I don't know what they are, but they aren't crackers

You may have noticed I'm rather fond of carbohydrates. Pasta, bread, the occasional pastry.

I also like crackers. A lot. Especially with soup. Or cheese and fruit. Or a big glass of milk. The commercial ones are not, however, the healthiest thing on the grocery shelves. 

Not wanting to give them up, but thinking cutting out processed snacks is a good idea, I thought I'd try to make my own. 

As usual, when trying something new, I read a ton of recipes. Many of them involved butter and a food processor, but I came across a few that used olive oil as the fat.

Then I got a little more free-form than I usually do when trying something new.

So, a couple cups of flour, a teaspoon of baking soda, about a third cup of olive oil, 2/3 cup of water, the better part of a bunch of rosemary that had dried out in the fridge but was still plenty fragrant. I needed a little more liquid, so I threw in some chopped garlic in olive oil (yes, I buy chopped garlic by the jar sometimes). I had some grated parmesan that needed to be used up, so I threw that in, along with some pepper.

I had parchment paper in the house, so I didn't have to grease the pan. I rolled out the dough onto the parchment paper, ran the pizza cutter over it, poked holes in the little rectangles with a fork and put it in the oven at 400 degrees for about fifteen minutes.

The crackers poofed up in the oven and I took them out when they started to turn brown around the edged. They're not quite crunchy and there's too much pepper. They're more like tiny peppery biscuits.

They did go rather well with the tomato soup I had for lunch (Amy's, it's a little sweet). I think they might be okay with cheese. 

They don't crunch, but they're not a complete failure.

Another learning experience. 

And no trans fat. 

Needs tweaking--almond chicken

I've wanted to make today's recipe for a while. It reminded me vaguely of a korma, but garlicky. I've also never made a recipe where bread was part of the sauce.

I actually planned to make this last week, but forgot a few crucial items with the groceries.  Here's the list of ingredients:

• 4 T olive oil, divided
• 1/2 cup slivered almonds
• 2 cups cubed crustless white bread
• 2 cups low-sodium chicken broth
• 2/3 cup dry sherry or white wine (I used the latter)
• 1/2 t freshly ground black pepper (plus more for seasoning)
• 1/2 t saffron (the recipe says optional, I disagree)
• Kosher salt
• 4 chicken legs --thigh and drumstick. I ran into a bit of a problem here. My grocer sells chicken legs in packages of six. I bought a whole chicken, cut up.
• 1 onion, minced (I used one about the size of a softball)
• 1 T chopped flat-leaf parsley

and the directions:

Heat 3 tablespoons olive oil in a large heavy pot over medium heat. Add almonds and stir until golden brown, about 3 minutes; 

This recipe, all throughout, runs hot. I scorched the almonds on my first attempt, even though I was stirring constantly. The second batch, on low heat, were much better.

Transfer to paper towels. Place 1/3 cup almonds in a blender or food processor. Set aside remaining almonds for garnish. 

Add bread cubes and garlic to same pot. 

Cook, stirring frequently, until bread is golden brown and crisp, 4-5 minutes.  I think I cooked it a little longer than that. A piece of bread escaped the transfer to the blender. It was delicious.

Using a slotted spoon, transfer to blender. Add broth, Sherry, 1/2 teaspoon pepper, saffron, if using, and a large pinch of salt; process until almost smooth. Set aside.

I used the "mix" setting on my blender.

Heat remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil in same pot over medium-high heat. Season chicken with salt and pepper. Add to pot and cook, turning down heat if needed to prevent burning, until chicken is golden brown on all sides, about 12 minutes total (this step is just to brown the skin). Transfer chicken to a plate.

This step, in my not so humble opinion, needs a little more olive oil and slightly lower heat. My darling Nexx also thinks the skin should be crisp, not just brown, so we're trying that next time.

Add onion to pot; cook, stirring often, until onion is caramelized around edges, about 6 minutes. 

Um . . . no. You can't get anywhere close to caramelizing onions in six minutes. Also, the liquid in the onions has a bit of a deglazing effect on the pan. Figure at least fifteen minutes to get them to the desired state.

Add sauce and chicken to pot, pushing down chicken to submerge. Bring sauce to a simmer, cover, and reduce heat to low. Simmer until chicken is just cooked through, about 20 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Divide chicken and sauce among bowls. Garnish each serving with reserved almonds and chopped parsley.

.............

I served this with green beans and the rest of the bread that I used for the cubes. I wasn't 100% in love with it, though I tasted a lot of potential. My main complaint is the sauce was too heavy on the chicken flavor and it overpowered the almonds and garlic. I really only tasted the saffron halfway through my second helping. 

So next time:  more almonds, probably more garlic, crispy skin, maybe a touch more wine (Nexx disagrees), and a little bit of time to reduce the sauce before eating.

If you tweak, do let me know.

Jazzing up the comfort food

I love the tuna tuna melt. Up until recently, my favorite presentation of such was open-faced on top of an English muffin. For a long time, I was convinced that swiss was the perfect topping, but I have branched out.

Because of the new job, I spend a fair amount of time in Grand Central Terminal. Knowing they have a captive audience waiting for the trains, the powers that be have installed a metric ton of fine shopping, including Grand Central Market.

Grand Central Market has some amazing things, and they've pulled in some of the best food purveyors in the city. Elizabar's Farm to Table, Zaro's bakery (cupcakes!) and Murray's Cheese.

Murray's is new to me as of last year. My friend Pat introduced me when we were in the Village to see a couple of Hitchcock movies at Film Forum. Oh my oh my, the chacuterie. . .

This week I came home with some asiago pressato, a young cheese that's creamy with a tiny bit of a bite to it. I also bought Nexx something runny for Nexx with a name that escapes me.

I still adore my English muffins (crumpets are also quite good), but I need to eat more vegetables. I forget where I saw this, but instead of using bread, I have been stuffing the tuna salad into bell peppers and melting the cheese on top. It's a great way to experiment with flavors, the peppers add a crunch to the experience.

What's your ideal tuna melt?

Not dead yet

Hi everyone, I know it's been a while. There have been a lot of changes at Chez Kate and to my regret, the cooking has been cut down to weekends and holidays.

I have a new day job. It's utterly wonderful and comes with a ninety-minute commute. By the time I get home, I'm not up for doing much more than pouring a bowl of Cheerios (they help the cholesterol level. Oatmeal is for cookies).

But it's now warm and Austin the minimalist got his mitts on a huge piece of salmon. While I have been known as the Person Who Makes Salads (tm), I decided to break out of the box and make something with potatoes. The salmon was going to be grilled with a sesame ginger glaze, so I needed something that would match.

Kitchen Inferno had the perfect solution. Roast potatoes with a Thai-chile vinaigrette. There was a fair amount of chopping to do, but rather worth it. Here's our ingredient list:

1.5 pounds small red potatoes, quartered. (I actually used small Yukon, and they came out with a perfect texture.

Canola oil (since I had some help from my dear Nexx, we ended up with rice bran oil. It was light with a tiny hint of nuttiness. Not cheap enough to use every day, unfortuately)

For the vinaigrette:

.25 cup rice wine vinegar

2 T minced fresh ginger

1 clove of garlic, minced 

2 T sesame oil

3/4 cup canola oil (see rice bran oil above)

2 t minced fresh Thai chiles

2 T minced fresh cilantro

Salt and pepper to taste

Black sesame seeds, green onions and fresh cilantro for garnishing.

...................

I had to do a fair amount of tweaking for this recipe. There were five of us for dinner and two of us don't have my love for things hot. So while I expanded the recipe, I added some poblanos to mellow out the dressing a bit. I ran a bit short on rice vinegar, so I ended up adding more peppers to add to the acid.

....................

Lightly coat the potatoes with canola oil and roast in a 400 degree oven for about 25 to 30 minutes, until the potatoes are browned and tender.

......................

I roasted for about 45, stirring once to get an even roast. These are the best roasting potatoes I've worked with. I shall remember this.

........................

While the potatoes are roasting, prepare the vinaigrette. While the potatoes are warm, toss with viniagrette. Top with black sesame seeds, green onions and fresh cilantro.

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I love the way these came out. I would not recommend making the viniagrette too far in advance they way you might with some recipes. This took on a little bit of a burn from the peppers, but not too much. I also chopped a few extra peppers for folks to use as a garnish.

There were no leftovers, I consider that a success. I think this dressing will also work on cucumbers and plan to try it on a few other things.

Thanks for reading. I have not abandoned the blog and will try to be here a little more often.

Cheers!

KM Chang or Kate's lettuce wraps

I love a lot of the food at PF Chang's, and their lettuce wraps are to die for. After ordering them for the nth time, I wondered if I couldn't make my own, especially cutting down on the sweetener. As in, use none at all. After an afternoon of mental dissection, I came up with:

1.5 lb boneless skinless chicken thighs
3 T sesame oil (I plan to cut this by 1 next time)
3 T soy sauce
3 T rice vinegar (I plan to increase this by 1 next time. Make sure you are using a rice vinegar that has no sugar or salt added)
1 cup chopped shitake mushrooms
1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
1 T chopped fresh ginger (the younger the better)
1 T chopped garlic
1 can water chestnuts
3/4 cup green onions in 1" pieces (about a bunch)
1 cup reduced sodium chicken broth

Leaves of your favorite lettuce. I used butter, or Boston lettuce because my stomach doesn't like iceberg very much

add 1 T of sesame oil to a saute pan on medium heat. Sear the chicken on both sides, add the chicken broth, half the soy sauce and half the vinegar and simmer until about half of the liquid is gone and chicken is thoroughly cooked. Remove chicken from pan.Add other T of sesame oil, the mushrooms, water chestnuts and ginger. stir well to combine then add the rest of the soy & vinegar and red pepper. Stir constantly for about five minutes, until fragrant.shred or dice chicken, return to pan, stirring to coat. Add green onions, stir until they are bright green.

Serve in lettuce leaves.

..............................................................................................This is a recipe that came out better than it had any right to. It was a bit heavy with the larger amount of sesame oil, so I think adjusting that down and adjusting the vinegar up will lighten it up nicely. Next time, I think I may also serve some bean sprouts on the side to add if we want some additional crunch, though the water chestnuts do a good job of that.




 My sweetie took some great pictures, which I will add as a separate post. 

variety in the vegetation

I try not to be boring when it comes to cooking. Admittedly, I generally have the same thing for breakfast (espresso and a protein drink with almond milk), but when it comes to dinner, it's important to me to mix it up a little. Boring eating leads to not feeling sated, which can leave a person reaching for the Haagen Daaz.

I like a lot of fish, but it can get pricey, so I try to shop the sales. It is, apparently a good time to buy Spanish mackerel. I recently had it as sushi and rather enjoyed it. When I saw it on sale, I pounced.

This week's recipe is very simple. Roasted mackerel over radicchio with avocado, with a lemony vinaigrette (which actually involves no vinegar, but I digress).

6 (4-to 5-ounces) mackerel fillets with skin, halved

1/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

1 medium head radicchio (about 10 ounces), leaves torn

2 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley

1 medium avocado, thinly sliced

 .  . . .

 I heartily recommend drafting some help to peel the radicchio for assistance with plating. I threw in some butter lettuce more for color and to fill us up, since there were no carbs in the recipe.

Your how-to:

Preheat broiler.

Make several diagonal slashes (1/8 inch deep) in mackerel skin about 1 inch apart. Coat both sides of mackerel with 2 tablespoons oil, then season with 3/4 teaspoon salt (total).

Broil mackerel, skin side up, in a 4-sided sheet pan about 4 inches from heat until just cooked through and skin is crisp in spots, about 7 minutes.

Meanwhile, whisk together remaining 1/3 cup oil, lemon juice, mustard, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/8 teaspoon pepper in a large bowl. Reserve 2 tablespoons vinaigrette, then toss radicchio and parsley with remaining vinaigrette.

Serve salad topped with avocado and mackerel and drizzled with reserved vinaigrette.

 . . . . . 

I enjoyed this quite a bit. The fish is rich and the slightly pepper flavor from the radicchio was a nice match. I'm glad I added the butter lettuce, because the contrast in taste and texture was delightful.

Making Ingredients Again

This is a quick entry, but I suspect I'll be referring to it often. I've wanted to make some herbed olive oil for a while, and shortly after Thanksgiving, we bought something we've been threatening to do for a long time--a box of quart Mason jars. I'm planning on preserving some lemons, possibly making chicken stock. My darling Nexx made a strawberry-basil cocktail that was a fascinating experiment in flavors.

One of those jars has been sitting for the last couple of months with six sprigs of rosemary and the peel of a lemon in it. You may notice no proportions here. I guessed.

I guessed well, I'm happy to say. The mixture has been used on both lamb and pork, and there are chicken and potatoes in its future.