rice vinegar

Chicken Adobo

/ jeffreyw

I used the NY Times adobo recipe because it called for coconut milk – I’ve had a can languishing in my cupboard for too long.  Most recipes I skimmed over just went with what appears to be the consensus recipe ingredients of chicken, garlic, vinegar, soy sauce, bay leaves, and black pepper.After spending a few hours in the fridge marinating, I dumped the mixture out into a big pot and brought it to a boil.  I’m using some dark soy in my take on the recipe, I have mushroom soy plus a glug or two of sweet soy with the regular light soy, rice vinegar, coconut milk, 12 cloves of pressed garlic, bay leaves and ground pepper.  I tossed in some whole peppercorns as well.  Reduce to a simmer, cover, and give it a hour.Remove the chicken pieces to a bowl, increase the heat to reduce the sauce.  I went ahead and put  these thighs under the broiler to get some crust on them while I waited.Return the chicken to the reduction to keep them warm while the rice cooks.  I went ahead and steamed some broccoli to give my presentation color.  This dish is delicious.  I had some earlier in the week sans the coconut milk in the sauce, and turned it into a stir fry.

 

Slaw

/ jeffreyw / 4 Comments

I love having several varieties of sweet and hot peppers right outside the front door.  All of these are either sweet or very mild except for a lone jalapeno  The little hand held mandoline makes short work of slaw fixin’s.  I added a sweet onion and about 1/4 of a head of cabbage to the peppers.  I give everything a few chops with a chef’s knife before it goes into the mixing bowl.DSC_4058 [1600x1060]I sprinkle kosher salt over everything and add sweetened rice vinegar for the dressing.  I don’t use oil anymore except for an occasional touch of sesame oil when the mood strikes.  Celery seed works in this as will fresh grated black pepper.

Mmm…pasta salad

/ jeffreyw

TaMara’s macaroni salad had me jonesing for my own this fine day.

I didn’t follow a recipe, exactly.  I knew there needed to be pasta of some sort and a half bag of these bowties seemed to fit the bill.  I knew I wanted to use some of the cherry tomatoes our patio plantings are bearing for us.  Half the battle, right there.  Mayo seemed obvious, and that took me to the sour cream right there by it in the fridge.  So far, so good.  OK, celery, diced a few stalks, and that suggested celery seed, in went those things.  Onion, check-red bell pepper, check-dill weed, check-a little minced dill pickle? Why not, check.  Hmm..hard boiled eggs!  Yes, absolutely!  A little touch of sour?  Aah, some rice vinegar is pretty mellow, some sweet to balance the sour?  Splenda-splendid!  Some kosher salt and some black pepper and Ta Da!

Mmm…popcorn shrimp

/ jeffreyw / 2 Comments

I grabbed a bag of frozen shrimp and tossed them into the sink to thaw without giving them much attention.  When I finally looked I was a bit surprised to see that it was a big bag of peeled small shrimp.  Until I saw that I had been undecided about what I was going to do with them.  So happens that we watched a recorded showing of one of the cooking shows just last night where the chef prepared some popcorn shrimp.  I found the recipe first try with Google.

I had some frozen pot stickers that didn’t turn out so hot.  Kirk 1, jeffreyw 0

Let’s just say that when they say “stickers” that they aren’t referring to decals.

Those lumps to the left there are not really individual dumplings.  They are as one.  They are firmly, uh, married.  That’s it-they are one big happy family.  Look over there!—>

The dipping sauce for the potstickers was pretty good, anyway.  It is soy sauce, rice vinegar, a crushed clove of garlic, some red pepper flakes, a couple packets of Splenda, and a shot of sesame oil.

Since we are both diabetic I made only a small amount of  the spiced honey drizzle.  It was very tasty.  The red goop is Sriracha sauce.

Sweet ‘n Sour Chicken

/ jeffreyw

I thought I’d try a sweet and sour recipe for the chicken breasts I thawed this morning.  A quick search led me to this one. I pretty much followed the sauce recipe, swapping Splenda for the brown sugar.  Most of the recipes you see have pineapple as an ingredient but this one caught my eye because it didn’t.  I made a few additions, the shiitake mushrooms and the snow peas.

It was a decent dish, satisfying, but the sauce wasn’t quite what I had in mind.  I guess the store brand sweet and sour sauces with their day-glo colors had me conditioned to expect something different.

Used basmati rice for this dish-the new rice cooker did an excellent job on it, the grains were separate and it seems to me that basmati would make a really good base for fried rice.

Enjoy!

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