For the kid’s party I am also planing making a hot hors d’oeuvre, stuffed mushrooms. The kids really like mushrooms, so I am constantly trying new ways to make them. This is a variation of one that I started making about a year ago. Jan does not like bacon (a childhood trauma), but this is for a crowd. I am going to use the bacon instead of butter. I will also be making a double batch.
Karl’s Scallop Stuffed Mushrooms
Filed under Side Dishes, Vegetables
The [trademarked chocolate and peanut butter confection] Challenge. I have recently discovered dark greens. For the last two weeks I have made a collard side dish. Gee, you don’t have to cook dark greens into sludge like our mothers did! Maybe it is time to revisit kale.
To meet this week’s challenge I will have to work in chocolate and peanuts, but for this dish the greens will be the star. A little peanut butter and ground nibs to give the sauce a thickness and base should be enough.
Karl’s Kale with Mushrooms
Filed under Side Dishes, Vegan, Vegetables
This week is barbecued lamb for Easter and the kids (except Eilene) love mushrooms. I am frequently trying to find new ways to spice them up.
Za’atar is an herb blend found (in various blends) throughout the Middle East. Apparently no one agrees on how to spell the translation (there are 9 variations) or which herb go into it (there are 4 possibilities for the primary herb, depending on the region of origin), but everyone knows they love it.
Karl’s Greek Mushrooms
Filed under Side Dishes, Vegan, Vegetables
Many people associate cream of mushroom with Campbell’s-assisted casseroles.
I did not grow up with these, so got to discover them as an adult (along with butter and cream). But that handy concentrated glop, even diluted, is nothing like cream of mushroom from scratch. I even convinced Chris of this fact, with this recipe. It’s loosely adapted from 500 Greatest-Ever Vegetarian Recipes‘ wild mushroom soup.
Miriam’s Cream of Mushroom Soup
Filed under Soups, Vegetarian MD
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
Miso soup is an almost daily staple of a Japanese diet. In the West many soups start with a base of chicken broth. In Japanese most soups start with dashi. The dried soup base, Hon Dashi, is sold in most supermarkets (at least on the West Cost). I have never been sure how much to use so I think I have been using too little, because if there are instructions on the bottle they are all in Japanese. One of the websites I was on while researching this meal was recommending 1 tsp. of Hon Dashi per cup of water. Since the bottles only contain about three tablespoons, it would take almost a whole bottle to make a soup for the family. See Karl’s Yosenabe for instructions on making it from scratch.
Karl’s Miso Soup
at the bottom
Filed under Soups
The kids really like mushrooms, so I am constantly trying new ways to make them. This is one that I started making about a year ago, but it is well worth repeating. Jan does not like bacon (a childhood trauma), but you may sauté the vegetables in the grease of 1 strip of fatty bacon instead of butter. If you do this, you may also crumble up the bacon and add it to the mix.
Filed under Side Dishes, Vegetables
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
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
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
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Jabberwocky Stew 