Creamy Wild Rice and Turkey Soup

This cannot make any claim to being health food, but it turned out really delicious. Mostly from the Reese wild rice package, as adapted by me (they didn't think of adding turkey!)

Wild Rice Soup

1/2 a stick of butter
3/4 cup onions
1 cup celery
1/4 cup flour
1 quart whole milk (I fortified it with some half and half I had in the fridge)
a cup, more or less, or cooked wild rice
cooked turkey in bite-size pieces (2 cups? I don't know, I didn't measure)
chicken base
1/8 tsp. white pepper (or black)

Melt butter but do not brown. Saute onion and celery till soft but not brown. Sprinkle flour over vegetables and stir well. Slowly add milk, stirring continually till thickened. Add cooked wild rice and turkey and barely simmer for a few minutes. taste and add bits of chicken base, dissolved in a spoon in the hot soup, to taste. Add white pepper. Do not allow to boil. Makes about 6 cups.

Chirinabe for a chilly night

This turned out so good! Ingredients cost about $27.

Broth:
1 quart of water
1 packet of dashi no moto
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 Tbsp. sake

Mix broth in a large bowl and pour into two nabes and heat.

Add, in this order, cut into large chunks:

enoki mushrooms
chicken tenders
salmon
black cod (could skip next time)
king crab legs (3/4 pound, 2 pieces, cut into sections)
large sea scallops
(next time include clams!)
a few leafs of nappa
large pieces of green onion

Simmer till fish is just cooked through.

Simply Spaghetti

Papa developed a craving for spaghetti this evening, and I pulled together a simple sauce that turned out fantastic:

1/2 pound ground beef (80% lean)
1 fresh sweet Italian sausage, cut open and chopped into pieces
1/2 ~1 onion, chopped
1 small can sliced mushrooms, drained, reserve juice
1 fresh green pepper, chopped
1 24 oz. jar of Classico Tomato and basil sauce
1 lb. Trader Joe's spaghettti

Yes, right, I had the half-tube of ground beef and a leftover Italian sausage in the freezer, and I quickly defrosted them in warm water. Not the recommended method, but that's what I did. When the meat was defrosted, I sauted it in the frying pan, chopping and breaking it up with a wooden spoon. When it was just about done, I added the onion (half an onion because that's what was in the refrigerator. a whole onion would be fine too) and green pepper and mushrooms and sauted a bit more. I didn't add (or subtract) any oil, what came out of the meat was just right. Stir with a wooden spoon till the onion and pepper start to soften. Pour in the jar of sauce and thin with some mushroom juice. Simmer for a half hour or so, adding more mnushroom juice as needed. Cook spaghetti, serve with sauce! It was yummy! I only cooked 3/4 of a pound of the spaghetti, but there's excess sauce, so it's enough for a whole pound.

Meat N Potatoes

Beyond simple. Russet potatoes in one pan, (peeled) sweet potatoes in the other. Total of 1/3 cup of oil (some olive oil, some corn oil, to save $$), and one packet of onion soup dry mix. 450 degree oven, 20-30 minutes.

And wagyu meat, cooked in butter for seconds.

Friday Night Lights

Pork Shabu-shabu, about to be enjoyed!

Thinly sliced Kurobuta (black pig pork, the good stuff), white mushrooms, enoki mushrooms, tofu, and spinach.
I never have pictures of the finished food because when the food is ready to eat, I forget all about cameras and documenting what I am eating!

And Old Faithful: we received this electric frying pan as a wedding gift 30 years ago. It is used for shabu-shabu, sukiyaki, and fried chicken, and it has never let me down yet. The temperature gauge is no longer readable and it's crusted in some sort of gunk, but it is irreplacable!

Greek Salad on a stick

For Deborah and Jeff's annual garden party, I decided to create a recipe based on a picture I tore out of a magazine. the original picture showed red onions, black olives, feta cheese and cherry tomatoes. I went to the farmer's market with that in mind and stopped off at Eliki's stall for my favorite feta. I told the guy what I had in mind and he had me taste test both black and green olives as well as roasted sweet red peppers. Sold!

So on each skewer I had a chunk of red onion, a chunk of good feta cheese. a grape tomato, a black olive, a chunk of red pepper and a green olive. I decorated the tray with fresh oregano. In a jar, I mixed together the juice of a home grown lemon, some olive oil, and some dried oregano, along with several grinds of pepper and sea salt. I poured that over just before serving. It was very well received--only a single skewer was left, and I pawned that off on someone so that I could take home the fabulous 99 cent store tray I served it on.

Deborah has many interesting friends and there was lots of good wine, good conversation, and tasty food.

Summer Squash

When I lived down south, summer or yellow crookneck squash was commonly served. Around here, it's mostly only gardeners who do much with summer squash. But I saw some at the farmer;s market today, and dragged out this old recipe, which I call Mrs. Rush's Squash Souffle, because I learned it from a lady named Mrs. Rush in Auburn, Alabama when I lived there. My husband really liked it, and my daughter, who thought she hated yellow squash, declared it good. I agree.


Mrs. Rush's Squash Souffle

4 cups (1 lb.) yellow squash cut into small pieces
1 small onion, finely chopped (maybe a cup?)
1 cup fresh white bread, torn into small pieces
1 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. pepper
1 egg beaten
3 T. whole milk or evaporated milk or half-and-half cream. (use nonfat at your own risk)
2 Tbsp. butter, cut into small pieces
2 tsp. bacon fat (saved from previous bacon cooking. or cook bacon to have on the side, if you don't have any bacon fat. Or maybe cook 2 strips of bacon and crumble them in?)
1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce

Cook squash in lightly salted boiling water till tender. Drain out well in a colander. Put squash in a 2 qt. casserole dish and mash with a fork. Add uncooked onions and all other ingredients and stir well. Bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes. It doesn't puff up like a souffle, but it does firm up and brown nicely. Makes 3-4 servings (about 4 cups total.)

Sukiyaki in the Summer

We recently discovered the joys of Wagyu beef, and decided to try it in sukiyaki. Usually we only make sukiyaki in the winter, but it's been a cool summer and besides, we discovered the joys of wagyu beef!



What is wagyu? The word means simply Japanese beef, and it's actually a breed of cattle indigenous to Japan. The Japanese, although they didn't begin eating beef till the mid 19th century, have raised it to a fine art. But the most surprising thing about wagyu is that it is naturally low in saturated fat and high in monounsaturated fat. Usually monounsaturated fats are liquid at room temperature, while saturated fats, like butter and lard, are hard or at least solid at room temperature. Well wagyu beef, if you leave it at room temperature for a short time, almost begins to melt.



And in your mouth? It does melt.

The vegetables are also yummy: enoki mushrooms, shirataki (sort of noodles), nappa, green onions, tofu, bamboo shoots.

Unfortunately, I was too busy cooking and eating to take any pictures of the finished sukiyaki. But trust me, it was good.

Very good Semi-Homemade Pizza

1 package Trader Joe's Plain pizza dough
1 container Trader Joe's pizza sauce (used less than half)
1 lb. Trader Joe's part-skim low-moisture shredded mozzarella cheese (used 1/3 or less)
1 pkg. Johnsonville Italian Sausage (not hot) (used half the package)
1 small can mushroom stems and pieces
1 can sliced black olives
1 onion, cut in half and sliced thin
1 green pepper sliced thin
olive oil Pam

Rest dough for 20 minutes per package directions. Use gravity to stretch it into shape. Spray pizza pan with olive oil Pam. Heat oven to 450 degrees.

Remove sausage from casing. Put a small amt. of olive oil in fry pan and break up and saute sausage meat. When sausage is almost done, add green peppers and mushrooms. At the very end, mix in onions and black olives and turn off heat.

Spread sauce onto dough. Sprinkle with cheese. Top with all ingredients. Bake at 450 for 10-12 minutes.

Exceptionally good Supreme pizza! Trader Joe's pizza sauce has some herbs and oil in it and is really tasty. Their dough makes a nice 12" size pie. I haven't tried the herb dough, but it also seems like a good plan--maybe bread sticks?

Somen Salad

Somen Salad is a great choice for a hot night. The noodles can be cooked in just 2 minutes, early in the day, and the whole meal can be assembled and refrigerated several hours before you eat. It looks so festive that it makes a great party dish, as well. More than 20 years ago, I received this recipe from my husband's co-worker, who was from Hawaii

Somen Salad

14-16 oz. package somen noodles, cooked for 2 minutes in boiling water, then cooled
shredded iceberg lettuce
3 slices ham, chopped
2 eggs, scrambled
1/2 a kamaboko, chopped (fish cake) or krab sticks
2 stalks green onion, chopped
1 Japanese cucumber, chopped
1 Tbsp benishoga (red pickled ginger)

Dressing:
2 Tbsp. sesame seed
2 Tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. salt
1/4 cup corn oil
3 Tbsp. rice vinegar
2 Tbsp. soy sauce

Spread cooled somen in 9 x 13" pan. Garnish with remaining toppings. Shake dressing up in a small jar and pour over.

These ingredients make enough for a party-sized serving, although in that case the dressing should be doubled. For a family of 3 next time, I will use the 8 oz. package of somen noodles, and keep the other ingredients and dressing as stated in this recipe. We added miso salad dressing as we ate it, which was delicious!

Pineapple Fried Rice

This turned out to be delicious!

1 pineapple, cut lengthwise, cored and chopped
8 oz. chicken tenders, cut into small pieces
5 oz. fresh shrimp, shelled and cut into pieces
1/2 an onion, chopped
3 green onions chopped
1 Tbsp curry powder
Thai fish sauce
soy sauce

Mini Cheesecakes

made for friends

Broiled Sanma with Kimpira

We've been planning a food blog for months now, and we keep forgetting to take pictures of our meals before we eat them. But today is the day.

Oyako literally means mother-child in Japanese. It's the name of a Japanese dish called oyako donburi, which is chicken and egg. And it's what Paul Simon was alluding to in his song Mother and Child Reunion. So this is the food blog for Kristen and Kristen's mom.

Friday nights in our house are always special meals-- usually Japanese dishes, always with rice. Tonight it was broiled sanma, known (if it is known at all) as "saury pike" in English. We cooked this shio-yaki, which just means sprinkled liberally with salt and broiled. The fish is oily, dark, and delicious. If you bite into the part that is the guts, it is bitter, but a tiny touch of that bitterness is part of the experience.

On the side, we had kimpira, stir-fried gobo and carrot with some seasoning and red pepper, as well as grated daikon, which is the perfect and necessary complement to fish. Eaten on the patio on a cool summer evening--what could be better.

Cooking by Mama, photography by Kristen.