Simple Miso Dipping Sauce

From How to Cook Everything:

INGREDIENTS:

• 6 tablespoons miso paste
• 3/4 cup warm water or sake or a mixture
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 tablespoon mirin or white wine
• 1 tablespoon rice vinegar, or more to taste
• Salt

PROCEDURES:

1. Put everything except the salt in a small bowl and whisk together. Taste and add more vinegar and salt if needed.
2. Serve immediately. To use warm, heat gently but do not boil. Or refrigerate for up to a week (and serve warm or cold.)

RESULTS:
I had the ladies over for a sushi night on Tuesday. A wonderful time was had by all, I think we all ate our weight in california rolls. I had thought that it might be good to have something already made to tide us over while we made the sushi, since it does take a while, so I threw together this dip along with some carrots that Tiffany expertly chopped. As a dip it was so-so. The flavor was really nice and simple, but it was just too too runny for a veggie dip. Bittman recommends putting it over food, like as a drizzle over potatoes or meat, but then he shouldn't call it a dip, should he?

Anyway, as dip is was fairly unsuccessful. However, as a salad dressing, mixed with a bit of the tahini I have left in my fridge from a hummus-frenzy this summer, it is fantastic. The earthiness of the tahini really cuts the salt of the miso, and it thickens it up a lot. I had it with a spinach and orange salad with some of the cucumbers and krab leftover from last night.

Alton Brown's Eggnog

Ingredients
4 egg yolks
1/3 cup sugar, plus 1 tablespoon
1 pint whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
3 ounces bourbon
1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
4 egg whites*

Directions

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the egg yolks until they lighten in color. Gradually add the 1/3 cup sugar and continue to beat until it is completely dissolved. Add the milk, cream, bourbon and nutmeg and stir to combine.
2. Place the egg whites in the bowl of a stand mixer and beat to soft peaks. With the mixer still running gradually add the 1 tablespoon of sugar and beat until stiff peaks form.
3. Whisk the egg whites into the mixture. Chill and serve.

 Cook's Note: For cooked eggnog, follow procedure below.

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the egg yolks until they lighten in color. Gradually add the 1/3 cup sugar and continue to beat until it is completely dissolved. Set aside.
2. In a medium saucepan, over high heat, combine the milk, heavy cream and nutmeg and bring just to a boil, stirring occasionally. Remove from the heat and gradually temper the hot mixture into the egg and sugar mixture. Then return everything to the pot and cook until the mixture reaches 160 degrees F. Remove from the heat, stir in the bourbon, pour into a medium mixing bowl, and set in the refrigerator to chill.
3. In a medium mixing bowl, beat the egg whites to soft peaks. With the mixer running gradually add the 1 tablespoon of sugar and beat until stiff peaks form. Whisk the egg whites into the chilled mixture.

 Results:
So much better than store bought, you'll wonder what you've been doing all these years. Play around with the proportions of milk to cream, or replace the cream with half and half, add more spices, use rum instead of bourbon (or in addition to bourbon)--it's a pretty elastic recipe.

* Egg whites are a really poor medium to grow bacteria, so it's not alarming that these egg whites aren't cooked, especially if they're fresh and you washed the outsides of the eggs. However, if you're worried about it, what I think you can do is beat the egg whites into peaks, gently mix it with the yolk and milk and then bring that to 160 degrees. Alton did that on TV the other day when he made wassail. I would think it might be less fluffy, is all. If anyone tries this, let me know!

Tahini Collard Greens

Serves four and prepared in 20 minutes

• 2 Tbs. extra virgin olive oil-I used 2 tbs olive oil and 2 tbs bacon fat
• 1 Tbs. chopped fresh garlic or more to taste
• 1 Lb. Fresh Kale or other dark green leafy vegetable, cleaned with large stems and veins removed and roughly chopped. Pat dry after rinsing.
• 1/2 Cup or more chicken stock or other healthy stock such as vegetable or beef marrow stock.
• 3 Tbs. Tahini
• Sea Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.
• 2 Tbs. freshly squeezed lemon juice.
• Chopped fresh tomato for garnish (optional)

1. In a large dutch oven or deep covered skillet with a lid, heat oil on medium high until hot. Drop in the garlic and sautee for a few minutes until golden brown.
2. Add the kale and press down and toss to coat with oil. Add in the stock, tahini, and salt and pepper to taste. Stir well and cover to cook until the greens are wilted and tender, which should take about 5 minutes.
3. Uncover and continue cooking on a lower heat, stirring frequently until the greens are very tender, which should take about 5 more minutes. If you need to add more stock to prevent the greens drying out, do so, but you do not want to over do it.
4. Remove the greens from the heat and stir in the lemon juice, tossing well to distribute. Taste the greens and adjust the seasoning to your liking. Garnish with fresh tomato and serve over rice hot, warm or at room temperature.

RESULTS:
This tasted exactly like it seems like it would taste. (I don't know why I sometimes think some recipes will end up tasting like something other than the sum of their parts, especially when there's no baking involved). I mean, it was really good and very filling, and I fully intend to make the variations (one of which is peanut butter, lime juice and ginger instead of tahini and lemon juice), but it tasted just like collards with tahini. You can also use broccoli raab (which, thanks to The Office, I can no longer say without giggling), beet greens, dandelion or turnip greens, chard, bok choy, tatsoi, cabbage, spinach, or something called gai lan.

Fresh Cheese

The day after Thanksgiving, I had apparently not had enough of cooking, because I decided to make fresh cheese. The recipe is from How to Cook Everything. I was toying with the idea of posting the whole recipe here, but the pictures are really crucial to understanding how it works, and the directions are too involved. So, instead, I found it on Google Books. All it takes is milk, buttermilk, salt, and cheesecloth (which you can find at the grocery store).

I'll just give you my impressions. The cheese itself was, I thought, very good. It tasted like a mix between ricotta and cream cheese. I think undersalting it is a definite problem, and I also had trouble with cheesecloth management. I either had too many plies, which made it very hard to squeeze whey out of the cheese, or I had too few plies, which made it very easy to squeeze curds out of the cheese. This can probably be improved with practice. It was actually harder than I thought it would be, squeezing the whey out, and I probably could have benefited from a conspirator or two to help with the squeezing.

turkey breast and roasted vegetables

Thanksgiving dispatch #2

I also made turkey breast and roasted vegetables. The turkey wasn't great. The flavor was excellent, I did the smoked paprika rub again (although this time with butter), with garlic, thyme, and rosemary in the pan, but I think the middle was still frozen when it went in the oven, so it took over an hour longer than it should have, but then it still ended up super dry, drier than how Chris likes it, and he likes it pretty dry. I think part of it may also be quality. I've never cooked just a turkey breast before, and there's an unpleasant something (piece of skin? cartilage?) running through the middle of it, which I'm guessing was the outside of part of the breast which they sort of wrapped around to make the breast into a roast shape. So, if you think about it, a turkey breast isn't a cylinder, but this was wrapped and tied into a cylinder shape, so something's going on there. Anyway, I think that's something you would normally eat around, but because of the wrapping it go folded into the roast, and I didn't like it.

The vegetables (potatoes, butternut squash, onions, parsnips) were, frankly, fabulous. They were in the pan with the turkey, thyme, and rosemary, and I also finished them off with smoked salt, feta, and sliced almonds. The boys didn't like those as much, but I thought they were great.

Cranberry sauce, a la me

Report on Thanksgiving #1:

I was going back and forth between a few different cranberry sauce recipes. The problem was there was a relish, which seemed pretty good because it had interesting additions like oranges and ginger, but it wasn't a real sauce (just chopped up ingredients), which I didn't want. And then there's the traditional sauce, which is just water, sugar, and cranberries. Didn't want that either.

Finally I said, the heck with it, and combined the two. Smelled amazing as it cooked, and it tastes not too shabby, either. I was tempted to have some for breakfast, but thought I should save it for the turkey.

2 cups fresh cranberries, rinsed and picked over
2/3 c sugar (or more if you want it to be less runny)
zest from one orange
1 orange segmented
a bit of grated fresh ginger (whatever looks good)
1 cup water

Put all of the above in a saucepan over medium low heat. Cover and cooks, stirring occasionally, until berries are broken, 10 to 15 minutes. Transfer to a bowl, cool, and refrigerate. Will keep, covered, for a week.

You can also add just a teensy splash of bourbon, which I did. :)

Indian Lentil Stew

Good for a cold, fall rainy day.

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 cup chopped onion

1 1/2 teaspoons garam masala (can find on a grocery store, or google for a recipe online)

1 cup chopped plum tomatoes

1 teaspoon ground turmeric

1 teaspoon minces peeled fresh ginger

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 medium eggplant (1 #), peeled and chopped

1 cup dried lentils, sorted and rinsed

2 cups chicken or veggie broth

2 cups water

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

2 bay leaves

2 cups chopped fresh portabello mushroom caps

salt and pepper to taste

Over medium-high heat, warm the olive oil. Saute onion until softened, about 6 minutes. Add the garam masala and cook, stirring, for 1 minutes. Stir in the tomatoes, turmeric, ginger, and eggplant and cook, stirring occasionally, until the eggplant is tender, about 10 minutes.

Add the lentils, broth, water, salt, and bay leaves to the pan and bring to a boil. Cover, reduce the heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Stir in the mushrooms and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook until the mushrooms are tender, about 10 minutes. Discard the bay leaves. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve hot.

Results:

Pretty darn good, but I added more garam masala for an extra kick. This is the recipe I used: http://www.ochef.com/r75.htm It was a nice, light but hearty soup to prepare oneself for the Thanksgiving onslaught. I could also conceive some leftover turkey making its way into the leftover stew....