Chinese food at home

When I made a pork tenderloin the other night, Ashly made a comment about pork fried rice. I'd never made that before, but it's something that I've always wanted to try. After all, it sounded easy and it's something that I already know tastes good, but I had just never done it. Maybe it's because I tend to only try out new recipes if they're main dishes. Anyway, once it was in my mind, I couldn't quite get rid of it and I decided to give it a try.

Here are my main ingredients: cold cooked rice (used my rice cooker), diced carrots and onions (not in the original recipe, but recommended by reviewers), a can of peas (also not in the original recipe), and diced leftover pork tenderloin.



I was trying to time everything to be ready when Andy got home from work, so rather than measure spices directly into the pan, I measured the garlic powder, ginger, pepper, and chili sauce into the pork. My mom does this with salt and baking powder/ soda when baking.



I scrambled up some eggs and set them aside. Because the recipe said to add the scrambled eggs and soy sauce at the same time later, I measured the soy sauce directly into the bowl with the eggs. In retrospect, that wasn't too bright because the eggs soaked up all the soy sauce flavor, but I guess making mistakes is how I will teach myself to cook.



Next, I sauteed up the onion, carrots, and peas.



This is the first time I've ever used canned peas. Judging by the yellow-ish color, it'll probably be the last. They tasted fine, but really, how appetizing do they look? Ah well.

When Andy said he was about 15 minutes away, I put the cold rice in the skillet with the pork and spices, and stirred it up until the flavor was mixed and the mixture was warm. Then I added the vegetables mixture and the eggs/ soy sauce mixture, although I needed to add more soy sauce because it was soaked into the eggs. In the end, it looked like this.



Now, I couldn't just make pork fried rice and expect my husband to consider it a full meal. I have a recipe for sticky, sweet, spicy chicken and it has been very popular in the past, so I decided to stick with the Asian theme and make that.



Normally, I use chicken breasts. But I know that Andy prefers chicken thighs to breasts, so I decided to use them instead. After slicing them into strips and adding flour and paprika to dredge them, this is what they looked like:



Two things to keep in mind:
1. If you're going to dredge chicken in flour, it is not a good idea to do this far in advance. I mixed all this together and set it aside until Andy was on his way home, and it resulted in one sticky lump of chicken all glued together. Whoops. Won't make that mistake again!

2. I cut my finger pretty badly in this step and lost most of my enthusiasm for taking pictures at this point. Bear with me.

I made a sauce with brown sugar, honey, soy sauce, ginger, minced garlic, and hot sauce. Then I remembered that I normally double the sauce, so then I measured everything out again. This is a close-up.



Side note: Why do food sellers insist on selling honey packaged in those teddy-bear-shaped containers? They are so difficult to squeeze honey out of, especially if you've already cut your finger and are trying to do everything one-handed.

Though it deviates from the original instructions, I always simmer the sauce for 4-5 minutes alone, then add in the chicken (already sauteed) and simmer for another 4-5 minutes. This is what it looked like at that point.



And a close-up:



I failed at getting pictures of either dish on a plate - completely forgot with the chaos of doing everything one-handed. Everything came together very nicely, though. The flavor of the rice was a little different, though I think the soy sauce and ginger were really appealing. And it certainly balanced the spiciness of the chicken. Andy really loved the fact that I used thighs this time, though I still think I like chicken breasts better. But they were delicious and easy, and one of my favorite things to make.

As always, if you are interested in either recipe, hit me up and I'll gladly share.

Smoky Broccoli-Gouda Soup

We had a few warm days last week here in Maryland, but this week we've been plunged back into windy, rainy, and cold weather. That kind of change always leaves me craving soup, so I decided to whip up a simple, cheesy, potato-y soup one evening after work. I got the recipe from my friend Abby, and last time I made it, I followed it exactly. This time I thought I'd change it up a little bit.



Here are my main ingredients: gouda cheese, broccoli, and potato. It's supposed to be 2 red potatoes, but all I had was one russet. Also, fun fact of the day: in New Zealand and Australia, gouda is pronounced "gow-dah," not "goo-dah" like it is here.



First step is to cut up the potatoes in small chunks and then simmer it in chicken broth. I didn't have canned chicken broth, so I boiled water and dropped bouillon cubes in it, stirred until they dissolved, then put in the potatoes.



When the potatoes were tender, I mashed them up a bit (using a plastic masher so I wouldn't damage my awesome saucepan, a wedding present from my Aunt Lilith!).



Next up is adding milk and the broccoli, then simmering until the broccoli is tender. Of course, the broccoli was in huge chunks for the fondue, but I prefer much smaller florets, so I chopped everything up a bit more.



Also, the soup doesn't call for any meat, but Abby said she always throws in some Canadian bacon for flavor. I figured it couldn't hurt to chop up some leftover pork loin from the other night, since I knew it would never get eaten in its present state.





While all that was cooking, I shredded the gouda and tossed it with flour.



And chopped up some baby spinach to use as a topper.



When the broccoli was tender, I added the cheese bit by bit until it was melted and smooth. When it was done, it looked like this.



I had mine topped with a bit of extra shredded gouda and the chopped spinach. Andy added cheez-its, because he said you can't have soup without crackers and we didn't have any regular saltines.



And that was my soup. It turned out thick and delicious. Andy had to add milk when he reheated the leftovers, but the flavor from the gouda, broccoli, and pork all worked together quite nicely (though personally I prefer it meatless!)

If you'd like the recipe, hit me up.

Fondue Night

I have no idea how the idea came up, but while we were commiserating over a frustrating work situation, Kanchana (coworker/ friend) and I thought "We should do a fondue night." I'd never made fondue before, but I'd experienced a 4-course dinner at the Melting Pot once and knew that we could do cheese fondues, beef fondues, and chocolate fondues. After searching around on allrecipes.com, I came up with three highly-rated recipes that I wanted to try. We picked an evening (Sunday night before President's Day, which is a Federal Holiday), split a grocery list, and got busy.

Fondue #1: Parmesan Fondue

For an appetizer, we decided to do a cheese fondue. My mom makes very good Swiss Fondue and I thought about asking her for the recipe, but in the end I decided that I wanted something with a more subtle flavor. Swiss is delicious, but it has a strong flavor and I wasn't sure if everyone would really like it. I was looking at several recipes, but when Kanchana saw this one, she was smitten and we decided to make it.

In a saucepan, I put 2% milk (which I'd accidentally purchased instead of my normal skim), 2 packages of cream cheese (one of which was reduced fat, but don't tell my husband), grated Parmesan cheese, and garlic powder.



The original recipe stopped here, but many reviewers complained that it was not a "true" fondue without Swiss cheese and dry white wine, and because so many insisted that their fondues were improved with these additions, I decided to do the same.



This is what it looked like as the pot was just starting to warm up:



And this is what it looked like after continuous heating and stirring:



I had already cut up a loaf each of white and wheat baguettes that I'd picked up from my grocery store's bakery, so at this point Course #1 was served!



And mmmmm it was yummy. It had the Swiss/ wine flavors that were familiar from Mom's fondue, but with an additional creaminess from the other cheeses that was pretty appealing.



Fondue #2: Wine Fondue

There were a lot of complicated recipes online for a main course fondue, but I finally settled on this one after seeing that it was both simple and highly rated.

First, in a saucepan I combined a whole bottle of dry white wine (luckily Kanchana found some chardonnay for $3.99), a cinnamon stick, ground coriander, whole cloves, sugar, salt, celery salt, and garlic powder. I would have added whole peppercorns but those got forgotten when we'd split up the grocery list, so I just shook in some ground black pepper.



The recipe said to "let sit for one hour," before bringing to a boil, but didn't mention if the burner should be on or not. Figuring that the flavors wouldn't meld without heat, I turned it on low and covered it.



After an hour, I brought it to a boil and then strained it through a sieve. Ideally, the mixture would have gone into a fondue pot at this point to keep it boiling, but since neither of us owned one, we made due with my crock pot on "high."



Hmmm. With such a wide pot, there was very little depth! Uh oh, time to improvise. Many reviewers said that they added chicken or beef stock as wine evaporated, so in a pot over the stove, I combined 2 cups of water with 2 chicken bouillon cubes and some more wine. I also shook in some more spices: cinnamon (ground) coriander, pepper, cloves (ground), celery salt, and garlic powder in an attempt to match the flavors to the first batch. Once it was boiling, I poured it into the crockpot with the original mixture. It smelled so good at this point!

At this point, I became aware of an angry yipping noise. Turns out, the puppy was barking at the raw meat waiting on the counter.



Too bad it didn't work. She was banished from the kitchen at that point.

For dippers we had raw beef, chicken, and shrimp (which I will call "prawns" because Kanchana is from New Zealand and insists that that's what they're called), as well as broccoli, mushrooms, green peppers, carrots, and potatoes.





We all dug into the prawns first. We couldn't wait for the pot to boil because it smelled so good, and we figured they'd cook the fastest in the hot broth.



They were delicious! We also tried the beef and a few veggies, and it was all delicious. Unfortunately, it was just taking far too long to cook. Andy and Kanchana were itching to play Rock Band on the PS3 anyway, so we just dumped a little of everything in the crock pot and took a brief intermission to let it all simmer.



When we finally came back and fished out our food, it had absorbed the delicious wine and spice flavors and plumped up nicely. The meat was still tender and everything was juicy and flavorful, albeit not quite a fondue anymore.



Fondue #3: Chocolate Bar Fondue

I think we all probably looked forward to this the most! It was the perfect opportunity to use the giant bar of Ghiradelli chocolate that we'd received for Christmas from my Aunt Nancy.



Using my food processor, I grated half of it.



Then, I combined the chocolate with heavy cream, vanilla extract, and white sugar in a saucepan.



The original recipe said to include instant coffee granules with hot water, but I followed the advice of reviewers who suggested substituting a shot of Kalua instead.



And I just let it melt on the stove, stirring constantly, until it was nice and hot.



To dip in the chocolate, we had strawberries, moist pound cake, and blackberries.



Halfway through dessert, someone said "Hey, didn't you buy marshmallows?," prompting me to remember that I had marshmallows, as well as sliced apple, bananas, and mangoes. I decided not to serve the apple, as it had already started to turn brown despite being in a zip-lock baggie, and at that point I couldn't be buggered to cut up the banana and mango (that's a little bit of New Zealand slang for you), so I just opened the bag of marshmallows and put the whole thing on the table.



And that concluded our fondue night!

In the future, I think I would add less cream to the chocolate fondue because it was somewhat runny. I do plan on using the leftover chocolate for truffles, though, as reviewers suggested that it would be perfect. For the main fondue, I will either keep the pot on the stove and have everyone crowd around it, or else splurge on a fondue pot that will keep the mixture boiling so that the meat and veggies will cook thoroughly. And I will double the recipe, not because we ran out but because it just wasn't deep enough to submerge many large chunks! I'm not sure that I would change anything about the cheese fondue, though. It was delicious and creamy.

If you would like any of these recipes, leave a comment on this post and I will share!

Vegetable Side Dishes: Sauteed Broccoli and Carrot Salad

Ninety-nine percent of the recipes that I look up are for main dishes, and I get each meal's vegetables in by steaming or stir frying up some frozen broccoli or green beans. I've been trying to put together a personalized cookbook on a really neat website, and realize that I have very few recipes for a few categories, mainly "vegetables" and "fish and seafood." I'm not a big fish lover so I'm not too concerned with that, but vegetables? How could someone who eats a spinach salad 5 days a week not have enough vegetable recipes?

Earlier this week, I decided to bake a pre-marinated pork loin that I'd purchased. It required zero work beyond greasing the pan and physically putting it in the stove.


So, what should my side dishes be? Well, first of all, I have been on a rice kick and wanted some rice to soak up the juice from my leftover fajitas mixture from the other night, so I got my wonderful rice cooker up and running.


Okay, moving on. If you'll remember the Grated Carrot Incident, I had a LOT of carrots that needed to be used soon. A recipes search online for "grated carrots" and only ingredients that I had in my kitchen yielded a Carrot Salad recipe that called for grated carrots and an apple.


I didn't shred the apple, as called for, because my food processor was dirty from the night before, but I was fine using a knife.


But how much does "4 carrots, grated" yield? I was almost afraid to guess, but I started with a cup and later added another 1/4-1/2 cup.


Mix those together in a bowl with some lemon juice, honey, and sliced almonds (I used whatever was left from my salad almonds), plus salt and pepper. I also added a handful of dried cranberries, just because some reviewers suggested adding either those or raisins, and cranberries > raisins, in my opinion. Here's what the whole thing looked like:


Okay, next up was my "Brilliant Sauteed Broccoli" from allrecipes.com.



I had a nice fresh head of broccoli all ready to go. This recipe included instructions for how to "shock" the broccoli, which is basically boiling it briefly, but then immediately submerging it in ice water to stop the cooking process and keep it restaurant-quality green.

Here's my raw broccoli:


Cooked broccoli getting an ice bath in the sink:


And my brilliantly green, tender-yet-crisp cooked broccoli:


I threw it in a large pan with some olive oil, red pepper flakes, salt, and pepper.


Next, I whipped up a mixture of Parmesan cheese and brown sugar. Sounds weird, I know, but stay with me...


Threw it on top, and this is what it looked like:


Dinner was supposed to be done at this point, but turns out the directions on the pork were wrong and it took twice as long as it was supposed to. I was hungry so I went ahead and had my sides first:


I loved the broccoli. It was spicy and subtly sweet at the same time. The texture and taste was a lot like the broccoli we get at our favorite family-style Italian restaurant around the corner, except that in addition to the red pepper flakes, they add about 10,000 cloves of garlic instead of the cheese/ sugar combination. This was definitely different, but I enjoyed it.

The carrot salad was just okay. Personally, I like savory foods better than sweet, and with the apple and honey, it was just too sweet for me, even though the taste was good. But I had ideas for changes. I'll come back to this in a minute.

Pork was finally ready. It was tender and juicy, albeit a strange color that I'll chalk up to the unknown marinade ingredients...


Okay, back to the carrots. I decided to take the advice of some of the reviewers and try the salad again a few days later. I was out of almonds, so this time I used pecans:


I started with the same ingredients as before, with the exception of a missing apple (I had no more left) and the almond/ pecan switch, but I liked it less than the other day. Without the apple to balance the flavors, it just tasted like lemon juice and honey mixed, both too tart AND too sweet. I added a little ginger, based on a recommendation, but it didn't do a whole lot. My original intention was to add a little mayonnaise to add creaminess, but at this point, a conversation from the other morning came floating back to me:

Andy (while preparing a sandwich): "I wonder if mayo ever expires."
Me: "I don't know. Is there a date on that jar?"
Andy (looking at jar): "Hmmm. March of 2010."
Me: "Uh oh."
Andy: "I've been making sandwiches with this all week!" [tosses the jar in the garbage]

Needless to say, we didn't have any mayo. I thought about possible substitutions. Yogurt? None left, but it wouldn't have been plain if there was. Sour cream? Ate the last of that with enchiladas last week. Hmmmm.

[Looks to fridge for inspiration]


Dijon mustard?


Actually, that helped. It mellowed out both the lemon juice and the honey, and it added a deeper taste that I was looking for.

What else?


Before you judge me, cream cheese has been my secret ingredient to a bunch of foods, and it is amazing. When I added it to a pasta sauce, Andy took the leftovers to work and had them for lunch (clear indication of a culinary success!). So I figured, "Why not?" And it helped, too!

So this is what I had at the end:


Definitely different, but definitely improved. And it's super easy to make, and good for surprise dinner guests. Again, though, it was good but not fantastic. But I think I will make it again, with my substitutions. I think it would be really good at a summer barbecue.

Oh, and eating expired mayo didn't make Andy sick, if anyone was wondering!

For anyone who is interested:

Brilliant Sauteed Broccoli

1 pound broccoli florets
3 tablespoons finely grated Parmesan cheese
1 teaspoon brown sugar
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1. Fill a pot with water and bring to a boil. Fill a large bowl or pot with half ice and half water. When the water comes to a boil, add the broccoli florets using a strainer with a handle if possible. Allow the broccoli to cook for 1 to 2 minutes until just tender. Immediately remove from the boiling water, using the strainer or draining, and transfer to bowl of ice to stop the cooking process. Immerse the broccoli completely in the ice water for a minute or two. Remove and place in a dish that has been lined with paper towels. This part can be done up to two days in advance.

2. In a cup or small bowl, mix together the Parmesan cheese and brown sugar; set aside.

3. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Throw in the broccoli and season with red pepper flakes, salt and pepper. Stir to coat the broccoli, then cook and stir for 1 to 2 minutes. Remove from the heat and dust with the Parmesan cheese mixture.

[From allrecipes.com]

Carrot Salad

4 carrots, shredded
1 apple - peeled, cored and shredded
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons honey
1/4 cup blanched slivered almonds
salt and pepper to taste

In a bowl, combine the carrots, apple, lemon juice, honey, almonds, salt and pepper. Toss and chill before serving.

My alterations: add dried cranberries, dash of ginger, dijon mustard, and cream cheese. Others suggest adding grapes, yogurt or mayo, and walnuts instead of almonds.

[From allrecipes.com]