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Danny’s Classic Cole Slaw

Thank you Wayback Machine!

Slaw

  • 1   cabbage head (about 3 lbs)
  • 3-4   carrots, coarsely grated
  • 1-2   peppers (try three halves of different colours)
  • 1   onion, finely chopped (or spring onions, single bunch)

Marinade

  • 1/2 c.   sugar
  • 1 c.   vinegar
  • 1 tsp.   salt
  • 1 tsp.   pepper
  • 3/4 c.   oil

In a large bowl place shredded vegetables. Combine ingredients for marinade in a saucepan and bring to a boil.  Pour hot marinade over coleslaw mixture and toss well. Cover and refrigerate for several hours or overnight.

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No-Knead Bread

From Mark Bittman

Ingredients:

  • 4 cups flour
  • 2 cups room temperature water
  • 1/2 tsp yeast
  • 2 tsp salt

Directions:

  1. In a large pot mix the flour, yeast and salt.
  2. Add the water and mix the dough.
  3. Cover for 18 hours.
  4. Fold the dough a couple of times in the bowl.
  5. Wait 15 minutes.
  6. In the bowl shape the dough into a ball and dust with flour.
  7. Cover and wait for 90 minutes.
  8. Place your dutch oven, including the lid, in the oven and heat to 450° F. Keep the dutch oven there for 30 minutes after the oven has reached temperature.
  9. Cut a piece of parchment paper to a bit larger than the bottom of the dutch oven.
  10. Carefully take the dutch oven out of the oven.
  11. Place the parchment paper in the dutch oven.
  12. Turn the dough out into the dutch oven. Shake the dutch oven a bit side-to-side. Score the top of the dough.
  13. Cover and bake for 30 minutes.
  14. Remove the lid and bake for another 20-30 minutes.
  15. Remove from the oven and let cool for at least 30 minutes.

The actual recipe calls for turning the dough out onto a work surface and I always find that to be more trouble than it is worth: It’s messy and I end up losing a decent amount of dough. So instead I just do everything in the same large bowl. Either way you still end up with a nice round loaf (boule) of bread.

If you’re using a Le Creuset dutch oven the knob the lid comes with may not survive in the oven. You can either buy a metal one or just remove the knob and use its screw to plug the resulting hole on top.

 

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Sourdough Waffles or Pancakes

From King Arthur Flour

Ingredients:

  • 241g (1 cup) sourdough starter discard
  • 241g (2 cups) all-purpose flour
  • 454g (2 cups) buttermilk
  • 28g (2 tbsp) sugar
  • 2 large eggs
  • 50g (1/4 cup) vegetable oil or 57g (4tbsp) butter melted
  • 3/4 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp baking soda

Directions:

  1. You need to start this 12 hours before you want to eat the waffles or pancakes. Usually this means the night before but I’m not going to judge you.
  2. In a large bowl (Bowl 1)  mix the sourdough starter discard, flour, buttermilk and sugar. Cover and leave overnight.
  3. 12 hours later, in a small bowl (Bowl 2) beat together the eggs and vegetable oil or butter. Add to Bowl 1.
  4. Mix in the salt and baking soda. Wait a couple of minutes and it will start to bubble and rise. Now the batter is ready to make your waffles or pancakes.

Notes:

  • For whatever reason this recipe tries to stick to my waffle iron more than the recipes I used to use. Make sure to thoroughly oil the waffle iron and let the oil heat up before pouring the batter in.
  • I use buttermilk powder to make my buttermilk. I haven’t tried it with soured milk but I’m sure it’ll be as good.

I don’t make any changes to the King Arthur recipe because I have no way of improving on it.

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“Chicken” Corn Soup

OK, this one is mine. Good enough “chicken” corn soup in maybe 15 minutes.

Ingredients:

  • 1 L water
  • 2 bouillon cubes: chicken, fake chicken, or veggie
  • 500 ml frozen corn
  • 1 egg

Directions:

  • Start to boil the water in a pot.
  • Add the bouillon cubes.
  • Once the bouillon cubes have dissolved add the corn.
  • Blend it all together with an immersion blender until there are only a few bits of recognizable corn left.
  • Cover the pot and wait for the soup to boil.
  • Beat the egg and pour it into the soup while stirring the soup.
  • You can add soya sauce or sesame oil to the pot if you like or just let people add to their own bowls.

 

This is a reasonable facsimile of what you’d get from a restaurant that takes about as long to make as it does to boil 1L of water on your stove. You’re looking at maybe $1.50 in ingredients. This is Leila’s favourite soup but that might just be because she’s a kid.

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Soon Dubu Chigae

From Chubbypanda.

Ingredients:

  • 1 tbsp vegetable oil
  • 8-12 cloves garlic, diced
  • 1 cup kimchi, finely chopped and excess liquid drained
  • 1/4 cup kochukaru (Korean chili flakes)
  • 2 tbsp soy sauce
  • 1 tbsp sesame oil
  • 6 cups water
  • 2 blocks silken tofu, cut into small cubes or rectangles
  • 1-2 vegetable bouillon cubes (optional)

Directions:

  1. In a large pot heat the oil at medium-high heat (7 out of 10).
  2. Add garlic and cook until it starts to brown.
  3. Add kimchi and cook until all the liquid is cooked out and the whole thing is pretty dry.
  4. Add kochukaru, soy sauce and sesame oil, cook for 3-5 minutes.
  5. Add water and tofu and bring to a boil.
  6. Taste the soup, if it needs more salt or flavour add one of the bouillon cubes and let it dissolve. Taste again and add second cube if you think it needs it.

 

I think I found this recipe while I was living in Winnipeg. The recipe as posted uses beef and clams but I don’t eat beef and am not a fan of clams in soup. The recipe as posted also calls for adding salt at step 4 instead of bouillon cubes at step 6. Added salt might work if you’ve got beef and clams to absorb it but if you don’t the soup will be way too salty, which is why I say to add the bouillon at the end after tasting the soup.

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Grapefruit Cut-Out Sugar Cookies

From Kitchn

Ingredients:

  • 2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature for 1 hour
  • 2 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • freshly grated zest of one grapefruit
  • 3 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions:

  1. Beat butter, cream cheese and sugar together in a large bowl (Bowl 1) until light and fluffy. I used a hand mixer for this.
  2. Add egg, vanilla extract and grapefruit zest.
  3. In a separate bowl (Bowl 2) mix together flour, baking powder and salt. Gradually add to Bowl 1.
  4. Divide dough into 2 balls and roll each ball until between 1/8 and 1/4 inch thick on a sheet of parchment paper. Refrigerate the rolled out dough for at least an hour.
  5. Preheat oven to 350°F.
  6. Cut out cookies to desired shapes and bake for 8-12 minutes.
  7. Let cookies cool before decorating or enjoy as-is.

This is a slight adaptation of the recipe on Kitchn. I didn’t have any almond extract and used grapefruit zest instead of lemon because I was trying to get some use out of all the grapefruit peels we have. Tomoko says they’re the best cookies she’s ever had.

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The Best Pecan Pie You’ll Ever Make

Last week we bought a whole bunch of pecans, so on the weekend I decided to make some pie (we had people coming over). I’d made pecan pie once before, but I don’t know if it was the recipe or me but it tasted too eggy. This one just tastes like amazing.

Ingredients

  • An uncooked pie shell (make your own or ready made doesn’t matter)
  • 1 cup corn syrup (make sure it isn’t the white corn syrup)
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 90 ml butter
  • 3 large eggs
  • pinch of salt
  • 2 tablespoons bourbon (didn’t have this so I used 2/3 a teaspoon of artificial rum extract)
  • 2 cups pecans

Directions

  1. Put the sugar and corn syrup in a pot and mix well
  2. Boil this mixture at low to medium-low heat. Do not stir! After some time it will start bubbling a fair bit and the bubbles will be big, that is when you know it is done
  3. While waiting for the sugar mixture to boil measure out your butter (or margerine/crisco)
  4. Also while waiting for it to boil, in a large-ish bowl whisk the three eggs together and add the salt and bourbon. Don’t whisk too much, the goal is for everything to be evenly mixed NOT for the eggs to be fluffy.
  5. Once the sugar mixture has boiled take it off the heat and put the butter on top. Wait for the butter to melt.
  6. Put your oven rack to the lowest level and preheat your oven to 350
  7. Slowly whisk the sugar and butter mixture into the eggs. Don’t go too fast or you might end up cooking the eggs which would probably suck. Once it is all in the same bowl mix it until everything is mixed together (but no more) and then leave it alone for the 10-15 minutes it will take you to make the pie crust. If you are using a frozen pie-crust then just wait for 10-15 minutes.
  8. Put the pecans into your pie crust
  9. If there are bubbles on the top of your sugar/butter/egg mixture you may want to skim them off. Doing so will make the pie look nicer. It will taste great either way.
  10. Pour the sugar/butter/egg mixture into the pie crust. Use a fork to push any pecans that haven’t been coated by the mixture into the mixture. You want them to get coated because when they cook they will get a really nice crunchy coating on top.
  11. Pop it in the oven for 45 minutes or so. You’re done! It’s probably best to let it cool down a bit so that you don’t scald yourself on hot pie filling.
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Oatmeal Cookies

Makes about 30 cookies.

  • 3/4 cup butter, soft
  • 1 1/4 cup brown sugar, packed
  • 3 tbsp water
  • 1 egg
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 3/4 cup flour
  • 3/4 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 3 cups oats
  1. In a large bowl cream butter and sugar.
  2. In small bowl beat egg, water and vanila.
  3. Add egg mixture to sugar mixture.
  4. In other bowl combine flour, baking soda and cinnamon.
  5. Add into sugar mixture.
  6. Mix in oats.
  7. Place on greased cookie sheet and bake at 350F for 12-15 minutes.

Notes:

  • You can add 1 cup chocolate chips or raisins to add a little extra to the cookies. Add them before adding the flour mixture.
  • If you make the cookies flat they will be crispy, if you leave them thick they will be chewy.
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Hot & Sour Soup

Whenever Pakistani people go to a Chinese restaurant they order chicken corn soup, and for good reason – the stuff is good. But sometimes you want to try something different, and in 1988 in Agra (city of the Taj Mahal) I decided to give Hot and Sour soup a try (seeing how I would add lemon juice and hot sauce to chicken corn soup anyway, something called “hot and sour” would have tempted me sooner or later). It was alright, but nothing special. I go back to the chicken corn.

Fast forward almost a decade. It’s my first year at university and my parents have helped me move my stuff into residence. As a treat they decide to take me out to dinner and we end up at a Chinese restaurant in town. Perhaps in anticipation of a new phase of my life I decide to try something besides the chicken corn, and the only soup not screaming pork was the hot and sour so I ordered it. This time it was so very, very good. Whenever the opportunity presented itself I would order hot and sour. However, with no Chinese restaurant near campus opportunities were few and far between.

Fast forward a few years. I’m off rez now and have to cook my own food. At some point an idea comes to me: I can make the soup myself. The internet is searched for recipes, many are tried. None are good enough. But combining the knowledge from the various recipes the best one is modified until I’m happy with it (not unlike the various smaller robots combining to make Voltron). But this recipe comes with a price – no longer am I satisfied with the hot and sour at restaurants, only mine will do.

When I went to Japan I had the recipe burned onto a CD along with other important files (resumes, computer account information, and so on) so that it wouldn’t be lost. It’s pretty much memorized, but something could happen causing me to forget (think blunt head trauma) and having it in front of me makes it less likely I’ll forget a key ingredient when grocery shopping.

I figure I’ll share it with the rest of the world.

Continue reading “Hot & Sour Soup”
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Mmm… Muffins (Oatmeal Chocolate Chip)

Last Tuesday I was hungry between classes and I ended up buying a muffin. The muffin was good and I was no longer hungry. Then it happened again later in the week. Again, the muffin was good but I felt bad about paying $1.25 for something I could easily make at home. So, Friday I bought a muffin pan, and on Sunday I made them. Here’s the recipe:

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Muffins (makes 12)
Ingredients:

1 1/4 cups quick cooking oats
1 1/4 cups milk
1 egg
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt

Directions

  1. Combine oats and milk and leave them alone for 15 minutes.
  2. Preheat oven to 400F (205C).
  3. Add egg, oil, brown sugar, chocolate chips and walnuts into the oats and milk.
  4. In a seperate bowl mix the flour, baking powder and salt.
  5. Add oat mixture to the flour mixture and mix.
  6. Put the mixture into a greased mufifn tin (you don’t have to grease the tin if you are using baking cups), it won’t rise too much so you can fill it up.
  7. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until it looks good.