Celebrating Spring...on the Calendar

So this week was the official beginning of Spring.  Days are finally starting to get longer and it's theoretically getting warming (especially if the Nor'easter headed our way doesn't bury us in a foot of snow later in the week).  And with that in mind, the Kitchen Ninja wanted to take his business out of the kitchen and on to the deck.

The only problem?  It's barely above freezing right now and there's still snow and ice piled up on the deck.  Too bad this ninja won't be deterred.  So it was out to the great white northeast outdoors for some summertime grilling in wintertime weather.

The reality is that last weekend had a day that was perfect for breaking out the grill and we missed it.  Someone else in the neighborhood didn't though - so the entire out of doors smelled magically.  Wes got that stuck in his mind and pretty much wouldn't consider anything else.

Grilling is a bit challenging in this family.  There's a general pyrophobia that Wes probably inherited from me.  Open flames are not the ninjas best friend.  In fact, Kitchen Mom is the normal Grillmaster, but it's better to face that and learn how to deal with an open cooking flame than to be scared and, ultimately, be dangerous.  And he should learn too ;)

Because of this general nervousness, we thought we'd start with the basics.  Simple grilled meat and vegetables.  First up the veggies.

Since it's too early for good local produce, we grabbed some simple Italian squash (or zucchini as I grew up calling it).  We looked it up and we're pretty sure they're the same thing.  Either way it's a summer squash so it made sense as a part of our un-seasonal feast.

Wes trimmed off the ends and split the squash.  They went into a large casserole dish where he drizzled over some basic olive oil (not extra virgin - we saved the good stuff for later).  On top went a heavy pinch of kosher salt and a health dash of garlic powder.  He also cut a yellow onion into rings, placed a metal skewer through them and followed the same oil/salt/garlic process.

He also put on a pot of white rice - I think he loves the fact he can make that all by himself without any help.  We've got the Zojirushi rice cooker - the Mercedes Benz of rice cookers.  One of my favorite kitchen splurges.

The veggies went on to the cranking hot grill (we never took it off the highest setting since it's only around 40 degrees outside).  The grill temp was around 550 degrees.  The veggies cooked for 4 minutes a side or roughly long enough for the temp to come back up.  Opening the lid on the grill cost us a good 200 degrees each time - so we were extra careful not to peek.

Side note - we wore twinner Crocs through this entire process - just like really chefs.  Take that Mario Batali!

While the veg was grilling happily away, Wes switch to salad prep.  Nothing fancy.  Just some dark leafy greens dressed in a simple vinaigrette.  Kitchen Mom jumped in to show him how to do it.  We used our favorite  white balsamic vinegar (it has a little lighter bite than normal balsamic but you can substitute).  Wes whisked in a heavy pinch of salt into 1 part vinegar and then added 3 parts oil (use the good stuff here) slowly while whisking briskly.  It was a good team effort.  We even used the opportunity to talk about emulsions and molecular bonds and the use of energy to trick the separate parts into combining.  Science!

Once the veggies were done (we could tell they were done because the were soft and the perfect starting-to-turn-black color on the outside), we let the grill heat back up all the way.  We placed the veggies on a cookie sheet and put it in a 250 degree oven to stay warm.  Next came the meat.

Obviously there's a lot of different choices for meat on the grill.  Personally, I love them all.  But Wes-man, he has a particular favorite - steak tips.  Steak tips can be a lot of different things.  They're the trimmings that are left over from a prime piece of meat, usually like a tenderloin.  Our local butcher shop has the best steak tips - they even have them pre-marinated so they're ready to go straight to the grill.  For tonight we bought the house marinade which is a slightly sweet barbeque flavor.

On to a ripping hot grill, the steak tips cooked for about 4 minutes a side.  This was a perfect medium (warm pink center) - shave off 30 seconds to a minute for medium rare.  And if you go for the cool center, you're out of luck around here.  We don't serve no purple beef!

Wes was a champ on the grill.  Even if he did use the full length of the tongs to his advantage!

Everything came together at the exact same time!  That's some times a rarity in these parts.  But tonight we shook off of grilling rust and had a bang up summer feast all while it still looks like Christmas outside.  Remember the Kitchen Ninjas number one rule for off-seasonal grilling:  stand close enough to the grill for warmth, but not so close as to actually catch on fire and burst into flames.  We're dealing with the pyrophobia, really we are...

Until next time!

Blog Saving Dal

One big update that I should probably start with is the fact that as a family we're trying to embrace a partial vegetarian diet.  There's a couple of reasons for that:  my dad passed away a little over a year ago from a heart attack at just short of his of 65th birthday and Erin and I started reading books and watching documentaries about meat production in the U.S.  It's scary and a bit shameful how we treat our food in this country.  When I came across Mark Bittman's new book Vegan Before 6:00 I knew I'd found the perfect compromise.  (Read all about it here:  http://markbittman.com/tag/vb6/).  I highly encourage you to check out Mr. Bittman's blog and to read all his books, but his thesis is that if you eat really healthy twice a day you can indulge yourself a bit once a day.  It's the perfect compromise - at least for us.

So, that means that we needed to find a whole new set of recipes as a family.  Since Wes wanted to splurge on Taco Bell today for lunch (Doritos Locos Tacos all the way!), we needed a meat-free healthy dinner.  That's where dal comes in!

I was lucky enough to travel to India a few years back and the one food I truly fell in love with was dal.  Super simple and amazingly flavorful, dal is a super food.  And a few weeks back, I was listening to Alton Brown's amazing podcast where I heard the recipe for Simon Majumdar's "Life Saving Dal".  You can read the story about it here:  http://www.simonmajumdar.com/recipes/life-saving-dahl/.

The recipe sounded easy enough, so I tried it out.  It turned out amazing and so I started tweaking and changing because, well, that's fun.  Here's our recipe.

First decide on your vegetables.  For tonight, we picked eggplant and mushrooms but you can use literally anything.  There's a million ways that you can read on how to prepare eggplant but I don't follow any of them.  We peeled it because the skin can get chewy.  Then Wes cut it into bit-sized pieces by planking it and then dicing.  The mushrooms we washed and quartered.  One big eggplant and 2 cartons of brown mushrooms are plenty for this dish.  These went on separate cookie sheets and into the oven on convection bake at 350 degrees.  Roast them until they start to brown and get delicious.


Next we took an onion and Wes cut it into slices and threw those in a dutch oven with some olive oil and a heavy pinch of salt.  We let those cook down until they caramelized - about 20 minutes.

Once the onions are nice and brown, we started throwing in spices.  One palm-full each of garam masala, red curry powder, garlic powder, dried parsley, and cumin.  Wes also added in some hot Hungarian paprika that we had in the pantry because it looked cool.  It's a good time to add salt too.  Stir that all up and enjoy how amazing it makes to kitchen smell.






Next Wes added in 2 cups of dried red lentils.  He stirred them into the onion and spice mix and let them toast up a bit.  Then he poured in a carton of chicken stock (which could have been vegetable stock or water if you wanted to go true vegan).  We let that come to a low boil and put on the lid.  After about 10 minutes add a can of chickpeas (optional but not really).  That needs to cook for about 20 minutes or until the lentils start to get soft.


Everything should come together about the same time.  If you planned ahead you can add a box of fresh baby spinach - or if you're like us now is when you added frozen spinach that you quickly thawed in the sink and squeezed out as much water as you can without a lot of effort.  Also throw in the roasted vegetables.  Let that all cook down until the liquid is at a stew-like consistency and the lentils start to break down a bit.  Some recipes advocate puree of half the lentils, but that's just another thing to clean so I just keep them cooking.

And that's it.  Serve this on brown rice and you've got an amazingly filling and healthy meat-free dinner.  This can also be a side dish for those of you more meat-ly inclined.

And what did Wes think?  You be the judge.

Hopefully we'll be back next week.

Cooking with Wes 2.0?

So it's been a few years since we've done this.  Does the fact that we're doing it today mean that we're back?  Probably not...

Why did we stop?  Well, there were a few reasons.  First of all, we learned about peer pressure and 7 year-old boys through this experiment.  Nothing bad actually happened, but Wes lost interest when he started to worry that kids in his class would find out what we were doing.  That made me sad, but I understood.  Unfortunately, we live in a world where we still can't celebrate how we are different but where it's easiest to be the same - at least outwardly.  When you're a shy, introverted kid things that make you stand out also make you uncomfortable.

Secondly, Wes just got tired of being committed to doing something every week.  9 weeks is about the attention span of a 7 year-old.  We were starting to cut into his t.v. and video game time.  While that disappointed me, this couldn't become something that was a chore or something that we fought about.

So I did my best to hide my disappointment and we moved on.  Then a funny thing happened.  Wes started to ask about doing this again.  A friend poked at me on Facebook and it got us talking about it.  As a 9 year-old now, Wes can do a lot more than 2 years ago.  So, we'll see where it takes us.  Maybe it will take another 10 years to finish our way through all of our family recipes, and maybe that's just okay.

Week 9 - Mothers' Day Especial

Since it was Mothers' Day, Kitchen Mom got her choice for dinner tonight.  She asked for enchiladas, so we got to work; kitchen ninja style.

Full disclosure.  I'd never made enchiladas before.  I'd eaten a lot of them in the past, but I'd never actually taken the time to think through what goes into making them.  Breaking it down was easy.  3 simple ingredients: cheese, sauce, and tortillas.  We toyed with the idea of store-bought sauce, but that just didn't seem right so we set out to make our own enchilada sauce from scratch (with a can of El Paso in back up just in case!)

For body in the sauce we minced a quarter of an onion and sweated it down in some olive oil.  Wes smashed up a couple of cloves of garlic that we put through a garlic press and added as well.

Once that was cooked through, we added a couple of spoonfuls of flour and made a quick roux (I like thick sauce).  Once the flour looked cooked, we added a bunch of spices that sounded Mexican: cumin, red chili powder, onion powder, and salt).  Then one small can of tomato paste went into the saucier.  I grabbed a whisk and Wes began to add chicken broth to the roux.  We went until it was a half as tight as I wanted it to end up (about 3 cups if I had to guess; add another cup of broth if you like thinner sauce).  When everything was incorporated, we left to sauce to bubble away.

Next was the tortillas.  Some day I'm going to make my own, but not today.  We took a package of store-bought corn tortillas and cooked them in a small skillet with a little bit of canola oil.  Each tortilla cooked for about 2-3 minutes per side, just enough so they were pliable and not raw.  I used the tortilla going in next to blot the excess oil off the one coming out.  We did the whole dozen, but only 10 ended up fitting in the pan.

While I prepped the tortillas (Wes still isn't up to frying quite yet), Wes went out and picked some fresh cilantro.  He cleaned it himself and I helped him get a good chop on it.  He also grated a block of cheese (we mixed white and yellow cheddar).  All of that went into a bowl and we also added 1/4 of an onion, diced and left raw.

We set the oven to pre-heat at 350 degrees, but moved the shelf to the top because we're going to end it on broil.  While the oven heated up, we set up our prep line.  And this is where it got interesting and messy!

  This was full on teamwork at it's finest.  We started the pan with a thin layer of the sauce at the bottom.  I took the hot tortillas and dipped each one in the still bubbling sauce.  Tongs helped, but ultimately it took fingers.  As I laid each tortilla, Wes took a handful of the cheese mixture and filled the middle.  I rolled them up and slid them to the side.  All 10 fit in very tightly.  Then Wes covered the whole mess in even more cheese.  Definitely not for the lactose intolerant.

We filled the whole pan up and it went into the oven for 15 minutes.  Once everything was good and bubbly, I switch over to broil for 5 minutes to finish the top.  While we were waiting, we heated up some black beans and a bowlful of corn.

How did it turn out?  Well, the El Paso is still in the cupboard.  Wes ate THREE!!!  And beyond that, well this picture says it all...

Happy Mothers' Day from the Kitchen Ninja!

Week 8 - South of Border Again!

First pasta over and over again and now Mexican food.  We definitely get into ruts around here; but usually in a good way.  This week we were going to grill, but the grill was way dead (trip to Home Depot next week for a new one!) so we decided to go with Arroz con Pollo instead.  For the gringos and gringas in our loyal readership that would be "rice with chicken".  Deliciously slow cooked chicken and rice to be exact.

We started out dicing a bunch of veg.  One white onion, one whole red pepper, a carrot and two celery stalks all got a small dice.  Everything the same size for even cooking! (I swear I must say that a million times to Wes as he breaks down the produce.)  No pictures here -- I figure you know what Wes looks like with the knife by now.

Next three medium sized (meaning normal size, not those mutant, hormone grown monstrosities from the mega mart) boneless, skinless chicken breasts went into our dutch oven with a little olive oil.  These were cooked until they started to get a good brown on the outside, but definitely not cooked through.  Medium high heat helps speed this along and also builds that good crust on the bottom of the pan.

Next went the vegetables with a pat of butter for flavor.  Onion and carrots first because they take longer.  Pepper and celery next, all cooked until translucent.  We worked the tasty burnt chicken bits off the bottom using the moisture from the cooking vegetables.  Two cloves of garlic got minced and tossed in and let cook for a couple of minutes.

The next step is a big cheat, but it saves a bunch of effort.  We took a box of Spanish rice (spice packet included!) and dumped the whole thing into the Dutch Oven.  Goya is the favorite brand here, but any cook in a pot kind will work.  A couple of big stirs to let the rice and spices coat all the vegetables, then we added one large can of diced tomatoes and nestled the chicken back into the pot with all this goodness.

Wes shook up a carton of chicken broth, and that was added until everything was covered in liquid.  Once the liquid started to simmer, on went a lid and the whole thing was dropped to low.  Wes went and played Legos and we let the whole thing cook for about 30 minutes.  I checked about 20 minutes in to make sure there was still liquid cooking away.

At the 30 minute mark we took the lid off and fished out the chicken breasts.  We took them over to a cutting board and Wes shredded the whole thing into little delicious pieces.  Wes insisted on calling it a tearing board for the rest of the night.

After a quick trip to pick some cilantro from our garden we were ready to eat.  Wes had seconds, I ate myself sick, and mom saved everything for leftover lunches all week long, so I think it turned out pretty well.

Next week -- the long awaited return of Ask the Kitchen Ninja!

Week 7 - Easter Not-Brunch Kitchen Ninja Style

Wes's choice this week and he wanted to make breakfast for Easter (he of course refuses to call it brunch because he's worried he won't get lunch if it's brunch).  Mostly I think that the idea of unwrapping a ham and watching it bake in the oven didn't overly excite him.  Side note:  Kitchen Mom is making Potatoes Romanoff with our Easter dinner. Do yourself a favor and check out the recipe at the link.  Fantastic!

Okay, back to kitchen ninja training.  First and hardest job was peeling the boy away from Easter baskets and jelly beans.  Not an easy taks.

Since it was totally Wes's choice, he decided the entire menu.  He wanted Cheesy Eggs, bacon, McDonald's-style hash browns and OJ.  Kitchen Mom jumped in with his favorite cinnamon rolls (store bought) and a fresh fruit salad.

Eggs first.  I have to say that I'm crazy proud of my boy here.  He totally went for it on the egg cracking and just nailed it.  Part of the goal for this whole project was for him to gain confidence in something and he was so awesome in his fear-free approach to the eggs.  6 eggs; no shells!  We added a little milk and salt and Wes whipped the eggs up quick like. 

I chopped up 1/2 lbs of bacon and started that frying on low on the stove top.  We agreed that we wanted low mess so we could get outside and play instead of cleaning the kitchen (sunny and 70 degrees today!), so bacon-topping won out over strips.  Much easier and more fun to build your plate at the table.

Next was the cheesy part of Cheesy Eggs.  Wes worked the grater and broke down 1/2 a block of cheddar. 

So now it was time to bring it all together.  We got a big non-stick skillet out and added a big hunk of butter.  Today's lesson: the best way to scramble an egg.  Once the butter was melted, we poured in our egg mixture.  Low heat!  Wes watched closely for the eggs to start to set along the outside.  Once the egg turned white, he used a spatula to gently push the cooked egg to the center of the pan, pausing long enough to let uncooked egg fill in the gap.  Gently and continuously repeat until all of the egg has set up.  I jumped in and helped here and did a flip of all the mostly-cooked egg.  1/2 the cheese went into the pan next with the heat off at this point (even on our gas, the carry-over heat is plenty to finish the eggs and melt the cheese; if you're using electric kill the heat earlier).  Wes was great gently folding the cheese in one handful at a time, reserving some for "super extra cheese" at the table.

Toaster hash browns were kind of anti-climactic at this point.  Frozen kind into the toaster oven.  But Wes monitored them like a pro while I got everything ready for the table.

Eggs went into a serving bowl, bacon bits in another, and extra cheese in the last.  Plates got piled high and completely polished off.  Another success.  Now back to those jelly beans...

Week 6 - Cheater Fish Tacos

So this week was our first big challenge week.  The NBA playoffs started today, and the Lakers were the marque game at 3:30 EST.  That meant that we needed to get our cooking done while also trying not to miss the start of the "journey to 3-peat".  (In hindsight, we clearly could have spent as much time as we wanted in the kitchen since the Lakers stunk up the place today...)

The challenge was to come up with a dinner worthy of the Sunday Supper title, without having to spend any more time in the kitchen than necessary.  The ideal meal would be assembled during half time and be ready to eat by the 4th quarter buzzer.  So we decided to go semi-homemade (no relation to Sandra Lee) and to make Cheater Fish Tacos.

I came up with this recipe totally on my own, but everyone that's tried it has raved.  The ideal is crispy fish, creamy slaw and spicy hot sauce all coming together in a fresh tortilla. Only without any of the effort that should go along with that.  It's crazy easy.

First we had to make the slaw.  Wes chopped up about a half dozen radishes matchstick-style.  Those went into the bowl first with a heavy pinch of salt (mixed well of course).  Then we took half a head of regular cabbage and shredded it up (I cut, Wes separated) and that went into the bowl as well.  A good handful of minced cilantro and enough sour cream to make it creamy went in next.  Finally we squeezed in the juice of one small line.  Everything got mixed well and then into the fridge to come together.

Then the cheating starts.  From the freezer we grabbed a box of our favorite fish tenders (you could do fish sticks but the batter-to-fish ratio isn't as good).  They went onto a baking sheet and into the oven following the directions right off the box.

And we went back into the living room to enjoy the game.  Right in time for the second half to start.

At the end of the third quarter, we went back into the kitchen to finish our prep.  First we put a can of black beans on the stove top.  Wes got to open his first can!  He's ready to be a hobo now.

Then we followed Rick Bayless's direction on heating store-bought corn tortillas.  I'm going into detail here because this is important.  You have to moisten a tea towel and wrap up a dozen tortillas in the damp towel.  Then put the towel-wrapper tortillas into a Ziplock plastic bag.  Do not seal the bag, but rather fold it over.  Microwave the tortillas on medium for 4 minutes and then let them sit for 3-4 minutes before taking them out.  From there, straight into the tortilla warmer (you've got a tortilla warmer, right?)  By some magic, this transforms store-bought tortillas into the same yummy perfection of fresh made tortillas.  Magic.

Right as the game was falling apart--err ending, dinner was ready.  One last important ingredient -- srircha!  Not for Wes, but for me.  Wes kept asking how old he had to be to try the rooster sauce.  I was game, but Mom was all dirty looks so we postponed to another time.

All the tacos came together.  Wes polished off 3 himself!  And everyone was happy and that special kind of full that comes from eating just one taco too many.  The finally tallies of firsts for Wes: (1) first time eating a radish (2) first time opening a can by himself and (3) first time using the oven.  Not a bad day
and another successful Sunday dinner.  Now if we could have just fixed the Lakers...


Next week:  Easter Brunch!