Hey-Yo! Miso!

In trying to make my blog posts short and sweet (so as to post more frequent thoughts, ideas and recipes) I am going to try to simply share my Miso soup story/recipe (Ha, good luck Quinn!)

Friday, at work the Chef suggested I make Miso soup for my lil dinner party with close friends planned for later that evening. I told him about the tofu I had been wanting to use and he suggested Miso. EASY! Just a lil Miso paste! My friends were excited for the soup entree experiment laid out before them. The Chef also suggested that first, I add a stir fry of veggies (typical Asian style vegetables) to the bowl and then ask the friends to top the veggies with the Miso broth and tofu. It was a fun and exciting success of a wintry meal! The vegetable addition made it way more hearty a meal then just the Miso soup with tofu crumbles. It is not hard at all, and it was exciting to create something entirely new! 

Miso.

Vegetable broth (32 oz. box)

Water (32 oz)

2 - 3 tbs of Miso paste
1 pack of tofu well drained and crumbled (for topping)

Green onions (6-7 chopped)

3 tbs chopped Nori (seaweed crumbles, see photo) (it adds a fishy, meatier taste)

For the stir fry (now you can get creative here)... 

Bok Choy

Bean Sprouts

Edamame (shelled)

Bring the water and paste to a slow slow boil. Apparently, if you just boil it rapdily the soup will take on a cloudy quality. Other than that, add the green onions. Add the Nori. Roast the veggies on low heat in the oven (325) and covered with tin foil til tender. This is so the Bok Choy is not raw when served with the soup. Sprinkle the tofu crumbles on top your veggies and broth bowl. Serve and enjoy!

Finally, I Made Ribs!

With a night off and alone (the BF was at class all evening) I thought I'd play around with some ribs, a glass or two of red wine, and some Flamenco music, obviously blaring through the house. I bought some beautiful looking pork ribs at the grocery the other day. The plan was a late dinner around 930 when the boy returned from class. I googled (of course) simple ways to prepare ribs. My favorite idea was cooking them on low heat in the oven. Wrapped in tin foil (to make a tent of sorts) and just a quarter inch of water covering the baking sheet, so as to keep them moist and tender. We had recently purchased some Thai chili garlic paste from the Asian foods section at the store so that was going to be the ribs main season. Previously, I applied the paste to some tofu and I figured I'd use it on these ribs as well. It proved only moderately successful. As it made both seasoned items hot but not very flavorful. I was searching for additional sauces with the tofu and then with these ribs. So as to combat the flavorless spicy ribs, I concocted a honey-mustard/Sriracha dipping sauce of sorts to spice up those bad boys. I am glad to have finally prepared ribs. It was a fun, relatively simple dinner that did require a longer cooking time so practice foresight when considering this meal.

Spicy Pork Ribs

A pack of Pork Ribs (4.5 lbs-5 lbs)

Seasons to top:

In this case

Thai chili garlic paste (2-3 tbs)

Salt

For the additional, spur of the moment, whatever was in my fridge sauce:

Mustard

Honey

Sriracha

Olive oil

Salt and Pepper to taste

Preheat your oven to 325. And bake ribs for an hour. Place ribs on a baking sheet lined with foil. Wrap the ribs in a loose tent-like structure of foil. Pour enough water to fill the baking sheet 1/4 of the way up the side. This keeps them tender. Before I closed the foil, I slathered some Thai chili paste on them and sprinkled some salt. Close it up after seasoning and return an hour later. I checked it at 45 minutes, just to be sure it was working well. Open the foil tent and allow the ribs to cook uncovered and bump the temp up to 375 and for another 15-20 minutes, essentially browning them. 

For the sauce, it was very last minute because I was basically flavorless with the chili paste. I drew upon my schooling and now what I've seen at work, with the sauce making. I whisked mustard, honey, Sriracha and some olive oil in a bowl. It paired nicely with the hot ribs. Overall, a fun exploration and a simple way to cook ribs;)

Baking Class Numero Uno

I had baking class last week, to start my second and final semester off for the culinary program. I was not intrigued, nor was I excited about the idea of Bakery 105. I have never been much of a baker. Cookies from scratch yes, brownies from a box and lemon bars once but for the sake of the blog is about as far as I have delved in the world of baking.
Our first class was simple with a recipe of Soft Rolls. Walking into the 6 hour course I thought, "sweet, we'll get out super early, how long could rolls take?" And when I walked out of class only 45 minutes early, I was pleasantly surprised at what had just taken place in that bake shop on the 3rd floor. One, the whole vibe was way less intense then the kitchen. For example, we had to let the dough "proof" for about 45 minutes (let it do some rising reaction thing, in a box at 80 degrees F) that is to say, we had some major downtown after cleaning our stations. Two, it is super specific. The ingredients need be correctly measured. It is not like what I so love about cooking, just a lil bit of this and lil bit of that, and typically it does not royally mess up the dish on whole. With baking, you need what you need and you need to understand how the ingredients work. I had measured everything out and began to add my water to the dough mix. When I had about a 1/4 left in the measuring cup I just dumped it all in because it was correctly measured out. My dough went to mush. Sometimes even adding the correct amount of water according to the recipe is not what is needed. I needed to go slower and work with the dough. I needed to think about how it really did not need all the water. It was a peaceful environment on whole. It felt very "zen" of us to use our hands and quietly work with our dough, mixing and creating it and in the end, shaping it into uniform certain knots.
Looking forward to the rest of the semester. Stay tuned...

Best Meat I May Have Ever Had

My Chef and another Chef that the company flew in from Houston made (with myself included) what the Houston Chef referred to as "butt-flap" on Tuesday. Every time he said it I thought he was saying "butt-fat" which, still could be the case, that it is indeed called "butt-fat". Amidst accents of Middle Eastern and Texan Chefs and the drum of utility kitchen fans and ovens,  I am only 99% sure it is "butt- flap". After a simple Google search, "butt-flap" might be slang for what we should be calling, "flap-steak" off the short rib region of the animal. Reason for my rambles... it was the best darn piece of meat I have ever had. It was thick and SUPER tender which is why the Texan requested the cut for this meal in the first place. It was double the thickness of typical meat from that overall region. And then to top it off the Middle Eastern Chef spiced it up to his liking. I swear, he is a spice connoisseur. The things this man has done with spices over the last two months of my knowing him, things that I have tried on my own and failed miserably at, is unreal. When I asked him what was involved in the spice, he told me it was "a little of this and a little of that", and pointed to the spice rack all the while walking away to tend to something happening on the other side of the kitchen. The photo below is the Chef preparing the meat with spices...

Below is a pic of the final plate. Sloppy and quickly taken so not as spectacular as I had desired. However, meat to the far right is the Cherrywood Smoked Short Rib (or butt-flap or fat?!)

Food on the Job...

Getting in the groove at work, post holidays has been a real treat. I'm learning so much and being given a lot of freedom to create along side the Chef. Most days its just Chef and I, making these catered dinners for 50-250 peoples. I'm making main courses, I'm making side dishes, desserts, salad dressings, sauces, you name it. Of course all under his guidance. With classes consuming 12 hours a week and work another 20-30, I'm putting in some time on my feet, in a chef's coat, moving and grooving, in a kitchen. It's wild, the body has been hurting! I think it is being on my feet all day in new ways (thank god for my Dansko clogs!). I'm using my forearms and legs (and butt) to lift huge pots and skillets of food; I'm standing and cutting for 4 hours at a prep table which oddly hurts your shoulders and lower back! Enjoy the food photographs below. Mmmmm...

Pesto Salmon, Rice Pilaf with Mediterranean Flavors and Seasonal Vegetables (Squash and Colorful Carrots) for 50! (Not the best photo of finished piece, we were in the middle of plating and handing it off to the servers.)

Breaded Salmon! Who Knew?!

With a piece of salmon sitting in my refrigerator, I had to come up with a way to prepare it and fast (for it had been in there a couple days). Also, the boyfriend and I were not much in the mood for salmon so it had to be good. It was funny, we both agreed, "I just don't feel like it" (every night that the fish sat there and when we had to decide what we were going to do about dinner). So I searched for documentation of breaded salmon and of course, it exists! I had never had it and I sure wanted to dress this fish up. We commented while eating, "the breadcrumbs are brilliant." They really were. I added some Dijon and parsley to the mix and it just gave the salmon a thicker, more wintry feel. We eat salmon often and I guess we had gotten a lil sick of the light dish, baked with a lil oil and herbs. We are hibernating after all;)

Dijon Panko Crusted Salmon
Large salmon fillet (enough for 3-4 people)
3/4 c Panko bread crumbs
2 spoons of Dijon mustard (inaccurate... for Dijon mustard lovers, throw a bunch in there if you like, I wish I had used more)
1/4 c. olive oil
Fresh parsley (I buy the freeze dried parsley in the grocery store, it is amazing! I keep it in fridge and its like I have fresh parsley that never goes bad!)
Salt and Pepper to taste
Flour

I began by just lightly flouring the top of the fish. It makes an odd mess but I remember from class, when you flour the protein you really hold in the moisture, making it tender and delicious. So with a lightly floured mess, I drenched my salmon fillet in the breadcrumb mixture. I baked it at 400 for a good 20-25 min. It is nice, the bread crumbs get toasty. Serve and enjoy. 

YAY! Fage (pronounced: fa-yeh!) Yogurt Goodness!

A super simple concoction that I tend to forget about, then I'll go on a kick with and then again, forget.  I remember my mother always eating this two ingredient breakfast, snack, dessert what have you, when I'd live at home over summer break in college. A hotel breakfast once served it up for me with fresh pineapple chunks and a drizzle of honey. Lately its just two scoops of Fage Greek yogurt (I like the two percent, so a little fattier) and drizzles upon drizzles of honey (local honey, to combat the local allergies) for me. Get creative. It's the best type of yogurt to eat because there is not a ton of sugar in it, which is the reason you need to get creative, fruit and honey that bowl up!
Fage Goodness
A container of Fage (2%)
Honey to taste
Fruit to taste
Fage also makes single serving cups with a side pouch of honey and other fruits. I like to get the big container and make it on my own. It's cheaper;)

Interesting Website (about the fish we eat)

Here is a website our Chef had us look at this week for class. It comes from the Monterey Bay Aquarium website, called the Seafood Watch. It's well organized. The site has you looking at your seafood options and asks that you consider the oceans. I enjoyed it because you can search which seafood is best to buy and why. Give it a look. I was excited to see that my Chef was working with this organization. The Conscious Chef;)

Copy and paste the link below...

http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/cr_seafoodwatch/sfw_recommendations.aspx

Being Present... (at work?!)

Yes! It is possible to be present and at peace while at work! I'd surely hope so, for we typically spend most of our daylight hours at work. Five, slow and deep breaths in and out is one great way to achieve a "peace" of mind. On this day, in the catering kitchen at the museum, I found presence and peace in the light beaming through the kitchen window, illuminating the cutting board and melons (see photo below). I also found it in an interesting project, the other photo depicting the olive oil jar. Perhaps, "to like what you do" was the theme of my thoughts that day and the photos below and this current post here. While the gig doesn't pay wonderfully well, peace can be found there. Happiness, found there. Education and expansion of the mind, found there.

It has been an interesting experience, preparing foods for a couple hundred people at a time. I literally cut fruit for 4.5 hours on Saturday. I managed to find it interesting. The hustle about the kitchen kept me intrigued. And talking with the Chef, a very interesting middle aged man who was born and raised in Iraq and now finds himself an American citizen with a bank of food knowledge for the tapping. Watching his Mediterranean spreads unfold was a treat. I loved his idea for the flavored olive oil in the funky bottle photographed below (fresh rosemary sprigs and whole garlic cloves shoved in a bottle for display and taste) and it took him all of 1 minute to create the idea and execute.
Happy Monday everyone ... stay present, stay happy, stay healthy!

MMMmmeat Marinade (plus a Soy Sauce Substitute)

Shopping at this awesome international market here in town, we found this awesome soy sauce-esque sauce in the Asian foods section. It has been my go to for a quick meat marinade ever since. It is called Ponzu sauce. Ponzu is a citrus based soy sauce with literally half the sodium. Cha ching! Check out the comparison photos below. Ponzu makes a good marinade because it has not only the soy but the citrus for deeper flavors. For this marinade I mixed Ponzu, olive oil, red pepper flakes and salt. Stored it in a bag for an hour and seared those mini skillet steaks up, on stovetop. Always looking for the affordable cut at the grocery store, we got 6 lil cuts of skillet steaks for 8 bucks (not sure what part of the animal they hailed from, as they were called simply skillet steaks). Makes for two good meals for two.
Remember for my veg heads out there, this marinade proves successful for marinading and searing big hunks of vegetables also (portabellas, zucchinis etc.)
Kicking Ponzu Marinade
1/2 c. Ponzu
1/4 c. olive oil
2 tbs red pepper flakes
1 tbs. salt
Mix all in bowl and top to meat, evenly distributing it. Sear and serve. MMMmmmeat!

Kroger Light Soy Sauce on left, so imagine regular soy sauce. Ponzu on the right. 

A Tasty Minestrone

Made this soup with my Mother when she was in town, visiting over the holidays. I drew upon all the practice we had in class with soups and stocks (felt like 4 weeks of soups and stocks!) We sort of just threw this together and what emerged from the pot was something delicious. Paired quite well with the cold weather we were having, it was like an ice box all weekend! And makes a great leftover!
My Mom suggested a vegetable soup. What I took from school was that you should not cook your veggies for more than 40 minutes. It contradicted the idea that I had long held, this idea that you just throw your veggies in the pot and let them cook all day in the broth. After 40 minutes or so they loose their nutrients, flavors and texture (mushy). So preparing a vegetable soup need only take about an hour.
Of course you must remember, this timing is the case only when you are using an already prepared broth. The stocks are what take a long time (flavoring water with bones and vegetables and letting sit for hours, then adding the meat and vegetable). For this soup we used three containers of chicken broth (tastier than vegetable broth) and a container of water. So consider, this is not vegetarian, substitute vegetable broth for a veggie friendly soup.
A Tasty Minestrone Soup
serves 6-8
3 containers of Chicken Broth (32 fl. oz. each box)
1 container of water (fill one of the empty broth boxes with water)
1 can of diced tomatoes, drained
3 stalks of celery (diced medium, consider it to fit on spoon)
1 onion diced medium
3 carrots diced medium
2-3 cloves garlic chopped
2 medium diced green zucchini
Kale (4 heaping handfuls, chopped up)
1/2 bag of french cut green beans chopped in half (consider spoon size)
1/2 a box of whole wheat macaroni noodles (boxed served 8, so consider it for 4)
2 tbs fresh dried parsley (my grocery store sells it dried in a glass container, its great!)
A freshly grated Italian cheese to top (we used a blend of Fontina, Parmesan and Asiago)
Salt and pepper to taste
Saute celery, onions, carrots and garlic at bottom of large soup pot for 2-3 minutes (as our Chef would say, "sweat the mirepoix", which is what you call the celery, onion and carrot mixture) then add your broth and water mixture. Add the diced tomato and raw macaroni. Bring soup to a boil and simmer. Once simmering, add green beans and medium diced zucchini. Add parsley and stir. Add your salt and pepper (a tbs. of salt, a tsp. of pepper?). Make sure soup is still simmering, check the doneness of your noodle and green beans, remember you don't want to cook those green veggies for more than 30-40 minutes. When noodle looks done, turn stove top off and throw in your Kale and put a lid on pot. The green wilts and cooks very fast so there is no need to keep heat on it. Bowl the hot soup and serve!

Tip. If you wish to have a red broth for your veggie soup it is simple! Add a tiny spoonful of tomato paste to the mirepoix mixture in the beginning. Where you are instructed to "sweat the mirepoix" and garlic before liquid, add the paste. When the liquid is added, stir and broth will turn red.

Easy Veggie... Had to be Shared

I'm throwing together a last minute dinner (been hungover on the couch all day with the boyfriend, good way to start off the new year?!) and I realized how much I rely on simply roasting asparagus. My mother shared the idea with me a couple years back after she saw it on a cooking show, I want to say it was The Barefoot Contessa? But for those out there looking for a staple, here it is. Three ingredients, listed below...
Simply Baked Asparagus
Asparagus
Salt
Oil
Mix three in a baking dish and cook at 400 degrees. Depending on how you like your veggie, determines the bake time. I would say it takes around 20-30 minutes. I like mine extra cooked, takes out that harsh raw flavor of asparagus.