Batch Cooking

I've never been organized enough to have a weekly menu planned out.  At most, we come up with four meals that we're going to make throughout the week, when we create our grocery list.  The rest of the meals are either leftovers, something from the freezer or something simple like breakfast for dinner or grilled cheese.  But, realistically, this plan doesn't always pan out well.  Often, I am okay with R's meal idea, in theory, and we buy groceries for it. But, when R wants to make it for tonight's supper, I don't actually want to have another random lentil dish.  

When a friend mentioned having a batch cooking day, I was eager to join in.  My freezer has been a bit barren lately.  I think it's because it has been so cold here and most of the foods that I freeze are cold weather foods.  So, they're getting eaten up pretty quickly.  

Three of us got together.  Since we all have kids around the same age, we knew we couldn't do a marathon session, so we kept it moderate and made triple recipes of four dishes (took about 3.5 hours): lasagne, taco soup, slow cooker ribs and butter chicken.  

The lasagna was made according to how my friend usually makes it.  I won't write out the recipe, but want to make note of the differences so that I can remember it down the line if we end up really liking this approach.  She uses a very thick meat sauce.  She also only puts cheeses on the top layer.  Then she  uses a full container of cottage cheese and adds two eggs to the cottage cheese for a creamier consistency. 

I also need to remember to cook the ribs at 400 for 15 minutes on each side before putting the slow cooker on low for 6 hours.  I can also put the ribs back in the oven after slow cooking if I want things to be more caramelized.



Here's some of the math. It total, we spent $174 on the food.  From that, we got:

9 - 8X8 lasagna (estimated three meals/tray since the tray isn't very deep) = 27 portions

6 - slow cooker ribs (estimated three meals -- one rack per bag) = 18 portions

various container of butter chicken (6 portions given to each person) = 18 portions

various containers of taco soup (6 portions per person) = 18 portions

Total = 81 portions (27 each)

Overall cost/person = $54

Overall Cost/portion = $2.15

I think that's a pretty decent cost considering that each portion has meat.  The taco soup was particularly cheap.  I got all of the ingredients for $25 (already had the spices) -- so about $1.40/portion.



Tortilla and Black Bean Pie

I'm holding Giz captive in Ottawa.  We are hard at work shopping for baby essentials and filling up my freezer.  I'll try to update you on both at some point in the near future.  Here's a post I wrote up a while ago, didn't save properly (I'm blaming the new blogger on that one) and just got time to finish it off:

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What was that no-so subtle hint,  mom?  You want me to blog?

The thing is that I haven't felt like trying new recipes lately.  Between making stuff from our usual repertoire and eating cereal, I've been quite content. R, he's more adventurous.  Give him a few days in Montreal and he'll come home with random photos of poutine with everything (except for the kitchen sink) on top.

Let me share one of R's more recent concoctions.

He initiated this from start to finish...between asking my mom for recipe recommendations, making sure we had the ingredients, making the food, taking pictures (including the obligatory crotch shot...don't ask why - it's just a thing he does when taking pictures that he knows I'll put up on the blog), and eating it all up.

This recipe comes from Martha Stewart.

Tortilla and Black Bean Pie

            4 flour tortillas (10 inches)

            2 tablespoons canola oil

            1 large onion, diced

            1 jalapeno chile, minced (remove seeds and ribs for less heat)

            2 garlic cloves, minced

            1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

            Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper

            2 cans (15 ounces each) black beans, drained and rinsed

            12 ounces beer, or 1 1/2 cups water

            1 package (10 ounces) frozen corn

            4 scallions, thinly sliced, plus more for garnish

            8 ounces cheddar cheese, shredded (2 1/2 cups)

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. With a paring knife, trim tortillas to fit a 9-inch springform pan. Use the bottom of the pan as a guide. Set aside.

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add onion, jalapeno, garlic, and cumin; season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, 5 to 7 minutes.

 Add beans and beer, and bring to a boil. 

Reduce heat to medium; simmer until liquid has almost evaporated, 8 to 10 minutes. 

Stir in corn and scallions, and remove from heat. Taste and adjust for seasoning.

Fit a trimmed tortilla in bottom of springform pan; layer with 1/4 of the beans 

and 1/2 cup of cheese. 

Repeat three times, using 1 cup cheese on top layer. 

Bake until cheese melts, 20 to 25 minutes. Remove side of pan; sprinkle pie with scallions. To serve, slice into wedges.

According to R, this recipe is a winner and he would make it again.

Mexican Chicken Casserole

Spring inspires me to get in the cupboards and use up alot of the accumulated cans of things that were so important to get for a recipe that just somehow never materialized. When Psychgrad put up a Mexican style dish it reminded me of how much I've come to love Mexican flavours. I have to admit I honestly don't know but when I think of Mexican food the ingredients that come to mind are beans, chili peppers, tomatoes, and cilantro. I had some ground chicken and turkey in the house so I just started to layer and the end result was amazing. You don't need a recipe to create something fantastic; a good pallet helps and some imagination and you're good to go.

1 lb (450 g) ground chicken
1 lb (450 g) ground turkey
1/2 large onion, diced
1 red pepper, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 14 oz can black beans
1 14 oz can kidney beans
1 28 oz can diced tomatoes
1 7 oz tin tomato paste
1 Tbsp chili flakes
2 Tbp taco seasoning
2 Tbsp dried cilantro (you could use fresh)
taco chips
12 oz mix of pepper jack, mozarella and cheddar cheese
3 Tbsp olive oil

1.  In a large saucepan on medium heat, fry onions and red pepper in olive oil until soft (3 minutes).  Add garlic and mix well.
2.  Add ground chicken and turkey and cook until no longer pink. 
3.  Continue to layer each of the ingredients (i.e. add slowly) combining the flavours as you go up to and including the dried cilantro.  Simmer for 10 minutes.  Check seasonings - add more heat or taco seasoning to your taste.
4.  Put a layer of taco chips on the bottom of a large (11x14) oven dish and top with the casserole mixture.  Top with a layer of taco chips and finish with the cheese.
5.  Bake in a 350 degree oven  for approximately 40 minutes or until cheese is melted.

Note:  This recipe is enough for 6-8 hungry people.  You can easily cut it in half and add or delete ingredients as you wish.  Use jalapeno peppers if you have them and if you want more heat, leave the seeds in the peppers.

Quesadillas & Sweet Potato Chips with Lime

Only a small handful of friends even know that I have a food blog. Usually when I take pictures of food around friends, they just chalk it up to me being strange.  But, when I invited friends for dinner a couple of weekends ago and started taking pictures, they immediately said, "Do you have a food blog?"

Uhhh....what?  I'm just taking pictures...why would you assume that I have a...what are they called....a food blog?

Yeah.  I'm not a good liar.

For this meal, I wanted to be as close to vegan as possible.  I knew that my guests would eat dairy products when out at friends, but I'd really prefer to make my guests feel as comfortable (and unconflicted) as possible when eating at my home.

As an appetizer, I served some melba rounds with preserved bruschetta.  Everyone that I serve this bruschetta to seems to really like it.  Personally, I'm not a big fan.

For the main, I wanted to do something interactive.  I think it sets an informal tone while allowing guests to customize their own meal.  This is particularly useful when you have guests that have food restrictions and are fussy eaters.  Of course, you don't get the 'wow factor' that you might get when you put down nicely plated food or even set out a large dish for a family-style dinner.  But, you can always add in these elements in your side dishes or for the dessert.

For the main, I prepared a mise-en-place of ingredients for quesadillas.  The selection of ingredients included black beans, mushrooms, shallots, artichokes, sun-dried tomatoes, chipotles in adobo sauce and vegan cheese (Daiya).  

Daiya is a Canadian-based cheese company that is known among vegans as being one of the better options.  It started appearing in Ottawa a couple of years ago.  It melts up well, tastes good and you wouldn't even miss mozzarella if you use it.  

The picture of the quesadilla is a bit shoddy -- due to time constraints.  But, basically, we put one fajita shell on the pan, flipped it after a minute and then added the desired ingredients.  Then, the second fajita goes on top. After a couple of minutes, we carefully flipped the whole thing.  I'd also recommend putting a lid on the pan while it cooks just to get a bit of steam to the cheese.


I think it went over well.  The only issue is that it wouldn't really work if you had a lot of guests because each quesadilla basically requires its own pan and you don't want people eating at different times or eating cold food while they wait for others to finish.

In addition to the quesadillas, I went with Noble Pig's Sweet Potato Chips with Lime.

Easy to make and tasted great!  I thought I might have too much with two pans of thinly sliced sweets potatoes (about 3 large).  But, they shrank down a fair bit and I'm sure if I had made more, they would have been eaten.

My guests brought a nice salad (no picture) and the meal was great!

The dessert was a bit more of an experiment. I thought it would be a calculated experiment to make trifle, which everyone loves, but use soy milk.  But I learned the hard way that soy milk doesn't work with regular instant pudding mixes the same way that milk does.  Apparently animal fat (found in milk) is required for the pudding to actually thicken up.  It probably didn't help the thickening issue that I also bought kosher instant pudding to make sure that it didn't have any gelatine in it.  Next time, I'll buy a vegan instant pudding mix.

In the end, I had to head up the milkshake-like mixture and add a lot of cornstarch (mixed into water).  Even then, it didn't thicken up until it cooled down in the freezer.   Thankfully, it worked out (despite burning some of the vanilla pudding when trying to get it to thicken.  Maybe a bit more of a creme brulee flavour than usual, but still very tasty!

I'll leave you with a photo of a recent knitting project that I completed.  A free pattern of this leaf-patterned baby blanket can be found here (if you're a Ravelry member).  The photo on the left is before blocking and the photo on the right is after blocking.

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Enchillada Verde

I'm the first to admit that my knowledge of Mexican cooking is less than Mexican 101. Encilada to me was a cool name that I liked to say but didn't really have an emotional connection to. I also had no real smell recognition for enchiladas. It's not that I didn't want to, it's more that the opportunity just didn't somehow present itself.

I have a friend named Eury (unusual and beautiful name don't you think), pronouned YooRee. She's also quite shy and really very lovely.


Eury's from Mexico and always tells me about the foods she grew up on and we share food stories often. I've introduced her to the marvels of the kosher style deli; most certainly not something that would roll off her lips when thinking of what to make for dinner.



Pictured above, you have the essentials; good rye bread, incredible smoked turkey, cole slaw and potato knishes.

Today it was Eury's turn to teach me something in our cross cultural exchange. She wanted me to try her Encillada Verde; she picked up all the ingredients and brought them over.

We had a good laugh trying to figure out how hot the chilis would be. When I looked up arbol chilli I realized I was in for heat; a relative to the cayenne pepper was sure to create some perspiration.

4 tomatillos
3 Arbol Chilis (jalapeno is fine also)
1 clove garlic
1 thick slice of onion
pinch of salt
1/4 cup of cooking water
handful of chopped cilantro (optional but adds great flavour)
6 corn tortillas

In a medium sized pot, bring tomatillos and chilis to a boil and turn down to medium cooking just long enough to allow both to soften (approximately 8 minutes). Remove the stems of the chilis.



Place tomatillos, water and chilis in a blender with sliced onion and garlic and blend until smooth.

In small pot, heat 1 Tbsp olive oil and a thin slice of onion - just long enough to release flavour. Add blended salsa to seasoned oil and bring to a boil.
Microwave corn tortillas just long enough to soften (20 seconds)
Layer queso fresco (or whatever filling you chose)** and fold over tortillo

Place filled tortillas in lightly oiled saucepan and heat long enough to slightly crisp the tortilla and allow for the cheese to warm. Queso fresco is great cheese since it's made from raw milk and doesn't melt quickly.

Add cilantro to salsa verde and pour over tortilla to coat well.

We started with a little kosher deli, went to Mexican and then ended up with old country blueberry buns. Does life get any better than this?

For me, this was such a fun experience and a wonderful learning. There was salsa verde left over that Eury suggested I freeze for the next time. Sorry, it didn't last long enough. I'm hooked and can't wait for my next Mexican cooking class.

Taco Soup

I get so stressed about cooking for guests. Preparations usually involve scouring the internet, revisiting my starred recipes in my Google Reader and multiple calls to Giz. I finally had to stop the madness, stop calling my mother, stop stressing and just pick something. An anxiety-filled decision making process isn't a prerequisite to making a good meal. In fact, it's often the simple dishes that are the best tasting.

This certainly is the case in this situation. This Taco Soup made for a delicious and filling lunch. The recipe come from Pam at For the Love of Cooking. One of my "go to" blogs for great recipes, I've blogged about Pam's dishes before here, here and here.

Taco Soup
source


Taco Seasoning:
1 tsp of cumin
1 tsp of oregano
1 tsp of chili powder
1 tsp of paprika
1 tsp of garlic powder
1 tsp of onion powder
1 tsp of coriander
Sea salt and freshly cracked pepper, to taste

Soup:
1 lb of lean ground beef
1/2 sweet yellow onion, diced
3-4 garlic cloves, minced
1 can of pinto beans, rinsed and drained (I used navy beans)
1 can of kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1 cup of frozen corn (I used canned corn)
2 cans of diced tomatoes
1 4.5 oz can of diced green chilies
1/2 oz of package of ranch salad dressing mix (half a packet) (I couldn't find this, so excluded it)

Heat a Dutch oven over medium heat then add the ground beef. Add all the taco seasonings and mix into the ground beef, making sure to break it up into crumbles. Add the diced onion and garlic then mix thoroughly and cook for 4-5 minutes.

Add the beans, corn, tomatoes, green chilies and ranch dressing packet, mix well then cover and simmer on low for 2 hours, stir occasionally. Taste and re-season with sea salt or pepper if needed.



Toppings:
Corn tortilla strips (directions below)
Sour cream
Sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
Green onions, diced

While the soup is simmering. Heat the oven to 400 degrees. Cut a few corn tortillas into strips. Coat a baking sheet with cooking spray then place the tortilla strips on it and spray them with cooking spray and season with sea salt. Bake in the oven for 5-7 minutes or until golden brown.

Ladle the soup into bowls then top with corn tortilla strips, soup cream, cheddar cheese and green onions.

I took the opportunity to use some new plates that R brought home from Mexico for this meal.




The bread come from Art-is-in Bakery, some of the best bread in Ottawa.




My guest brought dessert and I also served strawberries. I was just looking for an excuse to use my strawberry bowl (yes, it's an actual bowl for strawberries). You can wash and serve them in the one dish.

Ahora

Ottawa may not be a hub for Mexican food...but we do have Ahora (and a few other places of varying authenticity).


It's a small, casual restaurant (almost fast food style), in the market. After picking your dish, you go up to the front counter to place your order. The food is then brought to your table. Even though it was -25 out, I couldn't resist getting a margarita.



The taste was great until I realized that the rim was covered with salt (I thought it was sugar)...after mixing the salt into the drink. I don't fault the restaurant because salt around the rim is (apparently) common and is meant to bring out the flavour of the margarita. Personally, I find the flavour combination gross.

We started with an order of chips and salsa. There wasn't much to them, but I took advantage of the hot sauce selections at the front of the restaurant, which made them more appealing.



For the main, R had a Burrito Grande. His verdict: "It was okay".



I quite enjoyed my Quesadilla de Pollo. Again, the free hot sauces were much appreciated.



In general, I'd go back... But, judging from other online reviews, I'm not as big of a fan as others who have visited the restaurant. I'd probably wait until summer to return because I found the restaurant to be quite cold. It's also hard to "swallow" the summer feel of the place when it's -25 out. The tables are fairly tightly packed in there, which is fine, unless your neighbours feel the need to yell the entire time. I think they got the hint when I yelled to R, "WHAT? I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" Gotta love the Canadian-style passive-aggressiveness. Service was friendly, price is good.