Super Money-Saver Mayo!

I decided to make tuna salad for lunch today only to find I was nearly out of mayo.  Fortunately, Brittany happened to, at that very moment, come across a recipe for it while looking up corned beef in Charcuterie. So I made some.

 

This stuff is almost stupidly simple. And remarkably cheap, you probably already have all the ingredients already in your house. I don't think I'll ever buy mayonnaise again.

Adapted from Charcuterie:

1 egg yolk
1 tsp water
1/2 tsp salt
1 to 2 tsp lemon juice, to taste
1 pinch white pepper (or black, white is just more aesthetic)
1 cup veggie oil
1 Tbsp white vinegar

(yields about 1 cup)

Mix the yolk, water, salt, lemon juice, and pepper in a small bowl with a whisk.
Once combined, slowly (very thin stream) add the oil while whipping.
Once the mixture starts to combine and thicken you can start adding the oil a little faster.
Once it's all blended together, mix in the vinegar. This wasn't in the original recipe, but mine came originally came out tasting a bit strongly of the veggie oil so I read the jar of Best Foods and saw vinegar on there so I tossed some in. Perfect! Tasted just like the store-bought stuff!
Add more lemon juice and really pretty much any other seasoning you like (garlic, chipotle, etc.) to taste.
If it comes out too thick, whip in a little more water.

Done! The hardest part is all the whipping.

Enjoy!

Mmm... Bagel sandwich...

Not a recipe this time, just a picture of yummy food.

Over-easy egg, cheese, avocado and a mix of homemade sausage and leftover Costco rotisserie chicken on a sesame bagel. Delightful.

Hawaiian Treat! Boots and Kimo's Banana-Mac pancakes

Once again, this is one of my favorite recipes.  I first experienced these incredible pancakes while on Oahu for a friend's wedding. One morning we drove to Kailua because he insisted there isn't really any point in going to Hawaii without making a stop at Boots and Kimo's.  This place really made me feel at home; it was the only place I saw on the island where people were queued around the block before the place was open.  Truly cured any home-sickness I may have had for Screen Door or Jam.

What they look like at Boots and Kimo's.

I don't remember the pancakes themselves being anything special, though I'm sure they were... It's the magical vanilla cream sauce that makes this dish.

Sauce:
1 cup Whole milk
1/3 cup Sugar (or 3 Tbsp honey)
2 Tbsp Butter
1 tsp Vanilla
2 Tbsp Flour
A pinch of Salt

Mix and boil for three minutes, cool for five.  Stir constantly to avoid burning milk to the bottom of the pan.  Careful not to cook too long or the stuff will get thick and custard-y (as happened to mine this time around).

Amazingly simple, and remarkable how so few ingredients can yield such an insanely good flavor.

Pancakes:
Really, it doesn't matter what pancake recipe you use, I used Krusteez because that's what I had laying around and I was lazy.  The important thing is to make them into Banana pancakes by throwing some sliced-up banana into the mix.

Presentation:
Now it's just a matter of plating the pancakes with a healthy drizzle of sauce and top with a handful of chopped macadamia nuts.  Definitely a rich breakfast and not something you're going to eat every day, but if I'd thought ahead, I would have posted this a week ago and given you fellows a leg up for V-Day breakfast.  Oh well. Enjoy.

What mine look like (better I think)

All of the best things, all in one place; bacon-cheddar-chive biscuits

Seriously, this is one of my all-time favorite recipes.  I first experienced this flavor trifecta way back in the good-ol' days of heading to the Bakery Bar after crew practice (2007ish; back when there was still a Bakery Bar down on Water Ave.).  Now they only exist on NE Glisan somewhere and I've never been there.  Definitely go there though, they make amazing cakes as well as pretty much any other sort of baked happiness.

Let's get started:

2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup cold butter
3 eggs
1/2 cup half-and-half  (I used 1% this time around)
2 cups sharp cheddar, shredded
4 slices bacon, crispy, chopped (sadly I used store-bought this time because I've been lazy lately and
   haven't cured any recently)
1 Tbsp fresh chives, chopped (I pretty much always use green onions. whatever.)


Preheat oven to 425 deg.
This is usually when I chop and crisp my bacon.  Someday I will be thrilled to use my own bacon for this recipe, I just didn't plan enough ahead this time.
Mix flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl.  I also just now remembered that I think I usually mix in a couple solid dashes of pepper just for good measure, but I totally forgot this time.  Oh well, definitely worth trying.
Cut in butter with a pastry cutter or two knives until it resembles coarse crumbs.
Beat together two eggs and cream until blended, add to dry mixture and stir until the mix is just moistened.
Stir in the cheese, bacon, and green onion; form into a ball. 
Knead the dough ten or so time.  It's important to not overwork the dough because you don't want the butter to melt and blend in with the mixture; it's those tiny chunks of sold butter that give biscuits their wonderful crumb texture once they are baked.
Roll out the dough on a heavily floured surface (and flour your hands, this stuff gets sticky) to about 1/2 inch thick and either cut with biscuit cutter or cut into triangles. Or I suppose you could just free-form them if you're feeling particularly adventurous.
Place on a lightly greased (or parchment-lined) baking sheet.
Beat the remaining egg with a splash of water and brush over biscuits (egg-washes are magic, and give baked things an amazing color/texture).  If you don't have a pastry brush; just smear it with your fingers, that's what I did for the first two or three years I made these.
Bake 14-16 minutes until they are lightly browned.

DEVOUR.

  

nomnomnom...

Yummm...!

Brittany and I have lately gotten into the habit of trying to recreate meals that we love from restaurants and the like. Chipotle burrito bowls have been pretty successful so far.
However; even greater than Chipotle bowls in the pantheon of brilliant lunch bowls, are the perfect balance of flavors and textures that culminate in the Yumm bowl.

If you are unfamiliar;Yumm bowls (from Cafe Yumm!) consist of brown rice, black beans, salsa, tomatoes, olives, cheese, avocado, sour cream, cilantro, and the secret, magical ingredient that transforms this average health-foody dish into culinary crack: Yumm! Sauce.

Now, in true Portlander  fashion; the first experience I had with this dish came from a local food cart called The Whole Bowl that was located on 12th and Glisan in the Pearl.  Since that time (2004) they have established a permanent location on Hawthorne and 44th and another one downtown somewhere. Same meal, more local feel. Worth checking out.

Anyway, enough chat, lets get to the sauce:
You can buy bottles of the stuff at Cafe Yumm! for something like $15 a bottle. Or, for significantly less you can make it in minutes.
I adapted this recipe from one I found on Peas and Thank You

1/4 cup almonds (or almond meal for smoother sauce)
1/4 cup oil
1/4 cup chickpeas (garbanzo beans)
1/3 cup water
1/4 cup nutritional yeast (bulk section at fred meyers)
2 1/2 Tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp minced garlic
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 tsp curry powder
1/2 tsp dried oregano (I didn't add this because I didn't have any at the time)
1/2 tsp dried cilantro
2-3 dashes hot sauce (tapatio for me)

Blend the almonds, oil, chickpeas, and water until smooth.  Then add everything else and blend until uniform.  If you want thinner sauce add a little more water.  I don't remember exactly what oregano tastes like so I'm not sure what the difference would be if I'd added it, I plan to try next time.  This stuff is so easy to make, it's easy to keep the ingredients on hand.  The recipe I read said this stuff will keep 7-10 days in the fridge but all the ingredients are dry or canned and will keep forever.

It snowed...

So I made verde sauce.

I've been wanting to make anything at all using tomatillos ever since I first saw them in the produce section. Intriguing little green, paper-covered tomato looking things. And finally, as I was walking around Whole Foods -I honestly don't shop there often, it was just the closest store at the time- looking for fajita supplies, I saw them and decided now was the time, so I looked up "tomatillo recipes" on my personal telecommunication device and bought a handful ($4.99/lb at whole foods).

This is the recipe I found on allrecipe.com for "salsa de tomatillo" from user SABRINATEE:

10 tomatillos, husked
1 small onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
2 jalapeños, chopped
1/4 cup cilantro, chopped
Salt and pepper to taste

I halved this and also added a pretty good squirt of lime juice because, well, why not. Though the tomatillos end up giving the sauce most of its sour flavor anyway.

The cooking part is super easy; boil te tomatillos about 10-15 minutes until they just start to burst, then throw everything in the blender and blend until it's the consistency you want, hen taste and season as you like. Just for fun I sautéed he jalapeño a bit before I cut it up to see if I couldn't give it a smoky flavor. I can't really tell if it worked. Anyway, the stuff tastes pretty alright, but not as good as the stuff at Muchas Gracias. I look forward to tweaking it more in the future.

 

[UPDATE: this sauce combined with some Worcestershire sauce, more lime juice, garlic powder, salt, and pepper to make marinade for the best GD fajita steak I've ever tasted.] 

Healthy(?) cookies!

Well, as some of you may heard, Brit loves to eat cookies. Unfortunately, though; her diet is a bit restrictive in the baked goods department. Fortunately, the current phase does allow for a certain amount of "slow carbs" which are things like whole wheat, quinoa, brown rice, yams, etc. So we decided to try whipping up some low cal/carb cookies.

For comparison sake I will list the recipe as written, and then list it as we altered it.

From the back of a bag of Ghirardelli chocolate chips:

2 1/4 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup butter
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
2 cups chocolate chips
1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

What we did:

2 cups whole grain oat flour (ground up oatmeal)
1/4 cup flax meal (ground up flax seeds) mmm... Omega-3s
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup + 2 tbsp olive oil (we ran out of butter and a website said this is equivalent to 1/2 cup butter)
1 cup stevia extract (no calories!)
1/2 cup sucanat (because we had it laying around so why no, I'm not convinced that it's healthier than normal sugar)
3 tsp vanilla extract (because I always use more than is called for)
2 eggs
3 tbsps cocoa powder
2 cups chocolate chips
1 cup sunflower seeds

-I'd like to interrupt here and say I just tried my first bite, fresh out of the oven, and OH MY GOD. So good. So, so good.-

Preheat oven to 375 deg
Mix flour, baking soda, and salt and set aside.
Blend butter and sugar until creamy, add vanilla and eggs (and cocoa).
Slowly add flour mixture, then chocolate chips and nuts.
Bake 10-12 minutes.
EAT.

Here's the thing though; recently our oven has gone to shit and takes 45 minutes to reach 375. Bullshit. This time it kinda worked out though because one thing I learned working in a restaurant is that refrigerating cookie dough before baking makes for much prettier, less puddle-y, cookies. So we had the time to spare. Also, I LOVE baking on parchment paper, then you don't have to clean the baking sheet s or destroy the cookies while transferring them to a cooling rack. And yeah, as I interjected above; these things are BOMB. They are lighter and less dense than normal cookies, most likely because of the stevia which is eerily light-weight; a 10oz bag has the same sweetness as 5lbs of sugar.
I'm not exactly sure how much healthier they are than normal cookies, but they are certainly lower calorie and higher in heart-healthy oils. I highly recommend them. And so does Brittany.

 

[UPDATE: after cooling and getting a little drier, these guys have gotten fairly crumbly, but still amazingly delicious.]