Paradise By The Oven Light

I've probably been spending less time cooking since becoming a dad, but it feels like I've been doing it a lot more. That's probably because instead of cooking a couple times a week, I now cook once a week and attempt to make enough food in that one session to last four or five days.

That usually means making one big dish, though this week I did things differently and grilled some corn and chicken thighs and baked a meatloaf. I'm not entirely sure what happend, but I somehow managed to make the most delicious meatloaf I've ever made. I started with an old recipe and then deviated from it in several places due to a lack of ingredients, but the end result was much better than it would have been had I been able to cook it to spec. I'm going to attempt to transcribe what happened in the kitchen today so I can hopefully make it again.

1 lb ground turkey (dark meat)
1 lb ground beef (85/15)
1 medium onion, chopped
2 eggs
1/2 cup old fashioned oats
1/2 cup Italian style bread crumbs
1/4 cup pasta sauce (estimated)
1/8 cup chili sauce (estimated)
1-2 tbs barbecue sauce (estimated)
2 tsp Worcestershire Sauce
1/2 tbs garlic powder
2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/8 tsp Sriracha sauce (estimated)
1/2 cup ketchup

Mix everything (except the ketchup) in a bowl, put it into a loaf pan, cover it with foil, and bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, take off the foil, reduce the heat to 350 degrees, brush the top of the loaf with the ketchup, and bake another 45-60 minutes.

Thai Basil Chicken

We got some Thai basil from the farm this week, so I quickly went to the Google tonight to see what I could do with it. I found this quick and easy recipe and I was very happy with the results. I could have been convinced that it came from a restaurant, had I not prepared and cooked it myself. Try it if you have some Thai basil on hand.

Recipe for Success

At least half of the meals that I cook are loosely based on a recipe, if not completely improvised. The results are mixed at best, but every once in a while, I create something good. My most recent concoction came out quite while, so I've decided to record it for posterity.

Ingredients
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts, shredded
1 large eggplant, cut into bite-sized strips
2 onions, finely chopped
3 tbs oyster sauce
2 tbs rice wine
2 tsp sugar
4 cloves minced garlic
chili sauce (as much or as little as you want)
2 tbs corn starch
2 tsp water (just enough to make a paste out of the corn starch)
1 tbs soy sauce
oil

Instructions

• In a large bowl, mix the eggplant with the oyster sauce, sugar, 1 tbs of rice wine, and chili sauce until all of the pieces are coated
• Shred the chicken breasts and mix with the soy sauce and the rest of the rice wine
• Mix the water and corn starch with some soy sauce and chili sauce and set aside
• In a large wok, brown the chicken with the onions
• Remove the chicken & onions and saute the eggplant
• When the eggplant is almost done, add the chicken back in and mix together
• Add the water & corn starch mixture and mix well, then simmer covered on low heat for about five minutes

Polenta Surprise

The weather was so nice today that grilling was a given. I pulled out my grilling bible and found a couple new recipes that I decided to modify and put together. Such culinary ingenuity can be a dangerous proposition, but it turned out really well today. The first recipe was for penne pasta and grilled duck breast with tomatoes and mushrooms. I took a lot of liberties with this one, substituting chicken thighs for the duck breast, nothing for the mushrooms, and the second recipe for the penne. The second recipe was for grilled parmesan polenta crostini. I did this one by the book, though I omitted the cheese since I didn't have any. This was my first time grilling polenta, and I was very impressed with the way it came out. The grilled polenta also made an excellent pasta substitute. The dish looked a little ridiculous, circular slices of grilled polenta on the bottom of the plate topped with a chunky tomato sauce and large pieces of grilled chicken thigh, but it tasted excellent.

Baby, You Got a Stew Goin'!

I've been doing a lot of cooking this week. I made another batch of Ming Tsai's Red Rendang so I had to use it up. One of the dishes that I used it on was a lamb stew that I did in a slow cooker. When I opened up the cooker after letting it stew, I was overwhelmed by the smell of lemongrass. The lemongrass flavor was barely noticeable in the paste and I wasn't overwhelmed by it while eating the stew, only while smelling it. Lemongrass and fish sauce, both Southeast Asian standbys, are ingredients that I find tasty but can't really stand the smell of when they get too strong. I'm told that even people who enjoy the taste of the durian feel the same way about it, so maybe it's just a characteristic of Southeast Asian food.

I've also been enjoying some Trader Joe's English Cheddar with Caramelized Onions. Some friends of ours introduced us to it recently. It's probably something I never would have picked out on my own, but the two tastes go together so well that I'm surprised all cheddar cheeses (and possibly, all cheeses) aren't alloyed with caramelized onions.

Food

I mentioned that tapenade rubbed steak is delicious on the grill. I've come to discover that tapenade rubbed anything tastes great on the grill. I've also tried it on pork chops and hamburgers. In both cases, I didn't even bother giving it any time to set in before throwing it on the grill, but the results were still delicious.

Grilling season is coming to a close, so I'll add that my new favorite condiment is fig jam.

Tapenade Rubbed Steak

I was looking for a good, simple grilling recipe on Sunday so I turned to the cookbook that has never let me down and found an interesting approach to steak. You take a piece of steak (in my case, a one and a half pound of boneless sirloin steak) and spread a healthy amount of black olive tapenade all over the meat. You then wrap it up in plastic wrap and let it sit in the fridge for a few hours. To grill it, sear it on each side for a few minutes then let it cook over indirect medium heat until it reaches the desired level of doneness. I cooked my steak for just under an hour and it came out medium to medium rare. The tapenade imparted a lot of flavor to the meat without overwhelming it. I'll probably try this recipe with some other meats since it came out so well.

Buc the Trend

We and a group of friends have been having themed potluck dinner a few times a month for a while now. Tonight's theme was coffee, and we found a good recipe for a coffee meat rub that gave me a chance to fire up the grill for the first time this season. We used Uncle Buc's Coffee Meat Rub on some pork chops and they came out very well. Of course, how could any recipe named after Uncle Buc (the official film of my 13th birthday) not be good? The coffee flavor wasn't very strong; I wouldn't have known that the chops had been rubbed in coffee had I not known the recipe. We didn't bother broiling the coffee, but other than that, we didn't stray from the recipe. We grilled ten medium-sized pork chops so we doubled the recipe, but we have a ton of rub left over, so we probably could have gotten by with a single batch.

Dang Quesadillas

Since I seem to be having trouble keeping this thing going, I thought it might good to go back to my roots, poorly thought out food criticism. I'll start with tonight's meal. Obsessive readers of this blog will remember that we have pear trees in our backyard. Those blossoms have matured into a bumper crop of pears this year and we've been trying to figure out what to do with all of them. I found this recipe for pear and prosciutto quesadillas and gave it a try tonight. I have heard that prosciutto and fruit is considered a delicacy by some, but I had my doubts. After feasting on these quesadillas, all of my doubts have been erased. It's a pretty simple dish to put together, as well. I didn't even bother with the goat cheese that the recipe calls for and I baked them for 10 minutes at 350 instead of frying them in a pan.

On Sunday, I grilled up a great piece of salmon. I used a Goan Fish Curry spice packet that Michelle picked up at the grocery store. It's from Arora Creations, who sell a full line of Indian spice mixes. We've tried a number of their spice mixes, and they taste really good. It's the most authentic tasting Indian food I've ever been able to make at home. This was my first experience with the Goan Fish Curry. I marinated a sockeye salmon fillet in the spice mixture, lemon juice, and olive oil for about an hour and a half. The last time I grilled salmon, I left it on the grill for too long and it got too dry. I was determined not to let that happen this time. I fired up the grill and grilled some bell peppers on it. Though I didn't plan it this way, it turned out to be a great move because it gave the grill a chance to get nice and hot before I put the fish on it. Once the peppers were done, I put the fish onto it (face down) and let it cook for about six minutes. I flipped it over and brushed the top with some of the excess marinade, then let it cook for another three or four minutes, brushing marinade on it a couple of more times. The end result was delicious. It was cooked to perfection and the fish curry added a great flavor to an already delicious piece of fish. If I could change one thing, I would have let it marinate a while longer to soak up more of the flavor, but it was still a very tasty meal.