June 2015 - Page 2 of 2 - NY Foodie Family

Curried Red Potatoes

Posted on June 11, 2015 by nyfoodiefamily@gmail.com

Weekend Chef here. As a compliment to yesterday’s post, Indian-Style Eggplant, I created a partner dish using red potatoes. To my knowledge, this is not a traditional Indian potato. I like using red potatoes when I don’t want the end result getting too mashed and holding its shape. Overall, this was similar to the eggplant dish as I used the same curry powder but didn’t use any tomato sauce and tried to keep the potatoes from breaking down too much. This was a flavorful side dish that the whole family enjoyed.

Curried Red Potatoes
Recipe from The Weekend Chef at NY Foodie Family

Makes 4 Servings

Ingredients:
1 1/2 lb red potatoes , skins left on, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
3 T vegetable oil
2 T butter
1/2 tsp cumin
1 tsp Penzeys maharajah curry powder
1 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp pepper

cooked jasmine rice (to serve with)

Directions:
Heat the oil and butter over medium heat in a small round-bottom pan. Add the potatoes to the pan, stirring occasionally for about 5 minutes. Once the potatoes start turning a light brown color, after approximately five minutes, add the remaining ingredients. Turn the heat down to low. Cook the potatoes for another 5 minutes or until cooked through and soft in the middle. Check spice level and add more if desired. Serve with jasmine rice.

Indian-Style Eggplant

Posted on June 10, 2015 by nyfoodiefamily@gmail.com

Weekend Chef here. As mentioned in previous posts, I thoroughly enjoy cooking on inspiration, no recipe required. Without a net, if you will. I also enjoy buying new ingredients and then figuring out what to do with it. Our family recently made a trip to a local branch of a Korean supermarket, an international chain called Hmart. We may post some of the other cool stuff we did/ saw there in the future, but today I’m going to focus on our first purchase of Indian eggplant. Apparently there are several varieties of eggplant in different shapes and sizes and Hmart had a bunch of them. We’re all likely familiar with the big purple kind, but these were much smaller (approximately chicken egg sized, but still purple). The flavors seem similar, but the texture was smoother after the eggplant cooked down. Sometimes large eggplants are fibrous and stringy. We will have to keep trying different eggplants and report back.

We’ve lost a few good Indian restaurants over the last few years so we may have to cook our own. I just used some familiar flavors and attempted to get the spices to mellow and not overpower the dish. The whole family ate this, although our son did so begrudgingly. I think I was successful. Please let me know if you agree.

Indian-Style Eggplant
Recipe from The Weekend Chef at NY Foodie Family

Makes 4 Servings

Ingredients:
6 Indian eggplants, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp Penzeys maharajah curry powder
1 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp pepper
3 cloves garlic, pressed or minced
1 small can tomato sauce (8oz)

cooked jasmine rice (to serve with)

Directions:
Heat the oil over medium heat in a small round-bottom pan. Add the garlic to the pan. Once it starts turning a light brown color add the eggplant and the remaining ingredients. Cook the eggplant for 10-15 minutes or until very soft. Check spice level and add more if desired. Serve over jasmine rice.

Andrew Zimmern’s Field Guide to Exceptionally Weird, Wild, & Wonderful Foods

Posted on June 9, 2015 by nyfoodiefamily@gmail.com

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Andrew Zimmern’s Field Guide to Exceptionally Weird, Wild, & Wonderful Foods by Andrew Zimmern and Molly Mogren
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

My nine year-old daughter found this book during one of our weekly library visits. She’s watched a few episodes of Bizarre Foods and recognized Zimmern on the cover. This book is organized in alphabetical order, beginning with alligator meat and ending with wildebeest. The first page of each food gives a basic summary of what the food tastes like, where it may be eaten, whether Zimmern likes the taste of it and more. But then, the book somehow goes off-tangent. Depending on the food topic, like circus peanuts, Zimmern then writes about elephant facts and famous clowns. Similar tangents are featured for almost all of the foods. You will either find it interesting or off-topic. Regardless, there’s a wealth of information in this book that was new to me. In our library, this book is filed under the “Teen-non-fiction” section. This is a good book for reluctant, older readers with lots of interesting facts and a high “eww, gross!” factor that may keep them reading.

*This book was borrowed from the library.

Meal Plan Monday – Week 2

Posted on June 8, 2015 by nyfoodiefamily@gmail.com

Here is what was cooking in our kitchen last week!

Sunday: The Weekend Chef made some Asian Turkey Burgers. We served the burgers with some fries and Kimchi Potato Salad from blog Two Red Bowls. The potato salad was made last minute and the flavors didn’t have time to really meld together. While it was good, I think it would have been better if we had made it earlier in the day. The kids had a little bit. While the kimchi we had bought was pretty spicy, it really didn’t taste as strong in the potato salad and the kids were able to try a bite or two without complaint of it being too hot.

Monday: We made Zucchini Boats adapted from blog Real Food By Dad and served these with a salad. We didn’t have, and forgot to pick up, roasted peppers. Overall, these were just okay and I think needed a bit more flavor. The kids each ate a half of a zucchini though. On a side note, the Weekend Chef did the grocery shopping. I had put four zucchini on the list and he came home with four giant zucchini! Needless to say, we had a bunch of leftovers, which unfortunately, did not reheat well. These are much better eaten on the first night you make them.

Tuesday: We made Baked Sun Dried Tomato and Spinach Chicken Parmesan Meatballs from blog I Thee Cook. We served these with pasta and sauce and a Caesar salad. We thought these meatballs were tasty and flavorful!

Wednesday: We made Lemony Risotto with Mascarpone from Every Day with Rachael Ray and served it with some roasted broccoli. This was one of our meatless meals for the week. My son helped with the lemon zesting and stirring of this risotto. I added spinach to the recipe since we had some leftover and extra veggies never hurt! The kids ate this, although my son complained that it was “too lemony.” He then proceeded to eat a lemonade Outshine bar for dessert after taking forever to finish his risotto….go figure!

Thursday: We made Peaches and Cream Pancakes (with Ginger Peach Compote) from blog Well Plated. My daughter helped make the pancakes. She loves to help cook pancakes by pouring the batter and flipping them in the skillet. We had these with breakfast sausage and fresh-cut pineapple. We could have made the meal meatless by not serving the sausage. Any breakfast for dinner meal is a winner, and this was no exception. Next time I’d double the peaches since they were really tasty and we all wanted more! I had never thought to put Greek yogurt on pancakes before and discovered a new tasty combination.

Friday: We made Peach, Basil, Mozzarella & Balsamic Pizza adapted from blog Two Peas & Their Pod. We had some ripe peaches that needed to be used. We’ve made this in the past and it was really good! I used my Blueberry Balsamic Vinegar from the Saratoga Olive Oil Co. gift basket that I had won awhile back. My son saw the pizza and said, “Do I have to eat that?!” I didn’t realize that I had no more tomato sauce to make a regular cheese pizza for the kids, so yes, he did have to eat it. Well go figure, both kids LOVED this pizza!

Building a Garden Box

Posted on June 4, 2015 by nyfoodiefamily@gmail.com

Weekend Chef here, with a project idea that we wanted to share with you. We have tried for years to grow our own veggies at our house with very little success. Every spring for the past 5 or 6 years, we have bought seeds and grow kits and pots and potting soil and…well that’s about it. Our seeds sprout and we plant them outside on the deck in nice big plastic pots. We are rewarded with a few runt tomatoes, sad peppers, and mini zucchini and then winter comes and we put everything in the shed. Meanwhile, we watch longingly at my dad harvest an abundance of all that he chooses to grow with ease. What does he do that’s so great? Well, it turns out that the homemade garden boxes make all the difference (or so we hope). This spring, the we’re stealing his idea and building some of the boxes for ourselves. Game on!

Credit goes to this YouTube channel GardenFrugal for the step-by-step instructions of building these things. The host, Clint, shares his ideas in a down-home video that is way more informative than entertaining. But education is what we needed. So here’s our pictures and story of building the three identical garden boxes that hopefully will allow us to give away bags of extra vegetables over the course of the next few months.

The materials can be found on the cheap. Per Clint’s specific instructions, we bought Rubbermaid “Roughneck” storage tubs in the 18 gallon size for $7.97 each at our local WallyMart. These were the most expensive parts and the total for each box probably came to $13 plus plants and dirt. Ours are dark blue. You will als0 need perforated drainage pipe and PVC pipe around 1 inch in diameter.

The first step is to cut the lid of the tub at the line where the middle dimple starts. This will create the reinforcing edge of the tub and will allow you to add a protective layer over your dirt with plastic or burlap (clipped in with this edge piece). Here is what this looks like so far:

Next, the drainage pipe needs to be cut to act as the support for the bottom of the tub. Each tub will need 6 pieces cut evenly (I cut ours at 12 ribs). The pipe is actually really easy to cut with scissors as the plastic strong but thin. Use a piece of cut pipe as a template for two holes in the lid piece that we cut earlier. Draw the circles with a marker and cut out the holes. Also cut a notch out of the corner for the PVC water fill pipe.Make two slightly longer pipe pieces (15 ribs each) that will go into the lid and get filled with dirt. At this point, I added a layer of newspaper and this will help to keep the dirt from falling into the gaps. One last step here, drill a small (I did 1/4″) hole a few inches below the dirt line on the side of the tub. This will keep your system from getting flooded. Lastly, the PVC pipe needs to get cut at 45 degrees on one end and flat on the other. The angled cut goes on the bottom to keep the pipe from getting stuck to the bottom of the tub.

Now it’s dirt time! Fill the longer ribbed pipes with dirt and pack it down. These will act as wicks to draw moisture up to the plants. Then fill the top portion of the tub with dirt or potting mix within a few inches of the top and fill the lower section with water until the drain hole starts leaking. Go ahead and plant the fruits and vegetable of your choice. This year, we decided not to start with seeds and bought already-growing plants: yellow peppers, tomatoes, strawberries, and zucchini.

Everything seems to be working so far. The top photo was taken yesterday, 3 weeks after planting, but we will report back once edible things start growing. To be continued…

Baked Falafel

Posted on June 3, 2015 by nyfoodiefamily@gmail.com

Inspired by our Universal Yums! May Snack box’s Israel theme, we decided to make some Israel-themed dinners. Falafel are traditionally, deep-fried balls made from spiced, ground chickpeas. They are often served in a pita with a yogurt or tahini-based sauce. Falafel is not new to our family. I’ve made it in the past, more often than not, unsuccessfully. Too many times I’ve had the balls disintegrate when trying to fry them. I wasn’t in the mood for frying so this time I decided to try baking them. When the kids heard we were having falafel for dinner I of course got the response, “I don’t like falafel!” My son made a comment while they were baking that, “Something doesn’t smell good!” Well, they had the choice to eat them or not, but that’s what was for dinner. I was pleasantly surprised (I think they were as well!) that they both ate (and possibly liked?!!) the falafel. Baking the falafel made them nice and crunchy. Normally, falafel has parsley. I however, failed to pick some up during my weekly grocery shopping and wasn’t running out for a few sprigs of parsley! I should also note that the red onion turned the falafel a dark purple/blackish color in spots. It did not affect the flavor of the falafel, but you can use a regular onion if you prefer. I also wasn’t fully thinking when creating the menu and shopping list and didn’t pick up ingredients for a sauce to serve with these. However, if I was going to make a sauce, I would probably use this recipe for Magpie’s Cucumber Sauce from allrecipes.com courtesy of The Magpie. I made a tomato cucumber salad that I served with the falafel and stuck some of the veggies inside the pita.

Baked Falafel
Recipe adapted from allrecipes.com courtesy of Bette

Ingredients:
1 teaspoon olive oil
1/2 cup red onion, chopped
2 (15 ounce) cans of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
3 cloves garlic
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons flour
1/4 cup panko crumbs
2 eggs, beaten
Cooking spray
Pitas
Lettuce, tomatoes, red onion slices (optional)
Cucumber or Tzatziki Sauce (optional)

Directions:
1. Heat the olive oil in a small skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and saute approximately 5 minutes, until the onions are soft.

2. Place chickpeas through salt into a food processor and pulse until mixture is coarse. Some chunks are okay. Add the chickpea mixture to a large bowl. Add the sautéed onions, flour, panko, and eggs and stir until combined. Let mixture sit for 15 minutes. While mixture is sitting, preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

3. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and spray with cooking spray. After fifteen minutes, shape the chickpea mixture into small patties (I was able to make 17) and place on prepared cookie sheet. Spray the tops of the patties with the cooking spray. Bake in the heated oven for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, flip the patties and cook for 10 to 15 minutes more.

4. Cut pitas in half. Place two falafel inside each pita half. Serve with sauce, if you choose to make and/or lettuce, tomatoes and sliced red onion.

Milk Bar Life – A Review

Posted on June 2, 2015 by nyfoodiefamily@gmail.com

Milk Bar Life by Christina Tosi
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Christina Tosi is well-known for Milk Bar, the sister bakery of David Chang’s restaurant, Momofuku. Prior to receiving this cookbook for review, I was unfamiliar with either Tosi or Milk Bar. Warning: this cookbook is NOT a collection of fancy desserts found at the bakery. This is a collection of recipes that Tosi creates when she’s off the clock. Some of the recipes featured are family recipes passed down from her grandmother or those that must make an appearance at family gatherings. There are recipes that are made for “family meal” when her kitchen staff eats together before service begins. There are supermarket-inspired recipes featuring corn flakes, Ritz crackers, boxed cake mix and refrigerated tubes of crescent rolls. I’m not sure that some of the recipes can even be called recipes like Brown-Butter Cinnamon Toast and Blue Cheese Pretzels?!! This is not a stuffy cookbook, but one that focuses on flavors, not fuss. This book shows that chefs don’t always have the time nor energy to create fancy schmancy meals when they get home at who knows what hour after a long day in the kitchen. Milk Bar Life reads like a conversation with your best friend. Tosi’s writing is so down-to-earth and real. I love her philosophy that we all deserve at least one cookie a day, or for her, more like five a day…and that’s not including work cookies! This book has been in my possession for over a month now and I have yet to make anything from it. While this is a fun read, it doesn’t have many recipes that are appropriate for my every-day repertoire. On my to-try list though are a few of the desserts. Nothing earth-shattering, but Crock-Pot Cake, Hershey’s Kiss Roll and Crackle all appear to be easy and tasty.

Since receiving this book, the Weekend Chef brought home cookies from Milk Bar which he got from their stand at pop-up UrbanSpace Garment District in New York City. It was nice being able to read this book while sampling some of the deliciousness that Tosi is so well-known for. Tosi is a judge on the sixth season of MasterChef, that premiered May 20. This is not the last that we will be seeing or hearing about Christina Tosi or Milk Bar!

I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review. However, all thoughts and opinions are my own.

Meal Plan Monday #1

Posted on June 1, 2015 by nyfoodiefamily@gmail.com

This week is the first week that we thought we would share our meal plan with you. If you’re interested in seeing how we meal-plan, check out this post. Instead of posting what we plan on making this week, we have decided to post what we made the previous week so we could share photos and reviews of the dishes. Last week was my first week back at work after a two week recovery from surgery, so we didn’t go crazy with the menu. It was all about simple and easy.

Sunday: My sister and her family were visiting over the Memorial Day weekend. We marinated London Broil which the Weekend Chef grilled, cooked up some corn-on-the-cob and made Pasta Aglio E Olio. The Weekend Chef threw together an Asian-inspired marinade and my mom made the Aglio E Olio. This was an easy to put-together, simple but tasty meal.

Monday: The Weekend Chef made an Indian-inspired eggplant dish as well as Indian Curried Potatoes and rice. Look for these recipes on the blog soon!

Tuesday: We took a trip to Trader Joe’s over the weekend and picked up some Goat Cheese and Sun-Dried Tomato Ravioli which we cooked up and served with a salad and garlic bread.

Wednesday: We made Crispy Oven Baked Honey Garlic Tofu Bites from i am a food blog. Even the kids who do NOT like tofu ate this with no complaints! We served this with some rice and pork dumplings and kimchi (for the adults) that we picked up from HMart over the weekend.

Thursday: We made Breakfast Tacos inspired by these from blog Diethood. Basically, I got the idea from the blog to make them but went off and did my own thing. We used a can of refried beans, made scrambled eggs at the request of the kids, and served with cheese, tomatoes and avocado. We served these with potatoes that I diced and sautéed with onions and taco seasoning.

Friday: By Friday I was beat. We ended up cooking up some Applegate Beef hotdogs. I made some hot dog onion sauce adapted from this recipe from food.com and served with some tater tots.

Saturday: We had our monthly supper club. This month’s theme was recipes from Ina Garten. I made her Sagaponack Corn Pudding from cookbook Barefoot Contessa Family Style and the Weekend Chef made her Celery Salad, recipe found at POPSUGAR. The Corn Pudding wasn’t bad. It used a whole stick of butter, milk, half-and-half, ricotta cheese and cheddar cheese so it’s definitely not a “light” recipe. I don’t like celery, so the celery salad wasn’t my fave. The other dishes that we had at Supper Club were all kind of heavy though, so this salad was refreshing and light in comparison. You really do need to like celery to fully enjoy.

What did you cook last week? Have any recipe recommendations?!!! Please share!