Rebecca’s Cooking Journal

Once you have mastered a technique, you hardly need look at a recipe again.

–Julia Child, page 3, Julia’s Kitchen Wisdom

It was so easy.

I cut up three leeks. I peeled and chopped three potatos. I simmered them in water for 20 minutes. I blended it with an immersion blender. I added some salt and pepper. And then we ate dinner.

Yum. My toddler son ate his all up and asked for seconds. We also had homemade bread (from the bread maker), which was yeasty and delicious.

I’ve always been afraid of Julia Child. I am not interested in mastering “French Cooking,” or at least I didn’t think I was. “Potage Parmentier” sounds very scary.

But Leek and Potato Soup I could make. Um. So maybe I’m going to trust Julia Child? I’ll try some more. Julia’s Kitchen Wisdom is right on my level and not overwhelming at all.

I haven’t been posting our weekly menus throughout the last few months, but here’s the listing of some of what we’ve been eating. Some repeats, a few weeks where I didn’t keep track at all, and some new recipes. I’m going to try to be better about variety, full balanced meals, and trying new things in November!

• Grilled grilled chicken quesadillas; lemon spinach
• French Toast
• Macaroni and Cheddar
• (Book club social treats) Congee and Deep-Fried Tarro Root
• Pumpkin Soup
• Kraft Macaroni and Cheddar
• Fetticini Alfredo with Grilled Chicken and Broccoli
• Cheese Pizza
• Carrot Soup
• (company) Ginger Chicken with Almonds; Coconut Rice; Carrots and Ginger; Chocolate Chip Cookies
• French Toast
• Ginger chicken and rice
• Kraft macaroni and cheese dinner
• meatloaf, mashed potatoes, carmelized carrots
• Pasta with Pears, Gorgonzola, and Ham
• Chicken Pot Pie and Buttermilk Biscuits
• Chicken nuggets; potato wedges; green salad with bacon and cranberry vinaigrette
• (company) Baked Chicken with Cheese and Apples; Apple Muffins; Green salad with apple slices
• Chicken quesadillas; smashed potatoes with scallions and bacon; green beans
• Bean soup
• Meatloaf; leftover mashed potatoes; frozen corn
• Onion Tart with mustard and fennel; arugula salad
• (snack) Bacon and cheese pretzel bites
• Mustard Chicken; arugula salad with potato wedges

I am afraid of yeast.

For some reason, I have always avoided breads and doughs that are made with yeast. But this week I’ve been reading Julia’s Kitchen Wisdom and Julia Child makes everything sound so easy. So I’ve determined to try yeast breads this week.

Last night, I made a simple onion pizza. My husband had made it a few weeks ago, so I knew it was going to taste good.

As I started with the first step, I was all nervous about making sure the water was the right temperature, making sure the bubbles were forming, etc. As I stood over the cup of yeasty water, my husband said, “Look! It’s farting!” Ha ha.

At any rate, I was nervous as I mixed the flour into the yeasty water. I was nervous as I kneaded it. And then all the sudden I realized that was  it! I prepped the onions (FYI, 3 pounds of onions was a bit too much) and an hour and a half later, I formed the now-risen dough into a few mini-pizzas, spread Dijon mustard on them, topped it with the onions and Parmesan, and there you had it! Onion Tarts!

We served it with an Arugula salad (I’ve been craving Arugula) with a mustard vinaigrette and bacon and apple slices.

“So Provencial!” my husband said.

“Pretty easy!” I said.

“Mmmmm!” toddler son said.

Get the recipe from epicurious >>>

My husband hates baked boneless/skinless chicken breast and thighs. It’s too boring, it’s too plain, it’s too “rubbery.” I like it and I find it easy, so the fact that he always complains about baked chicken makes me sad.

Emily Franklin’s recipe for “Autumnal Chicken” was one that I enjoyed. You wrap cheese and apple slices in a piece of chicken and bake it. I liked it. My husband did not. He thought it was too boring. It probably was: I should have made some kind of sauce with it. But the chicken was juicy and I just love apples cooked inside of things, so that was good in my book!

The other problem: the cheese. Ms. Franklin’s recipe calls for Istara. I cannot find “specialty” cheeses at my budget grocery store. So I used what I had in the refrigerator: cheddar. My husband did not like that either.

“Cheddar and chicken just don’t mix,” he says.

I’m getting tired of cookbooks that have recipes with fancy and expensive cheeses and other ingredients. Doesn’t anyone else live on a budget?

I made Emily Franklin’s recipe for chicken nuggets the other night. I was thinking it was a quick weekend meal, and that it would be delicious.

It certainly was delicious, but being an inexperienced cook, it took me quite a long time. I found I was breading each piece of chicken individually at first. Once I realized I could do many at once, it was much easier. (I know, I’m so dumb.) The breading Emily Franklin suggests is the normal flour, then egg, then breadcrumbs.

They were quite delicious. I whipped up some honey mustard (ingredients: honey, mustard, and a little mayonnaise). However. The time it took to fry and then bake the many little bite-sized nuggets was not made up in flavor. Next time I do it, I’m going to leave the chicken in strips, rather than small bite-sized bits.

I think Ms. Franklin’s entire point was that kids are familiar with bite-sized chicken nuggets: once they know Mom can make chicken nuggets better than McDonald’s they won’t hesitate to have Mom’s breaded chicken either. Since my son is still too young to have ever had McDonald’s, I figure I can just skip that step and go strait to the breaded chicken and other chicken dishes!

Too Many Cooks is my quest to create happy, healthy eaters without tricks (if you puree vegetables and add them to brownies, all you’re really doing is getting your kids to like brownies, which they probably already do). So this is not about sneaking healthy food into sweets. In fact, this is not about sneaking anything.

–Emily Franklin, Too Many Cooks, page 4

I really appreciate that, for that is my teaching method for my son too! I think he learns by experience and if something healthful, like vegetables, are tasty, he will learn to love them — that’s what I’m still learning myself!

Despite the lack of posts on this blog, I have been cooking.

I feel I am entering a new stage of cooking. Up until the past few months, I had to research out recipes and cook them. I had to write things down and plan ahead. In the last few weeks, I’ve been finding I’m more neutral to recipes. I read it and figure it out, and then I put it down and go cook the food, sometimes referring to it and sometimes not. It’s like the recipes are suggestions that I like.

I really like this. I want to be more of an “improvisational” cook, but I’ve always been tied to recipes. I’m feeling another wave of  reading cooking memoirs coming on and I’m looking forward to the recipes in them: not because I’m going to go and cook them ingredient by ingredient, but rather because I want to see what they do and how they arrive so I can likewise adapt in my own kitchen.

I have been cooking lots of the old regular recipes, many of which I’ve mentioned on here. If I posted my “what have I been cooking” list, it would look rather boring and repetitive. But there have been some new recipes and there have been some more “experimental” dinners: meals in which I just tried it and it turned out okay.

I don’t think I’m going to stop cooking by recipes anytime soon. Even with a recipe I get overwhelmed sometimes and feel like “it’s just too hard.” But I like where my cooking is going!

I made this a few times in the past few weeks. Originally it was for some dinner guests, but it was so easy I started making it just for us! I love adding new “regulars” to the line up.

I’ve always said I don’t like “Asian” food. I think my husband is right: I just don’t know what good Asian food tastes like! I used a half of a jar of mango chutney that I found on the international isle. Get the recipe »

(I can’t believe the month is two-thirds over and I haven’t posted any recipes yet! Oops!)

I hosted a book club for a novel that took place in turn-of-the-century China, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See. To make the book club fun, I made two foods that were mentioned in the book.

The first was Congee, which the main character, Lily served to her children and in-laws during a local outbreak of typhoid. While the other people ate diseased chicken and subsequently died, Lily kept her family alive with this simple rice dish.

I don’t think Lily’s congee was anything more than water and rice, but I added vegetables to mine, based on a recipe I found at the website Appetite for China. It was very good, although I put in too many sliced scallions. It was also easy; most of the work was slicing the vegetables, and then it simmered for a long time. I intend to make it again!

Get the recipe from Appetite for China >>>

For desert, I made Deep-Fried Sugared Taro. In the book, Lily met her friend Snow-Flower at a village every year, and they always ended their trip with a serving of this delicious desert.

Taro root is not a vegetable I’ve ever tried before. It tasted a little bit like potato, and so the deep-frying method made it a bit like French Fries. I then placed it in melted sugar, and so it was a sweet treat. Unfortunately when I made it, the sugar had been warmed for a little too long and had started to solidify again; it subsequently did not coat the fries very well. While I probably won’t ever try it again, I am nevertheless glad I gave it a try. Note that leftovers did not keep well as they got all soggy.

I got the recipe from Lisa See’s site. It was a fun way of making the book real for the book club meeting.

Get the recipe from Lisa See >>>