In my eternal quest for tasty things to pack in lunches, I improvised some ginger carrots. It's based on my sweet and sour chicken recipe, of all things, borrowing ideas from Just Bento's orange juice carrots (which are fantastic, once modified so it doesn't involve a pepper).
It's pretty straightforward, very tasty, and I'll report back how they are room temperature (as bentos are meant to be eaten at room temp) and how they reheat (Husband ignores it and heats his up in the microwave).
Paired up with some steamed broccoli and the almost-salty chicken tsukune, I honestly can't wait for lunch.
ALRIGHTY THEN. Note that I didn't actually measure a damn thing when I made these (as usual), so the numbers are just an estimate.
You will need:
Three medium carrots, sliced into sticks
2-3 tbs brown sugar
2-3 tbs soy sauce
2 tbs tomato ketchup
1/4 cup white or rice vinegar
ginger to taste
water
Variation: omit the vinegar and add 1/3 cup orange juice. Reduce brown sugar to 1 tbsp.
So. Slice your carrots, if you haven't already.
Huck 'em in a pan. Add all the ingredients, plus water until it just covers the carrots. Once again, I used ground ginger because it's what I invariably have on hand. This could be all sorts of fantastic with fresh, though. I like LOTS of ginger, but Max isn't particularly fond of it - if you haven't used it before, be stingy with it.
Turn the heat up to high and let it get to a nice, full-on boil. Let it boil for four or five minutes. It should stop smelling overpoweringly vinegar-y (not applicable if going the orange juice route).
Reduce heat to medium low. When it has reduced to a simmer, cover the pan. Simmer for a few more minutes, or until the carrots are appropriately tender.
I packed them into the lunches by pulling out the carrots with a fork, then pouring in some of the leftover sauce. Alternately, you could remove the carrots, return the pan with liquid to the burner, get it boiling, and add a cornstarch slurry to make a glaze for them.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Turkey Meatloaf
As people are rapidly becoming aware, I have some strange food sensitivities and allergies. The big offenders are pork, beef, and peppers. This is why I started making bento for lunch every day, as well as converting my kitchen into a scratch kitchen. I can keep a much closer eye on what I'm eating if I make it myself.
Now. Combine the weird cravings I get with my allergies, and it's more than a little hard to satisfy them. The latest of these was meatloaf, which (according to my mother's recipe) involves hamburger and pork sausage, two things I can't have. It goes on to involve Worcestershire sauce (which I can barely spell), which traditionally involves some form of peppers. I could make it myself, but I'm generally too lazy to mess around with the nine bazillion ingredients it uses.
I stumbled across this recipe and decided I could make it work, whether or not I could use Worcestershire sauce.
SO.
Turkey Meatloaf
This will make two decent sized 'loaves'. Mine turned out beautifully moist and crumbly, even when frozen and reheated.
2 - 3 tbsp butter (or margarine)
1 large yellow onion, chopped
2 lbs ground turkey
3-5 cloves of garlic (tsp if using wet minced)
1 cup bread crumbs (use any stale bread you have kicking around - I used the remnants of a loaf of French bread)
2 eggs
1/2 cup (ish) of tomato ketchup
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
Alrighty.
Got everything together?
Sweet.
Melt the butter/margarine in a skillet. Huck in the garlic and chopped onion. Sauté until the onion is translucent, but not caramelized. Shouldn't take more than five or six minutes. Got it? Good. Dump it into a large mixing bowl. Let it cool while you turn your bread into breadcrumbs, etc. Preheat your oven to 350F.
Throw all the rest of the ingredients into the bowl and mix it (by hand, if needed) until well-mixed. Divide the mixture and press it into loaf pans. Pop 'em in the oven for 50 minutes. Check the internal temp with a food thermometer; mine took closer to 75 minutes (1:15) to reach a safe temperature.
Let cool for a few minutes. Serve hot.
Alternately, you can do what I do. I made up the meatloaf, let it cool enough so I could slice it, wrap the slices in plastic, and froze them. That way, when I have a meatloaf craving (or want to pack one in my bento for the day), I just have to pull a slice out of the freezer. I got six good-sized slices per loaf.
Variations
I'm itching to try this with ginger and sweet & sour sauce instead of ketchup, maybe a little bit of soy sauce in place of salt. I'll try it out next time.
Now. Combine the weird cravings I get with my allergies, and it's more than a little hard to satisfy them. The latest of these was meatloaf, which (according to my mother's recipe) involves hamburger and pork sausage, two things I can't have. It goes on to involve Worcestershire sauce (which I can barely spell), which traditionally involves some form of peppers. I could make it myself, but I'm generally too lazy to mess around with the nine bazillion ingredients it uses.
I stumbled across this recipe and decided I could make it work, whether or not I could use Worcestershire sauce.
SO.
Turkey Meatloaf
This will make two decent sized 'loaves'. Mine turned out beautifully moist and crumbly, even when frozen and reheated.
2 - 3 tbsp butter (or margarine)
1 large yellow onion, chopped
2 lbs ground turkey
3-5 cloves of garlic (tsp if using wet minced)
1 cup bread crumbs (use any stale bread you have kicking around - I used the remnants of a loaf of French bread)
2 eggs
1/2 cup (ish) of tomato ketchup
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
Alrighty.
Got everything together?
Sweet.
Melt the butter/margarine in a skillet. Huck in the garlic and chopped onion. Sauté until the onion is translucent, but not caramelized. Shouldn't take more than five or six minutes. Got it? Good. Dump it into a large mixing bowl. Let it cool while you turn your bread into breadcrumbs, etc. Preheat your oven to 350F.
Throw all the rest of the ingredients into the bowl and mix it (by hand, if needed) until well-mixed. Divide the mixture and press it into loaf pans. Pop 'em in the oven for 50 minutes. Check the internal temp with a food thermometer; mine took closer to 75 minutes (1:15) to reach a safe temperature.
Let cool for a few minutes. Serve hot.
Alternately, you can do what I do. I made up the meatloaf, let it cool enough so I could slice it, wrap the slices in plastic, and froze them. That way, when I have a meatloaf craving (or want to pack one in my bento for the day), I just have to pull a slice out of the freezer. I got six good-sized slices per loaf.
Variations
I'm itching to try this with ginger and sweet & sour sauce instead of ketchup, maybe a little bit of soy sauce in place of salt. I'll try it out next time.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Bento!
I can't really claim originality on the recipes, because they're basically adapted from Just Bento. I just wanted to show it off!
They're made with white rice, steamed broccoli with broccoli kinpira, chicken tsukune mini-burgers, and potato oyaki. Links and/or recipes to follow soon!
They're made with white rice, steamed broccoli with broccoli kinpira, chicken tsukune mini-burgers, and potato oyaki. Links and/or recipes to follow soon!
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Pop Tarts!
That's right, pop tarts.
My resolution for 2012 is to make as many things as I can from scratch. There are allowances for things I don't want to make myself, like mayonnaise (which I do know how to make, if need be) and butter (I even have a butter churn! I just hate using it). I cleaned up my old noodle maker, and while I CAN and am fairly decent at making my own, I'll probably just buy noodles.
I've been rummaging around on the internet, trying to find a decent home-made version of poptarts that tastes less like cardboard and more like deliciousness. Husband found this a year or so ago and practically begged me to make them, but I didn't have the time or the energy to mess with the dough.
Yesterday, in the middle of what was probably the worst fever I've had in months, I decided I would MAKE POPTARTS, DAMNIT! Not one of my better decisions, sure, but a tasty one. I made mine with a raspberry filling. You could also use the cinnamon filling listed in the link, or you could use Nutella if it happens to strike your fancy. Next time around, I think I'll experiment with some apple-cinnamon ones.
YOU WILL NEED:
UTENSILS:
I used to not tell people what supplies they would need, assuming people could figure it out on their own. Then I got a phone call from a friend, asking what to do because she didn't have a rolling pin and was making pie. Now I tell people.
ANYWAY. I digress.
Get yourself a rolling pin, the appropriate number of mixing bowls (depending on what filling you use), a knife that will cut the dough without tearing it, measuring cups and spoons, Trusty Wooden Spoon, and some cookie sheets to bake them on. Also, you should have an oven. I'm not sure if a toaster oven would work for these, but it seems a bit impractical.
For the pastry:
2 cups flour, plus extra for dusting
1 tbs sugar
1 cup butter (2 sticks or 8 oz), cubed
1 egg
2 tbs milk
If you're using unsalted butter, add 1 tsp of salt. If you're using sweet cream, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON'T ADD SALT.
For the filling:
1 cup seedless jam (trust me on the seedless thing)
1 tbs corn starch
1 tbs cold water
Other:
an extra egg
ALRIGHTY THEN.
Making the jam filling? Mix the cornstarch with the water, then mix it into the jam. Get it into a saucepan on your stove and heat it over medium heat until it boils. Boil it for one minute, then stir for two minutes. Remove it from the heat so it'll cool down, and proceed to making the dough.
Mix the sugar, flour, and salt (if needed) in a mixing bowl. Add the butter and mix (by hand, with a pastry blender, or cut it in) until the mixture holds together when squeezed and forms pea-sized lumps. Whisk the egg and milk together, then add to the dough. Mix until all ingredients are incorporated, then wrap it in plastic wrap and stick it in the fridge to cool down for a bit. My dough was more than a little unmanageable because I decided the kitchen was cool enough. Surprise! Fevers will make everything feel cold to you. Chill the dough, whether you think you need to or not. Unless your kitchen hangs below 50F, in which case, you should be worried about your pipes freezing. And again, I digress.
You can pull the dough out to work with it when it's firmed up a bit. If you want it to chill faster, stick it in the freezer.
Cut your ball of dough in half. If the dough is really stiff (or you chilled overnight, or forgot about the dough and came back six hours later), leave the half you're not working with on the counter. Otherwise, return it to the fridge until it is needed.
On a well-floured counter, roll out your dough into a roughly rectangular shape, adding flour as needed to keep it from sticking to everything, until it's a little more than an eighth (1/8) of an inch thick. Eyeball it. If you're using a jam filling, you might want it a bit thicker. If you have a dry filling (cinnamon, chocolate chips, etc.), it's not as important.
Prepare your pan(s). Line them with parchment paper or lightly grease and flour them. If you don't, your tarts WILL stick, and you will be sad.
Now, instead of making the delicious little tarts the way the link shows them, I realised about halfway through trying to cut them evenly, failing, accidentally stretching a few, ripping more than I care to count, and cursing the whole way that it was much, much easier to cut circles (I used a cookie cutter, a repurposed can, and an upturned bowl that I cut around) and fold them in half once filled. Use whichever method you wish. If you want to make different shaped tarts, you could use a cookie cutter to cut matching tops and bottoms.
Remember that extra egg I told you about? Whisk it up and get the edges of your bottom crusts wet with it. If you're doing the circles, just one side will do. Brushing the WHOLE THING with the egg wash made everything way too soggy and hard to handle. Fill your pastries (spooning in jam fillings), leaving a 1/2 inch border, add the top layers (or fold the circles) and gently press the edges together. Transfer them to your prepared pan(s). Armed with a fork, press the edges of the tarts together. Stab a few vent holes with a knife, and shove the pan in the fridge for half an hour.
Roll out the rest of your dough and repeat.
Preheat your oven to 350F. When the half-hour chill time is up, pop your tarts in the oven for 20 minutes (haha! See what I did there?), or until the pastries are golden brown and jam fillings are bubbling through the vent holes.
Want some icing?
Using jam fillings or a cinnamon?
You're in luck!
If you follow my jam filling idea, you should have a good bit of leftover filling. Mix it will some powdered sugar and add water or milk as needed. You want it stiff enough to be a good icing and not run ERRYWHERE, but not so stiff you can't spoon it/spread it onto the cooled tarts.
If you did cinnamon, just make a simple icing (powdered sugar + water or milk) and add some cinnamon to it.
Bam! Homemade poptarts that don't taste like butt!
My resolution for 2012 is to make as many things as I can from scratch. There are allowances for things I don't want to make myself, like mayonnaise (which I do know how to make, if need be) and butter (I even have a butter churn! I just hate using it). I cleaned up my old noodle maker, and while I CAN and am fairly decent at making my own, I'll probably just buy noodles.
I've been rummaging around on the internet, trying to find a decent home-made version of poptarts that tastes less like cardboard and more like deliciousness. Husband found this a year or so ago and practically begged me to make them, but I didn't have the time or the energy to mess with the dough.
Yesterday, in the middle of what was probably the worst fever I've had in months, I decided I would MAKE POPTARTS, DAMNIT! Not one of my better decisions, sure, but a tasty one. I made mine with a raspberry filling. You could also use the cinnamon filling listed in the link, or you could use Nutella if it happens to strike your fancy. Next time around, I think I'll experiment with some apple-cinnamon ones.
YOU WILL NEED:
UTENSILS:
I used to not tell people what supplies they would need, assuming people could figure it out on their own. Then I got a phone call from a friend, asking what to do because she didn't have a rolling pin and was making pie. Now I tell people.
ANYWAY. I digress.
Get yourself a rolling pin, the appropriate number of mixing bowls (depending on what filling you use), a knife that will cut the dough without tearing it, measuring cups and spoons, Trusty Wooden Spoon, and some cookie sheets to bake them on. Also, you should have an oven. I'm not sure if a toaster oven would work for these, but it seems a bit impractical.
For the pastry:
2 cups flour, plus extra for dusting
1 tbs sugar
1 cup butter (2 sticks or 8 oz), cubed
1 egg
2 tbs milk
If you're using unsalted butter, add 1 tsp of salt. If you're using sweet cream, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON'T ADD SALT.
For the filling:
1 cup seedless jam (trust me on the seedless thing)
1 tbs corn starch
1 tbs cold water
Other:
an extra egg
ALRIGHTY THEN.
Making the jam filling? Mix the cornstarch with the water, then mix it into the jam. Get it into a saucepan on your stove and heat it over medium heat until it boils. Boil it for one minute, then stir for two minutes. Remove it from the heat so it'll cool down, and proceed to making the dough.
Mix the sugar, flour, and salt (if needed) in a mixing bowl. Add the butter and mix (by hand, with a pastry blender, or cut it in) until the mixture holds together when squeezed and forms pea-sized lumps. Whisk the egg and milk together, then add to the dough. Mix until all ingredients are incorporated, then wrap it in plastic wrap and stick it in the fridge to cool down for a bit. My dough was more than a little unmanageable because I decided the kitchen was cool enough. Surprise! Fevers will make everything feel cold to you. Chill the dough, whether you think you need to or not. Unless your kitchen hangs below 50F, in which case, you should be worried about your pipes freezing. And again, I digress.
You can pull the dough out to work with it when it's firmed up a bit. If you want it to chill faster, stick it in the freezer.
Cut your ball of dough in half. If the dough is really stiff (or you chilled overnight, or forgot about the dough and came back six hours later), leave the half you're not working with on the counter. Otherwise, return it to the fridge until it is needed.
On a well-floured counter, roll out your dough into a roughly rectangular shape, adding flour as needed to keep it from sticking to everything, until it's a little more than an eighth (1/8) of an inch thick. Eyeball it. If you're using a jam filling, you might want it a bit thicker. If you have a dry filling (cinnamon, chocolate chips, etc.), it's not as important.
Prepare your pan(s). Line them with parchment paper or lightly grease and flour them. If you don't, your tarts WILL stick, and you will be sad.
Now, instead of making the delicious little tarts the way the link shows them, I realised about halfway through trying to cut them evenly, failing, accidentally stretching a few, ripping more than I care to count, and cursing the whole way that it was much, much easier to cut circles (I used a cookie cutter, a repurposed can, and an upturned bowl that I cut around) and fold them in half once filled. Use whichever method you wish. If you want to make different shaped tarts, you could use a cookie cutter to cut matching tops and bottoms.
Remember that extra egg I told you about? Whisk it up and get the edges of your bottom crusts wet with it. If you're doing the circles, just one side will do. Brushing the WHOLE THING with the egg wash made everything way too soggy and hard to handle. Fill your pastries (spooning in jam fillings), leaving a 1/2 inch border, add the top layers (or fold the circles) and gently press the edges together. Transfer them to your prepared pan(s). Armed with a fork, press the edges of the tarts together. Stab a few vent holes with a knife, and shove the pan in the fridge for half an hour.
Roll out the rest of your dough and repeat.
Preheat your oven to 350F. When the half-hour chill time is up, pop your tarts in the oven for 20 minutes (haha! See what I did there?), or until the pastries are golden brown and jam fillings are bubbling through the vent holes.
Want some icing?
Using jam fillings or a cinnamon?
You're in luck!
If you follow my jam filling idea, you should have a good bit of leftover filling. Mix it will some powdered sugar and add water or milk as needed. You want it stiff enough to be a good icing and not run ERRYWHERE, but not so stiff you can't spoon it/spread it onto the cooled tarts.
If you did cinnamon, just make a simple icing (powdered sugar + water or milk) and add some cinnamon to it.
Bam! Homemade poptarts that don't taste like butt!
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