Applesauce

I was never really fanatical about applesauce until my Grandma introduced me to homemade applesauce. Quick to prepare, amazingly delicious and a great dessert any time, I am hooked!

Buy a bunch of gravensteen (green ish) apples, maybe throw in a red or other one for variety. You don't want to make this out of grocery store apples, get the good stuff from a farmer, farmer's market or pick your own.

1. Wash and peel the apples. No need to be perfect, just get most of the peel off.
2. Core and cut into 1 inch or smaller chunks. The pieces don't have to be uniform either.
3. Toss apples in large pan, with a sprinkling of water (I used 1/4 C with 4-5 apples, seemed to work fine). You can always add more water.
4. Cook the apples, covered, on medium heat, until they break down and become apple-saucy texture. This happens after the bubbling and frothy stage.
5. Add a tablespoon of sugar if you need it and stir to dissolve.
6. Take the pan off the heat and stir in a tad bit of vanilla
7. Serve!

Japanese Sauteed Chicken Slices- BBQ Style

From what I call the bible of Japanese cooking, I adapted this recipe for "tori no usugiriyaki". Absolutely fantastic!! The best chicken I've had in years!!

I think it would be good with a little grated ginger added to the marinade, but really this is perfect as is.

Marinade
Combine in a bowl for marinating:
1 tea tahini
1/4 C minced green onion
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 TB soy sauce
1 TB honey
2 TB sesame oil
1/4 tea cracked black pepper

Add 1-2 thinly sliced chicken breasts and marinate 20+ minutes.

In a hot pan with a little olive oil, fry the chicken slices until golden on each slide. It will spatter, but you need the pan hot enough to cook the chicken to the right texture. I use long "cooking" style chopsticks to turn the pieces without getting hit with oil.

Repeat cooking until all chicken is cooked.

Serve over mixed brown/wild rice.

Alfredo Sauce

After many years of mystery, I finally gave the traditional recipes for Alfredo/white sauce a try. The idea of raw flour in a saucepan is scary no more!
This is a basic recipe outline, you can substitute all you want- I've even used rice milk+ yogurt instead of the milk (and it was good)!

1. melt 2 TB butter over low heat
2. add chopped garlic, shallots etc.
3. add 2 TB flour, cook gently over low heat until the flour cooks, shouldn't smell raw anymore. This takes 2 minutes? Pass the clumpy stage, it will get creamy- this is what you want.
4. Add liquids (milk and white wine). I do this in two steps so that each warms up....

Add 1-2 C milk or some combo of rice milk, milk, yogurt, veggie broth... cooking times to get the sauce to thicken will depend on the thickness of your "milk" product here.

Add 1/4- 1/2 C white wine. I use the cheapy $4 a bottle stuff, "sauvingon blanc"

5. Now you have a sauce, so you can add your veggies. I like to add sliced mushrooms. Cook until the sauce is thickened and your veggies are tender.

Serve over pasta, poultry, whatever!

Soba Noodles with Dipping Sauce

This is one of our favorites- healthy light meal that is pretty quick to prepare. It pairs well with high fat or heavy foods like tempura. I learned how to bundle the soba noodles from my Japanese host mom- it's not as easy as it looks!

The easiest way to make dashi (Japanese soup stock) is to let konbu (kelp) and katsuokushi (fish flakes) sit in water overnight. See the JustHungry blog for details, the Cold Water Method.

Soba Dipping Sauce
Mix over low heat until dissolved:
1/3 C soy sauce
1 TB sugar

Then add 3 C dashi (see JustHungry blog for recipes & instructions)
Heat to a slight simmer

Cool in fridge if you want cold dipping sauce for the cold noodles.

Meanwhile, prepare soba noodles according to the package directions. Mine cooked for 6 minutes. Once the noodles are cooked, drain in a colander. Rinse with cold water, then add the noodles and cold water to a large pot (I re-use the pot I cooked them in) and swish until the noodles are cold. This may take a change of water to cool them down.

In order to form the soba noodles into nice little bundles, do NOT strain the water from the noodles!

The easiest method is to grab a chunk of noodles in the water between your thumb and forefinger. Then swish the noodles until they are somewhat untangled.

Pull this untangled group of strands out of the water with the middle of the strands on your forefinger. Use your other had to wrap both ends around your finger, forming a loose O shape.

Place soba rings on a plate or a soba draining basket and serve with bowls of the dipping sauce.

Hiyashi Chuuka- JPN/Chinese Summer Noodle Salad

After first tasting this dish at my host family's house in Japan, I am hooked. Cold noodles, dressing, thinly sliced veggies, sliced omlette....

http://www.justhungry.com/2006/07/hiyashi_chuuka.html

The basic idea is to cook chinese egg noodles until al-dente, then drain and rinse in cold water, drain again.

Top with thinly sliced veggies, sliced omelette pieces, and drizzle soy sauce/sesame oil over the top. I sprinkle smashed peanuts over the top, with some pepper.

Good Indian Cooking Websites

I've been cruising the web and reading cookbooks (instead of blogging, I know I've been bad)....

Great "authentic" Indian website (with strange non-cooking topics... I'm not sure how everything is related, but I like the recipes section!)
http://www.indiacurry.com/

This Indian cooking site seems good, but I'm a little intimidated by the ingredient names...
http://www.indianfoodrecipes.net/

Thai Peanut Curry with Shrimp

I've been on a library cookbook binge lately. I checked out a somewhat esoteric Thai cookbook that I hadn't thought I would actually use. Then I realized that despite the hopelessly complicated entree recipes, the "basics" sections contain good recipes for curries and sauces.

I adapted one such basic recipe for peanut curry and poured the resulting sauce over sauteed shrimp (with pepper, seasonsing salt and paprika) and rice.

Thai Peanut Curry Sauce

Grind up in food processor:
red onion
5 cloves garlic
1 serrano chile (it will be hot, if you can't handle it, skip)
1.5 inch galangal root (cut up first)

Then add:
stalk of lemongrass (do a google search for how best to cut it up)
2 TB roasted peanuts
1TB lime zest
1 tea chili paste
2 TB peanut butter


Dry roast in skillet for 10 minutes (medium heat but shake to prevent burning):
1 TB corriander (ground or seeds)
1 TB cumin seeds

Mix all of the above (onion stuff from processor + spices) with:
1 tea white peper
1 TB salt
1/2 tea turmeric

You can do all the above to make the curry paste ahead of time, keep it in the fridge.

Heat 2/3 C coconut cream in pan. Then add the curry paste.

Add & bring to boil:
1/2 C palm sugar (use a cheese grater to make it mix-able, or you could use granulated, but palm tastes better)
2 TB fish sauce
1 can coconut milk

Add & simmer:
chillies, to taste
3 kaffir lime leaves, thinly sliced
chopped roasted peanuts

Serve sauce over anything tasty!

Almond Flour Cupcakes with Chocolate Buttercream

Needing a delectable and pretty treat for my mom's birthday, I adapted an old standby cake recipe for "Silver White Cake" (probably written before my birth) into this marvelously fluffly cake. Then I added a chocolate frosting recipe from an old Cook's Illustrated magazine. It's really quite a shame I don't have a picture.

Almond Cake

Mix in standing mixer on low speed, scraping down the sides:
3/4 C almond flour ("almond meal"- you can buy it at Trader Joes)
1.5 C cake flour
1 to 1.25 C sugar
3.5 tea baking powder
1 tea salt
1/2 C butter
1 C milk (I used 1/2 C rice milk + 1/2 C half-&-half: ironic I know)
1 tea almond extract

Then speed up to high and beat 2 minutes. Literally, set a timer for the 2 minutes. This whips the batter up, which translates to a fluffy cake.

Add 3 eggs, beat 2 more minutes at high speed. Then add a couple ounces of finely chopped bittersweet chocolate and stir carefully. The chocolate bits melt ever so perfectly and speckle the cupcakes when baked.

Pour batter into cupcake pans with paper liners. Bake at 350 F for about 20 minutes.

Chocolate "Ganache"- type Frosting
Enough frosting for cupcakes

I really like this recipe since it tastes amazing and doesn't require pounds of powdered sugar. Plus, it whips up in the food processor, so you don't have to rush to clean your standing mixer to make it.

Process in food processor for about 30 seconds:
10TB butter (or 1.25 STICKS)
1/3 C powered sugar (if you like it super sweet, you can use 1/2 cup)
1/3 cocoa (dutch processed)
pinch salt

Add & process 5-10 seconds:
1/3 C honey or corn syrup (the honey had a great flavor with the chocolate, but was a little grainer than what you'd expect from corn syrup- your choice)
1/2 tea vanilla

Add 4 oz melted chocolate ( I like bittersweet, but whatever works). Process using the "pulse" button until smooth.

This frosting is the perfect consistency for piping on the cupcakes with a star tip.

Thai Pineapple Cashew Raisin Fried Rice

It is a perfect use of old rice left over in the fridge, but if you can't wait til then (like me!), just cook the rice with a little less water and let it rest with the lid off for 5-10 minutes before starting. Basically you don't want the rice too wet/sticky-- this makes *nasty* fried rice-- so prepare it a little dry in this case.

I had a craving for this fried rice and adapted from this recipe: http://thaifood.about.com/od/thairecipesstepbystep/ss/pineapplerice.htm

1. Prep the rice: add a little oil to the rice (up to 1 Tbsp.) and mix. This should separate the grains- another step in combating gooey fried rice.

2. Place 3 Tbsp. olive oil in a wok or large frying pan over medium-high heat. Add the shallots, garlic, 3 dried chilis and ½ tea chili paste, and stir fry for one minute, or until fragrant.

3. Add 3 eggs, fry into thin pieces and break up the big chunks with a spoon.

4. Add the SPICES (you can measure ahead of time):
½ tea curry powder
1 tea fish sauce (or vegetarian fish sauce)
½ tea White Pepper
1.25 tea coriander (ground)
½ tea black pepper
1/3 C soy sauce
½ tea seasoning salt
1 TB lime juice
1 tea brown sugar (optional)
1/4 tea tamarind concentrate (optional)

5. Add cashews, stir fry for a couple minutes
6. Add oiled rice. Mix until spices are uniformly spread and break up rice lumps.

7. Add frozen peas, currents (or raisins), and pineapple. Stir fry to mix in.

8. Keep heating a few more minutes- the rice should be getting a little crispy at the bottom.

Thai Salad with Rice Noodles

This was *really* good. Made a huge batch, enough to feed probably 7 hungry men. Or lots of leftovers for us! I found it in a Bon Appetit magazine and made my own adjustments.

The prep takes a while, so it's a good do-ahead or potluck type thing. Just don't cook the rice noodles ahead- they will dry out.

Make the dressing in a food processor or blender:
4 or more cloves garlic
1/4 C soy sauce  
1/3 fresh lime juice (it took 1.75 limes for me to squeeze that much)  
2 TB sugar (I used brown sugar)  
1 TB peanut butter  
2 tea grated ginger  
1.25 tea hot chili paste "sambal oelek"  
1/4 C veggie oil

Prep by slicing, cutting, or pulling apart:
roasted chicken 
 3 C shredded purple cabbage  
1 C grated carrot
1/2 C thinly sliced red onion  
1 cucumber, halved then thinly sliced
handful of basil leaves, sliced


Assembly:
Mix the chicken, cabbage, carrot, onion, cuke, basil in a large bowl. Drizzle most of the dressing in and mix. Serve on a bed of cooked rice noodles (3 minutes in boiling water) and top with 1/3 C roasted salted peanuts, chopped.