needing something healthy..

Last week after a gluttenous weekend full of chili and topped off with a visit to Chip Shop for some fried foods and desserts, on Monday we were in serious need of some healthy cooking.  When I want to eat really healthy I try to make some sort of substantive vegetarian dish.  A lot of times that means a veggie stir fry.  On Monday we didnt want to wait to for brown rice to cook (which takes close to an hour), so we made my version of veggie low-mein, using loads of fresh veggies and whole-wheat soba noodles.  It was delicious, and you can feel good about eating it (which you usually cant if you order any sort of low-mein from a Chinese restaurant). If you don't have soba noodles serve this over brown rice, which is what we usually do.

Everything cooks very quickly, so prep all of your ingredients first and have them ready to go so that you can throw everything in the wok when its time. If you don't have a wok use a large pan that can withstand high temperatures.

Veggie Stir Fry- Low Mein


1 head of broccoli, cut and steamed
1 onion, sliced
3 carrots, peeled and sliced on a diagonal
1 zucchini, sliced in half moons
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 inch piece of ginger, minced
3 scallions, white and light green parts sliced
1 tbsp vegetable oil
red chili flakes, to taste

1 can of water chestnut, sliced
1 can of baby corn

soba noodles, soaked in hot water until tender

for the sauce:
3/4 cup chicken broth
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
2 tbsp rice wine vinegar
1 tsp red chili paste
1 1/2 tbsp corn starch


Whisk together all of the ingredients for the sauce and set aside.  Cut all of the veggies that you will need and set them aside, ready to be used when needed.

Heat the vegetable oil in a wok (or large sauté pan) until its shimmering over a high heat.  Add the garlic, ginger and as much red pepper flake as you like. Saute until fragrant but before the garlic starts to brown, stirring constantly (about 1-2 minutes).

Add the onion and sauté until its just about translucent, about 2-3 minutes.  Add the carrots and cook another 2-3 minutes.

Add the broccoli and zucchini and sauté all the veggies until they are cooked through, about 5-7 minutes more (this is why you need everything prepped and ready to go - it all happens fast!).  Add the water chestnuts and baby corn, tossing to heat through.

 Add the drained soba noodles to the mixture and toss to coat (if using brown rice then skip this step).  Whisk the sauce that you put together earlier (the cornstarch sits at the bottom so you need remix it).  Pour the sauce over the mixture and toss through.  Let the mixture heat up and boil a bit - that activates the cornstarch. Once it boils a little the sauce will start to get thick.  Continue to toss the sauce veggies and noodles, coating everything with the sauce. Once everything is coated and the sauce is thick- you're done! Top with the sliced scallions and serve with a little extra soy sauce if necessary.

chili coma

An update from this past weekend is clearly in order.  Thanks first off to all those who came to the NY Chili Cookoff! It was great seeing so many of our friends come help us out, cheer us on, and pose as strangers to rave about our chili in line :) The turnout for this years cookoff was HUGE. From 12-3pm we had a continuous line to taste our chili, and ended up getting information from four separate people who want to work something out where they buy our chili.  I see a catering business in my future...

Prize-wise we didnt win any chili categories, but we DID win second place for best booth/showmanship, so I'll take it.  We learned a lot actually cooking two chili's during the cookoff. It takes a lot more organization that even we realized, and we came away with a better game plan for the DC 101 Chili Cookoff that we are competing in on May 12th. While we were clearly upset that we didn't place in the chili categories, we did see some flaws in the chili that are going to be fixed for May.  We're changing up our recipe a little, which means more test batches will need to be made.  I might seriously enter into a chili coma...

So here is the first shout out to all those in the DC / Maryland area - PLEASE get tickets for the DC 101 Chili Cookoff!! It's a really fun time every year, and we can definitely use your help and support! A huge concert follows the cookoff - this year the headliners so far are Cake and Incubus.  Eat a lot of chili, drink a lot of beer, listen to music - what could be better?

let the hunger games begin...

Here's a little reminder that NY cookoff is this Saturday April 21st - whoever is free and in the area should stop by! Here is an article that was written about the event - looks like last years cookoff was even bigger than we realized. It's co-sponsored by the Bronx Brewery so we can pretty much guarantee there'll be day time drinking, and right now the forecast looks like it'll be party sunny and 72 during the day. Who wouldn't want to come to a chili cookoff ??  And if you go, you can give our team all your tokens that you are given to hand out to your favorite chili of the day....

http://www.silive.com/entertainment/dining/index.ssf/2012/04/the_hunger_games_on_staten_isl.html

Butternut Squash Risotto

I've always loved risotto. It's one of those meals that always seems very fancy and special, but is actually incredibly easy to make.  It's a little time consuming, but well worth it.  It's a classic comfort food.  Some recipes I've seen over the years say that it takes about 25 or so minutes to make risotto. That's a lie.  It doesnt. It'll take you a while to make risotto, but the majority of the time all you need to do is stir it every couple minutes and add more stock to the pan. That's it. It's not a meal to make when you cant spend some time in the kitchen and plan on being outside of the kitchen the whole time, but you don't need to stand over it the entire time. But you will need to stir the risotto; there's no way around it. Just accept it and move on.  Risotto becomes delicious and creamy when the starches in the rice are slowly released by the cooking process.

What's great about risotto is that it can be made with almost anything you have on hand.  The base recipe itself is very simple: arborio rice, stock, onion, wine, cheese.  Then you can add whatever flavors you want to it - favorites we have done are a roasted red pepper risotto, mushroom risotto, spring vegetable risotto (asparagus, peas,  mushroom), and a chicken and vegetable risotto.  Once you learn the way to make risotto you'll be able to switch up the recipe on your own anytime. This time I used butternut squash since I had some that needed to be used up.

Butternut Squash Risotto
1 butternut squash, peeled and diced into 1/2 inch cubes
olive oil, salt/pepper

2 tbsp butter, divided
1 cup arborio rice
1 onion, finely chopped
1 cup dry white wine (something you would drink)
4-6 cups chicken or vegetable stock, preferably homemade
1/2 cup good grated parmigiana cheese

Steps
Toss the diced butternut squash with olive oil, salt and pepper and put on a sheet tray in a single layer.  Roast at 375 until the squash is tender, approximately 30 minutes. Toss about half way through to make sure the squash caramelizes evenly. Place the cooked squash in a bowl and set aside until later.

Heat up the chicken or vegetable stock in a sauce pan.  Keep it at a light simmer throughout the cooking process.

While the squash is roasting, melt the butter in a large pot  over medium high heat (I use a risotto dish made by Mario Batali, but you can use any good quality pot or a small dutch oven). Add the onion and saute until the onion becomes translucent, about 5 minutes.

Add the rice and saute to coat each of the rice grains in butter, about 1-2 minutes.  Add the wine and begin to stir the risotto.  Lower the heat to between medium and medium low.

Stir the rice every minute or so a few times around the pan. Once the rice absorbs almost all the wine, add 2 ladle fulls of warm stock into the pan.  Continue to stir the risotto every minute or so.  If while you stir it seems like the rice is sticking to the pot, you need to lower the temperature and keep a closer eye on the risotto, stirring it more.

The rice will absorb the stock you add.  You will continue the process of adding stock to the pan, stirring, and letting the water absorb the stock while continuing to stir it.  Generally, a good time to add stock is when you can run you spoon across the bottom of the pan and you can see the bottom of the pan for a second, like this:

Some recipes say this process will finish with three total additions of stock to the risotto - that's a lie! Sometimes it takes about 4 cups, sometimes it takes about 6 cups of stock.  If you realize that as you are cooking you might need more liquid than what you have simmering, add more stock or a little water.

Taste the risotto throughout this process - you'll be able to tell when the risotto is done.  Risotto rice should have a tiny bite to it still, but should be a creamy texture. It shouldn't be total mush, but it should be much softer than the usual rice you eat.  Then again, it's all up to you - if you like a risotto where the rice has more of a bite to it, then cook if for a shorter amount of time.

Once the risotto has reached your desired level of done-ness (for me, that's usually about 45-50 minutes of cooking), turn off the heat.  Add all the butternut squash to the pan and stir it around to combine. Add the remaining tablespoon of butter and stir into the risotto. Finally, add the parmigiana cheese and stir to combine.

Serve topped with some cubed butternut squash and more a little more parmigiana cheese on top.

DIY pizza

Homemade pizza is such an easy, fun thing to make.  You can top it with anything and feel good about eating pizza for dinner.  Usually when making pizza at home I will just pick up a ball of dough from my local pizza place -- you can usually buy a ball of dough for somewhere between $3-$5 depending on where you live. I've been on a big kick recently of using whole wheat flour and trying to reduce the amount of white flour that I eat on a  daily basis.  That in mind, I decided to try to make whole wheat pizza dough to use instead of buying the regular white dough that's usually used.  I've noticed that a lot of whole wheat bread/dough recipes use a mixture of whole wheat and regular white flour.  Whole wheat flour on its own is very tough and can be a little too dense for day to day purposes.  Combining it with white flour helps keep the dough light but gives you extra health benefits of using whole wheat flour.

I found a recipe online and decided to try it.  It takes a few steps but is really easy.

Whole Wheat Pizza Dough
1 1/2 cups warm water
1 tbsp dry active yeast (one package)
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups white flour


In a large bowl dissolve the sugar into the warm water.  Sprinkle the yeast over the water and allow it to sit about 10 minutes until it starts to get frothy. It should look something like this:

Once the yeast gets frothy add the salt and olive oil to the mixture and stir to combine.  In a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook, add all the whole wheat flour and 1 cup of the white flour.  Add the water/yeast mixture and start to combine on the lowest setting on the machine.  After a minute or so add the remaining 1/2 cup of the white flour. Let the dough hook do all the work for you and knead the dough for about 5 minutes, until the dough ball is smooth (if you don't have a stand mixer, knead the dough by hand on a lightly floured surface until smooth).

Place the dough into a medium sized bowl that has been oiled. Turn the dough to coat it with the oil, and place a clean kitchen towel over the bowl.  Leave it sitting in a warm place in your kitchen (I leave it near the oven) for about 1 hour.  The dough should just about double in size.

Punch the dough down and then dump it onto a lightly floured surface.

How you divide the dough depends on how many people you are making pizza (or calzones) for.  For two people, I divide the ball of dough into four pieces.  One piece makes one thin crust pizza for two, that takes up one pizza stone. If you make calzones, you can cut the dough into eights, or cut one of the quarters into half. The dough freezes great, so put three of the dough balls in the freezer and then roll one out to use that night (or freeze all four).  Roll the dough out and make it cover as much of the pizza stone as you can, like this (this is one quarter of the dough):

One of the best things about homemade pizza is that you can top it with anything you want.  On the pizza we made below, we brushed the crust with olive oil and sprinkled it with chopped garlic.  We thinly sliced zucchini and almost covered the pizza with zucchini slices.  We then dropped little mounds of fresh ricotta cheese over the pizza, sprinkled some chopped kalamata olives over it, and topped the entire thing with a little shredded mozzarella. Another favorite pizza uses tomato sauce, thinly sliced fennel and onion, and sausage, topped with mozzarella. Use whatever you like and whatever you have on hand.

Bake the pizza in your oven on the highest temperature it goes (mine goes to 550) on a pizza stone if you have it or a baking sheet if you dont have a stone. Cook the pizza until all the cheeses you use are melted and the crust has gotten crisyp.  Delicious!

Calling all New York and New Jersey'ers...

Maryland MANS Chili has officially been accepted to the New York Cookoff, being held on Saturday April 21.  Anyone and everyone can be there should come by to support our team and sample some delicious chili.  It's from 12-4pm in Staten Island in Old Richmondtown, rain or shine (but hopefully no rain). It should be a really fun event - it's our first year entering this one so I don't know many details, but you're guaranteed to taste many delicious chilis and have a great day - there'll be music and entertainment set up as well. But clearly you should come to support our team and help us win the People's Choice award among the other awards we plan on winning. It will be exciting for our team since this will be the first time that we are competing in the ICS chili competition, making the red and green chili on site.

Click here for more information and details.

Hope to see you all there!