Weekly Kitchen Travels

Something to look forward to...

2010-06-25T15:53:00.003-05:00

Well, its been a hectic as all get out last couple of weeks...have hardly cooked a meal, and I'm having withdrawls....however there is a bright spot in my future. I have this that I pieced together and can't wait to use it. Any ideas as to what it could be?

Quick Note

2010-06-08T22:57:00.000-05:00

Well with everything going on in the next week and a half, its going to be tough for me to get into the kitchen. Didn't want you to think I'd given up already, we will be back and hard at in soon. So keep in touch.

The Fiancee's Turn To Cook: Chilled Carrot Soup and Spring Rolls

2010-06-06T00:01:00.013-05:00

If you remember from the Mad Kitchen Chef's last blog entry, the fiancee was going to cook the next meal of Chilled Carrot Soup and Spring Rolls. That's me, Jenifleur. And I took the challenge and had a blast cooking, after I got through a few little bumps along the road. Let me give you a little background.

Right now, we live between two homes. Mad KC lives in a home with a decent kitchen full of supplies, and I live in a smaller apartment and my kitchen occassional lacks a few items we need for cooking from time to time. Usually what I don't have Mad KC has, and we shuffle between two kitchens. Well, we did some shuffling of supplies on Friday morning, in hopes I'd have almost everything to cook with besides a few ingredients that I was to pick up at the grocery store. So I went to the store and picked up orange juice, chicken broth, a jalepeno, and ginger for the Chilled Carrot Soup and went home. Later, I got a text message from Mad KC who was at work. "Honey, I forgot to pack the hand blender for the soup!" Oops! Long story short, I called my mother to see if she had one that I could borrow. Nope. No luck. But she told me if I bought one she'd buy it from me. Problem solved, and off to the store I went. I picked up a nice little Hamilton Beach Hand Blender that has two speeds and a case to store it in for a very reasonable price! With blender in hand, I was able to finish the soup. This was the first time I've ever used a hand blender and thought this one did the trick very well!

As for the next item on the menu. Chicken Stuffed Vegetable Spring Rolls was another item I've never made in my life! The recipe was easy to follow, until I got to the part where you wrap the rice paper spring roll wrappers. How the heck do you do this?! I panicked. I wanted to have them wrapped by the time Mad KC was done with work so we could eat fairly soon after he arrived. Hmm. How about YouTube I thought. Sure enough. I found a great how-to video.

Once I got going on making the Spring Rolls, I rather enjoyed making them. Lucky for me this video showed me how to wet the type of crispy rice papers we had and how to roll up the spring rolls. Piece of cake! To spice them up and give some extra kick, I added a bit of Sriracha (HOT Chili Sauce). And instead of using chicken, we substituted pork because that's what we had to use.

Yeah, but how did it all taste? It came together well. Both items shared one same ingredient...ginger. After Chinese Cuisine Week this week and using ginger in most of our recipes, I have to admit that I love the taste of it. There was a light hint of ginger with the cabbage and carrots in the Spring Rolls. And in the Chilled Carrot Soup I could taste the hint the ginger fused with the sweet coconut milk and bit of jalepeno. It really got the pallette going! Overall the pairing of these two recipes did well together. (Great thinking Honey!) And most of all, I was happy that we didn't have to order pizza on my turn in the kitchen!

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for Mad Kitchen Chef's next recipe pick!

Jenifleur (The fiancee)

The Recipes I used for Friday:

Chilled Carrot Soup - For two people, I cut this recipe in half

Chicken and Vegetable Spring Rolls - You can substitute pork for chicken or any other meat filling, if desired. Or leave meat and substitute other veggies or peanuts for vegetarian spring rolls!

If case you are interested in the Hamilton Beach Hand Blender...

End of Chinese Week?

2010-06-03T21:48:00.003-05:00

Well the last meal I had planned for the week was tonight, Ginger Beef with Beef Lo Mein. The Lo Mein reminded me of college and cheap ramen noodles, but a little better flavor to them. I needed to marinade the Ginger Beef a little bit longer than I did, could have used a solid hour or so. Also, and important lesson, I can't over load my fryers at work, but I can overload my wok on my home stove. Don't try to cook too much at one time, especially when frying...

Now I'm out of ideas for this week, however we have a little coconut milk left from Tuesday night, so my fiance is going to be using that to make a chilled carrot soup and spring rolls tomorrow evening. Should be fun and interesting. See you later....

Need an idea for next week....maybe one you would like to visit...

Oh yeah, recipes
Ginger Beef Beef LoMein

Tonight's Supper

2010-06-01T22:20:00.005-05:00

Tonight we had Shrimp with Coconut Milk, Chinese Green Beans, and Egg Drop Soup. It was a tasty meal. The Egg Drop Soup again was something I have done before; chicken stock, soy sauce, garlic, ginger, and green onions. Then as you stir it drizzle in whipped eggs. I read a three page article on egg drop soup and how they should be...my opinion, taste is more important than the appearance. The fresh green beans stir fried with hoisin sauce, soy sauce, garlic, ginger, and green onions was a wonderful Chinese flavor.

Now the Shrimp with Coconut Milk was very good, had a little tomatoes for acidity, rice vinegar, rice wine(SAKI!!!), Its just not the Chinese flavor I'm used to, I might be wrong, but when I think coconut milk flavors I lean towards Thai foods. I don't know, maybe someone out there can clear it up for me. Problem is I now have about 4/5ths of a can of coconut milk that's going to go to waste unless I can find something to do with it....Ideas???

Here are the recipes I used tonight
Shrimp with Coconut Milk
Chinese Green Beans

A Little Side Trip

2010-05-30T22:36:00.005-05:00

Well last night I made a little General Tso's chicken, with fried rice and steamed broccoli. This was the 3rd time I've made this dish, and it gets a little easier and better each time I make it. I do like it much better than most take out that I have had, the chicken is more tender, and the sauce has a nice ginger/orange flavor with just a bit of heat. Looking forward to the new dishes the rest of this week as Chinese is one of my favorite cuisines as of now.

Now for the side trip, my Fiance had her 30th birthday today, she is just slightly obsessed with France and French things. She had been asking for a crepe pan for a while, but the only ones I've seen are about $60-80 a piece, I found a nice little one for much less. So while I was cooking last night, got out a blender and made the basic sweet crepe recipe courtesy of Alton Brown. These were fairly simple to make and tasty. We added some berries and the Whipped Vanilla Yogurt she had in the fridge. Nice, light and tasty.

Well, back to China on Tuesday with Shrimp in Coconut Milk...see ya then

Something is missing

2010-05-29T16:55:00.003-05:00

So Thursday night after much running around and doing stuff for our new house we finally got home and started supper. A nice light Cucumber and Onion Salad with just a little vinegar for a dressing and Tarragon Ragout over mashed potatoes. Oops, didn't have any tarragon, so just used some of the dill left over from the cucumber salad, was very nice.

I'm really starting to love the taste of shallots, have used them a few times now, and they create a nice smoky, oniony, garlicy, flavor. As a side note, I do like the flavor of dill and use it with other things, but when its in the salad, the mashed potatoes, and the meat and sauce over said potatoes, got to be a little bit of an over kill for me.

Next week is Chinese food, starting with something I've made 3 or 4 times now, General Tso's Chicken. The Shrimp with Coconut milk(sauce?), Green Beans, and my Egg Drop Soup, then Ginger Beef and Lo Mein later in the week. Might take a side trip between now and then but we'll just have to see.

No snappy catch phrase to leave ya with this time...Take care.

Food's Gone

2010-05-27T08:51:00.003-05:00

So Tuesday night, had a couple of friends come and join us for supper, and the roommate, plus the two of us. Sauerbraten is gone, potato dumplings gone, head of cabbage, well half gone. This was a simple meal to make in all regards, just took some cooking time and planning. Kinda nice, was looking at a couple of menu's for German restaurants in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, both serve the same items I made.

The beef was great, pretty much just fell apart, after it sat on the stove for 4 hours cooking in the red wine, making the house smell like a drunk. Pulled it out, pulled it apart and covered it in the sauce made with said red wine, little ketchup/katsup/catsup(whatever), raisins, and ginger snap cookies.

The potato dumplings were alright, different than what I have had in the past, but tasty. Two things, now that I own a potato ricer, need to find a couple more things to do with it(fruit, what would go through one of those well?), and two, why I took fresh bread, turn that into a crouton, then stuck that in the middle of the dumpling. When it was done cooking the bread was kinda mushy so I don't think it was for texture. Any ideas.

The cabbage was really good, then again anything cooked with bacon and bacon fat, simmered in wine, can't taste that bad....can it?

I really did enjoy this meal, the company was good as well. Tonight could be interesting....the fiance is going to be cooking as I have a meeting so the menu is....
http://germanfood.about.com/od/meatbasedrecipesandmenu/r/estragongeschn.htm
http://germanfood.about.com/od/middaymealmittagessen/r/cucumbsalad.htm
served with some mashed potatoes.

I give her a hard time about cooking, but she does a great job....so until we try this stuff(stealing a line from a local restaurant ad)... SIT DOWN UND EAT!!!

Supper is going...

2010-05-25T13:37:00.003-05:00

So, got supper started for tonight, Sauerbraten, Kartoffelklose, and Rotkohl. Got the roast sitting in a pot of wine, the potato dumplings are all formed up, just waiting a bit to get the bacon going for the cabbage. Oh and we decided to have guests over tonight to help eat it.

If you're wondering I am not a chef, I don't claim to be a chef, and don't plan on becoming a chef. I just enjoy cooking. I want other people to get the courage to cook on their own and enjoy food instead of the mass produced, served with a side of fries food we are used to.

The recipes for tonight are all located at About.com

http://germanfood.about.com/od/meatbasedrecipesandmenu/r/sauerbraten-2.htm

http://germanfood.about.com/od/potatoesandnoodles/r/kartoffkloesse.htm
http://germanfood.about.com/od/saladsandsides/r/redcabbage.htm

I'll let ya know how it goes later....enjoy the food!

My First Ever Blog

2010-05-23T20:16:00.002-05:00

So anyways, thought I'd give this a shot, blogging that is, as I've watched my house get built via the Blog that my Girl Friend, now Fiance started 2 months ago when we purchased a house together.

So a little about me, and by me I mean us. She travels a lot for her job....eats out too much. I work(live) in a restaurant, don't want to go out and eat in them any more. So we decided to start cooking as much as we can, not only from the flavor stand point, but the variety, the health, and the cost. So to make this even feasible to do with the life style that society has these days, go go go go go go go, we try to do a few things to make this possible. First, we set the menu for the week, we picked Sundays to do this, just because by then we know what the week is going to bring, have a decent idea of nights that we just might not be able to actually cook something, and days we'll have more time to be more elaborate. Second, get that list together and go shopping for it...that night, found out the first week, it took a couple of trips, forgot to do side dishes, couldn't find this or that etc..., added more stuff to the menu. It sucked a bit but as we get used to doing this it is going to get easier, plus we'll start having a stocked pantry instead of having to buy everything every time we want to cook. Also, sometimes coming from a smaller community compared to other parts of the world, might not find everything you need in one place.

So as for the travels part, thought it would be fun to put together menus each week that are based on a region of the country, or the globe for that matter. A chance to get out and explore the community you live in, and a chance to try food you've never made before.

The first week we selected Mexican fare, mainly because I was looking through a cookbook saw a recipe for Chile Rellenos, had just recently had them at a new place, and wanted to give them a shot. We added a Mexican rice dish as a side and put these together on Tuesday night. Learned to not be scared of roasting peppers, let them get black, much easier to peel, and, learned that we need some gloves when working with said peppers. They were very good, and tasted great. Problem though, we made 8 stuffed chilies, and we were stuffed after 4, so the rice went into the bottom of a baking dish, and the chilies on top, with some extra cheese, supper for Friday.

The only other night we had a chance to really cook was Thursday, I gave tamales a chance. Will have to say they were the best tamales I ever had...never had them before. I had a little inspiration from my cooking idol, Alton Brown. Love the guy, and the show, part of the reason I did tamales, and it doesn't take that long to actually roll them, but would do a full batch and freeze them next time. Added some re-fried pinto beans to the mix and it was a great dinner. Desert, we roasted some plantains with a little cinamon, rum, vanilla, and brown sugar. Mental note: Gotta let the plantains turn at least a little bit yellow before eating them. The flavor was good, the texture was just pretty rough.

Oh yeah, Friday night, left overs, great idea, peppers were wonderful, rice was moist, and cheese, well that's always good.

Hoping to add more detail to each meal as I get used to doing this, just wanted to start one up, see if I spark anyone's interest, and want you to just try cooking...what's the worst thing that can happen (burning down your house doesn't count as that is just stupidity)? It sucks, taste like crap and you end up ordering a pizza.

Next week teaser - German food(heck she made Knoephla soup for us today as a starter). See ya Tuesday night.