Bread

The classic no knead bread from the NY Times.

Bread <- Preparation + Cooking

Preparation <- Dry Ingredients + Wet Ingredients + Rise Time

Dry Ingredient <- 4 Cups All purpose Non Bromated  Flour + 1 TSP Salt + 1/4 TSP Yeast

Wet Ingredients <- 2 Cups Luke Warm Water

Rise Time <- 16 - 24 Hours covered + 2 Hrs after making a ball covered

Cooking <- Plop Ball into a hot pan @ 475 + Cook covered 30 minutes + Cook Uncovered 30 minutes

Not bold

A beginners red

My dads drink recipe

A must try this summer

Makes me loopy

I was warned

Undrinkable 0

Perfect Lettuce Wraps

Hilda, told me these were perfect, and not to forget how to make them. Yesterday is a blur, so I am writing this just after dinner.
Saute 2 onions in some oil and margarine.
While this is cooking. Take 3 Organic Chicken breast halves (thats 1.5 chicken breasts) and finely dice those with a chefs knife. That take all of about 3 minutes. Place this chicken and 1/2 cup soy sauce, some cayenne pepper, 1 tbl sugar, and one egg in a non reactive bowl. Stir to incorporate.  While this is marinating and the onions are slowly cooking, finely dice some scallions, crunch some hole peanuts. Turn off the onions. Now go take a shower. When all clean come back put all the chicken in a with the onions. Start cooking, after about 5 minutes, take 2 tbls corn starch and cold water mixed and put in chicken. Brown up the chicken. Add about 1/2 the chopped scallions and some bean sprouts to the chicken. When its all done, spoon the chicken in some baby romaine lettuce leaves. Top with the crunched peanuts, more scallions and some bean sprouts.
Personally I would have made them more spicy, added some water chestnuts, and perhaps added garlic. But I wont change a thing....

.85 Very Drunkable

An odd flavor for a zin. Most people I am sure will turn up their nose at this, as it differs from the California cookie cutter zin. Nothing bad, just different. And after a few glasses Cindy said it was drunkable, or at least I think thats what she said...

Beware it comes with a screw top. If you some how think this invention is bad, well then go stick to your cork, kill another tree for a less affective Oxygen barrier. 

Menu for Week of 7 March 2011

Monday : Don't let your Meat Loaf, Shaved Brussel Sprouts, Diced Sweet Taters
Tuesday: Pizza Piazza, Salad
Wed: Beef and Guinness Pie, Salad
Thursday: Steak over Greens, marinated asparagus
Friday: Mussels as a starter,  Soup of the day with massive croutons
Sat: Out
Sun: Gnocchi, Sauce

Luscious .9

.6

Too acidic

Bertha's Birds Nest (.85, .9, .9)

And now on to a tried and true method to easily satisfy a crowd for breakfast. It takes longer to heat up the oven, than it does to prepare. Melt some butter. Butter a muffin tin. Remove the crust from white bread (sliced Italian works well). Lightly butter this bread on both sides. Stuff a slice of bread into each muffin whole.  It does not have to be perfect. Add a slice of ham, cooked bacon, or proscuitto on top of the bread. Crack one one egg on top of this. Fill as many muffin slots as you need using the same procedure. Bake in a 350 oven until done, about 15 to 20 minutes. The bread should be brown and the egg still a bit runny. 

Wine .9

Winner winner chicken dinner. The family that makes this wine has done so for 6 centuries. A great $10 bottle of wine, goes well with anything.

Gnocchi (nuggets of love) (.9, .9, .85)

Ive never made these before, mainly because the ones you can buy in the freezer section are darn good, plus I heard they could become disasters. I usually try to avoid disasters, so this was always on the back shelf of things to try. 

Then I read this

I loosely followed the recipe. I used yukon gold potatoes. About this many.

NEW INFORMATION!

My wife Hilda feels that I am suffering from early dementia, and I should be more detailed in my write ups so that I can better reproduce these in our golden years.

I start out by taking a large handful of yukon gold potatoes from the bag, about 2 lbs. I would say, but the picture above is the best guide. I put these potatoes not scrubbed or otherwise touched since the factory in a glass bowl. This glass bowl is then put in the microwave. You should cook them until soft. I am not sure about your potatoes or microwave, but thats about 1 beer for me, so 5-7 minutes should do it. Keep turning the potatoes (1/4 turn)  cause microwaves nor the potatoes are symmetric so don't expect the cooking to be symmetric unless you keep changing the positions. While these are cooking and you are enjoying your first beer, start a large pot of boiling water with salt. No need to rush or worry. Research has shown that worrying emits fundamental subatomic particles called worry-ons that will interfere with the perfect gnocchi.

Also during this time you can get out one egg a large board and some flour. Dust the board with flour.

When the potatoes are done, take them out. Ok a culinary hint, you can not over cook a potato, but its easy to under cook them, so err on the side of too much. Now my lovely wife Zelda usually texts about this time that she is on her way home, so I have never actually allowed the potatoes to cool, but rather, I run each one under cold water, and while under the water, I take off the skins with a knife. The skins just separate from the meat easily. I put the potatoes back into the bowl. The are steaming and I use an immersion blender to mix them up. One minute with the blender and they are all shiny and smooth, no lumps. The directions I used said to use a ricer. I don't own a ricer, cause the rice I buy already comes perfectly shaped, so I have never seen the need to get one of those. To this I add the egg, some salt and pepper and about 1/4 cup of flour. I use a fork to knead the flour into the potato mixture. I keep adding flour until the dough looks right. Its at least a cup probably a bit more. The dough should resemble play-dough, a bit wet, somewhat sticky. Ah time for another beer about now. While enjoying your favorite carbonated beverage pull a small handful of dough and roll it around on the floured board. I keep adding flour to the board as the dough will keep accepting more. Using my hands and skills I learned in Kindergarten (luckily they did not offer French that soon) I make a rope or snake, about 1/2 inch in diameter and about 6 inches long. I then cut the rope into 1 inch pieces and put them on a piece of parchment paper. Sorry I forgot to mention the parchment paper.  I keep doing this until I get bored. This amount will feed 4-6 people as a side dish. I usually stop when I think I have enough for Doris and I. This means I through away about 1/2 the dough. Now once they are all sitting on the parchment paper, I use a fork to pinch the edge. The directions say you roll the piece with the fork. Mine seem too soft to roll, so I pinch. Se La Vie. The picture below shows them at this stage.

Now its time to prepare your sauce. I just melt 1/2 stick of your favorite butter like product with some olive oil in a saute pan. While this is melting I add 4 minced garlic cloves, some salt, and pepper. Now you can over cook garlic, so use a low heat here. I also have a spare bowl around I use to keep the boiled  nuggets in before I saute them in the garlic butter. So dump 1 or 2 in the boiling water, they will cook for a minute or two before rising the top. If they dont rise, that means you really goofed and they dissolved, and should not attempt this recipe again. Besides you have already thrown away the dough, so there is no hope of recovering that to add more flour. Cook the nuggets in a couple of batches, remove them with a slotted spoon and place them in the prep bowl. I usually add a bit of oil to the cooked ones so they dont get too friendly and start mating. Once you are ready to eat. Get your garlic butter all warmed up, and place all the nuggets in the pan. Stir it a few times and plate. Make sure you get plenty of garlic butter everywhere on the plate. These gnocchi are a bit softer than store bought varieties, they all look different but otherwise I think they make a darn good side dish. Next time I will experiment by adding some small broccoli florets to the garlic butter. 

Lettuce Wraps .9, .85, .85

I wish I had taken a picture of mine, I "borrowed" this photo from flickr. Anyway, its a high value meal, as it was easy to prepare, cheap cost, healthy and tastes good. I used ground chicken, next time I will probably try ground turkey. I will also add in cashews next time. You need a good crunch to go along with the chicken.

1 lbs ground chicken

1/2 cup small diced mushrooms

1 small onion, diced

a few cloves of garlic

rib of celery, chopped

can of water chestnuts, chopped
1 tbl rice wine vinegar.

tsp cayenne pepper

t tbl peanut sauce *

iceberg lettuce

Brown chicken in a bit of oil, when cooking add mushrooms, diced onion, and garlic, add soy sauce, peanut sauce, rice wine vineger, and cayenne pepper  to taste.  Once done add in water chestnuts (no flavor just texture) and celery. 

Serve on lettuce leaves. I had a hard time getting the lettuce leafs to look nice. 

*I used a tablespoon Bangkok Padang Peanut Sauce, available at Wegmans. Looking at the ingredients it is just peanut butter, brown sugar, soy sauce and some things I can't pronounce.