Sign up for Dinner Meet!

It's time to sign up for another Dinner Meet! The next Dinner Meet will be hosted by Mike B. in the Mountain View/Sunnyvale area. Proposed menu as follows:

• Roasted sweet potato rounds with garlic oil and fried sage
• Turkey chili
• Cranberry and vanilla bean sorbet

Does this sound good to you? It does to me! Sign up by Thursday evening, and I'll be sending out spot confirmations by Friday. Cooking will commence at 6pm on Sunday, 11/1. As always, we'll be splitting the grocery costs amongst participants, minus the Head Chef.

Tiramisu

This is one of those dishes that gets better with age. The ladyfingers require some time to soak in all the wonderful goodness of the cream and liquor. Sure, it's good when you've left it refrigerating overnight, but it's even better if it's been refrigerating for two days. Give it a try - you won't be disappointed!

Ingredients:

5 egg yolks

1 cup sugar

8 oz. mascarpone cheese

1 cup heavy whipping cream

2 (12 oz) packages of lady fingers

1 cup coffee liquor

1/2 cup chocolate chips

Method:

1. Start boiling water for double boiler.

2. Put chocolate chips in food processor and pulse until chocolate becomes bits. Do not chop until chocolate is powdered.

3. Combine egg yolks and sugar in top of double boiler over boiling water. Reduce heat to low and cook until mixture reaches 160°, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and transfer to mixing bowl.

4. Whip yolks until thick and lemon-colored. Add mascarpone and beat until combined.

5. In separate bowl, whip cream to stiff peaks. Gently fold into yolk mixture and refrigerate.

6. Dip lady fingers in liquor and line bottom of large glass bowl. Spoon cream filling over lady fingers. Sprinkle chocolate bits over cream. Repeat until out of ingredients.

7. Optional garnishes to consider: cocoa powder, chocolate curls, whipped cream rosettes. Refrigerate overnight and serve chilled.

Bolognese Sauce

Looking for a hearty, meaty pasta sauce that's loads better than something you get out of a jar? Check out this recipe for some meaty goodness. I love the aroma of the red wine that's added to the sauce - yum!

Ingredients:

1 tbsp olive oil

1 onion, finely chopped

2 garlic cloves, chopped

1 carrot, peeled and chopped

1 stick of celery, chopped

2 oz. streaky bacon, diced

12 oz. lean minced beef

14 oz. can of chopped tomatoes

2 tsp dried oregano

1/2 cup red wine

2 tbsp tomato puree

Salt and pepper, to taste

Method:

1. Heat the oil in a large skillet. Add the onions and cook for 3 minutes.

2. Add the garlic, carrot, celery, and bacon. Saute for 3-4 minutes or until just beginning to brown.

3. Add the beef and cook over high heat for another 3 minutes or until all of the meat is browned.

4. Stir in the tomatoes, oregano, and red wine. Bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and heave to simmer for about 45 minutes.

5. Stir in the tomato puree and season with salt and pepper.

Pesto Sauce

Looking for a pesto sauce that isn't too salty, basil-y, garlicky, and other sorts of "y"-ness? This is your recipe. All of the ingredients came together in delightful blend of PESTO. Be sure to coat the HOT pasta with this pesto as soon as it's ready so that the pesto isn't so raw.

Ingredients:

2 bunches fresh basil

2 tbsp garlic, minced

1/3 cup roasted nuts (almond, walnut, pine)

1 cup olive oil

1/4 cup grated fresh Parmesan

Salt and pepper, to taste

Method:

1. Blanch the basil in boiling water for 20 seconds, then strain and plunge into ice water to stop the leaves from cooking. (It also helps to retain the bright green color.)

2. Wring out all the excess water from the basil and remove the heavy stems.

3. Put all the ingredients into a blender and puree until smooth. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

4. Toss the pesto sauce with hot pasta immediately and serve.

Puttanesca Sauce

I think this was my favorite sauce of the night. Tomato-based, zesty, and hearty - I can see why a bowl of pasta with puttanesca sauce hits the spot on a cold night. Yeah, the list of ingredients seems a bit off-putting (anchovies?! olives?!), but they really came together in this delicious sauce that will have your taste buds reminiscing for the next week. (Mine still are!)

Ingredients:

1/3 cup olive oil

2 tbsp garlic, minced

6 anchovy fillets

1 1/2 tsp dried oregano

1 tbsp capers, minced

1/4 cup black olives, sliced

1/4 cup green olives, sliced

2 tsp red pepper flakes

2 cans whole peeled tomatoes, crushed by hand

1/4 cup white wine

1 cup fresh basil, torn or chopped

1/2 cup Italian parsley, chopped (remove stems first - it's bitter)

Method:

1. Heat a skillet over high heat and add the olive oil, garlic, anchovy fillets, oregano, capers, black olives, green olives, and red pepper flakes. As the anchovy melts and the bubbles begin to subside, add the tomatoes and wine.

**Note: If the garlic starts to brown, immediately add the tomatoes and wine.

2. Let the mixture cook over medium heat until it reaches a nice tomato sauce consistency. Season the sauce with a little pepper, and add the herbs to heat through. Add salt to taste. (Probably won't need this.)

3. Toss with pasta thoroughly. Heat through, and garnish with grated Parmesan.

Fresh Pasta

The pasta was delicious! It also didn't take as much effort as I thought. (Perhaps I'm only saying that cuz I wasn't the responsible party in charge of making pasta - Bhumi and Nelly were.) It was especially easy due to Trang's pasta roller/cutter attachment that she purchased for her KitchenAid stand mixer. All we had to do was roll out the dough with a rolling pin, and then run it through the stand mixer attachment a couple of times to get it to the desired thinness. Then we ran it through the cutter attachment to create fettuccine noodles. These fresh noodles cook a lot faster than the store bought ones, so you'll want to keep an eye on them as they're boiling away on the stove. You won't be sorry you tried this though - fresh pasta is far superior than that store bought stuff. I guarantee it! :) The below recipe serves six.

Ingredients:

1 lb white flour

2 tsp salt

4 eggs, beaten

2 tbsp olive oil

Method:

1. Sift the flour into a large bowl and stir in the salt.

2. Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients and add the eggs and 2 tbsp of oil. Using a wooden spoon, stir in the eggs, gradually drawing in the flour. After a few minutes, the dough will be too stiff to use a spoon, and you will need to use your fingers.

3. Once all the flour has been incorporated, turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead for about 5 minutes until smooth and elastic. If you find the dough to be too wet, add a little more flour and continue to knead. Cover with cling film and leave to rest for at least 15 minutes.

4. The basic dough is now ready. Roll out the pasta thinly and create the pasta shapes required.

** For us, we used Trang's handy KitchenAid stand mixer's pasta roller and cutter set. This made the process much, much, MUCH easier. Totally worth a buy if you like fresh pasta, and you have a stand mixer.

Bruschetta

What's one of the best combinations in the world? Tomato and basil. Love that stuff. Especially love it in the form of a caprese salad with fresh mozzarella, balsamic vinegar, and fine olive oil... But that's another recipe altogether. Tonight, we made bruschetta. Rather, Trang made bruschetta the night before, and we simply toasted bread and spooned her prepared mixture onto the baguette slices. Deliciousness. Give it a try and you'll see how simple it is. I think having it sit overnight really allows the flavors to mingle and develop into something addictively good. Yum!

Ingredients:

2 tomatoes, cubed

½ cup fresh basil, julienned

4 tbsp grated Parmesan cheese

2 tbsp olive oil

1 clove garlic, minced

Salt, to taste

Ground black pepper, to taste

Method:

1. In a medium bowl, mix oil, garlic, and basil, to help infuse the oil with the garlic and basil flavors. Set aside while preparing tomatoes or other dishes.

2. Mix in tomatoes, Parmesan cheese, seasoning salt, and ground black pepper. Cover and chill in the refrigerator 8 hours, or overnight, before serving.

3. Serve mixture on top of toasted French baguette slices.

**If time constrained, all ingredients can be mixed in all at once before chilling.

A Night of Pasta (and Sauces)

Not that I was expecting a disaster or anything, but fresh pasta was a lot easier than I thought it would be. I'll save more commentary on that for the fresh pasta blog entry. However, just wanted to get it out there - all you whiners about fresh pasta taking forever - no it doesn't! At least it doesn't if you use a handy dandy KitchenAid stand mixer pasta roller/cutter attachment. Jeebus, that is one sweet set to have around the kitchen.

Aside from my awe with the stand mixer attachment, I was also tickled to see how all nine of us were able to swarm in a happy chaotic mess around the tiny kitchen of our apartment and yet still manage to create such deliciousness in the form of three different pasta sauces and fresh pasta noodles. (Trang, bless her heart, worked on the bruschetta and tiramisu ahead of time.)

Anyway, it sure was a fun Dinner Meet - thanks ever so much for hosting, Trang!

Broccoli and Cheese Stuffed Chicken Breast

I was pleasantly surprised by this dish. Honest truth, I was thinking that we had way too much cheese on the menu, and that this cheesy entree would be overkill. It wasn't - in fact, it was a very satisfying meal in one since it had protein, dairy, and vegetables in it! (Okay, it's probably not THAT healthy.) It tasted great! The broccoli cut through the heaviness of the cheese, and the panko crusting on the chicken kept it light as well. Also, I love that it presents well; I'll be adding this to my "fit for guests" recipe stash. :) Enjoy! The recipe below is for 8-9 people, so you should halve it if you're feeding less.

Ingredients:

6 chicken breasts

2 eggs

4 cups of broccoli florets

6 ounces of Italian seasoned breadcrumbs or Panko crumbs

7 slices of cheddar cheese (can substitute with Swiss or other preferred cheese)

½ cup of shredded Monterey Jack cheese

Toothpicks (to hold the rolled up breast together)

Baking tray with aluminum foil

Method:

1. Steam broccoli for about 5 minutes, remove, and rinse with cold water (to retain green color). Chop the broccoli into small pieces.

2. Beat eggs in a bowl. Fill a second bowl with the breadcrumbs.

3. Preheat oven to 350°. Butterfly the chicken to get thin cutlets: press down firmly on the breast with one hand, and use the knife to slice parallel to the cutting board all the way through.

4. For each cutlet, lay it out flat and put half a slice of cheddar in the middle. Add chopped broccoli bits on top. Sprinkle some Monterey Jack cheese on top. Tightly roll the the breast together with the broccoli and cheese inside. Use toothpicks to secure the rolled breast. Dip the rolled breast into the egg. Then dip it into the breadcrumbs, rolling it around for an even coating. Once finished, place the rolled breast onto the baking tray.

5. Once all cutlets have been prepared and placed onto the baking tray, bake the chicken for about 30-35 minutes until the chicken is cooked through. Serve warm.

Blue Cheese Deviled Eggs

Creamy, smooth, and slightly addictive with the distinctive blue cheese taste. I was afraid the blue cheese would overpower the egg, but instead it was the perfect complement to the yolk. This was a fairly simple recipe to follow. You can just boil the eggs straight without any fancy business, but I was reading this deviled eggs recipe book the other day; did you know that there are things you can do to make sure the yolk is perfectly centered in the egg?? Crazy. Things like putting your egg carton on its side the night before so that the eggs are lying on their sides. Anyway, I won't go into a dissertation on deviled eggs, but if you follow this recipe, you'll get some fine tasting ones. We decided to play around with "decorations" and added some seaweed sprinkles to some for a more Asian taste, and we added Cajun seasoning to others. To be honest, the decorations didn't really do much in terms of enhancing the taste, but they were fun. :)

Ingredients:

12 eggs

½ cup blue cheese (crumbled)

4 tablespoons mayonnaise

Tabasco sauce, to taste

Salt, to taste

Pepper, to taste

Paprika (optional)

Method:

1. Boil the eggs. We basically laid the eggs on their sides in a large pot, filled it up with water, and turned on the stove. Let the water boil, wait about 10-15 minutes, and you should have boiled eggs from that. If the eggs are floating on the surface, then they are boiled.

2. Remove the eggs and immediately rinse them with cold water. (This keeps the yolk from turning green.) Peel the eggs and slice them in half, length-wise.

3. Scoop the yolks into a mixing bowl and set the whites aside. Mash the yolks with the blue cheese, mayonnaise, Tabasco sauce, salt, pepper, and paprika. Make sure the mixture is smooth before moving to the next step.

4. Spoon (or pipe) the filling back into the egg whites. Optionally sprinkle with paprika for a bit of color. Cover and refrigerate before serving. (We didn't refrigerate though; we were too hungry to wait!)

Spinach and Artichoke Dip

I don't know if we were super hungry or it were just too darn tasty (or perhaps both!), but this dip lasted maybe 10 minutes once it came out of the oven. I've always been a huge fan of a good spinach-artichoke dip, and this recipe makes it easy for me to have it everyday if I wanted! (That is probably not a good idea if I were keeping an eye on my girlish figure.) Give this one a try. Too bad my picture of it is so poor - it really is quite marvelous!

Ingredients:

1 bunch of spinach (make sure to rinse before steaming)

1 ½ cups of frozen or canned artichoke hearts (make sure to rinse before steaming)

6 oz. cream cheese (reduced fat is fine)

¼ cup sour cream (lite is fine)

¼ cup mayonnaise (lite is fine)

1 cup shredded Parmesan cheese

½ tablespoon red pepper flakes (it really does need this to add flavor; you can't really taste the spiciness)

4 cloves of garlic, minced

Tabasco sauce (optional)

Salt, to taste

Method:

1. Steam spinach and artichokes until cooked (drain any water). Once the spinach leaves are limp, remove both, and cut them up. You can leave them chunky or chop them up finely.

2. Sauté garlic with red pepper flakes and a bit of oil over medium heat. Don’t allow the garlic to brown; you’re just trying to take out the raw bite of the garlic.

3. Preheat the oven to 350°.

4. Soften the cream cheese by heating it in the microwave. Once heated, stir in the spinach, artichoke hearts, the sautéed garlic and red pepper flakes, the sour cream, mayonnaise, about 8/10 of the Parmesan cheese, and Tabasco sauce, in an oven-safe dish. The Tabasco sauce doesn’t make it spicy as much as it adds an interesting tang to the dip. At this time, you’ll also want to taste test and see if the dip requires some salt. Add salt to taste. Once the taste has been adjusted, sprinkle the remaining Parmesan cheese on top.

5. Bake the dish for about 10 minutes to warm the dip. We didn’t do this next step, but I would recommend turning the oven setting to broil for another 2-3 minutes while leaving the oven door open a crack. I think that would brown the Parmesan cheese on top and add a nice crust to it.

6. Serve with chips or crusty baguette bread. Delicious!

Dinner Meet with the Chongs

Another delicious Dinner Meet to add to the tally! This evening, nine of us gathered at the Chong residence to prepare some deliciously cheesy eats. I'll be updating the blog soon with pictures and recipes from the evening. The menu consisted of the following:

- Spinach and Artichoke Dip

- Blue Cheese Deviled Eggs

- Broccoli and Cheese Stuffed Chicken Breasts

Thanks for having us over, Hamilton and Sanders. Fantastic job on the Dinner Meet! :)

Sauteed Pea Shoots with Garlic

This is one dish that I make fairly often whenever I cook at home. It's not limited to pea shoots either; feel free to substitute with whatever Chinese veggie you like. I'm a personal fan of making this dish with baby bok choy. When you see how easy (and cheap) this dish is to make, you'll hate having to pay so much at a Chinese restaurant for it. Ugh. :) Candace's recipe below.

INGREDIENTS:
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
1 lb pea shoots (dou miao), washed and drained

Salt, optional

METHOD:
1- Saute garlic until fragrant, about 30 sec.
2- Add pea shoots and stir fry until cooked through. Pea shoots will reduce greatly in size.
3- Add salt, if desired.

Ma Po Tofu

One of my favorite comfort foods of all time is ma po tofu over rice. I've always made ma po tofu using the store-bought seasoning packages from Asian supermarkets. I was under the impression that the sauce required a lot of work. However, Candace proves me wrong with this tasty ma po tofu recipe. Fast, quick, and easy - I'll never buy that pre-packaged seasoning again! Candace's recipe below.

INGREDIENTS (amounts are approximate):
3/8 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup rice wine
2 tsp sugar
1 tbsp chili sauce
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp minced ginger
3 stalks of green onion, chopped
1 lb ground pork
2 packages of tofu, drained and cubed
1 tsp corn starch

METHOD:
1- Mix together soy sauce, rice wine, sugar, and chili sauce in a bowl and set aside.
2- Saute garlic, ginger, and green onions until fragrant, about 30 sec.
3- Add pork and stir fry until almost cooked through.
4- Add soy sauce mixture.
5- Add tofu.
6- Simmer and add corn starch to thicken sauce.

Savory Sticky Rice

This was one of my favorite dishes growing up. I can't believe I haven't asked my mom for her recipe before we made this at Dinner Meet. The recipe turned out to be fairly easy to execute. The one catch is that there are a couple of things that require pre-soaking, like the dried shrimp and the mushrooms. However, if you don't have time for that, you could always buy fresh shrimp and shiitake mushrooms instead! Candace's recipe is below.

INGREDIENTS (amounts are approximate):

1 1/2 tbsp fried shallots
~15 black Chinese mushrooms, sliced
3/4 cup dried baby shrimp, soaked in water until tender (at least a few hours) and then drained

1 lb pork, sliced
3 cup sticky (glutinous) rice
soy sauce
sesame oil
pepper
corn starch

METHOD:
1- Marinate pork with soy sauce, sesame oil, pepper, and corn starch.

2- Cook rice until almost done, about 30 min.
3- Cook pork, remove from heat.

4- Cook shrimp, remove from heat.
5- Saute shallots until fragrant, about 20 sec. Add mushrooms and stir fry for 30 sec.

6- Add back in shrimp and pork (including juices). Stir fry 20 sec.
7- Add soy sauce (~1 tbsp).
8- Add rice and approximately 1/2 cup water and 2 tbsp soy sauce.

9- Cover and cook over low heat for 30 min, stirring occasionally.

Candace's Chinese Favorites

We had a great time last week making a couple of Candace's Chinese favorites. The fare was delicious, and the recipes were easy to follow. I liked that we were a small group of five; two people had to cancel at the last minute. There was less sitting around and more cooking time distributed among the attendees. I also felt like we got a lot more of the social aspect I was hoping for when I first conceived the idea for Dinner Meet. We had great conversation flowing throughout dinner and post-dinner, and before we knew it, it was time to go home and ready ourselves for another workday. Thanks, Candace, for hosting a fantastic Dinner Meet!

Chinese favorites on the menu

Candace will be head chef this Wednesday, 10/7, and she'll be walking us through some of her personal favorites from her mum's kitchen! On the menu:

Savory Sticky Rice (with pork, shiitake mushrooms, and baby shrimp)
Mapo Tofu (spicy ground pork and tofu)
Garlic Sauteed Pea Shoots

Please let me know if you'd like to attend this dinner meet. I'll confirm spots by Monday. Cooking, as always, will start at 7pm.