Creole Risotto and How Your Christmas Lights Help You Prep Ahead

Finished dish with chicken and peas

I have a new cookbook (my Mother's Day gift to myself)!  It's a vintage cookbook called Scientific Cooking with Scientific Methods by Sarah E. Woodworth Craig, published in 1911 by Ellis Publishing Co (Battle Creek, MI).

It's chock-full of adverts for Vonnegut Hardware in Indianapolis (yes, *that* Vonnegut, though Vonnegut grandpère rather than Vonnegut grand-fils) and "scientific" culinary gems like, "Brain workers want to take easily digested foods, such as eggs, fish, etc. The laborer needs quantity, and can eat of corned beef, cabbage, corn bread and brown bread, and not overtax his digestion..."

As always, I wonder what of our current "known scientific truths" will seem quaint and outmoded in a few decades.

Outmoded though their musings on digestion are, I LOVE recipes from the pre-processed foods era.  In this instance, I'm combining one of the recipes with a previous Mother's Day gift (my rice cooker) and streamlining the recipe.

Rice cooker in foreground,
Christmas lights timer in background

I've been really into using my rice cooker lately as a prep-ahead tool in combination with...wait for it...my Christmas light timer.  Most rice recipes (the vegetarian ones) can sit out at room temp for a few hours before cooking without ill effects, but really can't sit around on "warm" all day without getting burned.  Enter the timer...  Rice cookers will generally cook white rice in 15-20 minutes, plus a few minutes cool-down time or brown rice in about 45 minutes with the same cool-down period.  Count backwards from your preferred meal time, and set your timer to start at the appropriate time.  Don't forget to set the rice cooker itself to "cook" even though it won't be kicking on for awhile.

Now the recipe...the original recipe calls for making a sauce of onions, pepper, mushrooms, sherry and tomatoes separate from the rice.  I sauteed the veg, added a splash of wine and added all this to the rice cooking liquid.  I used all mushrooms rather than a mixture of onion/pepper/mushroom because that's what I had on hand.  Use more veggies, less veggies, whatever works for you.

Also, be sure to use all the liquid called for even if it doesn't seem to jive with the rice cooker's notion of appropriate rice-to-liquid ratio...the volume of the sauteed veggies throws things off.

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Philly Cheese Steak Stuffed Peppers

Total Pin Win!  The hubbie loved it, the kids liked it, it was awfully darn easy to make.  I saw this on Pinterest and here's how I did it...

If you want a "fuller" stuffed pepper, double the amount of corned beef, mushrooms or both.

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Turkey Burgers

Turkey burgers baked in a jumbo muffin pan
as mini-meatloaves (same bat time, same
bat temp) with a brush of garlic jelly as a glaze

I just adore Chris Kimball, America's Test Kitchen and their recipes.  They are almost uniformly a few steps more intensive than I'm willing to do on a regular basis, but I forgive them because they are always so, so right.  That said, I am willing to live in the place between Right and Easy, a little place I like to call Rational Compromise ;)

The July 2012 issue of Cooks Illustrated includes an egg-free, carb-free recipe for a moist, light turkey burger.  The one major departure I make from this recipe is that I do not grind my own meat by purchasing a bone-in hunk o' turkey, cutting the meat off the bone, partially freezing it and running it through the food processor for just enough pulses to produce the "perfect" grind.  Huh-unh.  Not gonna do it.  I used 1 1/2 lbs. ground turkey instead and got delicious results.

There are some surprising ingredients here...soy sauce, baking soda, gelatin.  I can't remember all the science but there's a reason for it.  Go to your local public library and check out this issue of CI for details.  A super-cool bonus of the science is this makes a nice tender burger without the usual carb-y additions or eggs for those with egg allergies.

Regarding the mushrooms...the mushrooms get very finely chopped and effectively disappear into the burger.  It's not like eating big chunks o' mushroom with your burger, in case you have some fungi-phobes at your dinner table.  I will say that you do need white button mushrooms here instead of something fancier for aesthetic reasons.  I made this recipe with brown cremini mushrooms, and they just come out looking very unappetizing in the final product.  With brown mushrooms, the burger is still PERFECTLY DELICIOUS but UGLY AS ALL HECK.

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The BEST vegetarian chili

Pictured with biscuits

I'm no stranger to vegetarian cooking.  I routinely incorporate vegetarian and vegan meals into our dinner rotations...in fact, one of my kids will only reliably eat vegetables when accompanied by tofu (or hidden in a smoothie, in which I have also used tofu).  I have a long-standing history of sneaking vegetarian proteins into meals without telling my soy-phobic audience (bad Daughter-In-Law, bad!)  I have happily tried cooking with nearly every meat substitute and vegetarian protein readily available at my grocery store, everything from tofu and tempeh to Fakin' and Garden Burgers and (oddest of all IMHO) Texturized Vegetable Protein.

But I do not like vegetarian chili.

I have tried many a recipe...the ones that use frozen-then-thawed shredded tofu as a meat substitute, the ones that use TVP, the ones that refuse to even try to sub anything in for the meat and go all-out with beans and vegetables.  They all lack something, well, *meaty*.  The texture, the depth of flavor, the way the tomatoes and spices of the chili play together...it just doesn't quite work as well without meat.

And then I saw the recent Cook's Illustrated issue (December 2012).  I adore Cook's Illustrated.  Geeky and science-y and culinarily outstanding all at once.  They have dedicated most of a 2-page spread to explaining why their newly developed Best Vegetarian Chili Recipe Ever works, but the important part is...it does work.  It makes the thing that meat does to chili happen but without the meat.  It also makes a vat of chili, which naturally makes it an ideal make-ahead sort of affair.

It's a good thing it makes so much (and that you can freeze some for another day) because, like everything Cook's Illustrated does, there are a lot of little steps that lead you to the perfection they offer.  Aggravating, but absolutely necessary.  The one step you could probably skip is toasted and grinding your own dry chile pods.  In fact, they suggest substituting 1/4 cup ancho chile powder for the at-home roasted-ground chiles if you don't want to do that step.  But everything else...grinding dry shiitake mushrooms, toasting and grinding walnuts, cooking a blend of dried beans from scratch...necessary.

They recommend a mixture of earthy beans (pintos, kidney, black beans) and creamy beans (navy, great northern).  I used navy and pintos in equal parts.  I also used 2 pasilla peppers and 2 sandia peppers (instead of ancho and New Mexico) because those are the dry peppers I have in my pantry, but next time I'll just use chile powder.

CI recommends cooking the chili in the oven to avoid having to stir the beans.  I think it just makes it take longer and produces a thinner chili than I like, so I'll be doing it on the stovetop from now on.

The recipe below is rewritten to streamline the steps and make the ingredient list make more sense to me LOL  I *hate* it when the ingredients are listed in a different order than you use them, so I've regrouped them into clusters that get added/handled all at once.  I also think this makes a LOT more than the 6-8 servings CI suggests, hence the range of servings.

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Chicken Wellington

Chicken Wellington with Lemon Turnips

Original recipe here.

Yum, yum, yum, yum!  The kids like this even, and it's super-easy to throw together a double batch to freeze.  I made a double batch of the OR's portions b/c it calls for half the usual package size of a couple of ingredients and I hate having extra bits hanging around.  I used the leftover chicken from a whole roaster that we had for dinner one night here, but you could bake some chicken breasts to use just for this dish if you wanted.  The original recipe has you separate the components of the filling into 3 distinct layers but I don't think that's necessary and only makes a lot of dishes dirty. 

Be sure to wrap the wellingtons well in plastic wrap unless you'll be cooking them immediately.  Puff pastry will dry out in the freezer or fridge, so keep them wrapped until just before baking.

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Tofu Parmesan and BBQ Mushroom Quesadillas

It's a twofer!  What unites these recipes is the sauteed onion-and-mushroom component of each...it's a small element of the Tofu Parmesan sauce and a main part of the BBQ Mushroom Quesadilla filling.  If you're slicing, chopping and sauteeing for one dish, you might as well do enough for both.  Both recipes are adapted from the 28 Day Diabetic Meal Plan from diabeticconnect.com.  I apologize for no finished product pictures...I cooked these two meals on two of my busiest nights (and they cooked up FAST!) and consequently forgot to photograph. 

Tofu scares a lot of people, but in this dish it's nothing to be frightened of.  Freezing "toughens" the tofu, usually a problem with other foods, but a bonus here.  It gives the tofu "steaks" a toothier, meatier texture, so making this one into a freezer kit suits the recipe extremely well. 

I will say though that my Dear Husband and I decided we prefer the tofu unfrozen for this recipe, so in future, I will fridge the 'fu rather than freezing it as part of a freezer kit.  If do you freeze the tofu, pat the cutlets dry gently rather than pressing hard...you want moisture to remain in the cutlet to allow the crumb coating to stick.  I think I'd also go for more, thinner cutlets for freezing...6 instead of 4...for a more appealing texture.  Carry on!

Quesadillas are wonderfully fast to put together and cook.  You can assemble the quesadilla in its entirety (as I do) to freeze, or just the filling to thaw and assemble later.  It simply depends on whether you have more time on the front end (in prep) or on the back end (in actual cooking).  If you make the quesadillas up fully, you can bake them off from their frozen state for a super-fast, no-plan dinner.

To make both dinner kits, start with:

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April's Microwave Salisbury Steak

The original recipe is from a friend who writes a gluten-free cooking (and other stuff too) blog at An April a Day.  This recipe, she tells me, is not gluten-free thanks to the canned golden mushroom soup.  I'm not wild in general about using store-bought canned soups, but golden mushroom soup would be a PITA to recreate homemade (and I'm willing to go aways in the direction of homemade substitutions) so take that as you will.  And it's so good that it's worth it...my 18 month old would have licked his plate, if he had better hand-eye coordination.

This is an awfully fast dish to put together thanks to the store-bought help and use of the microwave for cooking, but it's EVEN FASTER when you prep it ahead and stash it in the freezer.  Plan ahead for your storage needs...the patties will  need to cook in a microwave-safe baking dish, so you'll either need to freeze in an appropriate container or be prepared to transfer the somewhat delicate patties between freezer container and microwave cooking dish.

I have also used this recipe as the basis for a crockpot roast.  Instead of making patties with ground meat, brown a roast on all sides, then put in a crockpot.  Combine the remaining seasonings (omit breadcrumbs and egg) and sauce ingredients and pour over.  Cook 8-10 hours on low. 

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Mushroom lasagne

Prep intensive, but delicious!  I know I say that a lot, but really this time.  To scale back the prep work, you could make this a red lasagne instead of a white lasagne and use store-bought spaghetti saucefor the leek bechamel sauce .  I substituted roasted whole mushrooms for one layer of lasagne noodles for dietary reasons, but you could also use 3 layers of noodles and save yourself the prepwork on the whole mushrooms. 

Nutritional info reflects whole wheat pasta, part-skim ricotta, whole milk, about 2 tsp of salt added and full fat gouda.

Lastly, if you're wondering how much of the leek you should use, get rid of any parts that feel like you could never finish chewing them.  Or just cut it like this:

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Mushrooms on sale!

What to do with several pounds of mushrooms purchased on sale?  Slice them in the food processor and prep for roasted mushroom sandwiches and freeze mushroom casseroles, of course!

(By the by, I haven't gotten around to doing my mushroom cleaning science experiment because a) I'm easily distracted and b) my mushroom slicer broke.  Eventually...  So I'm still working with the assumption that a quick rinse and pat dry will be sufficient for cleaning and allowing prepped, sliced mushrooms to stand for a day or two in the fridge awaiting cooking.)

You'll need about 2 lbs of mushrooms for 4 sandwiches and 1 1/2 lbs. for each casserole.  I'm making one recipe of sandwiches and 2 casseroles, so I have 5 pounds of mushrooms.  All button-type mushrooms, cremini and white button.  Shitake, oyster, and any other fancy mushroom should be sliced by hand as the food processor will just tear them up rather than slicing them.  Use the slicing plate in your food processor, and you'll be done in no time flat.

For the mushroom casserole, you need to make a thick white sauce for the base of the dish.  I have recently discovered that this can be accomplished in the microwave!  Huzzah!  So fast, so easy and no extra heat in the kitchen.  You will need to use a container that is much larger than seems necessary because the mixture will foam up quite a bit.
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My Science Fair Project: Part 2

...in which is revealed the Experimental Design (at last, SLIS L509 proves useful!)

To re-cap (Get it?  Cap, like mushroom caps?  Hello?  Hello???), there are several suggested methods of cleaning mushrooms: dry brushing, peeling, wiping with a damp cloth, rinsing + patting dry, rinsing + spinning dry, quick soak + patting dry, quick soak + spinning dry.  For the sake of thoroughness, I will include longer soaking even though it is uniformly not recommended.  The disasters that supposedly await improperly cleaned mushrooms include failure to remove all dirt (cleanliness), sogginess (textural issues) and loss of flavor.  And as there are already a few well-documented demonstrations debunking mushroom-washing myths for immediate cooking (which all recommend quick rinse + pat dry), I will concentrate exclusively on the effects of cleaning method on prep-ahead cooking. 

Procedure
For each cleaning method, two whole button mushrooms will be cleaned, sliced, stored for 24 hours, cooked and taste-tested and quantitatively evaluated by a small but discerning panel (me and my husband).  The taste-testing will be conducted so that the tasters (at least my husband) will not know which cleaning method was used on which experimental group.  For this experiment, I define "rinsing" as being placed under cold running water and "soaking" as being placed in a bowl containing water.  A "quick rinse" will last 2 seconds, and a "quick soak" will last 2 seconds.  A "regular soak" will last 2 minutes.

1. Two whole mushrooms will undergo a single cleaning method (no cleaning for control, brushing with a silicone brush, peeling with a paring knife, wiping with a damp paper towel, 2 second rinse + pat dry with a paper towel, 2 second rinse + spin dry in a salad spinner, 2 second soak + pat dry with a paper towel, 2 second soak + spin dry in a salad spinner, 2 minute soak + pat dry with a paper towel, 2 minute soak + spin dry in a salad spinner).   
2. The mushrooms will be sliced after drying (if part of the cleaning method) using a mushroom slicer to insure even thickness of slices. 
3. The mushrooms will be stored in open zip-top bags numbered 1-10 with a paper towel to strike a balance between possible condensation and possible drying out.  The mushrooms will be refrigerated to insure food safety.  A list will be made linking the experiment group numbers to the cleaning method, but will not be viewed until data analysis begins.
4. The mushrooms will be sauteed over medium heat ('5' on my stove) for 5 minutes in olive oil. 
5. The mushrooms will be tasted and evaluated after a 5 minute cooling period. 
6. The results will be quantified using a 5-point Likert scale.  Each judge will award a score to each numbered sample for cleanliness of the mushroom, texture and flavor. 
7. The result metrics will be added to give an overall score to each cleaning method.  Averages will be computed for each result category as well as for the overall performance score to determine the best cleaning method. 
8. Qualitative preparation notes will be kept and discussed, but will not figure in the analysis of the data and determination of the preferred cleaning method.

Control Group/Variables/Constants

• The control group will consist of two uncleaned mushrooms subjected to the above procedure. 
• The independent variable is the cleaning method.  There will be 9 experimental groups in addition to the control group. 
• The dependent variable is how the mushrooms look and taste after cooking. 
• The constants are:
• Type of mushroom (white button)
• Method of preparation (slicing with mushroom slicer)
• Method of storage (open zip-top bag with a paper towel in the refrigerator)
• Method of cooking (sauteing in olive oil)
• Serving time (5 minutes after cooking)

Data collection form to be used:

Group #	Cleanliness	Texture	Flavor	Overall
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Scale:
1	2	3	4	5
Strongly Dislike	Somewhat Dislike	Neutral	Somewhat like	Strongly like

Oy...this is just as tedious as I remembered.  Next installment will have...duh-duhduh-daahh!...Results and Analysis, and maybe even Discussion and a Conclusion (whenever I get the chance to actually do this LOL) Pin It

My Science Project: Part 1

I’m not sure what grade I’d be in now, but I’m going to do a science fair project this year.  I’ll even use the actual Scientific Method, and probably it will be a far better and more rigorous investigation than any of the slapdash assignments I grudgingly turned out while slogging through middle school. 

Question: How should you clean mushrooms?

I got to thinking about this after one of those days where it seems every facet of everyday life turns on a single subject…casual conversations, tv spots, magazine articles, cookbook guidelines.  That day mushrooms and proper cleaning methods thereof occupied a great deal of the universe's energy.  I personally think the official Food Network position that mushrooms must only be wiped with a damp or dry cloth to avoid Bad Culinary Things is hoodoo-voodoo and routinely wash—gasp!—mine under running water, followed by a toweling off. 

But it did get me thinking…what if I’m wrong?  Have I been abusing my mushrooms all these years?  What really is the best way to clean a mushroom—here is the moment of relevance--in the context of prep-ahead cookery?  

Research

Before designing my experiment, I need to know what evils purportedly befall washed mushrooms and what methods are recommended to avoid them.  I am also curious if there is any literature on preparation of mushrooms immediately before cooking versus advance preparation. 

I consulted the websites of the National Mushroom Council (whose website also reveals that mushrooms are Vitamin D powerhouses and a very good source of copper, selenium and riboflavin.  Betcha didn't know that...I didn't!), the Mycological Society of San Francisco, Alton Brown's Good Eats transcripts, various cooking discussion forums (fora?) and Julia Child's How to Cook.  My findings are arranged below showing what each source recommendations as a cleaning method, what pitfalls await if you use the wrong cleaning method and whether or not to clean in advance.

Hypothesis

The incidence of rinse quickly + pat dry confirms my personal preference for this method, so I will stand by it as my hypothesis that it is the best manner in which to clean mushrooms thoroughly without compromising flavor or texture even for delayed cooking (a practice which is generally disfavored, but which constitutes reality in my kitchen). 

Stay tuned for details of the experimental design...


FYI...Taste of Home is sponsoring a mushroom recipe contest through August.  Prizes involve Weber grills, I think.

Suggested Cleaning Methods
NMC	soft dry brush, rinse quickly + pat dry
MSSF	damp cloth, avoid wetting undersides
AB	rinse quickly + pat dry
Discussion fora	peeling, rinse quickly + salad spinner
Julia Child	soft dry brush, quick soak + pat dry
Potential Negative Results
MSSF	loss of flavor
Discussion fora	turn mushy, absorb excess water
AB	remaining dirt
Immediate vs. delayed  use
MSSF	clean as you use them
AB	wash immediately before cooking

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Stay-in Take-out: Hot & Sour Soup

Again, adapted from the Argo cookbook.  I add more "stuff" than the original because I like soup that falls closer to the "hearty" end of the hearty-brothy spectrum, and I dialed the heat back (too much for the hubbie's liking, but good for me). 

I think the big issue in controlling the heat in this soup is which chili-garlic hot sauce product you use.  The recipe calls for "chili garlic sauce" which I interpret as the relatively mild Thai garlic chili sauce, though there is also sriracha's chili garlic cousin which will make your nose sweat and your head run.  The original recipe also calls for ground white pepper, which I do not keep in my spice collection, for which I substitute more chili garlic concoction rather than using another ground pepper.  Next time I make this, I'll use 3 tsp of the milder chili garlic sauce, or perhaps 1 tsp of the super-hot version.

This is a great prep-ahead meal.  It took me about 25 minutes to get everything sliced and measured in the morning, and only about 5 minutes to cook the soup.  Do the prep the night before and stick everything in the fridge for super-duper fast dinner the next day.

Clockwise from top left: seasoning sauce, mushrooms/tofu/bamboo shoots, broth, sliced pork, eggs, cornstarch

Hot and Sour Soup
Makes 6 servings

1 oz. dried woodear mushrooms (or other dry mushroom)
4 oz. sliced fresh button mushrooms
1 4 oz. can bamboo shoots, sliced lengthwise
8 oz. tofu, cubed small
----------
8 oz. lean pork, sliced thinly
----------
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup rice vinegar
3 tsp chili garlic sauce (mild) OR 1 tsp chili garlic sauce (hot)
1 tsp sesame oil
1/2 tsp sugar or Splenda
----------
6 cups broth, vegetable or chicken
----------
1/3 cup cornstarch
3/4 cup water
----------
2 eggs, beaten well
----------
Garnish (optional):  sliced green onions, cilantro, parsley, chives
Soak the dry mushrooms in warm water for 15 minutes.  Meanwhile slice the fresh mushrooms, bamboo shoots, and tofu and combine in a container.  Drain the soaked mushrooms and chop coarsely.  Add those to the other vegetables. 

Slice the pork and put that in a separate container.  Combine the soy sauce, vinegar, chili garlic sauce, sesame oil and sugar in another container.  If prepping ahead, measure out  broth, if necessary, and put in a sealable container.  If prepping ahead, measure out cornstarch but do not add water until just before cooking.  Beat eggs and place in another container. 

When ready to cook, add the water to the cornstarch and mix well.  Boil the broth in a 3 or 4 quart pot.  Add the pork and boil 1 minute (the pork will cook in this time if you have sliced thinly; cook longer if the pork is in bigger pieces).  Add the seasoning sauce, vegetables and cornstarch slurry.  Cook 1 minute longer.  Stir the pot in a circular motion while slowly pouring in beaten eggs.  Cook until eggs form cooked strands.  Top with optional green stuff. Pin It

Mushroom stock

I used to make stock about once a week.  Before I had kids.  Now it's more of an as-needed thing, with help from cubes, granules, and boxes from the grocery store.  I'm not wild about all the Miracles of Modern Chemistry floating around in store-bought stock, but it'll do for most preparations.  When I'm making soup though where you need to use a large quantity and the broth is front and center in the dish, homemade is best. 

I keep two ziptop bags in the freezer--one for veg, one for chicken--to throw "extra" bits like carrot peels, celery butts, mushroom stems and chicken backs into.  When the bag is full, it's time to make stock.  This is also a good time to get rid of any wilty celery, sprouty onions and carrots past their prime that are lolling indolently about your vegetable crisper.  As long as they're not decomposing, they're fine for making stock. 

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Blue Cheese Artichoke Pasta

This is a fairly strong tasting pasta sauce, thanks to the blue cheese.  If blue isn't your thing, you can use less or sub in something you do like...feta, parmesan, shredded asiago, manchego, whatever floats your boat.  You must leave in the artichokes though...they are one of the top 5 cancer-fighting foods on the planet.  I heard it on Dr. Oz, so it must be true ;-)  

When it comes to browning mushrooms, I've found that a little benign neglect is the way to go.  Get your pan hot and your butter melted, put the mushrooms in and WALK AWAY for a few a minutes.  I mean, don't leave the house or anything, but go clean the cutting board.  You more you fiddle with them, the less they brown.

Blue Cheese and Artichoke Pasta

Makes 6 servings

2 tbsp butter

4 oz. mushrooms, sliced

2 tbsp butter

3 tbsp flour

3 cups milk

salt and pepper to taste

4 oz. crumbled blue cheese

1 15-oz can artichokes, cut up

1 13-16 oz. box pasta, any shape

(If prepping ahead for same-day or next-day cooking, measure and chop all ingredients.  Combine 2 tbsp butter and 3 tbsp flour in a container, keep remaining ingredients separate.)

Saute the mushrooms in 2 tbsp butter over medium-high heat, if you like them browned, or over medium heat if you just like them soft (about 5-7 minutes).

Lower heat to medium.  Add the additional 2 tbsp butter to the pan.  When melted, whisk in flour.  Cook 1 minute.  Whisk in the milk 1 cup at a time.  When all the milk is added, turn the heat up to medium-high until the sauce is simmering.  Return heat to medium and allow to simmer for 5 minutes, until slightly thickened.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.

If preparing a freezer kit, freeze the sauce now and label the pasta and can of artichokes for pantry storage.  When ready to cook, thaw and reheat the sauce.  You may have to add a little milk to get the consistency you like.  Add chopped artichokes.  Boil the pasta according to the package directions.  Toss drained pasta with sauce.

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