Experiment 8 - Tortilla Soup - The Results

Ingredients list here.

A little background that I usually put in the selection post, but was too rushed to do yesterday.  As almost always, this was an undated clipping from the same old newspaper.  Let's just assume that from now on, if there's something different, I'll mention it.  Also, I think I actually made this recipe once, or something quite similar.  If I did, the specific memories are lost to the mists of time.

I took a lot of liberties with this one.  Aside from halving the recipe as I often do, I chose to use flour tortillas, because I already had some in the house.  I also went with canned tomatoes instead of fresh, because of the winter tomato factor, and lack of interest in peeling.  The particular can I chose at the store had jalapeno in it, so that was another item I didn't have to buy.  And finally, I passed on the fresh cilantro.  Way back on experiment 0, I'd overdone the cilantro a bit, and besides, to get the fresh stuff, you have to buy a large bunch and then it just goes to waste.  Besides I had some dried stuff in my spice cabinet.

I was pleased as punch when my local Kroger finally resolved my "medium onion" conundrum.

The prep was super simple.  I used a pizza cutter to quarter two tortillas (remember, I was halving everything), chopped up the onion in my mini-chopper, and placed a clove of garlic in the press.  I used my Dutch oven, which I don't get to use very much.  Fried up the tortilla quarters in the oil until they were crisp, then added the onion and garlic and cooked until the onion was softened.  Then in went the stock, the tomatoes and peppers and the cumin.  Brought it all to a boil

then simmered for at least half an hour.  I added a small bit of salt and pepper, as recommended in the recipe.  In the meantime I cut up an avocado (I think diced avocado calls for a less ripe fruit then I am used to buying.)  Since the flour tortillas I used are larger on average than a corn tortilla, I pulled two quarters out after the initial frying and cut those up for garnish.  I also had some chicken and cheese available.

Verdict:  Om nom nom nom.  This one is a keeper.  I might try it again following the instructions a tad more closely, but I have no complaints about it as I made it.

Sorry for the shaky photos.  I was trying to shoot without flash on most of them and obviously that didn't work out as well as I'd have liked.

Lessons Learned - Using some substitutions is OK, and will not prevent my from making the same thing another time.
Tools needed - nothing new this week.  Happy for a chance to use my Dutch oven, and I think I was clever to use the pizza cutter to cut up the tortillas.
Skills needed - nothing new this week.

Experiment 8 - The Selection

Holy cow is this late.  Today's the day I'm supposed to cook whatever it is, and I just now (10:40 AM on Saturday) picked something out of the box.  I blame the faster than light neutrinos.

OK, I have errands to run (including shopping for ingredients, I guess), so let's make this snappy.   I'll discuss more about this clipping later.  And the clipping that fell out of the box today is ...

Tortilla Soup


Ingredients:
3 tablespoons corn oil
4 corn tortillas, quartered
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 medium onions, chopped
4 tomatoes, skinned and chopped
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1/2 or 1 jalapeno pepper (depending on how hot you want it)
8 cups chicken stock
1/4 cup fresh cilantro
Garnishes:
Crisp fried strips of tortilla
Grated cheddar cheese
Cooked julienne of chicken
Diced avocado
Chopped cilantro

Might not get around to making this until tomorrow.
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Experiment 7 - Philadelphia Soft Pretzels - The Results

For reference, here's the ingredients list.    

I'm pretty satisfied with this week's results, even though I had some worries along the way.

I had no problem finding the gluten flour, it was right there on the shelf at Kroger.  What I did puzzle over was which salt I should get.  I bought coarse sea salt, and it seemed to have been just the ticket.

The process was fairly simple.  Mixed the flours and salt together, then added the water, then the yeast mixture.  Once the dough was well mixed, it was left to rest briefly on a lightly floured board while I washed the bowl.  I then kneaded for ten minutes "until silky and resilient".  That last part was a bit of a challenge, what is "silky" in reference to dough?  Ah well, I just did 10 minutes and left it at that and put the dough ball back into a bowl to rise for an hour.

While I was waiting for the rise, I took some time to learn a bit about how to properly knead dough.  I was rather free-form in my technique, while the Joy of Cooking describes a bit more of a rigorous process.  If another doughy recipes pops up, I think I'll try manual kneading one more time, but after that I will call the Kitchen Aid mixer into service.

But back to the cooking.  Once the dough had risen, I cut it into eight pieces then was supposed to roll each into a small tube, 18 to 24 inches in length.  I had some trouble with this, finding it difficult to get that length, having the tubes break apart, not being able to have "tubes" of even diameter.  But I did what I could.  One thing I had no trouble with was making the pretzels.  Make a U-shape, then fold each leg over and press it all firmly together.  I have a visual memory of visiting a place called "Montgomeryville Mart" in Pennsylvania when I was a lad and seeing some women doing all this in mid-air and taking no more than a couple seconds for each pretzel.  That was also a place to get some of the best sticky buns, but enough reminiscing.  As far as the my pretzel twisting,  I was not nearly so talented.

I covered the pretzels with a towel while I preheated the oven to 450F, then brought a quart of water and the baking soda to a slow boil.  The pretzels were then poached for 30 seconds per side, in batches of two or three.  They were then patted dry and placed on a parchment lined and cornmeal dusted cooking sheet.  I sprinkled on some of my sea salt and baked them for 10 minutes (the recipe says 10 to 12 minutes, or until golden).

And there we go, soft pretzels.  A tad misshapen, but I can live with that.

Serve warm, with mustard.  And a Yuengling, which is almost a Philly beer.

I will definitely keep this recipe on hand and make pretzels again.

Lessons Learned - I still need to do better at reading instructions properly.  My pretzels untwisted a bit after the poaching, I should have pressed the dough together after the initial twist.
Tools needed - nothing new this week.
Skills needed - need to learn more about how to knead.  Also could use better "dusting" skills, there was a bit too much corn meal on the bottom of my pretzels.

Experiment 7 - The Selection

Back to Wednesday for the selection.  But I already know that cooking on Saturday might not be happening, due to work commitments.  Can't say for sure, but the following recipe might not be attempted until Sunday.  It'll be worth the wait though, because this weeks selection is ...

Philadelphia Soft Pretzels

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup gluten flour [it says here this is sold in health food stores]
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup tepid water
1 package yeast, dissolved in 1/3 cup tepid (105 degrees) water with 1 teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons baking soda
1/2 - 1 tablespoon coarse salt, depending on taste

It's not called out in the ingredients list, but the baking instructions call for the baking sheet to be lightly dusted with cornmeal, so I'll have to add that to my shopping list.

This weeks recipe is once again from the Hartford Courant, it's an undated clipping from a column called "A taste of America", written by Jane and Michael Stern.  This is the second recipe in a couple weeks calling for kneading and raising dough.  I might consider using the dough hook in the KitchenAid this time.  I think I'd better find the gluten flour first.

Experiment 6 - Chili-Spiced Chicken - The Results

I have several things to say about this recipe  ...

First of all, who measure jalapeno peppers in teaspoons?  I have no problem cutting a pepper in half and seeding it, and chopping it up, but seriously, "one teaspoon".  Feh.  I used what I determined to be "a resonable amount".

And then there was the was canned tomatoes.  Whole tomates, but chopped.  Why not just use diced tomatoes, like the several cans I already had in the pantry?  Maybe they didn't have those back in 1995, I don't know.  I went ahead and bought the can, it was only 74 cents.

And finally, overall, this is exactly the type of dish that I'd have made without a recipe.  I'm the king of sautéing some chicken and adding some stuff.  OK, maybe I wouldn't have thought to use the corn starch to thicken up the gravy at the end, and I certainly never measure my spices with such precision, but still...  One of the reasons I started this experiment was to step away from such simple meals and gain some cooking chops, but I kept true to the random selection, so it is what it is.

All that said, let's talk about making this recipe.

First step was to combine all the spices (first five ingredients) and sprinkle over the chicken.  Then coat a large skillet with cooking spray and add the oil and heat it up over medium heat.  The chicken then got cooked for about two minutes per side.  Mine actually took a tad longer to be satisfactorily browned all 'round.  Once I was happy with the chicken, I dumped in the tomatoes, pepper and green onions, covered the skillet and simmered for twenty minutes.  After that, the chicken was removed to a serving plate using a slotted spoon.  The water and corn starch were combined, then stirred into the tomatoes and liquid left in the pan.  Brought that to a boil and stirred it for about two minutes.

While the chicken mixture was simmering, I prepared by chosen side dishes - my favorite yellow rice and  a small bit of guacamole.  The final presentation had a piece of chicken with the gravy spooned on top, rice on the side and a "guacamole salad" as they sometimes say at the local Mexican restaurants.

The end result was quite tasty, but in the long run, this isn't the type of recipe I need to keep on hand -- as I said, it's all about sautéing some chicken and adding some stuff.  So yeah, I'll make this again - or something incredibly similar.  Just not as part of the Recipe Box Experiment.

Lessons Learned - Not a damn thing.
Tools needed - nothing new this week.
Skills needed - nothing new this week.

Experiment 6 - The Selection

Look at me, a day late again.  Maybe this is my new schedule and I didn't tell anybody.  Or maybe I had a pretty rough start of the week at work, and got behind on several things.  Nevertheless, here is this week's recipe selection.  It comes from a card that was mailed to me as a solicitation for (yet another) recipe of the month club type of thing.  I probably got that solicitation because of the Southern Living recipes I was already getting.  This seems to be from 1995, and what we have coming is

Chili-Spiced Chicken

1 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/3 teaspoon ground red pepper
6 (6 ounce) skinned chicken breasts
Vegetable cooking spray
1 teaspoon vegetable oil
1 (14 1/2 ounce) can no-salt-added whole tomatoes
  undrained and chopped
1/2 cup slice green onions
1 teaspoon seeded, chopped jalapeno pepper
2 teaspoon cornstarch
2 tablespoons water

I can tell you right now that I'm going to be using chicken thighs, because I just bought a big pack of them at BJ's the other day.  Besides, I like thighs better.  Most everything else is already on hand, except I don't think I have any jalapenos.  Shopping should be simple this week.

Experiment 5 - Veal Piccata - The Results

After I posted the recipe, I realized that it did not call for capers.  That was the type of omission up with which I could not put.  I searched out a couple more recipes online and figured out how many to use and when to add them to the mix.

Shopping should have been simple, but the store I decided to go to did not have **any** veal available, so I had to go to another store the next morning, and even there I had to ask the man behind the counter.  Luckily they had a hidden stash of "veal for scallopini".  I'd originally planned to have asparagus as a side, but a chance comment on Google + made me decide to have an insalata Caprese instead, so I also had to make time to head to the local store that makes the best fresh mozzarella in the area.  My other side was parsley buttered boiled potatoes, thus the red spuds in the picture below.

Prep was easy.  First, I combined the flour, salt, and pepper in a bowl and set aside.  Although my recipe didn't specify, I also pounded the veal to be about 1/8".  Then it was time to melt the butter and saute the garlic cloves until they were tender, at which point they were removed and discarded (bit of a waste of garlic if you ask me, but as much as I love it, I suppose piccata calls for something less intense).  Anyway, once the garlic butter was hot, I dredged each piece of veal in the flour mixture and sauted for 1 1/2 to 2 minutes per side, then placed them on paper towels to drain.  After the veal was all cooked, I poured the lemon juice and about a half tablespoon of capers into the skillet (remember that I has using about half of the quantities of everything else in the original post, so adjust caper use to that or to your taste).  Once that mixture was heated, I placed the veal back into the pan, tossed in the parsley and cooked it all up for another minute.  The sauce thickened up nicely.

For serving, the veal was removed to a plate and the sauce spooned on top.  I added my boiled potatoes and had my previously prepared Caprese on the side.

This dinner was wonderful.  I would make this again in a heartbeat.  I might use chicken instead of veal because of the cost, but this is going into heavy rotation immediately.

Lessons Learned - while this ongoing experiment has a lot to do with learning to cook from recipes, it's OK to branch out a little bit and add something, like capers.  Just make a note on the recipe it can be done again.

Tools needed - nothing new this week.  I love my meat tenderizer.

Skills needed - nothing new this week.  I wouldn't have done anything differently.

Experiment 5 - The Selection

I have no excuse for missing my Wednesday scheduled post.  Mea culpa.

But on to business.  This week I chose to dive into a binder full of recipe cards that I have, "Southern Living 5 Star Recipes".  For some reason, I briefly (for less than a year), subscribed to a service from which I would get several 8 1/2 by 11 pages with recipes in various categories - Eggs & Cheese, Pasta, Cakes & Cookies, and so on.  Each time I got an envelope full of these, I'd have to go ahead and place the pages in the appropriate sections of the giant binder.

As you can see, each page has a big photo (right side above), and on the reverse side there is at least one recipe - sometimes two or three that use the same primary ingredient.   In scanning through the book for this week's selection (and I fully admit that this wasn't as random as pawing through a stack of newspaper clippings), I noticed that many of the photos were uncomfortably close to the infamous Weight Watcher cards, but maybe not quite so scary.

In the end, I decided to go with Veal Piccata

Here's the ingredients list:

2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 cup butter or margarine
2 cloves garlic
12 thin veal cutlets (about 1 1/2 pounds)
4 to 6 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
Lemon twists (optional)

4 to 6 servings.

I know I've said this before, but I'll definitely be scaling this recipe down.  I'm also going to pass on getting white pepper; I have a nice container of Penzey's fresh ground pepper, and if I cut this in half I'll be using less than half a teaspoon, so it's just not worth it to get special pepper.  Tune in on Sunday for the results, I promise not to be late.