Cleanin' Out My Cupboards...

I never thought I would see this day. Frankly, it has always boggled my mind a little bit when I read a review of a recipe, especially a recipe that originally aired on television, and the author says something like, "Saw this and ran into the kitchen to make it. Delish!" Honestly, who has so much food in their house that they can watch a random cooking demo on television, then run to the kitchen, pull out all the necessary ingredients, and replicate it at home? Especially when that recipe calls for strange, and uncommon components? Apparently, I do.

Ordinarily, I rarely have food in the house that isn't spoken for in some way. I try not to buy anything that I don't have a specific plan for, because more often than not, it will go bad before it gets eaten. Our household only has two people, and we can only eat so much. Yet, somehow, the stars aligned this week, when I happened to catch a show on the Cooking Channel about Vietnamese food. This particular episode featured dishes from the mountain-dwelling Hmong people of Northern Vietnam, and the host prepared a dish of pork skewers that looked particularly interesting. Justin happened to be in the room watching as well (which is unusual unto itself, since he barely tolerates pretty much all forms of television), and he suggested that we give the dish a try. 

When I headed to the show's website, I realized that somehow, miraculously, we had all the ingredients in the house except for the meat. The original recipe called for pork neck, a fatty cut of meat popular in Vietnam, and I knew there was basically no hope of finding something similar in a regular grocery store around here, so I decided to substitute pork steak. We had the meat sitting in the marinade the very same day.

Now, I do probably have an above average number of southeast Asian ingredients in my pantry, since we seem to have become enamored with those flavors lately. The complete dark-horse for me was that I happened to have an unopened tube of lemongrass paste languishing in my fridge, purchased on a whim when Dominick's was giving out free tubes of different herb pastes to promote the brand that manufactures them. I had narrowed down the decision to basil and lemongrass, and went with the lemongrass because basil is readily available in its regular, leafy form. Plus, we had been making a lot of Asian dishes lately, so I figured I'd be able to find a use for it. Eventually, my instincts proved correct.

Even though we've been eating a lot of Vietnamese-inspired dishes lately, I was not prepared for these pork skewers. The recipe called for a whopping three tablespoons of fish sauce, which may not seem like a lot, until you factor in the fact that fish sauce is the smelliest, most pungent ingredient in my kitchen, and probably anybody's kitchen. Fish sauce is the liquid runoff that is the byproduct of rotting, fermenting anchovy carcasses. It is a very common ingredient in southeast Asian dishes, where a very small amount adds a hit of umami and complexity without overwhelming the dish. Given how bad it smells, I've always been amazed that it manages to fade into the background, but in the case of this marinade, there was simply too much of it.

Justin didn't seem to mind the skewers, but to me, all that fish sauce made them unpleasantly funky. It was really all I could do to finish the portion on my plate. Clearly, I'm not ready for the big leagues when it comes to Vietnamese food.

Still, I'm proud to say that I was able to cook an unusual recipe on a whim, entirely out of ingredients I had in my pantry and refrigerator (sans meat). I never thought I would be one of those kind of people, but now I feel like I've joined some sort of well-stocked pantry secret society. Now I'm left to wonder what else I could make out of the food already in my house -- only time will tell...

Burger Bash - Day Three

Sadly, my week of burgers ended not with a roar, but with a whimper. Clearly, I used up all my new recipe luck for this endeavor with the Asian pork burgers, because today's attempt at turkey burgers was almost the most disappointing of the bunch, even if they were technically tastier than the lamb burgers. As it turns out, I am the kind of person that can't resist messing with a good thing when it comes to the kitchen. I already have a turkey burger recipe that I've been making for years that I absolutely love to pieces (and Justin does too; it is one of his favorite meals now.)  It combines many of the classic flavors (cranberry, apple, celery, onion) that one associates with turkey during Thanksgiving, and it never fails to please. 

Nonetheless, when I spotted a different turkey burger recipe on a blog a few weeks ago, I was intrigued. It had a Martha Stewart pedigree, and it combined a lot of flavors that I love: green onion, mustard, and Gruyere cheese. Maybe I would be able to add a second turkey burger recipe to my repertoire for a little variety, I thought. After all, isn't variety the spice of life?

Wrong. This recipe proved to me that occasionally, it is better to stick to what you know. The addition of Gruyere to the patty imparted an odd, and to me, unnecessary additional savory element that also bordered on the over-salted. The mustard and onions were nice, but with the cheese, and my two favorite burger toppings already folded into the burger, I was at a loss for what to put on my burger, since it was crying out for a little extra moisture and textural interest. I ended up with cranberry mustard, my go-to sauce for turkey burgers, but it was a bit of mustard overkill.

Mostly my biggest problem with these burgers was the addition of breadcrumbs to the meat mixture. I know some people add breadcrumbs as a binder for homemade burgers, but to me, they always impart an unpleasantly smooth texture, like meatloaf or meatballs. I don't mind that homogeneous texture in those dishes, but to me, a burger should have a coarse toothsomeness that reminds you that you are eating meat. I should have just left them out when I saw them on the ingredient list, but I wanted to heed Martha's wisdom and follow the recipe as written. Predictably, I ended up with burger patties that had an unnatural texture, unbecoming of a burger, in my opinion.

Next time I'm craving a turkey burger, I'll return to my tried-and-true recipe. Not that that will be any time soon -- now that we've worked our way through the pile of hamburger buns on our kitchen counter, I think I've had more than enough grilled meat patties for a while...

Burger Bash - Day Two

Yesterday, I kicked off my mini-burger bash with a recipe so good, it is destined to become an instant classic in my household. After such a resounding success, it was almost inevitable that today's attempt would at least be somewhat of a disappointment. For a protein, I chose lamb, because I've seen lamb burgers on television for ages now, and I was always curious about them. Since the grocery store put pretty much all ground meats on sale after the major grilling holiday of the Fourth had passed, I was able to score some reasonably-priced ground lamb, since it's primarily its usual expense that has kept me from trying lamb burgers up until now.

I selected a recipe that called for traditional Greek spices, such as oregano, marjoram, cinnamon, and garlic, but despite all the seasonings that went into it, the meat itself emerged strangely bland. Sure, it was juicy, and the lamb-y flavor came through, but the meat was so completely innocuous that the patty mostly served as a vehicle for consuming tzatziki sauce. Perhaps a larger number of condiments might have fixed the situation; after all, I didn't elect for any besides the sauce and some slices of raw onion. Slices of tomato and some crumbled feta may have livened things up some. Still, I wouldn't want to waste my money on another batch of lamb burgers to find out. Clearly, this is a meal that is better left to professional chefs.

On the other hand, at least my tzatziki sauce was a hit. I've been making the same recipe since I was in college, when I saw it on an episode of Good Eats where Alton Brown made gyros from scratch. I wasn't about to attempt that feat then or now, but I did have a pretty tasty Greek chicken recipe that was practically begging for a condiment at the time, and I gave Alton's recipe a try.

These were the days before Greek yogurt became a ubiquitous grocery store staple, and I remember straining regular plain yogurt through a cheese cloth to make this recipe happen. It was worth the effort then, and I still make it today (albeit with a lot less time and energy expenditure), whenever I make a dish with Mediterranean overtones. It's even good by itself on pitas as a snack, for those days when I want to relive my 2007 trip to Greece, where I had tzatziki as an appetizer at practically every meal. Seriously, give it a try!

Tzatziki Sauce
adapted from Alton Brown

8 oz. Greek yogurt (I recommend Fage for this particular application)
1/2 medium cucumber, peeled and finely grated
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon red wine vinegar
pinch of salt

Holding over the sink, squeeze the grated cucumber to remove as much excess liquid as possible. In a medium mixing bowl, combine the Greem yogurt, cucumber, salt, garlic, olive oil, and vinegar. Store in the refrigerator in an airtight container for up to a week.

Burger Bash - Day One

Though potlucks are a great way to minimize the stress and preparation of hosting a big get-together, they do have one downside -- no matter how much you plan and coordinate with your guests, you're going to have too much of certain things, and not enough of others. For instance, the guest who had volunteered to bring beer to the party ended up blowing off my gathering all together, and we ended up with only a few bottles from a friend who is into home brewing and wanted to share his work.

On the surplus side of things, as I mentioned yesterday, not only did we end up with two entire watermelons, but we also had an insane surplus of hamburger buns. I'm not sure if all my friends are secretly on the Atkin's diet or what, but the vast majority of the meat consumed at the party was eaten without the accompaniment of bread. As a result, I've decided to have a mini-burger festival this week, not only to use up the mountain of buns currently cluttering my counter, but also to work my way through some of the burger recipes that have been languishing in my recipe queue.

First on the docket was a recipe for Asian-inspired pork burgers that I'd spotted months ago when we tried a new, albeit unsuccessful fried rice recipe that called for ground pork. The fried rice only called for a couple ounces of the meat, so we froze the rest, and I ultimately ended up using it to make meatball banh mi, but I kept that burger recipe in the back of my mind. Since we ended up loving the banh mi so much, I decided to use the burger recipe as a springboard for creating a banh mi-inspired burger recipe that would capture the flavors of our beloved sandwich in a format that would be easier to replicate.

To accomplish this, I stole many of the flavorings from our meatball recipe, with the addition of extra green onions, as called for in the burger recipe. I lifted the sriracha mayo directly from the banh mi recipe as well, but left out the pickled daikon and carrot salad in favor of a slaw dressed with a simple soy and sesame oil vinaigrette straight out of the original burger recipe. Thankfully, my experimental mash-up worked out marvelously. The burgers it produced were so good, Justin was asking me when we could have them again before we were even done eating. 

With a response like that, I know we'll be making these again before grilling season is over. The only thing I'd do differently, at Justin's request, is double the recipe so we'll have leftovers. With a dinner this tasty, you definitely want enough to eat it twice...

 

Banh Mi Burgers

Sriracha Mayo

2/3 c. mayonnaise

2 green onions, finely chopped

1 tablespoon sriracha

Asian Slaw

3 c. coleslaw mix

3 teaspoons rice wine vinegar

1 1/2 teaspoons soy sauce

scant teaspoon sesame oil

scant teaspoon sugar

Burgers

2 pounds ground pork

5 green onions, finely chopped

1/4 c. fresh basil, minced

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 tablespoon sriracha

1 tablespoon fish sauce

1 tablespoon fresh ginger, minced

1 1/2 teaspoons sesame oil

1 teaspoon salt

ground pepper to taste

Light the grill.

1. In a large bowl, combine all the ingredients for the burgers. Mix gently until incorporated but not overmixed. Form into 6 large patties or 8 small ones. 

2. Grill the patties approximately 8 minutes, turning once, or until cooked through.

3. Meanwhile, stir together the ingredients for the sriracha mayo in a small bowl.

4. In another small bowl, stir together the rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, sesame oil, and sugar for the Asian slaw. Toss dressing with cole slaw mix.

5. Assemble burgers on toasted buns with Asian slaw and sriracha mayo.

Watermelon Man...

No matter how long you've been in a relationship with someone, there is always something new to learn about them. Even though I feel like I've gotten Justin mostly figured out in the past twenty-one months, there are still plenty of discoveries to be made. For instance, this week I figured out that the best way to get Justin to plow through uninteresting leftovers is to turn them into salsa.

A miscommunication at Wednesday's potluck party left us with two entire watermelons that had already been cut up. Our guests only ate one of them, leaving us with an entire enormous bowl of melon to ourselves, and as it turns out, I can barely tolerate watermelon. It's just too sweet for me. After a couple days of trying to force feed Justin as much of the fruit as possible before it went bad, and making little progress I had a bit of an epiphany -- Justin loves snacking. He especially loves snacks that can be eaten on chips, like salsa, hummus, guacamole, and cheese spread. Perhaps the secret to making the watermelon disappear could be found in transforming the watermelon into something he'd be more interested in eating.

I was partially inspired in this idea by a work party I attended a couple weeks ago, also a potluck that had been catered by the staff. Shelby, a friend of mine, had brought an unusual cantaloupe salsa, and I had tried it (despite my disliking cantaloupe even more than watermelon), because I felt compelled to sample all of the dishes that my friends had made. It just so happened that the combination of a fruit that I loathed, cilantro (which I also hate), onion, jalapeño, and lime juice transcended its dubious origins and was really rather tasty. If cantaloupe could be good in salsa, then why not watermelon?

I did a quick web search on watermelon salsa, and found a suitable-looking recipe that happened to include mostly ingredients that I already had on hand. While I worked on dinner, I had Justin cut up the ingredients for the salsa as a pre-dinner snack/side dish.

My hunch panned out -- my salsa gambit worked like a charm. Not only did Justin like it, he practically inhaled the entire batch before dinner. After our actual meal, he proceeded to turn the entire remainder of the watermelon into more salsa. Now I've got my eye on turning the leftover corn on the cob from the party into a grilled corn salsa, since that doesn't seem to interest him in its current form either. I have discovered the secret to disposing of unwanted leftovers!

Watermelon Salsa

adapted from Taste of Home

2 c. watermelon, diced

1/2 c. cucumber, diced

1/4 c. red bell pepper, diced

1/4 c. onion, minced

1/2 large jalapeño, minced

1/4 c. cilantro, minced

2 tablespoons honey

juice of 1/2 lime 

1 teaspoon salt

In a large bowl, combine the first six ingredients. In a small bowl, whisk together the honey, lime juice, and salt and pour over salsa. Stir to combine. Serve with tortilla chips.

Happy Fourth of July...

Ever since Justin and I have been settled into our new place, we've been meaning to have a housewarming party. We've been wanting to show off our humble abode and welcome our friends into our new space. I tried throwing a combination housewarming/birthday party back in April, but it turned out that I had bad timing. Only a couple of people could come, so I decided not to bother. 

Since then, I've settled for entertaining a couple of small groups of friends and family, mostly in dinner party format, but I never lost sight of my goal of hosting a big shindig to inaugurate our new home. When I mentioned to my friend Jess that we'd gotten a new grill, she suggested that we ought to have a cookout, and I took her idea and ran with it. The Fourth of July seemed like as good a date as any, especially because it fell during the middle of the week (so there'd be no weddings or other longstanding obligations for people), and everyone would have the day off regardless of their work schedule.

As per usual, I received RSVPs up until the last possible second, but we ended up with a crowd of about fourteen people. To save myself the stress of feeding that many people, I turned the party into a potluck, with a focus on grilling.

Justin served as the grill-master for the event, and he was a true hero, slaving over the grill on a miserably hot day to turn out turkey burgers, tofu hot dogs, sausages, portabello mushrooms, corn on the cob, and chicken breasts. We certainly gave our little Weber a run for its money!

Inside we had a good range of dips and side dishes, from my quickly-becoming-a-party-classic guacamole, to hummus, taco dip, chips, caprese salad, watermelon, and Justin's famous potato salad. Dessert was also well-represented, including my peach ice cream pie, ice cream sandwiches, and that perennial cookout staple -- s'mores. Not only was everyone well fed, we ended up with an insane surplus of leftover food, especially hamburger and hot dog buns. I guess more people are still doing the low-carb thing than I originally anticipated. We're practically going to need another cookout to use up all the bread.

For the most part, the ladies gathered inside around the food, while the menfolk stood out on the patio drinking their beers and sweating profusely, thereby creating a vicious cycle. I think our central air-conditioning was a major selling point for the party, given the near-record high temperatures we've been experiencing lately. Even though our dining room table expands to seat ten people, we still had to seat people on the sofa to eat, but I was still happy to have such good attendance for my gathering.

Overall, I feel like the party went very well. Even though most of my friends don't know each other, and come from different phases in my life, I seem to be drawn to people with similar interests, and everyone was able to find common ground for conversation. Getting ready for the party and coordinating all the food was stressful, but ultimately very rewarding. After today's fete and the baby shower I hosted earlier this month, I think I may be ready for a brief break from entertaining, but I'm looking forward to doing this again.

I like to call this my "fireworks" dress.

There are few things better than being surrounded by close friends, and being reminded of the kindness and generosity of the people I'm lucky enough to call friends. After we'd gotten the house cleaned up, Justin and I discovered that we can see the Evanston fireworks display from the air-conditioned comfort of our living room. As we stood there and watched the sky light up, I couldn't help but feel very blessed in my life right now. Happy Fourth of July everyone!

We're Having A Heat Wave...

It is miserably hot this week. So hot, in fact, that even I don't feel like turning the oven on to bake, even though I have central air conditioning. It's projected to be near, or over 100 degrees every day this week. So when it came time to make a dessert for the Fourth of July party I'm hosting tomorrow, I was looking for something cool and refreshing that would require a minimal amount of baking.

My first impulse was to make homemade ice cream, but that didn't seem quite special enough for a party. I knew I wanted to take things to the next level. Homemade ice cream sandwiches seemed like a good idea at first, but I didn't want to go through the effort of baking all the cookies for them. Plus, we have virtually no freezer space, and there certainly wasn't room for anything that bulky. As I scrolled through my dessert-themed Pinterest board in search of inspiration, I finally ran across something that I thought would work -- an ice cream pie.

The recipe I'd saved called for an amaretti cookie crust and a filling made from roasting fresh peaches and mixing them into store-bought vanilla ice cream, neither of which sounded particularly appealing to me. I decided to swap out the amaretti for gingersnaps, since warm spices go well with peach pie, and to make my own ice cream from scratch. After all, peach is the flavor most people think of when they think of homemade ice cream in the first place.

It would have been more attractive if I hadn't pressed the plastic wrap directly into the soft ice cream, but doing so prevents the creation of unpleasant ice crystals.

Predictably, I turned to David Lebovitz's The Perfect Scoop for a peach ice cream recipe. Since I've been favoring non-custard based ice creams of late, I appreciated that his peach recipe called for a unique combination of cream and sour cream. From my favorite peach popsicle recipe, I knew that peaches pair well with slightly tart dairy, so I was on board with the unconventional addition. 

The ice cream turned out smooth and creamy, as per usual, but I was disappointed that the peach flavor wasn't more dominant, especially considering the lack of custard base to detract from the fruit. For once, one of Lebovitz's recipes was not the ne plus ultra. I'm going to have to keep an eye out for a better peach ice cream in the future, though maybe finding one would be as simple as cracking one of the numerous non-Lebovitz ice cream tomes languishing on my cookbook-only bookshelf.

Nonetheless, the pie was easy enough to put together, and I think it will make a perfect summer dessert tomorrow. Aside from a quick trip to the oven for the crust, this was almost a no-bake dessert. If you were inclined to use a store-bought graham cracker crust, you'd save yourself from the heat all together. Clearly, the genre of ice cream pies merits further investigation...

Peach Ice Cream Pie

Crust

adapted from Bon Appétit

1 1/3 c. finely ground gingersnap cookies

1/4 c. (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted

1 tablespoon sugar

2 pinches of salt

Peach Ice Cream

adapted from David Lebovitz

1 1/3 pounds ripe peaches or nectarines (about 4 large)

1/2 c. water

3/4 c. sugar

1/2 c. sour cream

1 c. heavy cream

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

a few drops of freshly squeezed lemon juice

For Crust:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Coat 9-inch glass pie dish with nonstick spray. Mix finely ground cookie crumbs, 1 tablespoon sugar, and pinch of salt in medium bowl. Add lukewarm melted butter; mix to blend. Press crumbs onto bottom and up sides of dish. Bake until golden around edges, about 10 minutes. Cool completely in dish on rack.

For Ice Cream:

1. Peel the peaches, slice them in half, and remove the pits. Cut the peaches into chunks and cook them with water in a medium, non-reactive saucepan over medium heat, covered, stirring once or twice, until soft and cooked through, about 10 minutes.

2. Remove from heat, stir in the sugar, then cool to room temperature.

3. Puree the cooked peaches and any liquid in a blender or food processor with the heavy cream, sour cream, vanilla, and lemon juice until almost smooth, but still a bit chunky. 

4. Chill mixture thoroughly, then churn it in an ice cream mixture according to manufacturer's instructions.

5. Pour freshly churned ice cream into the pie crust, press plastic wrap directly onto the surface, and freeze until firm.