All of my girls have colds this week, so I decided to make garlic chicken soup. My mother, like most, swore by chicken soup as a remedy for colds. Garlic is also a natural antibiotic. And although a cold is a virus, it couldn’t hurt.
Category Archives: Main Dishes
Karl’s Cheese Strada
Before I left home for the first time, I sat down with my mother’s recipe box and wrote down my favorite dishes. Mom’s Cheese Strada apparently had eggplant in it (I don’t remember this being the case, but it is clear on the card that I typed up at the time). Since that time I have discovered that I am allergic to eggplant (No moussaka for you!), so I have rewritten the recipe to suit myself.
Filed under Breakfast, Casseroles, Main Dishes, Vegetarian MD
Karl’s Greek Lamb Stew
I like to have lamb for my birthday, preferably Greek Barbequed Lamb. Tuesday is my “Big 6-0,” so I really wanted something with lamb. There is a Winter Spare the Air Alert for San Jose, so BBQ was not possible. I decided to do a lamb stew instead, Greek of course. I looked at many “Greek Lamb Stew” recipes on-line, and while many of them seemed good, I thought I could do better.
Karl’s Greek Lamb Stew
Filed under Lamb, Main Dishes, Stews
Karl’s Chirashi Sushi
Adapted from La Fuji Mama
Eilene’s school break ends tomorrow and she wanted sushi for dinner this Sunday. To make a change up from my usual maki and inari shushi I decided to do Chirashi Sushi, scatter sushi. From what I have read, this is what most Japanese housewives serve at home, partly (I understand) because they are intimidated by the Japanese master chefs who can make the cut maki’s cross section look like flowers or fish. Who knew? I just started making maki back when I was 20 because I liked it and didn’t know that I was competing with anyone.
Karl’s Chirashi Sushi
If you scan through my archive of recipes you may find a number base on Japanese cuisine. There is a reason for this that goes back to my early family life. During the Korean War (back around when I was born), my father was a major in
Filed under Main Dishes, Seafood
Karl’s Ham and Beans
When Safeway had a half price sale on hams after Thanksgiving I could not resist buying one. This is a lot of meat for my three person household, so I sliced it into three ¾” thick ham steaks to freeze and I was left with a large ham bone and the grisly pieces at the end. For me this meaty bit says “Ham and Beans.
Karl’s Ham and Beans
Filed under Main Dishes, Pork, Stews
Karl’s Fish Tacos
By itself this dish is a common weekday meal in our house, because it is relatively quick, inexpensive and low fat (if you go easy on the guacamole and cheese). Any leftovers may be used the next morning as either cold fish tacos (still very good) or fried up with eggs for a really tasty omelet. It is also easy to scale this recipe up or down depending on how many people you have, as written it is good for 4 diners. Since I was planning to make Mexican Rice and Refried Beans to go with the tacos I knew that there would be plenty for a Sunday of five hungry people.
Karl’s Fish Tacos with
Karl’s Mexican Rice and Refried Beans
Filed under Main Dishes, Seafood
Karl’s Turkey Rancher’s Pie
Adapted from Rachael Ray and Cook’s Illustrated Recipes.
Jan wanted turkey and I was planning to make a turkey tagine this Sunday. Myr, however, has spent the week dodging missiles in Israel, so she was a bit off Middle Eastern food. I quickly switched to making a Turkey Shepherd’s Pie. This led to another hitch, it is Thanksgiving week and you can buy all of the whole turkeys you want, but a package of turkey thighs was not to be found. I finally settled on smoked turkey legs as the base of my pie.
Karl’s Turkey Rancher’s Pie
Filed under Casseroles, Main Dishes, Poultry
Karl’s Yosenabe
Adapted from http://rasamalaysia.com which adapted it from “Japanese Hot Pots: Comforting One-Pot Meals”
Yosenabe is a type of nabemono or one-pot dish. At first glance the Yosenabe recipes on the Internet were very similar and the directions were few (i.e. chop everything up, throw it into the pot and cook until done).
Karl’s Yosenabe Dinner
The traditional nabe pot is a fairly deep, round bottomed pot with a wooden lid that fits inside the edges of the pot. I am using a wide 2 inch deep flat bottom electric pot. For the amount of soup I made, a 3 inch deep pot would have been better. I struggled to keep the soup from boiling over onto the table.
Filed under Main Dishes, Seafood, Stews
Karl’s Lasagna
There are no bad lasagnas, only good and better lasagnas. This, and the fact that lasagna freezes well, keeps Stouffer’s in business. While each step of building a lasagna is not particularly difficult there are a lot of steps to the process. I use the term building, rather than making, because unlike most dishes where you put all of the ingredients in and stir, good lasagna is build layer by flavorful layer. While very delicious, lasagna should not be mistaken for a health food, even my low fat version is relatively high fat (lots of cheese and meat) and high in carbohydrates.
Karl’s Lasagna
This is one of those dishes from my youth. Lasagna was a dish that my mother would make very occasionally, because while being good it is also very labor intensive. In addition to everything you have to do today, in my mother’s day you had to boil and cool the noodles enough so you could handle them (but not over boil or break them). With the introduction of no-boil noodles the process is slightly easier.
I never made lasagna myself until Cook’s Illustrated printed “Faster Lasagna” in their Sept.-Oct. 2002 issue, where they passed a favorable judgment on no-boil noodles. Since that time I have used their recipe as a guide, but as usual I had some standard changes to what they consider perfect (lower fat and lower salt and with all that cheese why would you add cream?). When Myr asked for lasagna last week I decided to write up my changes to the C.I. recipe.
For me this is a dish usually I make for friends who are having a medical crisis. At my age, this has happened with uncomfortable regularity. After it has cooled Continue reading
Filed under Casseroles, Main Dishes, Pork, Vegetarian MD
Karl’s Basque Chicken in a Clay Pot II
Karl’s Basque Chicken in a Clay Pot II
This recipe started out as one of the challenges that Myr wrote about when she set up this blog. The Sunday before this dinner one word was announced at the dinner table, “Basque.” While I have been to Basque restaurants and I knew that I liked the food, I had never attempted to make any Basque dishes before. This is my idea of a good time, searching the Internet for a cuisine that I have never tried and knew little about.
What makes a dish “Basque?” The Basques live in the area of southwestern France and across the border in Spain. Continue reading
Filed under Clay Pots, Main Dishes, Poultry, Techniques
karllueck
Miriam
Jabberwocky Stew 