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.

Swedish limpa bread

Ingredients

• 1.5 cup all-purpose flour (plus extra, as needed. You'll see)
• 1/2 cup rye flour
• 1 package active dry yeast
• 1 tbp sugar
• 1.5 tsp grated orange peel
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp crushed fennel seed
• 1/2 tsp crushed caraway seed
• 3/4 cup water (plus 4 tsp, for later)
• 3 tbp molasses (plus 1 tbp, for later)
• 2 tbp butter
• 2 tsp coffee
• 1/2 tsp whole fennel seeds
• 1/2 tsp whole caraway seeds

Combine the all-purpose flour, rye flour, yeast, sugar, orange peel, salt, and crushed seeds in a large bowl. Whisk to combine. Set aside.
In a small saucepan, heat 3/4 cup water, 3 tbp molasses, and 2 tbp butter over low heat until it reaches about 120-130 degrees F. We just guessed on this one. Heat it for about 5 minutes or something. Stir in the coffee.
Stir the water/molasses/butter/coffee mixture into the dry ingredients with a rubber spatula. The resulting dough will be very sticky. Very sticky. And it won't look like bread dough. Add extra all-purpose flour until it does look like bread dough.
Turn in out onto a well-floured surface and knead for about 2 minutes. Cover with an inverted bowl and let sit for 5 minutes.
Continue kneading the dough for another 5-8 minutes, until the dough is smooth and elastic.
Shape dough into a ball, place in a large greased bowl (we used pam) and also pam the top of the dough. Loosely cover with greased plastic wrap.
Do the microwave trick and let the dough rise in the microwave for 75 minutes.
Turn dough out onto counter. Using your hands, press the dough down into a rectangle. Use your knuckles to dimple the bread. Fold the bread in thirds (the short way), press it out again with your hands, then fold it in thirds in the other direction. Pinch the seams shut. Drop this rectangle into the bread pan.
Cover loosely with plastic wrap and do the microwave trick again. Let it rise for an hour.
Preheat the oven to 350 F.
Stir remaining 4 tsp water together with 1 tbp molasses. Set aside.
After an hour, uncover the bread and make 3 diagonal slashes in the top of the dough. Use a bread knife or steak knife for this or else it won't work. Trust me. I've tried.
Bake for 20 minutes. Take bread out of oven and brush the top liberally with the molasses mixture. Sprinkle the top with the whole caraway and fennel seeds.
Bake for another 10 minutes. Take bread out of oven and brush top with molasses again. The top should be starting to look pretty dark at this point. This is normal. It is not burned.
Bake for another 10 minutes. Take the bread out. Let it cool in the pan for 5 minutes.
Turn the bread out and let cool for another 5 minutes. Eat it.
Ok. I'll just tell you right now. We skipped 2 out of 3 of the final steps. Can you guess which ones?

Thoughts: This was pretty sweet. And also delicious. I was worried that the amount of molasses in the bread would make it totally gross, but you can't really even taste it. The caraway and fennel are killer. Dan can't think of anything to add. We bought WAY more rye flour than we needed for this recipe, so chances are, we'll make this bread again, but using a different recipe. More to follow.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Meatballs

This is based off of a Rachel Ray recipe.

Ingredients

• ~2 lbs ground chuck/beef/sirloin/whatever. You could even use turkey.
• 2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup Italian breadcrumbs
• 2 tbs garlic, minced
• 1 tbs dried parsley
  
• salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 425 F.
Mix all ingredients together with your hands in a largish mixing bowl.
Make balls of about 1/2 inch and place on non-stick cookie sheet.
Bake in oven for about 10 minutes.

Thoughts: This recipe was ridiculously easy and quick. And it was also delish.

Disaster Index: 1/10