New Year's Resolutions

I'm trying to find a way to manage my household menus, recipes and ideas.  Since I really do seem to cook seasonally, I'm hoping to use this blog to keep track of what works for my family. I'm going to work to record the weeks meals as best I can, at least for a while.  Last night we had Burgundy Beef Sandwiches (a fantastic and simple recipe from Millgate Farms) with sauteed shallots and peppers, left over scalloped potatoes and Maew's veggies with oyster sauce.  The night before it was steak sandwiches, the same veggies and a fantastic Asian shrimp noodle soup.  

The scalloped potatoes came from Christmas dinner and worked out perfectly.  I layered sliced Yukon Gold potatoes with sauteed onions and garlic then dotted with butter, cream and salt & pepper.  A sprinkling of Parmesan cheese and baked them about an hour at 350 covered in foil.  I added some more cheese at the end.

The Milgate farms beef is easy and delicious.  Cook a rump roast in a slow cooker for 8 to 10 hours with 2 cups of onions, garlic, balsamic vinegar, thyme, wine, Worcestershire sauce, salt & pepper.  Then serve it on little rolls.  Great stuff!

I'm on quite an Asian noodle soup kick.  I made a great duck soup for dinner with the relatives the other night.  The recipe goes like this - make a great stock, add some onions or leeks, garlic, some kind of greens - bok choy, kale, cabbage, Asian greens - anything leafy, protein - duck or shrimp or Trader Joe's pork & cilantro mini dumplings, Asian noodles if you don't use the dumplings.  Season the soup with lime, fish sauce and some soy sauce.  Add chilies if you like it hot.  Mushrooms and seaweed are great as well. 

Ramen

So the sweet husband made the complicated Ramen broth from the Momofuku cookbook & then it was up to me to make the soup.  Luckily he had followed Momofuku's instructions and made the pulled pork already.  I took his fancy broth, added the bok choy from the bag, scallions, the pork, a touch of lime juice and fresh cilantro and made the family some soup.   We still had two gallon bags of ramen broth and a vat of soup after dinner was over (and no uncooked bok choy!)  Everyone over eight liked it, no one under eight tried it. 

Woon Sen

My 9 year old is a huge fan of her Thai aunt's noodle dish, Woon Sen.  For some reason, I have had a terrible time making it correctly.  The ingredients are not familiar enough to me to be able to wing it, but still after several lessons & email exchanges you would think I could figure it out.  Perhaps the language barrier was holding me back!  

Sophie spent a week with her aunt at the beach and came home determined to help me make it correctly.  We worked together & finally made it up to her discerning standards.   We boiled the ground pork in a little bit of water.  Soaked the "dried fungus" in water. Wow, does that fungus expand in water!  We mixed chopped onions, chopped (now undried) fungus, chopped cilantro, sugar and "vegetable seasoning" (MSG, i think), lime juice and fish sauce in a bowl, added the pork and then had to figure out if the noodles were to be boiled in the pork water or new water, we went with a combination of both & boiled the glass noodles.  Then we added them to the mixture in the bowl, adjusted the lime & fish sauce and Sophie declared it perfect.  The mixture, however, was not authentic because Sophie prefers it without thai chilies.  I added some to mine. 

Thai Red Curry

I was planning to make a Thai Green Curry, but I didn't have any green curry paste, so a red curry would have to do.  I cubed and salted the eggplant and simmered it in the red curry, coconut milk, lime and fish sauce.   The addition of the lime and fish sauce really cut the harsh taste that comes with the commercial curry paste.   I added green beans and shrimp after the eggplant was soft and served it over basmanti rice.  I didn't miss the green curry after all.

Publish Post

Asian week

I found some beautiful eggplant at the market today.  We have Ramen on the menu, which has noodles and pork shoulder and we will serve that with last weeks bok choy which is still in the fridge.  The same 9 year old has requested her Thai aunt's noodle dish which has cilantro, ground pork, pickled garlic, lime juice and fish sauce.  Neither of these are going to put a dent in these veggies.  Her friend requested bi bim bop, which was a favorite in early spring.  For the fourth dish, I think we will use the eggplant to make a thai green curry noodle dish with green beans and summer squash.   Steak salad for lunch and maybe some chicken salad as well.  That will put a dent in that bag.

Ramen

Our 9 year old requested Ramen this week.   She says her mom makes great food but her dad makes really complicated stuff.  Ramen certainly falls into that category!  He makes the stock in a long process which involves simmering konbu (kelp) in water, removing the konbu adding mushrooms, removing the mushrooms, adding a chicken, removing the chicken, adding roasted pork bones, removing the bones and adding a pound of bacon, removing the bacon and simmering some veggies in there.   Crazy stuff, you would never find me making something that complicated.  But wow is it wonderful when he is done.

Blueberry pancakes

This week we had (among other things) blueberries and whole wheat flour in the bag.  The New Basics cookbook had a great blueberry pancake recipe with cinnamon,nutmeg, vanilla, lemon zest and brown sugar.   The pancakes were amazing with real maple syrup.  The 3 year old loved them.