Magazine: Eating Well

I was at the chiropractor's office yesterday and noticed a magazine on the reading stack, Eating Well. The articles were well written and OMG the food porn. The first 1/3 looks like the sort of magazine that I'd want to publish if I was in that industry...and it doesn't hurt that there's a Welch's ad with Mr Brown in it ;-) The receptionist let me swipe the copy, they get it for free, so I'll do a mini review later. It looks like I'll be adding another magazine to my list of subscriptions. Has anybody else come across Eating Well?

Happy Free Pastry Day!

It's free pastry day at Starbucks. Do you drink coffee from Starbucks or do you think they burn their beans? I read somewhere, I think it was The End of Overeating, that people are drawn to establishments like Starbucks because they serve caffeinated sweet warm milk; baby formula for adults. Not only is it free pastry day but it's week 3 of the bold coffee passport and another star towards the gold rewards level.

I finally ran out of pre-ground coffee so I picked up a Cusinart DBM-8 Supreme Grind at Costco yesterday. It was $19.97, about the same price as a blade grinder. However, a burr grinder should create a more uniform grind. We'll see how this goes.


Office Ninja requires coffee. - KP

Friday Challenge Roundup: Cornmeal

I hope that everybody had a good weekend; I know I did. So, what did you make? As I mentioned in my post on Friday, I made cornbread. Isn't that pretty on DBF's mother's silver?

There is some debate in my family as to where this recipe came from; I swear it's from Girl Scout camp and my mom claims she got it from a friend. Either way, it makes a sweet moist cornbread that usually earns me rave reviews.

Cornbread

3 blocks butter
4 c Bisquick
1 1/3 c sugar
1 t baking soda
4 beaten eggs
2 c milk
1 c yellow cornmeal

Melt butter, add to milk and eggs. Add sugar and dry ingredients. Mix. Pour into greased 9"x13" pan. Bake at 350°F for 45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

 I usually do a half batch in one of my unglazed pie pans from Ironwood Pottery. Best cornbread pan EVER!

And I leave you with a picture of DBF's mother's cat Dickens.

Happy cooking! - KP

Friday Challenge: Cornmeal

This is the first "Friday Challenge." The purpose of these posts is to build community and maybe get some people to step outside of their comfort zones. I will suggest an ingredient, technique or tool that I want you to try out and we'll all report back on Monday. Suggestions for Friday Challenges can be posted as comments and I'll add them to the list.

I've been reading Michael Pollan's book The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals and so far it reads like corn is in everything. What can you do with cornmeal?

• They're like little ball bearings under your pizza and bread helping to keep it from sticking to the peel.
• Polenta.
• Grits.
• Thickening agent in creamed corn.
• Cornbread.

I'm making cornbread and will have photos and a recipe on Monday. Real life friends will probably call me on doing something that I've made many times but I'm out of town this weekend and I already have to make cornbread for DBF's mother. It's my blog and I get to pick the secret ingredient :-P Have a great weekend!.

-KP

Of Lists Big and Small

I will admit it, I have some control issues; I have been accused of being a Type A personality. I like to make lists. I've got the rolling grocery list stuck to the side of the refrigerator where I jot down ingredients that we're running low on so I can start keeping an eye out for sales. I've got my ingredient lists when I cook for large groups so I can shop effectively; I have the master ingredient list that I take when I go grocery shopping so I can make up a price book then I put all those prices into a spreadsheet to figure out where my best bargains are. Then I work out my time lines for prep-work, shopping, and what we're doing on the day of the event. I have a few short kitchen related lists that I'd like to share:

Things I should have but don't. (This is NOT a request for my real life friends to buy me any of these items; this is list parking.)

• Melon baller.
• Grapefruit spoon.
• Honing steel.
• Flour canister (I currently measure my AP flour directly from the 50 lb bag then vacuum the area around the bag).
• Kitchen shears.
• Juicer (one of those wooden ones).
• Strainer (for when I need to dust things with powdered sugar or sift flour).
• Basting/pastry brush.
• A stainless steel pot somewhere between the 5 quart and the 5 gallon capacity.

Things I wish I had.

• Mandolin.
• Fancy bread pans.
• A bigger kitchen and pantry.
• A grill
• Gas appliances.
• Double bowl sink.
• Shun knives.

Things I have but don't use.

• V slicer (it's a pain to clean and the blades aren't very sharp).
• George Foreman grill (it was useful in college but now just sits in the cabinet; something for the April yard sale).
• Pipkin (but it's so sexy on the shelf with my other medieval replicas...).
• Two shelves of cookbooks.

So, what do you think my lists say about me as a cook?

Cheers! - KP

Applied Laziness

One of the basic tenants of my meal planning philosophy is "Cook once, eat 2+ times." I have a number of friends that work in the IT sector and they sometimes use the term "applied laziness." I'm sure the term has its own meaning in the IT and engineering world; but in Kitchen Penguin HQ, it means minimizing my per-meal effort. Preparing and cooking a double batch of something generally does not take twice as much effort as making a single batch. So I plan my weekly meals around maximizing my resources to produce as many meals as possible from each kitchen adventure. It does help that I have a separate freezer in the garage and DBF doesn't mind eating leftovers.

Example #1 I have a hunters stew that I like to make but it usually takes me at least an hour to do all the prep. I have to cube the stew meat (it's generally cheaper to buy a roast), cut up bacon, cut the kielbasa, slice the onions, slice the mushrooms, peel and slice the apples, and rinse the sauerkraut. Then there's two hours of simmering everything until the meat starts to fall apart. So I make a triple batch and freeze any leftovers in both single serve containers for grab-and-go ("oops I forgot/don't have leftovers to pack a lunch" or "honey, I have to go out of town/have a doctor's appointment after work this week and you're on your own") meals and larger containers for a lazy weeknight dinner.

Example #2 I'm making corned beef hash for dinner tonight. I know that one can of corned beef, half an onion, two medium sized potatoes and an egg makes enough corned beef hash patties for both of us to have dinner and a lunch the next day (assuming DBF doesn't decide to eat more than usual). I cook two cups of rice, make some extra vegetables and we're set for two meals.

I made a double batch of pizza dough on Monday night so we had four medium sized pizzas. Enough for dinner, lunch the next day (with enough to share with my Minion), and a whole pizza left for dinner on Thursday.

This is how my kitchen works. I haven't had to prepare a separate meal just to pack lunch in over a year and that makes me happy.


Happy cooking! - KP

Chicken Refrigerator Velcro

Originally written on 03/11/10

DBF is on this weird diet for some stomach discomfort. Basically, no dairy, onions, bread, tomatoes, carrots, and some other things that I can't recall off the top of my head. He has been filching pieces of the chocolate haupia pie (essentially the same recipe that I use but I don't have coconut extract and I used a graham cracker crust) that I made on Sunday and swears that it isn't causing discomfort. But I digress.

I had thawed two packages of chicken breasts, 2 breast halves per package, with the intention of making teriyaki chicken for dinner last night. However, I didn't want to start the oven for 4 little chicken breasts. So I dug around in the fridge and freezer to see what I had available.

• a handfull of cremini mushrooms
• a bag of frozen peas
• a bag of frozen broccoli florets
• a bag of carrots
• the dregs of the Yoshida bottle (I have a fresh replacement bottle)
• maybe half a cup of sake
• oyster sauce
• sesame oil

I started the rice pot then I cubed the chicken breasts and started cooking them in the frying pan while I: sliced the mushrooms with the egg slicer, peeled and sliced the carrots, nuked a couple of handfuls of the broccoli florets, and separated out half the bag of peas. I threw in the mushrooms and carrots after the chicken was browned and let that all cook for a couple of minutes so the carrots would have time to soften. Then I threw in the rest of the vegetables and the Yoshida sauce. I poured a couple of shots worth of sake into the Yoshida bottle and swirled it around to clean it out then added that to the pan. A few shakes of oyster sauce and a good stir. A splash of sesame oil to finish. What do you have?

Enough food to feed 2 adults 3 meals each.I need to start taking more photos of the cooking process.

Happy cooking! - KP