Daring Cooks: Cabbage Rolls

For this months Daring Cook's challenge Olga from Effortnesslessly challenged us to make stuffed cabbage rolls using her Ukrainian heritage to inspire us. Filled with meat, fish or vegetables, flexibility and creativity were the name of the game to get us rolling!

It has been many years since I have had a cabbage roll and I don't know why.  Olga introduced us to some very interesting variations - I didn't even know there was such a thing as a seafood cabbage roll.  I really wanted to try one of these but since it would be my wife and sons first time to try a cabbage roll I figured I should do good old beef this time.

There was nothing hard about making the cabbage rolls but it was several steps and took a couple of hours to complete.  The recipe said it served 8-10 so I decided to cut the recipe in half.  Well even cut in half the recipe made me 20 good sized cabbage rolls - lots of leftovers.  Well it turned out the leftovers were a good thing.  Someone at church just had a baby so we were able to provide them with a nice supper and a few lunches for us.  Everyone enjoyed them - maybe I can get my wife to let me try the seafood version next time.

Daring Cooks: Pierogis

In a "celebration" of past Daring Cooks and Daring Bakers challenges, Lisa challenged all of us to search through the Daring Kitchen archives and pick any one we'd like! The REAL challenge was picking which delicious recipe(s) to try!

It really was a challenge to pick one, so many challenges from before I started, and way too many that I missed after I started.  I decided to go all the way back to August 2010 and pick a challenge from Liz of Bits 'n Bites and Anula of Anula's Kitchen - Pierogis.  I have always liked pierogis but have only ever made frozen ones or had them from the local eastern European deli (Kramarczuks - yumm).  Well making my own couldn't be simpler.

I chose to make their recipe for Russian style pierogi.  The recipe said it made four servings.  I ended up with way to much filling for the dough, but a second batch of dough worked out just about perfect for the filling.  It ended up making about 60 pierogis which I think will be enough for 3 meals for 4 people served as a side like this.  I did boil the pierogis (not sure I needed to) and then fried them with a little onion and some polish sausage.

Boy were they good.  The whole family loved them including the one year old and especially the six year old - they were a big hit.  Much better than the frozen ones and I think they have maybe even been better than the local deli with all the bacon I put in.

If you would like the recipe you can check out the full write-up in the daring kitchen archive here.

Daring Cooks: Gnocchi

Wow - this is exciting.  This months Daring Cooks challenge was brought to you by ME!  I think a lot of people that host a challenge try to pick some kind of specialty, or a dish that they have a special version of, or at least something connected with their ethnic heritage or something.  Well not me.  I like gnocchi but I haven't actually eaten it too much and I have never made it in my life.

I chose to do a potato gnocchi as the challenge and I started with a lot of research.  Gnocchi is a very simple thing usually having only a few ingredients.  It turns out there are many theories on what makes gnocchi good or bad.  You want your potatoes dry - some people say to bake them - others say boiling is ok - and another theory even said to use old shriveled potatoes (I didn't try that last idea).  Some recipes say to use an egg to hold it together and others say the egg will make it heavy.

Well I kind of chose to focus on the recipes in this NY Time article by Mark Bittman with Mario Batali.  Even the article can not agree because in the video Mario uses an egg and he boils the potatoes, but then the recipe bakes the potatoes and does not use an egg.  I can't really tell you which way is best since I made all of mine with the egg and boiling the potato (if it is good enough for Mario - it is good enough for me).  I can tell you that I definitely don't think the egg made it too heavy.

I ended up making several different kinds of gnocchi.  The first I made was a very traditional gnocchi with a Brown butter sage sauce.  This was good but not my favorite, did like the crispy sage though.  I also had definitely not perfected the gnocchi yet and it was almost too tender and started to fall apart in the water while cooking.

The second gnocchi was the gnocchi with butternut squash that Mario makes in the video.  This was probably my favorite of the sauces I made.  Delicious sauce and loved the fried squash.  I still had a little trouble with the gnocchi falling apart to I needed to get to the bottom of that.

Well for my last gnocchi I made a spinach gnocchi and just topped it with a little olive oil and Parmesan cheese.  I think in my first two tries I was way to scared of adding too much flour since everything said too much flour would make them tough.  Well for this version I added a bit more (the recipe did say it would need more because of the moisture of
the spinach) - my test batch was still falling apart more than I would like so I added more flour and that was it - they came out perfect.  They looked great and didn't fall apart at all.  They were also not tough at all either.  They were probably still more tender than any restaurant gnocchi I have ever had.

I can say the challenge was fun for me and I hope it was fun for everyone else that participated.  As usual people are coming up with some very creative twists on this.  If you would like to check out the full challenge you can find it on the Daring Kitchen recipe archives.

Daring Cooks: Yogurt

Wow - I haven't managed to post since April - it has been such a busy summer.  Well this months Daring Cooks challenge is something I have always wanted to try - and it turns out it is very easy as well - at least it is not time consuming.

The lovely Cher of The Not So Exciting Adventures of a Dabbler was our July Daring Cooks’ hostess and she asked us to create homemade yogurt in our own kitchens! No incubators needed, no expensive equipment or ingredients, just a few items and we had delicious yogurt for a fraction of the cost and a whole lot healthier than what you buy in the stores!

You might think making yogurt is tricky to do, or that it takes a long time, or that you need to buy some fancy yogurt machine.  Well it turns out none of that is true.  The trickiest part or making yogurt is keeping it warm for 5-12 hours and our host gave us several ideas on how to do this.  I chose to use the warming drawer in my oven and cracked it open just a bit.  I put a thermometer with an alarm on it set to 120F so I would know if it got too warm but it was not an issue.  The temperature barely moved all day, at least not until the warming drawer automatically shut off after 5 hours.  I didn't know it did that, but I caught it fairly quickly so no disasters.

Mine was not thickening much so I did end up leaving mine warm for 12 full hours.  Even after this time it was still very runny but I decided to  try it out.  I put it in the fridge to see if it would thicken up more in the fridge.  It might have thickened a little more but it was still very thin. 

I was worried the thin consistency meant that my culture was bad.  I used a store-bought local brand yogurt as my culture so I wasn't really sure how it would work.  Turns out the consistency was no indication of the taste.  It tasted just like I would expect - nice and tangy.  I actually like the runny texture - just not what I was expecting.  Will definitely try this again now that I know how easy it is.

If you would like to try to making yogurt yourself check out the recipe in the Daring Kitchen recipe archive.

Daring Cooks: Chicken Ballotine

For the April Daring Cooks Challenge, Lisa from Parsley, Sage and Sweethas challenged us to de-bone a whole chicken, using this video by Jacques Pepin as our guide; then stuff it, tie it and roast it, to create a Chicken Ballotine.
A Ballotine is one of those things that I had heard about before and just always thought it was one of those insanely difficult things that chefs do to show how talented they are.  I never really thought it was something I would ever do.  Well, I was wrong.  Turns out it is not really that difficult and it makes a pretty delicious chicken.  Some definitions of Ballotine say that it is a de-boned leg but in this challenge we de-bone a whole chicken while essentially leaving it a one piece. 
Instead of going through this step by step with lots of pictures Lisa made the wise decision to make this a video challenge.  Jacques Pepin  has a ten minute video that you can see here that shows the whole process.  In the video I think he says that it should take 5-10 minutes to de-bone a whole chicken.  I think it took me about a half hour but a lot of that time was spent watching the video over and over to make sure I was doing it correctly.  I can honestly say that I think it would take less than ten minutes the next time.  I was very surprised at how easy it was and how little knife-work there was to the whole process.
The nice part of the de-boned chicken is that it gives you a nice big piece of uniform meat that is great for stuffing.  I stuffed mine with a mixture of spinach, bread, and mozzarella cheese.  The video also gives a very nice demonstration of trussing the stuffed chicken.  I also made the sauce/gravy that Lisa gave us the recipe for.
The chicken was fabulous.  It looked very elegant and would be a great recipe for entertaining.  It also tasted great.  I loved the stuffing and couldn't get enough of the sauce.  Now if I ever decide I want to make a Turducken for Thanksgiving I will have the major technique figured out.

Daring Cooks: Let's Get Cheesy

Last months challenge was to make cured meat or sausages and it was kind of unique in that it we actually had "winners" of the challenge.  Well I am very excited that I won with my sausages and just received my prize - a copy of Salumi: The Craft of Italian Dry Curing by Michael Ruhlman.  It looks like a beautiful book and some day I will manage to try some of the cured meats in there.  If you want to check out the sausages I made you can see them here.

Now on to this month.  Sawsan from chef in disguise was our March 2013 Daring Cooks hostess! Sawsan challenges us to make our own homemade cheeses! She gave us a variety of choices to make, all of them easily accomplished and delicious!

Just a month or two ago Lis (Founder of The Daring Kitchen) asked me if I wanted to host a challenge.  Well I had just bought a book on cheese-making and wanted to try a bunch of them out so I told her I would do a challenge on cheese-making.  Well, surprise-surprise, someone was already doing cheese-making next month.  I was very excited.  You will just have to wait until later this year to see what I come up with for my challenge :)

There were so many cheeses I wanted to try from my book but I had to restrain myself some.  For one thing I was taking a 10 day vacation in March so I would have a short month.  Also, many of the cheeses I wanted to try were more difficult so I forced myself to start with some simple to intermediate cheeses.  I settled on a ricotta and a mozzarella.  The ricotta is considered an easy cheese and mozzarella would be an intermediate cheese.  

For some reason I decided to start with the harder of the two, the mozzarella.  I was going to make two batches.  I bought all my supplies at a local home-brewing supply store.  The quality of the milk can matter a lot for cheese but I decided to use just grocery store pasteurized / homogenized whole milk.  My first batch was kind of a disaster.  It didn't really clump together properly and then to make matters worse I managed to over-salt it.

Good thing I was planning to make two batches - at least I could get one.  For the second I watched some online videos to see what everything was supposed to look like so I would know what I was doing a little more.  Well the second batch was much better.  The mozzarella was not the easiest.     The recipes have two very exact temps to hit and maintain - not sure how exact it really has to be but I didn't want to test it too much.  The mozzarella also needs to be melted and stretched - this is a messy job.  In the end it looked and tasted like fresh mozzarella though so I was happy.

The ricotta was much easier.  You just add an acid to milk and heat it - ten drain in some cheese cloth.  Both cheeses gave me about a pound from a gallon of milk - I was kind of amazed you could get that much solid cheese from a gallon of liquid.

I ended up making some lasagna from the result.  I had never used fresh mozzarella in a lasagna but I just sliced the cheese instead of shredding it and it worked great.  Taste-wise the lasagna was much richer, mostly from the ricotta I think.  I am not really sure if it was because the ricotta was fresh or just that it was a very high fat ricotta where I would normally use a part-skim ricotta in my lasagna.

I really enjoyed the challenge and look forward to trying some of the more advanced cheeses in the book I bought.  If you are interested all the recipes I used were from that book - Artisan Cheese Making at Home: Techniques & Recipes for Mastering World-Class Cheeses.

Daring Cooks: Shepard's Pie

Our Daring Cooks’ December 2012 Hostess is Andy of Today’s the Day and Today’s the Day I Cook! Andy is sharing with us a traditional French Canadian classic the Paté Chinois, also known as Shepherd’s pie for many of us, and if one dish says comfort food.. this one is it!

Everything sounds delicious in French - doesn't it.  Well the first recipe Andy gave us for Paté Chinois was his family recipe and was very similar to the quick Shepard's pie that I regularly make for a weeknight supper.  It has ground beef, mash potatoes. canned or frozen vegetables.  Well, it seems like Paté Chinois is not quite the same.  It also has a little French Canadian twist,  red wine and creamed corn.  Not sure I have ever seen a recipe with red wine and creamed corn together.

My wife is not a big creamed corn fan so I decided to go with a more tradition Shepard's Pie.  Andy also gave us a recipe for a crock pot Shepard's pie made with lamb and beer.  Since I have never made a "real" Shepard's pie I decided to try this one.

I picked us a nice leg of lamb, unfortunately it was 5 1/2 pounds, about twice as big as I needed.  I decided to take a gamble that we would like it and just make a double batch.  I have a pretty large crock pot so I figured no problem.  Well as I started to put it together and mix all the vegetables and meat, I did not even have a bowl big enough to hold it all.  It definitely would not fit in my crock pot so I pulled out the dutch oven.  It barely fit in my large dutch oven.  The recipe called for 10 hours on low in the crock pot so I cooked mine for 3 hours at 325°F.

I froze about half of the cooked Shepard's pie.  I will be able to just make some potatoes and warm it all up to have it later.  The gamble payed off, because it was yummy.  I (and the rest of the family) will have no problem eating this again.  The meat was very tender and tasty and I pretty much licked the sauce off my plate.  The potatoes are cooked right with everything else so they come out a little brown - maybe don't look the best, but they get all that flavor from cooking with the other veggies and meat.  The only change I might make in the future is to brown the meat on the stove - I think that might add a little color and flavor to the meat.

If you want to check out this recipe or any of the other Shepard's pie recipes Andy gave us they are all posted on The Daring Kitchen recipe archive ( look for Paté Chinois ).

Daring Cooks: Brining and Roasting

Audax of Audax Artifax was our November 2012 Daring Cooks’ host. Audax has brought us into the world of brining and roasting, where we brined meat and vegetables and roasted them afterwards for a delicious meal!

This months challenge comes about a month early for us in the USA.  Thanksgiving is just a few weeks away and I will be doing lots cooking on that day - including a brined and roasted turkey.  I am not really complaining though, you can't go wrong with a roast chicken any day of the week.  

I have done this many times but Audax puts flavorings in the brine, while I normally put my garlic and other flavorings under the skin.  I added some garlic and sprigs of thyme to the brine.  For veggies I used potato, sweet potato, cauliflower, and onions.  

The chicken came out wonderful.  Not sure if I will change my method though.  Hard to tell without a side-by-side comparison but I think the under the skin method adds more flavoring.  I have only used brining with poultry but Audax discusses using it with other meats, seafood, and even nuts and seeds.  I will have to experiment a little more.

Daring Cooks: Cannelloni

Manu from Manu’s Menu was our Daring Cooks lovely June hostess and has challenged us to make traditional Italian cannelloni from scratch! We were taught how to make the pasta, filling, and sauces shared with us from her own and her family’s treasured recipes!

The first thing Manu did in this months challenge was to set up straight on what cannelloni is and what manicotti is.  In Italy Manu had never even heard of manicotti.  Wikipedia says : “Cannelloni is often erroneously referred to as manicotti (Italian: sleeves) (English pronunciation: /ˌmænɨˈkɒtiː/), which is actually a filled Italian dinner crepe, as opposed to pre-rolled pasta.[1] While manicotti and cannelloni are sometimes used interchangeably in preparing non-traditional versions of some dishes, in traditional Italian cooking cannelloni are made with pasta and manicotti with a specialized crepe pan, and the two have particular uses. Although both terms are plural nouns in Italian, the English term is often construed as singular, particularly when used as the name of the dish.”.  So I guess this means I have probably never made or even had manicotti but I have had cannelloni.

Now that that is straight, I have made cannelloni in the past, but I made it with store bought noodles.  This challenge would give me a chance to make the whole thing from scratch.  I went for the simple "Cannelloni di carne" because that is what I knew my family would like.  The recipe had a bunch of parts but they were all easy to put together.  You have to make the filling, two sauces, and the pasta itself.  The parts were all very simple with only a few ingredients in each.  I think this is the first Italian recipe I have made that did not even require any garlic - not sure how I feel about that.

I do have a pasta machine and I think that probably does make things easier - or at least allow the pasta to be thinner.  The noodles are very thin, much thinner than a store-bought noodle.  They cook in just a minute. You would think they would be delicate being so thin but I had no issues at all working with them - they held a lot of the meat filling without tearing at all.

The results were fantastic.  I don't often make my own pasta but every time I do I think I should do it more often.  The cannelloni noodle was so thin and was almost crepe like.  The filling was just what you would from a real Italian recipe - not too fancy - just good stuff and lots of it.

Now that I have said how easy this was I must confess there was one part that made this a very difficult challenge.  Take a thin floppy long noodle and fill it as full as you can get it with meat and cheese.  Then top with a tomato sauce and on top of that put a white sauce.  It looks beautiful - right?  Now how do you take some of those out and put them on a plate and have them still look beautiful - sauce and cheese everywhere.

Thanks for the challenge Manu and thanks for sharing the family recipes.  If you would like to check out this and the other fillings she recommends you can find them on the Daring Kitchen recipe archive.

Daring Cooks: Boeuf Bourguignon

Our May 2012 Daring Cooks’ hostess was Fabi of fabsfood. Fabi challenged us to make Boeuf Bourguignon, a classic French stew originating from the Burgundy region of France.

I'm going to keep this post a little short since I am in the middle of preparing for a long motorcycle trip this weekend.  I wanted to make sure to get a post out there though since this was so good.

I'll start by saying I have made Boeuf Bourguignon - sort of.  I have a crock pot recipe for burgundy beef and our family enjoys it.  Well Boeuf Bourguignon is not nothing like crock pot burgundy beef.  This was fantastic.  The flavor was way more rich and all the vegetables were perfect since they had not been overcooked with the meat.

I have been cooking for a long time but I don't think I have ever cooked a Julia Child recipe before.  This was a Julia Child recipe and she definitely does it right.  I think I was cooking a few hours straight for this dish.  Nothing was difficult but it was a lot of work.  You brown meat, then finish it in the oven.  You cook most of the other vegetable separately so each of them is done perfectly.  I don't even want to think about how long it took me to peel all those tiny onions.  Finally after cooking everything the sauce is strained and finished separately before putting everything together at the end.

Most times when I have a craving for some burgundy beef I will probably make my crock pot version - but for special occasions this is the way to go.  The extra time involved pays off.

If you would like to try this recipe you can find it at The Daring Kitchen recipe archive.

Daring Kitchen: Red Wine Braised Chuck Roast

The March, 2012 Daring Cooks’ Challenge was hosted by Carol, a/k/a Poisonive – and she challenged us all to learn the art of Braising! Carol focused on Michael Ruhlman’s technique and shared with us some of his expertise from his book “Ruhlman’s Twenty”.

I am currently in FL on vacation and trying to type this on my iPad so I will probably be keeping this a little short. I would as thinking I would skip this one since I didn't have much time but when I saw that it was braising I had to do it - everything is good braised. My wife is a big fan of braised short ribs so I was thinking I would do the Michael Ruhlman Red Wine braised short ribs. Well I did a stop at the local supermarket and learned that they didn't carry short ribs. I had a sick kid at home and trying to get ready for vacation so I didn't really want to deal with getting to a meat market for ribs so I decided to fake it. I had a chuck roast in the freezer so I cut the pieces into sort of rib shape pieces ( McRib anyone? ) and just followed the recipe after that.

The recipe was easy to follow. I made the braised meat a day ahead - it is a lot easier to time that way. The only problem with that plan is that you get to smell it cooking all day and then you don't get to eat it right away. The unique thing about the recipe is that you braise it with vegetables to make a nice flavorful sauce but then you throw the veggies away and cook some new vegetables so they are complete mush. I served mine over polenta that I cooked using Alton Brown's Savory Polenta recipe. The polenta was great and it was a very easy recipe since it cooks in the oven. The faux ribs were also a big hit with my wife and myself. Great tasting fall apart meat with a fantastic flavorful sauce and nice tender but not mushy vegetables. I also loved all the mushrooms - it was a lot of mushrooms but I never complain about too many mushrooms.

Daring Bakers - Flipping Fried Patties - Potato Rösti

February 14th - hopefully I will have come up with an elegant meal plan for my lovely wife (and son) by the time this blog post goes live.  Now on to something a little less elegant though - patties!

The Daring Cooks’ February 2012 challenge was hosted by Audax & Lis and they chose to present Patties for their ease of construction, ingredients and deliciousness! We were given several recipes, and learned the different types of binders and cooking methods to produce our own tasty patties!

I love these open challenges - it inspires so much creativity and also allows people to show off regional foods from around the world.  Of course I only like the creativity in other people - I have not been feeling very creative myself.  Especially when Audax posts so many good recipes that I would like to try.  I decided to try his recipe for Potato Rösti

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If you don't know Potato Rösti is a dish from Switzerland and is similar to hash browns.  It was typically a breakfast food but is also served at other meals.  Part of the reason I decided to make the rösti is because my wife and I traveled to Switzerland several years ago so I thought it might be a nice memory of that.  I have not had a lot of rösti (and I understand there is a lot of variation) but if I had to say what the difference between them and hash browns is I would say the rösti is typically more of a patty - and the rösti is probably made a little thicker.

I looked at several rösti recipes and Audax's recipe was a little different.  None of the recipes I found had egg or flour in them.  I decided to go with Audax's recipe since he has not steered me wrong yet.  I did make one change to the recipe - I added a diced onion to the potatoes for a little more flavor.

The rösti came out just like I remembered them.  They were wonderful.  I think the secret to good rösti  is to cook it low and slow.  That way they turn out nice and crispy on the outside but nice and creamy on the inside.  

Thanks to Audax and Lis for this months challenge and all the patty recipes - there are definitely some interesting looking recipes I would like to try in the future.  If you would like to try out the rösti or any of the other patty recipes from this month check out the Daring Cooks recipe archive.

Daring Cooks: Tamales

Maranda of Jolts & Jollies was our January 2012 Daring Cooks hostess with the mostess! Maranda challenged us to make traditional Mexican Tamales as our first challenge of the year!

When I grew up I was not really exposed to a lot of ethnic foods.  There were some Mexican restaurants but at the time they were pretty Americanized and I don't remember ever seeing a tamale on the menu.  I do, however, have fond memories of my dad making tamales.  Well, not really making tamales, but preparing a jar of tamales.  It was kind of a special occasion thing that my dad made just for himself.  I always thought it was very cool - the way they were all individually wrapped in paper.  They took forever to heat up (this was pre-microwave).  I am not sure if I would still think these jarred tamales were any good, but in my memories they were very tasty.  As Miranda says in her description - "Tamales are not so much about the food but about the memories created when making and eating them".

Well now it is not so hard to find a good Mexican restaurant with good tamales so I have them quite often.  I had never tried making them though, so this this looked like a fun challenge.  I am not sure I have ever had chicken tamales but I decided to try out Maranda's recipe for Green Chile Chicken Tamales.  My first mistake was not reading the full recipe (cooking 101).  The ingredients said cooked chicken so I went about roasting a chicken.  After I had that started I checked out the rest of the recipe where it said to boil the chicken.  Oh well, I am pretty sure that roasting can only help.  The rest of the recipe went nice and smooth.  I had always thought tamales were difficult to make and required a lot of technique but it seemed pretty easy to put these together.  I made a simple enchilada sauce to serve on top of the tamales.

I made the tamales for a small family gathering at my mom and dad's on New Years Eve since I thought my dad might enjoy having one.  I was really expecting to bring a bunch home since I didn't think everyone else would eat them but I was very wrong.  They went over very well and got eaten up - I would have loved to brought some home - but it is even better to see others enjoy them.  The tamales were delicious - I can definitely see myself making these again.  My father told me about how his mom used to make tamales.  I had never heard this before and I wish I knew where it came from.  My father's family was from Paducah, KY and I am not quite sure how she would have got into making tamales.  Will have to ask my Grandfather if he knows next time I see him.

If you would like to try your hand making tamales yourself check out the recipe in the Daring Kitchen archives.  Thanks to Miranda for this fun and delicious challenge.

Daring Cooks: Char Sui and Char Sui Bao

Our Daring Cooks’ December 2011 hostess is Sara from Belly Rumbles! Sara chose awesome Char Sui Bao as our challenge, where we made the buns, Char Sui, and filling from scratch – delicious!

Another chance at some Chinese cooking this month.  This is a two part challenge.  First we had to cook the Char Sui (a barbequed pork) and then we use the leftovers to create Char Sui Bao ( a filled bun ).  I love both of these so it sounded like a fun challenge.

The first part of the recipe was making the Char Sui.  It was a very simple recipe.  You simply marinate some pork tenderloin and cook in the oven or on the grill.  Since I am still pretending it is not winter here in Minnesota I decided to grill the pork.  The recipe does tell you to allow the pork to marinate from 4 hours to overnight.  I was only able to do 4 hours.  The pork tasted very good but I do see how it could have benefited from a longer marination time.  I made a bunch of this pork and loved using some of the leftovers for sandwiches.

A few days later I decided to tackle the Char Sui Bao with the leftovers.  The challenge provided recipes for baked or steamed.  I love these little buns but have never had them baked.  Not really sure how authentic a baked bao is but since I didn't really have the equipment to easily steam a bunch I decided to try them baked.  The dough is a yeast dough but only takes a few hours rising time.  They are real simple to put together - just roll out a small circle of dough and use it to wrap a small amount of pork filling.  I loved these - I won't say I liked them better than steamed but they were different - much more like actual bread than a steam bun.  Both good - just in different ways.

This was a great challenge - my only problem is how to get the red color out of my towels and off my cutting boards :)  If you would like to try out these recipes on your own check out the Daring Cooks recipe archive.

Daring Cooks: Moo Shu Pork

This months Daring Cooks challenge was Moo Shu Pork.  I love Moo Shu,  I had made it once in the past but did not make the "pancakes" so it sounded like fun to try to make all the parts.  The challenge even had a recipe for hoisin sauce so I decided to make that as well.

The recipe came together easily.  It is like a lot of Chinese cooking where most of the time is spent preparing and cutting all the ingredients and the actual cooking is a small part of the whole process.  The hoisin recipe was very easy - just mix the ingredients.  The hoisin was much runnier than most I have seen before but it tasted very good.  The ingredients were also much different than a bottled hoisin I had (where the main ingredient was sugar).  For the Moo Shu I did use a standard green cabbage since I had just gotten one from our CSA and I also used a mix of white mushrooms and the black mushrooms.

The most interesting part of the recipe for me was the making of the pancakes.  They are just flour and water but the technique is the interesting part.  I did follow the alternate #2 directions from the recipe.  For the technique you form two small 3" pancakes, then you coat one side with oil, press the two pancakes together and roll them to form one 6" pancake.  You cook this is a dry pan then you separate the two pancakes.  They come right apart where they were oiled and you have two very thin pancakes that are nice and delicate and cooked nicely.  I was a little scared of this technique and my first set or two came out a little thick but after I got the hang of it they were not hard and came out very nice.

Thanks to Shelly of C Mom Cook and Ruth of The Crafts of Mommyhood for this months challenge.  I loved it.  If you would like to follow along and try out this recipe it can be found in the Daring Cooks Recipe Archive.

Daring Cooks: Appam and Curry (Indian Dinner)

Wow - no posts since June - it has been a busy summer. I feel so guilty for missing the last few months with The Daring Kitchen and I almost missed this one too but this month was a challenge I really wanted to try. The challenge was to make Appams and a South Indian/Sri Lankan dish to go with them. I decided to take it a little further and do a whole Indian meal. Most Indian food that I have eaten has been at Indian restaurant buffets and I have never attempted to cook it myself so I thought this would be a fun challenge. I knew my wife might not enjoy all of this food herself so I gave her the task of finding someone who would. She thought she was going to get an Indian couple from work to come but the schedule did not work. Then she texted me from church all excited because she found out someone there had been to India and were available for a dinner - good - we have two more people willing to test out my Indian cooking.

Since I decided to do a whole meal I had a lot of planning to do. I had just been to a local Indian restaurant so I kind of had an idea of what goes into a meal but was still a little clueless. I sent off an email to an Indian buddy of mine and let him know my requirements and what my ideas were. He was a great help telling me what I was doing that didn't seem right and gave me a few other ideas for what goes together and what to have for a proper Indian dinner. He even offered me some of his Mom's recipes.

I made my first trip to an Indian grocery for this challenge. Going to foreign groceries is always something I love to do and this was no exception. I love seeing all the vegetables and spices and other ingredients that I have never seen before. I picked up some okra, curry leaves, and a few spices that I would need.

Anyway here is the dinner - I won't include any of the recipes because - well because that would be a lot of work for all this stuff - but if you are interested in anything please ask and I will get you the recipe or the link to my source. I will start with the two requirements for The Daring Kitchen challenge. You can find the recipes for the first two items here in the Daring Kitchen recipe archives.

The first item is the Appams. I have had several kinds of Indian bread but don't think I have ever had these. They are a little strange to put together - soaking and grinding raw rice, then add yeast and a very small amount of cooked rice, then 8+ hours of fermenting on the counter. The dough rises and falls all by itself overnight since it is fairly thin. Then when you are ready to cook you thin it out with some coconut milk and cook them one at a time. I figured since they looked kind of like crepes I would cook them in my crepe pan and it worked perfect. They are thin on the edges and more puffy and "bready" in the middle. They were great with the curry and tasted very mild with the texture of a bread. One of our guests just rolled up the curry like a taco - probably not very Indian but it worked.

To go with the Appams I decided to fix one of the dishes included with the challenge - the Malabar Chicken. I did tone down the heat a lot so my wife would at least try it but did leave all the other flavor in. This dish had a lot of herbs and spices that I don't normally cook with but it smelled very good to me. It had a lot of flavors I recognized from Indian food but the dish was different from any curry that I have had before - I think just because it had a lot of tomato. It also had coconut milk but it was not as predominant of a flavor as in a Thai curry.

Now that the Daring Cooks items are out of the way here is the rest of the meal I did. I started the meal with some Eggplant and Onion Pakoras. I actually just went on a food tour of Minneapolis yesterday and part of the food tour was pakoras at an Indian restaurant and they were great. I had an eggplant in the fridge from my CSA and thought it would work for pakoras - I did a quick web search and apparently eggplant pakoras are a thing so I went with it. I also did some onion and cilantro pakoras and they were both very good - I especially liked the onion ones that were kind of a fritter style. They batter is very flavorful with some spices in it and it fried up nice. I also made a Cilantro and mint Chutney - I did add a little heat to the chutney and it was very tasty on the pakoras.

Anyone that has been to an Indian restaurant probably knows this one - a Mango Lassi. Very easy to make and very refreshing on a hot day.


This is a Cucumber Raita. This a very nice summer salad - very similar to some typical American cucumber salads - but with a few extra spices in there.

This is Bhindi Masala ( I think that translates to Okra mixture). I knew okra was African and I knew it was Southern US but I didn't know it was Indian. I am not sure if I have ever had it when it wasn't deep fried but I did enjoy this preparation. It was just onions fried with the okra and a bunch on Indian spices.

For dessert I decided to go with Gajar (Carrot) Halwa. This is just shredded carrot cooked for a long time in milk - then a little bit of sugar and cardamom added. I don't think it is typical but I saw several pictures of it molded like this and I think it made it a nice looking dessert. It was definitely not a typical American dessert - not very sweet or rich but it was kind of nice for a change - mild spice and just a little sweet.

Thanks to Mary from Mary Mary Culinary for this months challenge. It was great fun cooking all this.

Daring Cooks: Grilled Potato Salad with Raspberry Vinaigrette

This month was another interesting month with the Daring Cooks. Like last month it is a contest and like last month I am creating my own recipe. Not sure if I am very good at creating my own recipes but it is fun to try. I do want to thank everyone who voted for my grilled squash salad in an edible woven bowl in last months edible container contest. I came in third place with a lot of tough competition.

This month the challenge was to create a delicious and healthy potato salad. The challenge is being sponsored by the United States Potato Board who will be picking the top five recipes and selecting the winners this month.

I love potato salad but one thing I don't think of when I think of potato salad is healthy. I once made a potato salad with light mayo and YUCK - light mayo is not a product anyone should have to eat. So it was time to think outside the box. One thing I do often in the summer is to grill potatoes - delicious - so I decided to start there. Now what other flavors to use. I used some pretty basic spices and herbs that I normally use when grilling potatoes. After that I decided to scan the grocery store for inspiration. It is raspberry season here and raspberries are on sale here. I am not sure I have ever had raspberries with potatoes so I am not sure why I thought it would work but I did. I also had some raspbanero jam that I received as a gift from my wife's cousin. The jam is made and sold by some friends of theirs at the hixton blue collar cafe and it is delicious. I love to eat it just spread on crackers. If I am ever in Hixton, WI (or if I figure out where Hixton, WI is) I will have to check out their other products. I know most of you will probably not have quick access to raspbanero jam so I would recommend just using raspberry jam along with some cayenne if you want the heat.

There result was really good. It was nothing like any potato salad I have had before but it was a tasty and health alternative. I think the raspberries went well with the potatoes. The combination of the sweet and hot was very nice with the grilled potatoes and peppers. Here is what I came up with - I hope you enjoy!

Grilled Potato Salad with Raspberry Vinaigrette

Serves about 4

Ingredients

• 2 lbs red potatoes - I use the larger ones but doesn't matter
• 2 t vegetable oil ( or olive oil if you like )
• 1/2 t kosher salt
• 1/4 t paprika
• 1/4 t dried thyme
• 1/4 t dried rosemary
• 1/4 t garlic powder
• 1/4 t black pepper
• pinch cayenne if desired
• 1 red bell pepper ( or any other color), seeded and cut into 1" squares
• 1/2 sweet red onion, course diced
• 1 cup raspberries
• 1 T fresh basil, chopped

For Vinaigrette

• 1/4c cider vinegar
• 1T vegetable oil
• 1T dijon mustard
• 1T raspbanero jam ( or raspberry jam or jelly)
• pinch cayenne if desired and you did not use the raspbanero jam.

Directions

1. Heat gas or charcol grill.
2. Scrub potatoes and cut into 1" cubes. Parboil potatoes for about 6 minutes - they will be almost cooked but not quite. Drain and put into a large bowl.
3. Add 2t oil, salt, paprika, thyme, rosemary, garlic powder, black pepper, cayenne, and bell pepper to bowl and toss.
4. Place potato / pepper mixture on hot grill. Flip them once or twice with a spatula and cook until there are some nice grill marks on potatoes. Should take about 10 minutes.
5. Allow potatoes to cool to room tempurature.
6. Put all ingredients for vinaigrette in a blender and mix until well blended. If you used raspberry jam you may want to strain the seeds at this point.
7. Toss cooled potatoes with onions, raspberries, basil and vinaigrette. Add vinaigrette a little at a time so you don't have too much.
8. Serve immediately.

Daring Cooks: Edible Containers

Renata of Testado, Provado & Aprovado! was our Daring Cooks’ April 2011 hostess. Renata challenged us to think “outside the plate” and create our own edible containers!

Yup - that was the whole challenge. We could make whatever we wanted for an edible container and put whatever we wanted into it. In some ways that is the hardest kind of challenge since it is so open, but it is also fun to try to come up with something creative. Renata gave us several examples of things we could do - but I kind of wanted to come up with something different.

I thought of the idea of weaving something but kind of ruled it out. When my wife, Lara, later suggested it ( and I couldn't think of anything better ) I decided to give it a try. I shaved off thin peels from zucchini and yellow squash. I microwaved them a little to soften them up. I can't say the weaving was easy. I am not normally one to give up on something but I tried it before my wife got home from work and gave up. I did not expect it to work but my wife got it to work - she has done some basket making - who knew that would be a helpful skill in the kitchen.

I think the basket turned out pretty nice. It was cute and "edible". It was also very difficult and I would not want to be making these for a large dinner party. For the contents I made a grilled squash salad. The salad is very easy and quick to make. It tasted very good and looked nice and springy in the basket.

Thanks to Renata of Testado, Provado & Aprovado! for this months challenge. Renata is one of my favorite Daring Cooks. She always has very creative solutions to the challenges and she is always very active in the forums and commenting on peoples blogs. Check out her blog - it is in Portuguese but she has an English version as well.

Grilled Squash Salad

Serves about 4

• 3-4 zucchini and yellow squash
• 8-12 peppadew peppers (these are hard to find so another sweet or slightly hot pepper could be substituted)
• 2 T vegetable oil (or EVOO)
• 1 T kosher salt
• 1/4 t pepper
• juice from 1 lemon
• 2 clove garlic
• 2 t fresh basil
• 1 T Parmesan cheese

1. Wash the squash well if you are not peeling it. Julienne the squash (I used a mandolin).
2. Mix the squash with 1T of the oil and the salt and pepper.
3. Mix the remaining 1 T oil and remaining ingredients in a small bowl and set aside.
4. Cook squash mixture over a medium-hot grill until tender (only takes 2 minutes or so).
5. Toss the squash with the lemon juice mixture.

Daring Cooks: Papas Rellenas

¡Me Encanta Perú! - that was the name of this past months challenge Daring Cooks challenge - and it means I love Peru. The challenge actually included four separate recipes - we had to make at least one of the main recipes and the rest were optional. We could make Papas Rellenas and/or Ceviche.

The timing of this challenge was perfect. I have been taking a Spanish class for the last few months - don't ask me to say anything in Spanish - my old brain is not picking it up very quickly. Anyway, the class was having a food night this past week where everyone brought a Latin American dish. I asked my Puerto Rican teacher if they have Papas Rellenas in Puerto Rico and she was very excited at the idea of me making them for class.

I pretty much stuck to the recipe in the challenge except I added butter and a little bit of flour to the potatoes - and I left the raisins out of the filling. The recipe was pretty straight-forward. It does take a while to complete because the different components all need time to cool - but everything could be made ahead of time and assembled when it comes time to cook it.

For my class I made a small version of the Rellenas. The small version only took a teaspoon or two of filling. I also made the Salsa Criolla in the challenge. They were a big hit at our dinner. Everyone was asking about them. The real test was my teacher. It passed with flying colors - my teacher went back for seconds, took one home for her husband, and asked for the recipe. She said she had not been able to get a crispy crust like this recipe. One interesting thing she told me was that in Puerto Rico it is common to have some of them made of beef - and some with corned beef. I would really like to try a corned beef version.

I did make a large version a few days later with the left over filling. I was able to put a lot more filling in these. The main thing I noticed with these was - the Salsa Criolla was much better after sitting a few days. The flavors really had time to meld - and they even turned a little pink and looked nicer on the plate.

This was a great first challenge for the Daring Cooks. I look forward to many more. Thanks to Kathlyn of Bake Like A Ninja. Love the name of the blog and her slogan. I need a cool slogan like that - any ideas? The recipes are all included in the pdf challenge here.