Week 49 - 30 Minutes

If you've been reading cooking posts here for any length of time, you probably already know that I have speed issues with cooking. That's why I like when challenges like the Week 49 challenge, 30 minutes, come up, because I can challenge myself to get faster. They've done this challenge before, and back in 2016, I did finish the entire meal in 30 minutes, but it was largely done by using shortcuts (frozen roasted corn, protein was just pre-seasoned panko chicken tenders in the oven, etc). This time, I decided to pick a meal from scratch that was only supposed to take 30 minutes (including prep time) to see if I could do it.

I chose a teriyaki chicken stir-fry from Well Plated, which was supposed to be 15 minutes of prep time and 15 minutes of cooking. Since you can use whatever vegetables you want in a stir-fry, I thought there was a good chance it would take me longer than 30 minutes total even though I tried to pick some simpler vegetables, but I still wanted to give it a go.

The ingredients for the stir-fry were:

- 1/2 cup water ($0)

- 1/3 cup soy sauce ($0.50)

- about 3 tbsp honey ($0.69)

- about 1 tbsp rice vinegar ($0.10)

- big spoonful of minced garlic ($0.15)

- equivalent amount of ginger ($0.30)

- about 1 tbsp sesame oil ($0.30)

- big scoop of cornstarch ($0.25)

- 1 yellow onion ($0.61)

- 1 green pepper ($1.06)

- 1 red pepper ($1.56)

- small batch of scallions ($0.99)

- small bag of snap peas ($3.99)

- 1 package of extra firm tofu ($1.89)

- grapeseed oil for stir-frying ($0.10)

- 2 Bibigo microwavable sticky rice packets ($2.25)

The total cost for the dish was approximately $14.74, a little higher than I would have expected for this vegetarian dish, but almost a quarter of that was the snap peas alone.

Making the dish was relatively straightforward as we've made many stir-fries before. I often just stir-fry the protein and vegetables and then toss sauce ingredients on top of it in the wok, but since this one called for the teriyaki sauce to be made on the stove, I tried it that way instead. The water, soy sauce, honey, rice vinegar, garlic, ginger, and sesame oil get mixed in a small pot on the stove, and then once boiling, a slurry of cornstarch and water is added to thicken it up. Unfortunately, when I threw the cornstarch slurry into the sauce, I didn't whisk it fast enough (I think I was doing multiple things at once), and when I got back to it, the sauce had formed giant gelatinous-like clumps. Oops. I was able to improve it and break some of that down a little bit, but even when the sauce was added to the wok, there were some jelly-like bits that we sometimes mistook for onions.

Anyway, the sauce was made in the pot, while the tofu and vegetables were cooked in the wok, and then the sauce was added at the end. The original plan had been to stir-fry the tofu, remove it from the wok, then cook the vegetables, and then add the tofu back in with the sauce, but there was something wrong with this tofu. I bought extra-firm on purpose so that it would be more likely to stay intact when sliced and stir-fried and not crumble like soft tofu, but this package of tofu crumbled more than any firm tofu we've used recently. The last package of 365 firm tofu that we made a week earlier was super firm, so I was looking forward to using the extra-firm and having it be even sturdier. Nope. It was significantly less firm and crumbled when I was slicing it. Just this batch? Mislabeled? Who knows, but it was like having scrambled tofu which was the exact opposite of what I was trying to do. We liked the dish overall and the sauce was good, but it would have been so much better with recognizable slices of tofu.

As far as the 30 minute challenge, how did it go? It took 58 minutes. At the 30 minute mark, there was still nothing in the wok, but I think I could have cut the time a little bit if not for a few things that slowed me down:

- The red pepper and green pepper we got from Whole Foods were a little old. The red pepper had some softer spots, and the green pepper had a gash in the side and a giant soft spot, so I had to chop them more carefully and slowly than I would have if they were in great condition.

- I wasn't expecting to have crumbly tofu sticking to the wok, which then couldn't be set aside for the vegetables, which also meant that the vegetables couldn't cook as quickly on their own in the wok.

- Breaking down the mountains of cornstarch in the sauce took a while, and if I had whisked it well enough from the start, that would have eliminated some time.

In the end, it was still under an hour, which was good for me, even for a straightforward stir-fry. We liked how it turned out, other than the tofu, but the tofu wasn't the fault of the recipe. (Seriously, how could that have been extra firm?) I would make this sauce for a stir-fry again.

Kung Pao Chicken Mochi Balls

We don't often post more than once a day, but with 10 days left to the end of the year, we still have about 17 more posts on the 52 week cooking challenge, all the posts from two different geographic locations in the Around the World Cooking Challenge, and lots of other WorldEats and Trader Joe's posts we just haven't gotten to yet, besides the usual year-end round-ups. Going to post as much as we can to try to preserve as many memories as possible and wrap up the year!

These kung pao chicken mochi balls are the type of hors d'oeuvres I'd expect to see closer to New Year's/end of the year, but they appeared at Trader Joe's back in the late spring/early summer. They've been sitting in our freezer since then, and we finally got around to trying them recently. Since we haven't been doing many grocery haul photos this year (thanks, COVID), I have no idea how much we paid for them, but the TJ's blog says they were $3.99 for 8 balls.

Inside each ball was a chicken and vegetable filling consisting of chicken, cabbage, red bell peppers, water chestnuts, celery, green onions, soybean oil, rice wine, garlic, ginger, soy sauce, and chili oil (according to the box). Not sure which components were part of the sauce and which were part of the chopped filling, so I'm not going to guess, but they were all in there somewhere.

Each mochi ball had a crisp exterior (they were fine, probably would have been crispier if we cooked them longer, but we followed the box instructions), and then the shell got chewy once you bit into it. It definitely had the chewiness of a mochi baked good, and it stuck in our teeth. The filling was actually spicy like kung pao chicken, so between that and the sticky chewiness, it was probably good that we didn't share them with baby B for lunch. The balls weren't that filled with stuff, although they did have good flavor. Together though, A thought that the sweetness of the mochi didn't always pair well with the spicy chicken filling.

Buy again? Probably not. We thought they tasted good and we were glad we tried them, but just didn't feel that excited about them. If you really like kung pao chicken, you'd probably enjoy them.

Week 2 - Miso

When I hear miso, my first thought is soup (which amuses me, since the majority of the miso mentions on this blog have nothing to do with soup), and since it's January and it's cold, soup sounded really appealing. I didn't want to make a plain miso soup, so I looked around online until I found a recipe for ginger chicken meatballs in miso broth on No Spoon Necessary. I've been wanting to make homemade meatballs for B ever since we found out about his egg allergy, so this seemed like the perfect time.

The ingredients for our adapted recipe were:

For the meatballs:
- 1 lb ground chicken ($4.99)
- 1 cup panko breadcrumbs ($0.40)
- 3 cloves of garlic, minced ($0.30)
- 1 tbsp soy sauce ($0.20)
- 2 tsp ginger paste ($0.40)
- 5 scallions, greens only (use the whites for the broth) ($0.50)
- 1 tbsp fish sauce ($0.10)
- 1 tsp lemongrass, minced ($1.29)
- 1/2 batch of cilantro, leaves finely chopped (several tbsp) ($0.50)
- 2 tbsp broth (from the broth below)
- olive oil to coat pan ($0.20)

For the broth:
- 6 cups water (although I added 2 more later because we had too many vegetables)
- 2 spoonfuls chicken bouillon ($1)
- 3 cloves of garlic, sliced ($0.30)
- 1 medium shallot, sliced ($0.33)
- 1 tbsp ginger paste ($0.20)
- 1 tbsp fish sauce ($0.10)
- 4 scallions, whites and greens sliced, plus the whites from the meatball scallions ($0.49)
- 2 tbsp white miso ($1)
- baby corn ($2.50)
- napa cabbage ($2.89)

That came out to about $17.69 ($8.88 for the meatballs and $8.81 for the broth) for soup for three for dinner with about a bowl left over for lunch. On the more expensive side for the home cooking/challenge meals we've done, but it made a lot of food and the meatballs had so many ingredients in them that they definitely didn't taste like ordinary meatballs.

The original recipe called for baby bok choy, but apparently in everyone's "it's the new year and it's time to eat healthy" madness, bok choy and baby bok choy were nowhere to be found. (Either that or there was a supply issue somewhere that we didn't know about when planning this.) We tried two different stores, and there was a single package of bok choy that we were planning to use for something else, so we went with napa cabbage here and some baby corn. I think there are a lot of vegetables that would be complementary here, so we went with what we could find. Tastewise, it was fine, but the giant napa cabbage was a little harder to manage than bok choy would have been, and I only ended up using a third of it, max (and that was with adding more to the broth after we all had our first bowls and had made some space in the pot).


Another ingredient note, this was my first time using actual lemongrass. I watched a few YouTube videos to prepare, and I thought I was ready. Remove the fibrous outside layers, mince the inner tender part finely, and you're good to go. But instead, it was like the bamboo root adventure all over again. I kept removing the outer layers because they felt fibrous, and ended up with very little lemongrass. I don't know if I tossed too much and should have used more, and I tried to follow one YouTuber's method of sticking your thumbnail in to see if there's an indentation, but very little of it seemed tender. Will need to investigate further. (Comments and advice welcome!)

The steps for the recipe were:

1. Prep. [Here I should note that the recipe total time was given as 40 minutes, with 20 minutes of cook time (not that inaccurate) and 20 minutes of prep time. Yes, I'm a little slow on prep on a good day, and yes, I'm a little rusty, but even when I wasn't, I don't think 20 minutes would have been nearly enough to do all of this. 20 minutes in, I had gotten through the garlic, the lemongrass, and the shallots, and that's it. The prep probably took at least an hour, and even if you subtract all the time I had to take to wash my burning eyes out (thanks, delicious scallions and shallots), it still wouldn't be anywhere close to 20 minutes. I feel like to do that you would need a giant counter with room to lay everything out for prep, very quick knife skills, and someone to wash all the vegetables for you. Washing vegetables thoroughly takes so long!]

Anyway, this first step of prep was for the garlic, shallots, scallions, cilantro, lemongrass, and the soup vegetables. It shouldn't have taken as long as it did, but time just vanished, and that was with using shortcut ginger!


2. Start the broth. I added the water and bouillon to the pot along with the garlic, shallot, ginger paste, fish sauce, and scallions.

3. Once the broth had come to a boil, I lowered the temperature and then made the miso mixture by combining the miso with 2 tbsp of the broth. After stirring to combine it into a nice paste, I added it to the pot and stirred it in. [Note that the original recipe removed the solids from the pot, but considering they were just vegetables we'd normally eat anyway and not the fibrous lemongrass or something like that, I just left them in.]

4. Add all the meatball ingredients to a large bowl and mix together. Form small meatballs and place on parchment paper-lined surface. [I can't tell you what size they were, because I have no idea. Maybe a tablespoon size or a little bigger. I tried to be consistent but didn't measure.]

5. Add the vegetables to the broth (as long as it's been simmering for at least 15 minutes) and simmer until vegetables are tender and while the meatballs cook.


6. Add olive oil to a pan over medium heat, and add the meatballs in batches to cook until golden brown. [I think they were mostly cooked by the time I was done with them, but they were going to finish in the soup anyway.]

7. Add finished meatballs to the broth and cook for another 5-10 minutes until done.

Thankfully, after A and I took turns working in the kitchen for almost 2 hours (he did some of the vegetable washing and chopping, which I really appreciated), the soup tasted really, really good. It would have been so disappointing to put in so much time and not love what we made, but the soup turned out really well, especially the meatballs. They also seemed to be a hit with baby B, and I'm glad we were able to introduce him to some new flavors we haven't given him at home before, like lemongrass and miso. I could eat a giant bowl full of those meatballs, I liked them so much.


What would I do differently next time? Start cooking earlier, and set my expectations accordingly for how much time prep will take. Watch more videos about lemongrass preparation. Choose another vegetable for the broth that wouldn't take as much time as the corn and cabbage to prepare. Figure out a way for A and I to both work in the kitchen at the same time, because having two extra hands would have made things go much more smoothly (and is how I'm still used to operating, since I haven't cooked a lot of prep-intensive things since B's arrival). Wear contacts so I don't have to keep running to the bathroom to wash out my eyes.

All that said, the recipe itself was delicious, and I would make this again. I think with better planning, quicker ingredients, and less rusty kitchen skills, things might go a little faster next time. (Hopefully!)

Sriracha Potstickers Revisited

A while back, we tried some Trader Joe's sriracha seafood potstickers in festive Christmas colors and really liked them. They had a nicely balanced, slightly spicy seafood flavor to them. We found these again on a recent visit to Trader Joe's (still $3.99 for 12 potstickers), but this time instead of red and green wrappers, the wrappers were an orange color made with carrot and red peppers. (The insides were pretty much the same as last time.)

This time, instead of boiling them, we decided to pan fry them since they were potstickers. The ones in the photo on the box looked like they fried pretty well, but we followed the instructions exactly and they didn't turn out remotely like that. They completely stuck to the pan and fell apart when we tried to take them out, so we won't be making them that way again. A was sad because it was his idea to try them this way.

We still like these potstickers. They're not really a meal replacement for the discontinued crispy green curry shrimp gyoza (SO SAD they're gone), but they're tasty.

Week 2 - Rice

We eat a lot of rice of all types at home, so for the rice challenge, I just looked for something different that I had never made before. Although fried rice was nothing new, I had never made one like Martha Stewart's shiitake fried rice, so I figured I would try it her way and see how it went, maybe picking up some tips that I could use in the future.

The ingredients used (slightly modified from the original) were:

- 1.5 cups brown rice, cooked and set in fridge to cool ($1.50)

- a few handfuls of dried shiitake mushrooms, rehydrated, stems removed, and sliced ($1.50)

- about a cup of frozen shelled edamame, thawed ($0.90)

- oil for cooking ($0.20)

- 2 eggs, beaten ($0.15)

- salt and pepper ($0.05)

- a couple of spoonfuls of minced garlic ($0.25)

- about a tbsp of ginger paste ($0.25)

- a few shakes of red pepper flakes ($0.05)

- 1/2 batch of scallions, sliced on diagonal ($0.70)

- a few tbsp soy sauce ($0.30)

- lime juice to taste ($0.10)

The total for the fried rice was about $5.95 (completely estimated since I have no memory of what the shiitake mushrooms cost). We ate it with a couple of pollock burgers, but that didn't add more than a couple of dollars. Very affordable dinner.

The steps for making the fried rice (as adapted) were:

1. About half an hour before cooking, set rice to cook in rice cooker, put shiitake mushrooms in bowl of warm water to rehydrate, take out edamame to thaw. When rice is done, stir with spoon and then put bowl into the fridge to cool.

2. Prep: slice shiitake mushrooms, slice scallions (also garlic and ginger if not using shortcut products).

3. Add oil to small skillet and then cook beaten egg in single thin layer until cooked through. Remove to cutting board to cool. Once cool, chop egg into small strips.

4. Add some oil to wok and then add mushrooms with garlic, ginger, and red pepper flakes. Cook for a few minutes.

5. Add edamame and cook for a couple of minutes.

6. Add rice, eggs, scallions, soy sauce, and lime juice. Mix well and cook for a few minutes until everything is done. Adjust seasonings to taste if needed.

This fried rice was simple, but I think the simplicity was a good thing. It turned out a lot more balanced than some other fried rice dishes I've made, where I'm trying to clear out the fridge or just throwing whatever I can find into the fried rice. This would also be really easy to make any time that we had scallions, since pretty much everything else is in the pantry. I would definitely make this again.

Five Spice Chicken Salad

Product name: Five spice chicken and Asian style rice noodle salad

Price: $4.49

Quick review: This was pretty good - a layer of rice noodles, cabbage, five spice seasoned chicken, a small container of peanuts, and a chopped salad of cucumber, carrots, red bell pepper, red onion, mint, and cilantro. Everything was very light and fresh, but on its own didn't have too much flavor or seasoning. I was expecting more flavor from the chicken because of the five spice, but I didn't really taste much of that. Once the chili lime dressing (which included rice vinegar, fish sauce, and jalapeños) was thoroughly mixed in though, the salad got so much better. The dressing had a decent amount of heat to it which I wasn't expecting but liked. Although it was 500 calories in total, it didn't feel all that filling in the end, but at least it tasted good.

Buy again? Maybe. I don't really buy many of the pre-made salads from Trader Joe's because they're on the more expensive side for a stay-at-home lunch (cheaper than going out though), but I would get this again if in the mood for a fresh salad without going out or doing the work for it.

Final Time at Silk

Our day in Barbados came just over halfway through our Quantum cruise on day 7. Our dinner that night was at Silk, and after our experience there on the first night, none of us were really looking forward to it. The horrible service and issues with food allergies and mediocre food were still pretty fresh in our memories, but we tried to keep an open mind since maybe they were just first night jitters. Also, this was before Quantum started swapping the menus halfway through, so the options were going to be exactly the same as last time. That was one of the big drawbacks of the (now defunct) Dynamic Dining plan if you're the type who tries a lot of things in one sitting (like we usually did).

Appetizers

The off-menu starter was papadums with sweet chili sauce. We had to request these unlike the wonton chips we got the first day, and the wonton chips were better. It probably didn't help that this arrived after our appetizers, so it wasn't there to snack on while we waited.

The other appetizers we got were:

Crab rangoon with spicy mango preserves: These were pretty good, very crispy, and filled with actual crab. We got two plates of these for the table and were pleased with the choice. Maybe our mistake the first time was not getting as many fried appetizers, since the fried food seemed to be okay there.

We also got the shrimp shumai but those were the same as last time, so not much more to say about that. At least they were good.

Chicken egg drop soup with scallions (M): M's mom ordered this last time. M tried it and generally liked it, but did not like the crispy (soggy) noodles that were on top, so she ordered it this time without them. So much better. The soup was very light and clean, exactly what she was looking for, and she was happy with her choice.

Hot ramen noodle with chicken, bok choy, mushrooms, and spicy ginger broth (A): Since soup is hard to share, we both ordered different soups and just tried a little bit of each other's. This spicy ramen had a nice broth with a good hit of spice. The noodles were chewy, not too firm, but not mushy. There were also sliced mushrooms and bok choy, which contributed to this soup tasting very clean and healthy. Overall this ramen tasted clean, but it didn't have the richness that we normally expect from ramen broth. That's not a bad thing, just different.

Green papaya salad with pea shoots, coriander, peanuts: We ordered this one last time and it was M's favorite appetizer that night, despite the fact that it was orange papaya and not green and that it was one of the most bizarre "papaya salads" we'd eaten. This time it was still orange papaya, but the grape tomatoes had been replaced with sliced up regular tomatoes and there was shredded lettuce instead of arugula. The salad itself was bigger, but it was still strange. We didn't realize it at the time we were eating our appetizers but this was the first sign that the kitchen was starting to run out of ingredients.

Entrees

We don't really remember what M's dad got for an entree, but her mom got the same salmon as last time. Unfortunately this time, it was drier, and for some odd reason came with broccoli instead of bok choy. It seemed like maybe the kitchen had run out of bok choy for the salmon dish and was saving it for the soup (in smaller amounts). Everyone's seemed to come out with broccoli, so M was glad she hadn't ordered the salmon. Looking back and comparing to the first night, the shiitake mushrooms also seemed to be missing. 

M ordered the chicken tikka masala with coconut jasmine rice and mango chutney as her entree, because the one A had gotten the first night was really good. Sadly, this was not as good as the first night. The chicken part was saltier, and the coconut rice just didn't have as much flavor. It was unfortunate that one of the few hits from the first night fell short this time. The kitchen was pretty inconsistent.

To share, we ordered the Thai beef salad with "marinated sirloin, tomato, onion, cucumber, lime-cilantro dressing." No idea who wrote the menus for Royal Caribbean, but it should have said "marinated sirloin, snow peas, celery, basil, red onions, carrots, and cucumbers." Our initial bite of this salad was good, but it got very monotonous just eating lightly seasoned raw vegetables. The beef itself wasn't that great, so it didn't make the salad much better. It just felt like a chore eating this even though based on the ingredients, we should have liked it. There was just a complete lack of flavor/seasoning.

A ordered the hibachi steak which was teriyaki steak and wasabi mashed potatoes with stir-fried vegetables. The sliced steak was cooked medium rare which A thought was perfect. The wasabi mashed potatoes had a good hit of wasabi but it wasn't overpowering. The flavoring of the dish was basically just like pepper steak. As for the stir-fried vegetables, they were red peppers, onions, snow peas, and carrots. This ended up being a good dish. Everything was actually seasoned well and cooked properly.

Desserts

We didn't really like either dessert that we tried on our first visit, so we got two new ones this time.

M chose the cardamom pot au creme with chai spiced palmiers. The cream here was very rich, but we thought it would make for a good ice cream flavor. Sadly the cookies didn't have much flavor. We had been looking forward to the chai spices, but they were barely there. Like most of the dishes from Silk this night, it lacked flavor.

A picked the chocolate lychee tart with fortune cookie crust. This was very rich, but nowhere near as rich as the chocolate dessert from the night before at Chic. The fortune cookie crust didn't taste like fortune cookie. The lychee was salted which was really disappointing. A was hoping for, at the barest minimum, a sweet lychee to eat.

Overall, our second (and last) meal at Silk was okay. The handling of food allergies was still a bit of a mess, but it was better than the previous visit where no one had a clue. The service was a little more attentive, but that was mostly due to our server constantly dropping by and asking us to tell his supervisor that he was doing a good job. The food itself was hit or miss again as far as flavor which was disappointing. On top of all that, we saw some dishes on other tables that looked good, like spring rolls, but hadn't seen those on the menu. On our way out, we learned that all the stuff that looked better was on the kids menu. If only we had known that in advance, we might have had better meals there. We were pretty glad that we wouldn't be returning to Silk based on what we did eat, but if we had another one scheduled there, we would have definitely been investigating the kids menu.

Week 50 - Umami

Umami, the "fifth taste" (which wasn't taught as one back when I learned them in elementary school), was the Week 50 challenge. I wasn't sure what to make, but mostly because there were lots of options. In the end, I decided to concentrate on a couple of Asian ingredients commonly associated with umami - miso and fish sauce.

The recipe that I was immediately attracted to was Bon Appetit's ginger miso glazed eggplant. It sounded so good, and after seeing the photo, I really wanted to make that. (I'm easily convinced by cookbook and recipe photos...)

The ingredients I used, slightly adapted from the original, were:

- 4 Japanese eggplants (about 1.3 lbs) ($1.82)
- olive oil (enough to brush all the eggplant slices) ($0.40)
- 1/3 cup miso ($1)
- a couple tsp of ginger paste ($0.25)
- a couple tsp of toasted sesame oil ($0.20)
- a tsp of reduced sodium soy sauce ($0.10)
- a tsp of white vinegar ($0.05)
- a few grinds of black pepper ($0.05)
- a few shakes of sesame seeds ($0.10)
- 1 bunch of scallions, chopped ($0.75)

(Is it obvious that other than the miso, I didn't measure anything precisely and just eyeballed it?)

The steps were:

- wash eggplant and cut into slices about 1 inch thick (I don't know if they really were since I didn't measure but they didn't look nearly as thick or cover as much of the eggplant as the ones in the photo)
- brush both sides of each eggplant slice with oil and put on parchment lined baking sheets
- bake at 425 degrees for 20 minutes, flipping halfway through

- make sauce: mix miso, ginger paste, toasted sesame oil, soy sauce, vinegar, and pepper, along with 1 tbsp of water
- once sauce is well combined and miso has broken up, add 2/3 of the chopped scallions and the sesame seeds, and stir well

- after the eggplant are done baking, add the sauce on top of each slice, covering as much of the eggplant as possible
- bake at 425 degrees for another 10 minutes or so (the original recipe says broiling, but we still haven't figured out how to use the broiler on this oven so I just baked it)

The eggplant came out so well, and as soon as I ate the first piece off the baking sheet, I knew I wanted to make this again. Even if I don't use Japanese eggplant in the future, I can see using this miso sauce for lots of vegetable applications, or even as the basis for sautéing things in general. The sauce was just so good, and it went so well with the eggplant. I just wish Japanese eggplant were easier to find closer to home.

For the second part of dinner (which I decided on that afternoon without much advanced planning), I made some tofu and mushrooms with a marinade that I found at A Love A Fare after googling tofu and fish sauce together.

The ingredients for this portion were:

- 1 package of tofu, cubed ($1)
- 6 large mushrooms ($1.94)
- 2 tbsp fish sauce ($0.10)
- 2 tbsp reduced sodium soy sauce ($0.10)
- 1 tsp sesame oil ($0.10)
- 1 large spoonful minced garlic ($0.10)

The total for the tofu portion was approximately $3.34, which when added to the eggplant and the brown rice we ate with it, made for a grand total of just over $9.

After making the marinade by mixing together the fish sauce, soy sauce, sesame oil, and garlic, I marinated the cubes of tofu for at least 20 minutes (wasn't really keeping track). Then I added the tofu to a large pan with some olive oil (and whatever liquid marinade was left), let it cook for a few minutes, and then added all the mushrooms and cooked them together, stirring every so often, until they were done.

The tofu and mushrooms were really good, and you could definitely taste the fish sauce from the marinade. The marinade is really simple, and I think I should use it again sometime when cooking tofu with lots of vegetables. Overall, the umami dinner was pretty successful in our opinion!

ShopHouse

Yesterday we read some really disappointing news: Chipotle is planning to abandon ShopHouse, their fast casual Southeast Asian line. There aren't any ShopHouse locations in NYC, but we visited the Dupont Circle shop multiple times during our short visit to DC earlier in the year (which is also conveniently where we were up to in our DC trip recaps). We had heard about ShopHouse before Chipotle ever launched the line (mostly due to Pure Thai having to change the Shophouse in its name to Cookhouse), but never got to try it until this year. Sadly, it sounds like this means they'll never make it to NYC.

ShopHouse is modeled after Chipotle but with Southeast Asian ingredients and flavors. The bowl starts off with your choice of base - rice (jasmine or brown), cold rice noodles, or salad. Next up is the protein - chicken, meatballs, steak, or tofu. After that, you pick one vegetable (corn, green beans, or some seasonal choices) and a sauce (curry sauces or others). There are also a bunch of garnishes and toppings that are not limited to one, stuff like papaya salad, pickled vegetables, herb salad, toasted rice, crispy garlic, crushed peanuts, and chiles. After visiting Chipotle for so many years, we were pretty familiar with the format (except for the part where they limited you to one item in certain categories).

On our first visit to ShopHouse, we both got brown rice bowls. M got brown rice topped with chicken satay, the seasonal vegetable special of butternut squash with Thai basil, green curry sauce, all of the salad toppings, toasted rice, and fried garlic. A got all the same garnishes and toppings on his bowl but also added the chiles to his, which was brown rice topped with the pork and chicken meatballs, green beans with chili jam, and red curry sauce. We were so happy with our bowls, and after finishing, immediately wanted to go back up to get another bowl. Not so much because we were still hungry, but because they were that good. It was the perfect dinner after a day of traveling since each bowl was packed with vegetables and other healthy ingredients, and they were so full of vibrant flavors.

Even though we weren't in DC for very long on this trip, we found time to make a second visit to ShopHouse a couple of days later. We really wished there were one in NYC, but since we knew there wouldn't be one, we wanted to make sure we got some more of those delicious bowls. This time, we both got the meatballs because they were our favorite the first time. M got the green beans (her favorite vegetable from the first visit), and A got the charred corn (which we hadn't tried yet), but otherwise we stuck with the same curry sauces, garnishes, and toppings as the first time. The bowls were a little smaller than the first time, but we weren't as hungry, so it was fine. We were just really happy with how tasty everything was, and the flavors themselves were just like what you might find in a regular sit-down Southeast Asian restaurant. Not what you would expect from an American chain, but we mean that in the best way.

Considering that Chipotle has now publicized that they didn't see the results they wanted from ShopHouse, it seems unlikely that someone will step in to save the day and pick them up, but we're hoping that maybe we're wrong about that. There have been so many nights that we've sat at home, wondering what to eat for dinner, trying to find something tasty and nutritious and well-balanced and flavorful, and we've just wished we could wander over to ShopHouse, except that there isn't one here in NYC. It's a shame that Chipotle has chosen to drop them and instead focus on pizza and burgers (is that not a saturated enough market?). Have they not noticed the popularity of all the poke joints or the Indian fast casual places? It seems like, at least here in NYC, people have an interest in Asian fast casual flavors, or at the very least, something different from the usual Chipotle meals. Sad that we'll likely never see a ShopHouse here now.

Week 18 - Brown Bag Lunch

The theme for Week 18 was brown bag lunch, which for me immediately screamed sandwich. Sure, I could have done something more creative, since you can pack up lots of things for a lunch, but considering we had a lot of bread in the fridge (bought a 2 loaf pack from Costco), it seemed like a better idea to just try out a new sandwich combination.

Inspired by this Real Simple recipe for an Asian turkey sandwich with hoisin mayonnaise, I decided to make a hoisin chicken salad sandwich. The ingredients I used (for 2 sandwiches) were:

- 4 slices wheat bread ($0.40)
- 1/2 cucumber, shaved ($0.65)
- 3 carrots, grated ($0.30)
- 12.5 oz can of chicken ($2)
- 3 scallions, chopped ($0.26)
- about 1/4 cup mayonnaise ($0.46)
- about 1 tbsp hoisin sauce ($0.20)

The total for the sandwiches was about $4.27. We ate it alongside our favorite Costco chopped salad, so the total for the entire dinner was $8.76. It was pretty filling, so not too bad of a price.

To make the sandwiches, it was really all prep work, which for some reason took a ridiculously long time. The prep work included:

- wash and peel cucumber; cut in half; use peeler to shave slices of cucumber for the sandwich (I also cut the rest of the cucumber and an onion for a pickled cucumber salad so it didn't go to waste, same prep as the pickling challenge)
- wash and peel 1 lb of carrots; grate 3 carrots (I also cut the rest of the carrots to store in the freezer for a future recipe so they didn't go to waste)
- drain canned chicken and microwave for 30 seconds
- wash and chop 3 scallions
- mix chicken salad by combining heated chicken, scallions, mayo, and hoisin sauce

Once all of that was done, it was time to assemble the sandwiches, some cucumber and carrots along with a few scoops of chicken salad. I probably should have picked some cilantro out of the chopped salad and added it to the sandwich, since that's another topping that's usually on a banh mi, which is what I imagine inspired the toppings of the Real Simple sandwich. Oh well. The sandwich definitely could have used some herbs. The original recipe used mint, but I didn't want to buy an entire batch of mint just to use a few leaves. I would have used cilantro, but I didn't want to get a whole batch of that either just for this. Should have just picked it out of the salad, but I didn't realize that until the sandwiches were already eaten.

Generally, the sandwiches were fine, although we both thought they would be much more flavorful than they were, considering the addition of the hoisin sauce. The part that had the most flavor was actually the scallions, and every bite with scallions was better than those without. It was nice that the sandwich had a lot of vegetables in it and wasn't just meat, but it just wasn't very exciting. Probably wouldn't make it again, but it was fine for dinner.

Week 2 - Sous Vide

I was just thrilled to find out the theme for Week 2 of the challenge this year was going to be sous vide. Two years ago, they did a molecular challenge, and to date, that has been the only challenge I've ever skipped since I started doing this. The explanation is here, but a big reason was not wanting to spend money on equipment or ingredients just for the challenge when I would likely never use them again. Since we don't own an immersion circulator (and were not going to buy one for the challenge), I followed the instructions at the link they gave for cooking sous vide on the stovetop. (I wonder how many hits that site has gotten this week from people without circulators.) 

I decided to make salmon, since that seemed to be the safest option. If I screwed it up and undercooked it, no big deal, since you can eat salmon raw unlike chicken. If I screwed it up and overcooked it, well, it wouldn't be the first time we ate overcooked salmon. At least we shouldn't get sick from eating salmon no matter how the sous vide experiment turned out.

I don't remember where I read it initially, but one of the sous vide sites I read in the weeks leading up to the challenge talked about putting marinade ingredients into the bag with the salmon before submerging it in the water. The marinade they suggested was based in Asian flavors, so I modified it a bit and decided to use olive oil, sesame oil, honey, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and ground ginger. I didn't measure anything and am not actually sure how much I used (more on that later), so totaling this up is pointless. It's highly unlikely though that this meal broke $10, even with a side of rice.

After I took the salmon out of its packaging (it was thawed out frozen salmon from Costco), I put each piece straight into a plastic bag, forgetting that I was supposed to make a small amount of marinade for each piece of fish in each bag prior to putting in the salmon. Oops. So I poured in some olive oil and sesame oil, squeezed in some honey, and then shook on salt, pepper, garlic powder, and ginger. Of course, this meant the fish was coated pretty unevenly with the marinade, but I tried my best while the fish was in the bag to spread the marinade and coat the entire thing.

The next step was to remove air using the water displacement technique. I had never done this before, but was actually impressed with how well it worked. Basically you submerge whatever you're going to cook into a vat of water and use the water to displace the air. I used the same pot I was going to use later for cooking, since that seemed to make the most sense. Once the fish packets were ready to go, I turned the burner on for the pot of water on its lowest setting and checked the water temperature at the start.

Most of the places that discussed sous vide on the stove talked about setting up digital thermometers to control the temperature, but we didn't have one of those either. I decided to just wing it with our meat thermometer. However, when I pulled the meat thermometer out of the drawer, this was what it looked like - a temperature reading of over 140 degrees with the measuring tip in the air. It was not 140 degrees in our apartment. When I put the thermometer into the pot as soon as I turned on the flame, it still read about 140 degrees. I could stick my hand in the water without feeling any heat, so it was definitely not 140 degrees. At this point, I had very, very low expectations of success with our sous vide experiment, since how could I control the heat or even measure where the water temperature was without a real working thermometer?

Since the thermometer claimed that the water temperature was so high, I thought it would be best to stick the salmon pieces in right away before the water got any hotter. I had been aiming for 120 or 130 degrees at most so that the salmon could cook for 20 to 30 minutes. I had no idea what the temperature was since I could still stick my finger in it with no issues, but clipped the salmon on anyway. A helped me set up the salmon, one piece on each side of the pot.

After the salmon was set up, I set the timer for 5 minutes. When it rang, I tested the water. It felt hot, but not that hot. I think A washes dishes with hotter water than that. The thermometer claimed it was over 150 degrees. Again, I doubted the validity of that measurement. The fish looked the same. I set the timer for another 5 minutes. During this interval, I was discussing the sous vide experiment with a friend online and she suggested adding cold water periodically to bring the temperature down. That sounded like a great idea, so I did that and then set the timer for another 5 minutes.

When the timer rang again (15 minutes now if you're counting), the salmon had started to look light pink on the outside, so I was thinking that maybe it was done. It looked kind of cooked, but without a real thermometer or any sous vide experience, I had no clue if it was. I added a little more cool water, and then turned off the flame somewhere between 15 and 20 minutes (however long it took me to decide to stop). Then the fish sat in the warm/hot water for another few minutes as I unclipped the bags.

A lot of the sous vide sites discussed giving the salmon a quick sear once the sous vide cooking process was done, so I decided to do that. I put way too much olive oil in the pan and then went to add the fish to the pan, one piece at a time. I clearly missed instruction 7 from the step by step site which talked about how fragile the fish would be, and the fish broke into 3 pieces in each case when I pulled it out of the bag with a turner. In a way though, that was fortuitous, because it allowed me to see the insides of the pieces of fish. Surprisingly, they actually looked the way I would have expected a sous vide salmon to look, so I decided to sear about half of the salmon, and leave the other broken off pieces exactly as they were out of the pot so we could compare. In our opinion, the fish didn't really need to be seared, and A actually preferred the pieces that weren't seared in the pan.

I was shocked - seriously shocked - by how this turned out. With no thermometer and just my guessing and (undeveloped sous vide) instincts to go on, the fish did not end up overcooked, and actually turned out soft and silky in texture. Without tasting the marinade or measuring anything, it was relatively balanced and flavorful. I was prepared for the fish to completely suck, but somehow it all worked and we ended up with some pretty tasty, tender and flaky fish. I'm not even sure I could replicate this considering that so much of it occurred without any real plan. We were pretty impressed that my fake sous vide method turned out fish like this and would try it again. Only with fish like salmon though - anything that needs real measurements or has to be cooked to a particular temperature to be safe is definitely not something that we would try with this trial and error method. Combined with some leftover baby bok choy and a Costco microwaved rice packet, this was a pretty healthy and tasty dinner.