Skillet Beef Pot Pie (MBR)

• 1 1/2 pound blade steaks, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces
• Salt and ground black pepper
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 medium onion, minced
• 2 medium carrots, peeled and cut crosswise 1/2 inch thick
• 8 ounces white mushrooms, wiped clean and quartered
• 3 garlic cloves, minced or pressed through a garlic press (about 1 tablespoon)
• 1/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 1/3 cup dry red wine
• 2 1/2 cups low-sodium beef broth
• 2 teaspoons minced fresh thyme leaves, or 1/2 teaspoon dried
• 1 cup frozen peas
• 1 recipe Skillet Pot Pie Crust, frozen for at least 30 minutes

Since I was lazy and didn't know where my rolling pin that I've been carrying for years was,  I went with a pre-made crust.  Alas, I would have to roll the 9-inch crust out to 12 inches anyway.

Had to wait for my french rolling pin to come in the mail since I didn't even have a wine bottle to roll the crust out with.

Fold 1/2 inch border all around and crimp the edges.  Cut out 1/2 inch by 3 inch oval vents from the center and freeze for 30 minutes to ease with putting it on the skillet later.

Remaining mise en place.

Browning the beef.  I was certainly worried about having to eat shoe leather later.

Cook onions, carrot and 1/2 teaspoon of salt over medium heat until vegetables are softened.

Stir in mushrooms and cook until softened.  I mean that's not really the right adjective that I would applying to a stage at which mushrooms should be cook, but I guess I'll go with it.

Add garlic and stir until fragrant.

Stir in flour and tomato paste until incorporated, about 1 minute.  Stir in wine and cook until evaporated.

Slowly stir in broth and thyme and bring to a simmer.

 

Season to taste with salt and pepper.  Then stir in beef with accumulated juices and the peas.

Place crust on top of filling and bake at 425 degrees until crust is golden brown and filling is bubbling, 45 to 50 minutes.

 

Even though this pot pie and the chicken version that I'll later blog about are both better than the one and only Mark Bittman pot pie I made when I first started cooking, I really don't think that either makes me want to give up either pre-made pot pies or especially the chicken and dumpling recipe I usually lean back on a couple times a year.

Bittman's recipe was a watery mess which this recipe goes to correct as just being overly dry.  Not a complete failure or really even terrible but still.

Pasta with Fried Zucchini and Cannellini in Vinegar Sauce (FM)

• 1 pound zucchini, cut into 1/2 x 3-inch sticks
• Salt
• Olive oil as needed
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 tablespoon garlic
• Black pepper
• 2 cups cooked or canned cannellini or other white beans, drained
• 1 tablespoon sherry vinegar, or to taste
• 8 ounces any pasta, preferably whole wheat
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh mint, dill, or parsley [I forget what I had here.  I'm thinking parsley?]
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese, for serving.

Mise en place.  The zucchini has been salted for 20 minutes and patted dry.

I was not quite happy that olive oil is used to fry the zucchini in this recipe.  A half-inch of it.  Decided to strain it through a coffee filter after this step.

Which was, by the way, wicked dangerous to start off with, but Mark Bittman's recipe didn't state to let the oil come back to temp between batches.

Cook onion and garlic (with some salt and pepper) in 2 tablespoons of the oil until onion begins to softer.

 

Add beans and mash with fork or potato masher until more or less broken up.

Toss everything together and adjust the seasoning.  The dish already seemed totally sad at this point.
Maybe if I had used a full 1/2 cup in general in topping the dish, divided among the servings of course, this dish would've been palatable, but it really shouldn't be that way.

Bittman says that "You don't really see vinegar in pasta dishes too often", but personally I've seen vinegar applied to Italian dishes at least and within Bittman's other cookbooks to much better effect.  I've never seen it used with cannellini beans, and overall the dish struck me as muddled, unspecial, and a waste of olive oil.
Oh well, they can't all be winners.

Chicken Enchiladas

from The Best Light Recipe by ATK

• 1 medium onion, chopped fine
• 1/2 teaspoon vegetable oil
• Salt
• 3 medium garlic cloves, minced or pressed through a garlic press (about 1 tablespoon)
• 3 tablespoons chili powder [Made my own according to Mark Bittman's recipe in HTCE]
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 2 (8-ounce) cans tomato sauce
• 1 cup water
• 1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts (about 2 large breasts), trimmed of excess fat
• Ground black pepper
• 8 ounces 50 percent light cheddar cheese shredded (2 cups) [Used some pre-shredded 4-cheese Mexican blend.  Full fat, y'all.]
• 1 (4-ounce) can pickled jalapeno chiles, drained and chopped
• 12 (6-inch) soft corn tortillas
• Vegetable oil spray
• 1 lime, cut into wedges (for serving)

Couldn't locate a 4-ounce can of pickled jalapenos, but I found an 11-ounce can.  I was surprised to find it contained carrots as well.

I suppose a 4-ounce can, drained, would contain even fewer jalapenos than the can I bought, but I thought it was worth noting that the total weight came out to be 2.3 ounces.

Mise en place.

Sweating the onions in 1/2 teaspoon of oil with a 1/2 teaspoon of salt.

Add garlic, chili powder, cumin, and sugar.  Cook until fragrant.

Stir in tomato sauce and water, bring to a simmer, and cook until slightly thickened.

Nestle chicken into sauce and cook until thickest part registers 160 degrees on thermometer.  Set aside to cool and shred.

 
Strain sauce through medium-mesh strainer.  The sauce was crazy spicy at this point since I used chile de arbol in the chili powder rather than "mild" chiles.  I hoped the heat would even out later, and it did.

I guess you're supposed to toss the chicken, 1 cup cheddar, jalapenos, and cilantro with a 1/2 cup of the sauce, but I kind of flaked and threw it all in there.  Pouring out as much sauce as I could later.

Wrap tortillas in plastic wrap and microwave until warm and pliable.

Place a 1/3 cup of filling evenly down center of each tortilla.  Tightly roll and set seam side down in baking dish.  I only managed to use 9 of them.
Then you're supposed to spray the tops (I guess this uses less oil, but my spray has expired and I didn't have a new one.), but i just brush them with vegetable oil.  Pour 1 cup of sauce over the top and sprinkle cheese evenly.  Bake for 20 to 25 minutes covered with foil at 400 degrees and then uncovered for 5 minutes to brown the cheese.

 

Pretty serviceable enchiladas.  Not crazy greasy.  Certainly not terrible.  Sour cream and store-bought salsa picante to accompany them.

Edamame and Aspragus Stir-Fry with Rice (FM)

• 1 pound asparagus, peeled if thick, cut into 2-inch lengths
• Salt
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 1 tablespoon minced ginger
• 1 small dried hot red chile (like Thai), or pinch of red chile flakes, or to taste
• 3 cups fresh or frozen edamame, thawed if you have time
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce, or to taste
• 2 cups cooked brown rice
• Chopped scallions, for garnish

Mise en place.

Heat skillet over high heat for 3 to 4 minutes.  Add oil, then the asparagus.  Cook, stirring, for about a minute.

Add aromatics and cook until asparagus is dry and beginning to brown.

Stir in edamame, soy sauce, and a small splash of water.  Cook until asparagus and edamame are tender.

Add rice and fish out chile (I used two since well....  I could've used more.).  Season and garnish with scallions.
A really nice dish as most of these Food Matters recipes seem to produce.  Bittman suggests that quinoa or steel-cut oats would work well in this as well.  The latter intrigues me more.

I was actually planning on cooking Teriyaki Noodles with Asparagus and Edamame, but the index led me astray.

Pasta with Carmelized Fennel and Onion with Sausage (FM)

• Salt
• 3 large or 4 medium fennel bulbs, cored and sliced
• 1 large onion, halved and thinly sliced
• Black pepper
• 4 tablespoons olive oil
• 8 ounces any pasta, preferably whole wheat
• 1/2 cup white wine, optional
• 8 ounces hot or sweet Italian sausage

Mise en place.

Cook sausage in 1 tablespoon of oil over medium-high heat until nicely browned.

Cook onion and fennel over medium-low heat, stirring every 5 minutes until the vegetables have given up their liquid and are almost sticking to the pan.  This should probably take you a good half hour.

Later you add two more tablespoons of olive oil, raise the heat to medium-high and try to brown this stuff.  Bittman suggests that you can do the last part in 5-10 minutes.  I'm sure I was at it for a bit longer but couldn't bring myself to try for "nicely browned."

Pretty satisfying dish with just a handful of ingredients.  Crazy how much the fennel reduced in volume after all that caramelizing makes sense.
The main recipe does not include sausage, but I don't think I would've had as positive an experience if I had left out the hot Italian sausage I used.  There's even a sidebar on the page about adding small amounts of meat to pasta sauces from the beginning.

Rendang (BRW)

• 2 hot dried red chiles [I got a big ass bag of chile de arbol. Plus I used 5 of them.  If Bittman says he's being conservative, I thought I might as well double that plus one.  I could've used more.]
• 3 garlic cloves, peeled
• 3 shallots, peeled
• One 1-inch piece fresh ginger or galangal, peeled and roughly chopped [I'm not fancy enough to have galangal lying around]
• 1 teaspoon ground turmeric [I did see fresh turmeric at Market Basket last weekend and I'm intrigued especially since Modernist Cuisine at Home give a good metric to sub for the powdered stuff.  Alas, not this time around.]
• 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
• 1 teaspoon coriander seeds
• 2 tablespoons tamarind paste, or the juice and zest of 2 limes [I'm also sadly not fancy enough for tamarind paste either]
• 2 tablespoons corn, grapeseed, or other neutral oil
• 1 pound boneless beef, preferably chuck, cut into 1-inch cubes
• 1 cup coconut milk, homemade [right...] or canned
• Salt to taste

Process the first 8 ingredients until everything is minced.  I guess if you were adding tamarind paste, you'd hold off until everything else was processed.

Mise en place.

Heat oil over medium-high heat.  Add spice paste and cook until fragrant.

Add beef and cook until browned and covered with the sauce.  However,  I'll own up to probably not getting much browning action going on.

Pour in coconut milk, cover, and simmer until the sauce dries out, about 1 hour.

The sauce really wasn't all the dry by the time I stopped.  I don't know if I stopped because I was hungry or merely because I was running out of time.
I've heard people rave about rendang on Top Chef, but I didn't find this dish to be all that distinctive from any old curry.  Obviously, I will have to find a way more complex, bitching recipe for this someday.

Stir-Fried Chicken with Creamed Corn (BRW)

• 1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts or thighs, cut into roughly 1-inch chunks [Given the option, I never go for white meat]
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon dark sesame oil
• 1 tablespoon Shaoxing wine, dry sherry, or white wine [Might as well use sherry.  I don't think I've gotten around to getting Shaoxing wine yet.  Odd that it suggests white wine as well.  I don't see that much.]
• 2 tablespoons peanut or neutral oil, like corn or grapeseed
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 1 tablespoon peeled and minced fresh ginger
• 1 small fresh chile, stemmed, seeded, and mince or hot red pepper flakes to taste
• One 15-ounce can creamed corn
• 1 cup fresh, frozen, or canned corn kernels
• Chopped fresh cilantro leaves for garnish

Mise en place.  Yeah, that is literally a can of creamed corn.  Mark Bittman leads me to think that this is a fairly popular dish in Hong Kong.

Chicken marinates in the soy sauce, sesame oil, and wine while other ingredients are prepped.

Cook chicken undisturbed in oil over high heat undisturbed for about 2 minutes until the bottom browns (sort of).  Stir once or twice and cook for another couple of minutes.

Turn the heat down to medium low, add the aromatics, and stir.

Fifteen seconds later add the corn.  Cook until heated through.

Hey, I can't say that this dish isn't quite tasty, but cracking open a can of creamed corn and using that as the general basis of a "home-cooked" dish doesn't really suit my tastes anymore.  It all kind of feels a little gross, but I'm glad I gave this a shot.
Frozen dinners and those pot pies in those yellow boxes are still totally good, but I can only imagine the ingredient list for creamed corn.

Bouillabaise with Fennel over Grits (FM)

• 1 cup grits or coarse cornmeal
• Salt
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 3 fennel bulbs, cored and thinly sliced, fronds roughly chopped and reserved
• 2 leeks, trimmed, well rinse, and cut into coins, white and tender green parts only [Frankly, I think that cutting the leeks into coins is counter-intuitive to the traditional means of washing leeks.  Bittman himself in HCE outlines the typical halving of the leeks almost through the root end and fanning out the layers while rinsing.  Oh well.]
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• Grated zest from 1 orange
• Big pinch of saffron, optional
• 1 dried hot chile, or pinch of cayenne, or to taste
• 2 cups chopped tomatoes (canned are fine; drain their juice)
• About 1 pound almost any seafood (like monkfish, cod, scallops, squid, or shrimp), peeled, skinned, boned, and cut into chunks as needed
• 1 carrots or parsnips, cut into coins
• 2 cups vegetable, shrimp, or fish stock; dry white wine; or water; plus more as needed
• Black pepper

Mise en place.  Full-on except for the carrots.

Slowly whisk the water into the grits with a large pinch of salt.  Set over medium-high heat until almost a boil then simmer until the consistency of oatmeal.

I think this happened way more quickly that the suggested 10 to 15 minutes.  Whisk in 1 tablespoon of oil and season aggressively with black pepper.

Heat oil over medium heat.  Add fennel, leeks, garlic, and orange zest and cook until softened.

Add saffron and chile and cook for another minute.

Add tomatoes, seafood, carrots, and stock to just cover fish and vegetables.  I started pouring more of that boxed pinot to cover but worried about being unable to cook off the taste of alcohol with at least three cups of wine going on.

I was fine!

Bring to a boil, cover, and turn off heat.  Supposedly you're supposed to let this sit for five more minutes to cook through the shrimp, but they were already pink once this finished boiling.

Serve stew over grits.  Drape with those frilly little fennel fronds.

I think I've largely considered bouillabaise, inaccessible since it's rather delicate, but if Bittman doesn't care too much if I use all shrimp I guess I'm fine.
Grits are stupid easy to make.

Altogether the dish was good but not exactly rave-worthy.