Chilled green soup

a.k.a. Fridge cleaning before the veggies go bad.

It is the middle of another goddamn Houston summer so most nights I want the coldest, simplest food possible. Inspired by this NPR article on the subject, I set out to salvage a few items of produce that were getting kind of old:

1. 2 zucchini
2. 1 bunch parsley
3. 1 head roasted garlic



Shown here still in the pot, cuz I'm lazy. With lazy chunks of homemade bread.

Chunked everything up and boiled directly (adding parsley at the very end of cooking), didn't brown the veggies or use lemon as per the article's directives.
Once cooked, the pot of boiled veggies actually sat in my fridge for a few days before I got around to blending and seasoning...I waited to add salt until after I'd tasted the cold version, as cold tends to blunt flavors and you typically need more seasoning to get your point across. Also added a touch of half-and-half (aka remnants of cream and a glug of milk) while blending to round out the salt+green flavor.

It tastes really fresh (huge bunch of parsley). And cold. mmmm.

Shrimp and Garlic Chive Flowers

Had leftover shrimp from making spring rolls and bought chive flowers at the market.



Shrimp:

marinate in chopped garlic, grated ginger, a little salt and about a tablespoon or two of corn starch. I also added the bottoms of the chive flowers chopped up fine and a tablespoon of chinese cooking wine and a little white pepper. mix together, should be a little ooblicky. Basically this sits around while you cook the chive flowers or whatever veggies you're having that day. Stir fry for about 7 minutes or until pink on the outside.

Chive flowers:

Chop into manageable strips - 2 inches? um. Stir fry all but the tops. salt. pepper. uhhh until tender. 5...minutes? add tops and cook about two minutes more. om nom.

Nostalgia Dinner

Apparently I get the urge to make Hong Shao Rou about once a year. This time I fried up the pork belly in caramelized sugar and oil and it really brought out the color and sweetness I remembered.

So along with the pot of porky coronary failure are the little side dishes.



Chinese broccoli. Steamed for about five minutes with a little garlic and then topped with oyster sauce. They have delicious crunchy stems and well. Sometimes you need veggies.



Braised eggs. Softboil eggs, peel carefully, and then tuck into the braising liquid of the pork. They get all brown and porky and delicious, and if you keep the braising temperature low enough, they don't get all chalky in the middle.


Bao! Because sometimes you need something to dip into the pork belly sauce or make a pork belly sammich.

I think the recipe I used was

1/2 c warm water
1 packet's equivalent of yeast
about a tablespoon of lump sugar
3/4 c milk
1 T butter
3 c flour (or enough flour to make a smooth dough)

combine warm water, yeast, sugar milk and butter. Let sit for 10 minutes. Mix in flour. Knead until smooth. Let rest for an hour and a half. Punch down. Let rise another hour. Form into little buns. place in steamer. Let proof for 15 minutes. Steam for 10 minutes. Eat.

I lay down moist paper towel and spray with pam in the steamer. Helps with the release. traditionally napa cabbage is used, but I didn't have any on hand.







Now have lunch for a few days, a little vat of cooking fat, and HI I THINK WE'RE BACK.

http://www.culinaryescapade.com/?p=450

but we left out half a cup of sugar and substituted half of the heavy cream with coconut milk and 2 cups of all purpose flour and one cup of cake flour.

3 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
a pinch of salt
1 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
4 eggs
1 tbsp grated lime zest
1 cup heavy cream (35%)
3/4 cup dark rum (Tortuga if you can get it, if not any good dark rum will do)

Hot Pot pt 1 (broth)

Okay. Tonight I am starting the hot pot broth and I will kick myself later if I don't write this down right as I'm doing it. In this bigass pot I have

1 lb pork soup bones (lots of knuckles and neck)
2 large fat carrots cut into diagonal chunks(4 or 5 normal sized ones, these were the freak asian market ones)
1 lemon grass stem cut into diagonal chunks
2 inches of galangal root sliced thick
a half dollar sized knob of ginger sliced thick
half a head of garlic
1 tomato, sliced into wedges
2 stalks of celery
1 onion sliced into half moons
1 Tb Szechwan peppercorns
2 Tb salt
1 Tb sesame oil
2 Tb chinese cooking wine
water to the top of the pot

let simmer overnight and reevaluate.

This morning I added another large knob of galangal, more salt, an extra lemongrass stem and another inch or two of ginger.

Asian slaw

uh. hi. Yeah I know I've been bad. But I've been trying to cut down on dishes that are bad for me and cream heavy and meat heavy and I finally made something delicious that boys will eat that is also delicious.

I hated cole slaw. Forever. I mean. It was just scary. Turns out, more mayo issues! So we had this at our friend's parent's house and it was delicious and I made a version out of whtaever leftovers we had.

Essentially, if you ever feel like slicing things up really thin



Or just grating things for a while. make this.

I used half a cabbage, a large carrot, 4 sprigs of green onion, two crimini mushrooms and a handful of peanuts for the slaw itself. And the shredded leftovers of a roast chicken from earlier in the week, but this can be omitted to make this a vegetarian dish.

For the dressing i used 1 garlic clove, 1 tablespoon of sesame oil, a teaspoon of black vinegar, a tablespoon of rice wine, 2 tablespoons of soy sauce and blended it all together. I'm going to have to play around with these ratios, but it should make enough to toss the slaw in. you can also vary ratios to taste. I tend to like things a little soy saucey and a little tangy. Ginger is good if you have it and a little black pepper. You can add a touch of sugar if you want, but i think the vegetables work well for sweetness on their own.

Other things you can add if you have it: cilantro, mint, bean sprouts, sriracha, citrus juice.

Toss all together. can sit around let the flavors meld but man I just ate it two minutes after I was done mixing it and it's way too tasty for raw cabbage.

Rugelach

Ruuuuugelach. Rugelach rugelach rugelach.

regular rugelach (apricot-walnut-raisin):



chocolate-walnut-nutella rugelach:



how to ruge your lach:
















RUUUUGELAAAACH

Recipe courtesy of Epicurious.com Modified to chocolate version by me. I recommend using less filling than stated in the original recipe, as it oozed everywhere while baking.