Woznation

Phil is in Yuma, AZ until next Friday – so Im going to try and keep myself busy with this blog.  We generally try to eat somewhat healthy in this house but somehow macaroni and cheese has made it onto a weekly rotation.  What can I say, baby likes cheese and carbs.  I do use lowfat dairy and enriched pasta to *try* and make it a bit better than traditional recipes, but lets face it, this aint a salad.

Heres what we’ll need:

Pasta, flour, butter, garlic, onion powder, paprika, dijon mustard, milk and lots of cheeeeeeese.

So get some water on the stove and bring to a boil.

You’ll also want to throw about 2.5 tablespoons of butter into a sauce pan on low heat to start melting.  Now, take about 3 cloves of garlic and give them a smash to get them out of the paper.  Then throw them into your melting butter.  This is where its going to start smelling really good.

Butter and garlic.  Yum.  Let the garlic infuse the butter for a few minutes, then remove the garlic cloves – but dont thrown them out yet!!  Put them in your baking dish, we’ll use them later.

Now you’re going to make a roux.  Which sounds fancy, but is just fat and flour together.  Add 2.5 tablespoons of flour to your melted butter.  It will make a bit of a paste.

Let this cook together for 2-3 minutes or ‘until it smells like pie crust’.  I have no idea where I heard that tip, but it works for me.  Oh yeah, at some point you’re going to want to throw your pasta into the boiling water.

I use about .75 lbs of pasta.  If you like a really saucy mac and cheese, you might only want to use half a pound; If you like a more casserole style mac and cheese, you can use a a full pound.  But .75 lbs seems juuuuuuust right to me.  So now that your roux is ready, you will pour in your 2 cups of milk.

Stir or whisk rapidly while you add the milk, it will help make sure you break up any lumps in the roux.  Keep stirring often and the roux will thicken up the milk to create a nice bechamel sauce.  The milk and roux should cook about 3-4 minutes on low-medium heat (Low fat dairy doesnt handle heat as well as, say, cream.  So be careful with your heat – you dont want to scald the milk.  Heating low fat dairy at too high of a heat can cause a grainy sauce).

Ive heard that a bechamel should ‘coat the back of a spoon.’  Id say thats pretty good for using fat free milk?  Now you are ready to start adding your cheese.  I have about 8 oz of shredded cheese, total.  Or one standard block of cheese from the grocery store.  This yields about 2.25 cups of shredded cheese.  Actually, for this batch of mac and cheese I have about 6 oz of cheddar and 2 oz of mozzarella.  You can use any combination you want. Sometimes I even throw in a little blue cheese if Im feeling crazy. Though I always like to add at least a little bit of mozzarella, because nothing else I have found give me the stringyness I like in the sauce.  I add about 1.75 cups of shredded cheese to the bechamel, reserving about .5 cups to sprinkle on top before putting it in the oven.

Melt in the cheese and cook sauce, stirring often, 3-4 minutes.  Also, I highly recommend buying blocks of cheese and shredding them yourselves.  The pre-shredded cheese in the store has a coating to prevent it from all clumping together and it really hinders the cheese from melting in nicely to the sauce.   So roll up those sleeves and shred some cheese.  I have a helper in case I drop any:

Also make sure you check your pasta at some point.  You want to cook it pretty al dente because it will finish cooking in the cheese sauce in the oven.  I think my pasta box said 10 – 12 minutes, but I only cooked it 8 mins before taking it off and draining.  It still had a lot of bite to it, but I assure you it wont when you take it out of the oven.  So lets prepare the baking dish!  I havent forgot about that garlic.  Take that buttery garlic and use it to grease up your baking dish.  It will help add extra garlic flavor, too.

You can throw away your garlic now.

Youre almost done, I promise.  You just want to add a few more things to that sauce to make it extra yummy.  I add about 1/8 tsp of paprika, 1/4 tsp of onion powder, and 1/2 teaspoon of dijon mustard.  Notice I havent even mentioned salt, yet?!  Thats because you dont even want to touch the stuff until this point.  The cheese and mustard will add quite a bit of salt – so wait until all of that is added before you taste and decide if you want any more.

Yes, even with all that cheese, its a pretty ‘white’ sauce.  There is no yellow 5 dye in there!  Once you stir in your spices, pour all that delicious sauce into your drained pasta.

See the stringyness!!!  Now pour the whole thing into your garlic-butter-greased baking dish and top with the last .5 cups of cheese.

Now throw it in a 350 degree oven for like 20 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and bubbly on top.

Just so you know, my mac and cheese made it about 8 minutes in the oven before I decided to take it out to eat it.

I would say this recipe could serve about 4 people.  Or 1 hungry pregnant lady.  Either/Or.

Here is any easy copy/paste version of the recipe:

Ingredients:

.75 pounds of short cut pasta

2 cups of milk

8 oz ( ~2.25 cups) of cheese, any combination of cheddar, mozzarella, blue, parmesan, gruyere, fontina….

2.5 tablespoons of butter

2.5 tablespoons of flour

3 cloves of garlic

1/8 tsp of paprika

1/4 tsp of onion powder

1/2 tsp of dijon mustard

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Bring large pot of water to a boil; cook .75 lbs of pasta al dente, drain.  Melt 2.5 tablespoons of butter in sauce pan over low adding 3 smashed cloves of garlic to infuse.  Remove garlic after 2 minutes.  Use garlic to grease 8×8 baking dish.  Add 2.5 tablespoons of flour to melted butter and cook together for 2-3 minutes to create a roux.  Whisk in 2 cups of milk and cook over low heat for 3-4 minutes.  Add in 1.75 cups of cheese, stirring occasionally, until all cheese is incorporated, about 3-4 minutes.   Add in paprika, onion powder, and dijon.  Pour cheese sauce over drained pasta and stir until well combined.  Pour mac and cheese into baking dish and top with reserved .5 cups of cheese.  Bake at 350 degrees until cheese is melted and bubbly, about 20 minutes.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!! Chinese (or lunar) new years that is.  We have not cleaned the house, painted anything red, resolved any debts or had a fancy dinner,  but we did make dumplings!!!!  This is the year of the rabbit; according to http://www.c-c-c.org – the chinese cultural center of san fransisco:

“People born in the Year of the Rabbit are articulate, talented, and ambitious. They are virtuous, reserved, and have excellent taste. Rabbit people are admired, trusted, and are often financially lucky. They are fond of gossip but are tactful and generally kind. Rabbit people seldom lose their temper. They are clever at business and being conscientious, never back out of a contract. They would make good gamblers for they have the uncanny gift of choosing the right thing. However, they seldom gamble, as they are conservative and wise.”

So our child will be good at gambling but wont gamble?!?!  I dont think phil and I will stand for that.

Anyway.  Lets make some dumplings.  Here is our cast of characters:

We got pork, eggs, scallions, ginger, soy sauce, sesame oil, garlic and wonton wrappers.  In contrast to many recipes out there, I am using cooked pork.  Many other pork dumpling recipes call for uncooked, ground pork  but this past weekend I cooked up a 7.5 lb pork shoulder and have needed to use up the leftovers.  So cooked pork it is.  I had about 2 cups of packed pull pork.  So go ahead and throw that into a food processor.  Next, chop up 2 scallions (about 2 tablespoons).  I usually only use the bottom 2/3 of a scallion and discard the very ends.

Dont worry too much about how small you chop them – you’re going to blend this filling to smithereens anyway.  So throw in those scallions along with 2 cloves of garlic (about 2 teaspoons).  Next add about 1 teaspoon of freshly grated ginger.  I have one large piece of ginger that I keep in the freezer.  Whenever I need ginger – I peel off the skin with a potato peeler and use a microplane to shave off the amount I need.

If you do not have fresh ginger and want to use dried ginger, DO NOT USE 1 teaspoon.  Fresh ginger and dried ginger are totally different beasts.  I would only use like 1/8 of a teaspoon of dried ginger, tops.  Lastly, add your wet ingredients:  2 egg whites, 2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon of soy sauce, and 1 teaspoon of sesame oil.  Now everyone is in the pool:

Now let ‘er rip!  Action shot!!

So now that the filling is ready, you are ready to assemble the dumplings.  Im using won-ton wrappers found in the refrigerated section of the grocery store near the produce.  If you’re feeling particularly hardcore – you could make your own dough for wrappers.  I was not feeling hardcore tonight.  I was feeling cheap and easy. So first I set up my steamer.  I do not have a bamboo steamer, but my normal veggie steamer seems to work just fine.

[Yikes. I need to clean my stove top.]  Next, I set up a little assembling area and got to work. Put about a teaspoon of filling in the middle of the won-ton wrapper.  Using your finger, brush all sides of the won-ton with water.  Fold up opposite edges on both sides to form a 4 cornered pouch, making sure you seal all sides tightly together.

Woo!  Nice job.  Now do that like 40 more times.  Yeah, its kind of a pain in the ass, but its relatively easy and goes fast – especially if you have a hungry helper.  In fact, I usually cook in batches, so as soon as I have a few ready to go, I start steaming.  So make sure you have your steamer going and there is a low boil going on underneath your steaming basket – and then put a few dumplings down and cover.

See the steam starting to fill in?  (No?)  Steam for 4-5 minutes.  This is slightly less time than other recipes call for, because, again, you are using cooked pork.  So really, all that needs cooking are the egg whites.  After a few minutes of steamin you are done!

I serve these with some sort of asian inspired dipping sauce.  Usually soy, with a splash of rice wine vinegar, few drops of sesame oil and some chopped scallions.  Or whatever asian bottle we have in the fridge.  But they are perfectly delicious as is.  So there you go.  Kung Hei Fat Choi!

Here is any easy copy/paste version of the recipe:

Ingredients:

2 cups cooked pulled pork

2 tablespoons scallion

2 teaspoons garlic

1 teaspoon fresh ground ginger (or 1/8 teaspoon dried ginger)

2 egg whites

1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon soy sauce

1 teaspoon sesame oil

40-50 won-ton wrappers

Pulse first 7 ingredients in a food processor until well combined.  Place 1 teaspoon of filling into center of won-ton wrapper.  Brush all sides of won-ton wrapper with water.  Fold all corners together to form a pouch, making sure to stick all the corners together tightly together.  Place dumplings, in batches, into steamer.  Do not crowd – you do not want them touching each other or they will stick together!  Cover and steam 4-5 minutes.  Done!

Im finally going to post a recipe!  I think Ive said previously – Im hoping to use this blog as a way to catalog recipes that I make often.  Ive never really kept track of measurements or cooking time, which has lead to a considerable amount of variance between batches (‘considerable amount of variance’?  Yeah, I use these phrases in every day life.)  So Im finally going to start writing these things down so that I can have some uniformity in my recipes.  And, once the baby arrives, phil can refer to the blog and make all our favorite meals when I have my hands full!! Win. Win.

So without further ado, White Chicken Chili.  I actually make this more soup-like since I use this for lunches throughout the week, but really the only difference between soup and chili is the amount of stock you put in.  Here is the list of characters:

Except the picture above is missing chicken, garlic and sour cream (this is my first recipe post, its not going to be perfect).  You’ll also need these:

First, heat up a bit of olive oil in a big soup pot.  Then chop half a large onion ( ~1 cup), 1 large pepper or 2 smaller peppers of any color (~1.25 cups, I only had green but yellow and orange peppers are great in this, too), a few baby bella mushrooms (~.25 cup), and 2 large cloves of garlic (~3 tablespoons) – and throw them all into the pot.

I just chop and toss them in as I go.  The picture above was taken right before adding the mushrooms.  Next, I add my spices.  I always salt and pepper as I go along, but in addition to that I add 2 teaspoons of cumin, 1 teaspoon of oregano, and a few shakes (start with 1/8 of a teaspoon) of ground red pepper/cayenne pepper.  Side note – if you are using store bought stock, be careful on the amount of salt you add at this step – because the store bought stock will add a lot on its own.

MMmmmm. Its starting to smell good. I promise.  Now you’re going to add your beans and fire roasted chilies.  For the 2 4 oz cans of fire roasted chilies, open and drain them.  Then toss them right in.

Then drain AND rinse the can of beans.  They are packed in a salty, kind of funky (in a bad way) liquid.  So rinse ’em good. Then toss them right in.

Now we’re ready to add the stock.  Like I said earlier, if you’re making chili – you’ll probably only want around 5 cups of stock.  But since I make this more soup like, I use 9-10 cups.

Now I bring it up to a boil, then cover it and knock it down to a simmer for like 20 mins to finish cooking the veggies and mesh all the flavors.  This would be an excellent time to give your wife a foot rub.  You know, while you wait for the flavors to mesh.  After 20 mins you can turn off the heat and add the cooked chicken (~1.5 cups), corn (~.5 cups), and sour cream (~.25 cups).  The sour cream helps ‘whiten’ the chicken chili, you could also use cream or half & half to achieve this.

You’re done!  I’d taste it one more time to make sure it has enough salt/pepper/cayenne to your liking, but other than that it should be pretty darn delicious.

Here is any easy copy/paste version of the recipe:

Ingredients:

1 cup onion

1.25 – 1.5 cup sweet peppers (green, yellow, orange work best for the ‘white’ part of this chili)

.25 cups of mushrooms

3 tablespoons minced garlic

1 can white beans (cannelini, navy, anything you want)

2 cans fire roasted chilies (4 oz each)

5 cups of chicken stock (or 10 cups for more soup like)

1.5 cups cooked chicken

.5 cups frozen corn

.25 cups sour cream

2 teaspoons cumin

1 teaspoon of oregano

1/8 teaspoon cayenne

salt and pepper to taste

(wow that ingredients list seems kind long when you write it all out, huh?)  Anyway…

Sautee onions, sweet peppers, mushrooms, and garlic until soft and fragrant.  Add spices to taste (careful on that salt if you’re using store bought stock!).  Drain fire roasted chilies, add to pot.  Drain and rinse beans, add to pot.  Add 5 cups of stock for chili-like meal, or 10 cups stock for soup-like meal.  Bring to boil, cover, then lower to simmer for 20 mins.  Take off heat and add cooked chicken and frozen corn.  Stir in sour cream. Done!