Tomato Vodka Cream Sauce

Ingredients

• 28oz diced tomatoes, canned
  
• 2 medium yellow onions, chopped
  
• 2-3 cloves of garlic (we used jarred)
  
• 1/4c vodka
  
• 1c half and half
  
• 1tbsp butter, and some olive oil
  
• salt and pepper to taste
  

This is actually quite simple to make. Melt the butter in a few tbsp olive oil. Add the onions and garlic and sauté until the onions are translucent. Throw in the tomatoes and cook uncovered until most of the liquid cooks off. Depending on the surface area of your pot (and the heat of your burner) this could take anywhere from about 8 to 25 minutes. Add the half and half and the vodka and stir well. Again, let this cook about 2-4 minutes until it's thickened. Be careful - it will continue to thicken once you take it off the heat. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Now you can either serve as is or (like us) you can throw it in a blender on a low setting until it's relatively smooth. Serve over pasta.

Thoughts: Delicious. Just great. Seriously. Maybe could use some red pepper flakes? Maybe not.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Spinach Matzo Meal Gnocchi

Don't try this at home. Seriously, don't.

Ingredients

• 3 russet potatoes, peeled and chopped into smaller pieces
  
• 2 eggs
  
• matzo meal "cake flour" (finely ground matzo meal) (a lot of it - 2-4 cups?)
  
• 10oz frozen spinach, mostly thawed
  
• salt, pepper
  
• a little oil for frying
  

Boil the potatoes in water until tender. Drain with a slotted spoon and place in a cuisinart. Add spinach, salt, and pepper. Pulse a few times. Add eggs and pulse again. Now, slowly add matzo meal flour until the mixture forms a dough, which it probably won't ever do. Boiling these gnocchi doesn't work (we tried it). Instead, heat up some oil in a pan or on a griddle. Form dough into little gnocchigli and fry lightly until browned. Serve with herb cream sauce.

Thoughts: these won't adhere in the middle because of something having to do with matzo meal. I don't really understand it. Boiling them was a horrible mistake. Frying them worked pretty well, but they still weren't really very good. I don't think we're ever going to try this again. And doesn't pasta KIND OF defeat the spirit of Passover, anyway?

Disaster Index: 8/10

English Muffins

Based on Alton Brown's recipe. We never have powdered milk or shortening, so there are some substitutions. We'll see if it works out.

Ingredients

• 1tbsp sugar + a little
  
• 1tsp salt
  
• 2c unbleached white flour
  
• 2.25tsp yeast
  
• 1 + 1/3c warmed milk with
  
• 1tbsp butter melted into it
  

Put flour in a bowl, and whisk in the sugar, salt, and yeast. Warm the milk in the microwave and melt the butter into it. It should be warm enough that you can comfortably put your finger into it - you don't want it to be too hot or you will kill the yeast. Add the milk mixture to the flour and stir together. Cover and let sit for about half an hour.

When it's done sitting, heat a griddle to 300 degrees. Place metal rings such as cookie cutters or small cans with both ends cut off (cans like you get tuna or bamboo shoots in) on the griddle. Spray with PAM. Add batter to the rings (how much? I don't really know. It's trial and error. Maybe 1/8 cup.) and cover with something (like a cookie sheet). After 5 or 6 minutes, flip the ring and cook the other side of the muffin. Take them off and you're done.

Thoughts: Some of the english muffins (though not all) had a tendency to look a little underdone in the middle. This was because I used too much batter for the mold, but it was tough to tell when I was making them. Maybe I should systematize this. Otherwise, these turned out quite nice. Just make sure to split them with a fork rather than cutting them in half with a bread knife.

Disaster Index: 2/10

Limpa Bread II

This is another limpa bread recipe. We bought way too much rye flour so we've decided to make a new limpa bread recipe every week until the flour is used up. Stay tuned.

Ingredients

• 1 pkg yeast
• 1 cup warm water
• 1 tbp sugar
• 1 cup hot water
• 1/2 cup + 2 tbp brown sugar
• 1.5 tsp salt
• 3 tbp molasses
  
• 2 tbp butter
• 2 tsp caraway seeds
• 1/2 tsp fennel seeds
• grated rind of large orange
• 2 cups rye flour
• 5 cups all-purpose flour

Mix yeast, lukewarm water, and sugar in a container. Let it sit.
In a large mixing bowl, combine hot water, brown sugar, salt, butter, seeds, and orange rind. Stir and cool to a lukewarm temperature.
Add the risen yeast and 1 cup rye flour; beat vigorously until batter is smooth.
Add another cup of rye flour and 2 cups of normal flour. Mix well.
Now add enough normal flour to form a soft dough (lots). Knead dough for about 10 minutes.
Do the microwave trick. Put in greased bowl and cover with saran wrap. Put in microwave (don't turn it on, obv.) for an hour, or until the dough has doubled in volume.
Divide dough in half. For each half, press it into a rectangle, dimple it with your knuckles, fold it in thirds, press it flat again, fold it in thirds the other way, and form it into a loaf. Set each half to rise for another hour.
Preheat oven for 350 F. When preheated, slash the top of the bread loaf and brush it with water. Put the bread in the oven and cook for 45 minutes.
Eat.

Thoughts: This was pretty good. It was easier to make than the other recipe, but it could have used more molasses. If we were to use this recipe, we would definitely brush the top with molasses before baking, and we would also sprinkle seeds over the top. Otherwise it was comparable.

Chicken Curry with Bamboo Shoots

This is also based off of one of my dad's recipes.

Ingredients

• 1 lb boneless chicken breast
• 1 can sliced bamboo shoots
• 2 tbp red curry paste
• 2 cups coconut milk
• 1 cup fresh Thai basil leaves, torn
• 1 tbp fish sauce
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1.5 tsp brown sugar
• 12 kaffir lime leaves
• 3 segments of lemongrass, bruised.
  

Wash the chicken and cut it into whatever size you want. If the bamboo shoots aren't already sliced, slice them. Usually they come sliced though, so it shouldn't be a problem.
Pour 1 cup of the coconut milk into a pan. The recipe says "wok", so use a wok if you have one. We don't, so we just used a saucepan-type-thing. Bring to a boil over medium high heat, stirring constantly. Add the chili paste. Cook until the coconut milk is reddish. Add the lemongrass.
Add the chicken and saute until the chicken turns white. I don't know how you'll be able to tell, since it's sitting in red sauce. Just do your best. Don't eat raw chicken.
Add the rest of the coconut milk, the bamboo shoots, fish sauce, salt, brown sugar, and lime leaves. Bring to a boil again. Then add the torn basil. Turn off the heat.
Eat.
Steam some rice with this and eat it.

Thoughts: This was totally killer. I could have used another tbp of fish oil, but Dan doesn't really like it all that much. He actually doesn't want to put any fish sauce in it. So we'll have to think about that. Next time Dan also thinks we should steam the rice in a rice basket rather than like, cooking it on the stove top. Jasmine rice would be better too. We just used plain long-grain rice. I would eat this all the time. And it took like, no time at all.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Tom Yum Soup

This is based off of a recipe that my dad sent me.
Ingredients

• 4 cups chicken stock (or veg)
  
• 15 kaffir lime leaves
• 3 large lemongrass stalks, cleaned, bruised, and cut into 2-inch segments
• 3.5 tbp freshly squeezed lime juice --> should be 1 tbs
  
• 3 green onions, chopped
• 1/2 cup chopped cilantro
  
• 10 ounces firm tofu
• 1 can straw mushrooms
• 1 tbp roasted chili paste
• 2 tsp brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp soy sauce
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup rice, mixed with 2 cups chicken stock (or veg) (if you want to eat this with rice) --> should be 3 cups
  

In a large soup pot, bring the chicken stock to a boil over high heat. When stock is boiling, add the lemongrass and half of the lime leaves. We cracked them down the center (without breaking them) to release the flavors a little bit.
Reduce heat to a simmer and cook for about 5 minutes, until the lemongrass turns sort of a brown color.
While the soup is cooking, mix the green onions, the lime juice, the rest of the lime leaves (again, cracked down the center), and some cilantro in a large serving bowl. Stir to combine. Set aside.
After the soup is done simmering, scoop out the lemongrass stalks and discard. You don't want to eat these.
Raise the soup heat to high again and add the straw mushrooms, the brown sugar, the soy sauce, the salt, the tofu, and the chili paste. Stir well to combine. When the soup begins to boil, remove the soup from heat and add it to the serving bowl.
We cooked the rice with chicken stock and ate it with this soup. But you don't have to. Or you could use rice noodles as well (this might work better, actually).

Thoughts: This was really easy to make. It took like, 40 minutes (rice included). By itself, the soup probably took closer to 20.
Also, I misread the original recipe that my dad sent me and accidentally put 3 tbs of lime juice in the soup, so it was a little citrus-y for me. In the future, I would put like, 1 tbs in and then serve the soup with lime wedges on the side so people can control the amount of lime juice in the soup. If you find that the soup is too sour, add more brown sugar and that should cut the sourness.
Also, I intentionally put in half of the chili paste as was in the original recipe, and I'm glad I did because there was quite a bit of heat from just the 1 tsp.
I would say that shrimp would probably be good in this recipe too, if you aren't fond of tofu.
Overall, pretty killer recipe.

Disaster index: 2/10. pretty solid. thanks dad.