Masa Griddle Cakes with Poblanos and Goat Cheese

"Pretty freaking good!"

With those words, I have reached the summit. The husband is completely on board with this cooking thing and those three little words sealed the deal. Yes!

Masa Griddle Cakes with Poblanos and Goat Cheese

TOTAL TIME: 1 HR
Ingredients
1 1/4 cups masa harina
1 cup cold water
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 poblano chiles
1/4 cup pure olive oil, plus more for frying
1 onion, finely chopped
Pinch of dried oregano, crumbled
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1 garlic clove, minced
One 15-ounce can black beans, drained
4 ounces chilled fresh goat cheese, crumbled

Directions
In a medium bowl, stir the masa with the water and the salt until a soft dough forms. Divide the dough into 12 balls and flatten them into 2-inch cakes. Transfer to a plastic wrap-lined baking sheet and cover with plastic wrap. Roast the poblanos directly over a gas flame or under a broiler, turning, until charred all over. Transfer to a bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let stand for 10 minutes. Peel, core and seed the chiles, then cut them into thin strips.
In a medium skillet, heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil until shimmering. Add half of the onion and cook over moderate heat until softened, about 7 minutes. Add the poblano strips and oregano and cook for 2 minutes, stirring occasionally. Season with salt and pepper and keep warm. In a medium saucepan, heat the remaining 2 tablespoons of olive oil until shimmering. Add the garlic and the remaining onion and cook over moderate heat until softened, about 7 minutes. Add the beans and cook, coarsely mashing them with a potato masher just until creamy, about 2 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and keep warm.

Heat a griddle. When it is hot, generously brush it with oil and add the masa cakes. Cook over moderately high heat, turning once or twice, until they are golden and crisp, about 4 minutes. Transfer the cakes to a platter and top each with a dollop of the beans and a mound of the poblano mixture. Garnish with the goat cheese and season with salt and pepper. Serve right away.

Because these appeared to be little side dishes or appetizers, we cooked steaks to accompany them. That make it a pretty good meal. I halved this recipe and came up with five little masa cakes. And this masa stuff is interesting. It's corn flour, not corn meal like this Southern girl is used to. It's for tortillas, not cornbread. But it mixed up into this crumbly dough that packed well and flattened just fine. Kind of like slightly wet sand at the beach.


One thing that needs to be added next time is more heat - and by heat, I mean Tabasco sauce. We determined the beans could benefit the most from added heat, and the poblanos (of which I used two) didn't seem to add any heat at all. They rank just above "complete wuss" on the Scoville scale. The goat cheese is awesome, adding a dash of tangy goodness to the whole mix. I didn't have a griddle for the masa cakes, so I just used a pan brushed with oil. They probably could have gone for a little longer in order to achieve the optimum crispiness, but our steaks were ready and we didn't want them to be cold.

Finished product, all five of them

A close up - you can see the way it's all piled onto the cakes

This is a dish I would make again with a few adjustments. More heat is needed, plus I have to figure out a way to keep the cakes warm, specifically the beans. The beans and poblano/onion mixture cooled down very quickly after it all came off the stove. I even nuked the beans and poblanos before I plated everything and it still cooled down a good bit. So that needs to be overcome, but otherwise it's "pretty freaking good."

Mediterranean Salmon

It's always nice to throw some fish into the mix. It's a good, light meal that usually doesn't require much prep, and even though it seems expensive at the checkout line it much less expensive than what you'd pay for a comparable meal in a restaurant. Target even has some good frozen fish - ahi tuna, mahi mahi and salmon come to mind.

Mediterranean Salmon

Prep: 20 min.
Bake: 20 min. If your sun-dried tomatoes are packed in oil, be sure to drain and
pat dry with a paper towel before using.

Makes 4 servings

Ingredients
4 (6-oz.) salmon fillets
3/4 teaspoon lemon pepper

3/4 teaspoon dried dill weed
1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup coarsely chopped sun-dried tomatoes

1 (2.25-oz.) can sliced ripe black olives, drained

2 ounces reduced-fat crumbled feta cheese with basil and tomatoes

1/4 cup pine nuts, toasted

1. Place each salmon fillet on a 16- x 12-inch piece of heavy-duty aluminum foil. Sprinkle fillets evenly with lemon pepper, dill, and salt. Top fillets evenly with tomatoes and next 3 ingredients. Fold long sides of foil over fillets; roll up short sides of foil to seal. Place foil packets, seam sides up, on a baking sheet.

2. Bake at 400° for 18 to 20 minutes or until fish flakes with a fork.

This was incredibly easy to put together. Put the fish on some aluminum foil, throw ingredients on it, fold it up and stick it in the oven. Easy as that. Minimal cleanup. Pretty doggone good.

Raw fish ready to go in the oven. The Husband likes olives; I don't

Packed up in foil

Finished product. Yumm-o.

Beer Cheese Soup

There are a few truths that we hold fast to in life:

1. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.
2. The only sure things are death and taxes.
3. If you see this Beer Cheese Soup in a dark alley, train your sights and shoot to kill, leaving no survivors.

Beer Cheese Soup

1 T butter
½ C chopped onion
½ t minced garlic
1 t Worcestershire sauce
1 (12 fl oz) can or bottle light beer
1 (14.5 oz) can chicken broth
3 T cornstarch
2 C half and half
2 C shredded sharp Cheddar cheese

Melt the butter in a 4 ½ quart soup pot over medium heat. Add the onion, garlic and Worcestershire sauce and stir well. Add the beer and raise the heat to high and boil for 3 minutes to evaporate the alcohol. Add the chicken broth and bring the soup
back up to a boil. Lower the heat to medium-low and simmer.

Combine the cornstarch with 3 tablespoons water and stir until smooth. Set aside.

Add the half and half and shredded cheese to the soup. Stir constantly until the cheese melts. Then stir in the cornstarch mixture. Stir constantly until the soup is thick, about 2 minutes.

When I got home last night, I was pleasantly surprised to see the Husband was already in the kitchen chopping onions, measuring butter and pouring beer. He looked so happy and I was forever grateful for him starting dinner. I even went to a great bakery in town to pick up some small bread bowls to put the soup in. I was prepared for this to be a feast!

Boy, was I wrong.

The soup was thin, grainy, totally uncheesy and all I tasted was onion. It also never really thickened up. I know we followed the recipe to a tee. And then when I pulled the bread bowls out of the bag, there was a trace of mold on the bottom of the loaves. I had to cut off the bottom crust, therefore leaving no reliable barrier from keeping the soup from leaking out the bottom. Good thing the soup never even left the pan, huh? We tried a few spoonfuls each, added Tabasco sauce and more cheese and debated adding more ingredients before deciding there was no use in wasting more cheese/half and half/Tabasco if there was no guarantee those items would make the soup palatable. So we made burritos instead.

And to top it all off, soup doesn't photograph well. And yes I'm sure it has nothing to do with my photographic skills - what are you trying to say? At any rate, I took that as a sign that the soup must be evil and wouldn't stand for its picture to be taken.

My rating - this soup was a colossal failure. But I still love the Husband for trying and I know this wasn't operator error. The recipe just sucked.

Potato and Ricotta Gnocchi with Bolognese Sauce

This was another one of those "What the hell am I thinking" kind of recipes. It looks very intimidating, it's a totally unfamiliar cooking concept, and it requires a certain exactness in measurements that I simply don't seem to possess. But yet again, here I am staring down a recipe I am determined to make and I am not about to let anything stop me.

Potato and Ricotta Gnocchi with Bolognese Sauce
8 restaurant servings

For gnocchi:
• 1 pound Yukon Gold potatoes
• 1 pound ricotta cheese
• 5 egg yolks
• 1 tablespoon kosher salt
• 6 ounces all-purpose flour – by weight – plus more for dusting
• 1 1/2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

For sauce:
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 onion, small dice
• 2 stalks celery, small dice
• 1 carrot, small dice
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 pounds ground beef
• 2 pounds ground pork
• 1/4 cup red wine
• 1/2 cup chicken broth
• 1 tablespoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 cup tomato puree
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste

DIRECTIONS
For sauce:
Heat olive oil in large sauté pan until it just begins to smoke. Add pork and beef and sauté until golden brown and cooked through. Break large chunks with a wooden spoon. Remove cooked meat with a slotted spoon and pour off all but 1 tablespoon of liquid left behind.

Return pan to heat and when it just begins to smoke add vegetables and sauté until golden brown. Remove vegetables from pan and pour off remaining liquid.

Return pan to heat and add red wine, scraping bits from the bottom of the pan. Continue cooking wine until it reduces to a syrupy consistency.

Add chicken stock, tomato sauce, and tomato paste to pan and bring to a simmer. Add meat and vegetables and bay leaf to pan and return to a simmer. Reduce heat to medium and let mixture slowly simmer for approximately 30 minutes, or until liquid has reduced to a sauce-like consistency. Season with salt and black pepper to taste.

For gnocchi:
Peel the potatoes and simmer until they can be easily pierced with a small knife. Remove the potatoes from water and let them cool for 5 minutes. While still warm, pass the potatoes through a ricer and let cool for 5 minutes more.

Meanwhile, in a medium-size bowl, mix ricotta, egg yolks, salt, pepper and grated Parmesan. (If the ricotta is too soft or watery, line a colander with cheesecloth and set it over a bowl. Set the bowl in the refrigerator and let it drain for 1 hour.)

Add the potato to the ricotta mixture and gently mix by hand. Be careful not to overwork. Add the flour in two portions, mixing by hand and being careful not to overwork. Let the dough rest for 1 hour before portioning.

When ready, dust a clean work surface with flour and divide the dough into 4 portions. Gently roll the dough from the center outwards, stretching to create one long, ropelike piece. The dough should be about 1/2- to 3/4-inch thick.

With a bench scraper, cut the gnocchi into individual pieces approximately 1 inch long. Remove gnocchi to a baking tray dusted with flour. To cook, bring 2 quarts water to a boil and add 2 tablespoons kosher salt. Add 8 to 10 pieces of gnocchi and cook until all the gnocchi begin to float. Warm 3 to 4 ounces Bolognese sauce in a sauté pan.

Quickly remove from boiling water and add gnocchi to the pan with warm Bolognese sauce. Toss to coat and serve immediately.

Finished product


Just, wow. I had no idea I could cook something like this. The pot stickers were awe-inspiring enough, but this was just off the charts. From start to finish, it took about two hours to complete the meal, from the gnocchi dough having to sit for an hour to putting the sauce together. But man, it was worth it! For starters, I am never purchasing store-bought gnocchi ever again. Ever. I mean it. This was kind of time consuming, but the taste is one meeelion times better than that Target brand stuff I bought. Light, fluffy, doughy - all good things. I didn't have a gnocchi board:

... but I managed fine. These are mainly used to make ridges to trap the sauce, but this sauce was so meaty and had so little liquid that it couldn't help but cling to the gnocchi.

And the sauce - wow. First of all, I halved the amount of beef and pork and kept the other measurements for the sauce pretty much the same. I added more of the liquid, like chicken broth, tomato sauce/puree, red wine and tomato paste. However, I simmered it on the stove without a lid so all of that liquid evaporated and we were left with just meat. We got it a little more soupy right before we served it, but it tasted wonderful.

I also made the full amount of gnocchi and froze the extras before I cooked them. When cooking the gnocchi, there was no time table on how long to let them cook before they were ready. I found that it only took about four minutes before they started to rise to the top of the water. I wanted to keep cooking them for fear of them tasting under done, but they were so good.

This is another winner, and it will forever have a place in my recipe box. This would be a good company recipe to make for a dinner party or another big event. The trick would be getting the gnocchi to cook and keep them warm until everyone has a serving, but we covered the individual bowls with foil and that did the trick.

Tip: To freeze leftover gnocchi, place them individually on a large cookie sheet and place in the freezer. When they harden, put them in a Ziploc bag and seal tight. If you just throw them in a bag all together, they'll freeze into a gnocchi blob and will be very hard to thaw and cook properly. They thawed nicely in the bag overnight in the fridge.

Update: A week or two later, I thawed the leftover frozen gnocchi to have for another dinner. The gnocchi held their shape, but they didn't taste as good as when they were fresh. They also seemed a bit more doughy than when they were fresh. They weren't bad, but they're better the first time around.

Crispy Pork and Kimchi Pot Stickers

When I was picking out recipes for this quest, I figured I would have a mix of easy recipes and more complicated recipes. This fell into the "more complicated" category. Just looking at the kimchi and unseasoned rice vinegar made me twitch, thinking I would have to search the ends of the earth to find these items. Once again, imagine my surprise when I found these items at our local Big Box retailer. Oh unnamed massive retailer, you saved me once again but that does not change my distaste for you.

Crispy Pork and Kimchi Pot Stickers

TOTAL TIME: 1 HR
SERVINGS: makes about 36 dumplings
Ingredients
SAUCE
1 teaspoon sesame seeds
1/3 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup unseasoned rice vinegar
2 tablespoons water
1 garlic clove, minced
1 scallion, thinly sliced
DUMPLINGS
1/2 pound ground pork
1/2 pound kimchi (Korean pickled cabbage), drained and finely chopped
4 scallions, green parts only, thinly sliced
1 large egg, beaten
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1/2 tablespoon sugar
1/2 tablespoon soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
36 gyoza wrappers
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 cup water
Directions
MAKE THE SAUCE: In a small skillet, toast the sesame seeds over moderately high heat for 30 seconds, shaking the pan, until lightly browned. In a small bowl, stir
the soy sauce with the vinegar, water, garlic, scallion and toasted sesame seeds.

1. MAKE THE DUMPLINGS: Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. In a large bowl, combine the ground pork with the kimchi, scallions, egg, cornstarch, sugar, soy sauce, salt and pepper. Using your hands, mix the dumpling ingredients thoroughly.

2. Place 4 gyoza wrappers on a work surface; keep the rest covered with plastic wrap. Lightly moisten the edges of the gyoza wrappers with water. Place a level tablespoon of the ground pork and kimchi filling on one side of each wrapper and fold in half to form half-moons. Press the edges of the wrapper firmly to seal, making pleats for decoration. Lift each dumpling by the pleated edge, transfer it to the baking sheet and press down lightly to flatten the bottom; the dumpling should be standing with the pleat side up on the baking sheet. Repeat with the remaining gyoza wrappers and pork and kimchi filling.

3. In a large, nonstick skillet, heat 1 tablespoon of the oil. Add half of the pot stickers to the skillet, flattened side down. Pour in 1/2 cup of the water, cover and cook over moderately high heat until the water has evaporated, the filling is cooked through and the bottoms are browned, 8 to 10 minutes. Transfer to a serving platter and keep warm. Wipe out the skillet and repeat with the remaining oil, pot stickers and water. Serve with the dipping sauce on the side.

Freshly formed pot stickers

Blurry, cooked pot stickers

Yummy pork filling

The Husband made the dipping sauce while I mixed together the pork and kimchi filling. Now let me say something about this kimchi. It smells just like you would imagine - like pickled, spicy cabbage. Oof. And boy, does that stuff stain. And since the recipe calls for such a small amount, I still have almost a whole jar of this stuff still left to eat. I also have lots of those wrappers left, considering I halved this recipe. So it looks like we're having pot stickers again in the near future. But I completely don't mind because this meal was that good. We decided next time we would halve the recipe and add in a few pieces of sushi for each of us just to round out the meal.

I admit - I was a little afraid of this recipe. I'm now cooking for the Husband, too, and not just myself, so there is a lot more riding on my success or failure of dinner. Success - happy Husband. Failure - call Papa John's. But I can say with confidence that neither of us even considered calling the Papa once this meal was on the table. This was a total success! The dipping sauce really made the meal, and next time I may even sprinkle some of the sesame seeds onto the pot stickers before they go into the pan. We'll also add more of the kimchi since it doesn't have the kick we thought it would, and we would add hot chili flakes to the dipping sauce and maybe some chili garlic sauce to the filling.

I let them go in the pan for about nine minutes, and the bottoms had browned nicely and the pot stickers were a little chewy, but I imagine that's how they're supposed to be. They weren't inedible or anything.

Overall, this was delicious and while there is room to improve, I think these are good enough to eat as is.