What's for Lunch 1/6/2010

My fiance despises asian food. I have a soft spot for it, especially when I make it at home. I recently found a recipe for a peanut sauce and rice stick noodles and set out to make it. I wasn't 100% about the peanut sauce because the recipe was peanut butter, soy sauce and vegetable broth mostly. That's a combo I'd never have come up with. I made the sauce per my Betty Crocker Cookbook. It made about a half a cup. I made the sauce ahead of time and stored in a jar in the fridge.

Today, upon returning from work, I warmed up some sauteed peppers (also sauteed ahead of time), sauteed a piece of cut up flank steak, and boiled some rice stick noodles. I heated up a couple dollups of sauce too. Mixed them together on a plate and feasted!

Recipe for Peanut Sauce:
1/2 c smooth peanut butter
2 T Soy Sauce
1t ginger
1/2t crushed red pepper
1/2 c vegetable or chicken broth

Rice Stick Noodles:
bring water to boil
boil rice stick noodles for 1 min


Evaluation of lunch:

Peanut Sauce: It didn't look like a lot of sauce when I put it on the steak,peppers and noodles, but it packed a very flavorful punch. I could definitely have halved the amount of sauce I gave myself and not lost any flavor. It had a definite peanut butter taste but with a surprise spiciness from the crushed red pepper.

The noodles : I didn't separate them well enough so some noodles weren't quite fully cooked. Overall they weren't too bad though.

I would definitely make this lunch for myself again. I thoroughly enjoyed my asian inspired lunch. The steak I added was an excellent addition for protein.

New kitchen gadgets

I now have a food processer and a coffee grinder. Hope to post about learning to use them soon!

Happy New Year!

Goals: 1x per week I will post a What's for dinner? post.

Any time I try a new recipe, I will blog it. And hopefully add a picture

Recently tried recipes I need to post about soon:
-- Lemon Angel Food bites
-- Crock pot hot beef
-- my own little chicken pasta casserole

What's for dinner 12/1/09

Tonight I fell back on my go to quick meal: Cheesy Pork and Rice a Roni skillet.

Not the most exciting dinner ever, but it takes about 25 minutes to make and is a good way to get a quick dinner without a whole lot of work. One could also probably add their own veggies to the dish to make it more interesting.

Directions:
1) brown and season pork chops based on flavor of Rice A Roni used.
2) start preparing Rice A Roni according to directions on box.
3) when rice is at the simmering stage, add pork chops
4) simmer per directions
5) when there is about 1 minute left, cover with cheese (cheddar or cheddar/colby/mozz mix).
6) Let stand 1 minute or until cheese is melted.

What's for dinner 11/23/09

Tonight's menu:

Wisconsin Walleye Au Gratin
Parmesan roasted Broccoli
Long Grain and Wild Rice Rice-a-Roni

2 easy recipes + 1 new recipe. I've never made walleye, let alone au gratin walleye....

Easy or hard? Scale 1 (easy)-10 (hard): 3.
I've never poached fish before. Lacking a scoop strainer, I used a large pot and a run of the mill colander. I heated the water, dropped in the colander, put the fish in there. After the 3-4 minutes per recipe of poaching, I simply lifted the strainer out. It worked perfectly!

Taste evaluation: Scale 1-10: 6. Good flavor where sauce collected. Thicker areas of just fish were on the bland side. But I'd definitely make it again. I've had walleye in restaurants and never really cared for it, but this made me ok with eating walleye.

I think the contrast of the fish + the Rice a Roni (v. little flavor) + the very flavorful broccoli was balanced. It was nice to see a plate with a variety of color on it!

What's for dinner? 11/16

I think tonight I'm trying out twice baked potatoes. I found a recipe on Allrecipes.com and I have the ingredients. First time I've ever made these, but the reviews are favorable....

Also trying out a breaded pork chop recipe from allrecipes.com.

Thoughts while cooking:
Impressions of twice baked potato recipe: I only did 2 baked potatoes so halving the ingredients should have worked, but i think the potato to creamy ratio may be off as a result.

Impressions of breaded pork chops: super easy-fast recipe. I need more fast recipes like this, especially when I go back to working.

Results:

Twice baked potatoes: I accidentally added the amount of salt for the full recipe. That coupled with the bacon bits I used instead of real bacon meant that they're a bit too salty. But after baking them for the 15 minutes, they turned out FABULOUS! I will definitely be making these again!!!! Not too salty, although next time i will try reducing the salt.

Pork Chops: Also quite good! Another winner for recipes!

Adventures in cooking

I haven't been posting, obviously. Been cooking. Just not posting. But today I would like to start this blog up again.

Since the last post, a lot has changed.

I have a house with a real kitchen and quality appliances. It's been so long since I've used a nice smooth top stove and an oven that's not 25 degrees or more off!

I am no longer employed. This has been the biggest life change thus far. For the first time I'm not earning my keep and it sucks. It does allow me to cook more often though! Coming up with what to make though is still a daily battle.

I recently discovered The BareFoot Contessa shows on Food Network. I usually don't watch cooking shows because I never remember the recipes anyway, but one day I stumbled on it. I found a couple gems so far that have been added to my recipes.

I'm still working on good recipes for fish.

I'm still trying to figure out how to eat healthily and not eat out of the home so much.

Things I love to cook:
Roasted Broccoli Parmesan: from the Barefoot Contessa
Oven roasted chicken (my own recipe)
Arrabiata pasta sauce
homemade pizza
Wild Rice and Chicken soup
Potato wedges

Goals for this blog: write about the good and bad recipes I try, the things I learn as I develop my cooking skills. So until the next entreé.... oopps I mean entry!... eat well!