesy of probably my favorite food network chef, Tyler Florence. The flavor was great however, it didn't set right, it stayed basically like a liquid. So the next time I make this I will probably add about another 1/4 cup of corn starch, and see how that thickens it up. The pudding is basically like any other sauce that you would thicken with flour or cornstarch, which I have done plenty of times, but this pudding just wouldn't thicken, so I figure if I add more corn starch it should get to the thickness that you would want from a pudding, or pastry cream, which Tyler said it basically is. One change I also made to this recipe was instead of just lining the bottom of the serving dish with vanilla wafers, I did the wafers but added a chocolate ganache to wafers, so the ganache and wafers basically became like a crust, which was a really good addition. There is not many better flavor combinations, for me, than chocolate and banana's.

All in all I thought the meal came out about as good as it could have, considering I was making two dishes I had never done before. With the tweaks, that I know now the next time a make either of these dishes I think they should be even better.

Eat well, Live well

Crab Cakes with Roasted Vegetables and aioli

The weather is finally starting to get nice again (today the high is 85 and I have no class!), so it's time to start thinking about those recipes that you just don't feel like cooking when it's 15 degrees, dark by 5 o'clock with a foot of snow on the ground. One such recipe is crab cakes. I love crab cakes and they're so easy to make, the only problem for me is the lack of fresh crab. I usually buy the shrink wrapped pre-cooked crab that probably isn't real crab but tastes like it, but this time I bought a can of crab meat that was more expensive thinking the higher price meant better crab, but I'm not so sure it was much better than the other stuff. It is definitely much better using lump crab meat when making crab cakes, and the crab I bought in the can was shredded plus I don't really think it had that much or at all better flavor than the cheaper crab I usually buy, but either way the crab cakes still turned out pretty well and it definitely got me in the mood for the warmer days of spring and summer to come.

Crab Cakes with Roasted Vegetables and Aioli

Serves 2

For the Crab Cakes:

1 pound of crab meat

1/2 sweet onion diced

2 garlic cloves minced

1/2 red pepper diced

1 egg white

2 tbs mayonnaise

1 lemon juiced

1/2 c bread crumbs

1 tsp old bays seasoning

2 tbs olive oil

1 tbs butter

salt and pepper

On medium heat in a frying pan fry the onion and red pepper for 5-10 minutes to caramelize, in the last minute or two add the garlic and cook until fragrant. Set aside to cool.

In a bowl combine the lemon juice, egg white, mayonnaise and old bay. Stir to mix together, then fold in to the wet mixture the crab meat and onion, pepper and garlic.

Next mix in the bread crumbs and mold into about 4-6 cakes, depending on the size you prefer. Cover the cakes with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator for a couple hours.

When ready to fry the crab cakes, bring a frying pan with the olive oil and butter in it to medium heat. Fry the cakes until golden brown, 3-4 minutes per side.

For the Roasted Vegetables:

1 zucchini

1 eggplant

1 red pepper

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees and cut the vegetables into bite size pieces.

Spread the vegetables out on a baking sheet with 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Roast in the oven for about 45 minutes turning them about half way through the baking time.

For the Aioli:

3 garlic cloves

1 egg yolk

1/4-1/2 cup canola oil

juice from half a lemon

1 tsp red wine vinegar

a pinch of cayenne

salt and pepper

Mince the garlic cloves, then with the side of your knife start smashing the garlic to turn it into a paste. Add a little bit of salt, which will act as an abrasive and make it easier to turn the garlic into a paste. This takes a little bit of time, just keep smashing the minced garlic with the side of the knife and it will turn in to a paste.

Put the garlic in a mixing bowl with the egg yolk and whisk together until the yolk starts to lighten in color.

Now while whisking add a few drops of the oil to the egg and garlic mixture. Drop by drop keep adding the oil slowly so the egg and oil combine. If you add too much oil at a time the mixture will break and you will have to start over. This part of the process takes a little bit of time and work but it is well worth it. As the mixture starts to thicken you could start adding more and more oil at a time without risk of it breaking.

When almost all the oil is combined, add in the lemon juice, vinegar and cayenne. Taste a little bit to how much salt and pepper needs add, then whisk in the rest of the oil.

*the aioli is not only good for this recipe but is great with many other foods and should keep in a refrigerator for about a week.

Eat well, Live well

Spaghetti w/ mushroom cream sauce

Over the past couple of months I've become somewhat obsessed with mushrooms. I've never really been that in to them, I would eat them with the occasional take-out chinese if they were in the meal I ordered, or I would pick around them depending on my mood. Then all of a sudden I couldn't get enough mushrooms, it seemed I always had some on hand, so I would include them in most everything I cooked. Usually they were sliced portabellas, button mushrooms or standard white mushrooms. I've never really ventured into the more exotic varieties, but I saw a package at the grocery the other day of crimini, shiitake, and oyster mushrooms. I couldn't resist buying it. Then I had to figure out what to do with them, I didn't want to just incorporate them into a meal, I wanted to make a meal that featured them. So I decided on a mushroom cream sauce. It was great, very flavorful and a meal that might seem like it would take a while to prepare, but is actually probably the easiest recipe I have. Next time your in the mushroom kind of mood definitely give this recipe a try, it's so simple and doesn't take much time at all to prepare and most importantly, it tastes great.

Spaghetti with Mushroom Cream Sauce

serves 2

1 pound of spaghetti

About 1/2 pound mushrooms (I can't exactly remember how much I had)

3/4 cup heavy cream

1/4 cup beef stock

1/4 cup dry red wine

1 teaspoon soy sauce

1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese

1 shallot; sliced thin

3 garlic cloves; minced

2 tablespoons olive oil

cayenne pepper to taste

salt and pepper

Bring the olive oil up to medium heat in a frying pan, then saute the mushrooms for 7-10 minutes, tossing every couple minutes being sure they do not burn.

As the mushrooms cook bring a pot of water to a boil.

After the mushrooms saute for about 7 minutes add the shallots, when the shallots turn translucent, a minute or two, add the garlic and let fry until fragrant, about another minute.

Deglaze the pan with the red wine, and allow to reduce until it is almost all the way evaporated. Then add the heavy cream, beef stock and soy sauce. Bring it up to a simmer and let it go for about 5-7 minutes to reduce a little bit and thicken up.

As the sauce is simmering, drop the spaghetti into the boiling water and cook to al dente. Just before the spaghetti is done cooking add the parmesan to the sauce and stir to incorporate it. Then drain the spaghetti and place it in the pan with the sauce.

Toss the spaghetti in the sauce to evenly distribute it, and serve.

Eat well, Live well

Tournament Time

It's been a while since my last update, and the picture above has nothing to do with the following story (the recipe is below), I've been busy studying for my first cardiology test that I took Friday. It is definitely nice to have it out of the way, now I can focus on March Madness. This is one of my favorite, if not my favorite time in the sports year. There is something about the tournament that I just love. I think it's the nostalgia of it for me, plus filling out a bracket and gambling doesn't hurt either(I think my brother, sister and I were all raised to be gamblers). When I was in middle school and high school my parents didn't ever really let me miss school. I only missed one day in middle school, and it was my 8th grade year and I kind of faked being sick just to see what it would be like to miss a day of school. Then in high school, my brother got perfect attendance, so my parents basically made me get it. Senior skip day, I was there, bomb threat, I was there, if I was sick, get through half the day so it counts as a full day. Yeah it was kind of ridiculous. Anyway, every year since my brother got his license (so he could pick me up), I think my 8th grade year, on the first Thursday of the tournament my mom would write us each a note for a made up doctor's appointment so we could get out of school to watch the entire days worth of basketball. It always came with a feast of pizza, wings, pepperoni rolls and all kinds of good other tasty treats. So now, every time the tournament comes around I think back on those days, on how great it was to tell my friends I was getting out of class to watch the games, I might of been jealous of all the days of school they missed, but they were certainly jealous on that first day of the tournament when I got to leave. I'm still going strong, since my 8th grade year I haven't missed any of the opening tournament Thursday games. This year was the hardest being that I had a cardiology test the next day, but I held strong. As for my bracket, at the time of this writing it's already going to hell, I made some pretty ridiculous picks, but I think if my final two teams (Maryland and West Virginia) hold up I will have a pretty good shot at winning it. As for my meal this Thursday it was a chicken parm sandwich with sautéed spinach and garlic on with, with a side of fries and mezze penne. Sorry, no pictures, but it sure was amazing.

Before I end this post I will leave you with a recipe that really has nothing to do with the tournament or brackets, but I made it about a week ago and it came out pretty good. It was orzo with spinach, onions chicken and bacon. It wasn't perfect, I wanted it to be more garlicky and not so lemony, so next time I make it with a little more garlic and not so much lemon juice, and for you non meat eaters it would be just as good without the chicken and bacon and maybe adding some mushrooms and eggplant. Anyway here is the recipe as I made it, oh yeah and go Maryland and West Virginia!

Orzo Fresca

serves 1

1 chicken breast

3 slices of thick cut bacon

1 sweet onion, diced

3 cloves of garlic, diced

2-3 handfuls of fresh baby spinach, or a package of frozen spinach

2-3 tbs olive oil

juice of 1/2 of a lemon

1/4 c starchy cooking liquid from the orzo

a pinch of red pepper flakes

salt and pepper

Preheat an oven to 325 degrees F, and place the bacon and chicken on a baking sheet and bake in the oven for about 25 minutes. Be sure to season the chicken with salt and pepper and also place it in a position so the bacon grease will run under it and cook with it.

Heat the oil in a frying pan to medium heat. Add the onion and cook until starting to brown and carmelize.

As the onions are caramelizing, bring a pot of water to a boil and cook the orzo to just before al dente. Be sure to set aside the 1/4 cup of starchy water from the boiling orzo.

When the orzo is done, drain and add to the onions.

Next add the spinach, garlic and red pepper flakes, and saute so the spinach cooks and the garlic becomes fragrant, a couple of minutes.

Chop the bacon and chicken into bite size pieces and add to the frying pan.

Finally add the lemon juice, and water mix everything together and check to see if the seasoning is right.

Eat well, Live well

Baker I am Not

What better way to spend my day of, I thought, than baking all kinds of delicious treats. I had my final for our renal module in school and the day off Thursday so I deciding I was going to try and make these cookies, these brownies and my standard blondies but with white chocolate chips. My baking adventure started of with me miscounting how many eggs I needed, thinking I only needed 6 when I apparently needed 7, so I had to scratch the blondies off the list. After baking the cookies and the brownies though, I wasn't too disappointed I couldn't make the blondies because baking is way to much work. It's messy, things need to be precise and an electric mixer is not a replacement for a stand mixer!

I read about these cookies from Momfuku Milk Bar in New York City and wished so bad that I could try them. I mean a cookie with chocolate, rice krispy's, chips and pretzels, it sounded like a dream. Since I don't ever bake anything, of course the recipe didn't seem too hard. The recipe did call for creaming the butter and sugar together in a stand mixer, and again, me with my very limited baking knowledge just figured that I could use an electric mixer on a low speed and it would be like the same thing. Haha well the joke was on me because it was not even close. The butter and sugar definitely didn't cream and I had sugary butter particles flying all over my kitchen. I knew it from the second I turned the mixer on that it wasn't going to work, or be the same but I trekked on through the rest of the recipe and came out with a pretty tasty cookie, but certainly not what I expected or what is in the picture of the recipe.

The brownies actually were much easier and tasted really good. If I make them again I would probably add more chocolate to the recipe, and throw some chocolate chips into them or some peanut butter swirls, or both! They have a great, thick texture, not too cakey. I like my brownies thick as brick and heavy and that is just how these brownies turned out, which made me happy.

All in all the results weren't quite what I expected and it was a lot of work and I probably spent as much time cleaning as baking, but it all tasted great, so i guess that's all that matters. It will however be a while until I do baking like this again, I think I'll stick to cooking for the time being.

Who doesn't like a pile of cookies

Fried Goodness

What do I know about Texas Independence Day? Not a damn thing, but it is definitely a good excuse to try chicken fried steak for the first time. According to The Homesick Texan (a pretty good blog about all foods Texas), March 2 is Texas independence day, and the unofficial state food of Texas is chicken fried steak. Now I've never been to Texas or tried chicken fried steak before, and have only seen it on restaurant menu's like Denny's and Cracker Barrel. I would look at on the menu and think it had to be good, since steak is awesome and anything fried is awesome, so how couldn't chicken fried steak be awesome.

mmmmm........

However I was never brave enough to try it, probably because I remembered I was at Denny's or Cracker Barrel. In my own kitchen though I had to give it a try, and it was unbelievable! What better way to turn a cheap piece of steak into an amazing meal, than beating it with a tenderizing hammer, coating it with flour, frying it then covering it in gravy?

That's not chicken inside of that fried shell of tastiness

The answer is there isn't one, because chicken fried steak is amazing, I wish I have been to Texas so I could have know how great it really is, and while it might not be something I will eat all the time (it is fried steak, I'm only fat at heart), I will certainly be looking forward to the next time I do. If you haven't celebrated Texas Independence Day yet (why would you have unless you're from Texas?!), do so with this recipe, courtesy of The Homesick Texan, and you will not be disappointed.