Wednesday. 29 January
So, apparently, 20 lbs of pork loin is a lot. Like, twice as much as we needed.
Also, if a 3 lb roast takes 1 hour, 2 and a half hours at the same temperature is NOT a good estimate for 20 lbs. However, 2 hours at the normal temperature plus half an hour at "as hot as the oven will go" seems to work pretty well. If you're into charring.
Menu:
Orange and Honey Pork Loin Roast
Orange juice, Honey, Garlic, salt, pepper, pork, and heat. Lots of heat. 350 for two hours in a braising dish, and then 500 on a baking tray for a half hour. A better plan might have been to start with the high temperature and then turn it down. Or maybe 400ish covered for the whole time. The meat was actually cooked perfectly tonight, but the outside was black.
Chickpeas with Garlic and Spinach
Boring! I thought that I added a ton of garlic, but this seemed tasteless to me. Maybe it just needed salt. Or lemon juice. Next time, I would do this with fresh spinach, and pay a little more attention to the dish overall. It could have been good.
Veggie Paella
Onions, Red Peppers, Sweet Potatoes, Fennel, Green Beans, Artichoke Hearts, Rice, and Saffron. Good, not great. next time: cut the artichokes, add some mushrooms and more spices. I almost lost half of this. Must remember that one of the big woks has some thin spots and can get burny!
Bulgur with Vegetables and Paella Spices
A little overkill, perhaps. I was worried that the paella would not be enough. This was false.
Roast Cauliflower
Four trays full, five hundred degrees for just over an hour. Perfect. Thanks, Harold!
Sauteed Cauliflower Greens
Should have been chopped much smaller, and maybe mixed in with the chickpeas.
Tapioca Pudding
Excellent, even with the spinach spicing. Sarah B followed a recipe that she found on the internet, but cut the sugar by half. The only change I'd make next time would be to make more of it. Sarah started with 3 quarts of milk, and there wasn't quite enough.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Go, Sarah, Go!
Wednesday, January 28th
I came home today to find Sarah P and Benoit in the kitchen waiting for a head cook. At about 4:10, Benoit checked the sign up sheet and discovered that no one had taken the shift. So the two assistant cooks instantly rose to the task in front of them, rummaging around the kitchen, looking for protein sources and unclaimed veggies, but seemed like everything they picked out was reserved for my meal tomorrow.
It's hard enough cooking for the house when you're down a set of hands, but they were hit by surprise and without a plan (no defrosted meat! no soaking beans!), and additionally had my greedy kitchen whining to deal with (hands off those peppers!), so I stuck around for a little while to help them plan. Specifically, I started some Massaman curry, in the hopes that a rich coconut milk based Thai curry would stretch out the small bag of chicken that Benoit found, and make the whole meal seem more substantial. Sarah took on the head chef role and made some awesome lentils for the vegetarians, and quinoa, and stir fried some bok choy. The total quantity of food was a little low (you can only chop so much with 2/3 of a team), but overall I was quite impressed with her meal. Very well done, for such a last minute affair, and quite substantial as well.
The Massaman curry was a liberally modified recipe from somewhere on the internet. Equal parts coconut milk and veggie broth (two big cans each), lots of cumin and coriander, quite a bit of cinnamon and cardamom, a little nutmeg and cloves, and a tiny bit of tumeric for color. Soy sauce. Brown sugar. Most of the work went into making an impromptu curry paste: roughly chopped red onions, peeled and coarsely chopped ginger, peeled whole garlic, a few chopped chilies, and 3 quartered limes sauteed until the onions looked brownish, then thrown in the food processor and turned to mush. Perhaps not the most nuanced approach, but the whole limes were a solid co-opy replacement for both lemongrass and lime leaves.
I left Sarah with a big pot of curry and nothing in it. She and Benoit split the curry into two pots, chopped up a million sweet potatoes and a bunch of onions and threw them into both, then processed and fried a bag of chicken thighs and added them to one of the pots. They had roasted peanuts and dried coconut on the side, as well as a bottle of fish sauce. (The fish sauce really should have gone into the curry, at least the chicken one, but fish sauce is very controversial, so to the side it went). Green onions and cilantro would have been nice, but again: there's only so much you can do with two cooks. I don't even know if we had cilantro.
The lentils were tamarind lentils from the Veganomicon. I suggested them because I thought that the tamarind would go well with the curry. It's not clear if the pairing really worked, but the lentils themselves were super delicious. For all the complaints I hear about too many lentils, these didn't even last through dinner. Maybe it's just my lentils people don't like. Sarah's were a huge success.
Along with the lentils and curry, they made quinoa and bok choy. Either this quinoa was somehow different than our usual quinoa, or Sarah is a better quinoa washer than I am, but it seemed extra nutty and totally lacking in the usual quinoa hint o' bitterness. That did go extremely well with the curry. If I ever make Thai curry again for the house, I plan to forgo the usual brown rice. and make some quinoa. It was perfect.
And hopefully, I'll have three cooks, so that there will be time to chop more bok choy, because one wok full is definitely not enough!
I came home today to find Sarah P and Benoit in the kitchen waiting for a head cook. At about 4:10, Benoit checked the sign up sheet and discovered that no one had taken the shift. So the two assistant cooks instantly rose to the task in front of them, rummaging around the kitchen, looking for protein sources and unclaimed veggies, but seemed like everything they picked out was reserved for my meal tomorrow.
It's hard enough cooking for the house when you're down a set of hands, but they were hit by surprise and without a plan (no defrosted meat! no soaking beans!), and additionally had my greedy kitchen whining to deal with (hands off those peppers!), so I stuck around for a little while to help them plan. Specifically, I started some Massaman curry, in the hopes that a rich coconut milk based Thai curry would stretch out the small bag of chicken that Benoit found, and make the whole meal seem more substantial. Sarah took on the head chef role and made some awesome lentils for the vegetarians, and quinoa, and stir fried some bok choy. The total quantity of food was a little low (you can only chop so much with 2/3 of a team), but overall I was quite impressed with her meal. Very well done, for such a last minute affair, and quite substantial as well.
The Massaman curry was a liberally modified recipe from somewhere on the internet. Equal parts coconut milk and veggie broth (two big cans each), lots of cumin and coriander, quite a bit of cinnamon and cardamom, a little nutmeg and cloves, and a tiny bit of tumeric for color. Soy sauce. Brown sugar. Most of the work went into making an impromptu curry paste: roughly chopped red onions, peeled and coarsely chopped ginger, peeled whole garlic, a few chopped chilies, and 3 quartered limes sauteed until the onions looked brownish, then thrown in the food processor and turned to mush. Perhaps not the most nuanced approach, but the whole limes were a solid co-opy replacement for both lemongrass and lime leaves.
I left Sarah with a big pot of curry and nothing in it. She and Benoit split the curry into two pots, chopped up a million sweet potatoes and a bunch of onions and threw them into both, then processed and fried a bag of chicken thighs and added them to one of the pots. They had roasted peanuts and dried coconut on the side, as well as a bottle of fish sauce. (The fish sauce really should have gone into the curry, at least the chicken one, but fish sauce is very controversial, so to the side it went). Green onions and cilantro would have been nice, but again: there's only so much you can do with two cooks. I don't even know if we had cilantro.
The lentils were tamarind lentils from the Veganomicon. I suggested them because I thought that the tamarind would go well with the curry. It's not clear if the pairing really worked, but the lentils themselves were super delicious. For all the complaints I hear about too many lentils, these didn't even last through dinner. Maybe it's just my lentils people don't like. Sarah's were a huge success.
Along with the lentils and curry, they made quinoa and bok choy. Either this quinoa was somehow different than our usual quinoa, or Sarah is a better quinoa washer than I am, but it seemed extra nutty and totally lacking in the usual quinoa hint o' bitterness. That did go extremely well with the curry. If I ever make Thai curry again for the house, I plan to forgo the usual brown rice. and make some quinoa. It was perfect.
And hopefully, I'll have three cooks, so that there will be time to chop more bok choy, because one wok full is definitely not enough!
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
First Tuesday
Tuesday, 1/20: Inauguration Theme (with Margit and Kevin again)
(Not the best meal ever, no particularly impressive dishes, and too much food overall, but the theme worked reasonably well.)
Spinach Salad with Massachusetts Crimson Berry Dressing
Box o'spinach. Dressing = cranberries, red onions, balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper, and olive oil in the food processor. Toasted sesame seeds (unnecessary).
Windy City Chili, meat on the side
CBS claimed this as an Obama potluck recipe. Beans, onions, green peppers, tomatoes, veggie broth, parsley, oregano, turmeric, cumin, chili powder, salt, red wine vinegar. Meat = turkey and hot dogs, with the same seasoning.
Indonesian Fried Brown Rice with Peas and Tamarind Roasted Tofu
Both from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. Served with scallions, cilantro, and chili roasted peanuts
Kansas Vegan Cornbread
Cook's Illustrated recipe with flaxseed. Good, but more work and not better than the maple/soy recipezaar standard.
Kenyan Collard Greens with Tomatoes
Collards, Onions, Salt, Pepper, Tomatoes, Veggie Broth, Lemon Juice
Hawaiian Banana Coconut Vegan Brownies
Modified Vegan with a Vengeance Pudding Brownies: never make these again! Nearly impossible to stop eating.
(Not the best meal ever, no particularly impressive dishes, and too much food overall, but the theme worked reasonably well.)
Spinach Salad with Massachusetts Crimson Berry Dressing
Box o'spinach. Dressing = cranberries, red onions, balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper, and olive oil in the food processor. Toasted sesame seeds (unnecessary).
Windy City Chili, meat on the side
CBS claimed this as an Obama potluck recipe. Beans, onions, green peppers, tomatoes, veggie broth, parsley, oregano, turmeric, cumin, chili powder, salt, red wine vinegar. Meat = turkey and hot dogs, with the same seasoning.
Indonesian Fried Brown Rice with Peas and Tamarind Roasted Tofu
Both from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. Served with scallions, cilantro, and chili roasted peanuts
Kansas Vegan Cornbread
Cook's Illustrated recipe with flaxseed. Good, but more work and not better than the maple/soy recipezaar standard.
Kenyan Collard Greens with Tomatoes
Collards, Onions, Salt, Pepper, Tomatoes, Veggie Broth, Lemon Juice
Hawaiian Banana Coconut Vegan Brownies
Modified Vegan with a Vengeance Pudding Brownies: never make these again! Nearly impossible to stop eating.
Monday, January 19, 2009
The Week of Unending Cooking
Sunday, 1-18 (with Margit and Allistair)
Coq et Lentilles Au Vin
Bacon cooked in oven ahead of shift, then red onions and mushrooms roasted in the fat (another pan done with olive oil for the vegetarians). Chicken sliced and sauteed with salt and pepper, lentils cooked in veggie broth, wine sauce - three bottles Charles Shaw, three small cans tomato paste, veggie broth, parsley, marjoram, and thyme- also made alone, then everything mixed together in two big baking dishes, covered, and left in oven to meld. Tasted kind of boring, so I cooked four heads of minced garlic in some olive oil and split it between the two dishes around 6:30. I added the actual bacon added to chicken dish right before serving.
White Beans with Sage
A year and a half in the co-op kitchen, and I still don't have the hang of beans. These seemed hard forever, and then suddenly totally fell apart, and ended up very sludgy. And yet delicious. I mixed in a ton of powdered sage, and a little lemon juice.
Carrot Salad
Grated carrots, A lot of lemon juice, a little honey, salt, pepper, and fresh parsley
Brown Rice with Dried Parsley and Frozen Corn
Almost as easy as plain rice, but so much tastier. And a lot more likely to get eaten as leftovers.
Green Beans with Caramelized Onions and Balsamic Vinegar
Green Beans tipped and tailed and steamed. Onions cut very small and cooked as long as we had time for. Vinegar added to onions pretty late, onions and green beans tossed together in hot wok right before serving.
Cranberry Birthday Brioche with Orange Flower Syrup
Margit's baby, and extremely well done. From Paris Sweets.
Monday, 1-19 (Margit in charge, Kevin Chan assisting)
Naked Spinach Salad with Last Night's Carrots
Yay using leftovers!
Amazing Stir Fry (Broccoli/Cauliflower/Carrots/Magic?)
from one of the Alice Waters books
Roasted Garlic and Pumpkin Soup
Yay using the pumpkin!
Vegan Sweet Potato Dumplings with Sage Butter and Bechamel
This is the only dish that I worked on, having stepped in to cover part of a blown shift. These were supposed to the gnocchi, also from the Alice Waters book, but a bunch of substitutions had been made resulting in a good tasting but extremely wet dough. So we went for dumplings, simmered in veggie broth and then baked in at 450 degrees until the end of the shift because even after boiling they were still falling apart. For something that kept seeming like it might just be a disaster, these were amazingly good. Actually, even if they hadn't seemed like they were going to be a disaster, I would have been impressed. I made a brown butter sage sauce to go on them, and because I was a little worried the brown butter would also be a disaster, I threw together a quick bechamel at the same time, following the recipe from the Minimalist vegetarian book. This is the first time I've made a cream sauce for the house that's come out well. I don't know what I did differently, or what I could have screwed up all the other times, because it seemed pretty easy tonight.
Apple Brown Betty
Coq et Lentilles Au Vin
Bacon cooked in oven ahead of shift, then red onions and mushrooms roasted in the fat (another pan done with olive oil for the vegetarians). Chicken sliced and sauteed with salt and pepper, lentils cooked in veggie broth, wine sauce - three bottles Charles Shaw, three small cans tomato paste, veggie broth, parsley, marjoram, and thyme- also made alone, then everything mixed together in two big baking dishes, covered, and left in oven to meld. Tasted kind of boring, so I cooked four heads of minced garlic in some olive oil and split it between the two dishes around 6:30. I added the actual bacon added to chicken dish right before serving.
White Beans with Sage
A year and a half in the co-op kitchen, and I still don't have the hang of beans. These seemed hard forever, and then suddenly totally fell apart, and ended up very sludgy. And yet delicious. I mixed in a ton of powdered sage, and a little lemon juice.
Carrot Salad
Grated carrots, A lot of lemon juice, a little honey, salt, pepper, and fresh parsley
Brown Rice with Dried Parsley and Frozen Corn
Almost as easy as plain rice, but so much tastier. And a lot more likely to get eaten as leftovers.
Green Beans with Caramelized Onions and Balsamic Vinegar
Green Beans tipped and tailed and steamed. Onions cut very small and cooked as long as we had time for. Vinegar added to onions pretty late, onions and green beans tossed together in hot wok right before serving.
Cranberry Birthday Brioche with Orange Flower Syrup
Margit's baby, and extremely well done. From Paris Sweets.
Monday, 1-19 (Margit in charge, Kevin Chan assisting)
Naked Spinach Salad with Last Night's Carrots
Yay using leftovers!
Amazing Stir Fry (Broccoli/Cauliflower/Carrots/Magic?)
from one of the Alice Waters books
Roasted Garlic and Pumpkin Soup
Yay using the pumpkin!
Vegan Sweet Potato Dumplings with Sage Butter and Bechamel
This is the only dish that I worked on, having stepped in to cover part of a blown shift. These were supposed to the gnocchi, also from the Alice Waters book, but a bunch of substitutions had been made resulting in a good tasting but extremely wet dough. So we went for dumplings, simmered in veggie broth and then baked in at 450 degrees until the end of the shift because even after boiling they were still falling apart. For something that kept seeming like it might just be a disaster, these were amazingly good. Actually, even if they hadn't seemed like they were going to be a disaster, I would have been impressed. I made a brown butter sage sauce to go on them, and because I was a little worried the brown butter would also be a disaster, I threw together a quick bechamel at the same time, following the recipe from the Minimalist vegetarian book. This is the first time I've made a cream sauce for the house that's come out well. I don't know what I did differently, or what I could have screwed up all the other times, because it seemed pretty easy tonight.
Apple Brown Betty
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