Chicken & pasta with mango cream sauce

Ingredients

• 16 oz. pasta (rigatoni works well, but whatever)
• olive oil
• 2 skinless, boneless chicken thighs
• 1 onion, sliced and separated into rings
• 1 red bell pepper, julienned
• 3 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 tsp fresh ginger, minced
• 1 mango - peeled, seeded, and chopped
• 1 cup whole milk
• salt and pepper
• parmesan cheese, to top

Cook pasta until al dente. Set aside.
Cook chicken with olive oil in a pan over medium-high heat for 10 minutes, or until juices run clear. What the hell does this mean? Who knows?
Cook onion and pepper in olive oil until tender. Mix in garlic, ginger, and mango, and continue to cook for 5 minutes, or until mango is soft. Pour in milk and cook until thickened, about 5 minutes.
Add pasta and chicken, and cook everything for a little bit longer (2-4 minutes), until chicken is all the way done and pasta is not al dente anymore (unless you like that sort of thing).
Eat.

Thoughts: The taste on this dish was pretty fantastic, but we used WAY too much pasta in relation to everything else. I would halve the amount of pasta down to 8 oz next time. Also, it would have been much more awesome if we had blended the cooked onion, pepper, mango, garlic, ginger, and milk together to make a smooth cream sauce. This was just way too deconstructed and uneven, if you know what I mean. If it were a cohesive sauce, there would be some mango flavor on all the pasta. The way we did it, there were huge sections of plain white pasta and some clumps of vegetables and mango. Not great. Not great.

Disaster Index: 3/10. Taste was good, presentation = not so much.

Coconut Sticky Rice with Nectarine

Ingredients

• 1.5 cups sushi rice
• 1.3 cups coconut milk
• 1/3 cup sugar + 3 tbsp
  
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 large nectarine, chopped

Wash rice well until water runs clear. Soak rice in cold water for several hours (preferably overnight).
Put rice and milk and sugar and salt in a pot and cook until the rice is done. Add more milk if necessary.
Put chopped nectarines on top.

Thoughts: Christ. Everything that could have gone wrong in this recipe did. The original recipe tried to get us to cook the rice by suspending it in a sieve over a pot of boiling water and steaming it. But we tried this for like, 45 minutes and it wasn't cooking. So we were like "screw this" and just boiled it as indicated above.
The nectarines were also awful. The original recipe calls for mango, but the only mango we had left was rotten, so we had to throw it out. And we were like "what other fruit could we use?" And all we had was a nectarine. The nectarine was not ripe. It was crunchy and tasteless. So we tried to cook it in some water until it softened. This took forever. And when it was done, it tasted awful.

Disaster Index: 4/10: Dan says 3 and I say 5.

Shrimp and Pork Pot Stickers

Ingredients

• 1 small (3oz?) can water chestnuts, chopped
  
• 1/2lb uncooked shrimp, peeled, deveined, and chopped
  
• 1/4lb ground pork
  
• 3/4c chopped scallions
  
• 1.5tbsp soy sauce
  
• 1 lobe ginger, peeled and minced
  
• 1tsp sesame oil
  
• 1 pack of wonton wrappers
  

This is pretty basic. Mix together the ingredients. Put in wonton wrappers. Then comes the fun part: figure out how to cook them. The original recipe says to fry them in oil, then add water and cover, cooking until the water has evaporated. This method keeps really true to the name "pot sticker", but was not terribly successful for us. Frying worked pretty well, but the wrappers got a LITTLE overdone for me. They were tasty, don't get me wrong, but it wasn't really worth the effort.

Thoughts: Maybe next time I would get different wonton wrappers... or, I don't know, plan on having them in a soup. We never tried just cooking them in boiling water. That might have worked. Probably steaming (on lettuce leaves?) would be the way to go, but it was late, and we were tired.

Disaster Index: 3/10 - provisionally. If we cooked them differently (steaming?) it would probably be more like 1/10.

Ma Po Tofu

or Dofu if you're cool.

Ingredients

• 1.5lbs soft (not silken) tofu
  
• 2tbsp chili bean sauce
  
• 1tbsp black bean sauce
  
• 4tbsp oyster sauce
  
• 1tbsp corn starch
  
• .25c peanut oil
  
• 4oz ground beef
  
• 1 lobe fresh ginger, peeled and minced
  
• 1tbsp garlic
  
• a few scallions, sliced
  
• 1/4c dry white wine (we actually used 1/8c mirin, and it worked?)
  
• 1 medium leek, cleaned and chopped
  
• 1/2c chicken stock (.5tsp bouillon plus water)
  
• 2tbsp soy sauce (we used a dark mushroom flavor soy sauce)
  
• cilantro, chopped (optional)
  

In a pot, bring water to a boil. Add tofu and remove from heat. Let it sit for 5 minutes, then remove from water and set aside. (I wonder what this does to the tofu...) In a wok or big pot, heat the peanut oil. Add ginger, garlic, scallions, and the beef and stir-fry until the beef is browned. Add the rice wine (or mirin) and cook until most of the moisture evaporates. Add the hot chili sauce, black bean paste, and oyster sauce. Stir together and cook for another minute until the oil separates. Add everything else except the corn starch and bring to a boil. Then add the corn starch (possibly whisked together with a little cold water) and stir until the sauce thickens. Top with chopped cilantro as desired. Serve over rice.

Thoughts: Claire thought this was a little spicy, but I really liked the amount of heat. Next time we'll probably add less chili sauce and we can do sriracha or something to taste. I felt that the leek was a little chewier than I'd have liked, and it didn't really add. I would replace it with more scallions. Also, the dish could have used a little more like 6oz of beef. Otherwise, it was really delicious.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Bran Muffins II

The ultimate bran muffins
Ingredients

• 1.5c wheat flour
  
• 1c white flour
  
• 1/2c honey
  
• 1/2c brown sugar
  
• 2.5tsp baking soda
  
• .75tsp baking powder
  
• 2c buttermilk or soured whole milk
  
• 1tsp salt
  
• 1tbsp cinnamon
  
• 3.5c All Bran cereal
  
• 2 eggs
  
• 1/2tsp ground nutmeg
  
• 1/2c vegetable oil
  
• 1/2c raisins
  

This is ridiculously easy. Preheat oven to 375. Mix all of the ingredients in a big bowl. It will be liquidy, but don't worry. Also don't worry about the whole All Bran cereal kicking around. It works. Trust me. Anyway, fill up a bunch of 1/2c muffin tins and bake for ~25-30 minutes.

Thoughts: These are SUPER delicious, very moist, not too sweet, and have a great crumb texture. The one thing is that they're hard to get out of the muffin tins, so you have to grease the tins really well. Otherwise, delicious.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Fried Rice 2

Ingredients

• ~2c leftover rice (where it's really dry)
  
• 8 stems of broccoli, chopped
  
• 2 large carrots or about 8 small ones, chopped up smallish
  
• 1/4 of a red onion, chopped
  
• 1tbsp chopped garlic
  
• 1tsp chicken bouillon (or veg)
  
• 1/2tsp soy sauce
  
• 1 lobe ginger, minced
  
• 1 egg, whisked
  
• salt, pepper, peanut oil, sesame oil
  

Heat peanut oil in a wide wok-like pot with garlic. Once it's a little cooked but not burnt, add the carrots, onions, and broccoli, ginger, sesame oil (about 2 tbsp), and a pinch of salt and pepper. Cook for a few minutes (5ish) until the carrots are tender. Push the veg to the side and pour the whisked egg into the pot. Stir the egg for ten seconds or so, then add the rice (the egg doesn't need to be done completely). Add the bouillon and the soy sauce and stir until the rice is warmed through and any clumps of rice are broken.

Thoughts: This actually tasted like fried rice should taste. Claire and I think it was the ginger and chicken stock that really made it. Texturally, the LEFTOVER rice is REALLY important - if you use fresh rice, it's just a gummy mess. Really, huge difference. In the future I would add some sauteed tofu or some chicken.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Zucchini Bread

Our first attempt at zucchini bread! Worked quite well. Makes 2 loaves or 1 loaf + about 9 muffins.

• 2 medium zucchinis, grated/skin on (we used a cuisinart attachment).
  
• 3 eggs
  
• 2c sugar
  
• 1c vegetable oil
  
• 1tsp vanilla
  
• 3c unbleached all-purpose flour
  
• 1tsp salt
  
• 1tsp cinnamon
  
• 1/4tsp baking powder
  
• 1tsp baking soda
  
• optional nuts or chocolate chips
  

Preheat oven to 350. Mix all of the dry ingredients together into a bowl. Add all of the wet ingredients and mix further. Easy, right? Pour half the batter into a 9x5 bread pan and the rest into a muffin tin... or else maybe you could make it more like zucchini-bread cake in a wider pan (like a casserole?). Bake for about 60 minutes and let cool 10-15 minutes before you try to turn the bread/muffins out.

Thoughts: I felt I could have used a LITTLE less sugar, though I'd have liked chocolate chips. Claire disagrees. This recipe takes a long time to bake. Make sure to take it out just a LITTLE early because of carry-over baking. Timing is tricky with this. For a single recipe I'd probably use 2 smaller zucchinis or one bigish one, 2 eggs, and half the other ingredients (except baking powder, which I would keep the same).

Disaster Index: 1/10