Today I published a Review of The New Southern Table on my Cookbook Review site, CookbookAuthority.com. In addition to the review, I provide the full recipe for Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Sage Brown Butter Sauce. The recipe for the Gnocchi comes from Brys Stephen's cookbook, but I actually made up the Sage brown butter sauce myself (I was inspired when I found out we have a sage bush growing in our backyard!)
Sweet Potato Gnocchi
The Gnocchi is chewy, but light with just the right hint of sweetnees. The brown butter sauce is tangy, decadent and delicious! I was a bit intimidated to make gnocchi, but it turns out that it's really easy to make. Stop on over and get the recipe for Sweet Potato Gnocchi. The Mad Scientist, Littlest and I all loved it, and I am definitely going to make it again.
Nearly a week ago, I promised to show you how to use up the leftover perfect grilled veggies. I hope that you weren't waiting with bated breath, because you would be dead now. I also hope that you found something to do with those veggies, because they really only last for about 4-5 days in the fridge. The reason for my delay is that I've decided to start another blog where I write cookbook reviews. My inspiration for this blog originally, was to share recipes that I've adapted from around the web, but I've found that my day to day cooking tends to be inspired more by cookbooks than from websites. Go figure. Starting the cookbook review website (called Cookbook Authority) was a natural extension of this website, but I think the cookbook review website has more monetization opportunity than this one, so this site is now officially a hobby website, where I can post whenever the fancy strikes me. Which I hope is often, as I've been thoroughly enjoying writing and cooking for this website. And onto the sandwich. This sandwich is one of the more wonderful tasting sandwiches that I've made primarily because it's eaten on fresh, warm, homemade tortillas, and it has a fancy sauce called Remoulade. In case you were wondering, Remoulade is nothing but fancy mayo, whereas aioli is nothing but fancy mayo with garlic. In addition to the warm, bready tortilla, and the tangy sauce, the sandwich has creamy avocado, perfectly seasoned leftover vegetables, and delicious roasted chicken. It has so many unique flavors and textures going on, but they all work together perfectly. Now, before I give you the recipe for this sandwich, I want you to know that I will not give you sandwich assembly directions. This is because one of my earliest cooking memories was getting a Kraft Recipe Magazine, and I showed my Dad a recipe for a sandwich and he remarked how ridiculous it was that they gave assembly directions, as if a person didn't know how to assemble a sandwich. I don't know why that has stuck with me so much, but since it has, I will only give you directions on the parts that require directions. The most important part of this recipe is the homemade tortillas, which are as ridiculously quick and simple as they are delicious. They come from a cookbook called Djiboutilious which is written by my old babysitter, Rachel Pieh Jones who is a ridiculously cool person and a fabulous writer (at least it appears that way online, I haven't seen her in about 20 years, so I can't say for sure). If you need to use up those leftover veggies, this is definitely the way to do it, enjoy!
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Fancy Veggie Sandwiches
by Hannah Rounds May-27-2014
A Delicious sandwich on homemade tortillas from Rachel Pieh Jones' book Djiboutilicious
Ingredients
2 Cups Flour + Extra for sprinkling
2 Tablespoons Vegetable oil
1 Teaspoon Salt
3/4 Cup Warm Water
1/3 Cup Mayo
1.5 Tablespoons Ketchup
1.5 Tablespoons Mustard
2 Teaspoons Paprika
2 Teaspoons Garlic Powder
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
1/2 Teaspoon Worcestershire Sauce
1/2 Teaspoon Ground black pepper
1.5 Avocados- Sliced
2 Cups Leftover Vegetables- sliced
2 Cups Leftover Pulled Chicken or Roasted Chicken
Instructions
1. In a bowl, combine water, flour, oil and salt and form a ball.2. Break dough into 6 balls of equal proportion.3. Roll out tortillas using a rolling pin (For wraps like this, I prefer to roll an oblong shape as opposed to a perfect circle)4. Place tortilla on a hot griddle or a hot dry frying pan for about 60 seconds per side.5. To make the remoulade, combine mayo, ketchup, mustard and all spices.6. Assemble sandwiches, using toothpicks to hold them together.
Details
Prep time: Cook time: Total time: Yield: 6 Servings
When you make the broth yourself, Ramen is still delicious, and it won't kill you!
Do you ever have a crystal clear partial memory? Where you remember a certain detail vividly and you remember exactly 0% of the context? That happens to me a lot. I have no idea why my brain latches on to certain minutia, but it does, and today you will get learn about a detail that I remember from seven years ago. I was in my Freshman Residence Hall, but in the basement. I smelled something funny (this is not unusual since it was a male hall with no natural ventilation) and I followed my nose to an athlete whose name/sport I never knew, and I told him "Your room smells atrocious." He looked at me and said, "I made ramen with Gatorade for the carbs and electrolytes, but it was gross, so I poured it down the sink." I glanced into his sink from across the room, saw a pile of ramen noodles and some yellowish residue (probably the gatorade powder). That's the end of my memory, but this incident had such a profound effect on me that I did not eat ramen for my entire college career. Why would you put Gatorade powder in your Ramen, are you really that desperate for electrolytes, or just dumb? After college, I didn't eat Ramen either because I became independently wealthy and can afford to spend more than $.12 per meal. However, a few weeks back I saw this blog post from Buttered Side Up, and I was inspired to give Homemade Ramen a try. The soup has to be called Semi-homemade because I didn't make the noodles, I don't think I would ever attempt that sort of thing. I was hoping to be fancy and use soba noodles, but Food Lion and Aldi don't carry those things, so plain ramen it was. Now, you can eat Ramen any way you please, but if you don't want to kill yourself, repeat this mantra, "I will throw away the seasoning packet." The reason that this Ramen Soup is so flavorful and delicious is that I substitute high quality homemade chicken broth for MSG. The components of this soup are extremely easy, chicken broth (spiked with fish sauce), vegetables, chicken (in Penzey's Sate Seasoning) and boiled eggs, but the flavor will blow you away. Combining both chicken broth and fish sauce makes this almost a mock pho (not quite that deep of a flavor, but close), and I wish I would have had jalapenos, thai basil, and bean sprouts to throw in. Almost any broth would work, and I hope to make this again soon with a pork based broth. Typically when I eat broth based soups, I think, "Good appetizer, where's dinner?" But this soup is so full of goodies (and protein) that it actually filled me up. Going forward, I won't think of this a soup but as warm hug for my belly. It's the perfect antidote to spring rain, and almost delicious enough to make me forget about Gatorade Ramen... almost.
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Semi-homemade Ramen Soup
by Hannah Rounds April-24-2014
This ramen soup is a delicious way to get your noodle fix, and as a bonus, it won't kill you :)
Ingredients
3 Cups Chicken Broth
1 Tablespoon Sriracha
1 Tablespoon Fish Sauce
1/2 White onion thinly sliced
3 Stalks Celery julienned
2 Carrot juilenned
3 Chicken Thighs diced
1/2 Tablespoon Penzey's Sate Seasoning
1 Tablespoon Olive Oil
1 Cup Kale sliced into bite size pieces, stalks removed
2 Packages Ramen Noodles
3 (or 6) Boiled Eggs
1/8 bunch Cilantro
Instructions
1.Add chicken broth, fish sauce, sriracha, celery, carrots and onion to a pot with plenty of extra room. Bring pot to a slow boil. If you haven't boiled your eggs yet, you can actually do it in this pot if you want.2. Cover chicken in seasoning then heat olive oil in a large frying pan and cook chicken over high heat until chicken is completely cooked (5-7 minutes)3. When the chicken is done cooking, add ramen noodles and kale to your broth and allow broth to continue to boil for 3 minutes.4. Serve ramen in a bowl and top with chicken, boiled eggs and cilantro.
Details
Prep time: Cook time: Total time: Yield: 3 Servings
Corn Flour Pancakes covered in a ridiculously delicious sour cream glaze!
When it comes to breakfast fare, I tend to skew towards proteins. And by proteins, I only mean eggs. I love egg bake, egg quesadillas, poached eggs, scrambled eggs, really any eggs are right in my wheelhouse. But really, sometimes a girl needs to eat cake for breakfast. Enter pancakes. Pancakes have absolutely no nutritional value, but they are good for the soul (and your relationship if your husband craves carbs in the morning). The Mad Scientist (and Littlest) loves pancakes, and an interesting relational tidbit is this: The Mad Scientist nearly proposed to me on the same night that he first tasted my homemade pancakes (please remember, correlation does not prove causation). A few weeks back pancakes were ruling the day on my news feed. I eagerly hopped on the fancy pancake wagon only to find out later that the abundance of pancakes were remnants of Fat Tuesday and I was supposed to be off of pancakes for Lent. Well, Lent is almost over, and to be honest I was not fasting but when you do break your fast, put these bad boys on the menu. The corn flour adds a heartier texture while maintaining the light and fluffy characteristics that I demand in a pancake. While the flavor hints of corn tortillas, the added sweetness from the sugar (and importantly that sour cream glaze) puts these hot cakes more in the realm of sweetened corn bread than tortillas. Now let's talk for a minute about this sour cream glaze. Amazing! Sweet, Tangy, Savory and absolutely perfect with these pancakes. Maple Syrup might be good on these pancakes but I don't like maple syrup, so I don't actually know. This glaze though, is the crowning jewel on the pancakes proverbial head. The inspiration for the glaze came from the fact that the pancake batter reminded me of corn tortillas, and I was inspired to make pancake tacos. This glaze was my riff on sour cream, but when it was complete, I realized we had no bacon, and I really wasn't in the mood for making a sweet salsa after all (although cranberry salsa was briefly considered). If you do happen to roll some bacon into these pancakes, I don't think you will be dissappointed; you know what they say. Bacon is delicious. Enjoy!
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Corn Flour Pancakes
by Hannah Rounds
The perfect heartier pancake. A delicious spin on a favorite breakfast classic.
Ingredients
1.5 Cups Corn Flour
1/2 Cup All Purpose Flour
1 Teaspoon Baking Soda
1 Teaspoon Baking Powder
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
1.5 Tablespoons Sugar
1-2 Cups depending on batter consistency (I used 2 cups) Milk
1 Egg
1.5 Teaspoons Vanilla
Instructions
1. Mix all dry ingredients thoroughly2. Make a well in the dry ingredients and add egg, vanilla and one cup of milk3. Mix ingredients and continue to add milk until batter is thin enough to pour but thick enough to cling to a spoon.4. Pour pancake batter onto a hot griddle. Flip pancakes when the bubbles that form on the surface of the pancake are popped.
Details
Prep time: Cook time: Total time: Yield: 4 Servings
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Sour Cream Glaze
by Hannah Rounds
This is the perfect topping for the best ever Corn Flour Pancakes.
Ingredients
3/4 cup Sour Cream
approx 1/4 Cup Sugar
2 Tablespoons Vinegar
1 Teaspoon Vanilla
Instructions
1. Combine all ingredients, but don't add all the sugar. 2. After thoroughly mixing, taste and add more sugar to suit your tastes. I really liked the 3 to 1 ratio of Sour Cream to sugar, but many people prefer more or less.3. Serve on top of warm pancakes (keeps for a week in the fridge)
Details
Prep time: Cook time: Total time: Yield: 4 Generous Servings
Pretty much every Friday night, we eat the same thing at my house... Pizza! And pizza is the ultimate in Friday night Fare, but every once in a while you are out of an essential ingredient or five. In fact, I was down to little tidbits of this and that, and I was about to call in the support squad (488-8888 Pizza Hut delivery is Really Great!), when the Mad Scientist grabbed a can of coconut milk and gave me big puppy dog eyes and said, "I thought you were going to make something with coconut milk this week." Never being one to back down from a challenge, I grabbed this recipe from Pinch of Yum and made it, and it is one seriously delicious meal. The sauce is creamy and rich and addictive. The heat from the curry paste makes you feel alive, but the sweet from the coconut What makes this fancy and frugal? Well, for starters this meal kept us from ordering pizza, but for another I cannot tell you how many leftover ingredients get used up every time I make a curry. One third of a box of rice noodles? Check. Two already cooked chicken thighs? Checked. Languishing asparagus? Check. 1/8 of a bunch of cilantro? Check. Sriracha? Check. It's always a check with Sriracha. The original recipe calls for Peanut Butter, Coconut Milk, Red Curry Paste, Fish sauce which aren't staples for everyone, but they are for me. I did have to make a few substitutions and omissions from the original, so I've decided to include a recipe here, even though it is super similar. Additionally, any food that can be made and photographed with this cute of baby around, deserves to be called fancy. Littlest has now mastered forward crawling which puts the Mad Scientist and I at a major risk for disaster if we don't pay attention to him pretty much every second.
Oh, and if you are wondering if those are my flip flops laying around in the middle of my living room floor, the answer is maybe.
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Coconut Peanut Red Thai Curry
by Pinch Of Yum
This delicious red curry sauce comes from Pinch of Yum! I've only changed one ingredient and omitted a few of the extra ingredients. Check out the original here
Ingredients
1 Can Coconut Milk (I prefer full fat)
1 Tablespoon Peanut Butter
2 Tablespoons Red Curry Paste
1 Tablespoon Fish Sauce
1.5 Tablespoons Vinegar
3 Tablespoons Brown Sugar
3 Cloves Pressed Garlic
Instructions
1. Melt peanut butter in the bottom of a sauce pan on medium heat.2. Add garlic and red curry paste and allow it to cook for about a minute. Then add coconut milk3. Add the Vinegar, brown sugar and fish sauce.4.If you want a fairly thick sauce like the one above, allow the mixture to simmer but not boil for 10-20 minutes. If you want a thinner mixture allow it to boil for about ten minutes then use chicken broth or water to thin it to your desired thickness.
Details
Prep time: Cook time: Total time: Yield: 4 Servings
If you thought parsley was a garnish, you've never eaten Tabouli Salad.
Has anyone ever had an experience where they experienced something as an adult which retroactively ruined their childhood. I had one of those a few months back... Perkins. Growing up Perkins was sort of a fancy restaurant that we went to with my grandparents or parents after certain events like Piano recitals or basketball games. (In retrospect, I was a sweaty eleven year old in sweats, so I don't know why I thought of Perkins as fancy).
In my minds eye, Perkins was fancy (the only restaurant from my childhood that had parsley on the plate) and incredibly delicious. I remember the big juicy burgers and the amazing shakes.
So, when we were driving to Raleigh from Minneapolis, I begged Rob to stop at Perkins for just one meal. Though he applied to my sensibilities, I insisted. And when we sat down, the table was a little sticky, and there were other crying babies with sticky mouths and the booths were a little sticky too. My burger was a little overdone, and not really anything special, and I was too carsick to order a shake.
I ruined it. Perkins is fine, edible, American cuisine, but it was so perfect in my memories that I cannot believe that I would allow myself to sully the past by going into a Perkins restaurant as an adult.
As a parent, I wonder how many more opportunities I will have to retroactively ruin my childhood. Does the zoo suck? What about water parks? Are picnics even fun? Is summer really the best season?
(Since I need a little validation, here's a link to someone who had a similar experience to mine).
Even though Perkins is ruined for me, I will still hold some memories dear. Like the time my cousin Bjorn tried to convince me that if I ate the parsley on my Omlette plate it would kill me, and I ate it and didn't die. Afterwards, I asked my mom if parsley was edible, and she said something about edible garnishes like rose petals (which I took to mean no).
It turns out that parsley is not just great for garnishing plates at large chain diners, it actually has a great flavor too. I've eaten it in stuffed chicken, on pastas and other Italian dishes, but one of the best uses for parsley is in cold salads especially this Tabouli Salad.
I made this salad since I've made a public commitment to not buying more rice until our 20 lbs of couscous is used up, but I once again have found that this is actually a dish worth eating and sharing. Couscous is arguably best eaten cold when the grains have the opportunity to show off their pearl like texture rather than taste sort of weirdly gritty. This tabouli salad is light on the palate, citrusy, quick to fix and overall delicious. I hope you enjoy this (however, if you are going to buy couscous consider a small 1-2lb bag).
On an unrelated note, Littlest has two teeth, but they are just barely poking through so no pictures just yet.
Tabouli Salad
by Hannah Rounds
This tabouli salad is the perfect summertime side. With cold couscous's pearly texture taking center stage accented by herbacious parsley and zesty lemon
Details
Prep time: Cook time: Total time: Yield: 6 Servings
Ingredients
1 Cup Couscous
Approximately 2 Cups Boiling Water
3 Cloves Garlic pressed (or minced)
1 bunch Parsley Chopped
3 Roma Tomatoes Diced
3 Green Onions Finely sliced
1 Lemon's worth Lemon Juice
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
1/2 Teaspoon Pepper
2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
Instructions
1. Pour water on couscous and allow the couscous to absorb the water.2. Allow couscous to cool for a few minutes.3. Add lemon juice, olive oil and garlic to couscous and mix thoroughly4. Add salt and pepper until you like the flavor of your couscous. Then add the rest of your ingredients and mix thoroughly.5. Set salad aside for at least 30 minutes. You can store this in your fridge for several days.
Black Bean Balls! Alliteration makes all food delicious!
Today, I had a rather odd and off topic conversation at work about cheating in school verses "cheating" in the workplace. The biggest hurdle that many of us had to overcome in joining the workforce from our education is that cheating is not only fine, its encouraged. Meaning, you should never write code from scratch if there's already code existing. You should never do a project that's been done before because its a waste of time.
And it struck me, that is why I've started this blog. Because I love to learn and discover and grow, and I want to let my project lead me instead of my deadlines. But there's not time for that at work, because...work. Upon further reflection, I've realized this blog isn't totally original. In every post I have several links to other blogs or recipes, and I'm not totally sure that I'm making something better. I'm okay with this, but it does mean I am not a genius yet, at least not by the talent borrows, genius steals paradox proposed by T.S. Eliot. T.S. Eliot wrote, "One of the surest tests is the way in which a poet borrows. Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different than that from which it is torn; the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion. A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time, or alien in language, or diverse in interest." Nobody except Picasso ever claimed that they were great from the beginning, and the 10,000 hour rule proposed by Malcolm Gladwell seems to be pretty well accepted as pop-sociology fact, so I hope that someday I will no longer be a blogger who defaces what I borrow, but who steals content only to make it better. In the meantime, I would like to thank all the recipe bloggers and other sources of inspiration for giving me free access to your work and your life. I am really thankful that you enable me to crowdsource my dinner. Thank you all for allowing me to philosophize over this triviality of a blog. And onto the recipe. These black bean "meatballs" are incredibly delicious, I got this inspiration from Foxes Love Lemons. I definitely like them better than any real meatballs that I've ever had. I would compare the texture favorably to falafel, but the flavor is distinctly Italian. Within one bite, the Mad Scientist told me that these were on the keeper list, and Littlest screeched with delight every time I gave him a bite. Its so fun for me be able to feed Littlest the same food as the Mad Scientist and I eat.
Black Bean "Meatballs"
by Hannah Rounds
This meatless main dish is hearty and delicious, and better than any real meatballs that I've ever eaten.
Details
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time: <
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Yield: 10 golf ball sized pieces
Ingredients
1 Cup Dried Black Beans- Soaked overnight and rinsed
1 Tablespoon Garlic Powder
2 Teaspoons Salt
1 Tablespoon Italian Seasoning
1/2 White Onion Chopped
4 Cloves Garlic Minced or Pressed
1 Egg
1/2 Cup Flavored Bread Crumbs
1-2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
Instructions
1. Cook beans with 2 cups of water, garlic powder, salt, and italian seasoning in a crockpot for four hours (low heat)2. Drain beans and set 2 cups in a large bowl (this should be most of the beans, but I always manage to have some leftover)3. Combine beans, onion, bread crumbs and egg and mix thoroughly using your hands.4. For balls about the size of a golf ball and set onto a plate. 5. Heat oil, and in small batches of about 3-5 pieces fry the meatballs. Be sure that each side of the meatball gets a nice crisp crust (should be a very dark brown)6. Serve with marinara sauce over pasta.
When leftovers get married and have a baby, its chicken fried couscous.
These fancy frugal foodie posts are not very popular. I think it's because the pictures always look pretty bad, but the pictures look bad because I make this food later at night and out of leftovers, so my lighting isn't as good and the colors are never as vibrant, but the food is good, so I will share on. If ever become a great photographer, this won't be an issue anymore.
Now that the needless self-deprecation is out of the way, I will tell the six of you who are still reading an amusing story about grocery shopping during our early marriage.
Before we ever met, the Mad Scientist was a mad couponer. He even subscribed to a coupon matching service that would help you figure out which coupons to print, which to clip and where to shop. Coupons tend to be for processed foods and hygiene products both of which I tend to avoid (kidding); this means that even the best couponers have to supplement their stockpiles with things like produce, meat, and herbs and spices (the savvy couponers get these on sale with same as cash store coupons).
This is not a story about coupons, but about grocery shopping, so I digress. Usually when it came time to do our weekly grocery shopping, the Mad Scientist made a list of items to buy for pennies on the dollar at three different grocery stores, and I skimmed the weekly circulars and mentally made a meal plan with virtually no consideration for the things the Mad Scientist purchased.
Over time, our stockpile grew quite large, and we were not eating very much of it (except the cereal. We were making our way through that at pretty good clip). This large stockpile of food grew and grew, much to my dissatisfaction, but being both female and of Scandanavian descent I thought a passive aggressive approach would lead my husband to quit stockpiling (marriage tip- this is not helpful).
So to send the message that we should quit stockpiling since we really aren't preppers (and if you are don't you think this should have come up in pre-marital counseling), I decided to start a stockpile of my own. I guess my intention was to fight fire with fire.
Unfortunately my frugal nature would not allow me to commit to heavily to this plan, so on the first round, I bought an extra head of broccoli, and a twenty pound bag of couscous which I had never tasted before. I will also allow that even at the time my decision seemed ridiculous, but passive aggression can make a person do some strange things.
That night, I made couscous for the first time - it was gross, and the flood gates of emotion opened.
"I bought twenty pounds of couscous because I don't like macaroni and cheese or brownies," I blubbered. "And I don't know any recipes for sweetened condensed milk, and cereal is not a healthy breakfast choice, and I am so sorry that I bought couscous to make you feel bad, and now I hate couscous."
Needless to say, the Mad Scientist stared in bewilderment as I cried about about the fact that I didn't like couscous, and he couldn't quite make the connection to why couscous might make him feel guilty, but he forgave me. We talked through my feelings, and over the next few weeks, we ate through a lot of the stockpile; we ate through all but the couscous.
That bag of couscous has remained in our marriage for over two years, and has largely been untouched until now!
After running out of basmati rice, I committed to using up the couscous before buying more rice, and so I bring to you Chicken Fried Couscous. Not only does this recipe use up an ingredient that I am not overly fond of, but it also utilizes leftovers. A double frugal win! Best of all, it tastes great! Its reminiscent of fried rice, but the unique pearly texture of couscous yields a slightly different flavor profile. Even Littlest enjoyed it!
Chicken Fried Couscous
by Hannah Rounds
Using up leftovers and couscous in one recipe, and it tastes amazing! You can substitute for almost any veggies or protein you would like.
Details
Prep time: Cook time: Total time: Yield: 2 Servings
Ingredients
1 Cup Couscous
2 Cups Chicken Broth
3 Tablespoons Sesame Oil
2 Tablespoons Soy Sauce
1/2 Large White Onion- Chopped
3 Garlic Cloves- Minced
2 Carrots- peeled and diced
3/4 Cup Broccoli- chopped
1/2 Cup Mushrooms- Sliced
1/3 Cup Frozen Corn
1 Cup Cooked Chicken- diced
1 Egg
1 Tablespoon Sesame Seeds
Instructions
1. Cook the couscous in the chicken broth until all the broth is absorbed (this takes less than five minutes) 2. In a large frying pan or wok, heat the oil to a high temperature then add onion, garlic, carrots, sesame seeds and broccoli, stir frequently for 3-4 minutes 3. Add mushrooms, soy sauce (any additional seasonings as well), corn and chicken and cook 2-3 additional minutes 4. Make a large well in your crockpot and crack egg into it. Scramble the egg, and slowly incorporate into the couscous mixture. 5. Serve with your fried rice favorites (Soy Sauce, Sriracha, cilantro, green onion, etc.)
