Lobster Pizza

It's Monday night, and there's a container of lobster meat in the fridge. A shelf below that, there's some Fairway pre-made pizza dough. What to do what to do...MAKE LOBSTER PIZZA!!! Duh.

But wait, what is lobster pizza? I didn't know, but was eager to find out/make it up. Thanks to the magic of Google, I found that I was not the first to make lobster pizza, and took bits and pieces from a few of the recipes that I found based on the ingredients that I had.

Oil the pizza pan with some salt & pepper

Attempt to roll out the dough on the pan (not the best idea) - spread butter all around and sprinkle with garlic powder

Top with Parmesan & mozzarella cheese, diced tomatoes, shallots, lobster pieces & black pepper

Then add MOAR CHEESE!!! Cheddar cheese and green scallions

After about 20 min of baking at 400 degrees - looking good!

After an additional 10 minutes...

ZOMG

Perfection on a Monday night

What better way to spend a Monday night but with some surprisingly awesome pizza and a glass (or maybe all the glasses) of wine?

The Dumpling Path

Tonight marked my second dumpling night in exactly a week, but unlike last time (post to come), I had leftover filling this time to "deal with."

I've had this idea in my head to make beef, tomato & egg dumplings for some time now, so after a trip to Flushing for a haircut, I also picked up everything I would need to make an Asian culinary feast.

Since I used store bought dumpling skins, it becomes all about the filling.

It started with some eggs, a hot pan, and oil.

The beginning

And then it took off from there - see below the process in picture collage form:

Starting from the top left, after the eggs were scrambled, I let them sit in the bowl to cool while getting started with the rest of the ingredients.

And by get started, I mean throw the following ingredients into a bowl and mix them all together: ground beef, scallions, raw egg, sesame oil, diced tomatoes, salt & pepper to taste. Add in the scrambled eggs, and we're ready to assemble the dumplings.

Once assembled, steam them in the pan, and voila! Dinner is served - with enough leftover to pack up for tomorrow's lunch! Problem was though (and really, it turned out to be the best kind of problem), I didn't end up using all of the filling with the dumpling skins that I had. Sooooo, I decided to stuff some Asian eggplants that I had also bought.

I chopped up the eggplants into segments so they would be easier to scoop out, rather than struggle trying to keep it all in one piece. Cut those segments in half, and then used a paring knife to take out the meat in the middle. Stuffed the scooped out pieces with the beef filling from the dumplings, and put them in a foil lined pan for baking. Drizzled everything with some sesame oil (my love) and soy sauce. Baked in the oven at 350 degrees for...actually I'm not really sure - maybe about half an hour covered, and then 10 min uncovered.

 

So now one may ask - what did you do with the meat of the eggplant segments??? A simple saute with some of my favorite flavors.

A few of my favorite things

First saute some garlic, scallions & shallots in a mix of vegetable and sesame oils. Your kitchen will smell something amazing. Throw in the eggplant pieces and season with soy sauce and maybe ground pepper to taste. Let everything sizzle for a little bit, then add some water and cover on medium/low heat. Once it starts boiling and most of the water has evaporated, uncover and turn up the heat. Then add some chili oil if you want (I did want), and some green scallions for the finishing touch!

 

To boot, after all of this, I was brought home some awesome grapefruit yogurt bubble tea from Kung Fu Tea! Life is good =)

Lazy Sunday

While I was out and about today, last Sunday was a perfect lazy Sunday, where I did nothing but lounge around the apartment, watch Netflix and make some easy brunch and dinner.

When I finally rolled out of bed and made my way to the kitchen, I decided to finally use up the egg whites leftover from making ice cream at my last dinner party (post to follow...eventually). I feel like I'm always looking for easy recipes that use up leftover egg whites since egg yolks always seem to be the more favored child.

So I felt like I found the perfect use for it with this mini egg white frittatas recipe - where I don't need to keep track of exactly how many eggs whites I actually have, and the other ingredients can be manipulated to anything I want them to be! This time I used spinach, red onions and cheddar cheese.

The various stages of frittata (counter clockwise from top left): pre-baked, baking, post-bake

Brunch is served!

Maybe the most productive thing that I did all day after eating was start posting on this blog again - with the stuffed baguette post, which I also ate the rest of along with the frittatas.

Then all of a sudden, my stomach was telling me that it was dinner time!

Seriously one of the best things that I have discovered this year other than the fact that Fairway Markets opened up another store closer to home, was that said Fairway Market also sells pizza dough! So I threw together some of the things we had in the fridge for Sunday pizza night - spinach, red onion, button mushrooms, tomato & mozzarella cheese on top of garlic & herb pizza dough.

The ingredients

Layers

Final Product

All in all, one of the best Sundays that I have had - I think this is me finally learning how to relax properly! And it is AWESOME.

Steak & Rice

In an effort to improve my ability for cooking meats, and in celebration of my recently acquired electric skillet, I picked up a cut of meat at the market and a head of broccoli and got to work!

I had this amazing broccoli rice at a Brazilian restaurant months ago, and I believe it was mostly finely chopped broccoli, garlic and rice with olive oil. So I sauteed some garlic with chopped broccoli (below) in olive oil before adding the cooked rice.

In the meantime, I had the meat marinating in soy sauce, sesame oil and a little bit of sugar and dried rosemary. Set the skillet to 400 degrees, put the steak on for a few minutes on each side just so it was browned on the outside...

 ...and medium rare on the inside! I erred on the side of being more rare b/c then when reheated for lunch, it wouldn't get too overcooked. One must think ahead about such things!

"Take This Baguette & Stuff It"

I'm baaack! And super excited about my latest culinary adventure!

On Friday I received a daily email from Tasting Table with the subject "Take This Baguette and Stuff It." Due to my love for breads and just carbs in general, I was intrigued. Upon opening the email, I see marinated mushroom, Gruyere cheese & thyme stuffing??? AND I have almost all the ingredients? Must. Make.This.Bread.

So I picked up some mushrooms on my way home (I used button mushrooms instead of cremini), and began the marinating process in soy sauce and balsamic vinegar.

Next day after a run up the Hudson River Path with my running buddy, and brunch (because we earned it!), I came back to make the dough. I have never truly had great success with getting pizza dough to rise properly, so I was super excited to find the difference in dough size an hour later:

After rolling it out and dividing the dough in two, it was time to add the stuffing. Layered out the mushroom and grated Gruyere, then sprinkled it with dried thyme leaves (I opted for dry because it's always so difficult to buy just enough fresh herbs for what is needed without having a bunch left over that end up going to waste). Rolled it all up, and left it to rise again for another hour.

10 minutes in the oven covered in foil, and then another 15 uncovered...and voila! I MADE STUFFED BREAD! And it was golden and beautiful and yummy! I could barely contain myself when I pulled it out of the oven =)

This opens the door for so many more opportunities!!! Can't wait to try pizza dough using bread flour and trying to make different breads (totally geeking out about this right now)!

What Makes a Chowder a Chowder?

Potatoes.

Just kidding. That was what someone told me when I was telling them about this awesome Potato Chowder recipe I tried the other week.

The definition that Wikipedia gives is not as definitive. Regardless, my love of potatoes and chowder (um, fatchowder?!), remains the same.

There's a place near me that has an awesome Potato, Cheddar & Jalapeno chowder, which my friend assigned for me to recreate somehow. After a quick Google search, this recipe from a blog called Evil Shenanigans looked promising.

With the leftover potatoes from Thanksgiving (I bought 5 lbs with this in mind), and some substitutions here and there, this is what happened:

POTATOES!!!

I didn't take out bacon from the freezer ahead of time, so I had to do without this time (I know, shame on me). I also didn't have seasoned diced tomatoes from a can, but had a box of yellow cherry tomatoes, and used poblano peppers instead of jalapeno peppers. Instead of cheddar cheese, I used shredded monterey jack cheese and added corn. I also didn't have sour cream to garnish when serving (seriously, how did I even make this soup???), but at least I did have green onions!

Next time, there will be bacon, more red tomatoes, cheddar cheese and the potatoes will be boiled longer for a different textured soup. The corn stays.

From left counter clockwise: boiling potatoes & sauteing everything else; cheese & peppers;  chowder is served!; peeled potatoes

Thanksgiving 2012 - May the Odds Ever be in your Favor

Planning for Thanksgiving 2012 felt almost as chaotic as the events that preceded it - between my 10 day long trip abroad for work to dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, I started panicking 2 weeks before because I didn't even start my menu yet. My sister was kind enough (yea, I said it, you were kind, now you can get over yourself) to offer to send out the invite emails herself, and she quoted Hunger Games in the invite, which I decided later to theme our Thanksgiving. 

**I am also going to use all this chaos as an excuse for why I haven't posted in 2 months =X Apparently my mother even reads my blog and has been complaining that there are no new posts! I guess momma really is my biggest fan, haha.

There was supposed to be a game I found to play while watching the movie, but we didn't end up doing that so people just wondered why I had Hunger Game quotes plastered everywhere around the house.

As per tradition, preparation begins the night before. Something new that I was able to do this year was take a day off the week before, after I had compiled my menu and excel spreadsheets of when dishes were scheduled to be made and a comprehensive list of all the ingredients needed and what dishes they were used in (I am well aware that there is something seriously wrong with me).

I was lucky enough to get out of work early and was ready to go by 4:30 on Wednesday. I even got home before Miss Teacher! I was determined this year to have all the prep work done and everything ready before I actually begin putting a dish together the way they do on the Food Network. I wanted everything to be chopped and measured ahead of time. Due to this, my cousin helper was a bit disappointed when he got home and wanted to help, because all the boring stuff was being done that night. He missed the chaos and actual dishes coming together the next day to see the parade.

Here is this year's menu with links to the recipes:

Appetizers

Cranberry Orange Pecan Roll-ups

Bacon Cornbread

Sides

Sweet Potato Casserole

Acorn Squash Stuffed w/ Wild Rice

Cranberry Sauce

Creamed Onions w/ Bacon & Chives

Garlic Parmesan Mashed Potatoes

Green Bean Casserole

Entrees

Turkey

Papardelle w/ Pumpkin Poblano Sauce

Mushroom & Barley Pie

Desserts

Fruit Galettes

Upside Down Chocolate Pear Cake

Pumpkin Pie

Fruit Tart

The night began with the easiest thing that could be prepared and completely finished ahead of time: CRANBERRY SAUCE! I made it this Riesling, which is great, because what I don't use, I get to drink =)

Cranberry Sauce

Every year, I'm not sure why I haven't learned to accommodate for it by now, but I always forget that as some point, life goes on, and people still expect normal meals in the middle of all of my Thanksgiving madness. Somehow, we had a turkey leg and oxtail sitting around (I do believe our fridge is of the magical variety), and I had planned ahead of time to use the rest of the barley and beans mix that I had bought at Trader Joe's to make the soup that was on the package. From all of this, soup night was born. But silly me, after I threw all the barley/beans in the pot, I threw out the bag...so I had to make up the rest of the recipe. Whoops! I did however, get a rare compliment from my dad when I forced him to try the soup which was that it was of "restaurant quality!" He did not specify what sort of restaurant...but no matter, I'll take it where I can get it!

Then I decided I wanted to try my hand at oxtail soup for the first time. Pressure Cookers are my new best friend. In addition to a creme brulee torch set, I want to add a pressure cooker and a crock pot to my future kitchen wish list. Just saying..

From Top Left Clockwise: Turkey Leg; Sous Chef hurt herself (first of many times to come); Barley/Bean Soup; Turkey Leg & Veggies; Chopped Veggies; Sous Chef actually working

From Top Left Clockwise: Oxtail; Oxtail soup ingredients in the pressure cooker; Barley/Bean Soup

I actually almost didn't even make it through the whole night. I was so exhausted from the week that I took a break around 8 and watched AGT for about 2 hours. My sous chef completely conked out at that point, as usual. At least this year I had more helpers at my disposal, so my cousin took her place before my mom tagged in to help me with the turkeys.

Speaking of turkeys, I was only expecting one this year, so I was only planning on using the apple cider and citrus brine. This wasn't communicated very well to my mother, so she found something else that used cider and herb butter. Slightly thrown off by that, but it worked out. I was more thrown off by the fact that we ended up with two turkeys. I didn't want to make two birds for dinner again this year because I felt that it was just too much food - plus I didn't know what I wanted to do with the second bird. Then I thought of something that a coworker told me about once - cooking with beer, especially with poultry, kind of sucks out the fat but keeps the moisture in. Fact? Don't know, but I decided to give it a try and so the second bird was soaked in Budweiser for about 48 hours. I got real close to the first bird when it came time to butter it with sage and rosemary butter. Not gonna lie, things got a little weird...just kidding. But not really. You really have to get the butter under its skin. And melted butter is really messy. The things I do for amazing food...

Various Stages of Turkey prep and final products

I realize now that I've gone out of chronological order, and have already skipped to the main event, but let's get back on track to Thursday morning, which started off, again, as per tradition, with the Sous Chef that has gotten so much sleep from the night before, running around the house around 7 in the morning after I had gone to bed at 2, raring to go. I refused however, to get out of bed until 8.

Here's what followed in picture form:

From Top Left Clockwise: Excel Spreadsheets; Studying the recipes assigned to her; Her planning includes putting her recipes in the corresponding dishware; crowded oven; our food was made with dance; balancing; cleaning up one of many messes; Woodchuck Cider makes cooking/dancing more fun; results of food shopping

Orange Cranberry Pecan Roll-ups

Acorn Squash with Wild Rice Stuffing - they also make for very large ears. Shout out to Isgro for the idea

Bacon Cornbread

Mushroom Barley Pie

**A note about the mushroom barley pie - in Smitten Kitchen's recipe, she added that the recipe could use a bit of a kick, since mushrooms and barley tend to have more mild tastes. So I tweaked it a little bit by adding some Israeli couscous with the barley and beans mix instead of just having pearl barley, used some sesame oil for kicks and I added my go to for taste - red chili pepper flakes! Still needs a little bit of something else, but not sure what it is...

Papardelle w/ Pumpkin Poblano Sauce

**The papardelle was one of the two dishes that I was most excited to try. The other was the upside down chocolate pear cake that I've been meaning to try for the past few years. First of all, it is impossible to find the papardelle - um, Barilla, can you please get on that?! But I did find a lemon pepper papardelle from Trader Joe's, which went pretty well with the Pumpkin Poblano sauce. I should have put a warning on the dish though, because the poblano peppers really gave it a nice kick. Sadly I did not get a photo of the final product, but the taste will forever stay in my memory!

Fruit Galettes

Upside Down Chocolate Pear Cake Prep from Top Left Clockwise: Cousin at work chopping chocolate; Pears; Caramelizing Sugar (x2); Pear Layout on sugar glaze; Mixing Cake Batter; Cake Dry Ingredients; Melting Chocolate; Pouring out the sugar caramel into the spring pan

Upside Down Chocolate Pear Cake

**Let me just say about the cake, which was all I could have hoped for and maybe even more, that 1) next time I make it, I want to add chili powder to the chocolate because I love spicy chocolate and 2) the Spring Form pan helps to make it easier to flip upside down, but needs to have a foil lined tray underneath while baking because the sugar will melt and seep out and start burning at the bottom of your oven.

Pie Crust Repair for the Pumpkin Pies

Someone brought flowers!

From Top Left Clockwise: Sous Chef and the amazing Butter Garlic Biscuits that someone brought; all the "kids"; Round 1 food; "Seafood" Turkey; Digging in; Green Bean Casserole; Creamed Onions

Leftover Friday began with Dunkin Donuts quality breakfast sandwiches and some oxtail soup. I say that they were Dunkin quality because when the last cousin woke up after everyone had eaten, he was handed one of the bagels with bacon, egg and cheese, and asked if it was from D&D, haha. I also had a Thanksgiving Leftover dinner get together later that night (can you tell this is my favorite holiday? I just never want it to end!). That was when I cooked the beer bird, which came out awesome, if I may say so myself.

From Top Left Clockwise: Leftover Dinner; Turkey; Bacon; Breakfast Bagel; Oxtail Soup; Model Emily; Hairdresser Jake & Alex; Silly Kristalynn

Turkey Wreath Pre-baking using leftover turkey, cranberry sauce, celery & crescent rolls for a Housewarming party Saturday night

All the little elves, aka cousins at work helping Angela put up the Christmas decorations on Saturday  (as per tradition!...one would think we are living Fiddler on the Roof)

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and a most Happy Holiday Season!