Culinary Adventures: Manti and Pierogis

Here's another one that doesn't exactly involve a recipe, per se, but I'm counting it as one of my two "recipes" for the month of March. On occasion, I visit a Russian grocery and buy dumplings, pierogis, and "Riga style" sour cream, which I'm pretty sure is just sour cream. Anyway, I normally boil the dumplings and pierogis, which works well enough. However, I tried my hand at lamb manti, and they ended up retaining a lot of fluid, which made them sort of messy. They also didn't quite agree with me. I looked at the actual instructions on the next package, and it claimed that I'm supposed to be steaming them. Steaming them? How am I supposed to do that?

Well, the thing is, I actually have an Oster rice cooker. I hadn't paid much attention to the steaming tray that comes with it, but as it turns out, it's as stupid easy to steam manti and pierogis in a rice cooker's steaming tray as it is to cook rice in a rice cooker - though I'll note that the steaming is a touch more messy than cooking rice. I've done it twice now, and I think I'm going to be making more trips to that Russian grocery to keep my freezer properly stocked.

I've also got some packages of gnocchi that I got from a nearby Italian grocery. As fate would have it, some dude on YouTube has suggestions for cooking gnocchi in the rice cooker, too, so I may give that a try as well. More to come on that topic!

Culinary Adventures: YouTube CrockPot Meals

I've been interested in CrockPot cooking for a long time, but I've never done much of it. Since I'm trying to cook more in 2016, I decided to scour YouTube for a few CrockPot recipes. I found two that I decided to try. First, from a blog by way of a prolific vlogger going by the moniker "She's In Her Apron", I made Honey Sesame Chicken as described in this video.


The second recipe is for Cream of Mushroom Chicken, from a YouTuber going by the name TosTinMan.


I'll be honest, neither of these recipes really lit me up. I'll admit that I didn't follow TosTinMan's advice by removing the skin from my chicken thighs before putting them in the CrockPot, but aside from that I was pretty faithful to both recipes. Neither were terrible, and other folks might have better luck, but I probably won't repeat either of them in the near future. That's actually too bad for the Honey Sesame Chicken, since I now have two bottles of sesame oil (unbeknownst to me, Lady Jaye already had one in our cupboard), and I have no clue how I'm going to use it up. Maybe I'll think of something!

Culinary Adventures: DoD Lime Baked Fish

Unfortunately, I can't count this particular recipe as "new", as I've cooked it before. However, it's my favorite fish recipe, and it's super simple, so I wanted to share it. I've made it two or three times in recent weeks because it's currently Lent, Lady Jaye is Roman Catholic, I'm almost certainly going to end up Roman Catholic as a result, and Catholics are pescatarians on Fridays during Lent, so the time is right.

As I mentioned in that previous post about the DoD Orange Chicken, I get this recipe from The Gitmo Cookbook. My next Gitmo Cookbook effort may end up being a side dish like garlic cheese potatoes, or peas with mushrooms. Anyway, the recipe...

Lime Baked Fish

1 and 3/4 lbs. flounder or sole fish fillets

2 T. lime juice

2 T. butter or margarine, melted

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. paprika, ground

3/4 tsp. fresh parsley, chopped

Arrange fish in a single layer on a large, sided cookie sheet that has been coated with non-stick cooking spray. Combine lime juice, butter or margarine, salt, and paprika. Mix well. Drizzle mixture over fish. Bake at 400 degrees F. for 12-15 minutes or until fillets flake easily and are lightly browned. Garnish with parsley before serving.

This is a fantastic, easy recipe. I've been substituting tilapia fillets for flounder or sole, and I dispense with the parsley. Also, the original version of this recipe calls for lemon juice, but I prefer a limey taste, so that's how I've presented the recipe. Like the Orange Chicken, I eat it with white basmati rice out of the rice cooker, and it's fantastic.

Culinary Adventures: Ultimate Shepherd's Pie

When I visited Orkney in late 2012, I was introduced to an Orcadian dish called clapshot, which is a mix of mashed potatoes and mashed Swede turnips ("rutabagas" in the American vernacular). One of the more involved dishes I've ever made is shepherd's pie. I decided to make a unique dish combining the two. In early 2010, I concocted a dish I referred to as Shepherd's Pie 2.0, which derived from Rachael Ray's recipe. But, it's not that simple.

I first mentioned clapshot in December of 2012. Last July, I recounted Radio Orkney's Great Clapshot Debate of 2015. I'd found this recipe, and then an Orcadian friend sent me this recipe as well. I knew I was going to have to do a bit of improvisation, and my buddy Gray 1 had told me two things of interest: that 1) it's not clapshot unless the neeps and tatties have been through a freeze to chemically alter the sugars, and 2) some people say it's okay to accomplish that freeze through the use of a freezer. I decided to consult with the Orcadian Equestrian, the source of that second recipe link, for some advice:

Tom: Question for you, ma'am: I've got two neeps and three tatties in the freezer in preparation for clapshot. How long do they need to stay in there before they're ready for cooking?
The Orcadian Equestrian: Your tatties don't need to be in the freezer (although it won't hurt them). My mum - the font of all neep knowledge - would say a week would do, and she boils her neep from frozen and then adds the tatties 15 mins later.

So, in early January, I blocked off a Monday evening and began to experiment. At this point, I'll refrain from sharing my recipe since the first batch I made was highly experimental. I'll also note that it got better with age: in subsequent days, the last pieces were the best, and a good ninety seconds in the microwave appear to have helped in that process. This ended up being my first new recipe of 2016, and I'll count it as an incremental success!

Culinary Adventures: DoD Orange Chicken

In mid-January, I had a brief conversation with a pregnant friend whose family Lady Jaye and I will probably try to take a meal to once she delivers. They're pretty solidly progressive, so I was teasing her that we'd bring them some vegan concoction. She reminded me that:

"You realize the meal that it seems we will traditionally share is fish, right?"

This reminded me of my favorite fish recipe out of The Gitmo Cookbook, which got me thinking: one of my resolutions for 2016 should involve cooking. So, I've set the goal of cooking two new recipes each month. This one was actually the second.

Chicken in Orange Sauce

2 lbs. boneless skinless chicken breasts

1/2 tsp. salt

nonstick cooking spray

1/2 tsp. paprika

1 med. onion, chopped

1/4 tsp. black pepper

3/4 c. orange juice

1/4 tsp. dried rosemary

2 T. flour

1/8 tsp. garlic powder

4 T. sugar

Wash chicken thoroughly under cold running water. Drain well. Remove excess fat. Arrange chicken in a single layer on a large, sided cookie sheet that has been coated with non-stick cooking spray. DO NOT OVERLAP. Combine orange juice, flour, sugar, salt, paprika, pepper, rosemary, and garlic powder; mix well. Add onions; stir to blend. Pour over chicken. Bake at 400° F. for 22 to 24 minutes or until internal temperature reaches 165° F.

So, how did it turn out? I actually really love this recipe. I think I've made it three times now, with a couple of variations. In lieu of cooking spray, I just wrap my cookie sheet in tinfoil and discard the foil when I'm finished. I cube the chicken breasts and dispense with the rosemary entirely. I've cooked this with four, three, and two tablespoons of sugar, and haven't really tasted a difference. Feel free to throw in another tablespoon of flour to thicken the sauce a bit. (The sauce will congeal anyway as it cools, but I prefer it a bit thicker.) I haven't tried this as a freezer meal, but it's tasty (I eat it over white basmati rice), easy, and pretty quick.

Crock Pot Lasagna

I got this recipe from Big Brother Caleb, and I made it a couple of months ago. It was really good, and pretty easy, but much more involved than I was led to believe. Also, it made more than I wound up being able to eat, and I can eat. So... You've been warned! Enjoy!

Ingredients:
1 pound Ground Beef
Lasagna noodles
1 jar spaghetti sauce
1 1/2 cups cottage cheese
1 1/2 cups shredded Mozzarella cheese
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

Directions:
Brown ground beef and drain. Spoon 1 C. spaghetti sauce in bottom of 4 quart crock pot. Mix remaining sauce with beef. Place 2 uncooked lasagna noodles on sauce in crock pot. Spread 1/3 meat mixture on top of noodles. Spread 3/4 C. cottage cheese over meat. Sprinkle 1/2 C. mozzarella cheese over cottage cheese. Add another layer of uncooked noodles, 1/3 meat mixture, the remaining cottage cheese and 1/2 C. mozzarella cheese. Place another layer of uncooked noodles, meat mixture, and mozzarella cheese. Sprinkle Parmesan cheese over top. Cook on low for 4 hours. If cooked much longer, it gets a bit well done.

Culinary Adventures: Making Paneer

It's no secret that while I was in Scotland, I ate a lot of Nepalese food. One of my favorite foods was motor/matar paneer from the Gurkha Kitchen. Since Nepalese cuisine isn't widely available in the United States, I decided to look into preparing it myself. It turns out that one of the ingredients, paneer, is actually pretty easy to make. Paneer is a sort of Indian/Nepalese cottage cheese, and it's the base for many dishes. So, I did what any good denizen of the Internet would do: I looked up the recipe, and then found a video on YouTube.


So, I decided to try to make it. The first recipe I saw called for either lemon or lime juice, so I went with lime juice. With a quarter cup of lime juice and a half gallon of what I think was whole milk. The entire process took about an hour, half of which was just letting the paneer cool down. I also used only half of my cheese cloth, so I can make some more. Truth be told, the stuff doesn't taste fantastic, but I don't think it's supposed to since it's meant to be used as an element in other recipes. I haven't looked for a motor paneer recipe yet, and if it's too involved, I may just shortcut the whole process with a jar of marinara sauce and a can of peas.

So... Achievement unlocked: make paneer.

Topic: Culinary Adventures

Not that it matters, but I feel as if I'm talking a lot about my time in Virginia. It's probably because of the various places where I lived the longest as an adult. Anyway, while I was in Virginia, I started trying to develop my cooking skills, with mixed results. Between my return to America from the Middle East, and my departure for Scotland, I did a bit more cooking, but not as much as I'd envisioned while I was overseas. In all honesty, I've had very little opportunity to cook over the last three years, and I'm actually looking forward to trying my hand at it again in the coming months.

I have a couple of cookbooks: A Man, A Can, A Plan by David Joachim, which was a gift from my former boss; and The Gitmo Cookbook, which is unfortunately no longer available. Joachim has apparently written a sequel entitled A Man, A Can, A Plan, A Second Helping, so I might try to get a hold of that. In case you're really curious about those recipes used at Gitmo, you can go to the website or table of contents of the Army's Joint Culinary Center of Excellence, or just download every American military recipe if you prefer. Of course, like anyone, I also get plenty of my recipes from the Internet.

So, one of the topics I'll discuss from time to time will be cooking. I'll post some of my favorite recipes (or ones that I intend to try), and talk about the various kitchen implements that I've used or intend to use. It should be fun.