Kimchi Mushroom Risotto & Beef Short Ribs

Last night was perfect. Seriously. I was feeling blah all day but I had a night in with Yobo. No one needed us but us. We had no other commitments, no homework due the next day, no urgently pressing matters, no conflicts (social or otherwise) that needed to be addressed that night. We walked home together. We talked about how crazy the upcoming election is going to be. Dinner was a salad with pomegranate molasses vinaigrette (yes, incorporating more veggies) and a brick-pressed ham sandwich. But it wasn’t just any ham sandwich: super thinly sliced ham with wild mushroom flecks; brie cheese with truffles; perfect crust on brioche baguette with a thin layer of Kewpie for a nonstick sear. Limbs later intertwined on the couch watching The Imitation Game in HD. And, I didn’t nod off nor fall asleep (this is a BIG deal for me, guys!!!). The movie was really engrossing, well-paced, and thought-provoking and sad. (More on that later.) Then we went to sleep around the same time (another big deal, see previous sentences). Sadly, I didn’t take a picture of my meal, but believe you me, ’twas perfect. It’s the little things.

I wanted to preface this post with a blurb about last night. It has absolutely nothing to do with this post’s recipe, but that’s how I roll…in randomness. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

KIMCHI MUSHROOM RISOTTO & BEEF SHORT RIBS // Serves 3-4

**For the short ribs, I followed this recipe. I think it needed a little more time in the oven because I like my meat fork tender. But they were still pretty yummy.

• 1/3 cup kimchi, chopped
• 3/4 cup paella or arborio rice
• 2 tablespoons of butter
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/3 cup white wine
• 1/3 cup button mushrooms, chopped
• 1/3 cup oyster mushrooms, chopped (or shiitake)
• 1/3 cup parmesan cheese
• 2 cups chicken broth
• handful of scallions
• salt and pepper to taste

Heat a pan with medium heat. Add oil/butter. Sautee kimchee until lightly crispy, about 4 min. Remove from pan. Add oil/butter. Add garlic and sautee until fragrant, about 1 min. Add mushrooms and salt and pepper. Sautee for about 5 minutes. Remove from pan.

Add butter to pan. Add rice and coat with melted butter, toast for about two minutes. Slowly start adding chicken broth, stirring vigorously. And broth, stir, when it looks dry, add more broth. Add broth in half cup increments. This process will take about 10-12 minutes. Add your mushrooms and kimchi. Lower heat and add white wine. Stir. Add cheese. Stir.

Turn off heat and stir again. Serve immediately. Garnish with sliced green onion/scallions.

Enjoy!

Fish en Papillote

nce upon a time, I had a college roommate who is now one of my dearest friends. At the time, she was the pickiest eater I had ever met. She would tell people she was allergic to fish and seafood (she was not). She was not a fan of it in any form. Post-college, she and her now-husband ate sushi for the first time. Took a few tries, but she came to tolerate it. Me, on the hand, if I had fresh and top quality seafood at my disposal, I would eschew red meat and reduce my red meat consumption to (maybe) once a month. That says a lot about how much I love fish and seafood. Some people balk at the fish aisle and markets, I love the heady fishy smell. As my husband will attest, one of my guilty pleasures is sucking down some shrimp brains. Whatever. To each his/her own. Don’t judge.

In trying to eat healthier, here is what’s for dinner. Fish baked in parchment paper. I don’t have an exact recipe, but this is the way my grandmother cooked it (minus the bay leaf). I cook with my eyes and hands. But if you really need one…

• 1 headless fish (I’m using red snapper)
• 1 tomato or a bunch of cherry tomatoes (or however much tomato you can stuff into a fish)
• 2 cloves garlic (finely minced)
• thinly sliced onion
• bay leaf
• 3 tablespoons of white wine
• salt and pepper
• EVOO
• PARCHMENT PAPER

Pre-heat oven to 375F. Put all stuffing ingredients in a bowl; mix to combine. Stuff fish. I used toothpicks to secure the fish with the stuffing. Measure out your parchment paper and place fish in center. Drizzle EVOO. Fold down sides of paper first. Fold top horizontally and sharply until you’ve creased all the way to where it meets the fish. Put on baking sheet. Bake for 25 minutes. Your house will smell yummy and fishy.

Meal Prep (Sunday)

Omg. I know. Two posts in a row? Could I finally be getting my shit together? I don’t know. I’m trying REALLY hard, but well…it’s hard. I have a procrastination problem that is outrageously chronic. I’ve read that meal prep is good for the wallet (Shop Your Fridge! Dress up those leftovers and make them more palatable!) and for the waistline, but with this dreary weather, I think know that I’ve actually gained weight. I’ve turned into hungry bear winter mode, getting round and fat in case I get snowed in (ha! not likely in L.A.) and my body has to eat off itself. I digress. We’re trying to save more money and be more frugal and keep a cleaner house. I’m trying really hard to stay on top of produce and leftovers and be really responsible about eliminating waste and dumping moldy, limp veggies into a non-existent compost heap.

This is me keeping it real. My stovetop is not that clean. I want to be a better food blogger and take better photos and do that dreamy, creamy setting thing, but (as noted above), I am a procrastinator. I’m extremely impatient and I don’t have the fortitude to buckle down be a good pupil and practice till I excel. Going to work that on that!

The spicy ground beef, shiitake mushroom, Thai basil mixture is going to be part of a noodle dish for dinner. Whatever is left over will go into a mapo tofu dish. The remaining shiitake mushrooms are going to accompany a chuck roast that will be split up during the course of the week. They were sauteed and then lightly charred in my cast iron pan with butter, garlic, white wine, thyme and cream sherry. I eyeball everything I cook, and this is probably going to have to change at some point if I ever decide to publish a cookbook.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Food Thoughts and Thoughts in General

Hi!

Recently, I made my own version of this pie. It came out better than I expected. If you know me, I have a problem following a recipe to a T. I always have to put my spin on it; it’s the rebel in me. It’s probably also the reason why I’m not a very good baker. In a Chopped competition with random weird shit in a basket, I think I would come up on top though. I’m good at Shop-My-Fridge and Bastard Food meals.

I used not one, not two, but FOUR different types of flour. I know…WTF, right? Well, some time ago, I thought I would be a responsible-to-my-body type of cook/baker, so in a span of a few months, I bought coconut flour, hazelnut flour, and spelt. I use spelt flour and almond flour regularly, but the other two I have laying around in my fridge will expire soon. Hence, Bastard Pie Crust.

To make Bastard Pie Crust:

• 2 sticks of unsalted butter, very cold
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 tablespoons ice cold water
• 1/4 cup coconut flour
• 1/4 hazelnut flour
• 1/2 cup spelt
• 1/2 cup AP flour

Cut butter into cubes. Add to large mixing bowl. Add coconut flour, then hazelnut flour, then salt. Mix with your handy mixer or with your hands. I didn’t want to wash my mixing bowl, paddle, nor wipe down my KitchenAid, so I put it in a large bowl, and used my pastry cutter, and when it became more manageable, I used my hands. Add spelt and 2 tablespoons water. Mix lightly, then add AP flour and last of the water. Coconut flour really sucks in moisture, so add more water if you feel that the dough is not sticky. Pound onto a flour surface into a flat disk and refrigerate for at least an hour until ready to use. (You can also skip the flat disk step and shape into your pie pan but you MUST chill it. Don’t skip the chilling!)

I basically followed the recipe I linked to above in terms of cooking the apples lightly with miso. I didn’t have white miso, so I used red. It came out saltier than I would have liked, but there was still a savory component to it which I did like. The crust edges were crumbly, which I expected, but not to the point of instant dust. It held up well. It was nutty and delicious. When it comes to apple pie, I’m more of a crust girl. Where do you stand on this?

Unfortunately, Yobo is allergic to miso so while he ooohed and aaahed at my finished pie, he couldn’t have any. Somebody PLEASE invent an anti-allergen pill so my husband can eat legumes and their by-products with me! (Sister liked it though, and had the same comments about the saltiness.)

Final note: Because of the nature of my crust, I did not par-bake it prior to adding the apple filling. I baked it at 350°F for 65 minutes and then let it cool.

Non-food related thoughts:

1. I know this all over the web, but the attacks in Paris have been on my mind. What do they really want? What are they really trying to say with all of this violence?
2. This made me think about how I have developed ADHD these past few years. I’m on my laptop and I have 26 tabs open. Fuck. (Once, my BFF told me she had more than 30 tabs open on her phone.) I will never be a millionaire. I can’t multi-task and I can’t concentrate or remember things the way I used to. Lifehacker said it best:

You Can’t Process That Much Information Simultaneously

Dozens of open tabs signifies either procrastination on a truly epic scale or a chronic inability to focus on an immediate task at hand. Either way, it’s not the sign of someone working efficiently. I work as a journalist—sourcing information from multiple sources is a big part of the job—but I don’t kid myself I need thirty of them open at once. Absorb the data from one place, then move on.

More food and thoughts at another sporadic time!

Spaghetti Squash

(from Siriously Delicious)

Today I made an impromptu Shop-Your-Fridge dinner which came out amazing, but it was a lot of work. I forgot to take a picture (again–waah), but Yobo had SECONDS. To be fair, he usually has seconds when he can, but when I mentioned that seconds were available, his eyes lit up and he was very excited about the prospect.

I’m trying to be more frugal and more diligent about meal planning. I feel like I have ADHD with my good intentions. I can make lists to the high heavens, but to follow through is a different story. I’m definitely more of a planner than an executor.

Enough with the talking already! What did I make?

From the fridge: leftover homemade meatballs (made with sourdough bread that I soaked in water mixed with the last drops of heavy cream*) and homemade marinara sauce

From the produce basket: spaghetti squash. I have never cooked spaghetti squash before. I thought it would be fun to shred the innards to look like spaghetti. Man, it was so fucking hard to cut that sucker open. Maybe it was a good thing that I didn’t take a picture of that. I had to use TWO knives: my main Wusthof and my butcher knife. I actually googled “spaghetti squash hard to open” and this pic showed up. I couldn’t have taken a better picture. Giving credit where it is due, this is from Siriously Delicious.

So I nuked the squash when I finally was able to crack it in half. I smushed the meatballs and leftover sauce and added two heaping spoonfuls of tomato paste to half a cup of water and made a rough bolognese. I added the spaghetti squash to this new creation and it came out awesome. Since this “pasta” is healthier, that means I can drink more beer this weekend right?

Next time (for a food I haven’t cooked) in the near future, I will attempt to tackle rhubarb.

*Nothing goes to waste in this house, if I can help it.

P.S. It was going to happen sometime, but my Giada for Target white ceramic oil pourer crashed onto the floor and broke. I’m glad my clumsiness made the decision for me. I just had it lying around after I’d emptied the oil and transferred the speed pourer spout to another bottle. It was really beautiful and ergonomic, but I grew to hate that thing. I should find its link on a website and complain about how disappointed I was to learn that its ability to contain oil was a lie. I had to put a small dish on the bottom of it because was leaking oil. The rounded bottom edges were not sealed properly. And just in case you think that was a fluke, I was stupid enough to buy two of them. The first one got stolen during a catering gig. Both of them had this problem. Why can’t manufacturers test things first? What a waste…