Beef Bulgogi

This is one of the first recipes that I ever made, aside from fajitas.  It is from the Great Food Fast (from Martha Stewart's team of kitchen slaves) cookbook, which was what Alex bought for me a little less than two years ago when I first expressed an interest in cooking.  I made a few meals out of it and most were delicious, and then I fell back into the routine of eating out at restaurants again.  Naturally there are a few flops in this book (and too many fish recipes, gag), but this is truly one of the most scrumptious recipes that I've prepared, ever.  Alex wanted to veggie it to smithereens, and so I obliged and added some extra stuff.  In the future I'll probably be leaving out the added veggies, as I feel that the veggies included in the original recipe shouldn't have to compete with carrots and tomatoes to bring out the flavor of the marinade.

Ingredients *those listed in red are not included in the original recipe, and should probably not be in this one either.

• 1 lb rib-eye steak- steak substitutions here really detract from the overall awesomeness of this meal, so if you have the money then spend it!
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1 tbsp hot chile sesame oil- if you can't find this then toasted sesame oil with a sprinkle of red pepper flakes will do
• 2 tbsp dark brown sugar
• 6 garlic cloves- minced
• 1 tbsp peeled and finely grated ginger
• 2 red onions- cut into wedges
• 1 green bell pepper- remove seeds and ribs and slice into 1/2 inch strips
• vegetable or canola oil
• boston lettuce leaves for wraps
• carrots
• tomatoes
• bean sprouts 

Instructions

Start cooking brown rice right away according to the package.  This can take up to 45 minutes!  White rice can be cooked right away and then set aside once it has cooked, or it can be started later in the process.

Throw the meat in the freezer for 20 minutes, this will make slicing it into thin strips easier.

Cut up the green pepper and onion.
Combine the soy sauce, hot chile sesame oil, brown sugar, minced garlic, grated ginger in a bowl.
Pour half of the marinade over the vegetables, reserve the rest for marinating the meat.

Slice the beef across the grain into strips.  Marinate for 10-15 minutes with the remaining marinade.

Once the meat has been marinating for about 10 minutes, cook the vegetables in a wok with about two tsp of oil.
Once cooked, set the vegetables aside and use a paper towel to wipe out the wok








Cook the meat until it has been browned, then return the vegetables to the wok.  At this point I added the bean sprouts, carrot shreds, and tomato wedges to the pan.
Cook for a minute or two to reheat the vegetables.

Serve over rice or in a lettuce leaf. 

Soft whole wheat sandwich bread

Lately my culinary adventures have all been... unpleasant.  Which has put me in a depression that could smother out an emo kid's emotional distress.  I've made "gourmet macaroni", buffalo chicken burgers, and hummus.  All of which have probably made Alex start to question what I put in front of him at the dinner table.  The failures hurt even more because they all required more effort than I'm used to exerting.  My depression remedy?  Bread.  I mainly made this because I just got Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day  and wanted to dive in.  I also have a ridiculous amount of flour in my pantry right now, and would prefer to get it down to a manageable amount.  I made a loaf of bread and two burger buns with this recipe, and it is truly nom-nom worthy. 

I cut the recipe in half, so that I could remain sane (the original recipe created a boatload of bread).

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 3/4 tbsp yeast
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 1/8 cup vital wheat gluten
• 1 1/4 cups lukewarm water
• 1/4 cup honey
• 3 eggs
• 1/3 cup canola oil

Mix together the dry ingredients in stand mixer.
Mix together the water, honey, eggs, and oil and add it to the dry mixture. 
Cover with saran wrap and let it rest at room temp for 2 hours. 
You can use it right away, or cover it and put it in the fridge.  It can be used over the next 5 days.  If you don't use the dough immediately it will need to rest at room temperature for about 90 minutes after being refrigerated.

Baking instructions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Coat a sticky (vs. non-stick) loaf pan with Pam.  I don't use nonstick cookware or bakeware, because I'm paranoid. 
Coat the dough with flour so that you can form it into a ball.  Once you have achieved the perfect dough ball (ha), stretch it out into an oval that is as long as the loaf pan. 
Sprinkle with oats, sesame seeds, whatever.

Place the bread in the loaf pan and bake for about 50 minutes.  The time required really depends on the size of the pan used.
Remove, cool, chow down.

Hamburger buns
Instructions

From the original dough batch tug off as many bun-sized wads of dough as desired.  Form into a circle (add flour if necessary), and place on a cookie sheet that is lined with parchment paper.  Cover with saran wrap, press down on the buns, and let sit for 40ish minutes.  REMOVE SARAH WRAP (I forgot for a few minutes...), and sprinkle sesame seeds on top.  Bake in an oven preheated to 350 for about 20 minutes. 

Animal Crackers

The other day I stumbled across How Sweet It Is, and proceeded to spend practically every lecture that day bookmarking things that I want to make really really soon.  When I saw the animal crackers, I knew that I needed to devour some immediately.  Finding the cookie cutters turned out to be a real big B, but I was determined to not pay shipping and handling. I abandoned Alex in Game Stop, and then drove like crazy to every home goodsy store in the area trying to find these silly cutters.  Eventually I encountered them, and almost accidentally walked out of the store without paying because I was so frazzled from the whole ordeal.  I made the crackers this evening, because I had originally told myself that I was going to spend the whole night doing homework.  Ha. 

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup oats
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 4 tablespoons buttermilk (I used 4 tbsp of skim milk mixed with 1/4 tsp vinegar)
• Natural cane sugar

Grind up the oats, I used my awful and noisy blender.
I then dumped the ground oats into my mixer bowl, and added all of the other dry ingredients.
Once they are all blended together, add in the vanilla extract, honey, butter, and buttermilk separately and blend until that ingredient is fully incorporated into the mixture. 
Cover the mixer bowl and place in the fridge for a while (~30 minutes).
Sprinkle a pastry board with flour and roll out the dough to a relatively thin layer.   Add flour to the top of the dough if it sticks to the rolling pin.
Then stamp, stamp, stamp!  Make as many animals/boats as possible, then peel out the excess dough, roll it out, and make even more animals/boats!  Sprinkle/pound some natural cane sugar into the animals. 

Bake in the oven at 400 degrees for about five minutes.  I used my pizza stone to bake the crackers, even though my stone is broken in half :(.

Consume.

Kale Pesto Pasta

The last 24 hours have been AMAZING.  I got to hang out with the family and eat a bunch of cookies, got a new job (suck that, deli!),  tell the deli that I am quitting all that nonsense (I didn't even feel bad, not one bit), finally got the bread cook book that I ordered 3 weeks ago (seriously???), and hit up Penzey's Spices and bought some goodies.  Holy wow at Penzey's. I want to completely replace all of my spices with Penzey's, if not for the superior quality but for the cute containers.  There will be time for that once I live in America permanently...  Anyway, on with what I cooked first today!

I looove pesto.  I once had a friend who worked at Noodles &Company that would give me a meal for about one buck.  Needless to say, I ate at Noodles ALL OF THE TIME.  My go-to meal at Noodles has always been the pesto cavatappi, but these days I have tried to diversify what I get.  God forbid I ever get sick of pesto.  Anyway, I decided that I wanted a healthier and home made pesto sauce for some pasta, and this is what I came up with. I originally tried to grind up the kale with a spoon and a cereal bowl in a mortar-pestle fashion, but failed.  I then contemplated just chewing the kale up and spitting it out bird-style, but in the end I broke down and used my blender.  I hate my blender.  It's loud, smokes?, and is unpleasant to clean.

Ingredients

• 8-10 leaves of kale (much cheaper than basil)
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• feta cheese
• 2 peeled cloves of garlic
• salt and pepper, if desired

 Boil some water in a pot that is large enough to boil a whole piece of kale in it and to cook the amount of pasta that you want.  Add in the garlic and let the garlic boil for a few minutes.  Add in the kale piece by piece, and allow to soak for about 14 seconds (or long enough for it to mush down so that it isn't crispy anymore).  Remove the kale with a slotted spoon and place in a blender or food processor.  Once all of the kale has been boiled, add the garlic into the blender as well.  Add about 1/4 cup of the extra virgin olive oil, 1 tablespoon of cheese, and salt and pepper (I didn't add any).  Pulse or blend until everything has been torn to smithereens.  Cook pasta in the pot for recommended amount of time while this is going down.  Drain pasta, toss it in the pesto sauce, and top with more cheese. I ended up adding a lot of cheese throughout the devouring-process, I blame it on living in Wisconsin.

Neapolitan Pizza

I adore Neapolitan-style pizza.  My first taste of it was in high school when a Punch Pizza came to town, and practically every time I return home I make a stop there.  As I have gotten more familiar with Madison, I have found several Neapolitan pizzerias around.  For some reason nobody is as bonkers over this pizza as I am, so I don't get many chances to hit up any of these awesome eateries :(.

Luckily I found a new food blog yesterday, and was inspired when I saw that there was a Neapolitan dough recipe.  I quickly started fantasizing about this pizza, and started the prep work when I got home from the store today.  This dough should be made the day before, but I couldn't wait so I only let it sit for about four hours (and it was awesome).  I'm pretty sure that this is the best pizza dough that I have ever made, which has cut my pizza crust quest rather short.  I'm planning on making some whole-wheat modifications, so I can justify eating it every day. 

This recipe makes enough dough for several pizzas.  The exact amount varies on how large you make them, but it can make up to six.

• 4 1/2 cups bread flour, chilled
• 1 3/4  teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon  instant yeast
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 3/4 cups water, ice cold
• cornmeal, for the bottom of the pizza

Combine the dry ingredients in mixer with the paddle.  Add in the olive oil and  water, and mix until all of the ingredients are combined.  At this point switch out the paddle for the dough hook, and continue to mix on a medium setting for about 5 minutes.  The dough should not stick to the sides, but still stick to the bottom of the bowl.  Side note- I think that this dough feels so great that I would pet it if I didn't have cats that would appreciate the attention more.

On a tray or cutting board shape the dough so that you can easily cut it up into the desired amount of separate pizzas (I made four).  Shape each chunk of dough into a ball, brush with olive oil, and place each dough ball in its own freezer bag.  I threw two into the freezer for future use, and placed two in the fridge for immediate usage.

Allow the dough to rest in the refrigerator overnight.  Take the dough out two hours before use and allow it to come to room  temperature.  About half an hour before preparing the pizza turn your oven to its highest setting (mine tops out at 500 degrees), and make sure that your pizza stone is placed in the oven.  Shape the dough either by stretching it over your knuckles or with a rolling pin (I used the pin).  Place it on a pizza peel that has a layer of cornmeal already spread out on it, and place the desired toppings on the pizza.  LESS IS MORE.  This is not a chance to make a meat-lovers or garbage pizza, this is a chance to experience the fine flavors of just a few ingredients.  I never ever stray from my basic margherita toppings, because I am a creature of habit.  So this is what I put on my pizza

• my homemade pizza sauce
• slices of fresh mozzarella cheese (the good stuff, not the mozzarella that you put on sandwiches or your Americanized pizza)
• shredded basil
• another option is to add thin slices of roma tomatoes.  I used all of mine up in the pizza sauce, so I went without

When the pizza is prepared, it makes it much easier if you use a pizza peel to transfer it to the pizza stone.  I do not have a pizza peel, so I did my best with a spatula and spare hand (and semi-failed during the transition).  The pizza stone should be on the middle rack of the oven.  Bake the pizza for about 7-9 minutes, or until the toppings are done and the crust feels substantial. Remove from oven and allow to cool for a minute or two, if you can manage to wait.

The crust isn't very sturdy, so this is definitely a knife and fork kind of pizza!

For those without a stand mixer or pizza stone, check out the link above for instructions on how to prepare this.

 And just  because I make this pizza so often, here is a better picture of what it can look like

Pizza Sauce

I have a couple of jars of pizza sauce sitting in my pantry, but today I wanted to be lazy.  With regards to school that is.  So I decided that I would make my own pizza sauce, and headed to the store after class to pick up some sauce essentials.  I'm not sure if this actually saves any money in the long run, but it is definitely much more satisfying (and time consuming).  Aside from slicing the tomatoes up, it is pretty simple and I can't believe that it never occurred to me to make this before.  I went with a recipe from Dawn's Recipes, and tripled it since I bought quite a bit of tomatoes.  I modified the amount used of some of the ingredients, just to make it a little bit healthier.

Ingredients

• 3 cups of crushed tomatoes (I made my own)
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 1/2 tsp garlic, or 3 cloves chopped
  1/3 tsp dried oregano, or 1 tsp fresh chopped oregano
• 2 pinches of sugar
• 1 pinch of dried basil
• 1/4 tsp sea salt

Combine everything together in a saucepan and simmer until the sauce thickens up a bit.  Taste, and add more/different spices if preferred.  I'm planning on eating my sauce all up within the next two days, so I didn't actually go through the canning process, but I'm storing the sauce in jars anyway! 

Whole wheat pizza crust

Alex and I are fortunate enough to live within walking distance to one of the best pizza places in Madison (Glass Nickel), and found ourselves spending $20 on a pizza every time we got the urge.  And we get the pizza urge quite often.  Not only was this adding to our waistline, but it was also emptying out our wallets pretty quickly.  Then one day while we were at my future in-laws, we were about to order a pizza from some chain.  Wendy thought that we were bonkers and suggested making our own pizza.  I was a bit apprehensive, because all of the homemade pizzas that I have had in the past use those pre-made crusts that are absolutely blah.  So I was surprised/relieved/delighted when the pizza turned out to be fabulous.  It was also nice to watch Alex do all of the work for one (just kidding!).  I forgot the recipe (Wendy, will you remind me to write it down the next time we are over!?!?), but I have been experimenting with many others.  Many have been fabulous and relatively unhealthy or tasted fine, but were packed with whole grain and all of the wholesome stuff that accompanies whole grain.  A lot of "whole grain pizza dough recipes" use whole grain AND regular flour, but this one is legitimately whole grain.   I made the dough batch relatively small, but it was still large enough to feed two people.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups whole grain flour
• 1/2 tsp honey
• 1 pinch salt
• 1 1/2 tsp olive oil
• 3/4 cup warm water
• 1 1/2 tsp yeast

What to do

 Preheat oven to 425 degrees, place a pizza stone in oven.  Combine the warm water, honey, and yeast together.  Don't dump it in with the rest of the ingredients until the top is all frothy.

 Combine all of the remaining ingredients in a mixer and blend together.  Then add the frothy yeast concoction.  Blend together until you have a ball of dough, which should only take a matter of seconds.

Roll out the dough into desired shape.  If you want you can trim off the edges so your pizza is a circle.  

Pull out the rack that the pizza stone is on and place the dough on it.  Allow to bake for about three minutes.  I find that baking the crust makes it more able to withstand the weight of the pizza toppings.

Remove the pizza stone and place desired ingredients on top.  I only had Green Mill pizza sauce, mozzarella cheese, and a tomato on hand.

Place the pizza stone in the oven once again, and let the pizza bake until desired degree of "doneness".  With whole wheat crust this takes about 8 minutes.

My goal over the next couple of months is to find the perfect pizza dough.  Ideally the dough would consist mainly of whole grain, but I don't think that I'll be happy unless I add some bread flour as well.

Interesting note- I used to work in a pizzeria!  I had just been offered a job working at a local tv station, but being a stupid teenager I decided to work at a pizza place.  I got to work with my best friend Dylan, and your usual bunch of sketchy pizza place employees.

I still miss picking out what hair accessory I was going to wear that day (I was convinced that hair doo-dads got me tips), and hanging out with my buddy-boy Dylan :)