Potato Salad

The tradeoff for unloading a box of matzoh on a neighbor was a bag of baby Yukon potatoes.  He had cooked one serving and decided he didn't like them.  Neither of us wanted to see any food land in the trash, but I didn't feel comfortable passing an open bag on to someone else.

I'm running out of things to do with potatoes.  Reading about the plight of potato farmers who are in real trouble without restaurants ordering them did not warm me to these one bit.

So, I guess I've never posted potato salad.  It is not my favorite summer side dish, ranking above only macaroni salad.  You are never going to see macaroni salad on this blog.

I'm listing the relish in this recipe, but I didn't use any.  That's the part of potato salad I don't like.  I like dill pickles, but not sweet.  For me, the vinegar and paprika fill that need, as well as slightly more celery than the average recipe for the missing crunch.  All the other traditional ingredients made it in.  I'm also not a big mayo person, and kept it down to just enough to hold everything together.

*1-1/2 lb Yukon potatoes
1/3 C mayonnaise, or to taste
2 Tb sweet pickle relish
1 tsp yellow mustard
1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar
1/2 tsp celery seed
1/8 tsp paprika
1 hard-boiled egg
*1 rib celery, diced
*2 Tb finely diced sweet onion
salt and white pepper to taste

1.  Peel potatoes if desired, but it really isn't necessary.  Dice into 1/2" cubes and place in a medium saucepan with water to cover and just a touch of kosher salt.  Bring to a boil.  Lower heat to a simmer, cover, and cook until easily pierced with a fork but not falling apart, about 18 minutes.

2.  While that's simmering, make the dressing.  Stir together mayo, relish, mustard, vinegar, celery seed, and paprika.  Finely chop egg and add to dressing with celery and onion.  Taste and add salt and pepper as necessary.

3.  When potatoes are ready, drain.  While still warm, stir in dressing to coat thoroughly.  Once mixed, decide if you want it creamier.  Only add one tablespoon of mayo at a time.  It goes farther than you think.

4.  Chill at least 2 hours before serving, and preferably a day.  Serve cold, garnished with herb of choice.

Serves about 6

Difficulty rating  π

Dehydrated Mushrooms

I bought mushrooms for the duck and bean soup that I wanted to make.  (Not worth a post; just leftover scraps in the fridge and navy beans.)  Then the soup kept getting pushed farther down the calendar as other ingredients got close to spoiling.  I had to come up with some way to preserve the mushrooms before they spoiled.

My research found two ways to salvage mushrooms without a pressure canner.  The first is freezing, after either steaming or sautéing.  The only problem I found with that for my current purpose was not knowing exactly how I wanted them seasoned for the soup.  The other preserving method was oven-drying, which I've done before.  (See oven-dried tomatoes and granola)  The principle behind that is slow-cooking, almost like smoking, to remove the moisture and give a roasted flavor.  Varieties of mushrooms prepared like this go at the market for a pretty penny, but you use less of them at a time to give umami flavoring to dishes.

I'm following the temperature and time settings from a post on The Spruce Eats.  The directions are simple and it works with any variety of mushroom.

1.  Wash mushrooms and remove dirt with a mushroom brush or towel.  Since you're dehydrating them, it really doesn't matter if they soak up a little water.

2.  Trimming stems is up to you.  I took off the harder portions and put them in the broth bag, leaving about 1/2" on each piece.  Slice caps 1/8" to 1/4" thick.  You don't need a ruler, just make them all the same thickness so they dry in the same amount of time.

3.  Place slices on a clean dishtowel.  Roll up like you are making a jelly roll, minus the powdered sugar.  Press out as much water as you can, so the oven doesn't have to do as much work.

4.  Preheat oven to 150ºF.  A convection fan is a bonus.  Arrange slices on a baking sheet and cook for 1 hour.  Flip slices and put them back in for another hour.  If not completely dried, turn over again and roast in 30 minute increments.  The humidity that day, variety of mushroom, and how well you squeezed out the water in the towel will determine how long the process takes.  When done, the pieces should feel dry, not rubbery.  They will also be very small.  Mushrooms are mostly water, and you just took out most of it.

5.  Cool slices completely, then store in a sealed container away from light.  Theoretically they last a year, but I would check on them at least once a month.

6.  To use, place in a heat-proof bowl and cover with boiling water.  Let sit for 20 minutes to hydrate. Remaining water can be used as an umami broth.  For use in soups, just toss in a handful and allow to simmer with the stock at least half an hour.

Difficulty rating  π

Carrot Cake #2

I ended up with a slight glut of carrots.  Not as bad as the potato problem, but I had some from the store in the fridge and more in the Pond ready to pull.  Add to that buying 2 dozen eggs because they were buy-one-get-one and having half a brick of cream cheese from the kugel needing to be used, I came up with an urge to make carrot cake.

Nothing against my previous recipe, but I decided to try a new one.  I found this on Live Well Bake Often.  It's very similar.  The main differences are a proper amount of baking powder and replacing some of the oil with applesauce.  The reduction of liquid is offset by using light brown sugar, which counts as a wet ingredient in the baking world.

If you don't have applesauce, you can substitute sour cream or plain Greek yogurt.  Since the applesauce is an oil substitute, using a different ingredient that is often used for the same purpose does the same thing.

This looks like a lot of ingredients, and I guess it is a lot to measure, but a great deal of it is the leavening agents and spices in the dry mix.

I made a half recipe in two 6" round pans, mainly because I only had enough cream cheese for a half-batch of icing.  It would also fit in an 8"x8" square pan.  And I used the fine shred side of the box grater instead of the actual grating side because I was feeling a little clumsy that day and didn't want to grate my fingers.

2 C flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1-1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
*4 eggs
3/4 C vegetable oil
1-1/2 C light brown sugar
1/2 C granulated sugar
1/2 C unsweetened applesauce
1 tsp vanilla
*3 C grated or finely shredded carrots
up to 1 cup raisins and/or walnut pieces, optional

1.  Preheat oven to 350º.  Grease two 9" round cake pans or one 9"x13" baking dish.  If using cake baking strips, start soaking.  For cupcakes, this recipe makes 2 dozen.  Use paper cup liners in the cupcake pan, but you don't have to spray them.

2.  Sift together dry ingredients (through salt) in a medium bowl.  In a separate bowl, beat eggs slightly and add oil, both sugars, vanilla, and applesauce with a whisk.  You don't have to get any beaters or the stand mixer dirty for this one.

3.  Pour wet ingredients into the dry bowl.  Stir until half-mixed, then add in carrots and any nuts or raisins you may choose to include.  Stir until just combined.  Technically, this is a quick bread and not a cake, but it is moist and only slightly more dense than regular cake.  You don't want to over-mix or you'll get holes.  Pour into cake pans, using a scale to get the layers even.

4.  Slip on wet baking strips, if using.  Bake cakes for 30-35 minutes, until they pass the toothpick test.  If making cupcakes, 20-25 minutes.  Let rest in the pan 10-15 minutes, until cool enough to turn out.  For a 9x13, loosen the edges but leave in the pan.  Allow to cool fully before icing.  Can be wrapped and stored one day in the fridge or a few weeks in the freezer.

Icing
8 oz cream cheese
1 stick unsalted butter
2 C powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla

1.  In mixer with the paddle, beat together cream cheese and butter until fluffy.

2.  Gradually add powdered sugar to make a fluffy icing.  Add vanilla and beat again.

Assembly

1.  Trim round cakes flat.  Rectangle and cupcakes are fine as they are.  I actually was going for a more homemade, rustic look and only flattened the bottom layer.  I didn't crumb coat either, or make any effort to achieve a smooth surface.  Until two years ago, I didn't know about any of those professional techniques, and the cakes still tasted the same.  I suppose I would have done a better job if I was taking this anywhere.  Didn't really care if I was only making this for my week's tea time.

2.  For a layer cake, use some icing as a filling.  Set top cake on and finish icing with top and sides.  For decorations, reserve some frosting in two bowls and color orange and green.  Pipe into carrot shapes with a round tip (I used #7) and a small leaf tip, respectively.  With so little green in my chosen design, I just used the toothpick from the gel color as a brush and painted the leaves.

Makes 1 9" layer cake, about 16 servings

Difficulty rating  :)

Matzoh Brei Scramble

This recipe is definitely not kosher.  It's for people like me who don't necessarily keep kosher and now have more matzoh than they wish they did.  It can easily be made KLP by omitting the sausage and adding diced fresh tomatoes or another veggie, which would taste fantastic.  I only bought the sausage and eggs because whoever was ordering for my Pavilions over-estimated demand and they were dirt cheap.

This is basically the matzoh version of a breakfast burrito, which is what I was really in the mood for.  Didn't have any tortillas.  Feel free to add salsa and give it a huevos rancheros treatment.  I tore up a few leaves of arugula from the garden to give it some zing.

*1 sheet matzoh
*1 egg
salt to taste
milk as needed
2 link sausages
1 Tb sliced green onion
chopped spinach, tomatoes, or any veggie add-on you like
1 Tb butter or margarine
2 Tb shredded cheddar or Mexican cheese

1.  Crush matzoh in a bowl.  Pour about 2 Tb boiling water on the pieces and allow it to soak in, about 5 minutes.  Cook sausages to package directions, then chop or crumble.

2.  Crack egg into bowl and scramble with the matzoh using a fork.  Salt lightly.  I didn't think it was going to need it because of the sausage and cheese but, um, matzoh.  If there doesn't appear to be enough liquid to hold the matzoh together, add a tablespoon or two of milk.  Stir in all the add-ins except the cheese.

3.  Grease an omelet pan with the butter and preheat over medium.  Pour in brei mixture and allow to cook until slightly set, about 2 minutes.  Either flip like a pancake or break up and scramble.  Cook other side until no longer runny, then sprinkle with the cheese.  When the cheese begins to melt, remove pan from the heat and serve.

Serves 1

Difficulty rating  :)

Tomato Curry Chicken Meatballs

I bought a pound of ground chicken during the stock-up because they were out of other forms of chicken.  It's been hanging out in the freezer since.

This is kind of a relative of the Thai-inspired coconut peanut meatballs.  I now have curry powder, and decided to replace the peanut butter with tomato paste (also in the freezer, because you never use a whole can at once).  The third item from storage is light coconut milk.  Plus, I have three varieties of rice at the moment.  The changes make it more like an Indian dish, but not an actual one you can find in an Indian cookbook.  It's kind of like a chicken kofta curry.  The sauce tastes like an Indian version of marinara.  I highly recommend sneaking a little curry powder into your next batch for a little kick.

More than that, this is a celebration that a second batch of potato nachos finished off the 10 pound bag before they spoiled!  Kind of weird to have Indian food on Cinco de Mayo, but I really had to move up the nachos on my menu calendar to keep from wasting food.  I threw a generous splash of tequila in the pan after toasting the spices, but I'm not adding alcohol to this recipe.  It was really more about forgetting to buy a lime to garnish, and using the tequila as that flavor profile.  I'm not standing in a grocery line for one item.

The recipe is supposed to have spinach in it.  I do have some in the freezer, but decided to use the greens off a carrot I pulled just to see how big the older ones were getting.  Carrot tops also make a good substitute for parsley and other light herbs.

Meatballs
*1 lb ground chicken
1/4 C panko breadcrumbs
*1 green onion, finely chopped
1 Tb fresh cilantro, finely chopped
*1 tsp grated ginger
*1 clove garlic, minced
*1 egg
1 tsp fish sauce or liquid smoke
1/2 tsp kosher salt

1.  Combine all ingredients in a bowl and knead gently until evenly mixed.  Refrigerate while you prepare the sauce ingredients, about half an hour.

2.  Start preheating oven to 400º.  Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.  Roll 1 oz balls of meat mixture, 16 in total.

3.  Bake 25-30 minutes, until cooked through and lightly golden.  This is when your sauce and rice should be ready.

Sauce
1 Tb oil
1 C diced onion
*1 clove garlic, minced
*1 tsp grated ginger
*2 tsp curry powder
1 15oz can light coconut milk
1 tsp brown sugar
*1/4 C tomato paste
*3 C spinach or other leafy green
*mint for garnish
lime or lemon wedges for serving
rice for serving

1.  Start cooking your rice according to package directions.  Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat.  Add onion and cook until softened, about 5 minutes.

2.  Add garlic, ginger, curry powder, brown sugar, and tomato paste to the pan.  Stir into the onion and cook until fragrant, about 2 minutes.

3.  Add coconut milk to pan and bring to a simmer.  Stir until seasoned tomato paste dissolves into the coconut milk.  Stir in spinach and cook until wilted.

4.  When meatballs come out of the oven, peel off the parchment and add to the skillet.  Coat in sauce and serve hot over rice, garnished with fresh mint or cilantro and a citrus wedge on the side.

Difficulty rating  :)

Whole Wheat Date Pancakes

I decided to go on a bit of a carb binge after Passover.  Homemade pasta came first, then these the next morning.

I found a recipe that was close enough to what I wanted on Food Republic.  The main changes were subbing out half the white flour with wheat and reducing the honey.

Wait, you're saying, only half the flour in this is whole wheat?  By all means, make them entirely from whole-wheat flour if you'd like, but it's going to change the consistency.  You'll need about 1/4 C more milk, and they'll still be a little tough.  I was shooting for more nutritious than all-white flour but still fluffy.

3/4 C all purpose flour
3/4 C whole wheat flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3 Tb butter, melted
1 Tb honey
*1-1/2 C milk
1 egg
2/3 C chopped, pitted dates
oil for frying

1.  In a bowl, stir together both flours, baking powder, and salt.  In a separate bowl, beat egg.  Whisk in butter, honey, and milk.

2.  Add wet ingredients to dry and stir until combined.  At this point, lumps are ok.  Stir in chopped dates and let batter sit 5-10 minutes.

3.  Preheat a griddle over medium-high heat.  Add oil to coat the bottom of the pan and allow to heat. Stir batter to break up remaining large lumps, then start spooning 1/4 C mounds onto the griddle.

4.  Cook pancakes until tops set and bubbles stop breaking, about 3 minutes.  Flip and cook until other side browns, about 2 minutes.  Remove to a plate to keep warm, add more oil as needed, and repeat with remaining batter.  Serve warm with syrup.

Serves 5-6

Difficulty rating  π

Arugula-Blossom Salad

After several years of yanking arugula when it bolted, I learned that the flowers are edible, taste a lot like the leaves, and are a rare delicacy.  Whoops.

Ok, I understand that the only people who are going to make this recipe are those who are also lamenting the end of their arugula season.  You can't exactly buy these at Target, and my goodness, we're not done with the pandemic.  This is me treating myself to something you would only find in a vastly overpriced fine-dining restaurant.  Seriously, some places would charge $8 for that teeny salad.

I decided to drizzle this with miso-tahini dressing, because that stuff is crazy good and I have all the ingredients.  I recommend a vinaigrette of some sort, and go easy on it.

All the ingredients I'm putting on this are either from my garden or scrounged out of the crisper.  I suggest a handful of greens and two other veggies you like which are good raw or blanched.

*About 2-3 dozen arugula blossoms
*4 C arugula leaves
*1 C thinly sliced toppings (blanched asparagus & carrot in photo)
1/2 C dressing of choice

1.  Arrange arugula in center of salad plates.  Place flowers facing out toward the edge.

2.  Distribute other toppings over center leaves.  Drizzle with about 2 Tb dressing per plate, and avoid drowning the flowers so they can be seen.  Serve cold.

Difficulty rating  π

Tempura

A few weeks ago, I was watching an early-morning livestream of Alton Brown doing his Quarantine Quitchen.  Whatever keeps you occupied during the lockdown, right?  The first episode of the Good Eats marathon he was narrating was tempura.  I went searching on this blog, and couldn't find a single recipe for it.  Really, I haven't done tempura?  The closest I got was stuffed pumpkin blossoms, which I remembered when the second episode was about squash.

Two things distinguish tempura from the kind of batter you might use on fried chicken.  The first is a reduced amount of gluten.  There is some wheat flour in the batter, but the rest is usually swapped out with rice flour or cornstarch.  I'm on a bit of a budget right now, and I couldn't find rice flour anyway, so we're going with the cornstarch I already have.  The other difference is the use of seltzer water instead of buttermilk.  Not a whole lot of dairy in Japanese food.  These substitutions create a crispier batter and a distinctive crunch.

Another way Alton cuts the gluten in his batter is by the introduction of alcohol.  I've heard of beer-batter tempura, but vodka was a new one.  Don't worry, it cooks out.  Keeping the batter over ice water slows the reaction that creates the gluten and keeps the seltzer active longer.  His third major trick is to mix only half of the batter at once.  Otherwise, by the time you get to the fish it's going to be glutinous and thick.  You're going to need a scale to split up the flour.

I wasn't paying attention when I got out the ingredients and used A.P. flour instead of cake.  It was fine.  Cake flour does have less gluten in it, if you happen to have some, but it isn't the end of the world if you use regular flour.

I didn't make a tempura sauce because I had leftover miso-tahini dressing.  If you want to make your own, it's a lot like Reuben's marinade.

The dippers are Alton's suggestions.  I skipped the tilapia and added the green onions.  There was a lot of batter left.  I considered dipping some asparagus and mushrooms, but I had already fried as much as I could eat in a few days.  You really shouldn't make more than what you can eat fresh, but that's what the 1-egg recipe made.  Leftovers can be freshened up in the toaster oven at 350º to something resembling crispy, but they'll never be as good as fresh.

5 oz cake flour (approx 1 C)
5 oz rice flour or cornstarch (forgot to measure by volume)
1 egg, beaten
*1/2 C vodka
1-1/2 C seltzer water
salt to taste
6 C oil
1 sweet potato, about 5 oz
4 oz fresh, whole green beans
4 stalks green onions
*4 stems Italian parsley
1/2 lb 20-24 ct raw shrimp, tail on
1/2 lb tilapia fillets, cut in 1" chunks
tempura sauce or other dipping sauce

1.  Wash and slice sweet potato into 1/8" thick slices crosswise.  Alton has you peeling the potato, but I didn't see a need for it.  Trim ends off green beans.  Trim roots off of green onions.  Snap longest stems off the parsley.  Check shrimp to make sure it's cleaned.

2.  In a saucepan, start heating oil over high heat.  The 1-1/2 quarts in his recipe are for a Dutch oven.  I used a saucepan just wide enough for the green beans, so it used less oil.  This recipe is going to make a mess of it.  I decided not to reuse the oil, and was glad I hadn't gotten out the deep fryer.

3.  Weigh the two flours into a bowl and whisk together.  Weigh out half of it into another container and set aside.  Separately, beat egg and vodka in a small bowl.  When the oil gets to 350º, beat in seltzer.  Separate out half of the liquids and store in the fridge.

4.  Set the bowl with the half-portion of flour in another bowl of ice.  Stir in the half-portion of wet ingredients until the large lumps are gone, about 10-15 seconds.  Set 2 layers of paper towels on a baking sheet, then set a cooling rack over it.

5.  When the oil gets to 375º, start cooking.  Dip the sweet potato slices first, allowing the batter to coat.  Hold over the bowl with tongs a few seconds to allow the excess batter to drip off, then place in the oil.  The batter is thin, and you will see just a little sticking to the item being fried.  You can add about 6 slices at a time.  Cook 2-3 minutes, until coating is crisp and potato is softened.  Move to cooling rack, sprinkle with salt if desired, allow oil to come back to temperature, and fry another round.

6.  Once the potato is done, you can start frying the rest of the items, which don't take as long to cook.  Beans and onions only take 1-2 minutes, and the parsley about 30 seconds.  When the batter runs low, add the other half-portion of flour and seltzer mix.

7.  Fry the fish and shrimp last, for food safety.  Same process: dip, drip, fry, move to cooling rack.  Make sure shrimp is pink and fish is opaque, about 2 minutes each.  I got seriously impatient near the end and made a huge mess with the batter.  I had to scrub part of the stove, but at least I didn't burn myself.

8.  Serve immediately with dipping sauce, rice, and maybe a side salad.

Difficulty rating  :)

Chocolate Chip Macaroons

I wasn't going to make snacks, but I was at home the last three days of Passover and there was a pound of almond flour in the freezer that I paid $11 for during the initial shopping frenzy.  I also had a carton of egg whites that had been open longer than the 10 days they recommend.  Not much of a leap to turn them into macaroons.

When I went to look up the Bible's recipe, I realized it started with whole almonds.  No problem, I can find a new recipe online.  Um, no I can't.  Not really anything close to what I wanted, since I was skipping coconut.  There was a vegan one that looked good, but it used coconut oil and of course no egg white.

So here's my best stab at an almond flour chocolate chip macaroon.  By day 5, you're not really that picky anyway.  Seriously though, they're crisp on the outside and chewy inside.  They also aren't overly sweet, which is why I skipped the sweetened coconut flakes.

*1 C almond flour
1/4 C granulated sugar
*1 egg white
1/4 C mini chocolate chips (KLP if during Passover)

1.  Preheat oven to 325º.  Line a baking sheet with parchment or a silpat.

2.  In a bowl, stir together almond flour and sugar until evenly combined.  If the almond flour is clumpy, sift the mixture.  Stir in egg white and allow mixture to sit a few minutes to hydrate.  Stir in chips.

3.  Form mixture into 1" balls and place on baking sheet.  Wet hands help.  You can tell when the dough started to stick.  Bake 18 minutes, until just starting to get golden.  The bottoms will be darker.

4.  Cool on a wire rack and serve.  Store in a sealed box at room temperature up to 4 days.

Makes 1 dozen

Difficulty rating  π

Checking the Hoard

I didn't realize how much food I'd bought until after Passover, when I consolidated the two kinds of menus.  The freezer and pantry look like at least four people live here.  It probably isn't that bad, but I'm not used to eating so much out of storage.  That's how this blog started, and it was such a nightmare to work with my mom's massive stash.  Comparing then and now, it's less than half the food I had to deal with ten years ago, but twice as much as what I carry normally.  I managed to squeeze all the everyday stuff on the middle shelf, baking items on the top shelf where they usually live, and just a few overflow items like unopened coffee on the small appliance/cake decorating/cat food bottom shelf.  At least this time I know that everything was bought within the last six months and is not a hazard.  It's also foods I like, and I have some inkling how and when I'm going to be preparing it.

With the fridge, it's a race to use items before they spoil.  After losing a pint of milk, I learned you can freeze it.  I had to throw away about two ounces of cheddar cheese that got too moldy to cut around.  I'm doing better with the fresh vegetables, but some of the more fragile greens that had to be bought as a bundle are going bad before I can come up with a use.  When so many are having trouble putting enough food on the table each day, I feel terrible wasting anything.  This is why I used to shop twice weekly and only get exactly what I needed.

Like bending the coronavirus curve, I'm noticing the curve in my grocery shopping.  In March, I spent $350 on groceries and another $100 at Target for random essentials.  That's for one person and a cat, with at least $50 of it the special items for Passover.  The first week in April, I only needed bananas.  The second trip, milk, plain yogurt, and fresh Brussels sprouts for Seder.  It's been continuing along those lines since then, shopping only when I'm out of something that has to be fresh.  It barely feels worth the risk of going out.  Of course, I make use of each trip to pick at my "wish list" of items that aren't critically short, but I should get if they are available.  Still, it's been less than $20 per week all month.

Meanwhile, I came up with new ideas to repurpose things I had bought.  I put kimchi and bits of leftover duck on baked potatoes for lunches.  (So many potatoes.)  The duck bones and carcass are going to be turned into a lovely soup now that I finally got some navy beans, filled out with vegetable scraps from the crisper and some frozen spinach.  The rest of the parsley from Seder turned into pesto, and is specifically why I bought a small wedge of parmesan.  I'm still going to have matzoh forever, but that happens every time I buy the big box.  It's not a hoarder thing.

Unlike the shoppers I still see with three weeks of groceries in their carts, I am determined to make up the grocery bills by the time life goes back to something resembling normal.  After all, the point of that frantic grocery panic was to last through the lockdown.  If I can manage to buy only a minimum of perishables until then, my pantry should look normal pretty soon.