The Fashionable Plate

Diner Breakfast

May 24th, 2013 by Blue Blinds Media Author

Food joke of the day:

How did the egg get up the mountain?

It scrambled up

A really good diner breakfast is one of the most satisfying meals you can have. The problem for me is, by the time I can actually get myself out of the house and to a diner, it’s no longer a good diner breakfast time. instead it’s usually around 12. So if it’s possible, why wouldn’t I just make myself a huge breakfast at home?

Funfetti pancakes

My big problem with making a whole, full breakfast myself is that I usually run out of steam after the first thing. Sure I can make pancakes, or eggs, but each individual thing takes so much effort to make up to the standard of diner fare that I have to stop after one.

But this time I decided to go all out and make everything I wanted from a diner: pancakes, eggs, and hash browns, and find little cheats to make everything both easy and good.

Cake batter pancake cooking

Some techniques, like adding some cake mix to the pancakes, worked well. Others, like replacing regular potatoes with sweet potatoes and trying to cook them in a George Foreman grill, sadly did not. In fact the potatoes were so unsuccessful I’m not going to include a recipe here. I strongly recommend cooking shredded sweet potatoes in a skillet. Keep them far, far away from any kind of grill surface.

The failed sweet potato hash browns

Pancakes (makes enough for 3-4 breakfasts)

1 cup white flour

1 cup vanilla/funfetti cake mix

1 tsp baking powder

2 eggs

1 3/4 cup milk

Mix all ingredients together. Pour enough batter for 1 pancake at a time on a well oiled and hot skillet/frying pan. Cook until bubbles form on first side, then flip and cook until golden brown on second side.

Eggs

4 eggs

2 tbs ricotta cheese

1 tsp fresh chives

goat cheese to taste

salt and pepper to taste

Crack eggs into bowl, whisk until smooth. Add ricotta and chives, whisk until well combined. Pour into buttered/oiled hot skillet, add salt and pepper. Scramble. When almost done add crumbled goat cheese, turn off heat, and continue stirring until cooked.

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Chicken Fingers and Fries

May 22nd, 2013 by Blue Blinds Media Author

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Food joke of the day:

What do you call a baby potato?

A Small fry

When I was younger I noticed a sign on the McDonalds store window saying that their chicken fingers were “now all white meat.” Not yet aware that “dark meat” was a thing, I became convinced that, previously, the chicken fingers had been made from some mysterious substance with nothing to do with chicken. It took me five years to get over that, and I still eat their chicken fingers only when necessary.

So you can understand why I was excited to develop my own recipe for chicken fingers. Not only could I spice them up a little bit and make them more exciting, I could also be absolutely sure that they were really, truly, 100% chicken.

I decided to go in the chipotle direction, largely because I’ve recently become obsessed with the idea of chipotle mayo. It may sound a little gross to dip chicken fingers in mayonnaise, but it helps the bread crumbs stick to the chicken fingers and it makes the chicken super tender and absolutely delicious. You won’t even taste the mayo once the chicken is cooked, just the crisp crust and smokey chipotle flavor. Marinading the chicken before breading it adds a whole other layer of flavor in my opinion, but if you don’t have time to deal with the marinade adding a little more chipotle to the mayo will work in a pinch.

The way I made these fries was a little bit lazy, I’ll admit, but while they weren’t completely perfect they did end up tasting pretty good. Basically if you cover potatoes with enough olive oil and salt they’ll be okay. If you want to cut the potatoes into real fry shapes rather than the super thin planks that I made they’ll end up with a much more fry-y texture, but cutting them up thin in any shape will work just fine.

Marinade

2 lbs chicken breast, cut into strips (however big you want your chicken fingers to be)

3 cloves garlic

1/2 can chipotles in adobo

decent amount of salt and pepper

~1/3 cup olive oil

Combine all ingredients except chicken in food processor. Mix until smooth, adding more olive oil if necessary. Put in Ziploc bag with chicken, keep in refrigerator for about an hour (or longer if desired).

Breading

1/2 cup mayo

2 tsp adobo sauce

1 tbsp leftover marinade (optional, if you want spicier chicken)

Panko crumbs

Preheat oven to 375

Combine mayo and adobo in bowl, in separate bowl put panko crumbs. Take chicken out of marinade and cover in thin layer of mayo mixture, then dredge in panko crumbs. Place chicken fingers on baking sheet and cook for 20 minutes, or until at least 165 degrees.

Fries

4 medium potatoes

2 tsp chile powder

1/4 cup olive oil (approximation, just enough to thouroughly coat potatoes)

salt to taste

Preheat oven to 450

Cut potatoes into thin planks. Add chile powder, salt, and olive oil. Stir to combine. Put potatoes in single layer on baking sheet and cook until golden brown.

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Pizza

May 21st, 2013 by Blue Blinds Media Author

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Food Joke of the Day

Do you want to hear a joke about pizza?

Never mind, it’s too cheesy

My big problem with homemade pizza has always been the crust. I firmly believed, up until yesterday, that it was incredibly difficult and time consuming to make. This misguided belief was always my main obstacle in making homemade pizza, even though it made so much sense to do so.

Onions caramelizing

As it turns out, pizza dough is one of the easiest yeast-based products I’ve ever made. I threw everything into the Cuisinart, mixed until the dough formed a ball, left it alone for an hour, and then rolled the dough out into perfect, thin crusts (I think of the non-circular crusts as charming rather than problematic). The dough will seem pretty wet but in the end that will make it much easier to roll out into thin crusts, so don’t be alarmed.

You can really do whatever you want with these pizzas. I personally love any kind of pizza with caramelized onions so that’s the direction I went in, but throwing anything on these crusts would probably be delicious.

Below I’ve included the ingredients I used in each pizza in the caption if you want inspiration, otherwise go with what you believe will taste the best!

Tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella, zucchini, shredded mozzarella

The fresh and shredded mozzarella work really well together here, the zucchini needs a lot of cheese to make it stand out. If you want a more prominent zucchini flavor I would recommend sauteing the zucchini briefly in some olive oil and thyme.

Ricotta cheese, caramelized onions, zucchini, shredded mozzarella

This one was good but could have been a lot better. It needed a little more salt, so next time I’ll add some salt to the ricotta before adding it to the pizza and also add more caramelized onions.

Goat cheese, caramelized onions (zucchini on half, but I would stick with just onions)

This goat cheese pizza was my absolute favorite, but if goat cheese isn’t your thing, or if you find its flavor too strong, I would mix together goat cheese and ricotta to soften the goat cheese flavor a little bit.

Ingredients for the crust

3 cups flour

2 1/4 tsp yeast

1 tsp sugar

2 tbsp olive oil

1 1/2 cup water

2 tsp kosher salt

Instructions for the crust

Preheat oven to 450

Combine flour, sugar, and yeast in Cuisinart (or stand mixer). Add salt and half of the water while mixing. Add oil. Slowly add remaining water until dough forms a ball (you may not need all of the water but the dough should be fairly wet). Place dough in oiled bowl and let rest, covered, for about an hour, or until dough has doubled in size. Split dough into 4 balls (number depends on how big you want your pizzas) and roll out until thin. Let dough rest for about 5 minutes, then roll again. Add toppings and place in oven on pizza stone (if you have one) or baking sheet with corn meal. Bake until golden brown.

Happy eating!

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Sushi

May 20th, 2013 by Blue Blinds Media Author

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Food joke of the day:

Did you here about the new sushi bar for lawyers?

It’s called so-sue-mi

I’ll admit: sometimes my tastes are incredibly unrefined. Sometimes I’m at a fancy, expensive sushi restaurant and, in spite of all the amazing sashimi and sushi options they have, all I want is a simple cucumber roll. And while the restaurants make a delicious cucumber roll, it always seems like a waste to go out for sushi and then order something so simple.

The solution to this problem? Homemade sushi. Especially if you’re not preparing an elaborate fish filling, it turns out to be incredibly easy.

If you want to go out and buy sushi-grade fish to make sushi with I applaud you, but for my experiment I stuck with vegetables and a Japanese omelet. For now I’m sticking with foods that pose a very low food-poisoning threat.

I happened to have a sushi rolling mat which made the process much easier, but if you use wax paper to roll your sushi with it should work pretty well as long as you make sure the paper is dry for each roll.

Keeping the rice layer and fillings very thin was also helpful in creating a more aesthetically pleasing roll, although the sushi tasted delicious even when it fell apart.

Ingredients

3 cups sticky white rice

2 tbsp rice vinegar

1 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp salt

10 sheets nori

Filling Possibilities

cucumber

carrot

avacado

japanese omelet

fried bean curd

Instructions

Cook rice. Combine vinegar, salt, and sugar. Pour over hot rice and stir until evenly distributed throughout rice. Place 1 sheet nori flat on rolling mat. Put small scoop of rice in the middle of the nori, then spread out in a thin layer to edges. Put fillings one line down the middle of the nori. Roll the sushi tightly, making sure to fold over the edge of the nori to surround fillings. Slice roll into 1-inch-thick medallions. Serve with soy sauce, ginger, and wasabi.

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Cook In Take-Out

May 19th, 2013 by Blue Blinds Media Author

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Have you ever eaten something so unbelievable good from a restaurant and wondered why you couldn’t create it at home? Really, what in the world should bar you from being able to eat pad thai every night and not worry about the cost or the fact that the delivery guy judges you when he delivers two orders of noodles to you, home alone?

It happens way too often that when I’m craving some particular food, be it pad thai, burritos, or dumplings, I automatically look to the take-out menu. But this week that all changes. Being of sound mind, and whisk, this week I’m focusing on developing recipes for foods that I usually eat as take-out.

Think about how self-sufficient and awesome you’ll feel if you try these recipes! And you can finally adjust them to get just what you want. Don’t like the cilantro in Chipotle guacamole? You don’t have to use it! Want chicken dumplings instead of pork? Go ahead!

Here’s the list of recipe ideas so far, please comment with any suggestions or additions!

-dumplings

-pizza

-sushi

-diner breakfast

-chicken fingers and fries

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Cookie Week Day 4: oatmeal lace

May 16th, 2013 by Blue Blinds Media Author

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Food joke of the day:

Did you hear the joke about oatmeal?

It’s a lot of mush

I’ll confess something: this recipe isn’t technically a chocolate chip cookie recipe. In fact, before this week I had never even thought about adding chocolate chips to these cookies. In my mind, they were perfect without any additions. But in the spirit of adventure, I went ahead and added chocolate, and, surprise surprise, they tasted pretty good.

By “surprise surprise” I actually mean “no surprise at all” because what cookie had ever not been improved by the addition of chocolate?

In my recipe I used big Ghirardelli chips because they were the only size of dark chocolate chips I could find. The bitterness of dark chocolate complements the sweetness in these cookies well, but I do think the chocolate would spread out more successfully with smaller chips. Next time maybe I’ll do the work of chopping up the chips, but honestly, pockets of dense dark chocolate aren’t the worst thing to appear in a cookie.

Ingredients

1 stick butter

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 tbsp corn syrup (honey works too)

1/2 cup flour

3/4 cup oats (not instant)

2 tbsp milk

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup chocolate chips

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350.

Melt butter in saucepan. Add brown sugar, corn syrup, milk, vanilla and salt. Bring to a simmer, stirring. Add oats and flour, simmer for 3 minutes, stirring. Take off heat and let cool for 10 mins. Add chocolate chips. Spoon batter in tsp size spoonfuls onto cookie sheet. Bake for 6-8 mins, or until golden brown (length of time in oven also depends on your texture preference).

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Cookie Week Day 3: Soft

May 15th, 2013 by Blue Blinds Media Author

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Food joke of the day

What kind of snack to monkeys love?

Chocolate chimp cookies

As I was trying to write this post, I was stymied by my inability to think of an adjective that appropriately describes the texture of cookie I was aiming for. Cakey? Light? Sponge-y? Fluffy? None of them seem quite right, and none of them are very appealing. I settled on soft, because that is these cookies’ defining distinction when compared to the chewy and crunchy cookies I made earlier in the week. “Soft,” though, doesn’t quite capture the satisfying feeling you get when you bite into a cookie that’s full, and easy to bite, and just comforting. It’s like biting a pillow, except delicious instead of feathery.

But I digress. The main point of this post is the development of this “soft” cookie recipe, which honestly was not an easy journey. After extensive internet research I discovered that most people believe that vanilla pudding mix is the answer to the soft cookie quest. Vanilla pudding being unattainable (read: I didn’t want to go to the store again), I instead focused in on the ingredient that I believed defined the success of the pudding mix: cornstarch.

However, just adding cornstarch to the usually cookie recipe does not magically turn them into soft cookies rather than chewy ones, as I somewhat unrealistically expected. Instead, you must adjust the flour-egg-butter ratio until the cookie has a more cake-like consistency.

Even though I’m a diehard chewy cookie fan, I still thought these cookies were incredibly good. Warm, with a glass of milk? Yum.

Ingredients

3 1/4 cup flour

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

2 sticks butter

2 tsp vanilla

1 tsp baking soda

2 tsp corn starch

1 tsp salt

3 eggs

2 cups chocolate chips (or to taste)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375

Leave butter out to soften. Cream butter in mixer. Add sugar and continue mix until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, add vanilla. Combine flour, baking soda, salt, and cornstarch in separate bowl. Slowly add flour mixture to sugar mixture and continue mixing until smooth and fluffy. Stop mixing, pour chocolate chips into batter and stir gently by hand. Refrigerate batter for 10 mins. Place tablespoon size spoonfuls of dough on sheet, bake for 8-10 mins or until very light brown on top.

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Cookie Week Day 2: Crunchy

May 14th, 2013 by Blue Blinds Media Author

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Food Joke of the Day:

What did the gingerbread man put on his bed?

A cookie sheet

Having never made crunchy cookies before, I approached this experiment with a little trepidation. I knew that melted butter and brown sugar made cookies chewy, and that creaming the butter and batter should make them cake-y, but I had no idea how to get the crisp, light crunchy cookie I was craving.

Lost in the dark, I eventually turned to the one recipe for cookies that I did know were crunchy: oatmeal lace cookies. The two things I took away from that recipe were a low flour to rest of batter ratio and the use of corn syrup in addition to white and brown sugar.

This combination is what gives the cookies their crunch

The simmering of sugars, butter, and milk is the step that really develops the caramel-y taste of these cookies, and although it can result in a chewier texture if the cookies aren’t cooked for long enough it results in a very light, almost melt-in-your-mouth cookie when done right.

The egg in this recipe is also optional; the eggless versions I made were delicious, but their texture remained stubbornly chewy. They essentially turned into caramel wafers and ended up with a texture similar to peanut brittle, while the versions of this cookie with egg rose slightly more (the egg and baking soda react effectively) and became airy and crisp.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cup flour

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

1 stick butter

3 tbsp corn syrup

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

2 tbsp milk

1 egg

2 tsp vanilla

1 cup chocolate chips (or to taste)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375.

Melt and brown butter in saucepan. Add sugars and corn syrup, stir on low heat until dissolved. Mix flour, baking soda, and salt in separate bowl. Add milk to sugar mixture and bring just to a simmer, add vanilla and take off heat. Stir flour mixture into sugar mixture, stirring until smooth. Let batter cool for 5 minutes (or until not uncomfortably hand-hot) and stir egg into batter. Let batter sit until completely cool, then add chocolate chips. Spoon batter onto cookie sheets in tbsp size spoonfuls.

Bake 9-11 minutes, or until cookie has little give when poked.